China under the Empress Dowager

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

The following account of her funeral is reproduced from The Times of 27th November, 1909:—

“The 9th of November at 5 A.M. was the hour of good omen originally chosen by the Astrologers for the departure of the remains of Her late Majesty the Empress Dowager from their temporary resting place in the Forbidden City to the mausoleum prepared for her at the Eastern Hills. To meet the convenience of the foreign representatives, the hour was subsequently changed to 7 A.M.

“The arrangements for the procession and the part taken therein by the Diplomatic Body, were generally similar to those of the funeral of His Majesty Kuang-Hsü, but the mounted troops were more numerous and better turned out, the police were noticeably smarter and well-dressed, and the pageant as a whole was in many respects more imposing. But for those who, in May last, witnessed the late Emperor’s funeral, the scene lacked one element of its brilliantly picturesque effect, namely, the bright sunshine which on that occasion threw every detail and distinctive note of the cortège into clear relief against the grey background of the Palace walls. The day was cold, with lowering clouds, and the long delay which preceded the appearance of the catafalque at the point where the Diplomatic Body was stationed had an inevitably depressing effect on the spectators.

“The catafalque was borne by eighty-four bearers, the largest number which can carry this unwieldy burden through the City gates; but beyond the walls the coffin was transferred to a larger bier borne by one hundred and twenty men. In front walked the Prince Regent, the bodyguard of Manchu Princes and the members of the Grand Council, attended by the Secretariat staff. Behind rode first a smart body of troops, followed by a large number of camels whose Mongol attendants carried tent-poles and other articles for use in the erection of the ‘matshed palaces,’ wherein the coffin rests at night at the different stages of the four days’ journey to the tombs. Behind the Mongols were borne in procession the gaudy honorific umbrellas presented to the Old Buddha on the occasion of her return from exile at Hsi-an fu in 1901: all these were burnt on the 16th instant when the body was finally entombed. Following the waving umbrellas came a body of Lama dignitaries, and after them a contingent from the Imperial Equipage Department bearing Manchu sacrificial vessels, Buddhist symbols and embroidered banners. Conspicuous in the cortège were three splendid chariots with trappings and curtains of Imperial yellow silk, emblazoned with dragons and phœnixes, and two palanquins similar to those used by the Empress Dowager on her journeys in State; these also were burned at the mausoleum. Noticeable figures in the procession were the six chief eunuchs, including the notorious Li Lien-ying and the short handsome attendant who usually accompanied the Empress’s sedan chair. The spectacle, as a whole, was most impressive; no such pomp and circumstance, say the Chinese, has marked the obsequies of any Empress of China since the funeral of the Empress Wu (circa A.D. 700) of whom the annals record that hundreds of attendants were buried alive in her mausoleum.

“The police arrangements attracted general attention by their remarkable efficiency, which many Chinese attribute to the present Empress Dowager’s constant fear of assassination. Every closed door along the route of the procession was closely guarded by soldiers and special precautions taken against bomb-throwing. The street guards were numerous and alert, and the arrangements generally were characterised by discipline and decorum. There was little confusion in the cortège, and none of the unseemly shouting usual on such occasions.

“Ninety miles away, in a silent spot surrounded by virgin pine forest and backed by protecting hills, are the Eastern Tombs, towards which, for four days, the great catafalque made its way along the yellow-sanded road. There stands the mausoleum, originally built by the faithful Jung Lu for his Imperial Mistress at a cost which stands in the government records at eight millions of taels. It is close to the ‘Ting Ling,’ the burial-place of her husband, the Emperor Hsien-Feng. To the west of it stands the tomb of her colleague and co-Regent (the Empress Tzŭ An), and on the east that of the first Consort of Hsien-Feng, who died before his accession to the Throne, and was subsequently canonised as Empress. Throughout her lifetime, and particularly of late years, Yehonala took great interest and pride in her last resting-place, visiting it at intervals and exacting the most scrupulous attention from those entrusted with its building and adornment. On one occasion, in 1897, when practically completed, she had it rebuilt because the teak pillars were not sufficiently massive. After the death of Jung Lu, Prince Ch’ing became responsible for the custody of the tomb and its precious contents—the sacrificial vessels of carved jade, the massive vases and incense burners of gold and silver, which adorn the mortuary chamber; the richly-jewelled couch to receive the coffin, and the carved figures of serving maids and eunuchs who stand for ever in attendance. After the last ceremony at the tomb, when the Princes, Chamberlains and high officials had taken their final farewell of the illustrious dead, while the present Empress Dowager, with her attendants and the surviving consorts of the Emperors Hsien-Feng and T’ung-Chih, offered the last rites in the mortuary chamber, the massive stone door of the tomb was let down and the resting-place of Tzŭ Hsi closed for ever.

“The cost of the late Emperor’s funeral has been officially recorded, with the nice accuracy which characterises Chinese finance, at 459,940 taels, 2 mace, 3 candareens and 6 li. As the cost of a funeral in China closely reflects the dignity of the deceased and the “face” of his or her immediate survivors, these figures become particularly interesting when compared with the cost of the Empress Dowager’s funeral, which is placed at one and a-quarter to one and a-half million taels. Rumour credited the Regent with an attempt to cut down this expenditure, which attempt he abandoned at the last moment in the face of the displeasure of the powerful Yehonala Clan. That the Old Buddha’s magnificent funeral was appreciated by the populace of Peking is certain, for to them she was for fifty years a sympathetic personality and a great ruler.

“The conveyance of Her Majesty’s ancestral tablet from the tombs of the Eastern Hills to its resting-place in the Temple of Ancestors in the Forbidden City was a ceremony in the highest degree impressive and indicative of the vitality of those feelings which make ancestor-worship the most important factor in the life of the Chinese. The tablet, a simple strip of carved and lacquered wood, bearing the name of the deceased in Manchu and Chinese characters, had been officially present at the burial. With the closing of the great door of the tomb the spirit of the departed ruler is supposed to be translated to the tablet, and to the latter is therefore given honour equal to that which was accorded to the sovereign during her lifetime. Borne aloft in a gorgeous chariot draped with Imperial yellow silk and attended by a large mounted escort, Tzŭ Hsi’s tablet journeyed slowly and solemnly, in three days’ stages, from the Eastern Hills to Peking. At each stage it rested for the night in a specially constructed pavilion, being ‘invited’ by the Master of the Ceremonies, on his knees and with all solemnity, to be pleased to leave its chariot and rest. For the passage of this habitation of the spirit of the mighty dead the Imperial road had been specially prepared and swept by an army of men; it had become a via sacra on which no profane feet might come or go. As the procession bearing the sacred tablet drew near to the gates of the capital, the Prince Regent and all the high officers of the Court knelt reverently to receive it. All traffic was stopped; every sound stilled in the streets, where the people knelt to do homage to the memory of the Old Buddha. Slowly and solemnly the chariot was borne through the main gate of the Forbidden City to the Temple of the Dynasty’s ancestors, the most sacred spot in the Empire, where it was ‘invited’ to take its appointed place among the nine Ancestors and their thirty-five Imperial Consorts. Before this could be done, however, it was necessary that the tablets of Tzŭ Hsi’s son, T’ung-Chih, and of her daughter-in-law, should first be removed from that august assembly, because due ceremony required that the arriving tablet should perform obeisance to those of its ancestors, and it would not be fitting for the tablet of a parent to perform this ceremony in the presence of that of a son or daughter-in-law. The act of obeisance was performed by deputy, in the person of the Regent acting for the child Emperor, and consisted of nine kowtows before each tablet in the Temple, or about 400 prostrations in all. When these had been completed, with due regard to the order of seniority of the deceased, the tablets of the Emperor T’ung-Chih and his wife were formally ‘invited’ to return to the Temple, where obeisance was made on their behalf to the shade of Tzŭ Hsi which had been placed in the shrine beside that of her former colleague and co-Regent, the Empress Tzŭ An. Thus ended the last ceremonial act of the life and death of this remarkable woman; but her spirit still watches over the Forbidden City and the affairs of her people, who firmly believe that it will in due time guide the nation to a happy issue out of all their afflictions. As time goes on, the weaknesses of her character and the errors of her career are forgotten, and her greatness only remembered. And no better epitaph could be written for this great Manchu than that of her own valedictory Decree which, rising above all the pettiness and humiliations of her reign, looking death and change steadfastly in the face, raises her in our eyes (to quote a writer in the Spectator)[130] ‘to that vague ideal state of human governance imagined by the Greek, when the Kings should be philosophers and the philosophers Kings.’”

Marble Bridge over the Lake in the Western Park which surrounds the Lake Palace.