Court Life in China Part 8

The Empress Dowager had been spending the hot season at the Summer Palace, and during the two months and more that the Emperor had been struggling with his reform measures, she gave no indication, either by word or deed, that she was opposed to anything that he had done. And I think that all her acts, from that time till the close of the Boxer insurrection, can be explained without placing her in opposition to his theories of progress and reform.

So long as the Emperor devoted himself to the creation of new offices he found little active opposition on the part of the conservatives, while the reformers did everything in their power to encourage him. The extent of the movement it is not easy to estimate. It opened up the intensely anti-foreign province of Hupeh, and transformed it into a section where railroads were to be built connecting the north with the south. It opened up the great mining province of Shansi and the lumber regions of Manchuria. It started railroads which are now lines of trade for the whole empire.

When he issued the fifth edict subst.i.tuting Western science for the literary essay in the great examinations, letters and telegrams began to pour in upon us at the Peking University from all parts of the empire, asking us to reserve room for the senders in the school. Their tuition was enclosed in their letters, and among those who came were the grandson of the Emperor's tutor, graduates of various degrees, men of rank, and the sons of wealthy gentlemen who had not yet obtained degrees. Numerous requests came to our graduates to teach English in official families, one being employed to teach the grandson of Li Hung-chang, and another the sons of a relative of the royal family.

But when his reforms led the Emperor to dispense with useless offices, as in his twenty-first, twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth edicts, for the purpose of retrenchment, and to dismiss recalcitrant officials for disobedience to his commands, a howl arose which was heard throughout the empire. The six members of the Board of Rites dismissed in edict twenty-three, with certain sympathizers to give them face, went to the Empress Dowager at the Summer Palace, represented to her that the boy whom she had placed upon the throne was steering the ship of state to certain destruction, and begged that she would come and once more take the helm. She listened to them with the attention and deference for which she has always been famed, and then dismissed them without any intimation as to what her course would be.

When the Emperor heard what they were doing, he sent a courier post-haste to call Yuan Shih-kai for an interview at the palace. When Yuan came, he ordered him to return to Tien-tsin, dispose of his superior officer, the Governor-General Jung Lu, and bring the army corps of 12,500 troops of which he was in charge to Peking, surround the Summer Palace, preventing any one from going in or coming out, thus making the Empress Dowager a prisoner, and allowing him to go on with his work of reform.

It is just here that we see the difference in the statesmanship of the Empress Dowager and the Emperor. When she appointed these two officials, one a liberal in charge of the army, she placed the other, a conservative, as his superior officer, so that one could not move without the knowledge and consent of the other, thus forestalling just such an order as this. To obey this order of the boy Emperor, Yuan must commit two great crimes, murder and treason, the one on a superior officer, and the other against her who had appointed him to office and who had been the ruler of the country for thirty-seven years, either of which would have been sufficient to have execrated him not only in the eyes of his own people but of history and of the world. Nay more, had he obeyed this order, the conservatives would have raised the cry of rebellion, and an army ten times greater than he could have mustered, would have crushed Yuan and his little company of 12,500 men, on the plea that he was about to take the throne.

Yuan then did the only wise thing he could have done. He went to Jung Lu, without whose consent he had no right to move, showed him the order, and asked for his commands. Jung Lu told him to leave the order with him, and as soon as Yuan had departed he took the train for Peking, called on Prince Ching, and they two went to the Summer Palace and showed the order to Her Majesty, suggesting to her that it might be well for her to come into the city and give him a few lessons in government.

As the Empress Dowager had been behaving herself so circ.u.mspectly during all the summer months, allowing the Emperor to test himself as a ruler, one can scarcely blame her for not wanting to be bottled up in the Summer Palace when she had done nothing to deserve it. When therefore this second delegation of officials, consisting of the two highest in rank in the empire, came to request her to once more take charge of the government, she called her sedan chair and started for the capital. She went without an army, but was accompanied by those of her palace eunuchs on whom she could implicitly depend, and enough of them to overcome those of the Emperor in case there should be trouble.

That force was necessary is evident from the fact that she condemned to death a number of his servants after she had taken the throne.

When the Emperor heard that she was coming he sent a messenger with letters urging Kang Yu-wei to flee, and to devise some means for saving the situation, while he attempted to find refuge for himself in the foreign legations. This however he failed to do, but was taken by the Empress Dowager, and his career as a ruler ended, and his life as a prisoner began.

X

Kuang Hsu--As a Prisoner

Kuang Hsu deserves a place in history as the prize iconoclast. He sent a cold shiver down the spine of the literati by declaring that a man's fitness for office should not depend upon his ability to write a poem, or upon the elegance of his penmanship. This was too much. The literati argued that at the rate at which the Emperor was going, it might be expected that he would do away with chop-sticks and dispense with the queue.--Rounsevelle Wildman in "China's Open Door."

X

KUANG HSU--AS A PRISONER

The year that Kuang Hsu ascended the throne a great calamity occurred in Peking. The Temple of Heaven--the greatest of the imperial temples, the one at which the Emperor announces his accession, confesses his sins, prays and gives thanks for an abundant harvest, was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. When the Emperor worships here it is as the representative of the people, the high priest of the nation, and his prayers are offered for his country and not for himself. There are no idols in this temple, and his prayers go up to Shang-ti the Supreme Being "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice." When therefore instead of giving rain Heaven sent down a fiery bolt to destroy the temple at which the Son of Heaven prays, the people were struck with dismay.

The pale faces of the women, the apprehensive noddings of the men, and the hushed voices of our old Confucian teachers as they spoke of the matter, indicated the concern with which they viewed it. Here was a boy who had been placed upon the throne by a woman; he was the same generation as the Emperor who had preceded him, and hence could not worship him as his ancestor. It augured ill both for the Emperor and the empire, and so the boy Emperor began his reign in the midst of evil forebodings.

During the nine years that Kuang Hsu had nominal control of affairs a series of dire calamities befell the empire. Famines as the result of drought, floods from the overflow of "China's Sorrow," war with j.a.pan, filching of territory by the European countries, while editorials appeared daily in the English papers of the port cities to the effect that China was to be divided up among the powers. Then too Kuang Hsu was childless and there was no hope of his giving an heir to the throne.

Times and seasons have their meanings for the Chinese. Anything inauspicious happening on New Year's day is indicative of calamity. Mr.

Chen, a friend of mine, had become a Christian contrary to his mother's wishes. When his first child was born it was a girl, born on New Year's day. His mother shook her head, looked distressed, and said that nothing but calamity would come to his home. His second child was a boy, but the old woman shook her head again and sighed saying that it would take more than one boy to avert the calamity of ones first baby being a girl born on New Year's day, and it was not until he had five boys in succession that she was finally convinced.

There was an eclipse of the sun on New Year's day of 1898 which foreboded calamity to the Emperor. During the summer of this year he began his great reform, and in September the Empress Dowager took control of the affairs of state and Kuang Hsu was put in prison, never again to occupy the throne. His prison was his winter palace, where, for many months, he was confined in a gilded cage of a house, on a small island, with the Empress Dowager's eunuchs to guard him. These were changed daily lest they might sympathize with their unhappy monarch and devise some means for his liberation. Each day when the guard was changed, the drawbridge connecting the island with the mainland was removed, leaving the Emperor to wander about in the court of his palace-prison, or sit on the southern terrace where it overlooked the lotus lake, waiting, hoping and perhaps expecting that his last appeal to Kang Yu-wei in which he said: "My heart is filled with a great sorrow which pen and ink cannot describe; you must go abroad at once and without a moment's delay devise some means to save me," might bring forth some fruit.

Whether this confinement interfered with the health of the Emperor or not it is impossible to say, but from the first he was made to pose as an invalid. As his failing health was constantly referred to in the Peking Gazette, the foreigners began to fear that it was the intention to dispose of the Emperor, and such pressure was brought to bear on the government as led them to allow the physician attached to the French legation to enter the palace and make an examination of His Majesty. He found nothing that fresh air and exercise would not remedy and a.s.sured the government that there was no cause for alarm, and from that time we heard nothing more of his precarious condition.

One day not long after the coup d'etat a eunuch came rushing into our compound, his face scratched and bleeding, and knocking his head on the ground before me, begged me to save his life.

"What is the matter?" I inquired.

"Oh! let me join the church!" he pleaded.

"What do you want to join the church for?" I asked.

"To save my life," he answered.

"But what is this all about?" I urged, raising him to his feet.

"You know the eunuch who came to you to buy books," he said.

I a.s.sured him that I knew him.

"Well," he continued, "I am a friend of his. The Empress Dowager has banished him, burned all the books he bought for the Emperor, and I am in danger of losing my head. Let me join the church, and thus save my life."

All I could do was to inform him that this was not the business of the church, and after further conversation he left and I never saw him again.

Day after day as the Emperor received the Peking Gazette on his lonely island he saw one after another of his coveted reforms vanish like mist before the pen of his august aunt. Nor was this all, for often the rescinding edicts appeared under his own name, and by the New Year, when he was brought forth to receive the foreign ministers accredited to his court, scarcely anything remained of all his reforms but the Peking University and the provincial and other schools. It is not to be wondered at therefore that he was reticent and despondent. What promises of good behaviour it was necessary for him to make before he was even allowed this much liberty, it is useless for us to conjecture.

Following this audience the Empress Dowager, who up to this time had been seen by no foreigner except Prince Henry of Prussia, decided to receive the wives of the foreign ministers. Her motives for this new move it is impossible to determine. It may have been to ascertain how the foreign governments would treat her who had been reported to have calmly ousted "their great and good friend the Emperor," to whom their ministers were accredited. Or it may have been that she hoped by this stroke of diplomacy to gain some measure of recognition as head of the government. She would at least see how she was regarded.

The audience was an unqualified success. The seven ladies received were charmed by the gracious manner of their imperial hostess, who a.s.sured them each as she touched her lips to the tea which she presented to them that "we are all one family," and up to that period of her life there was nothing to indicate that she did not feel that the sentiment she expressed was true. Up to the time of the coup d'etat, as Dr.

Martin says, "she herself was noted for progressive ideas." "It will not be denied by any one," says Colonel Denby, "that the improvement and progress" described in his first volume, "are mainly due to the will and power of the Empress Regent. To her own people, up to this period in her career, she was kind and merciful, and to foreigners she was just." From the time of her return to the capital after their flight in 1900 till the time of her death she became one of the greatest reformers, if not the greatest, that has ever sat upon the dragon throne. One cannot but wish therefore in the interests of sentiment that it were possible to overlook many things she did from 1898 to 1900, which in the interests of truth it will be impossible to disregard. Nevertheless we should remember that she was driven to these things by the filching of her territory by the foreigners, and by the false pretentions of the superst.i.tious Boxers and their leaders, and in the hope of preserving her country.

Her first act after imprisoning Kuang Hsu was to offer a large reward for his adviser Kang Yu-wei either alive or dead. Failing to get him, "she seized his younger brother Kang Kuang-jen, and with five other n.o.ble and patriotic young men of ability and high promise, he was beheaded September 28th, while protesting that though they might easily be slain, mult.i.tudes of others would arise to take their places." One of my young Chinese friends who watched this procession on its way to the execution grounds told me that,--

"The scene was impossible to describe. These five young reformers,"

after expressing the sentiments quoted above from Dr. Smith, "reviled the Empress Dowager and the conservatives in the most blood-curdling manner."

I have already spoken of w.a.n.g Chao the secretary of the Board of Rites who presented the memorial which caused the dismissal of the six officials of that body, and, indirectly, the fall of the Emperor. Some time before writing this pet.i.tion he called at our home requesting Mrs.

Headland to go and see his mother who was ill. When his mother recovered he sent her to Shanghai, and at the time of the coup d'etat he failed to get out of the city and went into hiding. Some days afterwards a closed cart drove up to our home and to our astonishment he stepped forth. We expressed our surprise that he was still in Peking, and asked:

"Has the Empress Dowager ceased prosecuting her search for you reformers?"

"Not yet," he answered.

"And what is she doing?" we inquired.

"Killing some, banishing others, driving many away from the capital, while still others are going into self-imposed exile."

"Does the Emperor know anything about this?" we inquired.

"No doubt," he replied. "Everybody knows it, why not he?"

"That will make his imprisonment all the harder to bear," we suggested.

"Quite right," he answered.

"There is general alarm in the city that the Emperor himself will be disposed of; what do you think about it?"

"Who can tell? He has not a friend in the palace except the first concubine, and, I am told, that she like himself is kept in close confinement. The Empress stands by her aunt, the Empress Dowager, while the eunuchs now are all her tools. The officials who go into the palace to audiences are all conservative and hence against him, though I suppose they never see him."