by Chang, Jung
As neither the emperor nor the grandees expressed a resolve to fight, Cixi stopped trying to persuade them. But she refused to take part in endorsing the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The ratification was confirmed by Emperor Guangxu on 2 May, with Prince Gong and the Grand Council in attendance. The moment was accompanied by much ‘trembling’ and ‘weeping’. Emperor Guangxu then cabled Earl Li, telling him to exchange the instruments of ratification at once. This was done on 8 May. The emperor even rushed the earl, as the young man could not wait to get the whole thing over and done with.
He had chosen ‘the safest line to follow’, Robert Hart remarked, ‘it’s an empire that is at stake!’ But to Cixi the cost of ‘peace’ was just too high, and it would ultimately wreck rather than save the empire. She had foresight, defiance, and courage. What she lacked was a mandate.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki ruined China. Charles Denby, the American minister who had acted as an intermediary in the deal, who had witnessed the relatively good times before the war and the abysmal years afterwards, wrote: ‘The Japanese war was the beginning of the end for China.’ As well as the 200 million taels of indemnity, China was forced to pay Japan another thirty million for the return of the Liaodong Peninsula. These plus other ‘costs’ amounted to 231.5 million taels, more than four times Japan’s annual revenue. There was also the booty of war in the form of arms and gunboats.
To make the payment Emperor Guangxu borrowed from the West. China’s foreign debts had been forty-one million taels altogether over the past thirty years and had virtually been paid off by mid-1895. The country could have been cash-rich, with funds to carry out a wide range of modernising projects, not to mention raising living standards. But this splendid inheritance was thrown away and, instead, it was forced to borrow 300 million taels under crippling terms. Adding together the indemnity, the interest on the loans and China’s own gigantic expenditure during the conflict, the war – and ‘peace’ – cost the country as much as 600 million taels, nearly six times its total revenue in 1895 (101.567 million). To exacerbate an already dire situation, the impatient Emperor Guangxu decided to pay off Japan in just three years. All the Customs’ takings now went to Japan, and domestic taxes were increased. The provinces were given quotas to contribute, and they in turned squeezed the population. The life-blood was being pumped out of China.
As with many other false accusations, this disastrous war and ‘peace’ have often been blamed on Cixi. In a vague but categorical way, her accusers have asserted that she depleted the navy in order to build her Summer Palace, that she had been obsessed with her sixtieth birthday and neglected the war, and that she was a spineless appeaser. The truth is that it was she who had founded China’s modern navy; the building of the Summer Palace did not deprive it of cash, even though she did take a small portion of the funds. She did not actively participate in the war for a long time, not because she was indulging in her birthday preparations, but because Emperor Guangxu barred her. And far from being an appeaser, she was the only person in the court who unambiguously advocated rejecting Japan’s demands and fighting on.
Misappropriating naval funds before the war (even though she donated roughly the same amount during the conflict) and soliciting birthday presents were both massive misjudgements and were undoubtedly reprehensible. One sapped the discipline of the navy, the other damaged the morale of the court. She realised her mistakes, and would make amends in future years. In spite of these sins, she was liable neither for the defeat nor for the spectacularly harmful ‘peace’. These were the responsibility of Emperor Guangxu (who has been undeservingly cast in popular myth as a tragic hero struggling to do his best) and, to a lesser extent, the Grand Councillors (though they were officially no more than advisers). Ultimately, the blame must lie in a system that deposited such heavy responsibility on such slight shoulders. Robert Hart lamented that ‘there’s no head – no strong man’. Indeed, there was only a strong woman, but she could not be the head at the moment of the crisis. Nor could her voice be heard outside a tiny circle in the court – a tragic situation that provided fertile soil for all the untrue allegations against her. Later a perceptive Frenchman said of Cixi, ‘C’est le seul homme de la Chine.’ That was the real Cixi in the Forbidden City in 1895.
18 The Scramble for China (1895–8)
AFTER THE CATASTROPHIC war was over, Cixi returned to retirement. On 30 June 1895, a retinue formally accompanied her out of the Forbidden City to the Sea Palace, before she eventually moved back to the Summer Palace. With eunuchs in colourful costumes designed for special occasions, and court musicians playing trumpets, Prince Gong and the other grandees knelt on a stone path facing south, and banged their heads on the ground three times when Cixi’s sedan-chair passed. Henceforth, whenever she visited the Forbidden City, there were elaborate rituals involving all the officials inside the palace wearing ceremonial robes. Such rituals highlighted the fact that she was not running the state.
Yet this new period of retirement was different from before. Since the Pearl affair, Cixi had been given sight of all key documents, and this continued. Her adopted son consulted her far more nowadays, and there was a marked increase in his visits to the Summer Palace. The young emperor and the Grand Councillors realised that signing the ruinous treaty against the wishes of the empress dowager was tantamount to ‘drinking poison to quench thirst’. It had brought the empire anything but genuine peace. Viceroy Zhang, who had petitioned feverishly against signing the treaty and been ignored, now pointed out that the treaty only enriched Japan and whetted its appetite, and that it would be sure to seek to conquer a drastically enfeebled China at a future stage. In addition, the European powers were now all too aware how weak the empire was and would make endless demands backed up by the threat of war, knowing that China was unable to call their bluff.
Indeed, as far as the European powers were concerned, China was now exposed as a paper tiger. Hitherto they had regarded her with a certain respect, partly on account of her size. Now they knew the giant was ‘filled with wind’, to quote Charles Denby, and ‘the Chinese bubble had burst’. They learned that ‘she could not fight, and were prepared on the slightest pretence to seize her territory’. While the kinder-hearted excused her (‘China is not a warlike nation – her antecedents, her civilization, her idiosyncrasies, all make for peace, and it’s a pity that the rough world should disturb it . . .’ wrote Robert Hart), the general attitude was undisguised contempt. Grand Tutor Weng noted: ‘When the envoys of Western countries come to the Foreign Office, they no longer behave in a courteous manner; they shout abuse at the drop of a hat.’ Witnessing one visit to the Foreign Office by some Westerners, a Chinese official felt his ‘blood vessels were bursting from outrage’.
Emperor Guangxu felt defensive. It was noticed that he did not make a full public statement about the war, but only wrote to top officials, asking for their understanding – and telling them not to speak about the matter again, thus vetoing a post-mortem. The emperor offered no reflections on the lessons to be learned, or on specific plans for the future – apart from the platitude that they must do ‘the two big things: train the army and find more money to fund it’. He was troubled, and tried to deflect responsibility in the most childish way, telling some officials that two of the Grand Councillors had ‘forced me to ratify’ the treaty. The main scapegoat was Earl Li. But rather than blaming him for the actual damage he had done – misleading the throne about the strength of China’s defence before the war and mishandling the war when it broke out – the emperor went along with the widespread rumour that Earl Li had signed the treaty without his authorisation. At his first post-war audience with the earl, His Majesty berated Earl Li for handing over 200 million taels of silver, plus Taiwan and all the rest, when he himself had actually charged the earl to do so. The earl, who had just recovered from a pistol wound sustained in an assassination attempt while he was negotiating in Japan, could do nothing but bang his head on the floor again and again, saying: ‘Yes,
yes, Your Majesty, it is all my fault.’ This charade was acted out in front of the Grand Councillors, all of whom were aware of the truth.
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.fn1
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 Hi
s 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’.