Chang was never rich enough to buy official honours, even in the lower grades; and it is one of his chief glories that, after a score of years in the exercise of viceregal power, he continues to be relatively poor.
His name in full is Chang Chi-tung, meaning "Longbow of the Cavern," an allusion to a tradition that one of his ancestors was born in a cave and famed for archery. This was far back in the age of the troglodytes. Now, for many generations, the family has been devoted to the peaceful pursuit of letters. As for Chang himself, it will be seen with what deadly effect he has been able to use the pen, in his hands a more formidable weapon than the longbow of his ancestor.
Chang was born at Nanpi, in the metropolitan province of Chihli, not quite seventy years ago; and that circumstance debarred him from holding the highest viceroyalty in the Empire, as no man is permitted to hold office in his native place. He has climbed to his present eminence without the extraneous aids of wealth and family influence. This implies talents of no ordinary grade; but how could those talents have found a fit arena without that admirable system of literary competition which for so many centuries has served the double purpose of extending patronage to letters and of securing the fittest men for the service of the state.
Crowned with the laurel of A. B., or budding genius, before he was out of his teens, three years later he won the honour of A. M., or, as the Chinese say, he plucked a sprig of the olea fragrans in a contest with his fellow-provincials in which only one in a hundred gained a prize. Proceeding to the imperial capital he entered the lists against the picked scholars of all the provinces. The prizes were 3 per cent. of the whole number of competitors, and he gained the doctorate in letters, which, as the Chinese title indicates, assures its possessor of an official appointment. Had he been content to wait for some obscure position he might have gone home to sleep on his laurels. But his restless spirit saw fresh battle-fields beckoning him to fresh triumphs. The three hundred new-made doctors were summoned to the palace to write on themes assigned by the Emperor, that His Majesty might select a score of them for places in the Hanlin Academy. Here again fortune favoured young Chang; the elegance of his penmanship and his skill in composing mechanical verse were so remarkable that he secured a seat on the literary Olympus of the Empire.
His conflicts were not yet ended. A conspicuous advantage of his high position was that it qualified him as a candidate for membership of the Board of Censors. Nor did fortune desert her favourite in this instance. After writing several papers to show his knowledge of law, history, and politics, he came forth clothed with powers that made him formidable to the highest officers of the state—powers somewhat analogous to the combined functions of censor and tribune in ancient Rome.
Before I proceed to show how our "knight of the longbow" employed his new authority, a few words on the constitution of that august tribunal, the Board of Censors, may prove interesting to the reader. Its members are not judges, but prosecuting attorneys for the state. They are accorded a freedom of speech which extends even to pointing out the shortcomings of majesty. How important such a tribunal for a country in which a newspaper press with its argus eyes has as yet no existence! There is indeed a court Gazette, which has been called the oldest newspaper in the world; but its contents are strictly limited to decrees, memorials, and appointments. Free discussion and general news have no place in its columns; so that in the modern sense it is not a newspaper.
The court—even the occupant of the Dragon Throne—needs watch-dogs. Such is the theory; but as a matter of fact these guardians of official morals find it safer to occupy themselves with the aberrations of satellites than to discover spots on the sun. About thirty years ago one of them, Wukotu, resolved to denounce the Empress Dowager for having adopted the late emperor as her son instead of making him her grandson. He accordingly immolated himself at the tomb of the late emperor by way of protesting against the impropriety of leaving him without a direct heir to worship his manes. It is doubtful whether the Western mind is capable of following Wukotu's subtle reasoning; but is it not plain that he felt that he was provoking an ignominious death, and chose rather to die as a hero—the champion of his deceased master?
If a censor succeeds in convicting a single high functionary of gross misconduct his fortune is made. He is rewarded by appointment to some respectable post, possibly the same from which his victim has been evicted. Practical advantage carries the day against abstract notions of æsthetic fitness. Sublime it might be to see the guardians of the common weal striking down the unworthy, with a public spirit untainted by self-interest; but in China (and in some other countries) such machinery requires self-interest for its motive force. Wanting that, it would be like a windmill without wind, merely a fine object in the landscape.
As an illustration of the actual procedure take the case in which Chang first achieved a national reputation. Chunghau, a Manchu of noble family and high in favour at court, had been sent to Russia in 1880 to demand the restoration of Ili, a province of Chinese Turkestan, which the Russians had occupied on pretext of quelling its chronic disorders. Scarcely had he reported the success of his mission, which had resulted in recovering two-thirds of the disputed territory, when Chang came forward and denounced it as worse than a failure. He had, as Chang proved, permitted the Russians to retain certain strategic points, and had given them fertile districts in exchange for rugged mountains or arid plains. To such a settlement no envoy could be induced to consent, unless chargeable with corruption or incompetence.
The unlucky envoy was thrown into prison and condemned to death (but reprieved), and his accuser rose in the official scale as rapidly as if he had won a great battle on land or sea. His victory was not unlike that of those British orators who made a reputation out of the impeachment of Lord Clive or Warren Hastings, save that with him a trenchant pen took the place of an eloquent tongue. I knew Chunghau both before and after his disgrace. In 1859, when an American embassy for the first time entered the gates of Peking, it was Chunghau who was appointed to escort the minister to the capital and back again to the seacoast—a pretty long journey in those days when there was neither steamboat nor railway. During that time, acting as interpreter, I had occasion to see him every day, and I felt strongly attracted by his generous and gentlemanly bearing. The poor fellow came out of prison stripped of all his honours, and with his prospects blighted forever. In a few months he died of sheer chagrin.