“Yü Lu is one of the highest officials in the Empire, and very different from military men of the Tung Fu-hsiang type. It is hard to explain his blear-eyed stupidity. No doubt he has been led astray by the deceitful representations of your Majesty’s Ministers, who have even led the Throne to depart from the path of wisdom formerly followed. It is these Ministers who are entirely to blame.
“The Grand Secretary, Hsü T’ung, was born stupid; he knows nothing of the needs and dangers of our times. Grand Councillor Kang Yi, an obstinate bigot, herds with traitors and fawns on rebels; Ch’i Hsiu is arrogant and obstinate; while Chao Shu-ch’iao, the President of the Board of Punishments, is crafty-hearted and a master of sycophancy.
“After the first entry of the Boxers into Peking, your Majesties held a special audience, at which all the Princes and Ministers were present, and our advice was asked in regard to the adoption of a policy of encouragement or repression. Your Memorialists replied that the Boxers were anything but patriots and were of no use against foreigners; at the same time we earnestly begged that war should not be lightly declared against the whole world. It was on this occasion that Hsü Tung, Kang Yi, and the rest of them actually dared to rebuke us in the presence of the Throne. Now, if it were a fact that a hundred thousand newly sharpened swords might suffice to overcome our enemies, we, your Memorialists, by no means devoid of natural feelings of patriotism, would welcome the day when these foreigners might once for all be smitten hip and thigh. But if such a result can by no means be achieved under existing conditions, then it is not we who deserve the name of traitors, but those Ministers who, by their errors, have led the State to the brink of disaster.
“When, in the 5th Moon, your Majesties ordered Kang Yi and Chao Shu-ch’iao to proceed to Cho Chou and order the Boxers to disperse, the latter forced these Ministers to go down upon their knees and burn incense before their altar while they chanted their nonsensical incantations. Chao Shu-ch’iao knew perfectly well the degrading folly of this performance, and openly lamented his part in it; but he had not courage sufficient to contradict Kang Yi, who believed in the Boxers’ magic, so that, upon his returning, he joined Kang Yi in reporting to the Throne that the Boxers had all dispersed. But if they have been dispersed, how comes it now that their numbers have been so greatly increased? And how does the Throne propose to deal with Ministers who dare to memorialise in this haphazard manner?
“Tientsin has already fallen, and the foreign troops draw nearer every day. So far, no magical arts of the Boxers have availed us anything, and it is our deliberate opinion that, within a month, the enemy will be knocking at the gates of our Capital. We ask your Majesties to consider the dire consequences of the situation, and the possibility of the desecration of the shrines of your sacred ancestors. Our minds are filled with horror at the thought of what may occur. But in the meantime Hsü T’ung, Kang Yi, and the rest of them laugh and talk together. The ship is sinking, but they remain splendidly unconcerned, just as if they believed in the Boxers as a tower of refuge. From such men, the State can no more derive council than from idiots and drunkards. Even some of the highest in the land, your Majesty’s own Ministers and members of the Grand Council, have bowed the knee before the Boxers. Many a Prince’s palace and a ducal mansion has been converted into a shrine for the Boxer cult. These Boxers are fools, but they have been clever enough all the same to befool Hsü T’ung, Kang Yi, and their followers. Hsü T’ung, Kang Yi, and the rest of them are fools, but they in their turn have contrived to befool the Princes and Nobles of the Imperial clan. All our calamities may be directly traced to these Ministers, to Hsü T’ung, Kang Yi, and the rest of them, and unless your Majesties will order their immediate decapitation, thereby vindicating the majesty of the law, it is inevitable that every official in and near the Court must accept the Boxer heresies, and other Provincial Governors, following the lead of Yü Lu and Yü Hsien, will adopt and spread them.
“And not only on Hsü T’ung, Kang Yi, and their followers should the Imperial wrath fall, but also upon those in high places whose midsummer madness has led them to protect and encourage the Boxers. Their close relationship to your Majesties, or their position as Imperial clansmen, should in no wise protect them from the penalty of their guilt. Thus only can the foreigners be led to recognise that this Boxer madness, this challenge to the world in arms, was the work of a few misguided officials, and in no sense an expression of the intentions or wishes of the Throne. War will then immediately give way to peace, and the altars of our gods will remain inviolate. And when these things have come to pass, may your Majesties be pleased to order the execution of your Memorialists, so that the spirits of Hsü Tung, Kang Yi, and their associates may be appeased. Smilingly should we go to our death, and enter the realms of Hades. In a spirit of uncontrollable indignation and alarm, we present this Memorial with tears, and beg that your Majesties may deign to peruse it.”
XIX
SIDELIGHTS ON TZŬ HSI’S STATECRAFT
Yüan Chang and Hsü Ch’ing-ch’eng were not alone in warning Her Majesty of the danger and folly of her Boxer proclivities. At the beginning of the crisis Liu K’un-yi, the aged Viceroy of Nanking, sorely distressed at the suicidal policy into which she had been led, wrote and despatched, by telegram and swift couriers, a Memorial, in which he implored her to put a stop to the attacks on the Legations. Tzŭ Hsi’s reply to this document clearly reveals the indecision which characterised her at this period, her hopes of revenge on the hated foreigner struggling ever with her fears of impending disaster. The diary of Ching Shan has shown us the woman under the fierce stress of her conflicting emotions and swiftly-changing impulses, of those moods which found their alternating expression in the ebb and flow of the struggle around the Legations for more than a month after she had received and answered the southern Viceroy’s Memorial. Of his unswerving loyalty she had no more doubt than of that of Jung Lu, and his ripe wisdom had stood her in good stead these many years. Nevertheless, his advice could not turn her from the path of revenge, from her dreams of power unrestrained. All it could effect, aided, no doubt, by the tidings of the Allies’ capture of the Taku Forts, was to cause her to prepare possible by-paths and bolt-holes of escape and exoneration. To this end she addressed direct appeals, a tissue of artless fabrications, to the Sovereigns and chief rulers of the Great Powers, and proceeded next to display her sympathy with the besieged Ministers in the Legations by presents of fruits and vegetables, to which she subsequently referred with pride as convincing proof of her good faith and goodwill. Her Majesty, in fact, was induced to hedge, while never abandoning hope that Prince Tuan and his Boxers would make good their boast and drive the barbarians into the sea.
The Viceroy’s Memorial is chiefly interesting as an example of that chief and unalterable sentiment which actuates the Chinese literati and has been one of the strongest pillars of Manchu rule, namely, that the Emperor is infallible, a sentiment based on the fact that complete and unquestioning loyalty to the Throne is the essential cornerstone of the whole fabric of Confucian morality, filial piety, and ancestral worship. While deprecating the Imperial folly, the Viceroy is therefore compelled to ascribe it to everyone but Her Majesty, and to praise the Imperial wisdom and benevolence.