China under the Empress Dowager

The thanks of the Authors are hereby gratefully expressed to Miss Katharine A. Carl, for permission to reproduce the photograph of her portrait of the Empress Dowager; to Mr. K....

One long-standing cause of suspicion and dissension between the parties in the Palace arises from the fear of the elder descendants of Tao-Kuang (of whom Prince P’u Lun and Prin...

“On the 1st of the 8th Moon, we applied another coating of lacquer to the coffin. On the same day Dr. Liu changed my mother’s medicine, but, the dysentery continued unabated.

On the 7th of the Moon His Majesty sacrificed at the Temple of Confucius, but on the next morning he was afraid to come into the city from the Summer Palace, although he wished...

Tsai Yüan and his colleagues were well aware that they were placed at grave disadvantage in having to remain behind the young Empress, with every prospect of serious trouble ahe...

Although the collapse of the Tsai Yüan conspiracy, and the stern justice administered to its leaders, rendered Yehonala’s position secure and made her _de facto_ ruler of the Em...

“The Decree which we issued last Spring was caused by the Prince’s want of attention to small details of etiquette, and if we were obliged to punish him severely, our motives ha...

For four years after the collapse of the rebellion, Tseng Kuo-fan remained at Nanking as Viceroy. (The Hunanese still regard that post as belonging by prescriptive right to a Hu...

“With reference to this Memorial, it should be stated that last year, although the twenty-seven months of Imperial mourning for the late monarch were drawing to their close, we...

“Since I last had the pleasure of seeing you, you have been constantly in my thoughts. I wish you, with all respect, long life and prosperity: thus will your days fulfil my best...

“_A Secret Memorial urging the Throne to put a stop to official wrangling and to excuse the Ministers of foreign nations from kneeling at audiences, in order that our magnanimit...

Tzŭ Hsi, however, was too determined to retain her position and power to allow any weight to attach to sentimental, religious, or other considerations. If, in order to secure he...

One official, however, had the full courage of his convictions, and, by the time-honoured expedient of self-destruction, focussed the attention of the nation on the gravity of t...

“But, on the point of leaving this world, I feel that my mind is confused. The text of this, my Memorial, lacks clearness; there are manifold omissions in it. It has ever been m...

Her Majesty’s next step aroused a storm of opposition and criticism. She decreed that in all matters of urgency, the Grand Council, before advising the Throne, should confer wit...

As Viceroy of the Metropolitan Province, Li Hung-chang was generally blamed for advising the Court to maintain China’s suzerainty over Corea by force of arms, but, speaking from...

Even the foreign policy of the Empire felt the effects of this rivalry of the opposing parties in the capital. The Empress, the Manchus, and the Chinese Bannermen were in favour...

“The Censors also accuse me of despising European learning. At audience with your Majesty I have frequently laid stress on the importance of opening mines, building ships and pr...

Yüan reached Tientsin before noon, and proceeded at once to Jung Lu’s Yamên. He asked Jung Lu whether he regarded him as a faithful blood brother. (The two men had taken the oat...

“Some few days after his arrival in Peking, Ch’en was summoned to audience by orders conveyed through a member of the Grand Council; the Emperor and the Dowager Empress were awa...

“We have read the Memorial of Li Tuan-fen. This official has enjoyed our special favour; nevertheless, it was he who recommended to our notice that base traitor, K’ang Yu-wei, a...

“In the majority of recent cases of summary executions in the provinces, the culprits have been guilty of robbery under arms. However heinous the offences of such criminals, the...

The Diary was found by the translator in the private study of Ching Shan’s house on August 18th and saved, in the nick of time, from being burnt by a party of Sikhs. Many of the...

_21st Day of the 5th Moon_ (June 17th).—A great fire has been raging all to-day in the southern city. Those reckless Boxers set fire to a foreign medicine store in the Ta Sha-la...

While I was still talking with Prince Li, Jung Lu came over in his sedan chair to visit his kinsman. He looks very tired, and walks with a limp. He was loud in denouncing the Bo...

Chi Shou-ch’eng tells me that Yü Hsien has sent in a memorial to the Empress Dowager with reference to the missionaries in Shansi. Ten days ago she had sent him a secret Decree,...

Then to the Emperor, who stood trembling with grief and wrath, she said: “Get into your cart and hang up the screen, so that you be not recognised” (he was wearing a long gown o...

“Last year, in the 11th Moon, 13th day, your Majesties granted me audience, and I reported the above facts, adding that the alleged anti-Christian propaganda of these Boxers was...

“If foreign nations had gratuitously invaded our country, we should be the first to welcome as loyal patriots everyone who should take up arms and rush into the fray, however fe...

Supplementing this Decree, the Empress, possibly instigated by some of the master-minds of the Grand Council, proceeded to prepare the way for a time-honoured, and invariably su...

“After leaving Jung Lu, I made my way to a little temple which lies midway between the North and the North-West Gates of the city, and there I rested a while. It was the opinion...

Her Majesty’s custom, in selecting the menus for the day, was to have a list of about one hundred dishes brought in every evening by the eunuch on duty. After the privations of...

_The Death of Chao Shu-ch’iao._—This Grand Councillor, one of the Empress’s favourite Ministers, whom to the last she endeavoured to protect from execution, was originally sente...

“To sum up the matter in a word, is it not the case that, when either our Statesmen or our people are guilty of any offence, it is upon our Imperial persons that the blame must...

“It is to be remembered that between this, our Empire of China, and the outer barbarians, hostilities have frequently occurred since the remotest antiquity, and our national his...

At the crossing of the Yellow River, which took place in beautiful weather, she sacrificed to the River God, in expiation and thanksgiving. The local officials had constructed a...

“At 11.30 A.M., punctual to the minute, the train arrived at Feng-T’ai, where the Luhan line from Lu Ko-ch’iao meets the Peking-Tien-tsin Railway; here the British authorities t...

“Up to the present the study of European methods has gone no further than a superficial knowledge of the languages, literature and mechanical arts of the West, but it must be ev...

The following extracts from articles published in the Shanghai press at that time, throw an instructive light on the spirit of Young China (like that of the Babu of India) as di...

In this connection, there is every reason to believe that Tzŭ Hsi’s superstitious nature, and the memory of the prophecies of woe uttered by the Censor Wu K’o-tu at the time of...

Shortly afterwards four more physicians, who had come up from the provinces, were admitted to see His Majesty. That same afternoon he had a serious relapse, and from that day fo...

The title by which Her Majesty was canonised contains no less than twenty-two characters, sixteen of which were hers at the day of her death, the other six having been added in...

Let us also remember that in the East to-day (as it was with us of Europe before the growth of that humanitarianism which now shows signs of unhealthy exaggeration) pain and dea...

These, however, are but local manifestations, and they lost much of their inspiration after the _coup d’état_. The anti-dynastic tendencies noticeable in the vernacular press of...

In spite of its childish arguments and colossal ignorance of foreign affairs, and in spite of the absurdity of allowing the nation’s military operations to be criticised and dic...

“I have never for a moment doubted that you men of Shensi are brave and patriotic and that, should occasion offer, you would fight nobly for your country. I know that if you joi...

[122] Precisely the same quotation was used by Ch’ung Hou in a despatch to the British Minister (Mr. Wade) in 1861, under somewhat similar circumstances. Since that date the mos...

Tzŭ An (Empress Dowager, of the East), 35, 55, 75, 92, 94, 118, 121, 148-9 and A-Lu-Te, 121 and Prince Kung, 93 Co-Regent with Tzŭ Hsi, 44, 475 death of, 152 tomb of, 472, 487 v...