Part 16

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 personal knowledge of this subject, we may state that, like many other Ministers similarly situated, he hesitated until the very last moment before taking risks which he knew to be enormous in both directions. The documents upon which history might have been written with full knowledge of the facts were unfortunately destroyed in the Viceroy’s Yamên at Tientsin and in the Inspector-General of Customs’ quarters at Peking, in 1900, so that the immediate causes of that disastrous war will probably never be established with complete accuracy. Li Hung-chang was aware that twice already Japan had been bought off from a war of aggression against China, the first time (in 1874) by payment of an indemnity, and again (in 1885) by admitting her to a share in the control of Corea, a concession which had led directly to the present crisis. He realised that even had he been willing to surrender China’s rights over Corea (which were of no real advantage to the Chinese Government) the concession might have purchased peace for the time being, but it would certainly have led before long to the loss of the Manchurian Provinces; just as certainly, in fact, as the doom of those provinces was sealed in 1905, on the day that China acquiesced in the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty. Japan’s attack on China’s positions was diplomatically as unjustifiable as the methods which she adopted in commencing hostilities. Li Hung-chang was fully aware of the preparations that Japan had been making for years, and equally aware of the disorganised state of his own naval and military resources, but he was surrounded by officials who, like the Manchus in 1900, were convinced of China’s immense superiority, and he was assured by the Chinese Resident in Corea (Yüan Shih-k’ai) that help would be forthcoming from England in the event of Japan’s commencing hostilities. There was no doubt of the British Government’s sympathy, which was clearly reflected in the attitude and actions of the Consul-General at Seoul.[48]

Chinese historians have openly accused Li Hung-chang of instigating the Court and the Emperor to a war of aggression, and the accusation has been generally credited abroad. The truth is, that while Li was originally all in favour of sending a Chinese force to suppress the Corean insurrection, he became opposed to taking any steps that might lead to war with Japan, as soon as he realised that war was Japan’s object; nevertheless, it is certain that, in the last instance, he was persuaded against his better judgment by the military enthusiasm of his German advisers, and that the sending of the ill-fated “Kow-hsing” and her doomed crew to Corea was a step which he authorised only after consultation with Peking and in full knowledge of the fact that it meant war. No sooner had the “Kow-hsing” been sunk, and the first military disasters of the campaign reported, than he naturally endeavoured to minimise his own share of responsibility in the matter.

Foreigners blamed him for making war on Japan, while his own countrymen attacked him for betraying China to the Japanese, as they subsequently attacked him for selling Manchuria to Russia. Tzŭ Hsi had no great love for the Viceroy, although she admired his remarkable intelligence and adroit methods: but when, after the war, he was fiercely attacked by several of the Censors, and when she found her own name associated with the blame imputed to him, she loyally defended him, as was her wont. In 1895, a Censor named An Wei-chün boldly blamed Her Majesty and the Viceroy for the disasters which had overtaken China. He said:—

“Li Hung-chang has invariably advanced himself because of his relations with foreigners, and thus been led to conceive an inflated opinion of his own merits. The ‘dwarf bandits’[49] having rebelled, he seems to have been afraid that the large sums of money, saved from numerous peculations, which he had deposited in Japan might be lost; hence his objections to the war. When the Decree declaring war reached him, his disappointment was great, and he showed his resentment and treachery by supplying the ‘dwarf bandits’ with supplies and munitions of war. His only hope was that the ‘dwarfs’ would prove victorious and his prophecy would thus be justified; to this end he curtailed the supplies for our troops at the front, diverting the funds for the same to his own pockets. He would strongly oppose all those who urged a vigorous prosecution of the campaign, rejoicing at our defeats and deploring our successes. All the military commanders of the forces under his orders humbly complied with his wishes, and invariably ran away at the first sight of the enemy. The Censorate has been full of Memorials denouncing the treacherous and unpatriotic action of Li Hung-chang, so that there is no need for me to say anything further on this subject.

“But I would like to add that Generals Yeh and Wei, who have been cashiered and whose arrest has been decreed, are at this very moment in hiding at Tientsin; they have made the Viceroy’s Yamên itself a place of refuge for absconding criminals. This is a matter of common knowledge and undoubtedly true. Then again we have the case of Ting Ju-chang, who was ordered to be arrested, but who persuaded Li Hung-chang to intercede for him, on the plea that he was indispensable to China, being in possession of a mysterious secret, an American invention which he alone could manipulate, whereby all surrounding objects can be rendered invisible. Li Hung-chang actually had the audacity to make mention of this ridiculous invention in addressing your Majesty, and it seems to me that if he is to be permitted to refer to fables and unclean magic of this kind, he is treating the Throne with shameless disrespect. Nevertheless, none of your Majesty’s Councillors have ever dared to oppose him, possibly because they themselves are too far gone in senile decay to be able to bear any further burden of distress. Their thoughts are far away, wool-gathering, or it may be that they too have been smitten with fear at the thought of this marvellous invention of Li Hung-chang’s whereby the landscape may be completely befogged. If so, the fact would account for the nebulous tendencies of their policy, and for their remaining in ignorance of Li Hung-chang’s remarkable mendacity.

“The Imperial Decree whereby Shao Yu-lien and Chang Yin-huan have been appointed Plenipotentiaries to discuss terms of peace, has not yet been made public, because the Grand Council are actually afraid openly to mention the word peace, notwithstanding that they failed utterly in prosecuting the war and in dignified insistence on our lawful rights. Their action appears to me like that of a thief who having stolen a bell, shuts his ears while carrying it away, blissfully forgetting that everybody else can hear its tinkling. They do not seem to be aware, these Councillors, that throughout the whole Empire everybody is already aware of the fact that we are suing for peace. Japan having objected to Shao on personal grounds, the Grand Council has now actually gone so far as to suggest that in his place Li Hung-chang’s son, Li Ching-fang[50] should be appointed. This is simply an outrage. Li Ching-fang is nothing more than the son-in-law of a Japanese traitor who calls himself Chang Pang-chang, a man whom I have already impeached. If such unspeakable traitors are permitted to go to Japan, nothing will suit the Japanese better, and the negotiations must inevitably result in our being badly cheated by these pernicious robbers. Japan’s strength is purely superficial; as a matter of fact, she is rotten to the core; if now we are debarred from compelling Japan to fight a decisive battle, if we meekly accept terms dictated by these low-born dwarfs, we are simply in the position of a tributary State, and cannot be described as equals in any treaty that may be made. In other words, our glorious Empire is not only being ruined by muddlers, but sold by traitors. There is not a single subject of the Throne who does not gnash his teeth with rage, and long to sink them in the flesh of Li Hung-chang.

“There are not lacking people who declare that this humiliating policy of peace has been prompted by the Empress Dowager’s Chief Eunuch, Li Lien-ying. For myself, I do not care to attach undue importance to tea-house gossip, but as the Empress Dowager has now handed over the reins of Government to your Majesty, how can you possibly justify your position before your ancestors and to your subjects, if you permit her still to dictate to you, or to interfere in the business of the State? What sort of a person is this Li Lien-ying who dares to interfere in Government matters? If there be any truth whatsoever in the rumour, it is assuredly incumbent upon your Majesty to inflict severe punishment on this creature, if only because of that House-law of your Dynasty which forbids eunuchs to concern themselves in State affairs.

“The truth is that the Throne has been intimidated by Li Hung-chang, and has taken his statements for granted, while the Grand Council, chiefly composed of Li’s humble and obedient servants, shields him from detection and punishment, fearing that, if thwarted, he may raise the standard of rebellion. They accordingly do their best to justify him in the eyes of your Majesty, failing to realise that he has always been a traitor at heart. His is the will, if not the power, to rebel. His army is composed of corrupt and useless creatures quite devoid of any military knowledge or instincts, while his troops are ever on the verge of mutiny, because they are always defrauded of their pay. They are quite deficient in _esprit de corps_, and the small foreign forces lately organised at Tientsin would more than suffice to overcome Li Hung-chang and all his host. The truth of these statements can easily be verified. Long ago, if he had had the power, he would surely have rebelled; but as he cannot do so, he contents himself with bullying your Majesty and disregarding your Imperial Decrees. He totally ignores the existence of the Empress Dowager and of your Majesty, a fact which may be inferred from his daring to insult your intelligence with his mysterious powers of conferring invisibility.

“I am covered with shame and amazement. My only hope is that your Majesty will now display the majesty of your wrath, and, after disclosing Li Hung-chang’s treason to all men, will put this traitor to death. By this means our troops would at once be inspired to valour, and the ‘dwarf bandits’ would be completely annihilated. At the same time, I would ask you to be so good as to behead me also, as a fitting punishment for this plain speaking. Your Majesty’s Imperial ancestors are present in the spirit, and they bear me witness. I am quite easy in my mind as to the issue, and I therefore lay bare the innermost thoughts of my heart and lay them before your Majesty, anxiously begging for your Imperial decision.”

In reply to this outspoken document, the Emperor issued the following Decree, which bears unmistakable signs of Tzŭ Hsi’s hand. The attack upon her favourite, Li Lien-ying, was in itself sufficient to bring her to the front, and there is no doubt that at the time she was keeping very close watch on the Emperor’s proceedings, and regularly perusing all State papers.

“Owing to the seriousness of recent events, we have been particularly anxious of late to receive and attend to the unprejudiced suggestions of our Censors, and we have abstained from punishing any of them, even when they have made use of improper expressions in addressing us. With the gracious consent of Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, we have given particular attention to all projects whereby the welfare of our people may be advanced, and all our people must by this time be aware of our sincere desire to promote good Government. In spite of this the Censor, An Wei-chün, has to-day submitted a Memorial based entirely upon rumours, and containing the following sentence:—‘How can you possibly justify your position before your ancestors and to your subjects if you permit the Empress Dowager still to dictate to you, or to interfere in the business of the State?’

“Language of this kind reveals depths of audacity unspeakable, the unbridled licence of a madman’s tongue. Were we to fail in inflicting stern punishment in a case of this kind, the result might well be to produce estrangement between Her Majesty the Empress and ourselves. The Censor is, therefore, dismissed from office and sentenced to banishment at the post-roads, on the western frontier where he shall expiate his guilt and serve as a wholesome warning to others. His Memorial is handed back to him with the contempt it deserves.”

Tzŭ Hsi felt deeply the humiliation of her country’s defeat by the Japanese, a race which, as Chinese historians never fail to remind themselves, took its first lessons in civilisation and culture from Chinese scholars and artists. Anxious at all costs to avoid another invasion of Chihli by the conquerors, she approved the Treaty of Peace, especially when assured by Li Hung-chang that Russia and her Continental allies would not allow Japan to annex any portion of the Manchurian Provinces. As above stated, she declined to permit Li to be made a scapegoat either by her chagrined Manchu kinsmen or by his fierce critics in the south, for she recognised the difficulty of his position, and the fact that he was not directly responsible for the deplorable condition of China’s defences. But, woman-like, she had to blame someone for the disasters that had deprived her and her capital of festivities whose splendour should have gone down, making her name glorious, to all posterity; and it was not surprising, therefore, if she heaped reproaches on the Emperor for entering upon so disastrous a war without her full knowledge and consent. It was at this time that began the estrangement which thenceforward gradually grew into the open hostility and secret plottings of 1898, the long bitterness between Tzŭ Hsi and her nephew which was to divide the Palace into camps of strife, and to cease only with their death. From this time also, as they aver who were in close touch with the life of the Court, the Emperor’s Consort,[51] Tzŭ Hsi’s niece, became openly alienated from him, and their relations grew more severely strained as his reform tendencies developed and took shape. From 1894 to 1896 there was no noticeable change in the attitude of the Emperor to his august aunt, nor any diminution of his respectful attentions, but the man in the street knew well, as he always knows in China, of the rift in the lute, and when, in 1896, the Emperor’s mother (Tzŭ’s sister) died, it was realised that the last bond of amity and possible reconciliation between Kuang-Hsü and the Empress Dowager had been severed.

XII

THE REFORM MOVEMENT OF 1898

At the beginning of 1898 the Grand Council was composed of the following officials: Prince Kung, the Emperor’s uncle, Prince Li, whose son was married to Jung Lu’s daughter, Kang Yi,[52] Liao Shou-heng and Weng T’ung-ho, the Grand Secretary and ex-tutor to the Emperor. The Empress Dowager was still leading her life of dignified leisure at the Summer Palace, generally in company with her two confidential friends, the wife of Jung Lu and her adopted daughter, the Princess Imperial. By all accounts she was amusing herself with picnics on the K’un Ming lake, elaborate theatrical performances and excursions to the neighbouring temples and hill shrines, devoting her leisure from these pursuits to verse-making and painting, but keeping herself fully informed, through Kang Yi and Prince Li, of all that took place in the Forbidden City. Although leaving the conduct of State affairs to the Emperor, she occasionally visited the city for a day or two, while the Emperor, on his side, punctiliously repaired to the Summer Palace five or six times a month to pay his respects to the Old Buddha. Their relations at this period were outwardly friendly. Kuang-Hsü never failed to consult Her Majesty before the issue of any important Decree, and Tzŭ Hsi was usually most cordial in her manner towards him. She had, it is true, occasion to reprove him more than once on account of reports which reached her, through the eunuchs, of his violent temper and alleged bad treatment of his attendants, reports which were probably instigated and exaggerated by Li Lien-ying for his own purposes. But Kuang-Hsü, as events subsequently proved, was fully aware of the iron hand in the velvet glove. Whenever the Empress came to Peking, he obeyed strictly the etiquette which required him reverently to kneel at the Palace gates to welcome her. When visiting her at the Summer Palace, he was not permitted to announce his arrival in person, but was obliged to kneel at the inner gate and there await the summons of admission from the Chief Eunuch. Li, who hated him, delighted in keeping him waiting, sometimes as much as half an hour, before informing the Old Buddha of his presence. At each of these visits he was compelled, like any of the Palace officials, to pay his way by large fees to the eunuchs in attendance on Her Majesty, and as a matter of fact, these myrmidons treated him with considerably less respect than they showed to many high Manchu dignitaries. Within the Palace precincts, the Son of Heaven was indeed regarded as of little account, so that the initiative and determination which he displayed during the hundred days of reform in the summer of 1898 came as a disturbing surprise to many at Court and showed that, given an opportunity, he was not wholly unworthy of the Yehonala blood of his mother, Tzŭ Hsi’s sister.

The official who had hitherto exercised most influence over the Emperor was Weng T’ung-ho, the Imperial tutor. He had only rejoined the Grand Council in November 1894, at the critical time when the disastrous opening of the war with Japan had brought about the dismissal of the former Council; but as Imperial tutor he had had the _entrée_ of the Palace ever since the Emperor was five years old. He was the leader of the southern party in the capital. A native of Kiangsu (the birthplace of all the greatest scholars of China during the present Dynasty, and the centre of national culture), he hated the narrow conservatism of the Manchus, and included in his dislike the Chinese of the Metropolitan Provinces, whose politics and point of view are very similar to those of the Manchus. The strife between north and south really dated from the beginning of Kuang-Hsü’s reign. The two protagonists on the northern side were Hsü T’ung, a well-educated Chinese Bannerman (for all practical purposes, a Manchu at heart) who had been tutor to the Emperor T’ung-Chih; and Li Hung-tsao, a native of Chihli, who had joined the Grand Council at the same time as Weng T’ung-ho. The southern party was led by Weng T’ung-ho and P’an Tsu-yin, the latter a native of Soochow and a most brilliant scholar and essayist. It is necessary to dwell on this party strife and its development, because it was the first cause of the reform movement of 1898, of the subsequent resumption of the Regency by Tzŭ Hsi, and, eventually, of the Boxer rising.

For more than twenty years these four high officials had been colleagues in Peking, meeting one another constantly in social as well as official circles. Their literary arguments, in which the quick-witted southerners generally scored, were the talk of the capital. All four men bore good reputations for integrity, so that literary graduates entering official life were glad to become their _protégés_; but the adherents of the southern party were the more numerous. This fact aroused the jealousy of Li and Hsü, which grew until it found vent publicly at the metropolitan examination for the “Chin Shih,” or Doctor’s, degree in 1899, on which occasion Li was Grand Examiner and P’an Tsu-yin his chief Associate. P’an, whose duty it was to select the best essays, recommended a native of Kiangsu for the high honour of _optimus_, but Li declined to endorse his decision, and gave the award to a Chihli man. P’an thereupon openly accused Li of prejudice and unfairness towards the southerner, and twitted him besides on his second-rate scholarship.

At the time of Russia’s seizure of Ili, in 1880, Hsü T’ung and Weng T’ung-ho were respectively Presidents of the Boards of Ceremonies and Works. At a conference of the highest officials, held in the Palace, Weng declared himself in favour of war with Russia, but Hsü, after promising to support him, left him in the lurch at the last moment, causing him discomfiture and loss of face. Hence, bitter enmity between them, which increased in intensity when they became the leaders of the rival factions. Weng was also on bad terms with Jung Lu, who had never forgiven him for the part he played in 1880, when Weng denounced his impious _liaison_ to the Empress Dowager and brought about his dismissal. Jung Lu, as a loyal Manchu, naturally favoured the northern faction and his personal feelings prompted him in the same direction.

The enmity between the rival parties increased steadily in the early nineties, and when Li and Weng were appointed to the Grand Council, in 1894, the Court itself became involved in their strife, the Empress siding with the north and the Emperor with the south. At that time people were wont to speak of the Li faction and the Weng faction, but later they came to be known as the Empress Dowager’s party, irreverently nicknamed the “Old Mother set,” and the Emperor’s party, or “Small Lad’s set.” Both P’an and Li died in 1897. It was after the latter’s death that Hsü T’ung began to instigate secret and sinister designs against the Emperor, whom he called a Chinese traitor. Hsü T’ung, having been tutor to T’ung-Chih, naturally enjoyed considerable influence with the Empress, but Kuang-Hsü flatly refused to have him on the Grand Council. So great was his dislike for the old man that he only received him once in audience between 1887 and 1898. Hsü had a valuable ally in Kang Yi, who hated all Chinese, southerners and northerners alike, and whose influence was used effectively to sow dissension between Tzŭ Hsi and the Emperor. In 1897, Kang Yi urged the Emperor to give orders that the Manchu troops should be efficiently trained and equipped. Kuang-Hsü replied: “You persist, it seems, in the exploded idea that the Manchu soldiery are good fighting men. I tell you that they are absolutely useless.” Kang Yi, highly incensed, promptly informed the Old Buddha and the Iron-capped Princes that the Emperor was the enemy of all Manchus, and was plotting to appoint Chinese to all high offices, a statement which naturally created a strong feeling against His Majesty at Court.