“At 11.30 A.M., punctual to the minute, the train arrived at Feng-T’ai, where the Luhan line from Lu Ko-ch’iao meets the Peking-Tien-tsin Railway; here the British authorities took charge. The Empress Dowager was much reassured by the excellence of the arrangements and the punctuality observed; nevertheless, she continued to display anxiety as to the hour of reaching Peking, frequently comparing her watch with railway time. To M. Jadot, who took leave of Their Majesties at Feng-T’ai, she expressed again the satisfaction she had derived from this her first journey by rail, promising to renew the experience before long and to be present at the official opening of communication between Hankow and the capital. She presented five thousand dollars for distribution among the European and Chinese employés of the line, and decorated M. Jadot with the order of the Double Dragon, Second Class.
“From Feng-T’ai the railway under British control runs directly to the main south gate of the Tartar city (Ch’ienmen), but it had been laid down by the soothsayers and astrologers aforesaid that, for good augury, and to conform with tradition, the Imperial party must descend at Machiapu and enter the Chinese city by the direct road to the Palace through the Yung-ting Men. At midday, therefore, leaving the railway, the Court started in chairs for the city, in the midst of a pageant as magnificent as the resources of Chinese officialdom permit. The scene has been described by European writers as imposing, but a Japanese correspondent refers to its mise-en-scène as suitable to a rustic theatre in his own country. Be this as it may, the Empress Dowager, reverently welcomed by the Emperor, who had preceded her, as usual, entered the city, from which she had fled so ignominiously eighteen months before, at the hour named by her spiritual advisers as propitious. Present appearances at Peking, as well as the chastened tone of Imperial Edicts, indicate that the wise men were right in their choice.
“It may be added, in conclusion, as a sign of the times, that the Empress Dowager’s sleeping compartment, prepared under the direction of Sheng Hsüan-huai, was furnished with a European bed. Per contra, it contained also materials for opium smoking, of luxurious yet workmanlike appearance.”
Within a week or so of the Court’s return, the representatives of the foreign Powers were duly received in audience under the conditions named in the Peace Protocol. It was observed that the Old Buddha assumed, as of old, the highest seat on the Throne daïs, the Emperor occupying a lower and almost insignificant position. At the subsequent reception of the Minister’s wives, in the Pavilion of Tranquil Longevity, the wife of the Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps presented an address to “welcome Her Imperial Majesty back to her beautiful Capital.” The document was most cordially, almost effusively, worded, and showed that the astute and carefully pre-arranged measures taken by the Empress to conciliate the foreign Powers by adroit flattery and “allurements” had already attained their desired effect. Already the horrors of the siege, the insults and the arrogance of 1900, were forgotten; already the representatives of the Powers were prepared, as of old, to vie with each other in attempts to purchase Chinese favour by working each against the other.
In receiving the address of the ladies of the Diplomatic Body, Her Majesty created a marked impression by the emotion with which she referred to her affectionate regard for Europeans in general and her visitors in particular. With every evidence of complete sincerity she explained that a “Revolution in the Palace” had compelled her to flee from Peking; she deeply regretted the inconvenience and hardships to which her good friends of the Foreign Legations had been so unfortunately subjected, and she hoped for a renewal of the old cordial relations. The foreign ladies left the audience highly satisfied with the Empress Dowager for her condescension, and with themselves at being placed in a position to display such magnanimity. This audience was the first of many similar occasions, and reference to the numerous works in which the social side of Her Majesty’s subsequent relations with Europeans have been described will show that the Old Buddha had not greatly erred when she assured Jung Lu of the value of ancient classical methods in dealing with barbarians, and promised him that all would readily be forgiven and forgotten in the tactful exercise of condescending courtesies.
Life settled down then into the old grooves, and all went on as before in the Capital of China, the garrisons of the Allies soon becoming a familiar feature in the streets to which gradually the traders and surviving Chinese residents returned. Once more began the farce of foreign intercourse with the so-called Government of the Celestial Empire, and with it were immediately renewed all the intrigues and international jealousies which alone enable its rulers to maintain some sort of equilibrium in the midst of conflicting pressures.
The power behind the Throne, from this time until his death, was undoubtedly Jung Lu, but the Foreign Legations, still confused by memories and echoes of the siege, and suspicious of all information which did not conform to their expressed ideas of the causes of the Boxer Rising, failed to realise the truth, and saw in him a suspect who should by rights have suffered punishment with his fellow conspirators. But the actual facts of the case, and his individual actions as recorded beyond dispute in the diary of His Excellency Ching Shan, and unmistakably confirmed by other independent witnesses, were not then available in the Chancelleries. Accordingly, when Jung Lu first paid his formal official calls upon the Foreign Ministers, he was anything but gratified at the reception accorded to him. In vain it was that he assured one member of the Diplomatic body, with whom he had formerly been on fairly good terms, that as Heaven was his witness he had done nothing in 1900 except his utmost to defend and save the Legations; his statements were entirely disbelieved, and so greatly was he chagrined at the injustice done him, that he begged the Empress Dowager in all seriousness to allow him to retire from the Grand Council. But Tzŭ Hsi, fully realising the situation, assured him of her complete confidence, and in a highly laudatory decree refused his request:—