The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China (37 page)

Yehonala’s initial plan was to cross the Great Wall and head for the safety of the Manchu homeland, just as she had done forty years before when Hsien Feng’s court had first fled the wrath of the barbarians. But the Russian invasion and ‘annexation’ of Manchuria thwarted her designs, and at Hsuan Hua the caravan turned south-west towards Ta-t’ung in Shanxi Province, then south on a five-hundred-mile journey through Taiyuan to Tung-kuan, where the long line of carts and horses turned due west for the final seventy-mile march through Shanxi province to arrive at Xian, the ancient capital of China (see Map 3).

It was here Yehonala heard of the final terms that Li Hung-chang had managed to wrest from the Powers. They now comprised ‘Twelve Articles’ but were, in essence, unchanged from the Joint Note presented earlier. Li counselled acceptance of the articles in their entirety. The terms had already been submitted for comment to the Grand Councillors, and Jung Lu, Wang Wen-shao and Lu Ch’uan-lin had all telegraphed Li requesting substantial changes, but the Chinese negotiator was unmoved. On 27th December he memorialised the Imperial court pointing out that the attitude of the Powers was stern and that they would brook no argument. He again advised acceptance, warning that the allies might break off negotiations, and move troops forward, imperilling the existence of the nation. That same day the Imperial court promulgated an edict commanding acceptance, and requiring only that, within the framework of the Twelve Articles, the negotiators strive to cut the best deal possible. Another notable, Chang Chih-tung, held out against the agreement, even suggesting that the negotiations be moved to Nanking, a proposal that the aged Li Hung-chang, now so ill that he had to be helped by servants to the negotiating table, called ‘a nonsensical idea and a distorted view’.

Li must have known that his time was short; exasperated by the Imperial court’s indecision, on 6th January 1901 he sent in another memorial exhorting the Grand Councillors to agree to the signing of the Twelve Articles, the contents of which ‘are not open to discussion; any argument would only lead to the rupture of negotiations...A decree has been issued ordering acceptance [that of 27th December]; if we do not sign they would consider the Court breaking its word and the plenipotentiaries possessing no authority. In that eventuality not only would it be impossible to request them to withdraw their troops, but also impossible to stop their military advance.’5 On 10th January the Imperial court reluctantly took Li Hung-chang’s advice and ordered the signing of the Twelve Articles. China, and the Manchu elite, had come a long way from the arrogant appraisal of ‘barbarians’ that had so tainted the negotiations with Lord Elgin and Baron Gros just fifty years before.

Sitting safe in Xian, with her Grand Eunuch Li Lien-ying already organising tribute and ‘squeeze’ sufficient to support her in the manner to which she (and he) had become accustomed, Yehonala was not too displeased with the progress of the peace process. She had been mortally afraid that the allies would blame her for the attack on the legations, for the murder of von Ketteler and Sugiyama, and for the whole Boxer madness. She had also believed that partition of the Empire was a possibility, that the Dynasty might be dispossessed, and that, at the very least, her own powers would be commandeered and handed over to the Emperor. Discovering that none of this applied, and that the Powers had decided a stable China under the Manchu, headed by the Old Buddha was the least of all possible evils, she was quite prepared to endorse the decision of her Grand Councillors. For her there were only two sticking points: the amount of reparations to be paid; and who was to be punished for what George Morrison, with a grand sense of hyberbole, called ‘crimes unprecedented in human history, crimes against the law of nations, against the laws of humanity, and against civilisation’.
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The indemnity question turned out to be just as much a negotation between the Powers as between them and the Chinese. The Chinese could not pay the huge sum, four hundred and fifty million taels, that was finally agreed, and there was money to be made in loaning such an enormous sum, though the allies could not agree an appropriate percentage for the loan. There was also the question of which part of Chinese government revenue could be seconded to cover the annual repayments: raising import duties was favoured by many of the Western nations, but Britain (which enjoyed more trade with China than all the other nations combined and would therefore pay the lion’s share of import duties) refused to agree.

Taxation of presently duty-free merchandise was suggested, or appropriation of the tax on salt (part of this had already been earmarked by the Chinese to pay off earlier foreign loans). Much horse-trading went on; at one point the Germans (who at first had demanded an increase in Chinese import duties to ten per cent), changed their stance and acceded to a British proposal of half that amount, provided that the British support a German proposal for a four per cent interest rate on the loan the Chinese would need to pay the indemnity.

The question of punishment was equally complex. In an attempt to head off demands for the death penalty for a large number of pro-Boxer ministers, Yehonala and her ministers had issued a decree on 13th November 1900, in which nine officials and Princes of the Blood were given a variety of sentences, ranging from life imprisonment, through degradation and banishment, to simple house arrest. It was not enough for the Powers. They handed their own ‘black list’ to Li Hung-chang, with the names and crimes of a dozen men who, they claimed, ‘deserved death’. Three of the twelve, Hsu Tung, Li Ping-heng and the arch-conservative Kang I, were already dead, having either committed suicide or succumbed to illness. The rest comprised three nobles, Prince Chuang, Prince Tuan and Duke Tsai Lan; five mandarins, Ying Nien, Chao Shu-ch’iao, Yu Hsien, Hsu Ch’eng-yu and Ch’i Hsiu; and one army commander, the Muslim general Tung Fu-hsiang. On 5th February the two sides met at the British legation, where the Chinese informed the foreign ministers that their demands had been forwarded to Xian and a decree had been issued which increased punishment to the very maximum the Chinese would allow. Two people, Prince Chuang and Yu Hsien, were sentenced to die. Six others were given sentences ranging from life imprisonment in Xinjiang (Prince Tuan) to degradation and exile. The three ministers, who had predeceased the indictment, could suffer posthumous degradation should the allies insist. The Chinese insisted that the Muslim general, Tung Fu-hsiang, a major player in the legation siege, could not be sentenced at this time, because of his popularity and the number of men under his command. But they agreed that he would be punished as soon as circumstances permitted.

Again, it was not enough. The allies were intent on preventing a repetition of the turmoil and massacres of the past year. The foreign ministers were adamant that an example be made, so that such atrocities would never again be contemplated by any inhabitant of the Middle Kingdom. They wanted more blood, more executions. After a swift consultation, the allies responded the following day with demands that essentially reiterated their position, with the exception that they would make no objection if the death sentences on Prince Tuan and Duke Tsai Lan were to be commuted to perpetual imprisonment in the wilds of Xinjiang, ‘no commutation of the punishment being subsequently pronounced in their favour’.
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They also accepted the Chinese position regarding the Muslim general, Tung Fu-hsiang, but insisted that he be immediately relieved of command pending his punishment. For the rest, only death would suffice to placate the Powers.

The Chinese were appalled at the extent and severity of the retribution demanded and attempted to mitigate the punishments for Ying Nien and Chao Shu-ch’iao, neither of whom, they believed, deserved the death penalty. They also demanded the return of the two ministers held captive by the Japanese, Ch’i Hsiu and Hsu Ch’eng-yu, claiming that only China had the right to punish Chinese high officials. A capital sentence for Chao Shu-ch’iao was thought especially unjust, and great efforts were made to save him. Chinese records showed that, early in the crisis, he had been sent to investigate the Boxers, and had returned to Beijing after two days spent with the Righteous Harmonious Fists. His subsequent memorials to the Throne had contained nothing that might be construed as commending or protecting the Boxers. No fewer than twenty-one officials, and the representatives of four provinces, composed a joint telegram demanding that everything possible be done to save Chao’s life. The Chinese pulled all the strings they could find, even asking the foreign consuls in Shanghai, Nanking and Hangzhou to ask their ministers to reconsider.

The response was unequivocal. The allies were implacable, and the British, Japanese and Germans gave notice that delay could adversely affect the rest of the peace negotiations. Nevertheless, Prince Ch’ing and Li Hung-chang received further instructions to enquire if Ying and Chao might be permitted to commit suicide, and requesting the return of Ch’i Hsiu and Hsu Ch’eng-yu so that they may be executed by their fellow countrymen. On 21st February the allies agreed to release the two mandarins, but insisted that suicide was not an option and that death by strangulation must be administered. There is something deeply disquieting in this squalid, vindictive and relentless seeking after revenge, in the spectacle of supposedly civilised Victorian gentlemen baulking at allowing a man the right to die by his own hand and persisting in demands that he suffer a slow, humiliating death by the garrotte. Did the circumstances, and the need to set an example, truly require such barbarity?

In the end, the Chinese decided unilaterally that suicide by hanging was equivalent to death by strangulation. A proclamation was issued the same day which acceded to all the allies demands, save only that Ying Nien and Chao Shu-ch’iao were given leave to hang themselves. Unfortunately, this act of clemency backfired on the one man who was almost certainly guiltless of the crimes attributed to him by the foreigners, Chao Shu-ch’iao.

Chao was in Xian when notice of his sentence was pronounced, and he seems to have accepted his fate with typical Confucian stoicism. Unfortunately, the official designated to oversee his suicide was Ts’en Ch’un-hsuan, a warrior noted as much for his savagery as for his acts of bravery. According to the magistrate Wu Yung, who was in Xian at the time: ‘Chao was physically strong and could not die although he tried many means. He tied his throat and took medicine. Tsen was no longer patient enough to wait and urged him on roughly.’ Eventually, tiring of these attempts, Ts’en ordered Chao’s own servants to do away with him in a singularly barbaric manner. Under Ts’en’s direction, they ‘pasted Chao’s mouth, ears, nose and eyes with cotton paper over which they poured wine. He died and recovered many times, until he died at last. It was very deplorable. Ts’en was too inhuman.’
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However deplorable and barbaric, these executions of the ostensible ‘ringleaders’ of the Boxer uprising did effectively remove the last major obstacle to peace between the belligerents. Together with the beheadings of several minor officials named by the allies (a number of whose executions were attended by European ‘observers’), they left the way clear for the normalisation of relations, and this, in turn convinced Yehonala that she might now return safely to Beijing. On the 6th October 1901, after a number of false starts and delays, the Sacred Chariot was again on the move, the Two Palaces making their slow and arduous return to the capital.

Cartloads of baggage went first, setting out early in the morning. Then the first group, the horse soldiers, went out of the city; these were followed by the eunuchs, then the princes, and then the high officials on horses or in carts.
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Suddenly, there sounded three cracks of the Imperial whip and several yellow sedan chairs came out from the palace. The people in the street all knelt and were silent. In the yellow sedan chairs were the Emperor, the Empress Dowager, and the young Empress.

Princes and high officials came next, and then the Ta Ah-ko, the Heir Apparent, followed by a large number of carts heavily loaded with archives of the different yamens. It was mid-morning before they had all passed through the South Gate of the city.
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The imperial caravan travelled due west, and into a tragedy that was soon to rob Yehonala of her strongest support. As they approached the city of Hua-chou, Jung Lu’s only son, who was travelling with the caravan, died of an unknown illness. The death of his heir left the Grand Secretary, now seventy years of age, a broken man. Worse still, protocol demanded that Jung Lu remain with the procession, and so the old nobleman was unable to arrange his son’s funeral, but had instead to leave its organisation in the hands of another official, Hu Yen-sun. The Sacred Chariot continued its journey westward, but bad news continued to dog them. Word was brought that Li Hung-chang, the veteran of scores of battles and a hundred diplomatic combats, had died. The news shattered everyone, especially Yehonala. Of all her counsellors, Li was the most experienced by far in foreign diplomacy, and now, at the time of greatest crisis, he was gone. ‘All the Court officials, eunuchs and guards, looked at each other as if the beams and posts of the house had fallen and they had no one to depend upon...Even those who used to slander him were sorry.
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Yehonala did what she could. The respected official Wang Wen-shao was given Li’s appointment as plenipotentiary, and the loyal Yuan Shi-kai was made Viceroy of Li’s old province, Chihli.

The sombre caravan plodded on, following the course of the mighty Huang He, the Yellow River, to the city of Kaifeng, where Yehonala sojourned for a month. In characteristic style, the Old Buddha’s earlier gloom and anxiety quickly dissipated, and she found the Kaifeng interlude ‘as pleasant as the hunting trips of the Han Dynasty’. But happy though she was, she did not flinch from unpleasant duties. It was while in Kaifeng that she let the axe fall on the last prominent pro-Boxer at her court. In an edict promulgated on 30th November, Prince Tuan’s son, the coarse, arrogant Ta Ah-ko, the Imperial Heir Apparent, who in happier times had strutted about the Forbidden City dressed in the red uniform of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, was stripped of his rank and became a simple commoner, banished forever from the court.