The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea

by Trumbull White

OPIUM SMOKERS.

Meanwhile in the summer following the conclusion of the treaty of Peking, 1861, the emperor, Hien Feng, breathed his last at Jehol, an event which was in popular belief foretold by the appearance of a comet in the early part of the summer. He was succeeded to the throne by his only son, a mere child, and the offspring of one of the imperial concubines. He adopted the name of Tung Chih. On account of his youth the administration of affairs was placed in the hands of the two dowager empresses, the wife of the last emperor and the mother of the new one. These regents were aided by the counsels of the boy emperor’s uncle, Prince Kung.

Under the direction of these regents, though the internal affairs of the empire prospered, the foreign relations were disturbed by the display of an increasingly hostile spirit towards the Christian missionaries and their converts, which culminated in 1870 in the Tien-tsin massacre. In some of the central provinces reports had been industriously circulated that the Roman Catholic missionaries were in the habit of kidnapping and murdering children, in order to make medicine from their eyeballs. Ridiculous as the rumor was, it found ready credence among the ignorant people, and several outrages were perpetrated on the missionaries and their converts in Kwang-hsi and Sze-chwan. Through the active interference, however, of the French minister on the spot, the agitation was locally suppressed only to be renewed at Tien-tsin. Here also the same absurd rumors were set afloat, and were especially directed against some sisters of charity who had opened an orphanage in the city.

For some days previous to the massacre on the 21st of June, reports increasing in alarm reached the foreign residents that an outbreak was to be apprehended, and three times the English consul wrote to Chung How, the superintendent of the three northern ports, calling upon him to take measures to subdue the gathering passions of the people which had been further dangerously exasperated by an infamous proclamation issued by the prefects. To these communications the consul did not receive any reply, and on the morning of the 21st, a day which had apparently been deliberately fixed for the massacre, the attack was made. The mob first broke into the French consulate and while the consul, M. Fontanier, was with Chung How endeavoring to persuade him to interfere, two Frenchmen and their wives, and Father Chevrien were there murdered. While returning the consul suffered the same fate. Having thus whetted their taste for blood, the rioters then set fire to the French cathedral, and afterward moved on to the orphanage of the sisters of mercy. In spite of the appeals of these defenseless women for mercy, if not for themselves at least for the orphans under their charge, the mob broke into the hospital, killed and mutilated most shockingly all the sisters, smothered from thirty to forty children in the vault, and carried off a still larger number of older persons to prisons in the city, where they were subjected to tortures of which they bore terrible evidence when their release was at length affected. In addition to these victims, a Russian gentleman with his bride, and a friend, who were unfortunate enough to meet the rioters on their way to the cathedral, were also murdered. No other foreigners were injured, a circumstance due to the fact that the fury of the mob was primarily directed against the French Roman Catholics, and also that the foreign settlement where all but those engaged in missionary work resided, was at a distance of a couple of miles from the city.

When the evil was done, the Chinese authorities professed themselves anxious to make reparation, and Chung How was eventually sent to Paris to offer the apologies of the Peking cabinet to the French government. These were ultimately accepted; and it was further arranged that the Tien-tsin prefect and district magistrate should be removed from their posts and degraded, and that twenty of the active murderers should be executed. By these retributive measures the emperor’s government made its peace with the European powers, and the foreign relations again assumed their former friendly footing.

The Chinese had now leisure to devote their efforts to the subjugation of the Panthay rebels. This was a great Mohammedan uprising which dated back as far as 1856 and which had for its object the separation of the province of Yun-nan into an independent state. The visit of the adopted son of the rebel leader, the sultan Suleiman, to England, for the purpose of attempting to enlist the sympathies of the English government in the Panthay cause, no doubt added zest to the action of the mandarins, who after a short but vigorous campaign, marked by scenes of bloodshed and wholesale carnage, suppressed the rebellion and restored the province to the imperial sway.

Peace was thus brought about, and when the empresses handed over the reigns of power to the emperor, on the occasion of his marriage in 1872, tranquility reigned throughout the eighteen provinces. The formal assumption of power proclaimed by this marriage was considered by the foreign ministers a fitting opportunity to insist on the fulfillment of the article in the treaties which provided for their reception by the emperor, and after much negotiation it was finally arranged that the emperor should receive them on the 29th of June, 1873.

Very early therefore on the morning of that day, the ministers were astir and were conducted in their sedan chairs to the park on the west side of the palace, where they were met by some of the ministers of state, who led them to the “Temple of Prayer for Seasonable Weather.” Here they were kept waiting for some time while tea and confectionery from the imperial kitchen, by favor of the emperor, were served to them. They were then conducted to an oblong tent made of matting on the west side of the Tsze-kwang pavilion, where they were met by Prince Kung and other ministers. As soon as the emperor reached the pavilion, the Japanese ambassador was introduced into his presence and when he had retired the other foreign ministers entered the audience chamber in a body. The emperor was seated facing southward. On either side of his majesty stood, with Prince Kung, several princes and high officers. When the foreign ministers reached the center aisle they halted and bowed one and all together; they then advanced in line a little further and made a second bow; and when they had nearly reached the yellow table on which their credentials were to be deposited they bowed a third time; after which they remained erect. M. Vlangaly, the Russian minister, then read a congratulatory address in French, which was translated by an interpreter into Chinese, and the ministers making another reverence respectfully laid their letters of credence upon the yellow table. The emperor was pleased to make a slight inclination of the head towards them, and Prince Kung advancing to the left of the throne and falling upon his knees, had the honor to be informed in Manchoo that his majesty acknowledged the receipt of the letters presented. Prince Kung, with his arms raised according to precedent set by Confucius when in the presence of his sovereign, came down by the steps on the left of the desk, to the foreign ministers, and respectfully repeated this in Chinese. After this he again prostrated himself, and in like manner received and conveyed a message to the effect that his majesty hoped that all foreign questions would be satisfactorily disposed of. The ministers then withdrew, bowing repeatedly, until they reached the entrance.

Thus ended the first instance during the present century of Europeans being received in imperial audience. Whether under more fortunate circumstances the ceremony might have been repeated it is difficult to say, but in the following year the young emperor was stricken down with the small-pox, or “enjoyed the felicity of the heavenly flowers,” and finally succumbed to the disease on the twelfth of January, 1875. With great ceremony the funeral obsequies were performed over the body of him who had been Tung Chih, and the coffin was finally laid in the imperial mausoleum among the eastern hills beside the remains of his predecessors. His demise was shortly afterwards followed by the death of the girl empress he had just previously raised to the throne.