Court Life in China, Isaac Taylor Headland [an ebook reader .txt] 📗

late Emperor occupied the Imperial Throne for thirty-four years, reverently following the customs of his ancestors, receiving the gracious instruction of the Empress Dowager, exerting himself to the utmost, not failing one day to revere Heaven and observe the laws of his ancestors, devoting himself with diligence to the affairs of government and loving the people, appointing the virtuous to office, changing the laws of the land to make the country powerful, considering new methods of government which arouse the admiration of both Chinese and foreigners. All who have blood and breath cannot but mourn and be moved to the extreme point. We weep tears of blood and beat upon our heart. How can we bear to express our feelings!

“But we think upon our heavy responsibility and our weakness, and we must depend upon the great and small civil and military officials of Peking and the provinces to show public spirit and patriotism, and aid in the government. The viceroys and governors should harmonize the people and arrange carefully methods of government to comfort the spirit of the late Emperor in heaven. This is our earnest expectation.”

On the sixteenth day of November, three days after she had appointed the regent, and two days after she had appointed Pu I, the diplomatic representatives received the following from Prince Ching:

“Your Excellency:

“I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that we have reverently received the following testamentary statement of Her Imperial Majesty Tze-hsi, etc., the Great Empress Dowager:

” ‘Although of scanty merit, I received the command of His Majesty the Emperor Wen Tsung-hsien (the posthumous title of Hsien Feng) to occupy a throne prepared for me in the palace. When the Emperor Mu Tsung I (Tung Chih) as a child succeeded to the throne, violence and confusion prevailed. It was a critical period of suppression by force. “Long-hairs” (Tai-ping rebels) and the “twisted turbans” (Nien Fei) were in rebellion. The Mohammedans and the aborigines had commenced to make trouble. There were many disturbances along the seacoast. The people were destitute. Ulcers and sores met the eye on every side. Cooperating with the Empress Dowager Hsiao Chen-hsien, I supported and taught the Emperor and toiled day and night. According to the instructions contained in the testamentary counsels of the Emperor Wen Tsung-hsien (Hsien Feng) I urged on the officials of Peking and the provinces and all the military commanders, determining the policy to be followed, diligently searching the right way of governing, choosing the upright for official positions, rescuing from calamity and pitying the people, and so obtained the protection of Heaven, gaining peace and tranquillity instead of distress and danger. Then the Emperor Mu Tsung I (Tung Chih) departed this life and the late Emperor succeeded to the throne. The times became still harder and the people in still greater straits, sorrow within and calamity without, confusion and noise; I had no recourse but to give instruction in government once more.

” ‘The year before last the preparatory measures for the institution of constitutional government were published. This year the time limits for the measures preparatory to constitutional government have been promulgated. Attending to these myriad affairs the strength of my heart has been exhausted. Fortunately my constitution was originally strong and up to the present I have stood the strain. Unexpectedly from the summer and autumn of this year I have been ill and have not been able to assist in the multitudinous affairs of government with tranquillity. Appetite and the power to sleep have gone. This has continued for a long time until my strength is exhausted and I have not dared to rest for even a day. On the 21st of this moon [November 14th] came the sorrow of the death of the late Emperor, and I was unable to control myself, so that my illness increased till I was unable to rise from my bed. I look back upon our fifty years of sorrow and trouble. I have been continually in a state of high tension without a moment’s respite. Now a reform in the method of government has been commenced and there begins to be a clue to follow. The Emperor now succeeding to the throne is in his infancy. All depends upon his instruction and guidance. The Prince Regent and all the officials of Peking and the provinces should exert themselves to strengthen the foundations of our empire. Let the Emperor now succeedings to the throne make his country’s affairs of first importance and moderate his sorrow, diligently attending to his studies so that he may in future illustrate the instruction which he has received. This is my devout hope. Let the mourning period be for twenty-seven days only. Let this be proclaimed to the empire that all may know.’ “

Still one more edict was necessary to complete this remarkable list, and this was sent to the legations on the 17th of November. It is as follows:

“I have the honour to inform Your Excellency that on the 22d of the moon [November 15, 1908] I reverently received the following edict:

“We received in our early childhood the love and care of Tze-hsi, etc., the Great Empress Dowager. Our gratitude is boundless. We have received the command to succeed to the throne and we fully expected that the gentle Empress Dowager would be vigorous and reach a hundred years so that we might be cherished and made glad and reverently receive her instructions so that our government might be established and the state made firm. But her toil by day and night gradually weakened her. Medicine was constantly administered in the hope that she might recover. Contrary to our hopes, on the 21st day of the moon [November 14th] at the wei-k’o [1-3 P.M.] she took the fairy ride and ascended to the far country. We cried out and mourned how frantically! We learn from her testamentary statement that the period of full mourning is to be limited to twenty-seven days. We certainly cannot be satisfied with this. Full mourning must be worn for one hundred days and half mourning for twenty-seven months, by which our grief may be partly expressed. The order to restrain grief so that the affairs of the empire may be of first importance we dare not disregard, as it is her parting command. We will strive to be temperate so as to comfort the spirit of the late Empress in Heaven.”

We call attention to the fact that according to the fourth of these edicts the death of the Emperor is put at from 5 to 7 P. M on the evening of the 14th of November, while that of the Empress Dowager is from 1 to 3 P. M. of the same day at least two hours earlier, and that in her last edict she is made to speak of the death of Kuang Hsu. Whether these dates have become mixed in crossing to America we have not been able to ascertain, though we think it more than likely that her death occurred on November 15th instead of the 14th.

XXII

The Court and the New Education

Abolish the eight-legged essay. Let the new learning be the test of scholarship, but include the classics, history, geography and government of China in the examinations. The true essay will then come out. If so desired, the eight-legged essay can be studied at home; but why trouble the school with them, and at the same time waste time and strength that can be expended in something more profitable? —Chang Chih-tung in “Chinas Only Hope,”

XXII

THE COURT AND THE NEW EDUCATION

The changes in the attitude of the court towards a new educational system began, as do many great undertakings, in a very simple way. We have already shown how the eunuchs secured all kinds of foreign mechanical toys to entertain the baby Emperor Kuang Hsu; how these were supplemented in his boyhood by ingenious clocks and watches; how he became interested in the telegraph, the telephone, steam cars, steamboats, electric light and steam heat, and how he had them first brought into the palace and then established throughout the empire: and how he had the phonograph, graphophone, cinematograph, bicycle, and indeed all the useful and unique inventions of modern times brought in for his entertainment.

He then began the study of English. When in 1894 a New Testament was sent to the Empress Dowager on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday, he at once secured from the American Bible Society a copy of the complete Bible for himself. He began studying the Gospel of Luke. This gave him a taste for foreign literature and he sent his eunuchs to the various book depositories and bought every book that had been translated from the European languages into the Chinese. To these he bent all his energies and it soon became noised abroad that the Emperor was studying foreign books and was about to embrace the Christian faith. This continued from 1894 till 1898, during which time his example was followed by tens of thousands of young Chinese scholars throughout the empire, and Chang Chih-tung wrote his epoch-making book “China’s Only Hope” which, being sent to the young Emperor, led him to enter upon a universal reform, the chief feature of which may be considered the adoption of a new educational system.

But now let us notice the animus of Kuang Hsu. He has been praised without stint for his leaning towards foreign affairs, when in reality was it not simply an effort on the part of the young man to make China strong enough to resist the incursions of the European powers? Germany had taken Kiaochou, Russia had taken Port Arthur, Japan had taken Formosa, Great Britain had taken Weihaiwei, France had taken Kuangchouwan, and even Italy was anxious to have a slice of his territory, while all the English papers in the port cities were talking of China being divided up amongst the Powers, and it was these things which led the Emperor to enter upon his work of reform.

In the summer of 1898 therefore he sent out an edict to the effect that: “Our scholars are now without solid and practical education; our artisans are without scientific instructors; when compared with other countries WE SOON SEE HOW WEAK WE ARE. DOES ANY ONE THINK THAT OUR TROOPS ARE AS WELL DRILLED OR AS WELL LED AS THOSE OF THE FOREIGN ARMIES? OR THAT WE CAN SUCCESSFULLY STAND AGAINST THEM? Changes must be made to accord with the necessities of the times… . Keeping in mind the morals of the sages and wise men, we must make them the basis on which to build newer and better structures. WE MUST SUBSTITUTE MODERN ARMS AND WESTERN ORGANIZATION FOR OUR OLD REGIME; WE MUST SELECT OUR MILITARY OFFICERS ACCORDING TO WESTERN METHODS OF MILITARY EDUCATION; we must establish elementary and high schools, colleges and universities, in accordance with those of foreign countries; we must abolish the Wen-chang (literary essay) and obtain a knowledge of ancient and modern world-history, a right conception of the present-day state of affairs, with special reference to the governments and institutions of the countries of the five great continents; and we must understand their arts and sciences.”

The effect of this edict was to cause hundreds of thousands of young aspirants for office to put aside the classics and unite in establishing reform clubs in many of the provincial capitals, open ports, and prefectural cities. Book depots were opened for the sale of the same kind of literature the Emperor had been studying, magazines and newspapers were issued and circulated in great numbers, lectures were delivered and libraries established, and students flocked to the mission schools ready to study anything the course contained, literary, scientific or religious. Christians and pastors were even invited into the palace by the eunuchs to dine with and instruct them. But the matter that gave the deepest