make satisfactory arrangements for future intercourse; but the obstructive policy of the officials on his arrival at the Peiho compelled him to attack and capture the Taku forts, and finally, to take up his residence in Tientsin. The lips, as the Chinese say, being now gone, the teeth began to feel cold; the court was in a state of panic, and within a few weeks a treaty was signed (June 26, 1858) containing, among other concessions to England, the right to have a diplomatic representative stationed in Peking, and permission to trade in the interior of China. It would naturally be supposed that Lord Elgin’s mission was now ended, and indeed he went home; the Emperor, however, would not hear of ratifications of the treaty being exchanged in Peking, and in many other ways it was made plain that there was no intention of its stipulations being carried out. There was the example of Confucius, who had been captured by rebels and released on condition that he would not travel to the State of Wei. Thither, notwithstanding, he continued his route; and when asked by a disciple if it was right to violate his oath, he replied, “This was a forced oath; the spirits do not hear such.”
By June, 1859, another Anglo-French force was at the mouth of the Peiho, only to find the Taku forts now strongly fortified, and the river staked and otherwise obstructed. The allied fleet, after suffering considerable damage, with much loss of life, was compelled to retire, greatly to the joy and relief of the Emperor, who at last saw the barbarian reduced to his proper status. It was on this occasion that Commander Tatnell of the U.S. navy, who was present, strictly speaking, as a spectator only, in complete violation of international law, of which luckily the Chinese knew nothing at that date, lent efficient aid by towing boat-loads of British marines into action, justifying his conduct by a saying which will always be gratefully associated with his name,–“Blood is thicker than water.”
By August, 1860, thirteen thousand British troops, seven thousand French, and two thousand five hundred Cantonese coolies, were ready to make another attempt. This time there were no frontal attacks on the forts from the seaward; capture was effected, after a severe struggle, by land from the rear, a feat which was generally regarded by the Tartar soldiery as most unsportsmanlike. High Manchu officials were now hurriedly dispatched from Peking to Tientsin to stop by fair promises the further advance of the allies; but the British and French plenipotentiaries decided to move up to T`ung-chow, a dozen miles or so from the capital. It was on this march that Parkes, Loch, and others, while carrying out orders under a flag of truce, were treacherously seized by the soldiers of Sêng-ko-lin-sin, the Manchu prince and general (familiar to the British troops as “Sam Collinson”), who had just experienced a severe defeat at the taking of the Taku forts. After being treated with every indignity, the prisoners, French and English, numbering over thirty in all, were forwarded to Peking. There they were miserably tortured, and many of them succumbed; but events were moving quickly now, and relief was at hand for those for whom it was not already too late. Sêng-ko-lin-sin and his vaunted Tartar cavalry were completely routed in several encounters, and Peking lay at the mercy of the foreigner, the Emperor having fled to Jehol, where he died in less than a year. Only then did Prince Kung, a younger brother of Hsien Fêng, who had been left to bear the brunt of foreign resentment, send back, in a state too terrible for words, fourteen prisoners, less than half the original number of those so recently captured. Something in the form of a punitive act now became necessary, to mark the horror with which this atrocious treatment of prisoners by the Manchu court was regarded among the countrymen of the victims. Accordingly, orders were given to burn down the Summer Palace, appropriately condemned as being the favourite residence of the Emperor, and also the scene of the unspeakable tortures inflicted. This palace was surrounded by a beautiful pleasance lying on the slope of the western hills, about nine miles to the north-west of Peking. Yüan-ming Yüan, or the “Bright Round Garden,” to give it its proper name, had been laid out by the Jesuit fathers on the plan of the Trianon at Versailles, and was packed with valuable porcelain, old bronzes, and every conceivable kind of curio, most of which were looted or destroyed by the infuriated soldiery.
The ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858) was now completed, and before the end of the year the allied forces were gone, save and except garrisons at Tientsin and Taku, which were to remain until the indemnity was paid.
CHAPTER IX
T`UNG CHIH
On the death of the Emperor, a plot was concocted by eight members of the extreme anti-foreign party at Court, who claimed to have been appointed Regents, to make away with the Empress Dowager, the concubine mother, known as the Western Empress, of the five-year-old child just proclaimed under the title of Chi Hsiang (good omen), and also the late Emperor’s three brothers, thus securing to themselves complete control of the administration. Prince Kung, however, managed to be “first at the fire,” and in accordance with the Chinese proverb, was therefore “first with his cooking.” Having got wind of the scheme, in concert with the two Empresses Dowager, who had secured possession of the Emperor, he promptly caused the conspirators to be seized. Two of them, Imperial princes, were allowed to commit suicide, and the others were either executed or banished, while Prince Kung and the two Empresses formed a joint regency for the direction of public affairs, after changing the style of the reign from Chi Hsiang to T`ung Chih (united rule).
The position of these two Empresses was a curious one. The Empress Dowager /par excellence/–for there is only one legal wife in China– had no children; a concubine had provided the heir to the throne, and had in consequence been raised to the rank of Western Empress, subordinate only to the childless Eastern Empress. Of the latter, there is nothing to be said, except that she remained a cipher to the end of her life; of the concubine, a great deal has been said, much of which is untrue. Taken from an ordinary Manchu family into the palace, she soon gained an extraordinary influence over Hsien Fêng, and began to make her voice heard in affairs of State. Always on the side of determined measures, she had counselled the Emperor to remain in Peking and face the barbarians; she is further believed to have urged the execution of Parkes and Loch, the order luckily arriving too late to be carried out. For the next three years the Regents looked anxiously for the final collapse of the T`ai-p`ings, having meanwhile to put up with the hateful presence of foreign diplomats, now firmly established within the Manchu section of the city of Peking. No sooner was the great rebellion entirely suppressed (1864), than another rising broke out. The Nien-fei, or Twist Rebels, said to have been so called because they wore as a badge turbans twisted with grease, were mounted banditti who, here to-day and gone to-morrow, for several years committed much havoc in the northern provinces of China, until finally suppressed by Tso Tsung-t`ang.
Turkestan was the next part of the empire to claim attention. A son and successor of Jehangir, ruling as vassal of China at Khokand, had been murdered by his lieutenant, Yakoob Beg, who, in 1866, had set himself up as Ameer of Kashgaria, throwing off the Manchu yoke and attracting to his standard large numbers of discontented Mahometans from all quarters. His attack upon the Dunganis, who had risen on their own account and had spread rebellion far and wide between the province of Shensi and Kuldja, caused Russia to step in and annex Kuldja before it could fall into his hands. Still, he became master of a huge territory; and in 1874 the title of Athalik Ghazi, “Champion Father,” was conferred upon him by the Ameer of Bokhara. He is also spoken of as the Andijani, from Andijan, a town in Khokhand whence he and many of his followers came. Luckily for the Manchus, they were able to avail themselves of the services of a Chinese general whose extraordinary campaign on this occasion has marked him as a commander of the first order. Tso Tsung-k`ang, already distinguished by his successes against the T`ia-p`ings and the Nien-fei, began by operations, in 1869, against the Mahometans in Shensi. Fighting his way through difficulties caused by local outbreaks and mutinies in his rear, he had captured by 1873 the important city of Su-chow in Kansuh, and by 1874 his advance-guard had reached Hami. There he was forced to settle down and raise a crop in order to feed his troops, supplies being very uncertain. In 1876 Urumtsi was recovered; and in 1877, Turfan, Harashar, Yarkand, and Kashgar. At this juncture, Yakoob Beg was assassinated, after having held Kashgaria for twelve years. Khoten fell on January 2, 1878. This wonderful campaign was now over, but China had lost Kuldja. A Manchu official, named Ch`ung-hou, who was sent to St Petersburg to meet Russian diplomats on their own ground, the main object being to recover this lost territory, was condemned to death on his return for the egregious treaty he had managed to negotiate, and was only spared at the express request of Queen Victoria; he will be mentioned again shortly. His error was afterwards retrieved by a young and brilliant official, son of the great Tsêng Kuo-fan, and later a familiar figure as the Marquis Tsêng, Minister at the Court of St James’s, by whom Kuldja was added once more to the Manchu empire.
The year 1868 is remarkable for a singular episode. The Regents and other high authorities in Peking decided, at whose instigation can only be surmised, to send an embassy to the various countries of Europe and America, in order to bring to the notice of foreign governments China’s right, as an independent Power, to manage her internal affairs without undue interference from outside. The mission, which included two Chinese officials, was placed under the leadership of Mr Burlingame, American Minister at Peking, who, in one of his speeches, took occasion to say that China was simply longing to cement friendly relations with foreign powers, and that within some few short years there would be “a shining cross on every hill in the Middle Kingdom.”
Burlingame died early in 1870, before his mission was completed, and only four months before the Tientsin Massacre threw a shadow of doubt over his optimistic pronouncements. The native population at Tientsin had been for some time irritated by the height to which, contrary to their own custom, the towers of the Roman Catholic Cathedral had been carried; and rumours had also been circulated that behind the lofty walls and dark mysterious portals of the Catholic foundling hospital, children’s eyes and hearts were extracted from still warm corpses to furnish medicines for the barbarian pharmacopia. On June 21, the cathedral and the establishment of sisters of mercy, the French Consulate, and other buildings, were pillaged and burnt by a mob composed partly of the rowdies of the place and partly of soldiers who happened to be temporarily quartered there. All the priests and sisters were brutally murdered, as also the French Consul and other foreigners. For this outrage eighteen men were executed, a large indemnity was exacted, and the superintendent of trade, the same Manchu official whose subsequent failure at St Petersburg has been already noticed, was sent to France with a letter of apology from the Emperor.
In 1872 T`ung Chih was married, and in the following year took over the reins of government. Thereupon, the foreign Ministers pressed for personal interviews; and after much obstruction on the part of the Manchu court, the first audience was granted. This same year saw the collapse of the Panthays, a tribe of Mahometans in Yünnan who, so far back as 1855, had begun to free themselves from Chinese rule. They chose as their leader an able co-religionist named Tu Wên-hsiu, who was styled Sultan Suleiman, and he sent agents to Burma to buy arms and munitions of war; after which, secure in the natural fortress of Ta-li, he was soon master of all western Yünnan. In 1863 he repulsed with heavy loss two armies sent against him from the provincial capital; but the end of the T`ai-p`ing rebellion set free the whole resources of the empire against him, and he remained inactive while the Imperialists advanced leisurely westwards. In 1871 he tried vainly to obtain aid from England, sending over his son, Prince Hassan, for that purpose. The following year saw the enemy at the gates of Ta-li, and by and by there was a treacherous surrender of an important position. Then a promise of an amnesty was obtained at the price of Tu’s head, and an enormous indemnity. On January 15, 1873, his family having all committed suicide, the Sultan passed for the last time through the crowded streets of Ta-li on his way to the camp of his victorious adversary. He arrived there senseless, having taken poison before setting forth. His corpse was beheaded and his head was forwarded to the provincial capital, and thence in a jar of honey to Peking.
His conqueror, whose name is not worth recording, was one of those comparatively rare Chinese monsters who served their Manchu masters only too well. Eleven days after the Sultan’s death, he invited the chief men of the town to a feast, and after putting them all to death, gave the signal for a general massacre, in which thirty thousand persons are said to have been butchered.
In 1874 the Japanese appear on the scene, adding fresh troubles to those with which the Manchus were already encompassed. Some sailors from the Loo-choo Islands, over which Japanese sovereignty had been successfully maintained, were murdered by the savages on the east coast of Formosa; and failing to obtain redress, Japan sent a punitive expedition to the island, and began operations on her own account, but withdrew on promises of amendment and payment of all expenses incurred.
CHAPTER X
KUANG HSÜ
In 1875 the Emperor T`ung Chih died of smallpox, and with his death the malign influence of his mother comes more freely into play. The young Empress was about to become a mother; and had she borne a son, her position as mother of the baby Emperor would have been of paramount importance, while the grandmother, the older Empress Dowager, would have been relegated to a subordinate status. Consequently,–it may now be said, having regard to subsequent happenings,–the death of the Empress followed that of her husband at an indecently short interval, for no particular reason of health; and the old Empress Dowager became supreme. In order to ensure her supremacy, she had previously, on the very day of the Emperor’s death, caused the succession to be allotted, in utter violation of established custom, to a first cousin, making him heir to the Emperor Hsien Fêng, instead of naming one of a lower generation who, as heir to T`ung Chih, would have been qualified to sacrifice to the spirit of his adopted father. Thus, the late Emperor was left without a son, and his spirit without a ministrant at ancestral worship, the only consolation being that when a son should be born to the new Emperor (aged four), that child was to become son by adoption to his late Majesty, T`ung Chih. Remonstrances, even from Manchus, were soon heard on all sides; but to these the Empress Dowager paid no attention until four years afterwards (1879), on the occasion of the deferred funeral of the late Emperor, when a censor, named Wu K`o-tu, committed suicide at the mausoleum, leaving behind him a memorial in which he strongly condemned the action of the two Empresses Dowager, still regarded officially as joint regents, and called for a re-arrangement of the succession, under which the late Emperor would be duly provided with an heir. Nothing, however, came of this sacrifice, except promises, until 1900. A son of Prince Tuan, within a few months to espouse the Boxer cause, was then made heir to his late Majesty, as required; but at the beginning of 1901, this appointment was cancelled and the spirit of the Emperor T`ung Chih was left once more unprovided for in the ancestral temple. The first cousin in question, who reigned as Kuang Hsü (= brilliant succession), was not even the next heir in his own generation; but he was a child of four, and that suited the plans of the Empress Dowager, who, having appointed herself Regent, now entered openly upon the career for which she will be remembered in history. What she would have done if the Empress had escaped and given birth to a son, can only be a matter of conjecture.
In 1876 the first resident Envoy ever sent by China to Great Britain, or to any other nation, was accredited to the Court of St James’s. Kuo Sung-tao, who was chosen for the post, was a fine scholar; he made several attempts on the score of health to avoid what then seemed to all Chinese officials–no Manchu would have been sent–to be a dangerous and unpleasant duty, but was ultimately obliged to succeed. It was he who, on his departure in 1879, said to Lord Salisbury that he liked everything about the English very much, except their shocking immorality.
The question of railways for China had long been simmering in the minds of enterprising foreigners; but it was out of the question to think that the Government would allow land to be sold for such a purpose; therefore there would be no sellers. In 1876 a private company succeeded in obtaining the necessary land by buying up connecting strips between Shanghai and Woosung at the mouth of the river, about eight miles in all. The company then proceeded to lay down a miniature railway, which was an object of much interest to the native, whose amusement soon took the form of a trip there and back. Political influence was then brought to bear, and the whole thing was purchased by the Government; the rails were torn up and sent to Formosa, where they were left to rot upon the sea-beach.
The suppression of rebellion in Turkestan and Yünnan has already been mentioned; also the retrocession of Kuldja, which brings us down to the year 1881, when the Eastern Empress died. Death must have been more or less a relief to this colourless personage, who had been entirely superseded on a stage on which by rights she should have played the leading part, and who had been terrorized during her last years by her more masterful colleague.
In 1882 there were difficulties with France over Tongking; these, however, were adjusted, and in 1884 a convention was signed by Captain Fournier and Li Hung-chang. A further dispute then arose as to a breach of the convention by the Chinese, and an /état de représailles/ followed, during which the French destroyed the Chinese fleet. After the peace which was arranged in 1885, a few years of comparative tranquillity ensued; the Emperor was married (1889), and relieved his aunt of her duties as Regent.
Japan, in earlier centuries contemptuously styled the Dwarf-nation, and always despised as a mere imitator and brain-picker of Chinese wisdom, now swims definitively into the ken of the Manchu court. The Formosan imbroglio had been forgotten as soon as it was over, and the recent rapid progress of Japan on Western lines towards national strength had been ignored by all Manchu statesmen, each of whom lived in hope that the deluge would not come in his own time. So far back as 1885, in consequence of serious troubles involving much bloodshed, the two countries had agreed that neither should send troops to Korea without due notification to the other. Now, in 1894, China violated this contract by dispatching troops, at the request of the king of Korea, whose throne was threatened by a serious rebellion, without sufficient warning to Japan, and further, by keeping a body of these troops at the Korean capital even when the rebellion was at an end. A disastrous war ensued. The Japanese were victorious on land and sea; the Chinese fleet was destroyed; Port Arthur was taken; and finally, after surrendering Wei-hai-wei (1895), to which he had retired with the remnant of his fleet, Admiral Ting, well known as “a gallant sailor and true gentleman,” committed suicide together with four of his captains. Li Hung-chang was then sent to Japan to sue for peace, and while there he was shot in the cheek by a fanatical member of the Soshi class. This act brought him much sympathy–he was then seventy- two years old; and in the treaty of Shimonoseki, which he negotiated, better terms perhaps were obtained than would otherwise have been the case. The terms granted included the independence of Korea, for centuries a tribute-paying vassal of China, and the cession of the island of Formosa. Japan had occupied the peninsula on which stands the impregnable fortress of Port Arthur, and had captured the latter in a few hours; but she was not to be allowed to keep them. A coalition of European powers, Russia, Germany, and France–England refused to join–decided that it would never do to let Japan possess Port Arthur, and forced her to accept a money payment instead. So it was restored to China–for the moment; and at the same time a republic was declared in Formosa; but of this the Japanese made short work.
[I once read the memoirs of a Japanese foreign minister from this period. He didn’t think much of most of the Chinese diplomats, whom he considered completely untrustworthy.–JB.]
The following year was marked by an unusual display of initiative on the part of the Emperor, who now ordered the introduction of railways; but in 1897 complications with foreign powers rather gave a check to these aspirations. Two German Catholic priests were murdered, and as a punitive measure Germany seized Kiaochow in Shantung; while in 1898 Russia “leased” Port Arthur, and as a counterblast, England thought it advisable to “lease” Wei-hai-wai. So soon as the Manchu court had recovered from the shock of these events, and had resumed its normal state of torpor, it was rudely shaken from within by a series of edicts which peremptorily commanded certain reforms of a most far- reaching description. For instance, the great public examinations, which had been conducted on much the same system for seven or eight centuries past, were to be modified by the introduction of subjects suggested by recent intercourse with Western nations. There was to be a university in Peking, and the temples, which cover the empire in all directions, were to be closed to religious services and opened for educational purposes. The Manchus, indeed, have never shown any signs of a religious temperament. There had not been, under the dynasty in question, any such wave of devotional fervour as was experienced under more than one previous dynasty. Neither the dreams of Buddhism, nor the promises of immortality held out by the Taoists, seem to have influenced in a religious, as opposed to a superstitious sense, the rather Botian mind of the Manchu. The learned emperors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries accepted Confucianism as sufficient for every-day humanity, and did all in their power to preserve it as a quasi-State religion. Thus, Buddhism was not favoured at the expense of Taoism, nor /vice versa/; Mahometanism was tolerated so long as there was no suspicion of disloyalty; Christianity, on the other hand, was bitterly opposed, being genuinely regarded for a long time as a cloak for territorial aggression.
To return to the reforms. Young Manchus of noble family were to be sent abroad for an education on wider lines than it was possible to obtain at home. This last was in every way a desirable measure. No Manchu had ever visited the West; all the officials previously sent to foreign countries had been Chinese. But other proposed changes were not of equal value.
At the back of this reform movement was a small band of earnest men who suffered from too much zeal, which led to premature action. A plot was conceived, under which the Empress Dowager was to be arrested and imprisoned; but this was betrayed by Yüan Shih-k`ai, and she turned the tables by suddenly arresting and imprisoning the Emperor, and promptly decapitating all the conspirators, with the exception of K`ang Yu-wei, who succeeded in escaping. He had been the moving spirit of the abortive revolution; he was a fine scholar, and had completely gained the ear of the Emperor. The latter became henceforth to the end of his life a person of no importance, while China, for the third time in history, passed under the dominion of a woman. There was no secret about it; the Empress Dowager, popularly known as the Old Buddha, had succeeded in terrorizing every one who came in contact with her, and her word was law. It was said of one of the Imperial princes that he was “horribly afraid of her Majesty, and that when she spoke to him he was on tenter-hooks, as though thorns pricked him, and the sweat ran down his face.”
All promise of reform now disappeared from the Imperial programme, and the recent edicts, which had raised premature hope in this direction, were annulled; the old régime was to prevail once more. The weakness of this policy was emphasized in the following year (1899), when England removed from Japan the stigma of extra-territorial jurisdiction, by which act British defendants, in civil and criminal cases alike, now became amenable to Japanese tribunals. Japan had set herself to work to frame a code, and had trained lawyers for the administration of justice; China had done nothing, content that on her own territory foreigners and their lawsuits, as above, should be tried by foreign Consuls. One curious edict of this date had for its object the conferment of duly graded civil rank, the right to salutes at official visits, and similar ceremonial privileges, upon Roman Catholic archbishops, bishops, and priests of the missionary body in China. The Catholic view was that the missionaries would gain in the eyes of the people if treated with more deference than the majority of Chinese officials cared to display towards what was to them an objectionable class; in practice, however, the system was found to be unworkable, and was ultimately given up.
The autumn of this year witnessed the beginning of the so-called Boxer troubles. There was great unrest, especially in Shantung, due, it was said, to ill-feeling between the people at large and converts to Christianity, and at any rate aggravated by recent foreign acquisitions of Chinese territory. It was thus that what was originally one of the periodical anti-dynastic risings, with the usual scion of the Ming dynasty as figure-head, lost sight of its objective and became a bloodthirsty anti-foreign outbreak. The story of the siege of the Legations has been written from many points of view; and most people know all they want to know of the two summer months in 1900, the merciless bombardment of a thousand foreigners, with their women and children, cooped up in a narrow space, and also of the awful butchery of missionaries, men, women, and children alike, which took place at the capital of Shansi. Whatever may have been the origin of the movement, there can be little doubt that it was taken over by the Manchus, with the complicity of the Empress Dowager, as a means of getting rid of all the foreigners in China. Considering the extraordinary position the Empress Dowager had created for herself, it is impossible to believe that she would not have been able to put an end to the siege by a word, or even by a mere gesture. She did not do so; and on the relief of the Legations, for a second time in her life –she had accompanied Hsien Fêng to Jehol in 1860–she sought safety in an ignominious flight. Meanwhile, in response to a memorial from the Governor of Shansi, she had sent him a secret decree, saying, “Slay all foreigners wheresoever you find them; even though they be prepared to leave your province, yet they must be slain.” A second and more urgent decree said, “I command that all foreigners, men, women, and children, be summarily executed. Let not one escape, so that my empire may be purged of this noisome source of corruption, and that peace may be restored to my loyal subjects.” The first of these decrees had been circulated to all the high provincial officials, and the result might well have been an indiscriminate slaughter of foreigners all over China, but for the action of two Chinese officials, who had already incurred the displeasure of the Empress Dowager by memorializing against the Boxer policy. These men secretly changed the word “slay” into “protect,” and this is the sense in which the decree was acted upon by provincial officials generally, with the exception of the Governor of Shansi, who sent a second memorial, eliciting the second decree as above. It is impossible to say how many foreigners owe their lives to this alteration of a word, and the Empress Dowager herself would scarcely have escaped so easily as she did, had her cruel order been more fully executed. The trick was soon discovered, and the two heroes, Yüan Ch`ang and Hsü Ching-ch`êng, were both summarily beheaded, even though it was to the former that the Empress Dowager was indebted for information which enabled her to frustrate the plot against her life in 1898.
Now, at the very moment of departure, she perpetrated a most brutal crime. A favourite concubine of the Emperor’s, who had previously given cause for offence, urged that his Majesty should not take part in the flight, but should remain in Peking. For this suggestion the Empress Dowager caused the miserable girl to be thrown down a well, in spite of the supplications of the Emperor on her behalf. Then she fled, ultimately to Hsi-an Fu, the capital of Shensi, and for a year and a half Peking was rid of her presence. In 1902, she came back with the Emperor, whose prerogative she still managed to usurp. She declared at once for reform, and took up the cause with much show of enthusiasm; but those who knew the Manchu best, decided to “wait and see.” She began by suggesting intermarriage between Manchus and Chinese, which had so far been prohibited, and advised Chinese women to give up the practice of footbinding, a custom which the ruling race had never adopted. It was henceforth to be lawful for Manchus, even of the Imperial family, to send their sons abroad to be educated,–a step which no Manchu would be likely to take unless forcibly coerced into doing so. Any spirit of enterprise which might have been possessed by the founders of the dynasty had long since evaporated, and all that Manchu nobles asked was to be allowed to batten in peace upon the Chinese people.
The direct issue of the emperors of the present dynasty and of their descendants in the male line, dating from 1616, are popularly known as Yellow Girdles, from a sash of that colour which they habitually wear. Each generation becomes a degree lower in rank, until they are mere members of the family with no rank whatever, although they still wear the girdle and receive a trifling allowance from the government. Thus, beggars and even thieves are occasionally seen with this badge of relationship to the throne. Members of the collateral branches of the Imperial family wear a red girdle, and are known as Gioros, Gioro being part of the surname–Aisin Gioro = Golden Race–of an early progenitor of the Manchu emperors.
As a next step in reform, the examination system was to be remodelled, but not in the one sense in which it would have appealed most to the Chinese people. Examinations for Manchus have always been held separately, and the standard attained has always been very far below that reached by Chinese candidates, so that the scholarship of the Manchu became long ago a by-word and a joke. Now, in 1904, it was settled that entry to an official career should be obtainable only through the modern educational colleges; but this again applied only to Chinese and not to Manchus. The Manchus have always had wisdom enough to employ the best abilities they could discover by process of examination among the Chinese, many of whom have risen from the lowest estate to the highest positions in the empire, and have proved themselves valuable servants and staunch upholders of the dynasty. Still, in addition to numerous other posts, it may be said that all the fat sinecures have always been the portion of Manchus. For instance, the office of Hoppo, or superintendent of customs at Canton (abolished 1904), was a position which was allowed to generate into a mere opportunity for piling a large fortune in the shortest possible time, no particular ability being required from the holder of the post, who was always a Manchu.
Then followed a mission to Europe, at the head of which we now find a Manchu of high rank, an Imperial Duke, sent to study the mysteries of constitutional government, which was henceforth promised to the people, so soon as its introduction might be practicable. In the midst of these attractive promises (1904-5) came the Russo-Japanese war, with all its surprises. Among other causes to which the Manchu court ascribed the success of the Japanese, freedom from the opium vice took high rank, and this led to really serious enactments against the growth and consumption of opium in China. Continuous and strenuous efforts of philanthropists during the preceding half century had not produced any results at all; but now it seemed as though this weakness had been all along the chief reason for China’s failures in her struggles with the barbarian, and it was to be incontinently stamped out. Ten years’ grace was allowed, at the end of which period there was to be no more opium-smoking in the empire. One awkward feature was that the Empress Dowager herself was an opium-smoker; the difficulty, however, was got over by excluding from the application of the edict of 1906 persons over sixty years of age. Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of this policy, which so far has chiefly resulted in the substitution of morphia, cocaine, and alcohol, the thoroughness and rapidity with which it has been carried out, can only command the admiration of all; of those most who know China best.
CHAPTER XI
HSÜAN T`UNG
The health of the Emperor, never very good, now began to fail, and by 1908 he was seriously ill; in this same year, too, there were signs that the Empress Dowager was breaking up. Her last political act of any importance, except the nomination of the heir to the throne, was to issue a decree confirming the previous promise of constitutional government, which was to come into full force within nine years. Not many weeks later the Emperor died (November 14), the Empress Dowager having already, while he lay dying, appointed one of his nephews, a child barely three years old, to succeed him, in the vain hope that she would thus enjoy a further spell of power until the child should be of age. But on the following day the Empress Dowager also died; a singular coincidence which has been attributed to the determination of the eunuchs and others that the Emperor should not outlive his aunt, for some time past seen to be “drawing near the wood,” lest his reforming spirit should again jeopardize their nefarious interests.
The Regency devolved upon the Emperor’s father, but was not of very long duration. There was a show of introducing constitutional reform under the guise of provincial and national assemblies intended to control the government of the empire; but after all, the final power to accept or reject their measures was vested in the Emperor, which really left things very much as they had been. The new charter was not found to be of much value, and there is little doubt that the Manchus regarded it in the light of what is known in China as a “dummy document,” a measure to be extolled in theory, but not intended to appear in practice. Suddenly, in September 1911, the great revolution broke out, and the end came more rapidly than was expected.
It must not be imagined that this revolution was an inspiration of the moment; on the contrary, it had been secretly brewing for quite a long time beforehand. During that period a few persons familiar with China may have felt that something was coming, but nobody knew exactly what. Those who accept without reservation the common statement that there is no concealment possible in a country where everybody is supposed to have his price, and that due notice of anything important is sure to leak out, must have been rather astonished when, without any warning, they found China in the throes of a well-planned revolution, which was over, with its object gained, almost as soon as the real gravity of the situation was realized. It is true that under the Manchus access to official papers of the most private description was always to be obtained at a moderate outlay; it was thus, for instance, that we were able to appreciate the inmost feelings of that grim old Manchu, Wo-jen, who, in 1861, presented a secret memorial to the throne, and stated therein that his loathing of all foreigners was so great that he longed to eat their flesh and sleep on their skins.
The guiding spirit of the movement, Sun Yat-sen, is a native of Kuangtung, where he was born, not very far from Canton, in 1866. After some early education in Honolulu, he became a student at the College of Medicine, Kongkong, where he took his diploma in 1892. But his chief aim in life soon became a political one, and he determined to get rid of the Manchus. He organized a Young China party in Canton, and in 1895 made an attempt to seize the city. The plot failed, and fifteen out of the sixteen conspirators were arrested and executed; Sun Yat-sen alone escaped. A year later, he was in London, preparing himself for further efforts by the study of Western forms of government, a very large reward being offered by the Chinese Government for his body, dead or alive. During his stay there he was decoyed into the Chinese Legation, and imprisoned in an upper room, from which he would have been hurried away to China, probably as a lunatic, to share the fate of his fifteen fellow-conspirators, but for the assistance of a woman who had been told off to wait upon him. To her he confided a note addressed to Dr Cantlie, a personal friend of long standing, under whom he had studied medicine in Hongkong; and she handed this to her husband, employed as waiter in the Legation, by whom it was safely delivered. He thus managed to communicate with the outer world; Lord Salisbury intervened, and he was released after a fortnight’s detention.
Well might Sun Yat-sen now say–
“They little thought that day of pain That one day I should come again.”
More a revolutionary than ever, he soon set to work to collect funds which flowed in freely from Chinese sources in all quarters of the world. At last, in September 1911, the train was fired, beginning with the province of Ss{u}ch`uan, and within an incredibly short space of time, half China was ablaze. By the middle of October the Manchus were beginning to feel that a great crisis was at hand, and the Regent was driven to recall Yüan Shih-k`ai, whom he had summarily dismissed from office two years before, on the conventional plea that Yüan was suffering from a bad leg, but really out of revenge for his treachery to the late Emperor, which had brought about the latter’s arrest and practical deposition by the old Empress Dowager in 1898.
To this summons Yüan slily replied that he could not possibly leave home just then, as his leg was not yet well enough for him to be able to travel, meaning, of course, to gain time, and be in a position to dictate his own terms. On the 30th October, when it was already too late, the baby Emperor, reigning under the year-title Hsüan T`ung (wide control), published the following edict:–
“I have reigned for three years, and have always acted conscientiously in the interests of the people, but I have not employed men properly, not having political skill. I have employed too many nobles in political positions, which contravenes constitutionalism. On railway matters someone whom I trusted fooled me, and thus public opinion was opposed. When I urged reform, the officials and gentry seized the opportunity to embezzle. When old laws are abolished, high officials serve their own ends. Much of the people’s money has been taken, but nothing to benefit the people has been achieved. On several occasions edicts have promulgated laws, but none of them have been obeyed. People are grumbling, yet I do not know; disasters loom ahead, but I do not see.
“The Ss{u}ch`uan trouble first occurred; the Wu-ch`ang rebellion followed; now alarming reports come from Shansi and Hunan. In Canton and Kiangsi riots appear. The whole empire is seething. The minds of the people are perturbed. The spirits of our nine late emperors are unable properly to enjoy sacrifices, while it is feared the people will suffer grievously.
“All these are my own fault, and hereby I announce to the world that I swear to reform, and, with our soldiers and people, to carry out the constitution faithfully, modifying legislation, developing the interests of the people, and abolishing their hardships–all in accordance with the wishes and interests of the people. Old laws that are unsuitable will be abolished.”
Nowhere else in the world is the belief that Fortune has a wheel which in the long run never fails to “turn and lower the proud,” so prevalent or so deeply-rooted as in China. “To prosperity,” says the adage, “must succeed decay,”–a favourite theme around which the novelist delights to weave his romance. This may perhaps account for the tame resistance of the Manchus to what they recognized as inevitable. They had enjoyed a good span of power, quite as lengthy as that of any dynasty of modern times, and now they felt that their hour had struck. To borrow another phrase, “they had come in with the roar of a tiger, to disappear like the tail of a snake.”
On November 3, certain regulations were issued by the National Assembly as the necessary basis upon which a constitution could be raised. The absolute veto of the Emperor was now withdrawn, and it was expressly stated that Imperial decrees were not to over-ride the law, though even here we find the addition of “except in the event of immediate necessity.” The first clause of this document was confined to the following prophetic statement: “The Ta Ch`ing dynasty shall reign for ever.”
On November 8, Yüan Shih-k`ai was appointed Prime Minister, and on December 3, the new Empress Dowager issued an edict, in which she said:
“The Regent has verbally memorialized the Empress Dowager, saying that he has held the Regency for three years, and his administration has been unpopular, and that constitutional government has not been consummated. Thus complications arose, and people’s hearts were broken, and the country thrown into a state of turmoil. Hence one man’s mismanagement has caused the nation to suffer miserably. He regrets his repentance is already too late, and feels that if he continues in power his commands will soon be disregarded. He wept and prayed to resign the regency, expressing the earnest intention of abstaining in the future from politics. I, the Empress Dowager, living within the palace, am ignorant of the state of affairs but I know that rebellion exists and fighting is continuing, causing disasters everywhere, while the commerce of friendly nations suffers. I must enquire into the circumstances and find a remedy. The Regent is honest, though ambitious and unskilled in politics. Being misled, he has harmed the people, and therefore his resignation is accepted. The Regents seal is cancelled. Let the Regent receive fifty thousand /taels/ annually from the Imperial household allowances, and hereafter the Premier and the Cabinet will control appointments and administration. Edicts are to be sealed with the Emperor’s seal. I will lead the Emperor to conduct audiences. The guardianship of the holy person of the Emperor, who is of tender age, is a special responsibility. As the time is critical, the princes and nobles must observe the Ministers, who have undertaken a great responsibility, and be loyal and help the country and people, who now must realize that the Court does not object to the surrender of the power vested in the throne. Let the people preserve order and continue business, and thus prevent the country’s disruption and restore prosperity.”
CHAPTER XII
SUN YAT-SEN
On January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen entered the republican capital, Nanking, and received a salute of twenty-one guns. He assumed the presidency of the provisional government, swearing allegiance, and taking an oath to dethrone the Manchus, restore peace, and establish a government based upon the people’s will. These objects accomplished, he was prepared to resign his office, thus enabling the people to elect a president of a united China. The first act of the provisional government was to proclaim a new calendar forthwith, January 1 becoming the New Year’s Day of the republic.
On January 5 was issued the following republican manifesto:–
“To all friendly nations,–Greeting. Hitherto irremediable suppression of the individual qualities and the national aspirations of the people having arrested the intellectual, moral, and material development of China, the aid of revolution was invoked to extirpate the primary cause. We now proclaim the consequent overthrow of the despotic sway of the Manchu dynasty, and the establishment of a republic. The substitution of a republic for a monarchy is not the fruit of transient passion, but the natural outcome of a long-cherished desire for freedom, contentment, and advancement. We Chinese people, peaceful and law-abiding, have not waged war except in self-defence. We have borne our grievance for two hundred and sixty-seven years with patience and forbearance. We have endeavoured by peaceful means to redress our wrongs, secure liberty, and ensure progress; but we failed. Oppressed beyond human endurance, we deemed it our inalienable right, as well as a sacred duty, to appeal to arms to deliver ourselves and our posterity from the yoke to which we have for so long been subjected. For the first time in history an inglorious bondage is transformed into inspiring freedom. The policy of the Manchus has been one of unequivocal seclusion and unyielding tyranny. Beneath it we have bitterly suffered. Now we submit to the free peoples of the world the reasons justifying the revolution and the inauguration of the present government. Prior to the usurpation of the throne by the Manchus the land was open to foreign intercourse, and religious tolerance existed, as is shown by the writings of Marco Polo and the inscription on the Nestorian tablet at Hsi-an Fu. Dominated by ignorance and selfishness, the Manchus closed the land to the outer world, and plunged the Chinese into a state of benighted mentality calculated to operate inversely to their natural talents, thus committing a crime against humanity and the civilized nations which it is almost impossible to extirpate. Actuated by a desire for the perpetual subjugation of the Chinese, and a vicious craving for aggrandizement and wealth, the Manchus have governed the country to the lasting injury and detriment of the people, creating privileges and monopolies, erecting about themselves barriers of exclusion, national custom, and personal conduct, which have been rigorously maintained for centuries. They have levied irregular and hurtful taxes without the consent of the people, and have restricted foreign trade to treaty ports. They have placed the /likin/ embargo on merchandise, obstructed internal commerce, retarded the creation of industrial enterprises, rendered impossible the development of natural resources, denied a regular system of impartial administration of justice, and inflicted cruel punishment on persons charged with offences, whether innocent or guilty. They have connived at official corruption, sold offices to the highest bidder, subordinated merit to influence, rejected the most reasonable demands for better government, and reluctantly conceded so-called reforms under the most urgent pressure, promising without any intention of fulfilling. They have failed to appreciate the anguish-causing lessons taught them by foreign Powers, and in process of years have brought themselves and our people beneath the contempt of the world. A remedy of these evils will render possible the entrance of China into the family of nations. We have fought and have formed a government. Lest our good intentions should be misunderstood, we publicly and unreservedly declare the following to be our promises:–
“The treaties entered into by the Manchus before the date of the revolution, will be continually effective to the time of their termination. Any and all treaties entered into after the commencement of the revolution will be repudiated. Foreign loans and indemnities incurred by the Manchus before the revolution will be acknowledged. Payments made by loans incurred by the Manchus after its commencement will be repudiated. Concessions granted to nations and their nationals before the revolution will be respected. Any and all granted after it will be repudiated. The persons and property of foreign nationals within the jurisdiction of the republic will be respected and protected. It will be our constant aim and firm endeavour to build on a stable and enduring foundation a national structure compatible with the potentialities of our long-neglected country. We shall strive to elevate the people to secure peace and to legislate for prosperity. Manchus who abide peacefully in the limits of our jurisdiction will be accorded equality, and given protection.
“We will remodel the laws, revise the civil, criminal, commercial, and mining codes, reform the finances, abolish restrictions on trade and commerce, and ensure religious toleration and the cultivation of better relations with foreign peoples and governments than have ever been maintained before. It is our earnest hope that those foreign nationals who have been steadfast in their sympathy will bind more firmly the bonds of friendship between us, and will bear in patience with us the period of trial confronting us and our reconstruction work, and will aid the consummation of the far-reaching plans, which we are about to undertake, and which they have long vainly been urging upon our people and our country.
“With this message of peace and good-will the republic cherishes the hope of being admitted into the family of nations, not merely to share its rights and privileges, but to co-operate in the great and noble task of building up the civilization of the world.
“Sun Yat-sen, /President/.”
The next step was to displace the three-cornered Dragon flag, itself of quite modern origin, in favour of a new republican emblem. For this purpose was designed a flag of five stripes,–yellow, red, blue, white, black,–arranged at right angles to the flagstaff in the above order, and intended to represent the five races–Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, Tibetan, Mussulmans–gathered together under one rule.
On February 12, three important edicts were issued. In the first, the baby-emperor renounces the throne, and approves the establishment of a provisional republican government, under the direction of Yüan Shih- k`ai, in conjunction with the existing provisional government at Nanking. In the second, approval is given to the terms under which the emperor retires, the chief item of which was an annual grant of four million /taels/. Other more sentimental privileges included the retention of a bodyguard, and the continuance of sacrifices to the spirits of the departed Manchu emperors. In the third, the people are exhorted to preserve order and abide by the Imperial will regarding the new form of government.
Simultaneously with the publication of these edicts, the last scene of the drama was enacted near Nanking, at the mausoleum of the first sovereign of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Sun Yat-sen, as provisional first president, accompanied by his Cabinet and a numerous escort, proceeded thither, and after offering sacrifice as usual, addressed, though a secretary, the following oration to the tablet representing the names of that great hero:–
“Of old the Sung dynasty became effete, and the Kitan Tartars and Yüan dynasty Mongols seized the occasion to throw this domain of China into confusion, to the fierce indignation of gods and men. It was then that your Majesty, our founder, arose in your wrath from obscurity, and destroyed those monsters of iniquity, so that the ancient glory was won again. In twelve years you consolidated the Imperial sway, and the dominions of the Great Yü were purged of pollution and cleansed from the noisome Tartar. Often in history has our noble Chinese race been enslaved by petty frontier barbarians from the north. Never have such glorious triumphs been won over them as your Majesty achieved. But your descendants were degenerate, and failed to carry on your glorious heritage; they entrusted the reins of government to bad men, and pursued a short-sighted policy. In this way they encouraged the ambitions of the eastern Tartar savages (Manchus), and fostered the growth of their power. They were thus able to take advantage of the presence of rebels to invade and possess themselves of your sacred capital. From a bad eminence of glory basely won, they lorded it over this most holy soil, and our beloved China’s rivers and hills were defiled by their corrupting touch, while the people fell victims to the headman’s axe or the avenging sword. Although worthy patriots and faithful subjects of your dynasty crossed the mountain ranges into Canton and the far south, in the hope of redeeming the glorious Ming tradition from utter ruin, and of prolonging a thread of the old dynasty’s life, although men gladly perished one after the other in the forlorn attempt, heaven’s wrath remained unappeased, and mortal designs failed to achieve success. A brief and melancholy page was added to the history of your dynasty, and that was all.
“As time went on, the law became ever harsher, and the meshes of its inexorable net grew closer. Alas for our Chinese people, who crouched in corners and listened with startled ears, deprived of power of utterance, and with tongues glued to their mouths, for their lives were past saving. Those others usurped titles to fictitious clemency and justice, while prostituting the sacred doctrines of the sages: whom they affected to honour. They stifled public opinion in the empire in order to force acquiescence in their tyranny. The Manchu despotism became so thorough and so embracing that they were enabled to prolong their dynasty’s existence by cunning wiles. In Yung Chêng’s reign the Hunanese Chang Hsi and Tsêng Ching preached sedition against the dynasty in their native province, while in Chia Ch`ing’s reign the palace conspiracy of Lin Ching dismayed that monarch in his capital. These events were followed by rebellions in Ss{u}-ch`uan and Shensi; under Tao Kuang and his successor the T`ai-p`ings started their campaign from a remote Kuangsi village. Although these worthy causes were destined to ultimate defeat, the gradual trend of the national will became manifest. At last our own era dawned, the sun of freedom had risen, and a sense of the rights of the race animated men’s minds. In addition the Manchu bandits could not even protect themselves. Powerful foes encroached upon the territory of China, and the dynasty parted with our sacred soil to enrich neighbouring nations. The Chinese race of to-day may be degenerate, but it is descended from mighty men of old. How should it endure that the spirits of the great dead should be insulted by the everlasting visitation of this scourge?
“Then did patriots arise like a whirlwind, or like a cloud which is suddenly manifested in the firmament. They began with the Canton insurrection; then Peking was alarmed by Wu Yüeh’s bomb (1905). A year later Hsü Hsi-lin fired his bullet into the vitals of the Manchu robber-chief, En Ming, Governor of Anhui. Hsiung Chêng-chi raised the standard of liberty on the Yang-tsze’s banks; rising followed rising all over the empire, until the secret plot against the Regent was discovered, and the abortive insurrection in Canton startled the capital. One failure followed another, but other brave men took the place of the heroes who died, and the empire was born again to life. The bandit Manchu court was shaken with pallid terror, until the cicada threw off its shell in a glorious regeneration, and the present crowning triumph was achieved. The patriotic crusade started in Wu-ch`ang; the four corners of the empire responded to the call. Coast regions nobly followed in their wake, and the Yang-tsze was won back by our armies. The region south of the Yellow River was lost to the Manchus, and the north manifested its sympathy with our cause. An earthquake shook the barbarian court of Peking, and it was smitten with a paralysis. To-day it has at last restored the government to the Chinese people, and the five races of China may dwell together in peace and mutual trust. Let us joyfully give thanks. How could we have attained this measure of victory had not your Majesty’s soul in heaven bestowed upon us your protecting influence? I have heard say that the triumphs of Tartar savages over our China were destined never to last longer than a hundred years. But the reign of these Manchus endured unto double, ay, unto treble, that period. Yet Providence knows the appointed hour, and the moment comes at last. We are initiating the example to Eastern Asia of a republican form of government; success comes early or late to those who strive, but the good are surely rewarded in the end. Why then should we repine to-day that victory has tarried long?
“I have heard that in the past many would-be deliverers of their country have ascended this lofty mound wherein is your sepulchre. It has served to them as a holy inspiration. As they looked down upon the surrounding rivers and upward to the hills, under an alien sway, they wept in the bitterness of their hearts, but to-day their sorrow is turned into joy. The spiritual influences of your grave at Nanking have come once more into their own. The dragon crouches in majesty as of old, and the tiger surveys his domain and his ancient capital. Everywhere a beautiful repose doth reign. Your legions line the approaches to the sepulchre; a noble host stands expectant. Your people have come here to-day to inform your Majesty of the final victory. May this lofty shrine wherein you rest gain fresh lustre from to-day’s event, and may your example inspire your descendants in the times which are to come. Spirit! Accept this offering!”
We are told by an eye-witness, Dr Lim Boon-keng, that when this ceremony was over, Sun Yat-sen turned to address the assembly. “He was speechless with emotion for a minute; then he briefly declared how, after two hundred and sixty years, the nation had again recovered her freedom; and now that the curse of Manchu domination was removed, the free peoples of a united republic could pursue their rightful aspirations. Three cheers for the president were now called for, and the appeal was responded to vigorously. The cheering was taken up by the crowds below, and then carried miles away by the thousands of troops, to mingle with the booming of distant guns.”
LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED
The /I yü kuo chi/ (costumes of strange nations). Circa 1380.
The /Tung hua lu/ (a history of the Manchus down to A.D. 1735). 1765.
The /Shêng wu chi/ (a history of the earlier wars under the Manchu dynasty). 1822.
/A History of China/, by Rev. J. Macgowan, 1897.
/A History of the Manchus/, by Rev. J. Ross, 1880.
/The Chinese Repository/.
/The Chinese and their Rebellions/, by T. T. Meadows, 1856.
Pamphlets issued by the T`ai-p`ings, 1850-1864.
/The Times/, 1911-12.
/The London and China Telegraph/, 1911-12.