Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/351

328 to make an investigation and report in a memorial, after which Imperial Mandates will be issued, granting them special favour in order to commemorate his extreme faithfulness and sincerity. Respect this.

Tsêng's mantle fell on Li Hung-chang, whose subsequent career meets foreign relations at so many points as almost to obliterate among Westerners the memory of his older chief, in spite of the fact that in Chinese eyes there is no comparison. Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-tang accomplished much after Tsêng's death; but not a leaf of Tsêng's wreath have they taken away in the eyes of the Chinese. Tsêng was honest and died poor; Li was reputed to have profited from high office and died very wealthy. In addition to this, Li never found the type of associates whom Tsêng had gathered about him. Some said this was because Li was too radical, others because he preferred to have inferior men that he might shine by contrast. Whatever the cause, the civil service, which to the end of the eighties was largely dominated by Tsêng's veteran leaders of the Taiping days, rapidly declined in the generation following until the Revolution of 1911 swept the Manchu Dynasty from power altogether.