He was not. If we may credit the reports that came from the palace in
those days, he had a temper of his own. If he were denied anything he
wanted, he would lie down on his baby back on the dirty ground and kick
and scream and literally "raise the dust" until he got it. My wife
tells me that not infrequently when she called at the Chinese homes,
and they set before her a dish of which she was especially fond, and
she had eaten of it as much as she thought she ought, the ladies would
ask in a good-natured way in reply to some of her remarks about her
voracious appetite, "Shall we get down and knock our heads on the
floor, and beg you not to eat too much, and make yourself sick, like
the eunuchs do to the Emperor?" There is nothing to wonder at that
Kuang Hsu, without parental restraint, and fawned upon by cringing
eunuchs and serving maids, should have been a spoiled child; the wonder
is that he was not worse than he was.
One day in 1901 while the court was absent at Hsian, and the front gate
of the Forbidden City was guarded by our "boys in blue," I obtained a
pass and visited the imperial palace. The apartments of the Emperor
consisted of a series of one-story Chinese buildings, with paper
windows around a large central pane of glass, tile roof and brick
floor. The east part of the building appeared to be the living-room,
about twenty by twenty-five feet. The window on the south side extended
the entire length of the room, and was filled with clocks from end to
end. There were clocks of every description from the finest French
cloisonne to the most intricate cuckoo clocks from which a bird hopped
forth to announce the hour, and each ticking its own time regardless of
every other. Tables were placed in various parts of the room, on each
of which were one, two or three clocks. Swiss watches of the most
curious and unique designs hung about the walls. Two sofas sat back to
back in the centre of the room, and a beautiful little gilt desk on
which was the most wonderful of all his clocks, with several large
foreign chairs upholstered in plush and velvet, completed the
furniture. I sat down in one of these chairs to rest, for it was a hot
summer day, and immediately there proceeded from beneath me sweet
strains of music from a box concealed beneath the cushion. It was not
only a surprise, it was soothing and restful; and I was prepared to see
an electric fan pop out of somewhere and fan me to sleep. It was really
an Oriental fairy tale of an apartment.
As Kuang Hsu grew to boyhood he heard that out in this great wonderful
world, which he had never seen except with the eyes of a child, there
was a method of sending messages to distant cities and provinces with
the rapidity of a flash of lightning. For centuries he and his
ancestors had been sending their edicts, and their Peking Gazette or
court newspaper--the oldest journal in the world--by runner, or relays
of post horses, and the possibility of sending them by a lightning
flash appealed to him. He believed in doing things, and, as we shall
see later, he wanted to do them as rapidly as they could be done. He
therefore ordered that a telegraph outfit be secured for him, which he
"played with" as he had done with his most ingenious toys, and the
telegraph was soon established for court use throughout the empire.
One day a number of officials came to us at the Peking University and
in the course of a conversation they said:
"The Emperor has heard that the foreigners have invented a talk box. Is
that true?"
"Quite true," we replied, "and as we have one in the physical
laboratory of the college we will let you see it."
We had one of the old Edison phonographs which worked with a pedal, and
looked very much like a sewing-machine, and we took them to the
laboratory, allowed one of them to talk into it, and then set the
machine to repeating what had been told it. The officials were
delighted and it was not long until they again appeared and insisted on
buying it as a present for the Emperor, for in this way better than any
other they might hope to obtain official recognition and position.
The Emperor then heard that the foreigners had invented a "fire-wheel
cart," but whether he had ever been informed that they had built a
small railroad at Wu-Sung near Shanghai, and that the Chinese had
bought it, and then torn it up and thrown it into the river we cannot
say. There are many things the officials and people do which never
reach the imperial ears. However that may be, when Kuang Hsu heard of
the railroad and the carts that were run by fire, he wanted one, and he
would not be satisfied until they had built a narrow gauge railroad
along the west shore of the lotus lake in the Forbidden City, and the
factories of Europe had made two small cars and an engine on which he
could take the court ladies for a ride on this unusual merry-go-round.
The road and the cars and the engine were still there when I visited
the Forbidden City in 1901, but they were carried away to Europe by
some of the allies as precious bits of loot, before the court returned.
Not long after he had heard of the railroads, he was told that the
foreigners also had "fire-wheel boats." Of course he wanted some, and
as I crossed the beautiful marble bridge that spans the lotus lake, I
saw anchored near by three small steam launches which had evidently
been used a good deal. I saw similar launches in the lake at the Summer
Palace, and was told that in the play days of his boyhood, Kuang Hsu
would have these launches hitched to the imperial barges and take the
ladies of the court for pleasure trips about the lake in the cool of
the summer evenings, as the Empress Dowager did her foreign visitors in
later times.
The Emperor in those days was on the lookout for everything foreign
that was of a mechanical nature. Indeed every invention interested him.
In this respect he was diametrically opposite to the genius of the
whole Chinese people. Their faces had ever been turned backward, and
their highest hopes were that they might approximate the golden ages of
the past, and be equal in virtue to their ancestors. This feeling was
so strong that a hundred years before he mounted the throne, his
forefather, Chien Lung, when he had completed his cycle of sixty years
as a ruler, vacated in favour of his son lest he should reign longer
than his grandfather. Kuang Hsu was therefore the first occupant of the
dragon throne whose face was turned to the future, and whose chief aim
was to possess and to master every method that had enabled the peoples
of the West to humiliate his people.
When he heard that the foreigners had a method of talking to a distance
of ten, twenty, fifty or five hundred miles, he did not say like the
old farmer is reported to have said,--"It caint be trew, because my son
John kin holler as loud as any man in all this country, an' he caint be
heerd mor'n two miles." Kuang Hsu believed it, and at once ordered that
a telephone be secured for him.
In 1894 the Christian women of China decided to present a New Testament
to the Empress Dowager on her sixtieth birthday which occurred the
following year. New type was prepared, the finest foreign paper
secured, and the book was made after the best style of the printer's
art, with gilt borders, gilt edges, and bound in silver of an embossed
bamboo pattern and encased in a silver box. It was then enclosed in a
red plush box,--red being the colour indicating happiness,--which was
in turn encased in a beautifully carved teak-wood box, and this was
enclosed in an ordinary box and taken by the English and American
ministers to the Foreign Office to be sent in to Her Majesty.
The next day the Emperor sent to the American Bible Society for copies
of the Old and New Testaments, such as were being sold to his people. A
few days thereafter a Chinese friend--a horticulturist and gardener who
went daily to the palace with flowers and vegetables--came to me in
confidence as though bearing an important secret, and said:
"Something of unusual importance is taking place in the palace."
"Indeed?" said I; "what makes you think so?"
"Heretofore when I have gone into the palace," said he, "the eunuchs
have treated me with indifference. Yesterday they sat down and talked
in a most familiar and friendly way, asking me all about Christianity.
I told them what I could and they continued their conversation until
long after noon. I finally became so hungry that I arose to come home.
They urged me to stay, bringing in a feast, and inviting me to dine
with them, and they kept me there till evening. One of them told me
that the Emperor is studying the Gospel of Luke."
"How does he know that?" I inquired.
"That is what I asked him," he answered, "and he told me that he is one
of the Emperor's private servants, and that His Majesty has a part of
the Gospel copied in large characters on a sheet of paper each day,
which he spreads out on the table before him, and this eunuch, standing
behind his chair, can read what he is studying."
On further inquiry I discovered that there was no other way that the
eunuch could have learned about the Gospel, except in the way
indicated. This man was invited to dine with the eunuchs day after day
until he had told them all he knew about Christianity, after which they
requested him to bring in the pastor of the church of which he was a
member, and who was one of my former pupils, to dine with them and tell
them more about the Gospel. The pastor hesitated to accept the
invitation, but as it was repeated day after day, he finally
accompanied the horticulturist.
When offered wine at dinner the pastor refused it, at which the eunuch
remarked: "Oh, yes, I have heard that you Christians do not drink
wine," and like a polite host, the wine was put aside and none was
drunk at the dinner. During the afternoon they took their guests to
visit some of the imperial buildings, advanced the sum of three hundred
dollars to the horticulturist to enlarge his plant, and gave various
presents to the pastor.
It must not be inferred from this that the Emperor was becoming a
Christian. Very far from it, though the interest he took in the
Christian doctrine set the people to studying about it, not only in
Peking but throughout many of the provinces, as was indicated at the
time by the number of Christian books sold. As early as 1891 he issued
a strong edict ordering the protection of the missionaries in which he
made the following statement: "The religions of the West have for their
object the inculcation of virtue, and, though our people become
converted, they continue to be Chinese subjects. There is no reason why
there should not be harmony between the people and the adherents of
foreign religions." The Chinese reported that he sometimes examined the
eunuchs, lining them up in classes and catechising them from the books
read.
One day three of the eunuchs called on me with this same
horticulturist, for the purpose no doubt of seeing a foreigner, and to
get a glimpse of the home in which he lived. One of them was younger
than the other two and above the average intelligence of his class. A
few days later the horticulturist told me a story which illustrates a
phase of the Emperor's character which we have already hinted at--his
impulsive nature and ungovernable temper. He had ordered a number of
the eunuchs to appear before him, all of whom except this young man
were unable to come, because engaged in other duties. When the eunuch
got down on his hands and knees to kotow or knock his head to His
Majesty, the latter kicked him in the mouth, cutting his lip and
otherwise injuring him, and my informant added:
"What kind of a man is that to govern a country, a man who punishes
those who obey his orders?" Indeed there was a good deal of feeling
among the Chinese at that time that the Empress Dowager ought to punish
the Emperor as a good mother does a bad child, though in the light of
all the other things he did, he was to be pitied more than blamed for a
disposition thus inherited and developed.
It was about this time he began the study of English. He ordered that
two teachers be appointed, and contrary to all former customs he
allowed them to sit rather than kneel while they taught him. At the
time they were selected I was exchanging lessons in English for Chinese
with the grandson of one of these teachers, and learned a good deal
about the progress the young man was making. He was in such a hurry to
begin that he could not wait to send to England or America for books,
and so the officials visited the various schools and missions in search
of proper primers for a beginner. When they visited us we made a
thorough search and finally Dr. Marcus L. Taft discovered an
attractively illustrated primer which he had taken to China with him
for his little daughter Frances, and this was sent to Kuang Hsu.
One day a eunuch called on me saying that the Emperor had learned that
the various institutions of learning, educational associations, tract
and other societies had published a number of books in Chinese which
they had translated from the European languages. I was at that time the
custodian of two or three of these societies and had a great variety of
Chinese books in my possession. I therefore sent him copies of our
astronomy, geology, zoology, physiology and various other scientific
books which I was at that time teaching in the university.
The next day he called again, accompanied by a coolie who brought me a
present of a ham cooked at the imperial kitchen, together with boxes of
fruit and cakes, which, not being a man of large appetite, I thanked
him for, tipped the coolie, and after he had gone, turned them over to
our servants, who assured me that imperial meat was very palatable. Day
after day for six weeks this eunuch visited me, and would never leave
until I had found some new book for His Majesty. They might be
literary, scientific or religious works, and he made no distinction
between the books of any sect or society, institution or body, but with
an equal zeal he sought them all. I was sometimes reduced to a sheet
tract, and finally I was forced to take my wife's Chinese medical books
out of her private library and send them in to the Emperor. I learned
that other eunuchs were visiting other persons in charge of other
books, and that at this time Kuang Hsu bought every book that had been
translated from any European language and published in the Chinese.
One day the eunuch saw my wife's bicycle standing on the veranda and
said:
"What kind of a cart is that?"
"That is a self-moving cart," I answered.
"How do you ride it?" he inquired.
I took the bicycle off the veranda, rode about the court a time or two,
while he gazed at me with open mouth, and when I stopped he ejaculated:
"That's queer; why doesn't it fall down?"
"When a thing's moving," I answered, "it can't fall down," which might
apply to other things than bicycles.
The next day when he called he said:
"The Emperor would like that bicycle," and my wife allowed him to take
it in to Kuang Hsu, and it was not long thereafter until it was
reported that the Emperor had been trying to ride the bicycle, that his
queue had become entangled in the rear wheel, and that he had had a not
very royal tumble, and had given it up,--as many another one has done.
IX
Kuang Hsu--As Emperor and Reformer
In 1891 the present Emperor Kuang Hsu issued a very strong edict
commanding good treatment of the missionaries. He therein made the
following statement: "The religions of the West have for their object
the inculcation of virtue, and, though our people become converted,
they continue to be Chinese subjects. There is no reason why there
should not be harmony between the people and the adherents of foreign
religions."--Hon. Charles Denby in "China and Her People."
IX
KUANG HSU--AS EMPEROR AND REFORMER
AS a man, there are few characters in Chinese history that are more
interesting than Kuang Hsu. He had all the caprices of genius with
their corresponding weakness and strength. He could wield a pen with
the vigour of a Caesar, threaten his greatest viceroys, dismiss his
leading conservative officials, introduce the most sweeping and
far-reaching reforms that have ever been thought of by the Chinese
people, and then run from a woman as though the very devil was after
him.
He has been variously rated as a genius, an imbecile and a fool. Let us
grant that he was not brilliant. Let us rate him as an imbecile, and
then let us try to account for his having brought into the palace every
ingenious toy and every wonderful and useful invention and discovery of
the past twenty or thirty years with the exception of the X-rays and
liquid air. Let us try to explain why it was that an imbecile would
purchase every book that had been printed in the Chinese language,
concerning foreign subjects of learning, up to the time when he was
dethroned. Let us tell why it was that an imbecile would study all
those foreign books without help, without an assistant, without a
teacher, for three years, from the time he bought them in 1895 till
1898, before he began issuing the most remarkable series of edicts that
have ever come from the pen of an Oriental monarch in the same length
of time. And let us explain how it was that an imbecile could embody in
his edicts of two or three months all the important principles that
were necessary to launch the great reforms of the past ten years.
I doubt if any Chinese monarch has ever had a more far-reaching
influence over the minds of the young men of the empire than Kuang Hsu
had from 1895 till 1898. The preparation for this influence had been
going on for twenty or thirty years previously in the educational
institutions established by the missions and the government. From these
schools there had gone out a great number of young men who had taken
positions in all departments of business, and many of the state, and
revealed to the officials as well as to many of the people the power of
foreign education. An imperial college had been established by the
customs service for the special education of young men for diplomatic
and other positions, from which there had gone out young men who were
the representatives of the government as consuls or ministers in the
various countries of Europe and America.
The fever for reading the same books that Kuang Hsu had read was so
great as to tax to the utmost the presses of the port cities to supply
the demand, and the leaders of some of the publication societies feared
that a condition had arisen for which they were unprepared. Books
written by such men as Drs. Allen, Mateer, Martin, Williams and Legge
were brought out in pirated photographic reproductions by the bookshops
of Shanghai and sold for one-tenth the cost of the original work.
Authors, to protect themselves, compelled the pirates to deliver over
the stereotype plates they had made on penalty of being brought before
the officials in litigation if they refused. But during the three years
the Emperor had been studying these foreign books, hundreds of
thousands of young scholars all over the empire had been doing the
same, preparing themselves for whatever emergency the studies of the
young Emperor might bring about.
One day during the early spring a young Chinese reformer came to me to
get a list of the best newspapers and periodicals published in both
England and America. I inquired the reason for this strange move, and
he said:
"The young Chinese reformers in Peking have organized a Reform Club.
Some of them read and speak English, others French, others German and
still others Russian, and we are providing ourselves with all the
leading periodicals of these various countries that we may read and
study them. We have rented a building, prepared rooms, and propose to
have a club where we can assemble whenever we have leisure, for
conversation, discussion, reading, lectures or whatever will best
contribute to the ends we have in view."
"And what are those ends?" I inquired.
"The bringing about of a new regime in China," he answered. "Our recent
defeat by the Japanese has shown us that unless some radical changes
are made we must take a second place among the peoples of the Orient."
"This is a new move in Peking, is it not?"
"New in Peking," he answered, "but not new in the empire. Reform clubs
are being organized in all the great cities and capitals. In Hsian,
books have been purchased by all classes from the governor of the
province down to the humblest scholar, and the aristocracy have
organized classes, and are inviting the foreigners to lecture to them.
Every one, except a few of the oldest conservative scholars, are
discarding their Confucian theories and reconstructing their ideas in
view of present day problems. There is an intellectual fermentation now
going on from which a new China is certain to be evolved, and we
propose to be ready for it when it comes."
The leader of this reform party was Kang Yu-wei, a young Cantonese, who
had made a thorough study of the reforms of Peter the Great in Russia,
and the more recent reforms in Japan, the history of which he had
prepared in two volumes which he sent to the Emperor. He had made a
reputation for himself in his native place as a "Modern Sage and
Reformer," was hailed as a "young Confucius," was appointed a
third-class secretary in the Board of Works, and as the Emperor and he
had been studying on the same lines, Kang, through the influence of the
brother of the chief concubine, was introduced to His Majesty. He had a
three hours' conference with the Foreign Office, in which he urged that
China should imitate Japan, and that the old conservative ministers and
viceroys should be replaced by young men imbued with Western ideas, who
might confer with the Emperor daily in regard to all kinds of reform
measures.
This interview was reported to Kuang Hsu by Prince Kung and Jung Lu,
who both being old, and one of them the greatest of the conservatives,
could hardly be expected to approve of his theories. Kang, however, was
asked to embody his suggestions in a memorial, was later given an
audience with the Emperor, and finally called into the palace to assist
him in the reforms he had already undertaken. And if Kang Yu-wei had
been as great a statesman as he was reformer, Kuang Hsu might never
have been deposed.
The crisis came during the summer of 1898. I had taken my family to the
seashore to spend our summer vacation. A young Chinese scholar--a
Hanlin--who had been studying in the university for some years, and
with whom I was translating a work on psychology, had gone with me. He
took the Peking Gazette, which he read daily, and commented upon with
more or less interest, until June 23d, when an edict was issued
abolishing the literary essay of the old regime as a part of the
government examination, and substituting therefor various branches of
the new learning. "We have been compelled to issue this decree," said
the Emperor, "because our examinations have reached the lowest ebb, and
we see no remedy for these matters except to change entirely the old
methods for a new course of competition."
"What do you think of that?" I asked the Hanlin.
"The greatest step that has ever yet been taken," he replied.
This Hanlin was not a radical reformer, but one of a long line of
officials who were deeply interested in the preservation of their
country which had weathered the storms of so many centuries,--storms
which had wrecked Assyria, Babylonia, Media, Egypt, Greece and Rome,
while China, though growing but little, had still lived. He was one of
those progressive statesmen who have always been found among a strong
minority in the Middle Kingdom.
The Peking Gazette continued to come daily bringing with it the
following twenty-seven decrees in a little more than twice that many
days. I will give an epitome of the decrees that the reader at a glance
may see what the Emperor undertook to do. Summarized they are as
follows:
1. The establishment of a university at Peking.
2. The sending of imperial clansmen to foreign countries to study the
forms and conditions of European and American government.
3. The encouragement of the arts, sciences and modern agriculture.
4. The Emperor expressed himself as willing to hear the objections of
the conservatives to progress and reform.
5. Abolished the literary essay as a prominent part of the governmental
examinations.
6. Censured those who attempted to delay the establishment of the
Peking Imperial University.
7. Urged that the Lu-Han railway should be prosecuted with more vigour
and expedition.
8. Advised the adoption of Western arms and drill for all the Tartar
troops.
9. Ordered the establishment of agricultural schools in all the
provinces to teach the farmers improved methods of agriculture.
10. Ordered the introduction of patent and copyright laws.
11. The Board of War and Foreign Office were ordered to report on the
reform of the military examinations.
12. Special rewards were offered to inventors and authors.
13. The officials were ordered to encourage trade and assist merchants.
14. School boards were ordered established in every city in the empire.