China under the Empress Dowager

by J. O. P. Bland; Sir E. Backhouse

The fate of Prince Chuang’s brother showed clearly that both officials and people had realised the genuine change in the Empress Dowager’s feelings towards the Boxers, for there was none so poor to do him honour.

Both on the journey to Hsi-an fu and on the return to the Capital, Her Majesty displayed the greatest interest in the lives of the peasantry and the condition of the people generally. She subscribed liberally to the famine fund in Shansi, professing the greatest sympathy for the stricken people. She told the Emperor that she had never appreciated their sufferings in the seclusion of her Palace.

During the Court’s stay at Hsi-an fu the Emperor came to take more interest in State affairs than he had done at any time since the coup d’état, but although the Old Buddha discussed matters with him freely, and took his opinion, he had no real voice in the decision of any important matter. His temper continued to be uncertain and occasionally violent, so that many high officials of the Court preferred always to take their business to the Empress Dowager. One important appointment was made at this time by the Old Buddha at the Emperor’s personal request, viz., that of Sun Chia-nai (ex-Imperial tutor) to the Grand Secretariat. This official had resigned office in January 1900 upon the selection of the Heir Apparent, which he regarded as equivalent to the deposition of the Emperor.[108] Subsequently, throughout the Boxer troubles, he had remained in his house at Peking, which was plundered, and he himself would undoubtedly have been killed, but for the protection given him by Jung Lu. At this time also, Lu Ch’uan-lin joined the Grand Council. When the siege of the Legations began, he had left his post as Governor of Kiangsu, and marched north with some three thousand men to defend Peking against the foreigners. Before he reached the Capital, however, it had fallen, so that, after disbanding his troops, he went for a few weeks to his native place in Chihli, and thence proceeded to join the Court at T’ai-yüan fu, where the Old Buddha received him most cordially. His case is particularly interesting in that he was until his death a member of the Grand Council,[109] and that, like many other high officials at Peking, his ideas of the art of government and the relative position of China in the world, remained exactly as they were before the Boxer movement. His action in proceeding to Peking with his troops from his post in the south is also interesting, as showing the semi-independent position of provincial officials, and the free hand which any man of strong views may claim and enjoy. The Viceroys of Nanking and Wuch’ang might dare to oppose the wishes of the Empress Dowager, and to exercise their own judgment as regards declaring war upon foreigners, but it was equally open to any of their subordinates to differ from them, and to take such steps as they might personally consider proper, even to the movement of troops.

An official, one of the many provincial deputies charged with the carrying of tribute to the Court at Hsi-an, returning thence to his post at Soochow, sent to a friend at Peking a detailed description of the life of the Court in exile, from which the following extracts are taken. The document, being at that time confidential and not intended for publication, throws some light on the Court and its doings which is lacking in official documents:—

“The Empress Dowager is still in sole charge of affairs, and controls everything in and around the Court; those who exercise the most influence with her are Jung Lu and Lu Ch’uan-lin. Governor Ts’en, has fallen into disfavour of late. His Majesty’s advisers are most anxious that she should return to Peking. She looks very young and well; one would not put her age at more than forty, whereas she is really sixty-four. The Emperor appears to be generally depressed, but he has been putting on flesh lately. The Heir Apparent is fifteen years of age; fat, coarse-featured, and of rude manners. He favours military habits of deportment and dress, and to see him when he goes to the play, wearing a felt cap with gold braid, a leather jerkin, and a red military overcoat, one would take him for a prize-fighter. He knows all the young actors and rowdies, and associates generally with the very lowest classes. He is a good rider, however, and a very fair musician. If, at the play-houses, the music goes wrong, he will frequently get up in his place and rebuke the performer, and at times he even jumps on to the stage, possesses himself of the instrument, and plays the piece himself. All this brings the boy into disrepute with respectable people, and some of his pranks have come to the ears of the Old Buddha, who they say has had him severely whipped. His last offence was to commence an intrigue with one of the ladies-in-waiting on Her Majesty, for which he got into serious trouble. He is much in the company of Li Lien-ying (the chief eunuch), who leads him into the wildest dissipation.[110] My friend Kao, speaking of him the other day, wittily said, that ‘from being an expectant Emperor, he would soon become a deposed Heir Apparent’; which is quite true, for he never reads, all his tastes are vicious, and his manners rude and overbearing. To give you an instance of his doings: on the 18th of the 10th Moon, accompanied by his brother and by his uncle, the Boxer Duke Lan, and followed by a crowd of eunuchs, he got mixed up in a fight with some Kansu braves at a theatre in the temple of the City God. The eunuchs got the worst of it, and some minor officials who were in the audience were mauled by the crowd. The trouble arose, in the first instance, because of the eunuchs attempting to claim the best seats in the house, and the sequel shows to what lengths of villainy these fellows will descend, and how great is their influence with the highest officials. The eunuchs were afraid to seek revenge on the Kansu troops direct, but they attained their end by denouncing the manager of the theatre to Governor Ts’en, and by inducing him to close every theatre in Hsi-an. Besides which, the theatre manager was put in a wooden collar, and thus ignominiously paraded through the streets of the city. The Governor was induced to take this action on the ground that Her Majesty, sore distressed at the famine in Shansi and the calamities which have overtaken China, was offended at these exhibitions of unseemly gaiety; and the proclamation which closed the play-houses, ordered also that restaurants and other places of public entertainment should suspend business. Everybody in the city knew that this was the work of the eunuchs. Eventually Chi Lu, Chamberlain of the Household, was able to induce the chief eunuch to ask the Old Buddha to give orders that the theatres be reopened. This was accordingly done, but of course the real reason was not given, and the Proclamation stated that, since the recent fall of snow justified hopes of a prosperous year and good harvests, as a mark of the people’s gratitude to Providence, the theatres would be reopened as usual, ‘but no more disturbances must occur.’

“The chief eunuch does not seem to be abusing his authority as much as usual at Hsi-an, most of his time and attention being given to the collection and safe keeping of tribute. If the quality and quantity received is not up to his expectations, he will decline to accept it, and thus infinite trouble is caused to the officials of the province concerned.

“A few days before the Old Buddha’s sixty-fifth birthday in the 10th Moon, Governor Ts’en proposed that the city should be decorated, and the usual costly gifts should be presented to Her Majesty, but to this proposal Prince P’u Tung took the strongest exception; ‘China is in desperate straits,’ he said, ‘and even the ancestral shrines and birthplaces of the Dynasty are in the hands of foreign troops. How then could the Old Buddha possibly desire to celebrate her birthday? The thing is impossible.’ The matter was therefore allowed to drop. But the Governor is certainly most anxious to make a name for himself, and, in spite of his blustering professions of an independent attitude, he does not disdain to curry favour with the chief eunuch and others who can serve him. They say that he has recently sworn ‘blood brotherhood’ with Hsin, the eunuch whose duty it is to announce officials at audiences. No doubt it is due to this distinguished connection that he has recently been raised to the rank of a Board President, and therefore entitled to ride in a sedan chair within the precincts of the Court, which, no doubt, he considers more dignified than riding in a cart.[111]

“Tung Fu-hsiang has returned to his home in Kansu, but his troops remain still at Hsi-an under the command of General Teng, who so greatly distinguished himself in the Mahomedan rebellion.

“It would seem that the Old Buddha still cherishes hopes of defeating the foreigners, for she is particularly delighted by a Memorial which has been sent in lately by Hsia Chen-wu, in which he recommends a certain aboriginal tribesman (‘Man-tzu’) as a man of remarkable strategic ability. He offers to lose his own head and those of all his family, should this Heaven-sent warrior fail to defeat all the troops of the Allies in one final engagement, and he begs that the Emperor may permit this man to display his powers and thus save the Empire.”