Part 25

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 Boxers, who, he says, are quite incapable of doing any good. They had even now dared to shout abuse at him while passing the “Houmen,” calling him a Chinese traitor. I could not help thinking that Jung Lu deserved the name, but I did not say so. He is a strong man, the strongest of all the Manchus, and I greatly fear that his influence may yet be able to wreck all our hopes.

Returning to my house, I heard that the Princes Tuan and Chuang were sending troops to surround the French Cathedral, which is defended by a few foreign soldiers only, and which should, therefore, be easily captured. Prince Li’s palace is within a stone’s throw of the cathedral, and to enter the Forbidden City he has to pass just south of it, through the “Hsi-Hua” gate. Although greatly disturbed by the impending hostilities in his neighbourhood, he fears to move to a quieter locality, lest, in his absence, his treasure vaults should be plundered. No doubt the cathedral will fall in a few days.

My courtyard is now full of Boxers and Kansuh soldiery; I can no longer call my house my own. How I loathe these cursed foreigners for causing all this disturbance!

_The same Day: at the Hour of the Dog_ (7-9 P.M.).—I learn that Jung Lu has just sent off a courier with a telegram, which Yüan Shih-k’ai is to send on to the Viceroys of Canton, Nanking and Wucha’ng. Prince Li has sent me a copy, which I am to keep secret; it reads as follows:—

“With all respect I have received your telegrams. Where one weak people dares to oppose ten or more powerful nations, the inevitable result can only be complete ruin. It has always been maintained as a fixed principle with civilised nations, that, in the event of war between any two Powers, their respective Envoys should be treated with respect. Can it now be that this our great inheritance, founded by our remote ancestors at so great a cost of toil and danger, is to be endangered, and suddenly brought to ruin, by these false workers of magic? Shall the fate of the Dynasty be staked on a single throw? It requires no peculiar sagacity to see that these Boxers’ hopes of success are nothing but the shadow of a dream. It is true and undeniable, that, from their Majesties on the Throne down to the very lowest of our people, all have suffered from the constant aggression of foreigners and their unceasing insults. For this reason these patriotic train-bands have been organised, claiming a divine mission of retaliation; but the present crisis is all-serious, and although I have used every effort to explain its dangers, I have laboured in vain. I am sick and suffering from lameness, but since I obtained leave of absence I have already submitted seven separate memorials denouncing these Boxers. Seeing that they produced no result, I have now left my sick bed, in order, if possible, to explain the situation clearly to their Majesties; and this also has been in vain.

“All the Princes and Ministers of State who surround the Throne now cry out against me with one voice, as your Excellencies can readily believe. I dare not quote in this place the words of Her Majesty, but I may say that the whole of the Imperial family have joined the Boxers, and at least two-thirds of our troops, both Manchu and Chinese, are with them. They swarm in the streets of our capital like a plague of locusts, and it will be extremely difficult to disperse them.

“Even the divine wisdom of Her Majesty is not sufficient to stand against the will of the majority. If Heaven is not on our side, how can I oppose its will? For several days past I have been pondering night and day on some way out of our difficulties, some forlorn hope of escape. Therefore yesterday morning (June 20th) I arranged for a meeting with the foreign Ministers at the Tsung Li Yamên, with a view to providing a safe conduct for the entire foreign community, with my own troops, to Tientsin. This course appeared to me to hold out some reasonable chances of success, but Prince Tuan’s soldiery slew the German Minister, and since then the situation continues to develop from hour to hour with such extraordinary rapidity that words fail me to describe it. On my side, in the discussions of the Grand Council and the Chamberlains of the Presence, are Prince Ch’ing and Wang Wen-shao, but the former, following his usual practice, has applied for leave, and Her Majesty will have nothing to do with him; so that these two are of no real assistance to me. I have no fear of death, but I grieve at the thought of the guilt which will be recorded against me in history; Heaven knows that I am overwhelmed with grief and shame. I have received great favours at the hands of the Throne, and can only now pray to the spirits of the Dynastic ancestors to protect our Empire. The situation here is well-nigh lost, but it remains for your Excellencies to take all possible steps for the protection of your respective provinces. Let each do his utmost, and let proper secrecy be maintained.” Signed “Jung Lu, with tears in his eyes.”

It is reported from the Grand Council that Chang Chih-tung has telegraphed to Her Majesty, assuring her of his devotion and loyalty, and asking whether he should come north with his troops to help in the work of destroying the barbarians. Chang is a time-server, and loves not the Emperor;[83] we have not forgotten how he approved the Decree appointing an Heir Apparent, and how he would have been a party to His Majesty’s removal from the Throne, justifying himself on quibbling grounds of legality and precedents as to the lawful succession. He trims his sails according to the wind of the moment, and has no courage of fixed principles, like Liu K’un-yi. I despise the latter’s views in opposing the Boxers, but no one can help admiring his upright character.

(_At this point the diarist proceeds to give a full account of the rise and spread of the Boxer movement, describing in detail their magic rites, their incantations, and their ceremonies of initiation. The facts have nearly all been published before, so that most of this portion of the Diary is here omitted. It is chiefly interesting as showing to what heights of superstition even the most educated of the Manchus, including the Empress Dowager, could go. We give one example only of the farrago of gibberish which, believed in high quarters, nearly brought about the end of the Dynasty._)

The Boxers also possess a secret Talisman, consisting of a small piece of yellow paper, which they carry on their persons when going into battle. On it is drawn, in vermilion paint, a figure which is neither that of man nor devil, demon nor saint. It has a head, but no feet; its face is sharp-pointed, with eyes and eyebrows, and four halos. From the monster’s heart to its lower extremities runs a mystic inscription, which reads: “I am Buddha of the cold cloud; before me lies the black deity of fire; behind is Laotzu himself.” On the creature’s body are also borne the characters for Buddha, Tiger, and Dragon. On the top left-hand corner are the words “invoke first the Guardian of Heaven,” and on the right-hand corner, “invoke next the black gods of pestilence.” The Empress Dowager has learned this incantation by heart, and repeats it seventy times daily, and every time that she repeats it the chief eunuch (Li Lien-ying) shouts: “There goes one more foreign devil.” The Boxers determine the fate of their victims by a curious test, which consists of burning a ball of paper, and seeing whether the ashes ascend or remain upon the ground. They may believe that it is the spirits who decide, but, as a matter of fact, these balls of paper are sometimes made of thinner material, which naturally leave a lighter ash that is easily caught up in the air; whereas, when they use thick paper, the ashes seldom rise. Some of the balls are also more tightly rolled than others, and it is quite evident that the ashes of the loose ones have a much better chance of blowing away than those which are tightly rolled. Similarly, when they set fire to any place, they profess to be guided by their gods, and they say that fire leaps forth at the point of their swords in any quarter which the spirits desire to have destroyed. As a matter of fact, however, there is deception practised in this also, for when they wish to burn any place for purposes of plunder they have it sprinkled in advance with kerosene oil, and if no oil is available, they even pile up brushwood around it, upon which they drop a lighted match secreted upon their persons.

_27th Day of the 5th Moon_ (June 23rd).—The foreign barbarian of whom I have written[84] was executed this morning at the hour of the Hare (6 A.M.) and his head is now exhibited in a cage, hanging from the main beam of the “Tung-An” gate. It had to be put in a cage, as there was no queue to hang it by. The face has a most horrible expression, but it is a fine thing, all the same, to see a foreigner’s head hung up at our palace gates. It brings back to memory the heads that I saw outside the Board of Punishments in the tenth year of Hsien-Feng (1860), but there were black devils among those. Jung Lu tried to save the barbarian’s life, and even intended to rescue him by force, but the Princes Tuan and Chuang had determined upon his death, and they had him executed before Jung Lu knew it, so that, when his men arrived upon the scene, the foreigner’s head had already parted company from his body. The Princes had him kneeling before them yesterday for several hours on a chain, and all the time he kept on imploring them to spare his life; his groans were most painful to hear. The Old Buddha has been informed of his death, and she gave orders that Tls. 500 be distributed to the soldiers who had captured him, _i.e._ a reward ten times greater than that which was promised in the proclamations.

The Boxers who occupy my courtyard tried to take away my cigars from me, but subsequently relented and allowed me to keep them because of my extreme old age. Nothing of foreign origin, not even matches, may be used nowadays, and these Boxer chiefs, Chang Te-ch’eng and Han Yi-li, both of whom are common and uneducated men, are treated with the greatest respect even by Princes of the blood: a curious state of affairs indeed!

Duke Tsai Lan came to see me this afternoon. He tells me an extraordinary story how that the Heir Apparent called the Emperor a “Devil’s pupil” this morning, and, when rebuked for it, actually boxed His Majesty’s ears. The Emperor then reported the facts in a memorial to Her Majesty, who flew into a towering rage, and gave orders to the eunuch Ts’ui to administer twenty sharp strokes of the whip on the Heir Apparent’s person. Prince Tuan is much enraged at this, but he is horribly afraid of Her Majesty, and, when she speaks to him, “he is on tenter-hooks, as if thorns pricked him, and the sweat runs down his face.”

T’ung Fu-hsiang told the Empress Dowager yesterday that the Legations have come to the end of their tether. From a rockery on some high ground in the Forbidden City gardens, the Old Buddha could see the flames bursting from the Legation quarter, and was more than once assured that final destruction had come upon the foreigners at last. But later in the afternoon, Hsü Ching-ch’eng was received in audience, when he presented a memorial which he and Yüan Chang had drawn up, denouncing the Boxers; he told Her Majesty that it was not the Legations, but the Han Lin Academy, that was in flames, the Kansuh soldiery having set fire to it in the hope that the conflagration might spread and thus enable them to force a way into the Legation. Her Majesty was greatly disappointed and displeased, severely blaming Tung Fu-hsiang, and she sent for Jung Lu and talked with him in private for a long while.

Good news has come in to-day of victorious fighting at Tientsin; Yü Lu reports that many foreigners were slain in their attack on the Taku forts, and several of their warships sunk. Practically the whole of the foreign community of Tientsin had been annihilated, he says.

Many hundreds of Chinese Christians were put to death to-day just outside Prince Chuang’s palace. The judges who convicted them were Prince Chuang, Yi Ku, Fen Che, and Kuei Ch’un. There was no mercy shown, and a large number of innocent people perished with the guilty. The Empress is essentially a kind-hearted woman, and she was greatly shocked to hear of this wholesale massacre. She was heard to say that if the Catholics would only recant and reform, a way of escape might very well be provided for them.

_29th Day of the 5th Moon_ (June 25th).—To-day about sixty of the Boxers, led by the Princes Tuan and Chuang, and the “Beilehs” Tsai Lien and Tsai Ying, marched to the Palace at 6 o’clock in the morning to search there for converts. Coming to the gate of the Palace of Peaceful Longevity, where their Majesties were still abed, they noisily clamoured for the Emperor to come out, denouncing him as a friend of foreigners. Prince Tuan was their spokesman. I heard of the incident from Wen Lien, Comptroller of the Household, who was on duty this morning; he was amazed at the foolhardy effrontery of Prince Tuan, and thought that he had probably been drinking. On hearing the noise outside and the shouts of the Boxers clamouring to kill all “Devil’s pupils,” the Old Buddha, who was taking her early tea, came out swiftly and stood at the head of the steps, while the Princes and the Boxer leaders swarmed in the court-yard below her. She asked Prince Tuan whether he had come to look upon himself as the Emperor; if not, how dared he behave in this reckless and insolent manner? She would have him know that she, and she alone, had power to create or depose the Sovereign, and she would have him remember that the power which had made his son Heir Apparent could also wipe him out in a moment. If he and his fellow Princes thought that because the State was at a crisis of confusion they could follow their own inclinations in matters of this kind, they would find themselves very seriously mistaken. She bade them depart, and refrain from ever again entering the palace precincts, except when summoned to her presence on duty. But they would first prostrate themselves and ask His Majesty’s pardon for their insolent behaviour. As a slight punishment for their offences, she further commanded that the Princes be mulcted of a year’s allowances. As to the Boxer chiefs, who had dared to create this uproar in her hearing, they should be decapitated upon the spot, and Jung Lu’s guards, who were on duty at the outer gates, were ordered to carry this sentence into immediate effect. Her Majesty is so greatly incensed against the Boxers at this moment that everyone thinks that Jung Lu will now be able to put a stop to the attacks on the Legations. The Emperor was much alarmed at this incident, and when it was over humbly thanked Her Majesty for so benevolently protecting him.

_Later_; 9 P.M.—The Old Buddha has suddenly determined, in her rage against Prince Tuan and his followers, to put a stop to the fighting in Peking, and she now agrees that Jung Lu shall proceed to the Legations to discuss terms of peace. At 6 P.M. to-day all firing stopped, and Jung Lu, at the head of his troops, proceeded to the bridge which lies on the north of the Legation quarter. The foreigners came out from their hiding-places and commenced to parley; they were shown a board, and on it the words written: “Orders have now been received from the Empress Dowager to afford due protection to the Legations.” Jung Lu hoped to be able to induce the foreign Ministers to confer with him for the purpose of restoring order. For three hours not a shot has been fired; but En Ming has just come in to tell me that the situation has again changed, and that the Old Buddha has heard such good accounts of the defeat of the foreign relief force on its way to Peking that she is once more determined to give the Boxers their head and “to eat the flesh and sleep on the skins” of the foreign devils.

_4th Day of the 6th Moon: at the Hour of the Dog_, 7 P.M. (June 30, 1900).—Kang Yi called to-day, and remained with me for the evening meal. He tells me that Tung Fu-hsiang called in person this morning on Jung Lu at his residence, and asked him for the loan of the heavy artillery which is under his orders. Jung Lu is said to have ample armaments in stock in the city, the property of the Wu Wei-chün (Military Defence Corps) sufficient to knock every foreign building to pieces in a few hours.

Tung was kept waiting at Jung Lu’s door for over an hour; when finally admitted, he began to bluster, whereupon Jung Lu feigned sleep. “He gave no consent, but leant on his seat and slumbered.”[85] Tung then expostulated with Jung Lu for his rudeness, but the Commander-in-chief only smiled, and brought the interview to an end by remarking that Tung’s only way to get the guns would be to persuade the Old Buddha to give him Jung Lu’s head with them. “Apply for an audience at once,” he said. “She believes you to be a brave man and will certainly comply with any request you may make.”

Tung Fu-hsiang left in a towering rage, and made straight for the Forbidden City, although the hour for audiences was long since past. At the gate of the Hall of Imperial Supremacy (Huang Chi-tien) he made a loud disturbance, bidding the eunuchs inform Her Majesty that the Kansuh Commander-in-chief was without, desiring audience. It so happened that the Old Buddha was engaged in painting a design of bamboos on silk, and she was highly displeased at being thus disturbed. Tung was ushered in, however, and fell on his knees. “Well,” said Her Majesty, “I suppose that you have come to report the complete destruction of the Legations? This will be the tenth time since the end of last Moon.” “I have come,” replied Tung Fu-hsiang, “to ask Your Majesty’s permission to impeach the Grand Secretary Jung Lu as a traitor and the friend of barbarians. He has the guns which my army needs; with their aid not a stone would be left standing in the whole of the Legation quarter. But he has sworn never to lend these guns, even though Your Majesty should command it.” Angrily the Old Buddha replied, “Be silent. You were nothing but a brigand to begin with, and if I allowed you to enter my army it was only to give you an opportunity of atoning for your former misdeeds. Even now you are behaving like a brigand, forgetting the majesty of the Imperial Presence. Of a truth, your tail is becoming too heavy to wag. Leave the Palace forthwith, and do not let me find you here again unless summoned to audience.”

Kang Yi declares that we shall never take the Legations so long as Jung Lu continues to exercise his present great influence at Court. Li Shan, who is also a great favourite of the Empress Dowager, is now on the side of those who would make peace with the foreigners, and has been impeached for it by Na T’ung.

The following proclamation is now placarded all over the city, in accordance with the Empress Dowager’s orders issued to Prince Chuang. They say that she means to pay the rewards from her own privy purse:

“REWARDS.

“Now that all foreign churches and chapels have been razed to the ground, and that no place of refuge or concealment is left for the foreigners, they must unavoidably scatter, flying in every direction. Be it therefore known and announced to all men, scholars and volunteers, that any person found guilty of harbouring foreigners will incur the penalty of decapitation. For every male foreigner taken alive a reward of 50 taels will be given; for every female 40 taels, and for every child 30 taels; but it is to be clearly understood that they shall be taken alive, and that they shall be genuine foreigners. Once this fact has been duly authenticated, the reward will be paid without delay. A special proclamation, requiring reverent obedience.”

Much larger rewards than these were paid in the tenth year of Hsieng-Feng (1860) for the heads of barbarians, but of course in those days they were comparatively rare, whereas now, alas, they have become as common as bees!

This morning an important trial took place outside the gate of Prince Chuang’s palace; Yi Ku, Fen Che, and Kuei Ch’un presided. Over nine hundred people were summarily executed by the Boxers, in some cases before any proofs whatsoever had been substantiated in regard to their alleged connection with foreigners. Helpless babes even were amongst the slain. Fen Che is nothing more than a butcher and the Old Buddha remonstrated with Prince Chuang for not keeping the Boxers in better order.

_8th Day of the 6th Moon_, 11 A.M. (July 4th).—Yü Hsien’s son-in-law, Chi Shou-ch’eng, came and talked with me for a long while. The bombardment of the city was going on all the time he was here, and to the south of my house, close to the Imperial City Wall, the troops of Li Ping-heng were mounting cannon on an elevated platform. They are all still very wroth with Jung Lu, who refuses to lend his guns, and his troops are so faithful to him that it is impossible to bribe them to disobey him. Jung Lu’s courage is really extraordinary; he said of himself lately, that “in the days of the wicked Ruler (meaning Prince Tuan) he bided his time on the shores of the bleak North Sea, awaiting the purification of the Empire.”[86] I am told that Prince Tuan has taken possession of one of the Imperial Seals, so as to be able to proclaim his son Emperor at the first favourable opportunity; but if the Old Buddha finds this out, as most probably she will, there is trouble ahead for Prince Tuan.