But at length he paid Tsang Koh Fan the promised visit. He felt the occasion to be a critical one, and when ushered into the great man’s presence found it difficult to retain his composure. Tsang Koh Fan first bent upon him a long, intense, piercing gaze. As Wing says, he had never been looked at in his life as he was then. Then causing him to be seated, he required of him an account of his history, which he gave. He then questioned him as to his views respecting China,--her needs, her outlook, her public policy, and so on. A long conversation followed in which the Viceroy disclosed his views, to which Wing listened with amazement. For, behold, here was a man such as he had not supposed existed in that country--a man reared in China, and not a young man either--who had light in his head; who recognized the causes of many of the disadvantages China was contending with in taking her place among the family of nations; a man of marvellously liberal and progressive sentiments. MADE A MANDARIN The result of the interview was that Wing entered his service and was made a Mandarin of the fifth rank, there being nine degrees of that dignity in the Chinese official system. At this time the great Taiping rebellion was at its height and Tsang Koh Fan was in the field. In fact, the interview had taken place at his camp in Ngankin, on the Yang Tse River. The Viceroy first tendered Wing a military command which, on the score of lack of qualification, he asked leave to decline. He was then, shortly after, 1864, at his own suggestion, despatched abroad to purchase machinery for the manufacture of arms, for which purpose the expenditure of a large sum of money was intrusted to him. On this errand he visited France and England as well as the United States, but finally gave his orders here. On returning with his purchases to China in 1865, what he had done was so satisfactory to his chief that he was advanced to the next higher grade of official rank, viz,--the Fourth. The machinery he had bought was the foundation of the Kiang Nan Arsenal. It is curious to remark that the first work of a man whose supreme ambition it was, from Christian motives, to set his country forward in civilization, should have been the establishment of an arsenal. But it quite consisted with Yung Wing’s ideas, which were intensely patriotic. From 1865 to 1870 he was variously employed in different places, being under command now of one superior and now of another. Among the work that he did during this period, that of translation was prominent. He translated into Chinese Parson’s Law of Contracts, and a book of English Law. He also translated large portions of Colton’s Geography, deeming that geographical knowledge was as likely to prove beneficial to his countrymen as any.