“To sum up the matter in a word, is it not the case that, when either our Statesmen or our people are guilty of any offence, it is upon our Imperial persons that the blame must fall? In recalling this fact to mind, we do not desire to rake up bygone offences, but rather because it is our duty to warn our subjects against their repetition. For the past twenty years, whenever difficulties have arisen with foreign nations, it has been our duty to issue solemn warnings and reproofs. But the saying which is in common use, that we ‘sleep on brushwood and taste gall’ has, by lapse of time, become almost meaningless; when we talk of putting our house in order, and reforming our finances, the words have no real significance. The time of danger once over, favouritism and the neglect of public business go on as of old; as of old, money purchases rank, and the Throne continues to be persistently misled. Let our officials ask themselves in the silence of the night watches whether, even had there been no Boxer rebellion, China could possibly have become a great Power? Even before these disasters occurred there was great difficulty in maintaining our position as a nation, and now, after this awful visitation, it must be obvious to the dullest amongst us that our weakness and poverty have been greatly increased. To our Ministers of State, who have received high favour from the Throne, we would say that, at this time of our nation’s history, it is essential to display new qualities of integrity and patriotism. Taxation should now be re-arranged in such a manner as to enable us to repay the foreign indemnities, while bearing in mind the poverty of the lower classes of the people. In the selection of officials, good character should be considered the first essential, and men of talent should be encouraged to the utmost.
“The whole duty of a Minister of State may be summed up in two words: to abolish corrupt tendencies, and to put off the abuses of former days. Justice and energy should be the principles guiding towards economical and military efficiency; on this the spirit of the nation and its future depend as upon its very life blood.
“For nearly thirty years our mother, the Empress Dowager, has laboured without ceasing to instruct us and train us in the right way, and now, at one blow, all the results of her labour are brought to nought. We cannot but remember the abomination of desecration which has overthrown our ancestral shrines and the temples of our gods. Looking to the North, we think upon our Capital ruined and profaned, upon the thousands of our highest officials whose families have lost their all, of the millions of our subjects whose lives and property have been sacrificed in this cataclysm. We can never cease to reproach ourselves: how then should we reproach others? Our object in issuing this solemn warning is to show that the prosperity or the ruin of a State depends solely upon the energy or apathy of its rulers and people, and that the weakness of an Empire is the direct result of rottenness in its administration. We desire to reiterate our commands that friendly relations with foreign Powers are to be encouraged, that at the same time our defences are to be strengthened, that freedom of speech and the employment of trustworthy servants are to be encouraged. We expect obedience to these commands, and sincere patriotism from our subjects. Earnestly the Empress Dowager and ourselves pray that it may be brought home to our Ministers of State, that only out of suffering is wisdom developed, and that a sense of duty insists upon unceasing effort. Let this Decree be made known throughout the entire Empire.”
This Edict was issued in February, coincidently with Her Majesty’s acceptance of the conditions imposed by the Powers in the peace negotiations at Peking. From that date until, in June, the terms of the Protocol were definitely settled by the plenipotentiaries, her attitude continued to be one of nervous apprehension, while the discomfort of life at Hsi-an, as well as the advice repeatedly given her by Jung Lu and the provincial Viceroys, combined to make her look forward with impatience to the day when she might set out for her capital.
There remained only one source of difficulty, namely, the presence of Prince Tuan’s son, the Heir Apparent, at her Court. Tzŭ Hsi was well aware that she could hardly look for cordial relations with the representatives of the Powers at Peking, or for sympathy abroad, so long as this son of the Boxer chief remained heir to the Throne. It would clearly be impossible, in the event of his becoming Emperor, for him to consent to his father remaining under sentence of banishment, and equally impossible to expect the Powers to consent to Prince Tuan’s rehabilitation and return. Yet the youth had been duly and solemnly appointed to succeed to the Throne, a thing not lightly to be set aside. Once again the Old Buddha showed that the sacred laws of succession were less than a strong woman’s will.
Politics apart, it was common knowledge that Tzŭ Hsi had for some time repented of her choice of Prince Tuan’s ill-mannered, uncouth son as Heir Apparent. More than once had she been brought to shame by his wild, and sometimes disgraceful, conduct. Even in her presence, the lad paid little heed to the formalities of Court etiquette, and none at all to the dignity of his own rank and future position. Tzŭ Hsi was therefore probably not sorry of the excuse for deposing him from that high estate. In the Decree cancelling his title to the Throne, she observed that his father, Prince Tuan, had brought the Empire to the verge of ruin, and that the guilt which he had thus incurred towards his august ancestors could never be wiped out. In order to save the “face” of the Heir Apparent and her own, in a difficult position, the Edict describes him as being fully convinced of the impossibility of his succeeding to the Throne under existing conditions, and that he himself had therefore petitioned Her Majesty to cancel her previous decision. In granting this request and directing him to remove himself forthwith from the Palace precincts, the Empress conferred upon him the rank of an Imperial Duke of the lowest grade, excusing him at the same time from performance of any official duties in that capacity. By this decision she meant to mark the contempt into which the Heir Apparent had fallen, for the rank thus granted him was a low one, and, without any official duties or salary, he was condemned to a life of poverty and obscurity. This fallen Heir to the Dragon Throne is a well-known figure to-day in the lowest haunts of the Chinese City at Peking: a drunkard and disreputable character, living the life of a gambler, notorious only as a swashbuckler of romantic past and picturesque type,—one who, but for adverse fate and the accursed foreigner, would have been Emperor of China at this moment.
Having deposed him, the Empress let it be known that the selection of an heir to the disconsolate shade of T’ung-Chih would be postponed “until a suitable candidate should be found,” an intimation generally understood to mean that the vital question of providing an heir in legitimate and proper succession to the Throne could not well be determined until China’s foreign relations, as well as her internal affairs, had been placed upon a basis of greater security. It is curious to note how, in all such utterances, it appears to have been tacitly understood that the Emperor Kuang Hsü was a “bad life.”
Thus, in exile, the Old Buddha wore philosophically the white sheet of penance and burned the candle of expiation, preparatory to re-entering anon upon a new lease of power in that Peking where, as she well knew, the memory of the foreigner is short and his patience long. In June, 1901, the terms of peace were settled; on the 7th September the Peace Protocol was solemnly signed by the representatives of all the Powers, that “monument of collective inefficiency” which was to sow the seeds of trouble to last for many years to come. At Hsi-an “in the profound seclusion of the Palace” she knew remorse, not unstimulated by fear; on the return journey to her capital (from 20th October, 1901, to 6th January, 1902), while preparing her arts and graces to captivate the barbarian, she was still a victim to doubt and apprehension. Meanwhile, at Peking, the mandarin world, reassured by the attitude of the peace negotiators and their terms, was fast shedding its garments of fear and peacocking as of yore, in renewed assurance of its own indisputable superiority. Evidence of this spirit was to be met with on all sides, gradually coming to its fine flower in the subsequent negotiations for the revision of the commercial Treaties, and bringing home once more, to those who study these things, the unalterable truth of the discovery made years ago by one of the earliest British representatives in China, namely, that “this people yields nothing to reason and everything to fear.”
One of the most remarkable instances of this revival of the mandarin’s traditional arrogance of superiority occurred, significantly enough, in connection with the penitential mission of the Emperor’s brother, Prince Ch’un (now Regent) to Berlin, an episode which threatened for a moment to lead to a rupture between Germany and China. By Article 1 of the Peace Protocol, Prince Ch’un had been specially designated for this mission to convey in person to the German Emperor the regrets of the Chinese Government for the murder of Baron von Ketteler. He left Peking for the purpose on the 12th July, 1901, with definite instructions as to the manner in which the Chinese Government’s regrets were to be expressed. The German Emperor’s proposals as to the form of ceremony to be followed in this matter were regarded by Prince Ch’un as incompatible with his instructions, and it will be remembered that, after some hesitation on the part of the German Government, the Chinese policy of passive resistance eventually carried the day. The following telegraphic correspondence on the subject is of permanent interest. Prince Ch’un (whose personal name is Tsai Feng) telegraphed from Germany on the 26th September to the Peace Plenipotentiaries, Prince Ch’ing and Li Hung-chang, as follows:—
“I have duly received the Grand Council’s message, and note that I am commanded to act as circumstances may require, and that a middle course is suggested as expedient. I fully appreciate the intelligent caution of your policy, and fortunately had already taken steps to act in the sense indicated. On the 14th of this moon the German Emperor had given orders to stop preparations for the ceremony, but as I noticed that the Royal train had not been withdrawn nor had his aide-de-camp left my suite, I inferred that there was a possibility of his yielding the points in dispute. Accordingly, after a long discussion of the situation with Yin Ch’ang, I directed him to write in German to Jeng-yintai[119] requesting his friendly intervention at the Foreign Office with a definite explanation that China could not possibly agree that the mission should be received kneeling, that Germany had nothing to gain on insisting upon such a procedure, and that the only result of a fiasco would be to make both countries appear extremely ridiculous. I therefore begged that the Emperor should accede to my personal appeal and waive the point. At the same time I requested the German gentleman who acts as Chinese Consul for Bavaria to address the Foreign Office to the same effect, and with a request that we might enter upon discussion of the point. Four days later I directed Lü Hai-huan to return to his post at Berlin to make such arrangements as might be possible, and on the following day I telegraphed to him a summary of the Grand Council’s views on the matter. In the afternoon of the 20th I received the Consul for Bavaria, who informed me that he had received a telegram from the Foreign Office inquiring when I proposed to start for Berlin, and hoping that I would do so speedily, as the Emperor had now consented to waive the question of our kneeling, but required that only Yin Ch’ang should accompany me when presenting the letter of regret, the remainder of my suite to remain in another place.