Chapter 2

She had, however, what was better than education--a disposition to learn. And so when she had the good fortune,--or shall we say misfortune,--for as we have seen it is variously regarded by Chinese parents to be taken into the palace, she found there educated eunuchs who were set aside as teachers of the imperial harem. She was bright, attractive, and I think I may add without fear of contradiction, very ambitious, and this in no bad sense. She devoted herself to her studies with such energy and diligence as not only to attract the attention of the teacher, but to make herself a fair scholar, a good penman, and an exceptional painter, and it was not long until, from among all the concubines, she had gained the attention and won the admiration--and shall we say affection--not only of the Empress, but of the Emperor himself, and she was selected as the first concubine or kuei fei, and from that time until the death of the Empress the two women were the staunchest of friends.

The new favourite had been a healthy and vigorous girl, with plenty of outdoor life in childhood, and it was not long before she became the happy mother of Hsien Feng's only son. She was thenceforward known as the Empress-mother. In a short time she was raised to the position of wife, and given the title of Western Empress, as the other was known as the Eastern, from which time the two women were equal in rank, and, in the eyes of the world, equal in power.

The first Empress was a pampered daughter of wealth, neither vigorous of body nor strong of mind, caring nothing for political power if only she might have ease and comfort, and there is nothing that exhibits the Empress Dowager's real greatness more convincingly than the fact that she was able to live for thirty years the more fortunate mother of her country's ruler, and, in power, the mistress of her superior, without arousing the latter's envy, jealousy, anger, or enmity. Let any woman who reads this imagine, if she can, herself placed in the position of either of these ladies without being inclined to despise the less fortunate, ease-loving Empress if she be the dowager, or hating the more powerful dowager if she be the Empress. Such a state of affairs as these two women lived in for more than a quarter of a century is almost if not entirely unique in history.

Perhaps the incident which made most impression upon her was one which happened in 1860 and is recorded in history as the Arrow War. A few years before a number of Chinese, who owned a boat called the Arrow, had it registered in Hongkong and hence were allowed to sail under the British flag. There is no question I think but that these Chinese were committing acts of piracy, and as this was one of the causes of disturbance on that southern coast for centuries past, the viceroy decided to rid the country of this pest. Nine days after the time for which the boat had been registered, but while it continued unlawfully to float the British colours, the viceroy seized the boat, imprisoned all her crew, and dragged down the British flag. This was an insult which Great Britain could not or would not brook and so the viceroy was ordered to release the prisoners, all of whom were Chinese subjects, on penalty of being blown up in his own yamen if he refused.

Frightened at the threat, and remembering the result of the former war, the viceroy sent the prisoners to the consulate in chains without proper apologies for his insult to the flag. This angered the consul and he returned them to the viceroy, who promptly cut off their heads without so much as the semblance of a trial, and Britain, anxious, as she was, to have every door of the Chinese empire opened to foreign trade, found in this another pretext for war. We do not pretend to argue that this was not the best thing for China and for the world, but it can only be considered so from the bitter medicine, and corporal punishment point of view, neither of which are agreeable to either the patient or the pupil.

Britain went to war. The viceroy was taken a prisoner to India, whence he never returned. As though ashamed to enter upon a second unprovoked and unjust war alone, she invited France, Russia, and America to join her. France was quite ready to do so in the hope of strengthening her position in Indo-China, and with nothing more than the murder of a missionary in Kuangsi as a pretext she put a body of troops in the field large enough to enable her to checkmate England, or humiliate China as the exigencies of the occasion, and her own interests, might demand. America and Russia having no cause for war, no wrongs to redress, and no desire for territory, refused to join her in sending troops, but gave her such sympathy and support as would enable her to bring about a more satisfactory arrangement of China's foreign relations--that is more satisfactory to themselves regardless of the wishes, though not perhaps the interests, of China.

We know how the British and French marched upon Peking in 1860; how the summer palace was left a heap of ruins as a punishment for the murder of a company of men under a flag of truce; and how the Emperor Hsien Feng, with his wife, and the mother of his only son, our Empress Dowager, were compelled to flee for the first time before a foreign invader. Their refuge was Jehol, a fortified town, in a wild and rugged mountain pass, on the borders of China and Tartary, a hundred miles northeast of Peking. At this place the Emperor died, whether of disease, chagrin, or of a broken heart--or of all combined, it is impossible to say, and the Empress-mother was left AN EXILE AND A WIDOW, with the capital and the throne for the first time at the mercy of the Western barbarian.

This was the beginning of two important phases of the Empress Dowager's life--her affliction and her power, and her greatness is exhibited as well by the way in which she bore the one as by the way in which she wielded the other. In most cases a woman would have been so overcome by sorrow at the loss of her husband, as to have forgotten the affairs of state, or to have placed them for the time in the hands of others. Not so with this great woman. Prince Kung the brother of Hsien Feng, had been left in Peking to arrange a treaty with the Europeans, which he succeeded in doing to the satisfaction of both the Chinese and the foreigners.

On the death of the Emperor, a regency was organized by two of the princes, which did not include Prince Kung, and disregarded both of the dowagers, and it seemed as though Prince Kung was doomed. His father-in-law, however, the old statesman who had signed the treaties, urged him to be the first to get the ear of the two women on their return to the capital. This he did, and as it seemed evident that the regency and the council had been organized for the express purpose of tyrannizing over the Empresses and the child, they were at once arrested, the leader beheaded, and the others condemned to exile or to suicide. The child had been placed upon the throne as "good-luck," but now a new regency was formed, consisting of the two dowagers, with Prince Kung as joint regent, and the title of the reign was changed to Tung Chih or "joint government." Thus ended the Empress Dowager's years of training.

III

The Empress Dowager--As a Ruler

That a Manchu woman who had had such narrow opportunities of obtaining a knowledge of things as they really are, in distinction from the tissue of shams which constitute the warp and the woof of an Oriental Palace, should have been able to hold her own in every situation, and never be crushed by the opposing forces about her, is a phenomenon in itself only to be explained by due recognition of the influence of individual qualities in a ruler even in the semi-absolutism of China.--Arthur H. Smith in "China in Convulsion."

III

THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--AS A RULER

In considering the policy pursued by the Empress-mother after her accession to the regency, one cannot but feel that she was fully aware of the fact that she had been the wife of an emperor, and was the mother of the heir, of a decaying house. Of the 218 years that her dynasty had been in power, 120 had been occupied by the reigns of two emperors, and only seven monarchs had sat upon the throne, a smaller number than ever ruled during the same period in all Chinese history. These two Emperors, Kang Hsi and Chien Lung, the second and fourth, had each reigned for sixty years, the most brilliant period of the "Great Pure Dynasty," unless we except the last six years of the Empress Dowager's regency. The other ninety-eight years saw five rulers rise and pass away, each one becoming weaker than his predecessor both in character and in physique, until with the death of her son, Tung Chih, the dynasty was left without a direct heir.

The decay of the imperial house, the encroachments of the foreigner, and the opposition of the native Chinese to the rule of the Manchus, awoke the Empress Dowager to a realization of the fact that a stronger hand than that of her husband must be at the helm if the dynasty of her people were to be preserved. "It may be said with emphasis," says Colonel Denby, who was for thirteen years minister to China, "that the Empress Dowager has been the first of her race to apprehend the problem of the relation of China to the outer world, and to make use of this relation to strengthen her dynasty and to promote material progress." She was fortunate in having Prince Kung associated with her in the regency, a man tall, handsome and dignified, and the greatest statesman that has come from the royal house since the time of Chien Lung.

Here appears one of the chief characteristics of the Empress Dowager as a ruler--her ability to choose the greatest statesmen, the wisest advisers, the safest leaders, and the best guides, from the great mass of Chinese officials, whether progressive or conservative. Prince Kung was for forty years the leading figure of the Chinese capital outside of the Forbidden City. He appeared first, at the age of twenty-six, as a member of the commission that tried the minister who failed to make good his promise to induce Lord Elgin and his men-of-war to withdraw from Tientsin in 1858. The following year he was made a member of the Colonial Board that controlled the affairs of the "outer Barbarians," and a year later was left in Peking, when the court fled, to arrange a treaty of peace with the victorious British and French after they had taken the capital. "In these trying circumstances," says Professor Giles, "the tact and resource of Prince Kung won the admiration of his opponents," and when the Foreign Office was formed in 1861, it began with the Prince as its first president, a position which he continued to hold for many years.

It was he, as we have seen, who succeeded in outwitting and overthrowing the self-constituted regency on the death of his brother Hsien Feng, and, with the Empress Dowager, seated her infant son upon the throne, with the two Empresses and himself as joint regents. This condition continued for some years, with the senior Empress exercising no authority, and Prince Kung continually growing in power. The arrangement seemed satisfactory to all but one--the Empress-mother. To her it appeared as though he were fast becoming the government, and she and the Empress were as rapidly receding into the background, while in reality the design had been to make him "joint regent" with them. In all the receptions of the officials by the court, Prince Kung alone could see them face to face, while the ladies were compelled to remain behind a screen, listening to the deliberations but without taking any part therein, other than by such suggestions as they might make.

Being the visible head of the government, and the only avenue to positions of preferment, he would naturally be flattered by the Chinese officials. This led him to assume an air of importance which consciously or unconsciously he carried into the presence of their Majesties, and one morning he awoke to find himself stripped of all his rank and power, and confined and guarded a prisoner in his palace, by a joint decree from the two Empresses accusing him of "lack of respect for their Majesties." The deposed Prince at once begged their forgiveness, whereupon all his honours were restored with their accompanying dignities, but none of his former power as joint regent, and thus the first obstacle to her reestablishment of the dynasty was eliminated by the Empress-mother. To show Prince Kung, however, that they bore him no ill will, the Empresses adopted his daughter as their own, raising her to the rank of an imperial princess, and though the Prince has long since passed away his daughter still lives, and next to the Empress Dowager has been the leading figure in court circles during the past ten years' association with the foreigners.

During her son's minority, after the dismissal of Prince Kung as joint regent, the Empress-mother year by year took a more active part in the affairs of state, while the Empress as gradually sank into the background. She was far-sighted. Having but one son, and knowing the uncertainty of life, she originated a plan to secure the succession to her family. To this end she arranged for the marriage of her younger sister to her husband's younger brother commonly known as the Seventh Prince, in the hope that from this union there might come a son who would be a worthy occupant of the dragon throne in case her own son died without issue. She felt that the country needed a great central figure capable of inspiring confidence and banishing uncertainty, a strong, well-balanced, broad-minded, self-abnegating chief executive, and she proposed to furnish one. Whether she would succeed or not must be left to the future to reveal, but the one great task set by destiny for her to accomplish was to prepare the mind of a worthy successor to meet openly and intelligently the problems which had been too vast, too new and too complicated for her predecessors, if not for herself, to solve.

When her son was seventeen years old he was married to Alute, a young Manchu lady of one of the best families in Peking and was nominally given the reins of power, though as a matter of fact the supreme control of affairs was still in the hands of his more powerful mother. The ministers of the European countries, England, France, Germany, Russia and the United States, now resident at Peking, thought this a good time for bringing up the matter of an audience with the new ruler, and after a long discussion with Prince Kung and the Empress-mother, the matter was arranged without the ceremony of prostration which all previous rulers had demanded.

The married life of this young couple was a short one. Three years after their wedding ceremonies the young monarch contracted smallpox and died without issue, and was followed shortly afterwards by his young wife who heeded literally the instruction of one of their female teachers in her duty to her husband to

Share his joy as well as sorrow, riches, poverty or guilt, And in death be buried with him, as in life you shared his guilt.

That her nearest relatives did not believe, as has often been suggested, that there was any "foul play" in regard to her death, is evident from the fact that her father continued to hold office until the time of the Boxer uprising, at which time he followed the fleeing court as far as Paotingfu, where having heard that the capital was in the hands of the hated foreigners, he sent word back to his family that he would neither eat the foreigners' bread nor drink their water, but would prefer to die by his own hand. When his family received this message they commanded their servants to dig a great pit in their own court in which they all lay and ordered the coolies to bury them. This they at first refused to do, but they were finally prevailed upon, and thus perished all the male members of her father's household except one child that was rescued and carried away by a faithful nurse.

When Tung Chih died there was a formidable party in the palace opposed to the two dowagers, anxious to oust them and their party and place upon the throne a dissolute son of Prince Kung. But it would require a master mind from the outside to learn of the death of her son and select and proclaim a successor quicker than the Empress Dowager herself could do so from the inside. She first sent a secret messenger to Li Hung-chang whom she had appointed viceroy of the metropolitan province at Tientsin eighty miles away, informing him of the illness of her son and urging him to come to Peking with his troops post-haste and be ready to prevent any disturbance in case of his death and the announcement of a successor.

When Li Hung-chang received her orders, he began at once to put them into execution. Taking with him four thousand of his most reliable Anhui men, all well-armed horse, foot and artillery, he made a secret forced march to Peking. The distance of eighty miles was covered in thirty-six hours and he planned to arrive at midnight. Exactly on the hour Li and his picked guard were admitted, and in dead silence they marched into the Forbidden City. Every man had in his mouth a wooden bit to prevent talking, while the metal trappings of the horses were muffled to deaden all sound. When they arrived at the forbidden precincts, the Manchu Bannermen on guard at the various city gates were replaced by Li's Anhui braves, and as the Empress Dowager had sent eunuchs to point out the palace troops which were doubtful or that had openly declared for the conspirators, these were at once disarmed, bound and sent to prison. The artillery were ordered to guard the gates of the Forbidden City, the cavalry to patrol the grounds, and the foot-soldiers to pick up any stray conspirators that could be found. A strong detachment was stationed so as to surround the Empress Dowager and the child whom she had selected as a successor to her son, and when the morning sun rose bright and clear over the Forbidden City the surprise of the conspirators who had slept the night away was complete. Of the disaffected that remained, some were put in prison and others sent into perpetual exile to the Amoor beyond their native borders, and when the Empress Dowager announced the death of her son, she proclaimed the son of her sister, Kuang Hsu, as his successor, with herself and the Empress as regents during his minority. When everything was settled, Li folded his tent like the Arab, and stole away as silently as he had come.

The wisdom and greatness of the Empress Dowager were thus manifested in binding to the throne the greatest men not only in the capital but in the provinces. Li Hung-chang had won his title to greatness during the Tai-ping rebellion, for his part in the final extinction of which he was ennobled as an Earl. From this time onward she placed him in the highest positions of honour and power within sufficient proximity to the capital to have his services within easy reach. For twenty-four years he was kept as viceroy of the metropolitan province of Chihli, with the largest and best drilled army at his command that China had ever had, and yet during all this time he realized that he was watched with the eyes of an eagle lest he manifest any signs of rebellion, while his nephew was kept in the capital as a hostage for his good conduct. Once and again when he had reached the zenith of his power, or had been feted by foreign potentates enough to turn the head of a bronze Buddha, his yellow jacket and peacock feather were kindly but firmly removed to remind him that there was a power in Peking on whom he was dependent.

Li Hung-chang's greatness made him many enemies. Those whom he defeated, those whom he would not or could not help, those whom he punished or put out of office, and those whose enmity was the result of jealousy. When the war with Japan closed and the Chinese government sent Chang Yin-huan to negotiate a treaty of peace, the Japanese refused to accept him, nor were they willing to take up the matter until "Li Hung-chang was appointed envoy, chiefly because of his great influence over the government, and the respect in which he was held by the people." We all know how he went, how he was shot in the face by a Japanese fanatic, the ball lodging under the left eye, where it remained a memento which he carried to the grave. We all know how he recovered from the wound, and how because of his sufferings he was able to negotiate a better treaty than he could otherwise have done. Then he returned home, and only "the friendship of the Empress and his own personal sufferings saved his life," says Colonel Denby, for "the new treaty was urgently denounced in China" by carping critics who would not have been recognized as envoys by their Japanese enemies.

In 1896 he was appointed to attend the coronation of the Czar at Moscow, and thence continued his trip around the world. Never before nor since has a Chinese statesman or even a prince been feted as he was in every country through which he passed. When he was about to start, at his request I had a round fan painted for him, with a map of the Eastern hemisphere on one side and the Western on the other, on which all the steamship lines and railroads over which he was to travel were clearly marked, with all the ports and cities at which he expected to stop. He was photographed with Gladstone, and hailed as the "Bismarck of the East," but when he returned to Peking, for no reason but jealousy, "he was treated as an extinct volcano." The Empress Dowager invited him to the Summer Palace where he was shown about the place by the eunuchs, treated to tea and pipes, and led into pavilions where only Her Majesty was allowed to enter, and then denounced to the Board of Punishments who were against him to a man. And now this Grand Secretary whom kings and courts had honoured, whom emperors and presidents had feted, and our own government had spent thirty thousand dollars in entertaining, was once more stripped of his yellow jacket and peacock feather, and fined the half of a year's salary as a member of the Foreign Office, which was the amusing sum of forty-five taels or about thirty-five dollars gold, and it was said in Peking at the time that only the intercession of the Empress Dowager saved him from imprisonment or further disgrace.

During the whole regency of the Empress Dowager only two men have occupied the position of President of the Grand Council--Prince Kung and Prince Ching. While the former was degraded many times and had his honours all taken from him, the latter "has kept himself on top of a rolling log for thirty years" without losing any of the honours which were originally conferred upon him. The same is true of Chang Chih-tung, Liu Kun-yi and Wang Wen-shao, three great viceroys and Grand Secretaries whom the Empress Dowager has never allowed to be without an important office, but whom she has never degraded. Need we ask the reason why? The answer is not far to seek. They were the most eminent progressive officials she had in her empire, but none of them were great enough to be a menace to her dynasty, and hence need not be reminded that there was a power above them which by a stroke of her pen could transfer them from stars in the official firmament to dandelions in the grass. Not so with Yuan Shih-kai--but we will speak of him in another chapter.