The most important object, however, which Li Hung-chang sought to gain through the activity of the Seventh Prince, was so to interest his Highness in the scheme of national defence, which had been growing under the viceroy's initiative, that this department of the work of Government should be transformed from a provincial to an imperial concern. With this end in view an expedition on salt water was arranged for the Prince; and insignificant as the feat must appear in Western eyes, yet for a Manchu prince, who had never seen the sea, to be allowed to trust himself on the treacherous element at all, or on such a strange monster as a steamer, must be accepted as a decided proof that the old order was changing, giving place to the new. The prince was undoubtedly nervous, not knowing what should befall him on his expedition.
The first ordeal through which he had to pass was that of personal contact with foreigners, of whom he had perhaps never seen one in Peking. His introduction was carefully organised by Li Hung-chang, and it was at Tientsin that the prince first met with foreign officials, who waited upon him at separate audiences. The foreigners were as much charmed with his Highness as he expressed himself to have been with them, so that he embarked on his cruise free from anxiety. His attendants, however,—on whom and on Li Hung-chang all the responsibility of course rested,—continued to feel anxious during their passage across the Gulf. This feeling became for a moment acute when, on landing at Port Arthur, they were met by a British admiral and staff with a guard of honour. It is an actual fact that the sight of strange armed men waiting for the prince, working on oriental traditions, did suggest a trap, for the idea of capture by treachery is never wholly absent from the Chinese mind. The Government had taken the wise precaution of attaching to the prince an experienced and capable foreigner in whom he reposed perfect confidence, and Mr Detring explained foreign customs and forms of courtesy to the prince and his suite in a way which completely reassured them. Among all the dignitaries in the prince's suite, however, there was not one capable of taking in the entirely novel ideas which were presented to them. One man only, of quite subordinate rank—whether a Manchu or a Chinese by birth is unknown to the writer—a confidential agent of the Seventh Prince in business matters, seized the entire programme of foreign etiquette the moment it was explained to him, and through him the whole ceremony passed smoothly and agreeably to all parties. The name of this official was Chang Yi, who has since been taking a leading part in mining, railway, and other progressive enterprises in China.
On his return to Peking Prince Ch'un in a memorial to the Throne reported fully the incidents of his cruise to the gulf ports. Not long after a naval board was established in Peking, with the prince at its head. As a step in the direction of centralising the naval authority, which included also the direction of the land defences, the establishment of a Board of Admiralty in the capital was certainly a progressive one; but as its members possessed neither knowledge nor experience of naval or military affairs its authority was much attenuated, almost every question having to be referred back to Li Hung-chang in Tientsin. Any chance that might have existed of Prince Ch'un himself inspiring the new Board and bringing it up to a state of efficiency was lost through his Highness falling into ill-health, from which he never recovered, but after a lingering illness died in 1890.
VI. THE EMPEROR ASSUMES THE GOVERNMENT, 1889.
The Emperor Kwanghsu comes of age in 1889—Audience of foreign Ministers arranged—Derogatory conditions—Second audience refused by Ministers—Accepted by Austrian and British envoys.
In 1889 his Majesty Kwanghsu attained his majority and married. But his coming of age was a somewhat gradual process, with intervals between each step, as if the empress-regent, who alone determined the time and the seasons, were either mistrustful of the capacity of her nephew or reluctant to lay down the reins of authority. The emperor, kept in leading-strings, was allowed to assume some of the functions of an autocrat, but not all. This slow unfolding of the imperial blossom had this result among others, that it procured a welcome respite from the bitter ordeal of granting an audience to the representatives of foreign States. It was well understood that the foreigners had for sixteen years been looking forward to the emperor's assumption of power as to the consummation of their diplomatic function, and that as soon as a decent interval had been allowed to the young monarch after his majority, the subject would become pressing.
It had been discussed in whispers for nearly two years, when, to the astonishment of everybody, including even the members of the Tsungli-Yamên themselves, an imperial decree was issued in December 1890 in kindly terms ordering preparations to be made to receive the foreign Ministers after the Chinese New Year—that is, in the February following. Since nobody owned to having been in the secret, the act was set down to the emperor's gracious initiative, and was hailed with enthusiasm as the opening of a new era. The Great Wall had at last fallen; the pretensions to superiority for which the Chinese had made such great sacrifices were suddenly abandoned, and henceforth equality with foreign nations was to be the basis of their diplomatic intercourse.
The hope was shortlived, for as soon as the details of the imperial reception came to be arranged with the Tsungli-Yamên all the old difficulties appeared in an aggravated form. The foreign ministers, having pondered the question for eighteen years, had unanimously resolved that they would not accept an audience in the building used for the reception of tributary princes, where the ceremony of 1873 had taken place, but only in the imperial palace, or not at all. The whole value of the audience was the acknowledgment it signified of international equality. The idea that it would facilitate business must have been long before abandoned. The form, therefore, was everything, and the Chinese Ministers were resolved that the "tributary" form should be adhered to. They became urgent in their appeals to the reasonableness of the foreign Ministers. They had gone to expense in renovating the hall, Tz-kwang-ko; they had no other place available; the imperial decree must be obeyed, and this admitted of no postponement.
Yielding to these arguments, the foreign Ministers agreed to a compromise. They would, for this time only, repair to the Tz-kwang-ko, but never again. The ceremony took place therefore on 5th March 1891. There were two receptions—first an audience to the various foreign Ministers separately, next a general reception of the whole of them. The diplomatic body soon felt the consequences of their retrograde step, for when they came to discuss details of the audience of the following year, the Chinese interposed a simple non possumus to every demand which implied the acknowledgment of equality. A reception within the palace without the kotow could not even be discussed. No accommodation between the opposing views being possible, there was no audience in 1892. The diplomatic body were solidly united in maintaining the dignity of their respective countries, and by ceasing to solicit, they left the onus of discovering a solution of the question on the Chinese themselves. The audience was of no practical value to the foreigners, while the withholding of it placed the Chinese so much in the wrong that they might safely have been left to their own devices.
Before, however, the pressure to extricate themselves and their sovereign from an untenable position had become too severe, a diversion in their favour was created by the flying visit of an Austrian envoy, who seemed ready to present his credentials on any terms whatever, so that the formalities were quickly got over, and he enabled to conclude his mission. The Chinese availed themselves of this unexpected opportunity, and the emperor granted an audience to M. Biegeleben in another hall or pavilion outside the palace, which thenceforth became known locally as the Palais Biegeleben.