There is one phase of the Boxer uprising that I have never yet seen properly represented in any book or magazine. We all know how the ministers of the various European governments with their wives and children, the customs officials, missionaries, business men, and tourists who happened to be in Peking at the time, with all the Chinese Christians, were confined in the British legation and Prince Su's palace. We know how they barricaded their defense. We know how they were fired upon day and night for six weeks by the Boxer leaders and the army of the conservatives under the leadership of their general, Tung Fu-hsiang. But the thing which we do not know, or at least which has not been adequately told, is the most interesting secret plot of the liberal progressives, under the leadership of "Prince Ching and others," to thwart the Empress Dowager and the Boxer leaders, the conservatives and their army, and protect the most noted company of prisoners that have ever been confined in a legation quarter. The plot was this: When Prince Ching and his progressive associates in Peking discovered that they could not vote down the Boxer princes, they dared not openly oppose them, but they secretly decided that the representatives of the Powers must not be massacred else the doom of China was sealed. When they discovered that Yuan Shih-kai and the other great viceroys had decided by stratagem to foil the Boxers even though they must set all the imperial edicts at naught, they decided, for the sake of the protection of the legations and the preservation of the empire, that they would do the same. They secretly sent supplies of food to the besieged, which the latter feared to use lest they be poisoned. But more than that they kept their own armies in Peking as a guard and as a final resort in case there was danger of the legation being overcome, and as a matter of fact there were regular pitched battles between the troops of Prince Ching and his associates and those of the Boxer leader, Tung Fu-hsiang. Had the Boxers finally succeeded, Yuan Shih-kai and Prince Ching and their associates would have lost their heads, but as the Boxers failed it was they who went to their graves by the short process of the executioner's knife. So Yuan was between two fires. He had disobeyed the commands of the Emperor in not coming to Peking and had therefore incurred his displeasure and caused his downfall. He had disobeyed the Empress Dowager in not putting to death the foreigners in his province, and if the Boxers were successful he would surely lose his head on that account. The Boxers, however, were not successful and as his disobedience had helped to save the empire, Yuan, so long as the Dowager remained in power, was safe.