China under the Empress Dowager

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

“To what husbands are the Imperial Princesses married?”

The first question is in allusion to the Emperor’s alleged doubtful parentage, while the second refers to a mythical New Year sacrifice, akin to those of Moloch, which the scurrilous Cantonese attributed to Tzŭ Hsi and the ladies of her Court. The last refers to the Manchu clan’s custom of intermarriage which, in the eyes of the Chinese (who disapprove even of marriage between persons of the same surname), is illegal and immoral.

These, however, are but local manifestations, and they lost much of their inspiration after the coup d’état. The anti-dynastic tendencies noticeable in the vernacular press of Shanghai, many of which assumed the form of personal hostility to the Empress, were also little more than the local result of Young China’s vague aspirations and desire for change, and reflected little weight of serious opinion. The official class and the literati as a whole were loyal to Her Majesty and regarded her with respect. They do not fail to express admiration of her wisdom and statecraft, which kept the Empire together under circumstances of great difficulty. To her selection and support of Tseng Kuo-fan they generally attribute China’s recovery from the disasters of the Taiping rebellion, and to her sagacity in 1898 they ascribe the country’s escape from dangers of sudden revolution. They admit that had it not been for her masterly handling of the Tsai Yüan conspiracy (1860-61), it is doubtful whether the Dynasty could have held together for a decade, and they realise, now that her strong hand no longer grasps the helm, that the ship of State is likely to drift into dangerous waters.

The everyday routine of Tzŭ Hsi’s life has been well described in Miss Carl’s accurate and picturesque account of the Palace ceremonial and amusements,[134] the first authoritative picture of la vie intime of the Chinese Court. Apart from a keen natural aptitude for State affairs (similar to that of Queen Victoria, whom she greatly admired from afar), Tzŭ Hsi maintained to the end of her days a lively interest in literature and art, together with a healthy and catholic appetite for amusement. She had an inveterate love for the theatre, for masques and pageants, which she indulged at all times and places, taking a professional interest in the players and giving much advice about the performances, which she selected daily from a list submitted to her. It was a matter of comment, and some hostile criticism by Censors, that even during the sojourn of the Court in the provincial wilderness at Hsi-an, she summoned actors to follow the Court and perform as usual.

Her private life had, no doubt, its phases. Of its details we know but little prior to the period of the restoration of the Summer Palace in the early nineties. In middle age, however, when she had assimilated the philosophy and practice of the “happy mean,” her tastes became simple and her habits regular. She was passionately fond of the Summer Palace, of its gardens and the lake amongst the hills, and towards the end of her life went as seldom as possible into the city. She loved the freedom of the I-ho Yüan, its absence of formal etiquette, her water-picnics and the familiar intercourse of her favourite ladies, with whom she would discuss the day’s news and the gossip of the Imperial Clans. With these, especially with the wife of Jung Lu and the Princess Imperial, she would talk endlessly of old times and make plans for the future.

Her love of literature and profound knowledge of history did much to win for her the respect of the Mandarin class, with whom the classics are a religion. In her reading she was, however, broad-minded, not to say omnivorous; it was her custom to spend a certain time daily in having ancient and modern authors read aloud by eunuchs specially trained in elocution. She believed thoroughly in education, though realising clearly the danger of putting new wine into old skins; and she perceived towards the end of her life that the rapidly changing conditions of the Empire had rendered the wisdom of China’s Sages of little practical value as a basis of administration. Her clearness of perception on this point, contrasted with her action in 1898, is indeed remarkable, but it should be remembered that much of her opposition to the Emperor’s policy of reform was the result of personal pique and outraged dignity, as in the case of her decision to become a Boxer leader in 1900. As far back as 1876, at the time of the establishment of the T’ung Wen College at Peking for the teaching of languages and science, we find her publicly rebuking a Censor who had declared that mathematics was a subject suitable only for the Court of Astronomers.

“The Throne has established this College,” she observed, “because it is incumbent on our scholars to learn the rudiments of mathematics and astronomy. These are not to be regarded, as the Memorialist suggests, as cunning and mechanical branches of knowledge. Let our officials study them earnestly, and they will soon acquire proficiency; at the same time let them avoid that undesirable specialisation which comes from concentrated study of the classics. We are now borrowing educational methods from foreign countries with a view to broadening our own and increasing its accuracy, but we have no intention of abandoning the teachings of the Sages. How, then, can our action prove detrimental to the minds of scholars?”

Frequent reference has been made in previous chapters to the extravagance and licentious display of Tzŭ Hsi’s Court during the years of the first Regency. The remonstrances of the Censors on the subject were so numerous and outspoken, so circumstantial in their charges, as to leave little room for doubt that the Empress deserved their indignant condemnation. All the records of that period, and particularly from 1862 to 1869, point to the evil and steadily-increasing influence of the eunuchs, whose corruption and encouragement of lavish expenditure resulted in continual demands on the provincial exchequers. But even at the height of what may fairly be called her riotous living, Tzŭ Hsi always had the good grace to concur publicly in the virtuous suggestions of her monitors, and to conciliate public opinion by professions of a strong desire for economy. She would have her Imperial way, her splendid pageants and garnered wealth of tribute, but the Censors should have their “face.” On the occasion of the Emperor T’ung-Chih’s wedding in 1869, when the Grand Council had solemnly deprecated any increase in her Palace expenditure because of the impoverished state of the people brought about by the Taiping rebellion, she issued a Decree stating that, “so great was her perturbation of mind at the prevalent sufferings of her people, that she grudged even the money spent on the inferior raiment she was wearing, and the humble fare that was served at her Palace table.” She was, in fact, as lavish of good principles as of the public funds. But it is to be remembered that a large proportion of the vast sums spent on her Palaces, on the building of her tomb, and on her Court festivities, represents the squeezes of officials and eunuchs, which, however solemnly the Grand Council might denounce extravagance, are in practice universally recognised as inseparable from the Celestial system of government. Tzŭ Hsi was fully aware that much of the enormous expenditure charged to her Privy Purse went in “squeeze,” but she good-humouredly acquiesced in a custom as deeply ingrained in the Chinese as ancestral worship, and from which she herself derived no small profit. At her receptions to the ladies of the Diplomatic Body she would frequently enquire as to the market prices of household commodities, in order, as she cheerfully explained, to be able to show her Chief Eunuch that she was aware of his monstrous over-charges.

Combined, however, with her love of sumptuous display and occasional fits of Imperial munificence, Tzŭ Hsi possessed a certain housewifely instinct of thrift which, with advancing age, verged on parsimony. The Privy Purse of China’s ruler is not dependent upon any well-defined civil list, but rather upon the exigencies of the day, upon the harvests and trade of the Empire, whence, through percentages of squeezes levied by the provincial authorities, come the funds required to defray the expenses of the Court.[135] The uncertainty of these remittances partly explains the Empress Dowager’s hoarding tendencies, that squirrel instinct which impelled her to bury large sums in the vaults of the Palace, and to accumulate a vast store of silks, medicines, clocks, and all manner of valuables in the Forbidden City. At the time of her death her private fortune, including a large number of gold Buddhas and sacrificial vessels stored in the Palace vaults, was estimated by a high official of the Court at about sixteen millions sterling. The estimate is necessarily a loose one, being Chinese, but it was known with tolerable certainty that the hoard of gold[136] buried in the Ning-Shou Palace at the time of the Court’s flight in 1900, amounted to sixty millions of taels (say, eight millions sterling), and the “tribute” paid by the provinces to the Court at T’ai-yüan and Hsi-an would amount to as much more.

Tzŭ Hsi was proud of her personal appearance, and justly so, for she retained until advanced old age a clear complexion and youthful features. (To an artist who painted her portrait not long before her death she expressed a wish that her wrinkles should be left out.) By no means free from feminine vanity, she devoted a considerable amount of time each day to her toilet, and was particularly careful about the dressing of her hair. At the supreme moment of the Court’s flight from the Palace, in 1900, she was heard to complain bitterly at being compelled to adopt the Chinese fashion of head-dress.