The Collaborative International Dictionary
Taotai \Tao`tai"\, n. [Chin. tao circuit + t'ai, a title of respect.] In China, an official at the head of the civil and military affairs of a circuit, which consists of two or more fu, or territorial departments; -- called also, by foreigners, intendant of circuit. Foreign consuls and commissioners associated with taotais as superintendants of trade at the treaty ports are ranked with the taotai.
Usage examples of "taotai".
Tali there are four chief officials: the Prefect or Fu Magistrate, the Hsien or City Magistrate, the Intendant or Taotai, and the Titai.
If my rank had been estimated by the gorgeousness of my attire and the value of the material, I might have been a Taotai of a small province, or secretary to some metropolitan dignitary.
In the first hall is a tablet presented by a Taotai of the province: what is the inscription upon it?
Yesterday we heard the clang-clang of a gong and saw the Taotai pass by, his men carrying the boards and banners with his official rank and virtues written upon them, and we counted the red umbrellas and wondered if some poor peasant was in deep trouble.
It angered Her Majesty and he was recalled and given the small post of secretary to the Taotai of our city.
Some priests of a foreign mission came to my husband and wished him to intercede, as Governor, and command the Taotai of Soochow to sell to them a piece of land on which to erect a temple of their faith.
When the Taotai was asked why he was so persistent in his refusal to carry out the promise of the man before him in the office, he told the Governor that the temple where his mother worshipped was in a direct line with the proposed new foreign house of worship.
He told the Taotai that he would go to his country and bring back machines that would make the water come forth as from living springs.
The friends of the Taotai felt no fear for their money, as the official signed a contract to produce water from the earth, and he signed, not as a simple citizen but as the representative of his government, with the great seal of that government attached to the paper.
A mandarin whose rank is above that of an expectant Taotai, Li is to be the next Taotai of Mungtze, where, from an official salary of 400 taels per annum, he hopes to save from 10,000 to 20,000 taels per annum.