Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (34 page)

If a Chinese monarch were to receive the loyalty of his officials, he had to be seen to be fair. Cixi had a knack of being just with her officials. Her rewards and punishments were generally thought to be apportioned fairly. This was key to the fierce loyalty she commanded, from those who disagreed with her as well as those who agreed. But Emperor Guangxu had none of her skills. During the war he had gravely mistreated Admiral Ting, which partially contributed to the sorry surrender of the Northern Fleet with its ten gunboats. An embittered Earl Li thought that the emperor did ‘
not even look like a monarch’, and said so to his trusted subordinates. It became known even to officials outside the earl’s camp that he wished for a change at court: that he wished Cixi to be in charge.

Cixi did not chide her adopted son or the Grand Councillors with an ‘I told you so’. Rather, she decided that at such a moment the best thing to do was be gracious to the men. Indeed they were overcome with gratitude. Prince Gong had been the prime advocate for the signing of the treaty. But Cixi uttered not a word of reproach. Instead she invited him to stay in the Summer Palace, attending to such details as the furnishing of his quarters and the kind of food served to him. The prince was so grateful that he struggled from his
sickbed to go to Cixi as soon as she asked for him, disregarding his son’s entreaty that, given his condition, he should stay at home and rest and not subject himself to kneeling and other forms of demanding court etiquette. On one occasion, noted Grand Tutor Weng, Prince Gong was in the Summer Palace when the emperor arrived, but he did not come to greet His Majesty until a full day later, which seemed very like insolence to the tutor. Cixi was now
a sort of mistress of the court. The grandees were at her beck and call, rushing to the Summer Palace when summoned and, if she so wished, staying on, accompanying her on her outings – which was most unusual. Sometimes they failed to turn up for the daily audience in the Forbidden City.

If Emperor Guangxu felt resentment, he did not show it. Instead he became more submissive to his Papa Dearest. This touched Cixi, who
described him as ‘an extremely nice person’. Cixi’s feelings towards her adopted son acquired a new tenderness during the war, as she knew the weight of the burden on him and his limitations. Grand Tutor Weng saw that when the emperor fell ill, Cixi was gentle and kind to him, visiting his sickbed daily, and showing a degree of lovingness that he had never seen. To a Viceroy she said simply: ‘I really love the emperor.’ Now she spent more time with him, showing him round her Summer Palace and the beauty spots nearby. She reinstated the titles of Imperial Concubine Pearl and her sister, Jade. People noticed that mother and son
got on really well during this period.

Cixi wanted no one around to disrupt their relationship. It was now that the emperor’s friends who had urged him to shun her were cleared out of the court.
Officials were warned that ‘anyone doing this again will not get off so lightly, and will be punished severely’. The emperor’s
study was closed down altogether, so there was nowhere he could listen to secret whispers.

With Emperor Guangxu so compliant, Cixi took it upon herself to deal with what she regarded as the most pressing matter: the threat of Japan. Heavyweight strategists like
Viceroy Zhang had strongly argued an alliance with Russia, China’s northern neighbour and the only European power that was directly affected by Japan’s rise. Cixi was conscious that Russia also had territorial designs on China: it had carved off a huge chunk in 1860, and tried again two decades later over Ili in Xinjiang, on which occasion Cixi had forced it to back off. But after spending months weighing up the pros and cons, she decided that seeking an alliance with Russia was still preferable to doing nothing and waiting for Japan to attack again. At the beginning of 1896, China began to try to secure a Russian commitment to fight on its side if the country was invaded by Japan.
The Grand Council decamped and followed the empress dowager to the Summer Palace, setting up a temporary office in bungalows outside its eastern gate. Prince Gong moved into a mansion next door. No one cared where the emperor was.

Through the Chinese minister in St Petersburg, Cixi knew what China could offer Russia in return. The Trans-Siberian Railway that would connect Moscow and European Russia with the Russian Far East faced the choice of two routes before arriving at its terminus, the port of Vladivostok on the Pacific. If it stayed on Russian soil it would have to travel in a long arc, over difficult terrain, 500 kilometres longer than a straight line through northern Manchuria. The Russians wanted to build a shortcut through Chinese territory. After debate in the top circle, Cixi made up her mind to grant Russia its wish to construct the line, which later became known as the Chinese Eastern Railway (or the ‘Siberian Railway’). The line actually made considerable economic sense to China. Linking Asia with Europe by land, it would be a money-spinner, as the huge volume of goods passing through could be taxed by Beijing. Since Russia offered to build it, its construction would be of minimal cost to China and, to ensure the empire would reap the benefits, Beijing put up part of the initial capital (five million taels), and became a shareholder (one-third), making the railway a joint venture. If ever the relationship with Russia soured, the railway was on Chinese land, and China could, theoretically, do what she liked with it. And all this was on top of a guaranteed powerful military ally in the event of a Japanese assault.

The drawback, so far as anyone could predict, was a dramatic increase in Russian influence in Manchuria, bringing unforeseen consequences. Cixi knew that Beijing had to be ‘
on guard against future perils’, but shielding the empire against Japan overrode all such considerations.

Once decided on this approach, Earl Li was sent to Moscow to negotiate the pact. Cixi had turned against the earl for his role in the war with Japan, and was only employing him out of expediency – he was an unrivalled negotiator. It so happened that the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II would take place in May 1896, so the earl went as China’s Minister Extraordinary for the coronation, while the real purpose of his trip was kept secret. When it became known that he would be visiting Russia, invitations arrived from other countries: Britain, France, Germany and the US. This was the very first trip abroad by a top-level dignitary – no less than ‘China’s leading statesman’ in Western eyes. In order not to alienate these powers, and to conceal the real purpose of the trip, Earl Li toured the four other countries as well. The tour generated much fanfare, but little substance.
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The Russo-Chinese Secret Treaty was concluded successfully and signed on 3 June, days after the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. Its opening line stated explicitly that Russia would use all its available armed forces to aid China, should it be invaded by Japan.

Earl Li was full of excitement when he was given the job. He took it as an indication that the empress dowager had forgiven him, and was willing to work with him again, now that she seemed to be very much in charge. And the earl was confident in his own abilities. Before departure, at a
bon voyage
banquet in a marquee, a high wind coated the dishes with dust. But the earl ate heartily, talking and laughing in high spirits. Told that the God of Wind had come to pay homage to him – and that after his grand tour he would return to the centre of state affairs and achieve even greater things – the earl smiled, nodded and basked in the flattery.

During the trip the earl was feted by the heads of the states he visited and hailed as the ‘Bismarck of the East’. The
New York Times
carried this description of him: ‘He walks and sits with his massive head inclined forward on his breast, recalling Browning’s picture of Napoleon – “the prone brow oppressive with his mind.”’ But as soon as he set foot on Chinese soil again in late 1896, Earl Li realised that everything was not all right. He was made to wait for more than two weeks in Tianjin (where he disembarked), before being summoned to Beijing. In the capital he was given
a mere half-hour audience with Emperor Guangxu, whose attention was almost exclusively given to the diamond-studded medal that Germany had presented to His Majesty. When the earl attempted to describe the strength of the West and the urgent need for China to reform, the young monarch told him to ‘discuss these matters with Prince Gong and see what you can do’. As the earl did not have high expectations of the emperor in any case, he was not unduly disappointed. It was the next
interview, with the empress dowager on the same day, that left him ‘feeling really frightened’. Whatever Cixi said to the earl, of which there appears to be no record, it was certainly chilling, for the earl sank into a despondent torpor after the meeting. He was staying in a temple near her Summer Palace, and distractedly he wandered into the nearby ruins of the Old Summer Palace. Knowing who he was, eunuchs guarding the royal ruins allowed him entry. The earl’s mind, as he himself wrote, continued to be ‘in turmoil the whole night’. The next morning he tendered his resignation from all posts.

A curt imperial one-liner ignored his resignation, but implicitly made clear that he had been sacked, by announcing his new job: ‘to work in the Foreign Office’ – no longer as its overlord, but as an ordinary official. His two previous key posts, Imperial Commissioner for North China and Viceroy of Zhili, had already been transferred to somebody else and were not returned to him. The earl was allowed only to keep the title of Chief Administrator of the empire, which was largely honorific. As if this was not punishment enough, another edict publicly censured him for ‘trespassing into a royal estate’ and fined him a year’s salary. These crushing blows were inflicted by the empress dowager, who wanted to punish the earl for his responsibility for China’s ruin – although she was unable to spell this out publicly, as it was impossible to expose the precise nature of the earl’s culpability without exposing that of the emperor. However, she left the complacent earl in no doubt that their close political relationship was over. And for the glory he had just enjoyed abroad, he would receive double punishment (hence fining him for ‘trespassing’ in addition to dismissing him). Later on, when Cixi returned to full power, and seemed to need a capable man by her side, the earl attempted to have himself reinstated. Cixi let him know that he deserved only further suffering, by sending the seventy-five-year-old on a hardship journey along the frozen
Yellow River ‘to conduct a geological study and propose ways to control flood’.

Thus Cixi ended her decades-long political partnership with Earl Li, an outstanding but gravely flawed statesman. With this, and the sense of relief that peace for the empire was secured for the foreseeable future by the pact with Russia, Cixi effectively turned her back on state affairs. The emotional roller-coaster during the war, with all its anxieties and frustrations and anguish, had exhausted her. She was shattered to see the fruits of her labour, over several decades, vanish. At sixty, she seems to have lost heart for a new beginning. The empress dowager was no longer her former self – she who had been so dynamic, presiding over debates, issuing decrees and launching policy innovations. She no longer seemed to care. After all, her adopted son was in charge. She could exercise control over one or two critical matters, but she could not interfere in daily affairs. Emperor Guangxu was in his usual state of inertia and cluelessness as far as reforms were concerned. When Viceroy
Zhang presented a proposal for restarting modernisation, the emperor merely mouthed some clichés and did nothing. The railway programme, at least, did get restarted, including the Beijing–Wuhan Railway, which had been launched by Cixi, but shelved by the emperor. Now everyone recognised the railways’ vital importance, even Grand Tutor Weng.

At this time, the budding Chinese bourgeoisie, rooted in shipping, mining and trade, and not affected by the war, was still active. Electricity had reached inland provinces like Hunan, where
‘whole towns are bright with electric lights’, an eye-witness exclaimed. Entrepreneurs were developing new ideas. Sheng Xuanhuai, the business pioneer who was entrusted with the building of the Beijing–Wuhan Railway, was calling for the founding of a state bank. If this idea had been put to her in the earlier years, Cixi would have adopted it eagerly. But now she appeared indifferent, and Emperor Guangxu told Sheng to form a bank himself through private investment. Foreign observers who had had high hopes of China carrying out reforms after Earl Li’s tour of the West were disappointed. They saw that in more than two years since the end of the war, the country
‘had done nothing to reform her administration or to reorganise her forces’ and had learned no lesson from the defeat.

Cixi’s multitude of interests outside politics made it easier for her to let go. And she concentrated on pursuing pleasure. On the occasion of the
Moon Festival in 1896, which fell on 21 September, after the secret pact with Russia was wrapped up, she invited court grandees to the Summer Palace to celebrate. They were met at the Villa of the Jade Balustrade, the
Yu-lan-tang
, which sat right on the edge of the lake, with a panoramic view. It was the residence of the emperor, but Cixi acted as host. As Grand Tutor Weng recorded, she declared that the villa was ‘full of light and air, better than the Forbidden City’, and she was ‘all praise and solicitude’ for the grandees of their ‘hard work’ in concluding the Russian pact. Enquiring after a Grand Councillor who had been ill, she offered medical advice, telling Weng to warn him that he ‘could take ginseng, but only with care’. State business was not discussed. The grandees were told to enjoy themselves. When night descended, a full moon rose in a rain-washed, now cloudless sky, magnificent over the Kunming Lake. Grand Tutor Weng drank with a few friends and enunciated poems. As the moon declined in size and brilliance, they wallowed in melancholy.

On that day there was no music. Emperor Guangxu’s biological mother – Cixi’s sister – had died on 18 June, and a 100-day mourning period was still in force, with the usual ban on all music. Three days later, when mourning came to an end, and Cixi and the emperor had discharged their final duties, the first notes were struck in a novel fashion. At dusk, decorated boats carried the grandees into the middle of the lake, where they stopped, gently swaying with the ripples sparkling under the moon. At a signal, all around the boats, red lanterns in the shape of lotus flowers lit up – powered by electricity – and a brilliantly illuminated platform floated silently into their midst. Opera was then performed on it, with modern lighting, the first ever witnessed by the grandees. This was followed by a firework display, dazzling against the dark silhouette of the nearby hill. Cixi was showing off her staging of the spectacle, disregarding the rising chill of the night on the water. Grand Tutor Weng, impressed though he was by the extravaganza, could not wait for it to finish, whereupon he rushed away to wrap himself up in a big padded coat.