Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/272

 (Weird Things My Eyes Have Seen These Past Twenty Years). Appearing first as a serial, it was published in 1907 in book form. Two other novels by him may here be mentioned: 恨海 Hên-hai (A Sea of Regrets), dealing with the Boxer Uprising, and 九命奇冤 Chiu-ming ch'i-yüan (Nine Strange Deaths), a detective story.

Other contemporary novels of the same character are: Lao-ts'an yu-chi, by ; Nieh-hai hua, by Tsêng P'u (see under ); and 文明小史 Wên-ming hsiao-shih and 官場現形記 Kuan-ch'ang hsien-hsing chi, both by Li Pao-chia 李寶嘉.

[2/38/32b; 3/199/4a; 19/己上/35b; 20/4/00; 21/9/10a; 24/51/7a; A-ying, 晚清小說史 Wan-Ch'ing hsiao-shuo shih (1937); Shih-yün shan-jên chi, poems 20/1b, 21 hsü 1a; Fo-shan chung-i-hsiang (忠義鄉) chih (1923).]

2em

 WU K'o-tu 吳可讀, 1812–1879, Apr. 25, was a native of Kao-lan (Lanchow), Kansu. He became a chü-jên in 1835 and served as sub-director of schools of Fu-ch'iang, Kansu (1848–50). In 1850 he became a chin-shih and was appointed a secretary in the Board of Punishments, later rising to be an assistant sub-director. In 1859 he served as one of the assistant examiners during the provincial examination held in Peking. A year later, when the Allied British and French troops were approaching Peking (see under ), and the residents of the capital were moving out of the city, he was looking after his aged mother, then seriously ill. She died on September 26, 1860. On October 15, two days after the Allies entered Peking, he sent his family with the coffin of his mother to Paoting and thence to Kansu, he himself following later. He left an account of his experiences during those days in Peking when the Allied forces pressed on to the city.

During the mourning period for the death of his mother, Wu K'o-tu was back in Lanchow where he headed the Academy, Lan-shan Shu-yüan 蘭山書院. At the same time he was ordered to assist the local authorities in organizing a militia to fight the Mohammedan rebels. In 1862 he served on the staff of Grand Councilor and Acting Governor-general Shên Chao-lin 沈兆霖, in the latter's campaign against the Salar rebels of Sining. The rebellion was suppressed, but Shên was drowned in a freshet from a mountain stream. Wu himself returned safely to Lanchow, and about the year 1863 went to Peking where he was reinstated in his original post. In time he rose to be a department director and then a censor. In the latter capacity he commented in a memorial, in 1873, on the question of the Emperor's audience with foreign envoys. Early in that year the envoys had demanded an audience, but since they would not perform the ceremony of kowtow, the Court hesitated to grant it. Wu reproved the courtiers for paying attention to these small matters while overlooking the great concessions that were then being made to foreigners, and advised the Emperor to receive the envoys without the kowtow ceremony. The audience finally took place on June 29, 1873 (see under ).

Early in 1873, during the campaign against the Mohammedan rebels in Kansu and Turkestan (see under ), a general, Ch'êng-lu 成祿, was accused by of having misappropriated military funds and of having disobeyed orders. That general was arrested in May and, after being tried in Peking, was sentenced to imprisonment awaiting execution. In January 1874 Wu K'o-tu, in a memorial to the throne, enumerated the crimes of the offender and argued for immediate execution, but the Grand Council advised the Emperor that the original sentence should stand. Highly incensed, Wu submitted a second memorial asking again for immediate execution, pledging his own life as a guarantee that the punishment was justified. He declared that he would not mind being imprisoned while the justice of his charge was being verified or even being executed so long as that general was forthwith beheaded. Confronted with this memorial, the Grand Councilors advised the Emperor to begin an investigation of Wu's sources of information. The Emperor, however, ignored the advice and punished Wu by lowering his rank three grades. Without waiting for an appointment, Wu returned at once to Lanchow where he was engaged by Tso Tsung-tang to head the Lan-shan Academy for a second time.

In 1876, nearly two years after Emperor Mu-tsung died, Wu was recalled to Peking and was appointed a secretary in the Board of Civil Appointments. According to, he led a quiet life in Peking, declining to join other officials in any sort of conviviality. In March 1879 he volunteered to serve on the commission to escort the coffin of Emperor Mu-tsung to the

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