Court Life in China Part 6

The Emperor then heard that the foreigners had invented a "fire-wheel cart," but whether he had ever been informed that they had built a small railroad at Wu-Sung near Shanghai, and that the Chinese had bought it, and then torn it up and thrown it into the river we cannot say. There are many things the officials and people do which never reach the imperial ears. However that may be, when Kuang Hsu heard of the railroad and the carts that were run by fire, he wanted one, and he would not be satisfied until they had built a narrow gauge railroad along the west sh.o.r.e of the lotus lake in the Forbidden City, and the factories of Europe had made two small cars and an engine on which he could take the court ladies for a ride on this unusual merry-go-round.

The road and the cars and the engine were still there when I visited the Forbidden City in 1901, but they were carried away to Europe by some of the allies as precious bits of loot, before the court returned.

Not long after he had heard of the railroads, he was told that the foreigners also had "fire-wheel boats." Of course he wanted some, and as I crossed the beautiful marble bridge that spans the lotus lake, I saw anch.o.r.ed near by three small steam launches which had evidently been used a good deal. I saw similar launches in the lake at the Summer Palace, and was told that in the play days of his boyhood, Kuang Hsu would have these launches. .h.i.tched to the imperial barges and take the ladies of the court for pleasure trips about the lake in the cool of the summer evenings, as the Empress Dowager did her foreign visitors in later times.

The Emperor in those days was on the lookout for everything foreign that was of a mechanical nature. Indeed every invention interested him.

In this respect he was diametrically opposite to the genius of the whole Chinese people. Their faces had ever been turned backward, and their highest hopes were that they might approximate the golden ages of the past, and be equal in virtue to their ancestors. This feeling was so strong that a hundred years before he mounted the throne, his forefather, Chien Lung, when he had completed his cycle of sixty years as a ruler, vacated in favour of his son lest he should reign longer than his grandfather. Kuang Hsu was therefore the first occupant of the dragon throne whose face was turned to the future, and whose chief aim was to possess and to master every method that had enabled the peoples of the West to humiliate his people.

When he heard that the foreigners had a method of talking to a distance of ten, twenty, fifty or five hundred miles, he did not say like the old farmer is reported to have said,--"It caint be trew, because my son John kin holler as loud as any man in all this country, an' he caint be heerd mor'n two miles." Kuang Hsu believed it, and at once ordered that a telephone be secured for him.

In 1894 the Christian women of China decided to present a New Testament to the Empress Dowager on her sixtieth birthday which occurred the following year. New type was prepared, the finest foreign paper secured, and the book was made after the best style of the printer's art, with gilt borders, gilt edges, and bound in silver of an embossed bamboo pattern and encased in a silver box. It was then enclosed in a red plush box,--red being the colour indicating happiness,--which was in turn encased in a beautifully carved teak-wood box, and this was enclosed in an ordinary box and taken by the English and American ministers to the Foreign Office to be sent in to Her Majesty.

The next day the Emperor sent to the American Bible Society for copies of the Old and New Testaments, such as were being sold to his people. A few days thereafter a Chinese friend--a horticulturist and gardener who went daily to the palace with flowers and vegetables--came to me in confidence as though bearing an important secret, and said:

"Something of unusual importance is taking place in the palace."

"Indeed?" said I; "what makes you think so?"

"Heretofore when I have gone into the palace," said he, "the eunuchs have treated me with indifference. Yesterday they sat down and talked in a most familiar and friendly way, asking me all about Christianity.

I told them what I could and they continued their conversation until long after noon. I finally became so hungry that I arose to come home.

They urged me to stay, bringing in a feast, and inviting me to dine with them, and they kept me there till evening. One of them told me that the Emperor is studying the Gospel of Luke."

"How does he know that?" I inquired.

"That is what I asked him," he answered, "and he told me that he is one of the Emperor's private servants, and that His Majesty has a part of the Gospel copied in large characters on a sheet of paper each day, which he spreads out on the table before him, and this eunuch, standing behind his chair, can read what he is studying."

On further inquiry I discovered that there was no other way that the eunuch could have learned about the Gospel, except in the way indicated. This man was invited to dine with the eunuchs day after day until he had told them all he knew about Christianity, after which they requested him to bring in the pastor of the church of which he was a member, and who was one of my former pupils, to dine with them and tell them more about the Gospel. The pastor hesitated to accept the invitation, but as it was repeated day after day, he finally accompanied the horticulturist.

When offered wine at dinner the pastor refused it, at which the eunuch remarked: "Oh, yes, I have heard that you Christians do not drink wine," and like a polite host, the wine was put aside and none was drunk at the dinner. During the afternoon they took their guests to visit some of the imperial buildings, advanced the sum of three hundred dollars to the horticulturist to enlarge his plant, and gave various presents to the pastor.

It must not be inferred from this that the Emperor was becoming a Christian. Very far from it, though the interest he took in the Christian doctrine set the people to studying about it, not only in Peking but throughout many of the provinces, as was indicated at the time by the number of Christian books sold. As early as 1891 he issued a strong edict ordering the protection of the missionaries in which he made the following statement: "The religions of the West have for their object the inculcation of virtue, and, though our people become converted, they continue to be Chinese subjects. There is no reason why there should not be harmony between the people and the adherents of foreign religions." The Chinese reported that he sometimes examined the eunuchs, lining them up in cla.s.ses and catechising them from the books read.

One day three of the eunuchs called on me with this same horticulturist, for the purpose no doubt of seeing a foreigner, and to get a glimpse of the home in which he lived. One of them was younger than the other two and above the average intelligence of his cla.s.s. A few days later the horticulturist told me a story which ill.u.s.trates a phase of the Emperor's character which we have already hinted at--his impulsive nature and ungovernable temper. He had ordered a number of the eunuchs to appear before him, all of whom except this young man were unable to come, because engaged in other duties. When the eunuch got down on his hands and knees to kotow or knock his head to His Majesty, the latter kicked him in the mouth, cutting his lip and otherwise injuring him, and my informant added:

"What kind of a man is that to govern a country, a man who punishes those who obey his orders?" Indeed there was a good deal of feeling among the Chinese at that time that the Empress Dowager ought to punish the Emperor as a good mother does a bad child, though in the light of all the other things he did, he was to be pitied more than blamed for a disposition thus inherited and developed.

It was about this time he began the study of English. He ordered that two teachers be appointed, and contrary to all former customs he allowed them to sit rather than kneel while they taught him. At the time they were selected I was exchanging lessons in English for Chinese with the grandson of one of these teachers, and learned a good deal about the progress the young man was making. He was in such a hurry to begin that he could not wait to send to England or America for books, and so the officials visited the various schools and missions in search of proper primers for a beginner. When they visited us we made a thorough search and finally Dr. Marcus L. Taft discovered an attractively ill.u.s.trated primer which he had taken to China with him for his little daughter Frances, and this was sent to Kuang Hsu.

One day a eunuch called on me saying that the Emperor had learned that the various inst.i.tutions of learning, educational a.s.sociations, tract and other societies had published a number of books in Chinese which they had translated from the European languages. I was at that time the custodian of two or three of these societies and had a great variety of Chinese books in my possession. I therefore sent him copies of our astronomy, geology, zoology, physiology and various other scientific books which I was at that time teaching in the university.

The next day he called again, accompanied by a coolie who brought me a present of a ham cooked at the imperial kitchen, together with boxes of fruit and cakes, which, not being a man of large appet.i.te, I thanked him for, tipped the coolie, and after he had gone, turned them over to our servants, who a.s.sured me that imperial meat was very palatable. Day after day for six weeks this eunuch visited me, and would never leave until I had found some new book for His Majesty. They might be literary, scientific or religious works, and he made no distinction between the books of any sect or society, inst.i.tution or body, but with an equal zeal he sought them all. I was sometimes reduced to a sheet tract, and finally I was forced to take my wife's Chinese medical books out of her private library and send them in to the Emperor. I learned that other eunuchs were visiting other persons in charge of other books, and that at this time Kuang Hsu bought every book that had been translated from any European language and published in the Chinese.

One day the eunuch saw my wife's bicycle standing on the veranda and said:

"What kind of a cart is that?"

"That is a self-moving cart," I answered.

"How do you ride it?" he inquired.

I took the bicycle off the veranda, rode about the court a time or two, while he gazed at me with open mouth, and when I stopped he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:

"That's queer; why doesn't it fall down?"

"When a thing's moving," I answered, "it can't fall down," which might apply to other things than bicycles.

The next day when he called he said:

"The Emperor would like that bicycle," and my wife allowed him to take it in to Kuang Hsu, and it was not long thereafter until it was reported that the Emperor had been trying to ride the bicycle, that his queue had become entangled in the rear wheel, and that he had had a not very royal tumble, and had given it up,--as many another one has done.

IX

Kuang Hsu--As Emperor and Reformer

In 1891 the present Emperor Kuang Hsu issued a very strong edict commanding good treatment of the missionaries. He therein made the following statement: "The religions of the West have for their object the inculcation of virtue, and, though our people become converted, they continue to be Chinese subjects. There is no reason why there should not be harmony between the people and the adherents of foreign religions."--Hon. Charles Denby in "China and Her People."

IX

KUANG HSU--AS EMPEROR AND REFORMER

AS a man, there are few characters in Chinese history that are more interesting than Kuang Hsu. He had all the caprices of genius with their corresponding weakness and strength. He could wield a pen with the vigour of a Caesar, threaten his greatest viceroys, dismiss his leading conservative officials, introduce the most sweeping and far-reaching reforms that have ever been thought of by the Chinese people, and then run from a woman as though the very devil was after him.

He has been variously rated as a genius, an imbecile and a fool. Let us grant that he was not brilliant. Let us rate him as an imbecile, and then let us try to account for his having brought into the palace every ingenious toy and every wonderful and useful invention and discovery of the past twenty or thirty years with the exception of the X-rays and liquid air. Let us try to explain why it was that an imbecile would purchase every book that had been printed in the Chinese language, concerning foreign subjects of learning, up to the time when he was dethroned. Let us tell why it was that an imbecile would study all those foreign books without help, without an a.s.sistant, without a teacher, for three years, from the time he bought them in 1895 till 1898, before he began issuing the most remarkable series of edicts that have ever come from the pen of an Oriental monarch in the same length of time. And let us explain how it was that an imbecile could embody in his edicts of two or three months all the important principles that were necessary to launch the great reforms of the past ten years.

I doubt if any Chinese monarch has ever had a more far-reaching influence over the minds of the young men of the empire than Kuang Hsu had from 1895 till 1898. The preparation for this influence had been going on for twenty or thirty years previously in the educational inst.i.tutions established by the missions and the government. From these schools there had gone out a great number of young men who had taken positions in all departments of business, and many of the state, and revealed to the officials as well as to many of the people the power of foreign education. An imperial college had been established by the customs service for the special education of young men for diplomatic and other positions, from which there had gone out young men who were the representatives of the government as consuls or ministers in the various countries of Europe and America.

The fever for reading the same books that Kuang Hsu had read was so great as to tax to the utmost the presses of the port cities to supply the demand, and the leaders of some of the publication societies feared that a condition had arisen for which they were unprepared. Books written by such men as Drs. Allen, Mateer, Martin, Williams and Legge were brought out in pirated photographic reproductions by the bookshops of Shanghai and sold for one-tenth the cost of the original work.

Authors, to protect themselves, compelled the pirates to deliver over the stereotype plates they had made on penalty of being brought before the officials in litigation if they refused. But during the three years the Emperor had been studying these foreign books, hundreds of thousands of young scholars all over the empire had been doing the same, preparing themselves for whatever emergency the studies of the young Emperor might bring about.

One day during the early spring a young Chinese reformer came to me to get a list of the best newspapers and periodicals published in both England and America. I inquired the reason for this strange move, and he said:

"The young Chinese reformers in Peking have organized a Reform Club.

Some of them read and speak English, others French, others German and still others Russian, and we are providing ourselves with all the leading periodicals of these various countries that we may read and study them. We have rented a building, prepared rooms, and propose to have a club where we can a.s.semble whenever we have leisure, for conversation, discussion, reading, lectures or whatever will best contribute to the ends we have in view."

"And what are those ends?" I inquired.

"The bringing about of a new regime in China," he answered. "Our recent defeat by the j.a.panese has shown us that unless some radical changes are made we must take a second place among the peoples of the Orient."

"This is a new move in Peking, is it not?"

"New in Peking," he answered, "but not new in the empire. Reform clubs are being organized in all the great cities and capitals. In Hsian, books have been purchased by all cla.s.ses from the governor of the province down to the humblest scholar, and the aristocracy have organized cla.s.ses, and are inviting the foreigners to lecture to them.

Every one, except a few of the oldest conservative scholars, are discarding their Confucian theories and reconstructing their ideas in view of present day problems. There is an intellectual fermentation now going on from which a new China is certain to be evolved, and we propose to be ready for it when it comes."

The leader of this reform party was Kang Yu-wei, a young Cantonese, who had made a thorough study of the reforms of Peter the Great in Russia, and the more recent reforms in j.a.pan, the history of which he had prepared in two volumes which he sent to the Emperor. He had made a reputation for himself in his native place as a "Modern Sage and Reformer," was hailed as a "young Confucius," was appointed a third-cla.s.s secretary in the Board of Works, and as the Emperor and he had been studying on the same lines, Kang, through the influence of the brother of the chief concubine, was introduced to His Majesty. He had a three hours' conference with the Foreign Office, in which he urged that China should imitate j.a.pan, and that the old conservative ministers and viceroys should be replaced by young men imbued with Western ideas, who might confer with the Emperor daily in regard to all kinds of reform measures.

This interview was reported to Kuang Hsu by Prince Kung and Jung Lu, who both being old, and one of them the greatest of the conservatives, could hardly be expected to approve of his theories. Kang, however, was asked to embody his suggestions in a memorial, was later given an audience with the Emperor, and finally called into the palace to a.s.sist him in the reforms he had already undertaken. And if Kang Yu-wei had been as great a statesman as he was reformer, Kuang Hsu might never have been deposed.