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Court Life in China

I >> Isaac Taylor Headland >> Court Life in China




"What would happen if the Emperor should die?"

"They would put a new Emperor on the throne," was my invariable
answer. They usually followed this with another question:

"What would happen if the Empress Dowager should die?"

"In that case the Emperor, of course, would again resume the
throne," I always replied without hesitation. But during those
ten years, not one of my friends ever thought to propound the
question, nor did I have the wit to ask myself:

"What would happen if the Emperor and the Empress Dowager should
both suddenly snap the frail cord of life at or about the same
time?"

Had such a question come to me, I confess I should not have known
how to answer it. It is a problem that probably never presented
itself to any one outside of that mysterious Forbidden City, or
the equally mysterious spectres that come and go through its
half-open gates in the darkness of the early morning. There are
three parties to whom it may have come again and again, and to
whom we may perhaps be indebted both for the problem and the
solution.

When the deaths of both of their Imperial Majesties were
announced at the same time, the news also came that the Japanese
suspected that there had been foul play. With them, however, it
was only suspicion; none of them, so far as I know, ever
undertook to analyze the matter or unravel the mystery. There is
no doubt a reasonable explanation, but we must go for it to the
Forbidden City, the most mysterious royal dwelling in the world,
where white men have never gone except by invitation from the
throne, save on one occasion.

In 1901, while the court was in hiding at Hsianfu, the city to
which they fled when the allies entered Peking, the western half
of the Forbidden City was thrown open to the public, the only
condition being that said public have a certificate which would
serve as a pass to the American boys in blue who guarded the Wu
men, or front gate. I was fortunate enough to have that pass.

My first move was to get a Chinese photographer--the best I
could find in the city--to go with me and take pictures of
everything I wanted as well as anything else that suited his
fancy.

The city of Peking is regularly laid out. Towards the south is
the Chinese city, fifteen miles in circumference. To the north is
a square, four miles on each side, and containing sixteen square
miles. In the centre of this square, enclosed by a beautifully
crenelated wall thirty feet thick at the bottom, twenty feet
thick at the top and twenty-five feet high, surrounded by a moat
one hundred feet wide, is the Forbidden City, occupying less than
one-half a square mile. In this city there dwells but one male
human being, the Emperor, who is called the "solitary man."

There is a gate in the centre of each of the four sides, that on
the south, the Wu men, being the front gate, through which the
Emperor alone is allowed to pass. The back gate, guarded by the
Japanese during the occupation, is for the Empress Dowager, the
Empress and the women of the court, while the side gates are for
the officials, merchants or others who may have business in the
palace.

Through the centre of this city, from south to north, is a
passageway about three hundred feet wide, across which, at
intervals of two hundred yards, they have erected large
buildings, such as the imperial examination hall, the hall in
which the Emperor receives his bride, the imperial library, the
imperial kitchen, and others of a like nature, all covered with
yellow titles, and known to tourists, who see them from the
Tartar City wall, as the palace buildings. These, however, are
not the buildings in which the royal family live. They are the
places where for the past five hundred years all those great
diplomatic measures--and dark deeds--of the Chinese emperors and
their great officials have been transacted between midnight and
daylight.

If you will go with me at midnight to the great gate which leads
from the Tartar to the Chinese city--the Chien men--you will hear
the wailing creak of its hinges as it swings open, and in a few
moments the air will be filled with the rumbling of carts and the
clatter of the feet of the mules on the stone pavement, as they
take the officials into the audiences with their ruler. If you
will remain with me there till a little before daylight you will
see them, like silent spectres, sitting tailor-fashion on the
bottom of their springless carts, returning to their homes, but
you will ask in vain for any information as to the business they
have transacted. "They love darkness rather than light," not
perhaps "because their deeds are evil," but because it has been
the custom of the country from time immemorial.

Immediately to the north of this row of imperial palace
buildings, and just outside the north gate, there is an
artificial mound called Coal Hill, made of the dirt which was
removed to make the Lotus Lakes. It is said that in this hill
there is buried coal enough to last the city in time of siege.
This, however, was not the primary design of the hill. It has a
more mysterious meaning. There have always been spirits in the
earth, in the air, in every tree and well and stream. And in
China it has ever been found necessary to locate a house, a city
or even a cemetery in such surroundings as to protect them from
the entrance of evil spirits. "Coal Hill," therefore, was placed
to the north of these imperial palace buildings to protect them
from the evil spirits of the cold, bleak north.

Just inside of that north gate there is a beautiful garden, with
rockeries and arbours, flowering plants and limpid artificial
streams gurgling over equally artificial pebbles, though withal
making a beautiful sight and a cool shade in the hot summer days.
In the east side of this garden there is a small imperial shrine
having four doors at the four points of the compass. In front of
each of these doors there is a large cypress-tree, some of them
five hundred years old, which were split up from the root some
seven or eight feet, and planted with the two halves three feet
apart, making a living arch through which the worshipper must
pass as he enters the temple. To the north of the garden and east
of the back gate there is a most beautiful Buddhist temple, in
which only the members of the imperial family are allowed to
worship, in front of which there is also a living arch like those
described above, as may also be found before the imperial temples
in the Summer Palace. This is one of the most unique and
mysterious features of temple worship I have found anywhere in
China, and no amount of questioning ever brought me any
explanation of its meaning.

Now if you will go with me to the top of Coal Hill I will point
out to you the buildings in which their Majesties have lived.
There are six parallel rows of buildings, facing the south, each
behind the other, in the northwest quarter of this Forbidden
City, protected from the evil spirits of the north by the dagoba
on Prospect Hill.

Perhaps you would like to go with me into these homes of their
Majesties--or, as a woman's home is always more interesting than
the den of a man, let me take you through the private apartments
of the greatest woman of her race--the late Empress Dowager. She
occupied three of these rows of buildings. The first was her
drawing-room and library, the second her dining-room and
sleeping apartments, and the third her kitchen.

One was strangely impressed by what he saw here. There was no
gorgeous display of Oriental colouring, but there was beauty of a
peculiarly penetrating quality--and yet a homelike beauty.

No description that can be written of it will ever do it justice.
Not until one can see and appreciate the paintings of the old
Chinese masters of five hundred years ago hanging upon the walls,
the beautiful pieces of the best porcelain of the time of Kang
Hsi and Chien Lung, made especially for the palace, arranged in
their natural surroundings, on exquisitely carved Chinese tables
and brackets, the gorgeously embroided silk portieres over the
doorways, and the matchless tapestries which only the Chinese
could weave for their greatest rulers, can we appreciate the
beauty, the richness, and the refined elegance of the private
apartments of the great Dowager.

I went into her sleeping apartments. Others also entered there,
sat upon her couch, and had their friends photograph them. I
could not allow myself to do so. I stood silent, with head
uncovered as I gazed with wonder and admiration at the bed, with
its magnificently embroidered curtains hanging from the ceiling
to the floor, its yellow-satin mattress ten feet in length and
its great round, hard pillow, with the delicate silk spreads
turned back as though it were prepared for Her Majesty's return.
On the opposite side of the room there was a brick kang bed, such
as we find in the homes of all the Chinese of the north, where
her maids slept, or sat like silent ghosts while the only woman
that ever ruled over one-third of the human race took her rest.
The furnishings were rich but simple. No plants, no intricate
carvings to catch the dust, nothing but the two beds and a small
table, with a few simple and soothing wall decorations, and the
monotonous tick-tock of a great clock to lull her to sleep.

If Shakespeare could say with an English monarch in his mind,
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," we might repeat it
with added emphasis of Tze Hsi. For forty years she had to rise
at midnight, winter as well as summer, and go into the dark,
dreary, cold halls of the palace, lighted much of the time with
nothing but tallow dips, and heated only with brass braziers
filled with charcoal, and there sit behind a screen where she
could see no one, and no one could see her, and listen to the
reports of those who came to these dark audiences. Then she must,
in conjunction with them, compose edicts which were sent out to
the Peking Gazette, the oldest and poorest newspaper in the
world, to be carved on blocks, and printed, and then sent by
courier to every official in the empire. Ruling over a conquered
race, she must always be watching out for signs of discontent and
rebellion; being herself the daughter of a poor man, and
beginning as only the concubine of an emperor, and he but a weak
character, she must be alert for dissatisfaction on the part of
the princes who might have some title to the throne. She must
watch the governors in the distant provinces and the viceroys who
are in charge of great armies, that they do not direct them
against instead of in defense of the throne.

When her husband died while a fugitive two hundred miles from her
palace, she must see to it that her three-year-old child was
placed upon the throne with her own hand at the helm, and when he
died she must also be ready with a successor, who would give her
another lease of office. Even when he became of age and took the
throne she must watch over him like a guardian, to prevent his
bringing down upon their own heads the structure which she had
builded. Nay, more, when it became necessary for her to dethrone
him and rule in his name, banishing his friends and pacifying his
enemies, keeping him a prisoner in his palace, it required a
courage that was titanic to do so. But she never flinched, though
we may suppose that many of her poorest subjects, who could sleep
from dark till daylight with nothing but a brick for a pillow,
might have rested more peacefully than she.

She had a myriad of other duties to perform. She was the
mother-in-law of that imperial household, with the Emperor, the
Empress, sixty concubines, two thousand eunuchs, and any number
of court ladies and maid-servants. Their expenses were enormous
and she must keep her eye on every detail. The food they ate was
similar to that used by all the Chinese people. I happen to know
this, because one of her eunuchs who visited me frequently to ask
my assistance in a matter which he had undertaken for the
Emperor, often brought me various kinds of meat, or other
delicacies of a like nature, from the imperial kitchens.

I want you to visit three of the imperial temples in these
beautiful palace grounds. The first is a tall, three-story
building at the head of that magnificent Lotus Lake. In it there
stands a Buddhist deity with one thousand heads and one thousand
arms and hands. Standing upon the ground floor its head reaches
almost to the roof. Its body, face and arms are as white as snow.
There is nothing else in the building--nothing but this
mild-faced Buddhist divinity for that brilliant, black-eyed ruler
of Chinas millions to worship.

Standing near by is another building of far greater beauty. It is
faced all over with encaustic tiles, each made at the kiln a
thousand miles away, for the particular place it was to occupy.
Each one fits without a flaw, a suggestion to American architects
on Chinese architecture.

The second of these temples stands to the west of the Coal Hill,
immediately to the north of the homes of their Majesties. One day
while passing through the forbidden grounds I came upon this
temple from the rear. In the dome of one of the buildings is a
circular space some ten feet in diameter, carved and gilded in
the form of two magnificent dragons after the fabled pearl. It is
to this place the Emperor goes in time of drought to confess his
sins, for he confesses to the gods that the drought is all his
doing, and to pray for forgiveness, and for rain to enrich the
thirsty land. The towers on the corners of the wall of the
Forbidden City are the same style of architecture as the small
pavilion in the front court of this temple.

Now as the buds of spring are bursting and the eaves on the
mulberry-trees are beginning to develop, will you go with the
Empress Dowager or the Empress into a temple on Prospect Hill,
between the Coal Hill and the Lotus Lake, where she offers
sacrifices to the god of the silkworm and prays for a prosperous
year on the work of that little insect? Above it stands one of
the most hideous bronze deities I have ever seen--male and
naked--in a beautiful little shrine, every tile of which is made
in the form of a Buddha's head. During the occupation tourists
were allowed to visit this place freely, and their desire for
curios overcoming their discretion, they knocked the heads off
these tiles until, when the place was closed, there was not a
single tile which had not been defaced.

One other building in the Forbidden City is worthy of our
attention. It is the art gallery. It is not generally known that
China is the parent of all Oriental art. We know something of the
art of Japan but little about that of China. And yet the best
Japanese artists have never hoped for anything better than to
equal their Chinese teacher. In this art gallery there are stored
away the finest specimens of the old masters for ten centuries or
more, together with portraits of all the noted emperors. Among
these portraits we may now find two of the Empress Dowager, one
painted by Miss Carl, and another by Mr. Vos, a well-known
American portrait painter.



XIII

The Ladies of the Court

I love to talk with my people of their Majesties, the princesses,
and the Chinese ladies, as I have seen and known them. Your
friendship I will always remember. Her Majesty, your imperial
sister, found a warm place in my heart and is treasured there.
Please extend to the Imperial Princess my cordial greetings and
to the other princesses my best of good wishes.
--Mrs. E. H. Conger, in a letter to the Princess Shun.



XIII

THE LADIES OF THE COURT

The leading figure of the court is Yehonala, wife of the late
Emperor Kuang Hsu. She has always been called the Young Empress,
but is now the Empress Dowager. After the great Dowager was made
the concubine of Hsien Feng, she succeeded in arranging a
marriage, as we have seen, between her younger sister and the
younger brother of her husband, the Seventh Prince, as he was
called, father of Kuang Hsu and the present regent.

The world knows how, in order to keep the succession in her own
family, she took the son of this younger sister, when her own son
the Emperor Tung Chih died, and made him the Emperor Kuang Hsu
when he was but little more than three years of age. When the
time came for him to wed, she arranged that he should marry his
cousin, Yehonala, the daughter of her favourite brother, Duke
Kuei. This Kuang Hsu was not inclined to do, as his affections
seem to have been centred on another. The great Dowager, however,
insisted upon it, and he finally made her Empress, and to
satisfy,--or shall we say appease him?--she allowed him to take
as his first concubine the lady he wanted as his wife; and it was
currently reported in court circles that when Yehonala came into
his presence he not infrequently kicked off his shoe at her, a
bit of conduct that is quite in keeping with the temper usually
attributed to Kuang Hsu during those early years. This may
perhaps explain why she stood by the great Dowager through all
the troublous times of 1898 and 1900, in spite of the fact that
her imperial aunt had taken her husband's throne.

Mrs. Headland tells me that "Yehonala is not at all beautiful,
though she has a sad, gentle face. She is rather stooped,
extremely thin, her face long and sallow, and her teeth very much
decayed. Gentle in disposition, she is without self-assertion,
and if at any of the audiences we were to greet her she would
return the greeting, but would never venture a remark. At the
audiences given to the ladies she was always present, but never
in the immediate vicinity of either the Empress Dowager or the
Emperor. She would sometimes come inside the great hall where
they were, but she always stood in some inconspicuous place in
the rear, with her waiting women about her, and as soon as she
could do so without attracting attention, she would withdraw into
the court or to some other room. In the summer-time we sometimes
saw her with her servants wandering aimlessly about the court.
She had the appearance of a gentle, quiet, kindly person who was
always afraid of intruding and had no place or part in anything.
And now she is the Empress Dowager! It seems a travesty on the
English language to call this kindly, gentle soul by the same
title that we have been accustomed to use in speaking of the
woman who has just passed away."

My wife tells me that,--"A number of years ago I was called to
see Mrs. Chang Hsu who was suffering from a nervous breakdown due
to worry and sleeplessness. On inquiry I discovered that her two
daughters had been taken into the palace as concubines of the
Emperor Kuang Hsu. Her friends feared a mental breakdown, and
begged me to do all I could for her. She took me by the hand,
pulled me down on the brick bed beside her, and told me in a
pathetic way how both of her daughters had been taken from her in
a single day.

" 'But they have been taken into the palace,' I urged, to try to
comfort her, 'and I have heard that the Emperor is very fond of
your eldest daughter, and wanted to make her his empress.'

" 'Quite right,' she replied, 'but what consolation is there in
that? They are only concubines, and once in the palace they are
dead to me. No matter what they suffer, I can never see them or
offer them a word of comfort. I am afraid of the court intrigues,
and they are only children and cannot understand the duplicity of
court life--I fear for them, I fear for them,' and she swayed
back and forth on her brick bed.

"Time, however, the great healer with a little medicine and
sympathy to quiet her nerves, brought about a speedy recovery,
though in the end her fears proved all too true."

In 1897 the brother of this first concubine met Kang Yu-wei in
the south, and became one of his disciples. Upon his return to
Peking, knowing of the Emperor's desire for reform, and his
affection for his sister, he found means of communicating with
her about the young reformer.

At the time of the coup d'etat, and the imprisonment of the
Emperor, this first concubine was degraded and imprisoned on the
ground of having been the means of introducing Kang Yu-wei to the
notice of the Emperor, and thus interfering in state affairs. She
continued in solitary confinement from that time until the flight
of the court in 1900 when in their haste to get away from the
allies she was overlooked and left in the palace. When she
discovered that she was alone with the eunuchs, fearing that she
might become a victim to the foreign soldiers, she took her life
by jumping into a well. On the return of the court in 1902, the
Empress Dowager bestowed upon her posthumous honours, in
recognition of her conduct in thus taking her life and protecting
her virtue.

Some conception of the haste and disorder with which the court
left the capital on that memorable August morning may be gleaned
from the fact that her sister was also overlooked and with a
eunuch fled on foot in the wake of the departing court. She was
overtaken by Prince Chuang who was returning in his chair from
the palace, where, with Prince Ching, he had been to inform their
Majesties that the allies were in possession of the city. The
eunuch, recognizing him, called his attention to the fleeing
concubine, who, when he had alighted and greeted her, begged him
to find her a cart that she might follow the court. Presently a
dilapidated vehicle came by in which sat an old man. The Prince
ordered him to give the cart to the concubine and sent her to his
palace where a proper conveyance was secured, and she overtook
the court at the Nankow pass.

At the audiences, this concubine was always in company with the
Empress Yehonala, standing at her left. She, however, lacked both
the beauty and intelligence of her sister.

The ladies of the court, who were constantly associated with the
Empress Dowager as her ladies in waiting, are first, the Imperial
Princess, the daughter of the late Prince Kung, the sixth brother
of the Empress Dowager's husband. Out of friendship for her
father, the Empress Dowagers adopted her as their daughter,
giving her all the rights, privileges and titles of the daughter
of an empress. She is the only one in the empire who is entitled
to ride in a yellow chair such as is used by the Empress Dowager,
the Emperor or Empress. The highest of the princes--even Prince
Ching himself--has to descend from his chair if he meet her. Yet
when this lady is in the palace, no matter how she may be
suffering, she dare not sit down in the presence of Her Majesty.

"One day when we were in the palace," says Mrs. Headland, "the
Imperial Princess was suffering from such a severe attack of
lumbago, that she could scarcely stand. I suggested to her that
she retire to the rear of the room, behind some of the pillars
and rest a while.

" 'I dare not do that,' she replied; 'we have no such a custom in
China.' "

She is austere in manner, plain in appearance, dignified in
bearing, about sixty-five years of age, and is noted for her
accomplishment in making the most graceful courtesy of any lady
in the court.

During the Boxer troubles and the occupation, her palace was
plundered and very much injured, and she escaped in her stocking
feet through a side door. At the first luncheon given at her
palace thereafter, she apologized for its desolate appearance,
saying that it had been looted by the Boxers, though we knew it
had been looted by the allies. At later luncheons, however, she
had procured such ornaments as restored in some measure its
original beauty and grandeur, though none of these dismantled
palaces will regain their former splendour for many years to
come.

Next to the Imperial Princess are the two sisters of Yehonala,
one of whom is married to Duke Tse, who was head of the
commission that made the tour of the world to inquire as to the
best form of government to be adopted by China in her efforts at
renovation and reform. It is not too much to suppose that it was
because the Duke was married to the Empress Dowager's niece that
he was made the head of this commission, which after its return
advised the adoption of a constitution. The other sister is the
wife of Prince Shun, and is the opposite of the Empress. She is
stout, but beautiful. She has always been the favourite niece of
the Empress Dowager, appeared at all the functions, and though
very sedate when foreign ladies were present at an audience, I
was told by the Chinese that when the imperial family were alone
together she was the life of the company. She would even stand
behind the Empress Dowager's chair "making such grimaces," the
Chinese expressed it, as to make it almost impossible for the
others to retain their equilibrium. As she was the youngest of
the three sisters, and because of her happy disposition, the
Chinese nicknamed her hsiao kuniang, "the little girl." These
three sisters are all childless.

The Princess Shun and Princess Tsai Chen, only daughter-in-law of
Prince Ching, herself the daughter of a viceroy, were very
congenial, and the most intimate friends of all those in court
circles. The latter is beautiful, brilliant, quick, tactful, and
graceful. Of all the ladies of the court she is the most witty
and, with Princess Shun, the most interesting. These two more
than any others made the court ladies easy to entertain at all
public functions, for they were full of enthusiasm and tried to
help things along. They seemed to feel that they were personally
responsible for the success of the audience or the luncheon as a
social undertaking.

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