China under the Empress Dowager

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

“Once again it became my inevitable and bounden duty to assume the Regency. Two years ago I issued a Decree announcing the Throne’s intention to grant a Constitution, and this present year I have promulgated the date at which it is to come into effect. Innumerable affairs of State have required direction at my hands and I have laboured without ceasing and with all my might. Fortunately, my constitution was naturally strong, and I have been able to face my duties with undiminished vigour. During the summer and autumn of this year, however, I have frequently been in bad health, at a time when pressing affairs of State allowed me no repose. I lost my sleep and appetite, and gradually my strength failed me. Yet even then I took no rest, not for a single day. And yesterday saw the death of His Majesty Kuang-Hsü; whereat my grief overwhelmed me. I can bear no more, and so am I come to the pass where no possible hope of recovery remains.

“Looking back upon the memories of these last fifty years, I perceive how calamities from within and aggression from without have come upon us in relentless succession, and that my life has never enjoyed a moment’s respite from anxiety. But to-day definite progress has been made towards necessary reforms. The new Emperor is but an infant, just reaching the age when wise instruction is of the highest importance. The Prince Regent and all our officials must henceforth work loyally together to strengthen the foundations of our Empire. His Majesty must devote himself to studying the interests of the country and so refrain from giving way to personal grief. That he may diligently pursue his studies, and hereafter add fresh lustre to the glorious achievements of his ancestors, is now my most earnest prayer.

“Mourning to be worn for only twenty-seven days.

“Cause this to be everywhere known!

“Tenth Moon, 23rd day (November the 15th).”

The title by which Her Majesty was canonised contains no less than twenty-two characters, sixteen of which were hers at the day of her death, the other six having been added in the Imperial Decrees which recorded her decease and praised her glorious achievements. The first character “Dutiful”—i.e. to her husband—is always accorded to a deceased Empress. It is significant of the unpractical nature of the literati, or of their cynicism, that the second of her latest titles signifies “reverend,” implying punctilious adherence to ancestral traditions! The third and fourth mean “Equal of Heaven,” which places her on a footing of equality with Confucius, while the fifth and sixth raise her even higher than the Sage in the national Pantheon, for it means “Increase in Sanctity,” of which Confucius was only a “Manifestor.” In the records of the Dynasty she will henceforth be known as the Empress “Dutiful, Reverend and Glorious,” a title, according to the laws of Chinese honorifics, higher than any woman ruler has hitherto received since the beginning of history.

Since her death the prestige of the Empress Dowager, and her hold on the imagination of the people, have grown rather than decreased. Around her coffin, while it lay first in her Palace of Peaceful Longevity and later in a hall at the foot of the Coal Hill, north of the Forbidden City, awaiting the appointed day propitious for burial, there gathered something more than the conventional regrets and honours which fall usually to the lot of China’s rulers. Officials as well as people felt that with her they had lost the strong hand of guidance, and a personality which appealed to most of them as much from the human as from the official point of view. Their affectionate recollections of the Old Buddha were clearly shown by the elaborate sacrifices paid to her manes at various periods from the day of her death to that day, a year later, when her ancestral tablet was brought home to the Forbidden City from the Imperial tombs with all pomp and circumstance.

On the All Souls’ day of the Buddhists, celebrated in the 7th Moon, and which fell in the September following her death, a magnificent barge made of paper and over a hundred and fifty feet long was set up outside the Forbidden City on a large empty space adjoining the Coal Hill. It was crowded with figures of attendant eunuchs and handmaidens, and contained furniture and viands for the use of the illustrious dead in the lower regions. A throne was placed in the bows, and around it were kneeling effigies of attendant officials all wearing their Robes of State as if the shade of Tzŭ Hsi were holding an audience.

On the morning of the All Souls’ festival the Regent, in the name of the Emperor, performed sacrifice before the barge, which was then set alight and burnt, in order that the Old Buddha might enjoy the use of it at the “yellow springs.” A day or two before her funeral, hundreds of paper effigies of attendants, cavalry, camels and other pack animals, were similarly burnt so that her spirit might enjoy all the pomp to which she had been accustomed in life.