china under the empress dowager

CHINA
UNDER THE
EMPRESS
DOWAGER
the history of the life and times of tzu hsi
J.O.P. Bland
Edmund Backhouse
China under the Empress Dowager
By J.O.P. Bland & Sir Edmund Backhouse
ISBN-13: 978-988-18667-4-5
Edition copyright © 2010 Earnshaw Books.
China Under the Empress Dowager was first published in 1910.
This edition with a new foreword is reprinted by
China Economic Review Publishing (HK) Limited for Earnshaw Books, Hong Kong
First printing March 2010
Second printing November 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in material form, by any means, whether
graphic, electronic, mechanical or other, including photocopying or information storage, in whole or
in part. May not be used to prepare other publications without written permission from the publisher.
FO R EW O R D
by
Derek Sandhaus
RARELY has a book on Chinese history captured the popular
imagination like J.O.P Bland and Edmund Backhouse's
China under the Empress Dowager. This unique look inside the
scintillating and treacherous court life of China's last great
despot, the Empress Dowager Cixi, appeared at just the right
moment in history. In 1910, ten years after the Boxer Rebellion
and two years after the death of Cixi, the Chinese Empire was
on the verge of collapse and all eyes were on China. At a time
when readers were hungry for news of the Middle Kingdom, this
book gave them all that and more, providing a fresh perspective
on China's previous fifty years with thrilling anecdotes from the
court and newly translated first-hand accounts. Most amazing
of all, the book featured the never-before-seen diary of a wellconnected Manchu official, Ching Shan, providing an insider's
perspective on the mysterious machinations of the court during
the Boxer Rebellion.
But the story behind the book is equally captivating. John
Otway Percy Bland, at the time of publication the more famous
of the two authors, arrived in Shanghai in 1883. The Irish scholar
had been recruited directly from Trinity College to work in the
Imperial Maritime Customs Service under Sir Robert Hart, a
position he held until 1896. During this time he rose to official
rank in the Chinese government, gained fluency in the Chinese
language and amassed a wealth of powerful connections. In 1897,
now a member of Shanghai's Municipal Council, he accepted the
vi
C H I N A U N D E R T HE EM P R ES S DO W AGE R
position of Shanghai correspondent for The Times of London, and
it was in this capacity that he came in contact with a rising star of
Chinese scholarship, Edmund Trelawny Backhouse.
Backhouse was, by many accounts, a thoroughly strange yet
endearing personality. He had arrived in Peking in 1898 as an
Oxford dropout with a knack for languages. He chose to live
outside of the foreign compound among the Chinese, shunning
the company of other Europeans but allegedly amassing powerful
Chinese and Manchu contacts. Within a year of arrival, he had
become one of the most respected translators and informants in
China, counting among his patrons the British Foreign Service, the
Imperial Maritimes Customs Service and Dr. G.E. Morrison, the
Peking correspondent of The Times. In 1899, Morrison introduced
the two authors, sending a dog-bite wounded Backhouse to stay
with Bland while seeking medical attention in Shanghai.
The two men hit it off right away. At first glance Bland, the
outgoing sportsman, and Backhouse, the introverted scholar,
were an odd pair, but they had much in common. Both shared
a deeply rooted respect for their adopted country and its
people, and sought to correct Western misconceptions of China.
Morrison, meanwhile, spoke no Chinese and had an unflinchingly colonialist outlook which they both despised. Their mutual
disdain for the Australian Anglophile provided another strand
to their friendship.
In November 1908, Bland was covering all of China for The
Times while Morrison was on vacation, and was consequently
handed the biggest story of his career: the deaths of both the
Empress and Emperor within a day of each other. At a bit of a
loss, he turned to the well-informed Backhouse for assistance.
Backhouse was able to provide all of the raw material and
relevant cultural context for the obituary, while Bland was able to
lend structure and a more polished style. The article was a great
success, and shortly afterwards Bland suggested the pair compile
a full-blown biography of Cixi along the same lines. Backhouse
happily agreed and suggested including among other materials
F OR EWOR D
vii
the diary of Ching Shan, which he claimed to have found while
living in the deceased official's house following the aftermath of
the Boxer Rebellion. Bland was understandably excited by the
revelation and decided to make the diary a centerpiece of the
work.
In 1910, China under the Empress Dowager was released to
near universal acclaim. "Probably no such collection of Chinese
documents has ever before been given to the world, or one that
better reflects the realities of Chinese official life," wrote Sidney
Coryn of The New York Times. To the delight and surprise of its
publishers, the book went through nine years on the market.
The Ching Shan diary was donated to the British Museum for
posterity and, four years later, the two authors followed up with
another highly-regarded work, Memoirs and Annals of the Court
of Peking.
But China Under the Empress Dowager was not without its
detractors. The most outspoken in the early years was Bland
and Backhouse's colleague-turned-rival, G.E. Morrison, who
charged that the Ching Shan diary was a fake. Two of the most
prominent sinologists of the day, Sir Reginald Johnson and J.J.L.
Duyvendak, studied and attested to the diary's authenticity,
and Morrison was written off as a jealous instigator. About 25
years later, Shanghai-based journalist William Lewisohn again
challenged the diary's veracity and submitted his findings to
Duyvendak, who reexamined the diary and this time around
concluded that it was indeed a forgery, though a masterful one in
its complexity. "Why any one should have taken all this immense
trouble," wrote Duyvendek, "is more than I can understand."
Though Backhouse, the linguist, was the obvious candidate
for the forgery, most people during his lifetime chose to believe
that he was the victim of an elaborate Chinese hoax. In the 1970s,
Backhouse biographer Hugh Trevor-Roper reached a different
conclusion. He traced a pattern of hucksterism throughout
Backhouse's life, culminating in an outrageous autobiography
in which Backhouse claimed to have been the Empress
viii
C H I N A U N D E R T HE EM P R ES S DO W AGE R
Dowager's long-time lover. Backhouse having been branded
as being pathologically compelled to deceive, China under the
Empress Dowager's credibility as an historical document all but
evaporated.
But it would be a grave error to overlook this most remarkable
work on account of one suspect chapter. China under the Empress
Dowager was, after all, one of the first books that attempted to
portray the Chinese people and their leaders as something more
than an amalgamation of clichés and stereotypes. At a time
when, just like today, the outside world desperately wanted
to know more about China and the Chinese, so much of the
existing literature was founded in gross misunderstanding and
racially-based fears of the 'Yellow Peril'. China under the Empress
Dowager was one of the first books that sought to present a truly
sympathetic portrayal of China. It might sound trite today, but
the notion that the Chinese were people with similar wants
and ambitions was groundbreaking in the days of 'spheres of
influence' and 'White Man's burden'.
In this book, Backhouse and Bland succeeded in painting a
nuanced picture of the Chinese as few had done before them
because they truly knew the country and its people. Using this
knowledge, they were able to breathe a degree of clarity and
understanding into the complex processes that had mystified
the aloof Peking diplomats and the world at large. They were
masters at using even the most mundane details to illustrate the
infinite complexities and competing interests of the Qing court.
Chapter VII, A Question of Etiquette, for example, is a marvelous
examination of the superficially simple question of whether
foreigners should be exempt from kneeling when granted an
official audience. Chinese attitudes of cultural superiority, the
need to preserve long-standing tradition, and how to save face
before a more powerful enemy all come to the surface in brilliant
clarity.
The book's account of the Boxer Rebellion, embellished
though it may be, is most compelling. The standard published
F OR EWOR D
ix
narratives of this period focus on the triumph of noble Christians
over the barbarous heathens, the bravery of the foreigners in the
face of malicious unprovoked attacks. Backhouse and Bland, on
the other hand, showed the crisis as the culmination of a decadesold debate playing out in a deeply fragmented court. In the
book's narrative, the survival of most of the foreigners was not so
much the result of their own grit and determination, but rather
of the intervention of noble, self-sacrificing Manchu officials.
The picture that emerges is thus one not of 'us versus them', but
one with heroes and villains on both sides of the racial divide
squaring off in a conflict with complex and tangled origins.
The portrait the book paints of its subject, Empress Dowager
Cixi, the 'iron hand in the velvet glove', also remains one of the
most memorable ever written. She is portrayed as a fickle and
often rash ruler, but one entirely in her element at the helm of
state. Through one of China's most turbulent periods, she is able
to repeatedly outmaneuver her political opponents and come out
of every palace intrigue with both feet on the ground. In such a
way, she was able to prolong the life of a crumbling dynasty that
had long since outlived its usefulness. She is worthy, Bland and
Backhouse told us, of being compared with the most cunning
rulers of all time.
By continually identifying with the Chinese and identifying
the roots of misconceptions, China under the Empress Dowager
forced its readers to grapple with a number of challenging
notions: maybe the Chinese see us as the uncultured barbarians;
maybe we are the ones being rude and presumptuous; maybe the
root of conflict between our nations is misunderstanding rather
than malevolence.
The strength of this book lies not only in its substance, but
also in its style. The concepts it deals with are sometimes difficult
and remarkably obtuse, yet Bland and Backhouse provide
the necessary context, and just the right amount of humor
and excitement, necessary to create an easily understandable
and thoroughly entertaining read. Much more than merely
a biography, it is a smart, clearly written epic by two authors
with a highly sophisticated understanding of Chinese culture,
customs and court practices. So it is with great pleasure that
we present the unabridged original version of Backhouse and
Bland's timeless masterpiece, China under the Empress Dowager.
Shanghai
November, 2009
C H I N A UNDER THE EMP R ES S
DOWAGER
The "Holy Mother," Her Majesty Tzu Hsi.
(From a Photograph taken in 1903.)
CHINA UNDER THE
EMPRESS DOWAGER
BEING THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE AND
TIMES OF TZŬ HSI
COMPILED FROM STATE PAPERS AND THE
PRIVATE DIARY OF THE COMPTROLLER OF
HER HOUSEHOLD
BY
J.O.P. BLAND AND E. BACKHOUSE
ILLUSTRATED
MCMX
NOTE
THE thanks of the Authors are hereby gratefully expressed
to Miss Katharine A. Carl, for permission to reproduce the
photograph of her portrait of the Empress Dowager; to Mr.
K. Ogawa, art publisher of Tokyo, for the use of his unique
pictures of the Palace at Peking; to Mr. Geo. Bronson Rea, of
the Far Eastern Review, for permission to reproduce illustrations
originally published in that journal; to Messrs. Betines, of
Peking, for the right to publish their views of the capital; and
to the Editor of The Times, for his courtesy in permitting the
inclusion in this volume of certain articles written for that
paper.
London, September 10th, 1910.
CONTENTS
I
T HE PARENTAGE AND YOUT H OF YEHONALA page
1
II
T HE FLIGHT TO JEHOL 14
III
T HE TS AI Y ÜAN CON S P IRA C Y 32
IV
T HE FIR ST REGENCY 53
V
TS ENG KUO-FAN AND THE TAIP ING REBELLION ( 1 8 6 4 ) 66
VI
TZ
HSI AND T HE EUNU CH S 83
V II
A Q UEST ION OF ET IQ UET T E 11 2
V III
MAJORI TY AN D DEAT H OF THE EM PEROR T ' UNG - CHIH 11 9
IX
T HE P RO T EST AND SUI CID E OF WU K ' O- T U 134
X
TZ
HSI BECO ME S SOLE REGENT TZ
HSI " EN RE T RAIT E" 150
XI
164
XII
T HE RE FOR M MO VE MENT OF 1 8 9 8 181
X III
T HE HUNDRE D DAY S OF REFORM 193
XI V
T HE COUP D'É T A T OF 1 8 9 8 203
XV
TZ
HSI RESUM ES THE REGENCY ( 1 8 9 8 ) 214
X VI
T HE GENE SIS OF THE BO XER MOVEMENT 248
X V II
T HE DIARY O F HIS E X CELLENC Y CHING S HAN 253
X VIII
IN ME MORY O F TWO BRAVE MEN 310
XIX
SI DELIGHTS ON T Z
HS I ' S S TATE CRA F T 331
XX
T HE FLIGHT FRO M PEKIN AND THE COURT IN E XILE 344
XXI
HOW T HE BOXER LEADERS DIED 367
X XII
T HE OL D BUDD HA PENIT ENT 378
X XIII
T HE RE T URN OF THE C OURT TO PEKING 391
X XI V
HER MAJESTY 'S NE W POLIC Y 420
XXV
T HE VALEDICTORY MEMORIAL OF JUNG LU 438
X X VI
HER MAJESTY 'S LA S T DAY S 445
X X V II
TZ
HSI 'S D EAT H AND BURIAL 468
X X V III
C ONC LUSION 481
APPEN DI X 505
LIST O F I L L U S T R AT I ONS
facing page
T HE "HOLY M OT HER, " HER MAJES T Y TZ
HSI F ron t i sp i ece
MAP OF P EKING x i i , x i i i
T HE REGEN T P RINC E CH ' UN, WI T H HIS T WO S ONS , T HE P RE SEN T EM P EROR ( S TANDING) AND P RINC E P 'U CHIEH T HE I MP ERIAL DAI S IN T HE CHIAO- TAL HALL 4
18
H.I.H. P' U JU , C OUS IN OF THE PRES ENT EM P EROR, S ON O F T HE
BOXER P RINC E T SAI- YING, AN D GRAND SON O F P RINC E
KUNG 20
HER MAJESTY T Z
HS I IN THE YEAR 1 9 0 3 36
EXTERIOR O F T HE CH ' IEN C H' ING PALAC E 54
H.M. TZ HSI, WI T H T HE C ON S ORT ( LUNG YÜ ) AND P RINC IPAL
CON C UBINE (JEN FEI ) OF H . M . KUANG - HS Ü , A C CO M PANIED
BY C OURT LAD IES AND EUNUC HS 9 0
FACSIM ILE O F LE T TER WRIT T EN BY CHIEF EUNUCH
LI LIEN - YING INTERIOR O F THE YANG HS IN TIEN. ( PALAC E O F " M IND
NURTURE. " ) 98
122
INTERIOR O F THE I KUN KUNG 148
INTERIOR O F THE TAI HO T IEN 166
CIR C ULAR T HRONE HALL IN THE GROUND S O F T HE LAKE
PALACE LOOT ED BY ALLIED TROOP S IN 1 9 0 0 2 0 8
PAV ILION ON LAKE TO THE W ES T OF FORBID D EN CI TY 208
T HE "BEILEH" T SAI YING, SON OF PRINC E KUNG ( CA S HIERED BY
TZ
HSI FOR PRO - BOXER P ROC LIVI TIE S ) , AN D HIS S ON 2 5 2