No matter whether any treaty of alliance had been signed between China and Russia early in 1896, significant events soon followed which gave rise to rumors of grave import. When it was resolved by China to send Wang Tsz-chun to St. Petersburg as special envoy to attend the coronation of the Czar, which was to take place in May of the same year, M. Cassini, Russian Minister at Peking, is said to have intimated that no one but Li Hung-chang was acceptable to Russia as the representative of the Chinese Emperor. Li’s pro-Russian proclivities had been well known, but he had up to this time been in disgrace for having concluded the treaty of Shimonoseki so unfavorable to China. He now regained his favor with the Court, and started on his mission to Russia, presumably taking with him the draft of the Russo-Chinese convention which M. Cassini had framed. The convention is reported to have been signed, to avoid suspicion of other Powers, not at St. Petersburg, but at Moscow, and, on the Russian side, not by M. Lobanoff, Foreign Minister, but by M. Witte, Minister of Finance. When, however, the agreement was referred to the Yamên at Peking for ratification, a large majority of the Chinese Ministers are said to have disapproved the terms of Li’s treaty, until the strenuous efforts of M. Cassini turned the tide and the convention was ratified by the Emperor on September 30, 1896. This is the celebrated “Cassini Convention.”[154] Let us now examine the more important of its contents. The preamble explicitly referred, as also did the treaty of alliance already summarized, to the favors done to China by Russia at the close of the recent war. The body of the convention falls, in its substance, into two large divisions, namely, the Articles (1–6) relating to railway concessions in Manchuria, and those (8–11) in regard to the disposition of certain ports on the Chinese littoral. Russia was allowed to extend the Siberian Railway to Vladivostok across Manchuria _via_ Aigun, Tsitsihar, Petuna, Kirin, and Kun-chun (Art. 1). As regards the projected Chinese railroad between Shan-hai-kwan and Mukden, if China should find it inconvenient to build it, Russia might furnish capital and construct the line, China reserving to herself the option of buying it after ten years of Russian management (Art. 2). Another Chinese line in contemplation between Shan-hai-kwan and Port Arthur and Talien-wan _via_ Niu-chwang, and its appurtenances, should be built in accordance with the general railway regulations of Russia (Art. 4). The fifth Article was striking: All the railways built by Russia in the Chinese territory were to be protected by the local Chinese authorities, but in the more remote regions, where the necessary protection was not available, Russia was allowed, in order to afford a better protection to her railroad and property, to station special battalions of Russian infantry and cavalry. Regarding the ports, it was