His History Of The
Tangs Is A Masterpiece, And His "Garden Of Szemakwang" An Idyll.
He was
remarkable for his sound judgment as well as the elegance of his style,
and during the short time he held the post of prime minister his
administration was marked by ability and good sense.
The character of
Jintsong was, it will be seen, not without its good points, which gained
for him the affection of his subjects despite his bad fortune against the
national enemies, and his reign of thirty years was, generally speaking,
prosperous and satisfactory. After the brief reign of his nephew,
Yngtsong, that prince's son, Chintsong the Second, became emperor.
The career of Wanganchi, an eccentric and socialistic statesman, who
wished to pose as a great national reformer, and who long possessed the
ear and favor of his sovereign, lends an interest to the reign of the
second Chintsong. Wanganchi did not possess the confidence or the
admiration of his brother officials, and subsequent writers have generally
termed him an impostor and a charlatan. But he may only have been a
misguided enthusiast when he declared that "the State should take the
entire management of commerce, industry, and agriculture into its own
hands, with the view of succoring the working classes, and preventing
their being ground to the dust by the rich." The advocacy of such a scheme
is calculated to earn popularity, as few of those who are to benefit by it
stop to examine its feasibility, and Wanganchi might have been remembered
as an enlightened thinker and enthusiastic advocate of the rights of the
masses if he had not been called upon to carry out his theories.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 88 of 704
Words from 23487 to 23765
of 191255
