China and the Manchus

by Herbert Allen Giles

[CHAPTER X]
KUANG HSÜ

In 1875 the Emperor Tʽung Chih died of smallpox, and with his death the malign influence of his mother comes more freely into play. The young Empress was about to become a mother; and had she borne a son, her position as mother of the baby Emperor would have been of paramount importance, while the grandmother, the older Empress Dowager, would have been relegated to a subordinate status. Consequently,—it may now be said, having regard to subsequent happenings,—the death of the Empress followed that of her husband at an indecently short interval, for no particular reason of health; and the old Empress Dowager became supreme. In order to ensure her supremacy, she had previously, on the very day of the Emperor's death, caused the succession to be allotted, in utter violation of established custom, to a first cousin, making him heir to the Emperor Hsien Fêng, instead of naming one of a lower generation who, as heir to Tʽung Chih, would have been qualified to sacrifice to the spirit of his adopted father. Thus, the late Emperor was left without a son, and his spirit without a ministrant at ancestral worship, the only consolation being that when a son should be born to the new Emperor (aged four), that child was to become son by adoption to his late Majesty, Tʽung Chih. Remonstrances, even from Manchus, were soon heard on all sides; but to these the Empress Dowager paid no attention until four years afterwards (1879), on the occasion of the deferred funeral of the late Emperor, when a censor, named Wu Kʽo-tu, committed suicide at the mausoleum, leaving behind him a memorial in which he strongly condemned the action of the two Empresses Dowager, still regarded officially as joint regents, and called for a re-arrangement of the succession, under which the late Emperor would be duly provided with an heir. Nothing, however, came of this sacrifice, except promises, until 1900. A son of Prince Tuan, within a few months to espouse the Boxer cause, was then made heir to his late Majesty, as required; but at the beginning of 1901, this appointment was cancelled and the spirit of the Emperor Tʽung Chih was left once more unprovided for in the ancestral temple. The first cousin in question, who reigned as Kuang Hsü (=brilliant succession), was not even the next heir in his own generation; but he was a child of four, and that suited the plans of the Empress Dowager, who, having appointed herself Regent, now entered openly upon the career for which she will be remembered in history. What she would have done if the Empress had escaped and given birth to a son, can only be a matter of conjecture.

In 1876 the first resident Envoy ever sent by China to Great Britain, or to any other nation, was accredited to the Court of St James's. Kuo Sung-tao, who was chosen for the post, was a fine scholar; he made several attempts on the score of health to avoid what then seemed to all Chinese officials—no Manchu would have been sent—to be a dangerous and unpleasant duty, but was ultimately obliged to proceed. It was he who, on his departure in 1879, said to Lord Salisbury that he liked everything about the English very much, except their shocking immorality.

The question of railways for China had long been simmering in the minds of enterprising foreigners; but it was out of the question to think that the Government would allow land to be sold for such a purpose; therefore there would be no sellers. In 1876 a private company succeeded in obtaining the necessary land by buying up connecting strips between Shanghai and Woosung at the mouth of the river, about eight miles in all. The company then proceeded to lay down a miniature railway, which was an object of much interest to the native, whose amusement soon took the form of a trip there and back. Political influence was then brought to bear, and the whole thing was purchased by the Government; the rails were torn up and sent to Formosa, where they were left to rot upon the sea-beach.

The suppression of rebellion in Turkestan and Yünnan has already been mentioned; also the retrocession of Kuldja, which brings us down to the year 1881, when the Eastern Empress died. Death must have been more or less a relief to this colourless personage, who had been entirely superseded on a stage on which by rights she should have played the leading part, and who had been terrorized during her last years by her more masterful colleague.

In 1882 there were difficulties with France over Tongking; these, however, were adjusted, and in 1884 a convention was signed by Captain Fournier and Li Hung-chang. A further dispute then arose as to a breach of the convention by the Chinese, and an état de représailles followed, during which the French destroyed the Chinese fleet. After the peace which was arranged in 1885, a few years of comparative tranquillity ensued; the Emperor was married (1889), and relieved his aunt of her duties as Regent.

Japan, in earlier centuries contemptuously styled the Dwarf-nation, and always despised as a mere imitator and brain-picker of Chinese wisdom, now swims definitively into the ken of the Manchu court. The Formosan imbroglio had been forgotten as soon as it was over, and the recent rapid progress of Japan on Western lines towards national strength had been ignored by all Manchu statesmen, each of whom lived in hope that the deluge would not come in his own time. So far back as 1885, in consequence of serious troubles involving much bloodshed, the two countries had agreed that neither should send troops to Korea without due notification to the other. Now, in 1894, China violated this contract by dispatching troops, at the request of the king of Korea, whose throne was threatened by a serious rebellion, without sufficient warning to Japan, and further, by keeping a body of these troops at the Korean capital even when the rebellion was at an end. A disastrous war ensued. The Japanese were victorious on land and sea; the Chinese fleet was destroyed; Port Arthur was taken; and finally, after surrendering Wei-hai-wei (1895), to which he had retired with the remnant of his fleet, Admiral Ting, well known as "a gallant sailor and true gentleman," committed suicide together with four of his captains. Li Hung-chang was then sent to Japan to sue for peace, and while there he was shot in the cheek by a fanatical member of the Soshi class. This act brought him much sympathy—he was then seventy-two years old; and in the treaty of Shimonoseki, which he negotiated, better terms perhaps were obtained than would otherwise have been the case. The terms granted included the independence of Korea, for centuries a tribute-paying vassal of China, and the cession of the island of Formosa. Japan had occupied the peninsula on which stands the impregnable fortress of Port Arthur, and had captured the latter in a few hours; but she was not to be allowed to keep them. A coalition of European powers, Russia, Germany, and France—England refused to join—decided that it would never do to let Japan possess Port Arthur, and forced her to accept a money payment instead. So it was restored to China—for the moment; and at the same time a republic was declared in Formosa; but of this the Japanese made short work.

The following year was marked by an unusual display of initiative on the part of the Emperor, who now ordered the introduction of railways; but in 1897 complications with foreign powers rather gave a check to these aspirations. Two German Catholic priests were murdered, and as a punitive measure Germany seized Kiaochow in Shantung; while in 1898 Russia "leased" Port Arthur, and as a counterblast England thought it advisable to "lease" Wei-hai-wei. So soon as the Manchu court had recovered from the shock of these events, and had resumed its normal state of torpor, it was rudely shaken from within by a series of edicts which peremptorily commanded certain reforms of a most far-reaching description. For instance, the great public examinations, which had been conducted on much the same system for seven or eight centuries past, were to be modified by the introduction of subjects suggested by recent intercourse with Western nations. There was to be a university in Peking, and the temples, which cover the empire in all directions, were to be closed to religious services and opened for educational purposes. The Manchus, indeed, have never shown any signs of a religious temperament. There had not been, under the dynasty in question, any such wave of devotional fervour as was experienced under more than one previous dynasty. Neither the dreams of Buddhism, nor the promises of immortality held out by the Taoist, seem to have influenced in a religious, as opposed to a superstitious sense, the rather Bœotian mind of the Manchu. The learned emperors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries accepted Confucianism as sufficient for every-day humanity, and did all in their power to preserve it as a quasi-State religion. Thus, Buddhism was not favoured at the expense of Taoism, nor vice versa; Mahometanism was tolerated so long as there was no suspicion of disloyalty; Christianity, on the other hand, was bitterly opposed, being genuinely regarded for a long time as a cloak for territorial aggression.

To return to the reforms. Young Manchus of noble family were to be sent abroad for an education on wider lines than it was possible to obtain at home. This last was in every way a desirable measure. No Manchu had ever visited the West; all the officials previously sent to foreign countries had been Chinese. But other proposed changes were not of equal value.

At the back of this reform movement was a small band of earnest men who suffered from too much zeal, which led to premature action. A plot was conceived, under which the Empress Dowager was to be arrested and imprisoned; but this was betrayed by Yüan Shih-kʽai, and she turned the tables by suddenly arresting and imprisoning the Emperor, and promptly decapitating all the conspirators, with the exception of Kʽang Yu-wei, who succeeded in escaping. He had been the moving spirit of this abortive revolution; he was a fine scholar, and had completely gained the ear of the Emperor. The latter became henceforth to the end of his life a person of no importance, while China, for the third time in history, passed under the dominion of a woman. There was no secret about it; the Empress Dowager, popularly known as the Old Buddha, had succeeded in terrorizing every one who came into contact with her, and her word was law. It was said of one of the Imperial princes that he was "horribly afraid of her Majesty, and that when she spoke to him he was on tenter-hooks, as though thorns pricked him, and the sweat ran down his face."