Emperor of the East

“ The keys to the East must, in any event, not belong to Russia, her only rival in Asia.
France had no Eastern Empire to protect, so her participation in the struggle is at first not so easy to comprehend, until we reflect that she had an ambitious and parvenu Emperor. To have Europe see him in confidential alliance with England, was alone worth a war; while a vigorous foreign policy would help to divert attention from the recent treacheries by which he had reached a throne. ”

“ Of course in the case of unusually able men, such as the second and fourth rulers of the present dynasty, their influence is more felt than that of less energetic rulers; but the throne of China is so hedged in with ceremonials and so padded with official etiquette that unless its occupant be a man of supreme ability he cannot fail to fall under the guidance of his ministers and favorites. In governing so large a realm, of course it is necessary for the emperor to delegate his authority to numerous officers who are regarded as his agents and representatives in carrying out the imperial will. ”

“ The Japanese government is in the hands of a progressive and able emperor, supported by a cabinet composed of the foremost statesmen of the east, and reigning under constitutional forms. Naturally elated by the wonderful success of their arms, it is to be fairly expected that they will continue in the progressiveness which has marked the island empire’s history since Perry opened the door for western light to shine in. In the east they should become by virtue of the abilities the dominant power, unless by chance the Chinese have learned a lesson which they will put into effect. ”

“ The assumption of universal sovereignty, of being the geographical center of the world, and also the center of light and civilization that have been so injurious to the nation, appear in several of the most ancient names. In the oldest classical writings the country is called the Flowery Kingdom, flowery presenting the idea of beautiful, cultivated, and refined. The terms Heavenly Flowery Kingdom, and Heavenly Dynasty are sometimes used, the word heavenly presenting the Chinese idea that the empire is established by the authority of heaven, and that the emperor rules by divine right. ”

“ At the opening of the war the functions of a war ministry, marine ministry, finance ministry, with their staff of experts, were in China discharged by one old man, without any staff, who had stood for thirty years between the living and the dead. The emperor issued edicts without providing the means of carrying them out; all the rest, whether in gross or in detail, devolved on Li Hung Chang, who like another Atlas was bearing the whole rotten fabric of Chinese administration on his shoulders. ”

“ The divine descent which is still sometimes claimed for the sovereigns of Japan and which has never, so far as I know, been officially repudiated, has caused some persons to regard the Emperor from a somewhat ludicrous standpoint. In this very prosaic and materialistic age, when very few persons have profound beliefs on any subject, the spectacle of one of the sovereigns of the earth still claiming a divine origin is one that appeals to the ludicrous susceptibilities of that vague entity “the man in the street.” ”

“ But from time immemorial it has been held by the highest constitutional authorities that the duties existing between the emperor and his people are reciprocal, and that though it is the duty of the people to render a loyal and willing obedience to the emperor, so long as his rule is just and beneficent, it is equally incumbent upon them to resist his authority, to depose him, and even to put him to death, in case he should desert the paths of rectitude and virtue. ”

“ The only Europeans who are allowed to cross the sacred threshold of the Purple City are the members of the Diplomatic Corps, to whom the Emperor gives audience on New Year’s Day, as well as since quite recently on the occasions of their arrival or taking leave. ”

“ Every one gained in importance at this critical moment.
Men like Prince Ching, the Foreign Minister of China and a near relative of the Emperor; his interpreter, Mr. Lee, who has such thorough knowledge of European countries; Yan-Tsi-Kai, who represents the Chinese military spirit and believes in introducing Western methods; and Chang-Tsi-Tung, the great sage and strict disciple of Confucius—are fine specimens of the children of this vast and unknown empire.
After all, among so many interesting points in the Far East, the most interesting is man. ”

“ He speedily obtained the leadership of a large army, with which he totally destroyed the power of the Mongols, and finally established a new Chinese dynasty over the thirteen provinces into which the empire was divided. He fixed his capitol at Nanking, where it remained until the accession of the third emperor, the conqueror of Cochin China and Tonquin, who transferred the seat of government back to Peking, the capitol of the Mongols, from which it has never since been removed. ”

“ They would be very grave if the chiefs of the movement hostile to foreigners removed the present Emperor to some distant place, and refused to negotiate on anything like reasonable terms, or if, leaving him in the hands of the Europeans, they should raise a competitor against him. xxiiiThe Emperor, whose accession to the Celestial throne is, in any case, according to Chinese ideas, irregular, and who has exasperated the mandarins by his attempts at reform, would thus run a great risk of being considered a usurper, both in the eyes of the people and the literati. ”

“ The regions directly administered by the officers of the emperor extended from the borders of Siberia on the north to Annam and Burma on the south, and from the Pacific Ocean on the east to Kashgar and Yarkand on the west. There was also a fringe of tributary nations which still kept up the ancient forms of allegiance, and which more or less acknowledged the dominioi of the central kingdom. The principal tributary nations then were Korea, Lu-chu, Annam, Burma and Nepal.
Korea was the first of the dependencies to come into notice. ”

“ This system of government has almost always been misunderstood in America and Europe. Two rulers in two capitals gave to foreigners the impression that there were two emperors in Japan, an idea that has been incorporated into most of the text books, and encyclopedias of Christendom. Let it be clearly understood however that there never was but one emperor in Japan, the mikado, who is and always was the only sovereign, though his measure of power has been very different at different times. Until the rise and domination of the military classes, he was in fact, as well as by law, supreme. ”

“ The Chinese government is one of the great wonders of history. It presents to-day the same character which it possessed more 118than three thousand years ago, and which it has retained ever since, during a period which covers the authentic history of the world. The government may be described as being in theory a patriarchal despotism. The emperor is the father of his people, and just as in a family the father’s law is supreme, so the emperor exercises complete control over his subjects, even to the extent of holding, under certain recognized conditions, their lives in his hands. ”

“ Every feudal prince could only sacrifice to the hills and streams within his own territory. Under the changed conditions of the government of China, the sacrificial ritual of the emperor still retains the substance of whatever belonged to the sovereigns in this respect from the earliest dynasties. ”

“ Nothing is said of the peculiar position of the son of Heaven, because in the Han dynasty, succeeding immediately to that of Khin, the emperor was to be distinguished from, and not named along with, the feudal princes. ”

“ In order that the reader may realize more fully the impression conveyed by the Emperor’s farewell address to his troops, we print under it the account which a volunteer of the 1st East Asiatic Regiment of infantry sent home to his family.
Great tasks oversea have fallen to the lot of the newly arisen German Empire, tasks far greater than many of my countrymen have expected. The character of the German Empire makes it a duty for it to protect its citizens no matter how far they may have penetrated into foreign lands. ”

“ Here they were kept waiting for some time while tea and confectionery from the imperial kitchen, by favor of the emperor, were served to them. They were then conducted to an oblong tent made of matting on the west side of the Tsze-kwang pavilion, where they were met by Prince Kung and other ministers. As soon as the emperor reached the pavilion, the Japanese ambassador was introduced into his presence and when he had retired the other foreign ministers entered the audience chamber in a body. ”

“ The throne is not strictly and necessarily hereditary, though the son of the emperor generally succeeds to it. The emperor appoints his successor, but it is supposed that in doing so he will 120have supreme regard for the best good of his subjects, and will be governed by the will of heaven, indicated by the conferring of regal gifts, and by providential circumstances pointing out the individual whom heaven has chosen. ”

“ The efforts of the Jesuit missionaries were crowned with remarkable success. All ranks and classes, from priest to peasant, embraced the Catholic faith. Churches, schools, convents, and monasteries sprang up all over the country. The only opposition came from the Bonzes, or native priests, who felt their influence and power declining. They appealed to the Emperor to banish the Roman Catholic priests, but the imperial edict simply was, “Leave the strangers in peace.” For forty years or thereabouts Catholicism not only flourished but was triumphant. ”

“ The strength of the eastern empire caused the West to look to it for support and the western emperors upon several occasions were nominated, and at other times given the sanction of legitimacy, by those in the East. ”

“ An Eastern Emperor might expect to be slain or blinded to make room for another; but, while he kept his life and his eyes, his will was undisputed. A Western Emperor was commonly free from such extreme changes of fortune. A few only died on the battle-field or by private murder, and those few at least enjoyed the light of heaven till their last moments. ”

“ But an empire larger in its territories than all Europe, and constantly augmenting its resources, although still Cossack, still undeveloped, has its eye on Eastern, not Western extension, until China herself, with her four thousand years of civilization and her four hundred millions of people, may become a spoil to be divided between the Emperor of Russia and the Empress of India; not as banded and united robbers divide their spoil, but the one encroaching from the West and North, and the other from the West and South. ”

“ The idea of territorial sovereignty, of kingship over a land instead of over a people, grew up under the feudal system. In Britain it was unknown until long after the Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror, like Harold or Edward, was king of the English, and it was only from the reign of Henry II. that his successors were transformed into kings of England. The Eastern titles of sultan and shah are accepted as equivalent to those of emperor and king in the West. The sovereigns of China and Japan are called emperors both in common and in diplomatic parlance. ”

“ And since the fall of Constantinople, the Russian princes, to say nothing of some supposed kindred with the last Imperial house, have, as the most powerful princes of the Eastern Church, stepped into something like the general position in the world which had belonged to the Eastern Emperors. With less of geographical connexion, they certainly represent the Eastern Empire with far more of truth than any modern Western power can claim to represent the Western Empire. ”

“ Indeed, I have often thought if our first emperor, Han, eight thousand years ago, could have foreseen that his people, the Children of Heaven, would preserve themselves for eight millenniums in order to have the honor of forming a nexus between the black cannibals then gorging themselves on each other's flesh along the Congo and white sea-robbers, fighting and murdering, ravishing and tippling along the Baltic, I have often thought how gratified our first emperor would have been! ”

“ From whence it comes to pass, that the Emperor that Reigns at present in China, and in the one and the other Tartary, may justly be called the greatest and most powerful Monarch of Asia, having so many vast Estates under him, without being any where interrupted by the Territory of any Foreign Prince, and he alone being as the Soul which gives motion to all the Members of so vast a Body. ”

“ The Emperor of Russia, lord of his people, absolute autocrat over some one hundred and twenty-five millions of the human race, to-day stands master not only of half the soil of Europe but of more than a third of the far greater continent of Asia. To gain some definite idea of the total extent of this vast empire it may suffice to say that it is considerably more than double the size of Europe, and nearly as large as the whole of North America. ”

“ Notwithstanding the energy and ability of Conrad II and Henry III, the fact that the Empire stands forth as the great power of western Europe during the first half of the eleventh century is largely due to the absence of any strong rivals. The French kings had not yet overcome the feudal disruption, and although Italy objected to the control of the emperor, it never could agree to combine against him. ”

“ The history of no country, either in Europe or in Asia, can afford an example of such persevering strife for ascendancy as that which the princes of Germany presented, either among themselves—the emperor a spectator—or united in factions against him and his factions. ”