At The Same Time That The Chinese Refused Their Ratification To Chung
How's Treaty, They Expressed Their Desire For Another Pacific Settlement,
Which Would Give Them More Complete Satisfaction.
The Marquis Tseng was
accordingly instructed to take up the thread of negotiation, and to
proceed to the Russian capital as Embassador and Minister Plenipotentiary.
Some delay ensued, as it was held to be doubtful whether Russia would
consent to the reopening of the question.
But owing to the cautious and
well-timed approaches of the Marquis Tseng, the St. Petersburg Foreign
Office acquiesced in the recommencement of negotiations, and, after six
months' discussion, accepted the principle of the almost unqualified
territorial concession for which the Chinese had stood firm. On February
12, 1881, these views were embodied in a treaty, signed at St. Petersburg,
and the ratification within six months showed how differently its
provisions were regarded from those of its predecessor. With the Marquis
Tseng's act of successful diplomacy the final result of the long war in
Central Asia was achieved. The Chinese added Ili to Kashgar and the rest
of the New Dominion, which at the end of 1880 was made into a High
Commissionership and placed under the care of the dashing General Liu
Kintang.
The close of the great work successfully accomplished during the two
periods of the Regency was followed within a few weeks by the
disappearance of the most important of the personages who had carried on
the government throughout these twenty years of constant war and
diplomatic excitement. Before the Pekin world knew of her illness, it
heard of the death of the Empress Dowager Tsi An, who as Hienfung's
principal widow had enjoyed the premier place in the government, although
she had never possessed a son to occupy the throne in person. In a
proclamation issued in her name and possibly at her request, Tsi An
described the course of her malady, the solicitude of the emperor, and
urged upon him the duty of his high place to put restraint upon his grief.
Her death occurred on April 18, from heart disease, when she was only
forty-five, and her funeral obsequies were as splendid as her services
demanded. For herself she had always been a woman of frugal habits, and
the successful course of recent Chinese history was largely due to her
firmness and resolution. Her associate in the Regency, Tsi Thsi, who has
always been more or less of an invalid, still survives.
The difficulty with Russia had not long been composed, when, on two
opposite sides of her extensive dominion, China was called upon to face a
serious condition of affairs. In Corea, "the forbidden land" of the Far
East, events were forced by the eagerness and competition of European
states to conclude treaties of commerce with that primitive kingdom, and
perhaps, also, by their fear that if they delayed Russia would appropriate
some port on the Corean coast. To all who had official knowledge of
Russia's desire and plan for seizing Port Lazareff, this apprehension was
far from chimerical, and there was reason to believe that Russia's
encroachment might compel other countries to make annexations in or round
Corea by way of precaution.
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