China under the Empress Dowager

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

Notice sent by the Yüan family to their relatives regarding the death of Yüan Ch’ang, September, 1900.

After the usual conventional formulæ of grief and self-abasement, this circular letter proceeds as follows:—

“We realise that it was because of his outspoken courage in resisting the evil tendencies of the times that our parent met his untimely death, and we now submit the following report of the circumstances for the information of our relatives and friends.

“When, in the 5th Moon of this year, the Boxer madness commenced, our late father, in his capacity as a Minister of the Foreign Office, felt extremely anxious in regard to the situation, and his anxiety was shared by his colleague, Hsü Ching-ch’eng. On three occasions when the Princes and Ministers were received in audience, my father expressed his opinion to the Throne that the Boxers were utterly unreliable. ‘I have been in person,’ he said, ‘to Legation Street, and have seen the corpses of Boxers lying on all sides. They had most certainly been shot, proving that their unholy rites availed them nothing. They should be exterminated and not used as Government forces.’ On hearing this advice, the Emperor, turning to Hsü Ching-ch’eng, enquired whether China is strong enough to resist the foreigners or not, and other questions bearing on the position of the Foreign Powers abroad. Hsü replied without hesitation that China was far too weak to think of fighting the whole world. His Majesty was so much impressed by what he had heard that he caught hold of Hsü by the sleeve and seemed much distressed. Hsü sorrowfully left the presence, and proceeded with our father to draft the first of their joint Memorials.

“Later on, when the bombardment of the Legations was in full swing, our father observed to Hsü, ‘This slaughtering of Envoys is a grave breach of all international law. If the Legations are destroyed and the Powers then send an expedition to avenge them, what will become of our country? We must oppose this folly, you and I, even at the risk of our lives.’ So they put in their second Memorial, which never appeared in the Gazette, but which so frightened the Boxer princes and Ministers that they slackened for a while in their attacks on the foreigners. The preservation of the Legations on this occasion was really due to this Memorial, and from this moment the enemies of Hsü and our father became more than ever bent on revenge.

“In the last few days of the 6th Moon (July 15th to 25th) the foreign armies were massing for their march on Peking, and our father said to Hsü, ‘We are only waiting for death. Why should we delay it any longer?’ So they handed in their third Memorial. In this document they declared that the situation was becoming desperate, that even the Princes of the Blood and the Ministers of the Grand Council had come to applaud these Boxers, and to assist in deceiving their Majesties. There was only one way left to avoid dire peril and hold back the foreign armies, and that was to put an end to these Boxers, and to do this it was necessary to begin by beheading their leaders among the Princes and Ministers. Having sent in this Memorial, our father said to our mother ‘Things have now come to such a pass that, whether I speak out or keep silence, my death is certain. Rather than be murdered by these treacherous Ministers, I prefer to die at the hands of the public executioner. If only by my death I can convince the Throne of the peril of the situation, I shall die gladly.’

“We all crowded round our father and wept. Calmly he spake to us, saying, ‘I am giving my life for the State. What other thought have I now? You must decide for yourselves whether you will remain in Peking or return to our home in the south.’ He then gave us a solemn admonition in regard to our duties of loyalty and patriotism.

“On the second day of the 7th Moon, (July 27th) he was arrested and taken to the Board of Punishments. Next day, at 1 P.M., ‘his duty was finally consummated.’ The execution ground was crowded with a mob of Boxers. Angrily some of them asked him why he had borne a grudge, and spoken evil, against the ‘Patriotic Harmony Militia.’ Our father mockingly answered ‘A statesman speaks out in obedience to a sense of duty. How should such as you understand?’

“We were informed by the gaolers that our father and Hsü had chatted quietly and contentedly in prison. They had asked for paper and ink, and had written over twenty sheets, but this document was found by the Boxers and burned. Was it, we wonder, a valedictory Memorial to the Throne, or a last mandate to their families? We cannot say, and we shall never know. Alas, alas, that we, undutiful sons as we are, should have to bear this crowning sorrow! We have failed in our duty both as sons and as men. Our mother still survives, and our father’s burial remains to be attended to, so that we feel bound to go on, drawing the breath of pain, so as to perform our duty to our lamented sire. On the 8th of this Moon we propose to carry his remains to a place of temporary sepulture in the Garden of ‘Wide Friendship’ at Hangchow, and shall escort our mother to her home. We shall set up the tablet of our father in a building adjoining his temporary grave, and there weep and lament.”

If to meet an undeserved doom with high courage is heroism, then these men were indeed heroes. In reading their Memorials—and especially the last of them—one is inevitably and forcibly reminded of the best examples in Greek and Roman history. In their high-minded philosophy, their instinctive morality and calm contemplation of death, there breathes the spirit of Socrates, Seneca and Pliny, the spirit which has given European civilisation its classical models of noble fortitude and many of its finest inspirations, the spirit which, shorn of its quality of individualism, has been the foundation of Japan’s greatness. In the last of these three Memorials, their swan-song, there rings the true heroic note, clear-seeing, earnest and fearless. The first, though forwarded in the name of Yüan alone, was drafted conjointly with Hsü Ching-ch’eng. Hsü, well-known in diplomatic circles by his having been Minister in St. Petersburg and Berlin, had not the same high reputation for personal integrity and disinterested patriotism as his friend, but whatever his former failings, he made full amends by the unflinching nobility of purpose that led to his death.