“In the 26th year of Kuang-Hsü, certain Princes and Ministers, statesmen deficient in virtue, gained your Majesty’s ear, and even your divine wisdom was misled to believe in the unholy arts and magic of the Boxers until the ancestral shrines were the centre of cataclysmic disaster and the destinies of the Empire trembled in the balance. Again and again I besought your Majesty to put an end to these traitors, but could not gain your consent. I incurred at that time your censure on more than one occasion, and for forty days waited in my house fully expectant of doom. But even so your Majesty repeatedly sought my advice, and though it was not always followed, I was able to avert the crowning misfortune which would have resulted from the killing of the foreign Ministers. For this service your Majesty has since deigned frequently to express gratitude.
“When your Majesties left the city on your tour of inspection to Hsi-an, you decided upon punishing those evil-minded Princes and Ministers, and thereafter to introduce a policy of gradual and effective reform in every branch of the administration. Already, during the past two years, considerable progress has been made. By your return to the capital the sun has been restored to our firmament, and even the barbarians of the east and west have acclaimed your Majesty’s benevolence and impartial solicitude for all, Chinese and foreigners alike.
“For the past year I have been continually ill, but until two months ago was able to continue in the performance of my arduous duties. Since then I have been compelled to apply for sick-leave and have sought permission to resign my offices, but your Majesty sent eunuchs to me with gracious messages and presents of ginseng[124] and commanded that I should make all haste to recover and resume my duties.
“But even the beneficent protection of your Majesty has failed to avert from me the last ravages of illness. Repeated attacks of asthma, with increasing difficulty in breathing, have now brought me to the last stage of weakness and the very point of death. With my last breath I now entreat your Majesty vigorously to continue in the introduction of reforms, so that gradually our Middle Kingdom may attain to a condition as prosperous as that of the great States of Europe and Japan. During my tenure of the office of Grand Councillor I have seen many men appointed to offices for which they were by no means fitted; herein lies a source of weakness, but above all it is necessary that a radical change should be made in the selection of District Magistrates and in the methods by which taxation is levied and collected. It were well if the good example of economy which your Majesty is setting were more generally followed. In the seclusion of the Palace it is impossible for your Majesty to know the truth as to the condition of your subjects, and were it not for the prohibitive cost of transporting your enormous retinues, I should advise that the Throne should make regular tours of inspection in various parts of the Empire. His Majesty Ch’ien-Lung made several such tours, and among the wise sovereigns of ancient times the custom was regularly observed. At this moment my mind is becoming confused; I can say no more. Humbly do I pray that your Majesty’s fame may continue to grow, and that all my good wishes on your Majesty’s behalf may be fulfilled. Then, even though I die, yet shall I live.
“I have dictated this, my valedictory Memorial, to my adopted son, Liang Ku’ei, for transmission to your Majesty, in temporary residence at Pao-ting fu. Though conscious of its numerous shortcomings, for which I beg forgiveness, I reverently entreat your Majesty to peruse it. Prostrate before the Throne, with my dying breath, I, Jung Lu, now conclude my Memorial.
“(Dated the 10th April, 1903.)”
XXVI
HER MAJESTY’S LAST DAYS.
In the summer of 1908 Tzŭ Hsi’s generally robust health showed signs of failing, a fact which is recorded in her valedictory Decree, and one of no small importance in considering the coincident fact of the illness of the Emperor. Of the causes and manner of the latter’s death, nothing will ever be definitely known; they lie buried with many another secret of the Forbidden City, in the hearts of Li Lien-ying and his immediate satellites. Even among the higher officials, Manchu and Chinese, of the capital, opinions differ, and many conflicting theories are current to account for the remarkable coincidence of the death of Tzŭ Hsi and her unhappy nephew on successive days. For those who seek it there is no lack of circumstantial evidence to justify the conclusion that the long-threatened Emperor was “removed” by the reactionaries, headed by the chief eunuch, who had only too good cause to fear his unfettered authority on the Throne. At the same time it is conceivably possible that many of the plots and proceedings of the Summer Palace at that time might have been unknown to Tzŭ Hsi, and that she was purposely kept in ignorance by those who foresaw the possibility of her early death and took their precautions accordingly, after the Oriental manner. Indeed, in the light of much trustworthy evidence of eye-witnesses, this seems a rational explanation of events to which any solution by theories of coincidence is evidently difficult. Most of the following account of Her Majesty’s last days is derived from the statements of two high officials, one Manchu and the other Chinese, who were at that time on duty with the Court. Their testimony and their conclusions coincide, on the whole, with those of the best-informed and most reliable Chinese newspapers, whose news from the capital is also generally from official sources. We accept them, naturally, with all reserve, yet with an inclination to give the Empress Dowager, on this occasion, the benefit of their good opinions and our own doubts. The simultaneous deaths may possibly have been due to natural causes, but it is to be observed by the most sympathetic critic, that the account given by Her Majesty’s loyal servants of her behaviour immediately after the Emperor’s death, is by no means suggestive of sorrow, but rather of relief.
It was in the previous autumn that the Emperor became very ill, so much so that he was gradually compelled during the last year of his life to desist from performance of the usual sacrifices, which entail no small expenditure of physical energy through their genuflections and continual prostrations. The impression gradually gained ground that His Majesty was not likely to live much longer, and it was remarked, and remembered as a significant fact, that the Old Buddha had some time before given orders for the engagement of special wet-nurses for the infant son of Prince Ch’un, born in February, 1906. It was understood that these orders implied the selection of this infant Prince to succeed Kuang-Hsü, but although many attempts were made to induce her to declare herself on this subject, she declined to do so on the ground that her previous experience had been unlucky, that her selections had been the cause of much misunderstanding, and that, moreover, it was a house-law of the Dynasty that the heir to the throne could only be lawfully selected when the sovereign was in extremis, a rule which she had completely disregarded in the nomination of Prince Tuan’s son in 1900.[125]