China under the Empress Dowager

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

Russia’s designs in Turkestan, he continued, threatened England no less than China. If Li Hung-chang could persuade the British Minister that England’s interests were identical with those of China, surely the British Government’s assistance might be forthcoming? China possessed, moreover, several distinguished generals, who should forthwith be summoned to the capital, and given command of troops at different points between Peking and Manchuria. It was high time that China’s prestige should be made manifest and re-established. And in his peroration he says:—

“I am not indulging in empty resounding phrases, or asking Your Majesties to risk the Empire upon a single throw of the dice, but the crisis daily increases in seriousness: Europe is interfering in our sovereign rights, while even Japan threatens to take territory from us. If now we submit to the arbitrary proceedings of Russia, all the other Powers will imitate her action, and we shall be compelled sooner or later to take up arms in self-defence. The present, therefore, is the moment for a decisive campaign; we have good chances of victory, and even should we meet with defeat in the New Territory it would not serve Russia greatly, for she could scarcely hope to penetrate beyond the Great Wall, or to cross the border into Kansu, so that, even if victorious, she would be severely embarrassed. If we postpone action for a few years Tso Tsung-t’ang will be too old to conduct military operations, and Li Hung-chang will be also advancing in years. Russia will hem us in on all sides, and our courage will suffer from our very inaction. It is better to fight Russia to-day on our furthermost frontier, than to wait until we have to give battle at the gates of Peking: it will then be too late for repentance. We must fight sooner or later, and in any case, we cannot consent to the retrocession of Ili. Come what may, Ch’ung Hou must be beheaded. This is not merely my private opinion, but the unanimous decision of all your leading Statesmen. The provinces may work together to prepare for war, all your servants may set an example of courage. Our Foreign Office may clearly express and insist upon our rights, but in the last instance the decision of affairs rests with Your Majesty the Empress Dowager, to whom we must needs look for a firm and consistent policy.”

In spite of its childish arguments and colossal ignorance of foreign affairs, and in spite of the absurdity of allowing the nation’s military operations to be criticised and dictated by a theoretical scholar, this Memorial had a most remarkable effect on the opinion of the Court, and Tzŭ Hsi commanded that its author should be consulted by the Foreign Office on all important questions of State—a striking case of parmi les aveugles. Chang was promoted to be Vice-President of a Board, and within a year was made Governor of Shansi, where he further increased his reputation by his entirely sincere attack upon opium smoking and poppy cultivation. Throughout his career, safe in the comfortable seclusion of his Yamên, and judging every question of foreign policy by the light of the history of previous Dynasties, Chang Chih-tung was always of a bellicose disposition on paper. He displayed it again in 1884, when he advocated the war with France, and became acting Viceroy at Canton. (He was a firm believer in the military genius of the swash-buckling Li Ping-heng, even to the day when this notorious reactionary met his death with the forlorn hope of the Boxers.) When the French troops were defeated by the Chinese forces at Langshan, Chang claimed and received no small credit for an event so unusual in Chinese modern history, and became so elated thereby that he sent in a Memorial strongly recommending that the victory should be followed up by an invasion of all French territory between the Chinese frontier and Hanoi. When this advice was rejected, he put in another bitter Memorial of remonstrance which created an immense impression on public opinion. He denounced the peace which was subsequently signed and by which China lost Annam, and he never forgave his rival and opponent, Li Hung-chang, for his share in this result.

Chang’s share in the coup d’état of 1898 aptly illustrates his opportunism. It was he who from Wuch’ang originally recommended some thirty “progressives” to the notice of the Emperor at the beginning of that fateful year, and amongst these was Liang Ch’i-ch’ao, the chief colleague and henchman of K’ang Yu-wei. Rejoiced at the great Viceroy’s support, the Emperor summoned him to Peking to assume direction of the new movement, hoping the more from his assistance as Chang’s views always carried weight with the Empress Dowager. It is impossible to say what course Chang would have followed had he come to Peking, or what effect his presence might have had in preventing the collapse of the Emperor’s plans, but as luck would have it, he had only proceeded as far as Shanghai, when he was ordered back to his post in Hupei by an Imperial Decree, which directed him first to settle a troublesome missionary case that had just arisen. Immediately after this, the dismissal of Weng T’ung-ho, and the appointment of Jung Lu to Tientsin, showed him that a crisis was impending and that the reactionary party held the better cards; he played therefore for his own hand, anticipating that the Empress Dowager would speedily come to the front as leader of the Manchu Conservatives. It was at this particular juncture that he wrote and published his famous treatise on education, intended to refute the arguments of a revolutionary pamphlet that was then being widely circulated in the provinces of his jurisdiction. His treatise, by its brilliant style rather than by its arguments, created a great impression; its effect on the Chinese reader’s mind was to emphasise the wisdom of learning everything possible of the material arts and forces of Europe, while keeping the foreigner himself at arm’s length.

In 1900, at the urgent request of the Viceroy of Nanking (Lui K’un-yi) and of Li Hung-chang, he agreed to join in a Memorial impeaching Prince Tuan, and telegrams were exchanged between these high officials to discuss the form which this document should take. In the first instance, Chang had declined to protest against the Emperor’s deposition for the reason, which he justified by historical precedent, that the suicide of the Censor Wu K’o-tu, twelve years before, had justified Her Majesty in placing a new Emperor on the Throne. He concurred in the decision of the Nanking Viceroy to head off any Boxer rising in the Yangtsze Provinces, but he was obviously uneasy at his own position in having to disobey the Empress Dowager’s anti-foreign Decrees, and he hedged to the best of his ability by beheading two prominent reformers at Wuch’ang. No sooner had the form of the document impeaching Prince Tuan been practically decided, than he took fright at the thought that the Prince might eventually triumph and, as father of the Emperor-elect, wreak vengeance on his enemies; he therefore telegraphed to Li Hung-chang at Shanghai, begging that his signature be withheld from the Memorial. Li Hung-chang, who dearly loved his joke, promptly sent off the Memorial with Chang Chih-tung’s signature attached thereto, and then telegraphed informing him that he had done so, and asking whether he desired that a second telegram be sent to Her Majesty cancelling his signature? Chang was for several days in a state of the greatest distress (which was only relieved when the Boxers were finally routed), and his mood was not improved when a pair of scrolls were sent to him anonymously, with inscriptions which may be roughly translated as follows:—

“Full of patriotism, but quite devoid of any real ability or intelligence.”

“As an administrator a bungler, but remarkable for originating magnificent schemes.”

Before his death, Chang had achieved a curiously mixed reputation, revered as he was by all scholars throughout the Empire, yet denounced on all sides for administrative incapacity. As an instance of the childish self-sufficiency which characterised him to the end, nothing is more remarkable than the suggestion which he solemnly submitted to the Throne, during the course of the peace negotiations for the Portsmouth Treaty after the conclusion of the war between Russia and Japan. At this juncture, the Empress Dowager had telegraphed inviting suggestions for China’s future policy from all the high provincial authorities. Chang telegraphed five suggestions in reply, one of which was that China should come to an agreement with Japan to send two hundred thousand Japanese troops to Manchuria, and in the event of Russia proceeding to attack Chinese territory, that Japan should be requested to garrison Urga. This was the idea of China’s foremost literary statesman in July, 1905, but there were not lacking enemies of his who avowed that his political views were considerably affected by the fact that he had contracted loans from Japanese financiers. Whatever the cause of his views, he had reason to change them completely before he died.

TSO TSUNG-T’ANG

The Chinese look upon Tseng Kuo-fan, the conqueror of the Taiping rebels, as the greatest military commander in modern history; but they regard Tso Tsung-t’ang, the hero of the long Mahomedan campaign, as very near to him in glory. Both Generals were natives of Hunan (a fact which seems to entitle the people of that province to assume something of a truculent attitude to the rest of the Empire), and both were possessed of indisputable qualities of leadership and organisation, remarkable enough in men trained to literary pursuits. Both were beloved of the people for their personal integrity, courage and justice.