“The Grand Secretary, Jung Lu,” she said, “is a most patriotic and loyal servant of the Throne, upon whose services we have long and confidently relied. During the whole of the Boxer Rebellion crisis it was he, and he alone, who calmly and fearlessly held to the path of firmness, whilst all around him was confusion and shouting, so that without doubt, he was the means of saving the Empire. Most glorious indeed is his merit. Although it may be said that the situation has now been practically saved, we have by no means recovered from the effects of this grievous national disaster, and there is urgent necessity for the abolition of countless abuses and the introduction of a programme of Reform. It is fitting that all should assist us to this end. Whilst we ourselves, in the seclusion of the Palace, labour unceasingly, how is it possible that the Grand Secretary, who has received such high favour at our hands, should even think of withdrawing from the stress of public life, leaving to us incessant and harassing labour? Would not his conscience drive him to remorse when reflecting on the self-denying duties of every loyal Statesman in the service of his Sovereign? His prayer is refused.”

On two subsequent occasions before her death, the populace and the foreign community in Peking were afforded opportunities of witnessing the Empress Dowager’s return to the city from short excursions by railway, and on each of these her affable, almost familiar, attitude was a subject of general comment. The first occasion was in the following spring, when she visited the Eastern Tombs, and upon her return, sacrificing as usual before the shrine of the God of War in the enceinte of the Ch’ienmên, she talked volubly with several of the ladies whom she had met at Court. After emerging from the Temple, she called upon one of the eunuchs to bring her opera glasses, with which she eagerly scanned the crowd looking down from the wall of the city, waving her handkerchief whenever she perceived a familiar face. On one occasion she even shouted up an inquiry asking after the health of the daughter of one of the Foreign Ministers. The Manchu Princes and Chamberlains of the Court were unable to conceal their indignation and wrath at such condescension on the part of the Empress Dowager towards those whom, in spite of 1900, they still regarded (and regard to this day) as outer barbarians. So much incensed were they that they even urged Chi Lu to beg Her Majesty to desist, and to re-enter her chair, an invitation to which she paid not the slightest attention, being evidently well pleased at the violation of ceremonial etiquette which she was committing. It was noticed that the Emperor, on the other hand, took no notice whatsoever of the foreigners, and seemed to be sunk in a deep, listless melancholy.

The second occasion was after the Empress Dowager’s visit to the Western Tombs in April, 1903, four days after the death of her faithful friend and adviser, Jung Lu. On this occasion Her Majesty appeared to be in very low spirits, descending from the train slowly, and with none of her wonted vivacity. She greeted Kuei Hsiang, her brother, who was kneeling on the platform to receive her, with one curt sentence, “You have killed Jung Lu by recommending that useless doctor,” and passed on to her chair without another word. It was on this occasion, receiving certain foreign ladies in the travelling Palace erected for her at Pao-ting fu, that the Old Buddha alluded directly to the massacres of foreign missionaries which had taken place in that city, “with which she had, of course, nothing to do.” No doubt by this time, and by force of repetition, Tzŭ Hsi had persuaded herself of her complete innocence; but however this may be, she undoubtedly won over most of the foreigners with whom she came in contact, by the charm and apparent sincerity of her manner.

Before settling down to the accustomed routine of life in the Palace, the Empress Dowager, whose penchant for personal explanation in Imperial Edicts seemed to be growing upon her, issued a Decree which gained for her renewed sympathy from all classes of Chinese officials. After the usual exhortations to her faithful subjects to co-operate loyally in her schemes for Reform, to put off the old bad ways and to persist energetically in well-doing, she gives a graphic description of the hardships which she and the Emperor endured during her compulsory “tour to the West.” After referring to the unforgettable shocks and sorrows of that journey, the Edict says:—

“I have now returned once more to my Palace and find the ancestral Temples reposing as of old in dignified and unbroken serenity. Beneath the deep awe which overcomes me in the presence of my glorious ancestors my soul feels an added weight of grief and remorse, and I only hope that by Heaven’s continued favour I may yet live to accomplish some meritorious work.”

And again, in a later passage, after referring to the drought which had brought Shensi and Shansi to the verge of famine, she says:—

“The Empire has come upon days of dire financial distress, and my people have been compelled to find funds for me from their very life blood; ill would it be for me to requite their loyalty by further levies of taxation, and the Throne is therefore bound to curtail its ordinary expenditure and to make strict economy its guiding rule for the future. With the exception of such repairs as are necessary to the Temples and ancestral shrines, I hereby command that no expenditure be incurred for repairs or decoration of the Palaces, except in cases of absolute necessity.”

XXIV
HER MAJESTY’S NEW POLICY

The crisis of 1900, all the horror of that abomination of desolation in her Capital and the hardships of her wandering in the wilderness, had brought home to the Empress the inherent weakness of her country and the stern necessity for remedial measures. Already, before the issue of the penitential Decree, quoted in an earlier chapter, she had announced to the world, with characteristic decision, her intention to adopt new measures and to break with those hoary traditions of the past which, as she had learned, were the first cause of the rottenness of the State. Her subsequent policy became in fact (though she was careful never to admit it) a justification of those very measures which the Emperor had so enthusiastically inaugurated in 1898, but her methods differed from his in that she omitted no precaution for conciliating the conflicting interests about the Throne and for disarming the opposition of the intransigeants of the provinces.