Subscribe to the YouTube channel and get one month of free access to the paid tools on sylogs.com. Log in, write "Subscribed on YouTube" in the reader comment box, and the access is yours. In 1898, in Beijing, a group of scholars tried to remake an empire more than two hundred years old — one imperial edict at a time. They had a young emperor behind them and a head full of ideals. One hundred and three days later, it was all back to zero. This episode does not re-tell what came before. It stays inside those 103 days: what they actually did, and why they lost. The man who led them was Kang Youwei. He passed the provincial exam only after several attempts and did not become a jinshi until he was thirty-six. His books are contested: scholars Liao Ping and Qian Mu argued that his reading of the New Text classics was forced — he liked to cast Confucius as a proto-reformer, so as to give reform a theoretical root. That is an academic judgement. It is a separate matter from the role he played in 1898. From 11 June, across 103 days, the court issued hundreds of edicts: abolish the eight-legged essay, open schools, train a new army, set up bureaus of agriculture, industry and commerce, allow commoners to publish newspapers. But quantity brought its own problem. An edict is not a transfer of power. Those below could simply not carry it out — delay it, or comply in form and not in fact. Exactly one thing survived: the Imperial University. Its campus was the Hejia Princess Mansion east of Coal Hill, in what is today Shatan Houjie in Dongcheng District. Walk down that street now and the old buildings are still there, with a heritage plaque marking the site of Peking University's Red Building. It is the only reform of 1898 still standing. The money is worth counting. Scholars estimate Qing annual revenue in those years at roughly 83 to 89 million taels of silver — land tax over 20 million, salt gabelle over 10 million, transit fees over 10 million, maritime customs 17 to 23 million (source: Peng Yuxin, A Fiscal History of the Qing, and comparable scholarly estimates). Against that, the indemnities and loans taken on after 1895 added up: new foreign debt contracted between 1894 and 1898 came to roughly 350 million taels (source: collected Qing fiscal documents). Guangxu also tried to borrow from the public — in 1898 the court issued 100 million taels of domestic bonds and stopped after selling one million. Credit is also a reform resource. When bonds will not sell, the state has run out of the one thing borrowed money needs. The reformers did not live in the palace. Most of them lived in the guild-hall quarter outside Xuanwumen: Kang Youwei at the Nanhai guild hall on Mishi Hutong, Tan Sitong at the Liuyang guild hall on Beibanjie Hutong, Liang Qichao at the Xinhui guild hall on Fenfang Liulijie — a few alleyways apart, all within walking distance. The arguing, the drafting and the night visits happened under the lamps of those halls. Today most are gone or turned into homes; at the Liuyang hall site on Beibanjie Hutong a heritage plaque still stands, marking where Tan Sitong lived. On 21 September 1898, Cixi resumed the regency and placed Guangxu under house arrest at Yingtai. The reform ended after 103 days. Six men — Tan Sitong, Kang Guangren, Lin Xu, Yang Shenxiu, Yang Rui and Liu Guangdi — were executed at Caishikou, the Qing execution ground. Go there today and you will find a metro station, a shopping district and the sign of the old herbal shop Heniantang. Nothing of the execution ground remains; even the archway that saw so many beheadings was torn down. Other episodes of Shenzhou Dadi, and the full transcripts, are on sylogs.com.