With the Empress Dowager of China

by Katharine A. Carl

Thus are these first fruits of the awakening Spring partaken of with a simple ceremony of praise and thanksgiving. Thus are these homely plants consecrated with wishes made for the good of the country and the happiness of its rulers. It was to me a beautiful ceremony, so simple that it brought these people with all their conventions and all their forms very near the heart itself of Nature.

The annual plowing of a furrow and sowing of the first seeds of the year by the Emperor, the planting of a mulberry tree (to nourish the silkworms) by the Empress, are other touches of Nature which show how near the Chinese are to the heart of things. One of the honorary offices which is considered a great mark of Imperial favor, and which the highest ladies of the land receive with reverent gratitude, is to be appointed “Guardian of the Cocoons”; for the silk industry is one of the great sources of National prosperity in China. These ladies of high degree, guardians of the cocoons, go in annual pilgrimage to the mulberry groves, where the cocoons flourish, to make sacrifices and prayers for the health and growth of the cocoon. Being so near to Nature, the Chinese are naturally a pastoral people, a race of agriculturists; and agriculture, being thus honored by the Sacred Persons of Their Majesties, becomes a lofty ideal. Labor, which the Emperor publicly performs, loses all taint and grows into an Inspiration.

CHAPTER XXX HER MAJESTY THE EMPRESS DOWAGER

The current story that the Empress Dowager was a slave-girl and is of low origin is absolutely false. Her Majesty is the daughter of a Lieutenant-General of the Manchu forces, a position only attainable by members of the highest Manchu nobility. She belongs to the family of the White Banner, second only to that of the Yellow Banner, of which the Emperor of China, himself, is the head. At the time of the conquest of China by the Manchus, there was a fierce struggle between these two powerful families for the supremacy, and the Yellow Banner finally carried the day. The Empress Dowager was brought up with great care and highly educated by her father, a noble of great acquirements.

Like all young Manchu ladies of rank, she went to the Palace for presentation to the then Empress and Empress Dowager between the ages of seventeen and twenty. She immediately attracted them by her cleverness and wit, as well as by her charm and beauty, and, being of an honorable and high Manchu family, was at once considered as a possible wife for the Emperor. On presentation to the Emperor, she met also with his approval and was then chosen as one of the wives and given her establishment at Court. She was the fifth chosen, and hence ranked fifth on her marriage and was taken precedence of by the four others who were married before she was.

She became at once a favorite, both with the Dowager Empress and Empress, the first wife, as well as with the Emperor. She soon took precedence over the wife just over her and became fourth wife, for secondary wives can mount in degree. A brilliant woman, with exceptional qualities, takes her place in a Chinese family, as in the world, above that of her less endowed sister, unless this latter should be the first wife. Her place can never be taken, except in case of her death. The first wife of the Emperor Hsien-Feng died two months before he came to the Throne and was never Empress. There were two years of mourning, prescribed by the rites, during which time there was no official Empress. Then the first of his secondary wives was made Empress, and she it was who was the first wife when the present Empress Dowager went into the Palace as fifth wife.

Two years after her marriage, she gave birth to a son, and five years later, on the death of his father, this son became the Emperor Tung-Chih; the young mother, together with the Empress, the first wife, who had adopted him, were given the title of “Dowager Empress.” They were appointed Co-Regents for the boy Emperor, and bore, respectively, the titles of Empress of the Eastern Palace and Empress of the Western Palace, with equal rank and power. She of the Eastern Palace was a woman of quiet tastes, given to literary pursuits, with none of the remarkable executive ability of her Co-Regent, the Empress of the Western Palace, the great Tze-Hsi, who still rules the destiny of China. Though so different, they lived amicably together, thoroughly appreciated each other’s qualities, and are said to have had a sincere affection for each other, which never weakened during the whole of their long association, first as wives of the Emperor Hsien-Feng, then as Regents for his son, and afterward as Regents for the present Emperor Kwang-Hsu. The amicable relations of these two Empresses were only severed by the death of the Empress of the Eastern Palace in 1881, when posthumous honors were lavished upon her by the present Empress Dowager.

China was passing through troublous times when the young Tung-Chih, son of the Empress Dowager, came to the Throne. His father, the Emperor Hsien-Feng died at Jehol, far from Peking, where the Court had gone at the approach of the foreigners, who were aiding in quelling the Taiping rebellion. The times were critical. The integrity of China, the future, even, of the Empire, depended upon the action of its ministers and its rulers at this crisis. In the absence of the Court from Peking, some reactionary ministers, strongly anti-foreign, claimed they had been appointed by the late Emperor as Regents for young Tung-Chih. Had his mother and adopted mother, the two Empress Dowagers, joined them, anarchy might have followed; and, at least, there would have been serious foreign complications, for this anti-foreign party would never have come to terms with the foreigners, who were then in Peking. It was most important for the ruling Power, that is, the party which should become Regents, to have the support of the Empresses who held the Sacred Person of the young Emperor, under their care. They were approached by both parties. The young Empress of the Western Palace, absolutely unversed in Statecraft, and, up to that time, ignorant of all that was passing outside the Palace walls, showed wonderful perspicacity and rare judgment in her keen grasp of the situation at this time. She repudiated the anti-foreign party and joined forces with Prince Kung, whose name was then synonymous with Progress in China—an enlightened Prince and the most pro-foreign of all the Imperial Family—and she and the first Empress were appointed Regents for the young Emperor. Prince Kung was the Minister who, thanks to this coöperation of the Empress of the Western Palace, carried the negotiations with France and England to a successful conclusion.

This first political act of the young Empress of the Western Palace brought her into immediate notice, and showed the progressive statesmen of China that they had an intelligent aid in her. The Grand Council and the Princes of the Imperial Family at once recognized her superior ability and they have always stanchly supported her throughout her career and remained true to her in all vicissitudes. In fact, she has known how to inspire loyalty and great devotion in all by whom she has been surrounded.

It was through her wonderful grasp of the situation at this time and the great executive ability she showed later, that the two Empresses brought the Emperor Tung-Chih through his minority, and when he began to reign in his eighteenth year, internal troubles had been quelled and foreign complications avoided, and China was in a much more settled and prosperous condition than when he came to the Throne, twelve years before.