The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China (35 page)

Strouts was buried that same afternoon, alongside Harry Warren, a student who had been shot the day before while on watch. To the remaining defenders the deaths and wounding were a cruel loss; Strouts and Morrison especially had been towers of strength throughout the siege, and their absence was keenly felt. The general belief was that things could only get worse. However, the defenders were about to receive an unlooked-for respite from their troubles.

Unknown to them, Tientsin had fallen to the allies on 13th July, the defeat made worse by the death of one of China’s best commanders, General Nieh, just before the battle. Within a few days of this disaster, Yehonala had received a memorial from thirteen viceroys and governors of most of the southern provinces, citing four requests: protection of foreign merchants and missionaries; an Imperial letter of regret for Baron von Ketteler’s death to be sent to Germany; a list detailing Boxer-inspired destruction of foreign property, so that proper compensation could be made by the Imperial Government; and an express decree that any disturbances by ‘bandits’ or troops in Chihli Province should be suppressed by force. A further spur to such requests came in the form of warnings from the allied governments that Yehonala and her Grand Council would be held to account for any harm that might befall the staff of the legations. Jung Lu had already concluded that a massacre at the legations would bring down such retribution from the Powers that the Dynasty must fall. Quietly he worked to prevent the success of the siege. The defenders noticed that far fewer assaults were made by the sectors held by Jung Lu’s troops, and that it was from this part of the perimeter that messengers appeared and extra rations could sometimes be purchased. Jung Lu also controlled the only battery of heavy artillery in Beijing, guns which, had they been used against the legations, would have reduced the defences to rubble within hours. When the Muslim general Tung Fu-hsiang demanded access to these weapons, Jung Lu, risking the displeasure of his mistress, refused point-blank.

But Yehonala too, had begun to read the writing on the wall. It was evidently time to ‘adjust policy’ and in typical fashion, she was not slow to do what had to be done. By 17th July an edict had been issued complying with all four ‘requests’ of the southern mandarins. Li Hung-chang, the old warhorse who, Yehonala knew, had the respect of the foreigners, was deputed to inform the allied governments that their people in the legations were safe and would be protected.

Even before this, Yehonala had been playing a double game. On 3rd July, while the battle around the legations raged, she had sent a decree to her ministers abroad, commanding them to tell the foreign governments that the Imperial Government would ‘strictly order the commanders to protect the legations to the best of their ability and to punish the rebels so far as circumstances permit’. From an autocratic Empress with enormous military might at her command, this was pure sophistry; and it implied that, if their best was not good enough, or circumstances did not permit, then the foreigners might perish. Appeals were also made by the August Mother to the Czar, Queen Victoria and the Emperor of Japan, requesting their help in settling the crisis peacefully. Yet on the same day that all these missives were sent, an edict was posted to the Chinese governors and commanders stating that ‘there is absolutely no possibility that we will immediately negotiate for peace...The generals, viceroys, and governors must sweep the word ‘ peace’ from their hearts; they will then feel emboldened and strong.
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It may be that such diplomatic posturing reveals that Yehonala was carefully balancing her relations with the war and peace factions within her government. But there is no doubt that she herself wanted to see the legations taken, and that she was furious that the foreigners not been crushed. Nevertheless, she felt it expedient to hold off from attempting the complete annihilation of the Beijing diplomats. Worrying news was received that the Chinese army had tried to hold the line at Peichang, but had been dislodged and had retreated to Yangts’un. Perhaps the foreigners might win after all. And if so, the death of their people in Beijing would certainly result in reprisals that could mean the destruction of the Dynasty. And the end of her power. On 17th July, Yehonala declared a truce and, for a time, all firing ceased on the Chinese side of the legation perimeter.

Three days before this armistice, the legations had received a letter, purportedly from ‘Prince Ch’ing and others’, requesting in courteous terms that the foreign community leave the legations and go in groups to the Tsungli Yamen, ‘pending future arrangements’ for their return home. Unsure of the true authors of the note, the ministers answered cautiously, declining the Chinese offer and stating that the foreign community was acting only in self-defence. While these negotiations continued, the truce began and relations between the combatants became positively surreal. Chinese soldiers, who hours before had been intent on extermination, now approached the legation barricades to chat warmly with the defenders. The legation garrison bought eggs and staples from their Chinese opponents, and the Japanese even managed to purchase a number of rifles from their attackers. One of I-G’s Own, a trumpeter in Robert Hart’s orchestra, who had since been fighting on the Chinese side, asked for treatment for a damaged ear. Blindfolded, he was taken into the legation hospital, cared for, and released, fit and ready to fight the foreigner again. Just a few days before this chivalrous cameo took place, eighteen captured Chinese had been put to death in cold blood in the French legation, bayoneted one at a time ‘by a French corporal to save cartridges’.
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Expressions of amity continued to increase on the Chinese side. On 20th July, with Yehonala’s blessing, the Tsungli Yamen sent four cartloads of vegetables and watermelons across no-man’s-land as a gesture of good faith. The carts were warmly welcomed and the food appreciated, but all requests by the Tsungli Yamen to vacate the legations, and to trust in Chinese goodwill were laughed to scorn. There is much evidence that the Chinese offer was genuine–given the military reverses on the coast even Yehonala and many reactionaries were desperate for a way out of the impending catastrophe, and yielding up the besieged could well have paved the way to a cessation of hostilities. But after such prolonged suffering, and so many deaths, the defenders were in no mood to abandon the one place in all Beijing that offered them some small shred of protection, transitory though it might be. And so the chance of a peaceful solution slipped away.

By late July the pendulum had swung back to war with the appearance in Beijing of a renowned military hero. Li Ping-heng had made a name for himself in the Sino-French War of 1885, and more recently as Yehonala’s ‘Lord High Extortioner’ in Manchuria (see p. 204). Li was vehemently anti-foreign, opposed to railways, paper currency, post offices, mining and modern schools.
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But his patriotism, efficiency and integrity were undoubted. When he had offered his services as an army commander at the end of June he was immediately ordered to the capital. So necessary was his presence deemed that two decrees commanded him to speed his journey to Beijing, to travel day and night so as to arrive at the earliest possible moment. Li entered the city on 26th July and, after conferring with the two arch-conservatives, Kang I and Hsu T’ung, he was granted an audience with the Empress. Li stiffened Yehonala’s wavering resolve, telling her that ‘only when one can fight can one negotiate for peace’. Such warlike words were music to her ears and as a mark of her favour, Yehonala granted Li the right to ride within the Forbidden City and to be carried by sedan chair at the Winter Palace. More importantly, she gave Li command of four of the army groups at present ranged before Beijing. Yehonala’s mercurial temperament now swung behind Li’s policy of negotiating from strength.

With war again her chosen policy, the Boxers and reactionaries took their moment of Imperial favour to orchestrate the execution of five outspoken liberal ministers. So complete was Yehonala’s volte-face that Yuan Shi-kai telegraphed a friend on 2nd August with the terse message: ‘It is hopeless. Better say less.’ The Empress again dreamed of victory; she had relinquished all hope of immediate reconciliation with the Powers and ordered the complete annihilation of the legation defenders.

Yehonala’s hero Li Ping-heng left Beijing for the front on 6th August, dressed, according to some reports, as a Boxer chieftain, in a red turban and with a red sash around his waist. Just before he set out he had visited the court and boasted, ‘These few foreign soldiers–it is not necessary for me to fight them. They will run away.
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He immediately suffered a string of defeats at allied hands. The town of Peichang had only recently fallen to the foreigners and the Chinese forces had retreated to Yangts’un. An assault on the 6th left Yangts’un in allied hands. The Viceroy of Chihli, Yu Lu (whose optimistic war reports at the start of the crisis had encouraged Yehonala’s bellicose tendencies), committed suicide.

Three days later Li’s army was defeated before the town of Hosiwu and the following day the town itself yielded to the victorious foreign troops. Li fell back on Ma’tou, only to relinquish the town the next day. His report, submitted to Yehonala on the 11th August, shows none of Li’s former arrogance and reveals a man close to despair:

I have retreated from Ma’tou to Changchiawan. For the past few days I have seen several tens of thousands of troops jamming all the roads. They fled as soon as they heard of the arrival of the enemy; they did not give battle at all. As they passed the villages and towns, they set fire and plundered, so much so that there was nothing for the armies under my command to purchase, with the result that men and horses were hungry and exhausted. From youth to old age I have experienced many wars, but never saw things like these...As all the armies are taking to flight, the situation is getting out of control. There is no time to regroup and deploy. But I will do my utmost to collect the fleeing troops and fight to the death...

That same afternoon, Li Ping-heng was dead. As the Chinese army again collapsed before the allied assault, Li committed suicide, taking poison rather than face the shame of successive defeats by the barbarians he despised.

Even before this final disaster Yehonala seems to have realised that the game was up. Unaware of her hero’s death, on the same day he took his life she appointed her old champion Li Hung-chang as Minister Plenipotentiary to treat with the Powers. The next day news reached the Palace of the defeat at Hosiwu and Yehonala immediately ordered the Tsungli Yamen to send some of its ministers to the legations to open negotiations for a ceasefire. The mandarins wrote to Sir Claude McDonald and were informed by letter that the Chinese officials could be received the following morning, at 11 a.m. This was the last best chance for a peaceful solution to the crisis. Just three days before, an allied messenger had won through to the legations bearing a message from General Gaselee, commander-in-chief of the relief force, informing them: ‘Strong force of allies advancing. Twice defeated enemy.

Keep up your spirits.’ Colonel Shiba had also received a dispatch from General Fukushima, which was far more detailed, giving the planned line of march of the allies, and their projected arrival in Beijing on the 13th or 14th of August. The news had buoyed up the besieged ‘everyone went about beaming with delight’,
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and the defenders felt certain that they would now be negotiating from strength when the officials of the Tsungli Yamen arrived. But it was not to be. The mandarins lost their nerve, fearing that anyone who entered the legations would be held hostage, or worse, should the negotiations break down. On the 13th August, the morning of the meeting, a note arrived bemoaning the firing from the legations and claiming that none of the ministers could come as they ‘all have important engagements’. Incomprehensibly, a second note arrived later, during the height of a bombardment by the Chinese, proposing that ‘...dating from today, neither Chinese nor foreigners shall, if possible, again hear the sound of a rifle’ and that even now, provisions were being bought for the aid and succour of the legation inhabitants. As Sir Claude read the note a Chinese shell crashed into the room where he was sitting. It was all too much, even for an inveterate diplomatist like Sir Claude, well-versed in the art of talking softly while waving a big stick. The Chinese message went unanswered. The siege would go on.

Just prior to the arrival of the mandarins’ note, the Chinese had begun to attack with increased vigour in a final attempt to overrun the legation. On the 11th the French and German legations were assaulted with unequalled ferocity, and the following day a constant fusillade from the Chinese embrasures left two of the defenders dead and several wounded. At around the same time, in an area known to the legation inhabitants as the Mongol Market, a Chinese officer was shot down as he attempted to lead a charge on the barricades.

The presence of an officer in the vanguard, leading from the front, was so unusual that the rumour went round that he had sworn to capture the legation in five days, and having failed over the first four, had attempted this rash manoeuvre as his time ran out. Though the ordinary Chinese soldier fought bravely enough, the faint-heartedness of their officer class was a by-word among the defenders. One participant commented that the Chinese word commanding attack could be given with the sense of either ‘go and attack!’ or ‘come with me and attack’ and that while ‘we often heard the command ‘go’, we never heard the word ‘come’ ’. Rather than depress their spirits, the desperate nature of these assaults served to cheer the legation garrison. It was taken as confirmation that the relief force was not far away. Spirits rose, and the defenders, firing from newly strengthened barricades and embrasures constructed during the lull in hostilities, held the Chinese at bay. Confidence in their eventual rescue was now so high that the committee organising the defence offered a prize for the best medal commemorating the siege. Various designs were submitted, including one showing three figures, American, Japanese and European, standing hand-in-hand on the head of a dragon with the legend:
Ex ore draconis liberati sumus
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