China under the Empress Dowager

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

My sons En Ch’u and En Shun are going to-day to a theatrical performance at Chi Shou-ch’eng’s residence. My youngest son, En Ming, is on duty at the Summer Palace, where, for the next four days, the Old Buddha will be having theatricals. I am surprised that Kang Yi is not out there also. No doubt he only returned to Peking last night, and so does not resume his place on the Council till to-morrow morning.

The Hour of the Monkey (3 P.M.).—Kang Yi has been here and I persuaded him to stay for the mid-day meal. He is a worthy brother-in-law, and, though twenty years younger than I am, as wise and discreet a man as any on the Grand Council. He tells me that several hundred foreign devil troops entered the City yesterday evening. He and Chao Shu-ch’iao arrived at Peking at 4.30 P.M., and immediately set to composing their memorial to the Empress Dowager about the heaven-sent Boxers, for presentation to-morrow morning. Prince Tuan has five days’ leave of absence: Kang Yi went to see him yesterday evening. While they were discussing the situation, at the Prince’s own house, there came a Captain of Prince Ch’ing’s bodyguard with a message. Saluting Prince Tuan, he announced that about 300 foreign soldiers had left Tientsin in the afternoon as reinforcement for the Legation Guards. Prince Ch’ing implored Prince Tuan not to oppose their entry, on the ground that a few hundred foreigners, more or less, could make no difference. He trusted that Prince Tuan would give orders to his Corps (the “Celestial Tigers” Force) not to oppose the foreign devils. It was the wish of the Old Buddha that they should be permitted to guard the Legations. Prince Tuan asked for further details, and the Captain said that Prince Ch’ing had received a telegram from the Governor-General of Chihli (Yü Lu) to the effect that the detachment carried no guns. At this Prince Tuan laughed scornfully and said “How can the few resist the many? What indeed will a hundred puny hobgoblins, more or less, matter?” Kang Yi, on the contrary, tells me that he strongly urged Prince Tuan to issue orders to Chung Li, the Commandant of the city, to oppose the entry of the foreign troops, but it appears that Jung Lu had already ordered their admission. Kang Yi is much incensed with Jung Lu about this, and cannot understand his motives. It seems that towards the close of last year Prince Tuan and Jung Lu had agreed to depose the Emperor and to put the Heir Apparent on the Throne, and Tuan confesses that, were it not for Jung Lu’s great influence with the Old Buddha she would never have agreed to select his son as Heir Apparent. But now Jung Lu is for ever denouncing the Boxers and warning the Empress against encouraging and countenancing them. Prince Tuan and Kang Yi despair of ever being able to induce her to support the Boxers whole-heartedly so long as Jung Lu is against them. As an example of her present attitude, Prince Tuan told Kang Yi one day lately that his son, the Ta-a-ko, had dressed himself up as a Boxer and was going through their drill in the Summer Palace grounds with some eunuchs. The Old Buddha saw him and promptly gave orders that he be confined to his rooms. She also reprimanded the Grand Secretary, Hsü Tung, for not keeping a better watch on his pupil and for permitting such unseemly behaviour, as she called it.

H.M. The Empress Dowager and Ladies of her Court (1903).

	Daughters of H. E. Yü Keng.	Wife of H. E. Yü Keng, ex-Minister to Paris.
Second wife of late Emperor.	H.M. Tzŭ Hsi.	Empress Consort of Kuang-Hsü, now Empress Dowager.

After leaving Prince Tuan’s house, Kang Yi had gone out of the city by the Ch’ien Men and had seen the foreign troops pass in. The people muttered curses, he says, but no one molested them. What does it matter? None of them will ever leave the city. Kang Yi’s journey to Chu-chou has convinced him that the whole province stands together as one man; even boys in their teens are drilling. Not a doubt of it; the foreigner will be wiped out this time! At Chu-chou the Departmental Magistrate, a man named Kung, had arrested several Boxer leaders, but Kang Yi and Chao Shu-ch’iao ordered them to be released and made them go through their mystic evolutions and drill. It was a wonderful sight, scarcely to be believed; several of them were shot, some more than once, yet rose uninjured from the ground. This exhibition took place in the main courtyard of the Magistrate’s Yamên, in the presence of an enormous crowd, tight pressed, as compact as a wall. Chao Shu-ch’iao remembers having seen many years ago, in his native province of Shensi, a similar performance, and it is on record that similar marvels were seen at the close of the Han Dynasty, when Chang Chio headed the Yellow Turban insurrection against the Government and took many great cities with half a million of followers. They were said to be under the protection of the Jade Emperor[72] and quite impervious to sword-thrusts. Kang Yi and Chao Shu-Ch’iao will memorialise the Empress to-morrow, giving the results of their journey and begging her to recognise the “patriotic train-bands” as a branch of the army. But they should be placed under the supreme command of Prince Tuan and Kang Yi, as Jung Lu, the Commander-in-Chief of the Northern army, is so incredulous as to their efficacy against foreign troops.

Although Major Domo Li Lien-ying is a warm supporter of the Boxers, and never wearies of describing their feats to the Old Buddha, feats which he himself has witnessed, it is by no means certain that the “kindly Mother” will heed him so long as Jung Lu is opposed to any official encouragement of the movement. And, besides, the nature of the Empress is peace-loving; she has seen many springs and autumns. I myself know well her refined and gentle tastes, her love of painting, poetry, and the theatre. When in a good mood she is the most amiable and tractable of women, but at times her rage is awful to witness. My father was Comptroller-General of the Imperial Household, and it was his lot on one occasion to experience her anger. This was in the sixth year of T’ung Chih (1868), when she learned that the chief eunuch, “Hsiao An’rh,”[73] had been decapitated in Shantung by the orders of the Co-Regent, the late “Empress Dowager of the East.” She accused the Comptrollers of the Household of being leagued together in treachery against her, as they had not told her of what was going on she declared that Prince Kung was plotting against her life, and that all her attendants were associated in his treason. It was years before she forgave him. All An’s fellow-eunuchs were examined under torture by the Department responsible for the management and discipline of the Household. When the chief eunuch’s betrayer was discovered by this means, he was flogged to death by her orders in the Palace. But nowadays the Old Buddha’s heart has softened, even towards foreigners, and she will not allow any of them to be done away with. One word from her would be sufficient to bring about their immediate and complete destruction, so that neither dog nor fowl be left alive, and no trace be left of all their foreign buildings. Kang Yi stayed with me about two hours and left to go and see Prince Tuan, who was expecting Major Domo Li Lien-ying to come into the city this afternoon.

K’un Hsiu, Vice-President of the Board of Works, called to see me. He tells me that Prince Ch’ing habitually ridicules the Boxers in private conversation, declaring them to be utterly useless, and unworthy of even a smile from a wise man. In public, however, he is most cautious—last week when the Old Buddha asked his opinion of them he replied by vaguely referring to the possible value of train-bands for protection of the Empire.

9 P.M.—My son En Ch’u has returned from Chi Shou-ch’eng’s theatricals; everyone was talking, he says, of Jung Lu’s folly in allowing the foreign troops to enter the city yesterday. Chi’s father-in-law, Yü Hsien, has written to him from Shansi saying that for the present there are but few Boxers enrolled in that province, but he is doing his best to further the movement, so that Shansi may unite with the other provinces of the north “to destroy those who have aroused the Emperor’s wrath.” By common report, Yüan Shih-k’ai has now become a convert to Christianity: if he too were to suppress the movement in Shantung, not death itself could expiate his guilt.

En Chu’s wife is most undutiful; this evening she has had a quarrel with my senior concubine, and the two women almost came to blows. Women are indeed difficult to manage; as Confucius has said, “Keep them at a distance, they resent it; treat them familiarly, and they do not respect you.” I am seventy-eight years of age and sore troubled by my family; their misconduct is hard for an old man to bear.