Ministers, especially as regards the sentences passed on Prince Tuan and
Duke Lan, another Decree, a week later, ordered that both these Manchu
leaders should be imprisoned pending decapitation, a sentence which
was eventually reduced to one of perpetual banishment to Turkestan.
Posthumous decapitation, a grievous disgrace in the eyes of Chinese
officials, was decreed as a further punishment upon Kang Yi, while Chao
Shu-ch’iao and Ying Nien were ordered to commit suicide. Finally, the
Grand Councillor Ch’i Hsiu, and a son of the Grand Secretary Hsü T’ung
(who had closely followed in his father’s footsteps as the most violent
opponent of everything foreign), were sentenced to decapitation, and were
duly executed at Peking.
In compliance with the last demands of the Foreign Ministers, a final
Decree, the wording of which points clearly to reluctant action under
compulsion, restored the ranks and honours of the five officials who had
been executed for advising Her Majesty against the Boxers. To revise
this sentence without leaving them under some imputation of blame would
have involved most undesirable loss of “face,” and the Decree therefore
observes:—
“When we urged these officials, at a general audience of all
our Ministers, to state their views definitely, so that we
might judge fairly of the issues, they expressed themselves
hesitatingly, and our evil-disposed Princes and advisers were
thus able to take advantage of their apparent indecision.
This was the cause of their undoing. They were impeached on
all sides, and were eventually decapitated. We recall to mind
the fact that these five officials always showed considerable
ability in handling diplomatic questions, and, as a mark of our
favour, we therefore restore to them their original rank.”
_The Death of Chao Shu-ch’iao._—This Grand Councillor, one of the
Empress’s favourite Ministers, whom to the last she endeavoured to
protect from execution, was originally sentenced only to imprisonment for
life. He was confined in the prison of the Provincial Judge at Hsi-an,
where his family were allowed to visit him. On the day before the issue
of the Decree which sentenced him to imprisonment, the Old Buddha had
said, at a meeting of the Grand Council, “I do not really believe that
Chao sympathised in the very least with the Boxers; the error that he
made lay in under-estimating the seriousness of the movement.” This was
reported to Chao, who was naturally much elated, and believed that his
life would surely be spared. A few days later, however, it was freely
rumoured that the foreign Powers were insisting upon his decapitation,
and the news created the greatest excitement throughout the city, which
was his native place. Some three hundred of the chief men of the city
having drawn up a monster petition, proceeded with it to the office
of the Grand Council, and begged, in the name of the whole community,
that his life be spared. The Grand Councillors were afraid to take the
petition to Her Majesty, but, in reply to the deputation, the President
of the Board of Punishments (who was related to Chao) declared that his
execution would be an act of monstrous injustice.
On the first day of the New Year, these rumours took more definite shape,
and on that day Her Majesty’s audience with the Grand Council lasted
from six to eleven in the morning; but even then no decision had been
come to in regard to complying with the demand for Chao’s execution.
Throughout the neighbourhood of the Drum Tower the streets were packed
with a huge crowd, who threatened that they would certainly rescue Chao
if he were taken out for execution. So great was the clamour that the
Grand Council feared a riot, and they determined, therefore, to beg Her
Majesty to permit Chao to commit suicide. This was done, and Tzŭ Hsi
reluctantly agreeing, issued the Decree at one o’clock on the following
morning, which fixed the hour for reporting his death to Her Majesty at
five o’clock in the afternoon of the same day. Governor Ts’en was ordered
to proceed to the prison, and read the Decree to Chao, which he did in
due form. After hearing it in silence to the end, Chao asked: “Will
there be no further Decree?” “No,” said Ts’en. “Surely, there must be,”
said Chao. At this his wife, intervening, said, “There is no hope; let
us die together!” She then gave him poison, of which he took a little,
but up till 3 P.M. it appeared to have had no effect whatsoever, for he
seemed most vigorous, and discussed at great length with his family the
arrangements to be made for his funeral. He was much exercised in mind
at the effect which his death would have upon the health of his aged
mother. All day long his room was crowded by friends and colleagues;
the Governor had endeavoured at first to prevent their coming, but had
eventually yielded, so that the number of those present was very large.
Chao, addressing them, said: “I have been brought to this pass entirely
by the fault of Kang Yi.” The Governor, observing that his voice sounded
clear and firm, and that, at this hour, there were no signs of impending
death about him, ordered one of the attendants to give him some opium
to swallow. At 5 o’clock, the opium having apparently taken no effect,
the attendants were ordered to give him a liberal dose of arsenic, after
which he rolled over on to the ground, and lay there, groaning and
beating his breast with his hands. Later, complaining of extreme pain,
he asked that friction might be applied to his chest, but so strong was
his constitution, and so determined his will, that even at 11 o’clock
it was evident that there was still no little life left in him. The
Governor was much disturbed and distressed, being well aware that the Old
Buddha would require some adequate explanation of this long delay in the
execution of her orders. “I was to report his death at 5 o’clock,” said
he, “the man will not die: what is to be done?” The attendants suggested
that he should screw up some pieces of thick paper, dip them in strong
spirit, and with them close the breathing passages; by this means he
would be speedily suffocated. Ts’en approved of the suggestion, and after
five wads of paper had been inserted, death ensued. His wife, weeping
bitterly, thereupon committed suicide. To the end, Chao could not believe
that the Empress Dowager would allow his death, and for this reason it is
probable that he purposely took an insufficient dose of opium in order to
gain time for a reprieve.
_The Death of Prince Chuang._—Prince Chuang, with his concubine and
son, went to Tu Chou, in South Shansi, there to await the decision of
the Empress Dowager as to his fate. He lodged in an official house of
entertainment. When Ko Pao-hua, the Imperial Commissioner, brought
thither the Decree commanding him to commit suicide, it was early in
the morning; nevertheless, upon his arrival, crackers were fired, in
accordance with etiquette, to greet him. The noise greatly irritated
Prince Chuang, who turned savagely upon the attendants, and asked
what they meant by making such a noise at such an hour. “An Imperial
Commissioner has arrived,” they said. “Has he come about me?” asked the
Prince. “No,” they replied, “he is merely passing through on business.”
When the Imperial Commissioner was ushered in, the Prince began to ply
him with questions about the Court, to which Ko briefly replied. After
talking for a little while Ko went off to inspect the premises, at the
back of which he found an old temple, in which he selected an unoccupied
room to be the scene of Prince Chuang’s suicide. From a beam in the roof
he hung a silken cord, and, after fastening it securely, he directed
the Prefect and the District Magistrate to send some soldiers to keep
order. Having made these preparations he returned to the presence of
the Prince, and informing him that he had an Imperial Decree to read to
him, ordered him to go down on his knees to hear it. The Prince, drawing
himself up to his full height, said, “Is it my head that you want?” The
Imperial Commissioner made no direct reply, but proceeded to read the
Decree to the Prince, who reverently knelt.[116] When the Commissioner
had finished, “So it is suicide,” said the Prince, “I always expected
they would not be content with anything less than my life. I greatly
fear that even our Old Buddha will not be allowed to last much longer.”
He next asked the Imperial Commissioner to be permitted to bid farewell
to his family, which was allowed him. At this moment, his concubine
and his son, having learned of the Imperial Commissioner’s business,
entered the room. The Prince, addressing his son, said:—“Remember that
it is your duty to do everything in your power for your country; at all
costs, these foreigners must not be allowed to possess themselves of the
glorious Empire won for us by our ancestors.”[117] His son, bitterly
weeping, could not reply, while his concubine passed from frantic grief
to a swoon. The Prince, unmoved, asked:—“Where is the death chamber?”
The Imperial Commissioner replied:—“Will your Highness please to come
to the empty room at the back of the house.” When the Prince, following
him, saw the silken cord hanging from the beam, he turned and said:—“Your
Excellency has indeed made most admirable and complete arrangements.”
With these words he passed the cord around his neck, and in a very few
minutes life was extinct.
_The Death of Ying Nien._—Ying Nien was an arrant coward. On the day of
the issue of the first Decree, ordering his imprisonment at Hsi-an, his
family deserted him, and he remained all through the night, weeping, in
great distress of mind. To his attendants he complained bitterly that
Prince Ch’ing had not intervened to protect him. The next day was the
New Year Festival, and as everybody was busy with preparations for the
occasion, little heed was paid to him, and he spent the day weeping.
Towards midnight his crying suddenly ceased, and on the following morning
he was found by his servant, prone upon the ground, his face covered
with mud, quite dead. He had choked himself by swallowing mud, but as
the Decree ordering him to commit suicide had not actually been issued,
the fact of his death was suppressed for forty-eight hours, after which
Governor Ts’en was informed, and he reported it to the Old Buddha.
_The Decapitation of Yü Hsien._—When the Decree, commanding his
decapitation, reached Yü Hsien, he had already started under escort for
his place of banishment, but he was a sick man and could only totter
weakly along. On learning the news, he appeared as one dazed, a very
different man indeed from that fierce Governor of Shansi, who had
displayed such bloodthirsty activity. On the day before his death he
was very seriously ill, and when the time came, he was so weak that he
had to be supported to the execution ground. On the previous day the
leading citizens of Lan-chou fu expressed their desire to offer him a
valedictory banquet, but he declined the honour with thanks, expressing
his wish to spend his last day in quietude. He wrote a pair of scrolls as
an expression of his gratitude for the courtesy thus shown to him, and
the elders of the city decided and informed him that the execution ground
would be decorated with red cloth, as for a festival, in his honour.
Towards evening, notices were placarded in the principal streets, calling
on the people to insist upon his being reprieved, but Yü Hsien knew that
this was quite useless. He composed a statement of his actions in the
form of an official proclamation, maintaining stoutly that his death was
to be regarded as a glorious and patriotic end, and bidding the people
on no account to interfere with the execution of his sentence. Finally
he wrote, with his own hand, a pair of valedictory scrolls, the text of
which was widely quoted after his death all over China. The first may be
translated as follows:—
“The Minister dies for his Sovereign; wives and concubines die
for their lord. Who shall say that this is unseemly? It is
sad that my aged mother is ninety years of age, and my little
daughter only seven. Who shall protect them in their old age
and tender youth? How shall that filial piety be fulfilled
which a man owes to his parent? The Sovereign commanded, and
the Minister obeyed. I slew others; now, in my turn, am I
slain. Why should I regret it? Only one cause for shame have
I—that I have served my Sovereign all these years, and have
held high rank in three provinces, without displaying merit
more conspicuous than a grain of sand in the desert or a drop
of water in the ocean. Alas, that I should thus unworthily
requite the Imperial bounty.”
And the second reads:—
“The Minister has by his guilt incurred the sentence of
decapitation. At this moment there is no thought in my mind
except the hope that my death may be as glorious as my life has
been honest.[118] I would far rather die than pine away the
rest of my life in degrading imprisonment. I have ill-requited
Her Majesty’s kindness. Who shall now relieve her grief? I
sincerely hope that you, the Statesmen who surround the Throne,
may yet find means to restore our fallen fortunes, and that you
will honourably fulfil your bounden duty in ministering to the
distress of their Imperial Majesties.”
On the following day, at one o’clock of the afternoon, Yü Hsien’s head
was severed from his body, in the presence of a great crowd, which
greeted his end with sounds of lamentation.
_The Death of Ch’i Hsiu._—Ch’i Hsin was executed, together with Hsü
Ching-yu, outside the wall of the Tartar city, in Peking, early one
morning in February, 1901, the execution being witnessed by more than one
European. When informed that he was to die, Ch’i Hsiu’s only question
was: “By whose commands?” and when told that a Decree had come from
Hsi-an fu, he said, “It is by the will of the Empress Dowager; I die
happy then, so long as it is not by order of the foreigners.” This Grand
Councillor had been arrested several months before by the Japanese, and
Prince Ch’ing had been able to obtain his release on the ground that his
aged mother was very ill; but when she subsequently died, he strongly
advised Ch’i Hsiu “to make his filial piety coincide with his loyalty by
committing suicide.” Coming from Prince Ch’ing, the suggestion was one
hardly to be misunderstood, but Ch’i Hsiu failed to act upon it, thereby
incurring a certain amount of criticism.
XXII
THE OLD BUDDHA PENITENT
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. The Decrees issued at that time were
the work of wicked Princes and Ministers of State, who, taking
advantage of the chaotic condition of affairs, did not hesitate
to issue documents under the Imperial seal, which were quite
contrary to our wishes. We have on more than one previous
occasion hinted indirectly at the extraordinary difficulty of
the position in which we were placed, and which left us no
alternative but to act as we did. Our officials and subjects
should have no difficulty in reading between the lines and
appreciating our meaning.
“We have now punished all the guilty, and we hereby order that
the Grand Secretariat shall submit for our perusal all Decrees
issued between the 24th day of the 5th moon and the 20th day of
the 7th moon (20th June to 14th August), so that all spurious
or illegal documents may be withdrawn and cancelled. Thus shall
historical accuracy be attained and our Imperial utterances
receive the respect to which they are properly entitled.”
Having thus secured the respect of posterity, Tzŭ Hsi proceeded to make
the “amende honorable,” (with due regard to the Imperial “face,”) for so
many of her sins as she was prepared to admit. In another Decree, in the
name of the Emperor, which gives a Munchausen account of the Throne’s
part and lot in the crisis of 1900, and a pathetic description of her
own and the Emperor’s sufferings during the flight, she makes solemn
confession of error and promise of reform. As an example of the manner in
which history is made in China, the Edict is of permanent interest and
value.
“A PENITENTIAL DECREE
“_26th day, 12th moon of Kuang-Hsü’s 26th year_ (_Feb. 13th,
1901_).
“Last summer the Boxers sowed the seeds of rebellion, which
led to our being involved in a war with friendly Powers.
Thereafter, our Capital being thrown into a state of great
disorder, we escorted the Empress Dowager, our mother, on a
progress of inspection throughout the Western Provinces. To
Prince Ch’ing and to the Grand Secretary Li Hung-chang we
entrusted full powers, and bade them negotiate with the foreign
Ministers for the cessation of hostilities and a Treaty of
peace. These Plenipotentiaries having lately telegraphed to us
the twelve principal clauses of the proposed protocol, we have
consented thereto, but at the same time have instructed them
carefully to scrutinise their various provisions in the light
of China’s ability to fulfil them.
“It having been accorded to us to retrieve our disastrous
mistakes, we are in duty bound to promulgate this Penitential
Decree, and to let every one of our subjects know how vast and
harassing were the perplexities with which the Throne has been
beset.
“There are ignorant persons who believe that the recent crisis
was partly caused by our government’s support of the Boxers;
they must have overlooked our reiterated Decrees of the 5th and
6th moons, that the Boxers should be exterminated, and the
Christians protected. Unfortunately these rebels and their evil
associates placed us in a position from which it was impossible
to escape; we exhausted every possible effort of strong
remonstrance, appalled at the impending ruin of our Empire.
Events moved swiftly until, on the 21st of the 7th moon, our
Capital fell; on that day, both Her Majesty the Empress Dowager
and ourselves decided to commit suicide in the presence of the
tutelary deities of our Dynasty and the gods of the soil, thus
making atonement and offering propitiation to the spirits of
our nine Imperial ancestors. But, at the critical moment of
dire lamentation and confusion, we were seized by our Princes
and Ministers, and forcibly led away from that place where
bullets fell like rain, and where the enemies’ guns gathered
thick as forest trees. Hastily, and with souls perturbed, we
started on our Western tour. Were not all these disasters
caused by the Boxers? The imminent danger of her sacred
Majesty, the overwhelming ruin of our ancestors’ inheritance,
our prosperous Capital turned to a howling wilderness, its
ravines filled with the dead bodies of our greatest men: how
can it possibly be said that the Throne could protect the
rebels who brought such disasters upon us?
“There was, however, an explicable cause for the Boxer movement
and for its disastrous results.” (_The Decree proceeds here
to ascribe blame to local Magistrates for not administering
even justice between Christians and non-Christians, and thus
producing a state of discontent and unrest, which afforded
opportunities to the Boxers. The latter received a further
impetus by reason of the inefficiency of the Imperial troops
sent to quell the first rising. Finally, references are made to
the evil advice and ignorance of the highly placed clansmen and
Ministers of State who favoured the Boxer cause. This Decree
is in fact a complete justification of the views expressed in
the three memorials by Yüan Ch’ang and Hsü Ching-ch’eng, for
which these patriotic officials laid down their lives. After
describing the entry of the Boxers into Peking, and lamenting
the position of the Throne as resembling “a tail which is too
big to wag,” the Decree proceeds_):—“Nevertheless, and while
the Legations were being besieged, we repeatedly directed our
Ministers of the Tsungli Yamên to put a stop to hostilities,
and at the same time to keep up communication with the foreign
Ministers, assuring them of our kindly and sympathetic regard.
This latter order, however, was not carried out because of
the continuous artillery and rifle fire between the besiegers
and the besieged, and it was impossible for us, under such
conditions, to insist upon its execution. Supposing, by some
horrible fatality, the Legations had actually fallen, how
could China have hoped to preserve her integrity? To the
Throne’s strenuous efforts is really due the avoidance of
such a dreadful catastrophe, and the gifts of wine, fruit and
water-melons to the besieged Legations, were an indication
of Her Majesty’s benevolent intentions. It was but natural
and right that the friendly Powers should appreciate these
our feelings, and the fact that at such a crisis they have
respected the integrity of our Empire as a Sovereign State,
goes to prove that the Allies attribute no longer any blame
to the Throne. This, however, only adds to our wrath at the
ignorance and violence of our offending subjects; when we look
back upon the past, we are filled with shame and indignation.
We are convinced that, in these peace negotiations, the
foreign Powers will not attempt to extract from us more than
we are able to concede. We have ordered Prince Ch’ing and Li
Hung-chang, negotiating this Treaty, to continue patiently
in friendly discussion, maintaining all questions of vital
principle, while recognising the special circumstances which
attach to any given case. Foreign Powers are lovers of justice,
and they are bound to consider what China is capable of doing
if they wish to see this negotiation brought to a successful
conclusion. To this end we expect that our Plenipotentiaries
will display their virtue of patriotism to the very best of
their ability.
“At the time of the terror in Peking, our provincial
authorities were ordered to keep the peace in their respective
provinces, and to take no part in provoking hostilities.
If the Southern and Eastern parts of our Empire enjoyed
full protection from disorders, the fact was solely due to
our Decrees, which insisted upon the rigid maintenance of
peace. The trade of foreign Powers was in no way injured,
our Viceroys and Governors being able to preserve normal
conditions in those parts of our Empire. As regards the
Southern provinces, however, which are always talking loudly of
strengthening their defences, it cannot be gainsaid that, upon
the outbreak of any trouble, they fall into a state of hopeless
confusion. 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.
We were both clad in the meanest of garments, and to relieve
our hunger we were scarcely able to obtain a dish of beans or
porridge. Few of our poorest subjects have suffered greater
hardships of cold and hunger than befell us in this pitiful
plight. We wonder whether those who call themselves our
faithful Ministers and servants have ever taken real thought
of their bounden duty towards their afflicted and outraged
Sovereigns?