With the Empress Dowager of China

by Katharine A. Carl

The movement then became a veritable torrent, rushing madly along, dashing aside all opposition and overwhelming right and reason.

The Emperor and Empress Dowager, powerful and autocratic as they are, could not stem the current, and only by going with it could they ever hope to bring judgment and reason to the surface again. No ruler in the world can or ever has been able to stop an uprising of his people when the latter felt they had right on their side or had been downtrodden or oppressed. Their Celestial Majesties were obliged to wait until the popular fury had somewhat abated before they could even attempt it. No sane person could believe that the Empress Dowager, with her natural intelligence and after thirty years of government and knowledge of foreign methods, did not know that this attack on the foreign representatives by the Chinese people would bring on severe reprisals. But she was powerless to do more than she did at the time. Their Majesties could not go against the people in their maddened state of mind. They hoped by joining the Imperial forces to the wild insurgents that these seething masses might be brought to reason. The mob was given a semblance of right by a declaration of war on the part of the government after the forts of Taku were taken by the foreign war-ships (which was really the first act of war of this unfortunate episode).

When I saw the position of the Legation quarter and especially that of the British Legation, where all the foreigners finally congregated—open to attack on every side, lying under the very walls of the Palace and the Imperial City—I felt convinced that had there not been some restraining force within their own ranks, the Chinese could have wiped out the foreigners in less than a week. Bad firing on their part could only have averted, for a short space, the inevitable result to the Legations. Had there not been some power that was acting as a check upon the Chinese, no European would have been left to tell the tale; and this restraining force I feel confident came from the Emperor and the Empress Dowager themselves.

The Empress Dowager (with the Emperor) was at the Summer Palace, as usual, during the summer of 1900. Though urged by her ministers and the Princes to remain there, where she was out of danger or could easily escape at its approach, she insisted on returning to the Capital and went into the Winter Palace a week before the Allies reached the city. She hoped as a “dernier resort” that the presence of the Sacred Persons, Their Majesties, in the city might serve as a check upon the soldiers and people, now maddened by their own fury; for the Imperial troops, instead of checking the insurgents and leavening the masses by their right and reason, had, instead, become imbued with the same spirit as the Boxers themselves! But the Empress Dowager, on this occasion, counted too strongly on her popularity and upon the respect that the people felt for the “Sacred Persons,” for even after their return to the Capital, even Their Majesties’ presence—even the issuing of Imperial edicts posted all over the city for the people to protect, or at least cease their attacks on the Legations—were powerless to do more than intermittently check the attacks.

Finally the Allies reached and entered the city! The Empress Dowager, discouraged and finding herself powerless, finally succumbed to the fears of her entourage for her Person. She, herself, became almost panic-stricken at the thought of falling into the hands of the foreigners, whose depredations and cruelty to the Chinese on that memorable march from Tientsin had all been reported to her with the usual exaggerations. Her indomitable spirit was broken. She consented, in an agony of womanly fear, to fly. She was disguised as a common woman, her long finger nails, which would have revealed her exalted rank, were cut off, and, in a common cart, she made her escape from the city. As she had refused to go until the last moment, everything at the Palace was left in the wildest confusion. Neither her jewelry, nor hardly sufficient clothing, was taken. She did not leave the Palace until several hours after the foreign troops had passed the Water Gate and were already within the walls of the English Legation. She had held out as long as possible.

The memorable flight to Singan Fu began that night. The Court was accompanied by a regiment of Imperial troops, but such was their demoralized condition, so many Boxers were among the soldiers, that rank insubordination prevailed. Neither the officers, nor even the presence in their midst of the Sacred Persons, served as any check upon the soldiers. The greatest confusion prevailed. The maddest of the insurgents had begun to look forward to retribution and to realize that punishment would be inevitably visited upon them either by the foreigners or by the Chinese Government when things calmed down, and this thought seemed but to madden them further.

As the flight led the Imperial party through the section of country where the society of Boxers had the greatest number of adherents, the people, in many instances, refused food and shelter to the Imperial fugitives. They felt the Court had been against them and for the foreigners. Prince Su, in his account of the journey to Singan Fu, relates that neither Her Majesty nor the Emperor had enough to eat; that the soldiers stole the food that was prepared for Their Majesties. I heard at the Palace that it was only His Majesty who suffered the pangs of hunger. He, as well as all in the great company that formed the Court party, deprived himself rather than see the Empress Dowager suffer. I heard Her Majesty say that the Emperor’s food was stolen, and she did not know for several days that he was depriving himself for her. She thought all the Imperial party had her own, meager enough allowance.

The Empress Dowager saw and heard many new and strange things on that memorable journey, but she bore it all bravely. After the first panic of fear, her indomitable spirit resumed its natural poise. Her capacity for seeing the humorous side of things also helped her to bear it, and furnished her with a fund of witty anecdotes later, though she once remarked that, at the time, she did not appreciate the humorous side to its full extent. Their experiences at this time were often the theme of conversation among the Ladies at the Palace. While I was there they were constantly referred to by the Princesses and even by the eunuchs of the Court. These pampered individuals had then their first experience with the hardships of the outer world, though, to do them justice, they rarely referred to their own hardships, which must have been severe, only speaking of what Their Majesties and the Ladies had to endure. This flight from Peking to Singan Fu marks an epoch in the Palace. Everything is dated as before or after that time. After Her Majesty had accomplished this perilous journey and borne it so bravely, she was given a new title, a dearer, higher one. She was called Lao-Tzu-Tzung (the Great Ancestress) by her enthusiastic admirers.

CHAPTER XXXI THE EMPRESS DOWAGER’S CHARITIES, SENSE OF JUSTICE, EXTRAVAGANCE, AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.

The Empress Dowager’s charities are extensive; she feeds the poor and succors the unfortunate. When her sympathies are aroused, she gives freely and generously. Her edicts are constantly ordering sacks of rice and food to be distributed among the poor and sent to districts where famine reigns. There is a great refuge in Peking, which she supports, where ten thousand poor are succored and fed during the year. During the winter, edicts are constantly appearing similar to this—commanding “The distribution from the Imperial granaries of fifteen hundred piculs (133-1/3 pounds to the picul) of rice for refuges and gruel stations for the poor in North Tung Chow.” Edict of November 6, 1904.