Empress dowager

“ Caring nothing for the innumerable difficulties which beset our Throne, they stand idly by, contenting themselves with delivering oracular opinions and catch-words, and they even go so far as to reproach their Sovereign, the father of his people. We would have them bear in mind that when our Imperial chariot departed in haste from the Forbidden City, the moaning of the wind and the cry of the heron overhead seemed to our startled ears as the tramp of an advancing enemy. As we fled through Ch’ang-ping chou northward to Hsüan-hua, we personally attended on the wants of the Empress Dowager. ”

“ She is small, but pretty, and, as I have indicated, quiet and reticent. She was fond of her father, and naturally fond of the Empress Dowager, who selected her as a wife for her favourite nephew, Prince Chun, to whom she promised the succession at the time of their marriage. After her father's death, and while she was in mourning, she was invited into the palace by the Empress Dowager, where she appeared wearing blue shoes, the colour used in second mourning. ”

“ It is true that there exists no precedent in the history of our Dynasty for an Empress Dowager to act as Regent, but the interests of the State are our first concern, and it is surely wiser to act in accordance with the exigencies of the time than to insist upon a scrupulous observance of precedent. ”

“ To understand the life and personality of the Empress Dowager, it is before everything essential to divest our minds of racial prejudice and to endeavour to appreciate something of the environment and traditions to which she was born. ”

“ XXI The Death of Kuang Hsu and the Empress Dowager Who knows whether the Dowager Empress will ever repose in the magnificent tomb she has built for herself at such a cost, or whether a new dynasty may not rifle its riches to embellish its own? Tze-Hsi is growing old! According to nature's immutable law her faculties must soon fail her; her iron will must bend and her far-seeing eye grow dim, and after her who will resist the tide of foreign aggression and stem the torrent of inward revolt?—Lady Susan Townley in "My Chinese Note Book." ”

“ The Empress Dowager has nominal charge of the imperial nurseries in the Nakayama Yashiki, where the children of the Emperor and his inferior wives remain until their fourth or fifth years. These wives are all of kuge birth, and have establishments within the palace enclosure. They are an Oriental survival, of which little is said or definitely known, although they still have a fixed rank.
The Empress Haruko has no children, and Prince Haru, the Crown Prince, is the son of the Emperor and Madame Yanagiwara. One little imperial princess living, but ten imperial children have died. ”

“ We can neither sleep nor eat in the anxiety of our thoughts. Reflecting on the arduous labours of our ancestors from whom this great Heritage has descended to us, we are overwhelmed by our unfitness for this task of government. We bear in mind (and the fact is well known to all our subjects) that when first we succeeded by adoption to the Throne, we were honoured with a Decree from the Empress Dowager to the effect that so soon as we should have begotten an heir, he should become the adopted son of His Majesty T’ung-Chih. ”

“ Whether she has children or not, the principal wife—the only wife, in fact—never loses her supremacy as the head of the household. The late Empress Dowager was originally a concubine; by virtue of motherhood she was raised to the rank of Western Empress, but never legitimately took precedence of the wife, whose superiority was indicated by her title of Eastern Empress, the east being more honourable than the west. The emperor always sits with his face towards the south. ”

“ At this first audience there had been no mention of the proposed removal of Jung Lu. Scarcely had Yüan left the Jen Shou (Benevolent Old Age) Palace Hall, than the Empress Dowager summoned him to her own apartments, and closely questioned him as to what the Emperor had said. "By all means let the army be reformed," said the Old Buddha; "the Decree is sensible enough, but His Majesty is in too great a hurry, and I suspect him of cherishing some deep design. You will await a further audience with him, and then receive my instructions." ”

“ It is just possible that should the Empress Dowager die before him—and [253] she is an old woman now—the Emperor Kwang-Sen may yet take the reins of government into his own hands, but with pretty well every European nation clamouring for a slice of his dominions, he will indeed be a wonderful man if he succeeds in leaving any semblance of power to his successor. ”

“ There are many who have thought that the Empress Dowager has been misrepresented. The world has based its judgment of her character upon her greatest mistake, her participation in the Boxer movement, which seems unjust, and has closed its eyes to the tremendous reforms which only her mind could conceive and her hand carry out. The great Chinese officials to a man recognized in her a mistress of every situation; the foreigners who have come into most intimate contact with her, voice her praise ”

“ Li’s influence with the Empress Dowager was, if anything, greater than before, all the internal affairs of the Palace being under his supreme control. Following Her Majesty’s example, however, he professed his complete conversion to the necessity of reform, and even gave his approval, after certain amendments had been made by the Grand Council and by himself, to her programme for the granting of a Constitution. ”

“ In 1898, when the Emperor had entered on a career of progress, the Empress Dowager was appealed to by a number of her old servants to save the Empire from a young Phaeton, who was driving so fast as to be in danger of setting the world on fire. Coming out of her luxurious retreat, ten miles from the city, where she had never ceased to keep an eye on the course of affairs, she again took possession of the throne and compelled her adopted son to ask her to "teach him how to govern." ”

“ Our plate shows one of the former officers in the Empress Dowager's Court, clothed in his gorgeous official robes. Thousands of these officials and eunuchs, once wealthy, have actually come to want since the downfall of the dynasty. However, a few managed to escape the general ruin; and one, a notorious palace eunuch, got away with 50,000,000 taels, and now lives like a king within the protecting boundaries of a foreign concession. ”

“ The following Decree was thereupon issued by the Empress Dowager in the Emperor's name:—
"The nation is now passing through a crisis, and wise guidance is needed in all branches of the public service. We ourselves have laboured diligently, night and day, to perform Our innumerable duties, but in spite of all Our anxious energy and care We are in constant fear lest delay should be the undoing of the country. ”

“ The Empress Dowager did not remain to witness the ceremony of clothing the body in the Dragon Robes, but returned forthwith to her own palace, where she gave orders for the issue of his valedictory Decree and for the proclamation of the new Emperor.
The most interesting passage of the Emperor’s valedictory Decree was the following:—“Reflecting on the critical condition of our Empire, we have been led to combine the Chinese system with certain innovations from foreign countries. We have endeavoured to establish harmony between the common people and converts to Christianity. ”

“ I am told that Prince Tuan has taken possession of one of the Imperial Seals, so as to be able to proclaim his son Emperor at the first favourable opportunity; but if the Old Buddha finds this out, as most probably she will, there is trouble ahead for Prince Tuan.
Chi Shou-ch’eng tells me that Yü Hsien has sent in a memorial to the Empress Dowager with reference to the missionaries in Shansi. Ten days ago 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 must they be slain.” ”

“ The spectacle, as a whole, was most impressive; no such pomp and circumstance, say the Chinese, has marked the obsequies of any Empress of China since the funeral of the Empress Wu (circa A.D. 700) of whom the annals record that hundreds of attendants were buried alive in her mausoleum.
“The police arrangements attracted general attention by their remarkable efficiency, which many Chinese attribute to the present Empress Dowager’s constant fear of assassination. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Neither father nor mother, brother nor sister, could have conceived of the potential power, honour and even glory, that were wrapped up in that girl, and that were finally to come to them as a family, as well as to many of them as individuals. Their wildest dreams at that time could not have pictured themselves dukes and princesses, with their daughters as empresses, duchesses, or ladies-in-waiting in the palace. But such it proved to be.
II The Empress Dowager—Her Years of Training The kindness of the Empress is as boundless as the sea.
Her person too is holy, she is like a deity. ”

“ 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 Kʽo-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. ”

“ In the summer of 1912 the family and their immediate household, including myself, went on another long cruise in Finnish waters. During the cruise the yacht was visited by the Empress Dowager of whom{87} previously I had seen but little. I write with some hesitation about the Empress Dowager, who is still living, and for whom I entertain all due respect. She was, as I remember her then, a small, slender woman, not beautiful certainly, not as attractive as her sister, Queen Alexandra of England, but with a great deal of presence and, when she chose to exert it, considerable personal charm. ”

“ When the wrath of the Powers had been appeased by the death and banishment of the leading Boxers, and when the Empress Dowager had come to realise that her future policy must be one of conciliation and reform, she proceeded first of all to adjust the annals of her reign for the benefit of posterity, in the following remarkable Edict (13th February, 1901) :—
“In the summer of last year, the Boxers, after bringing about a state of war, took possession of our Capital and dominated the very Throne itself. ”

“ But, “in the deep seclusion of our Palace,” life went on as before, the merry round of an Oriental Trianon, while the Chief Eunuch’s influence over the young Empress became greater every day. It was common knowledge, and the gossip of the tea-houses, that his lightest whim was law in the Forbidden City; that Yehonala and he, dressed in fancy costumes from historical plays, would make frequent excursions on the Palace lake; that he frequently wore the Dragon robes sacred to the use of the sovereign, and that the Empress had publicly presented him with the jade “ju-yi,” symbol of royal power. ”

“ It is not a matter of wonder therefore that the Empress Dowager should be led into such a foolish measure as the Boxer movement, when the Prince who had been president of the Foreign Office for twenty-five years could so weakly acquiesce in such an undertaking. ”

“ Looking at the matter broadly, we may observe that any system which has lasted too long is in danger of becoming stereotyped, and things that are obsolete should be modified. The essential need which confronts us is at all costs to strengthen our Empire and to improve the condition of our subjects. Ever since our journey to the West the Empress Dowager has been over-burdened with the labours and cares of the State. ”

“ This is not merely my private opinion, but the unanimous decision of all your leading Statesmen. The provinces may work together to prepare for war, all your servants may set an example of courage. Our Foreign Office may clearly express and insist upon our rights, but in the last instance the decision of affairs rests with Your Majesty the Empress Dowager, to whom we must needs look for a firm and consistent policy. ”

“ I myself know well her refined and gentle tastes, her love of painting, poetry, and the theatre. When in a good mood she is the most amiable and tractable of women, but at times her rage is awful to witness. My father was Comptroller-General of the Imperial Household, and it was his lot on one occasion to experience her anger. This was in the sixth year of T’ung Chih (1868) , when she learned that the chief eunuch, “Hsiao An’rh,” [73] had been decapitated in Shantung by the orders of the Co-Regent, the late “Empress Dowager of the East.” ”

“ He was to put Jung Lu to death and then, returning immediately to the capital with the troops under his command, to seize and imprison the Empress Dowager. The Emperor gave him a small arrow, the symbol of his authority to carry out the Imperial orders, and bade him proceed with all haste to Tientsin, there to arrest Jung Lu in his Yamên and see to his instant decapitation. Kuang Hsü also handed him a Decree whereby, upon completion of his mission, he was appointed Viceroy of Chihli ad interim, and ordered to Peking for further audience. ”