Page:China Under the Empress Dowager - ed. Backhouse and Bland - 1914.pdf/291

 his brothers were engaged on missions ostensibly intended to acquire knowledge for the sorely needed reorganisation of China's army and navy, missions which were received with royal honours by almost every civilised Power; but there were many close observers of the changing conditions at Peking who saw in these missions merely a repetition of farces that had often been played before, and an attempt to gain prestige in the eyes of the Chinese people for the Regent's family and the Court, rather than any definite intention or desire to reform the official system.

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