“We are dumfoundered at this report. How can we hope ever to purify the standard of morals in the Palace and frighten evil-doers, unless we make an example of this insolent eunuch, who has dared to leave Peking without our permission and to commit these lawless deeds? The Governors of the three provinces of Shantung, Honan and Kiangsu are ordered to seek out and arrest the eunuch An, whom we had formerly honoured with rank of the sixth grade and the decoration of the crow’s feather. Upon his being duly identified by his companions, let him be forthwith beheaded, without further formalities, no attention is to be paid to any crafty explanations which he may attempt to make. The Governors concerned will be held responsible in the event of failure to effect his arrest.”
Tzŭ Hsi remained for some time in blissful ignorance of her favourite’s danger, and even of his death. No doubt the Chief Eunuch’s great unpopularity enabled Prince Kung and the Empress Tzŭ An to keep the matter secret until the offender was past helping. Ten days later, Tzŭ An issued a second Decree, extracted from her like the first by Prince Kung, in which the eunuch’s execution is recorded, as follows:—
“Ting Pao-chen now reports that the eunuch An was arrested in the T’ai An prefecture and has been summarily beheaded. Our dynasty’s house-law is most strict in regard to the proper discipline of eunuchs, and provides severe punishment for any offences which they may commit. They have always been sternly forbidden to make expeditions to the provinces, or to create trouble. Nevertheless, An Te-hai actually had the brazen effrontery to violate this law, and for his crimes his execution is only a fitting reward. In future, let all eunuchs take warning by his example; should we have further cause to complain, the chief eunuchs of the several departments of the Household, will be punished as well as the actual offender. Any eunuch who may hereafter pretend that he has been sent on Imperial business to the provinces shall be cast into chains at once, and sent to Peking for punishment.”
This Decree has a half-hearted ring, as if some of the conspirators’ fear of the coming wrath of Yehonala had crept into it. Very different in wording are the Edicts in which Tzŭ Hsi condemns an offender to death. We miss her trenchant style, that “strength of the pen” which was the secret of much of her power.
Simultaneously with the death of An, in Shantung, several eunuchs of his following were put to death by strangling; six others escaped from the police, of whom five were recaptured and executed. The Chief Eunuch’s family were sent as slaves to the frontier guards in the north-west. Several days after the execution of Tzŭ Hsi’s favourite, the eunuch who had escaped made his way back to Peking, and sent word to the Empress through Li Lien-ying, another of her confidential attendants. At first she could scarcely believe that her timorous and self-effacing colleague could have dared to sign these Decrees on her own responsibility and in secret, no matter what amount of pressure might have been brought to bear upon her. When she realised what had occurred, the Palace witnessed one of those outbursts of torrential rage with which it was to become familiar in years to come. Swiftly making her way to the “Palace of Benevolent Peace,” the residence of her Co-Regent, she wrathfully demanded an explanation. Tzŭ An, terrified, endeavoured to put the whole blame upon Prince Kung; but the plea did not serve her, and Tzŭ Hsi, after a fierce quarrel, left, vowing vengeance on them both. This event marked a turning point in the career of Yehonala, who, until then, had maintained amicable relations with her less strong-minded colleague, and all the appearances of equality in the Co-Regency. Henceforward she devoted more time and closer attention to affairs of State, consolidating her position and power with a clear determination to prevent any further interference with her supreme authority. From this time forward she definitely assumes the first place as ruler of China, relegating her colleague completely to the background.
When, on the morning after the storm, Prince Kung appeared in the Audience Hall, Tzŭ sternly rebuked him, threatening him with dismissal and the forfeiture of his titles. For the time being, however, she allowed him to go unpunished, but she never forgave the offence, and she took her revenge in due season: he suffered the effects of her resentment as long as he lived. Her first act was to pass over his son, the rightful heir to the Throne, upon the death of T’ung-Chih. It is true that in after years she permitted him to hold high office, but this was, firstly, because she could not afford to dispense with his services, and, secondly, because of her genuine affection for his daughter, whom she had adopted as her own child.
An Te-hai was succeeded in the post of Chief Eunuch and confidential attendant on her Majesty by Li Lien-ying, of whom mention has already been made. For the next forty years this Palace servant was destined to play a leading part in the government of China, to hold in his supple hands the lives and deaths of thousands, to make and unmake the highest officials of the Empire, and to levy rich tribute on the eighteen provinces. As a youth of sixteen, when he “left the family”[23] (as the Chinese euphemistically describe the making of a eunuch), Li was remarkable for his handsome appearance and good manners, advantages which never failed to carry weight with Tzŭ Hsi. It is recorded on trustworthy authority that at an early stage in his career he had so ingratiated himself with Her Majesty that he was permitted unusual liberties, remaining seated in her presence, aye, even on the Throne itself. In the privacy of her apartments he was allowed to discuss whatever subjects he chose, without being spoken to, and as years passed and his familiarity with the Old Buddha increased, he became her regular and authoritative adviser on all important State business. In later years, when speaking of Her Majesty to outsiders, even to high officials, he would use the familiar pronoun “Tsa-men” meaning “we two,” which is usually reserved for blood relations or persons on a footing of familiar equality, and he was currently known among his followers by the almost sacrilegious title of “Lord of nine thousand years,” the Emperor being Lord of ten thousand. Only on solemn State occasions did he observe the etiquette prescribed for his class and a modest demeanour.
Corrupt, avaricious, vindictive, and fiercely cruel to his enemies and rivals, it must be said in Li’s favour that he was, at least, wholly devoted and faithful to his Imperial mistress, and that at times of peril he never failed to exert himself to the utmost for her comfort and protection. He possessed moreover, other good qualities which appealed not only to Tzŭ Hsi but to many of the high Manchu officials, who did not consider it beneath their pride to throng for admission at his private residence. He was cheerful, fond of a joke, an excellent actor[24] and raconteur, and a generous host: above all, he was passing rich. At the Empress Dowager’s funeral, in November 1909, this aged retainer presented a pathetic and almost venerable spectacle, enough to make one forget for a moment the accumulated horrors of his seventy years of wickedness. Smitten with age and sickness, he could scarcely totter the short distance which the cortège had to make on foot; but of all that vast throng of officials and Palace servants, he alone showed unmistakable signs of deep and genuine grief. Watching the intelligent features of this maker of secret history, one could not but wonder what thoughts were passing through that subtle brain, as he shuffled past the Pavilion of the Diplomatic Body, escorting for the last time his great mistress,—the close confidant, not to say comrade, of all those long and eventful years. For half a century he had served her with unremitting zeal and fidelity, no small thing in a country when the allegiance of servants is so commonly bought and sold. In his youth it was he who walked and ran beside her chair as body servant; through what scenes of splendour and squalor had they both passed since then, and now he was left alone, surrounded by new faces and confronted by imminent peril of change. Yet in spite of his long life and the enervating influences of his profession, the old man’s powerful physique was by no means exhausted.
Too wise to follow in the footsteps of his unfortunate predecessor, Li never made raids on his own account into the provinces, nor did he ever attempt to gain or claim high official rank, remaining prudently content with the fourth class button, which is the highest grade to which eunuchs may legally aspire. But, under the protection and with the full knowledge of the Empress Dowager, he organised a regular system of corvées, squeezes and douceurs, levied on every high official in the Empire, the proceeds of which he frequently shared with the Old Buddha herself. As shown in another place, the Empress and her Chief Eunuch practically made common cause and a common purse in collecting “tribute” and squeezes during the wanderings of the Court in exile after 1900. At that time the Chief Eunuch, less fortunate than his mistress, had lost the whole of his buried treasure in the capital. It had been “cached” in a safe place, known only to his intimate subordinates, but one of these sold the secret to the French troops, who raided the hoard, a rich booty. One of Li’s first steps after the Court’s return was to obtain the Old Buddha’s permission to have the traitor beheaded, which was done without undue formalities. The Chief Eunuch’s fortune is estimated by Peking bankers to-day at about two millions sterling, invested chiefly in pawn-shops and money-changing establishments at the capital; this sum represents roughly his share of the provincial tribute and squeezes on official appointments for the last eight years, and the total is not surprising when we bear in mind that the price of one official post has been known to bring him in as much as three hundred and twenty thousand taels, or say forty thousand pounds.
One of the secrets of his wealth was that he never despised the day of small things. The following is the text of a letter in our possession (of which we reproduce a facsimile), written by him to one of the regular contractors of the Palace, with whom he must have had many similar transactions. The paper on which it is written is of the commonest, and the visiting card which, as usual, accompanies it, is that of an unpretentious business man; the style of the writer is terse and to the point:—