Government Service
Following the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese war in 1894, Zheng was forced to leave Japan. Having returned to China, Zheng joined the secretariat of the reformist statesman Zhang Zhidong in Nanjing and followed him to Beijing, where Zheng obtained a position in the Qing foreign office, the Zongli Yamen. Following the abortive Hundred Days' Reform in 1898, Zheng left his post in Beijing and took up a number of important government positions in central and southern China. After the collapse of the imperial system in 1911, Zheng remained loyal to the Qing dynasty and refused to serve under China's Republican government. Instead he withdrew from public life entirely and retired comfortably in Shanghai, where he devoted his time to calligraphy, poetry and art, while also writing extensive articles critical of the Kuomingtang leadership, whom he characterized as “thieves”.
Read more about this topic: Zheng Xiaoxu
Famous quotes containing the words government and/or service:
“What makes the United States government, on the whole, more tolerable—I mean for us lucky white men—is the fact that there is so much less of government with us.... But in Canada you are reminded of the government every day. It parades itself before you. It is not content to be the servant, but will be the master; and every day it goes out to the Plains of Abraham or to the Champs de Mars and exhibits itself and toots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)