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Page 3
“...TWILIGHT
IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY
BY
REGINALD F. JOHNSTON
K.C.M.G., C.B.E., HON. LL.D.
Professor of Chinese in the University of London ;
last British Commissioner of Weihaiwei; Tutor
to His Majesty the Emperor Hsiian-T‘ung :
Author of
From Peking to Mandalay, Lion and Dragon in
Northern China, Buddhist China, A Chinese
Appeal to Christendom Concerning
Christian Missions, Letters to
a Missionary, The
Chinese Drama,
etc.
WITH A PREFACE
BY
THE EMPEROR
LONDON
VICTOR GOLLANCZ LTD
14 Henrietta Street Covent Garden
1934...”
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Page 13
“...a thing of value. As a writer and as a man Johnston is one who
is not surpassed by the best of our native scholars. When his
book appears I know it will be highly prized by the world.
Ninth month of the hsin-wei year.5
(Authenticated by two seals of the emperor Hsuan-T‘ung.)
1 The chia-tzu year (which happened to be the first of the present Chinese cycle)
roughly corresponds with 1924.
2 Literally “ the Northern Mansion ” (Pei Fu). It was in the house of his father,
prince Ch‘un, ex-regent of China, that the emperor was a state-prisoner after the
“ Christian General,” Feng Yii-hsiang, had forcibly expelled him, in November
1924, from his palace in the Forbidden City.
3 Fang Tse—the Chinese name of Mr. K. Yoshizawa, then Japanese Minister
in Peking.
4 1-ch‘ou year—1925.
6 Hsin-wei year—1931. The Preface was written by the emperor at Tientsin
and transcribed by his devoted servant the famous poet, statesman and calli-
graphist, Cheng Hsiao-hsu, about a week before they both left for Manchuria...”
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Page 15
“...highness prince
Ch‘un, brother of the reigning emperor of China. His host was
his excellency Sir Henry Blake, representative in Hong-Kong
of his majesty king Edward VII.
The occasion was a memorable one, for this was the first time
that a Chinese prince had set foot in British territory. Yet his
visit was shorn of most of the ceremonial courtesies that would
have been extended to him by the British authorities had he
been willing to accept them. No salute from British men-of-war
or from the shore-batteries greeted him as he entered the harbour
in the German ship Bayern, no guard of honour received him at
his landing. This was in accordance with his own wish ; for he
was travelling on a mission of humiliation, and while it remained
unfulfilled he preferred to receive none of the honours due to
a prince of the blood-royal of China. One year and thirty-five
days before prince Chcun set foot in Hong-Kong, the German
plenipotentiary in China had been murdered by a “ Boxer ” in
the streets of Peking...”
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Page 16
“...according
to the dynastic customs of China, himself become a candidate
for the imperial throne, it is not impossible that if he has any®
children his son may eventually become emperor. This would
certainly make prince Ch‘un himself a very important factor in
the future politics of China.”
This remark correctly foreshadowed what fortune had in store
for prince Ch‘un. After his return from Germany, the empress-
dowager married him to a daughter of her trusted friend and
kinsman Jung-Lu, viceroy and grand-councillor. Early in 1906
their first son was born, and that son, whose personal name was
P‘u-Yi, became the last sovereign of the Ta Ch‘ing (Manchu)
dynasty in China ; while prince Ch‘un himself, as regent for his
own son, became for a few disturbed and anxious years ruler of
the Chinese Empire.1
Not long after prince Ch‘un had come and gone, another
member of the reigning house passed through Hong-Kong on
a mission that involved no degradation for China. In his case,
therefore, there was...”
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Page 17
“...INTRODUCTION
17
arrived in Hong-Kong, an “ Eastern Cadet ” fresh from Mag-
dalen, on Christmas Day, 1898. Epoch-making events had been
taking place in China during that year, and the leading figure
in those events had recently arrived in Hong-Kong as a refugee.
It was in Government House that I first met K‘ang Yu-wei, the
most admired and the most hated member of the Chinese race
at that time : admired, even reverenced, by those who combined
loyalty to the dynasty with a patriotic longing to see their
country honoured among the nations ; hated, and also feared,
by those who believed that China had nothing to learn from
Western “barbarians” and that the Chinese emperor was de jure
King of kings.
When I first met this great reformer and “ Modern Sage ” he
was in mourning for those six martyrs who, less fortunate than
himself, had fallen victims to the rage and hate of the empress-
dowager and her minions and deceivers. One of the six was his
brother K‘ang Kuang-jen. For his own capture, alive...”
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Page 18
“...18
TWILIGHT IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY
with the recent political history of China I have found it neces-
sary to say something about the sunlight that preceded the twi-
light—a sunlight already obscured by thunder-clouds—and also
about the tempestuous night by which the twilight was followed.
There is a twilight of the dawn as well as a twilight of the
evening ; and it may be that the night which swallowed up the
twilight described in these pages will be followed in due time by
another twilight which will brighten into a new day of radiant
sunshine. That is what all those who admire and respect the
Chinese people (and who, knowing them, does not?) ardently
hope or steadfastly believe. Many of us are convinced that we can
already detect the first glimmer of that new dawn, in the very
quarter of the heavens which to others seems blackest. It is only
the evening twilight, however, not the morning twilight, with
which we shall be directly concerned in the following chapters.
My story will therefore...”
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Page 21
“...be the prelude to that “ break-
up ” of China which provided Lord Charles Beresford with what
he not unnaturally believed to be the most appropriate of all
possible titles for the book published by him in 1899. Four years
before that date, China lay beaten and helpless at the feet of the
little island-empire which—not for the first nor for the last time
—she had despised and defied. Formosa—which indeed had not
become Chinese territory until it was annexed by the Manchu
dynasty in^the course of its triumphant career of conquest—
became paTt of the Japanese Empire ; and but for the interven-
tion of three great European Powers (Germany, Russia and
France) she would have lost that important part of Manchuria
(the Liaotung Peninsula) which contains Port Arthur and
Dairen. She lost it in any case only three years later, when
Russia not only seized for herself the very territory which with
simulated magnanimity she had compelled Japan to restore to
China, but so strengthened her own military position...”
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Page 22
“...the
coast of China and for the delimitation of “ spheres of influ-
ence.” The territory of Kiao-chou, with its splendid harbour
of Tsingtao, was seized by Germany ; nearly three hundred
square miles of territory were “ leased ” to Great Britain at
Weihaiwei which for the next thirty-two years was adminis-
tered as a British colony ; another area of similar dimensions
was acquired as an annexe to the colony of Hong-Kong on a
lease of ninety-nine years ; and the territory of Kuangchou-wan
on the southern coast of the Canton province was similarly
“ leased ” to France. Italy put in a claim to a harbour on the
coast of the province of Chehkiang, and when this demand was
successfully resisted by China (this was in pre-Mussolinian days)
the discomfiture of the Italians at their failure to win a prize
in the great game of land-grabbing was matched by the aston-
ishment of the Chinese at their own hardihood in withholding it.
If the Western nations thought that the partition of China
was likely to...”
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Page 23
“...reform, stamped him as the most dangerous extremist
in the Empire. The fear and hate with which he and his writings
filled the orthodox and “ respectable ” members of the Chinese
and Manchu official hierarchy may be compared with the horror
and detestation which heresy and witchcraft aroused in medieval
. Europe, or which Communism, Fascism and Hitlerism arouse
among their respective opponents to-day. If the solecism may
be permitted, K‘ang Yu-wei was in 1898 the “ arch-bolshevik ”
of his time in China ; and although his views underwent no
fundamental change throughout his life, he was destined, only
fifteen years later, to be derided and thrust aside with con-
temptuous indifference as a “ die-hard ” and a reactionary.
KSuch is the fate that has befallen many reformers, religious,
social and political, at other times and in other places.3...”
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Page 24
“...series of reform-edicts which were pro-
mulgated with breathless haste one after another during the
summer of 1898—the period known as “ the Hundred Days.”
The edicts amazed as much as they gratified the small minority
of liberal thinkers in the China of that day, and shocked and
violently antagonised the vast conservative majority.
It is customary to criticise K‘ang Yu-wei’s reform schemes,
and the imperial edicts in which they were embodied, as rashly
conceived, inappropriate to the conditions of Chinese political
and social life at that time, and irreconcilable with the spirit of
Chinese civilisation. Such criticisms are not altogether invalid,
though they might be applied with far greater force and truth
to the later attempt to thrust China, suddenly and without
preparation, into the mould of Western parliamentary democ-
racy. Kcang Yu-wei himself admitted, in his late middle age,
that a few of his schemes were ill-advised—such as the recom-
mendation that Chinese clothing should be...”
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Page 27
“...Western empress-dowager ” (Hsi T'ai-Hou) because she
occupied a palace in the western part of the Forbidden City.
Her colleague, Hsien-Feng’s senior consort, who predeceased
her, was similarly known as the 44 Eastern empress-dowager.”
In later years the Western empress-dowager was also popularly
known as 44 the Venerable Buddha ” (Lao Fo-yeh) and as Lao
Tsu.Tsung—44 the Venerable Ancestor.”
The position of T4zu-Hsi between 1875 and 1888 was practic-
ally that of regent, though the title used in China for a regent—
she-cheng-wang—was never bestowed on a woman. The process
by which an empress or an empress-dowager exercised the
functions of regent was known as ch^ui lien t‘ing cheng—4 ‘ lower-
ing the screen and attending to state business ”—the allusion
being to the theory that when transacting affairs of state the
empress-regent concealed her august figure behind a screen. The
phrase has been in use since the time of the emperor Kao Tsung
(650—683) of the T4ang dynasty. An empress-dowager’s...”
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Page 31
“...until (like the “ Venerable Buddha ”) she had “ lowered the
screen.” The point is that her exalted position “ above ” the
emperor entitled her, in an emergency, to over-rule him tem-
porarily or permanently, by measures which in China would be
regarded as constitutional or at least not revolutionary. She
would naturally refrain from doing so if she had reason to believe
that she would find inadequate support in government circles,
for in that case the practical difficulties of the situation would be
insurmountable. There might be something of the nature of a
“ strike ” among the officers of state. But her position made her
the obvious person to lead the opposition against an emperor
whose wings she or others were desirous of clipping.
Perhaps we might say that in China an empress-dowager’s
functions were to some extent analogous to those exercised by
the British House of Lords. Even without going the length of...”
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Page 33
“...respect for and obedience to the elder. This is (or was till
recently) the rule in Chinese domestic relationships ; and the
imperial family was expected to set an example in these matters
to the whole empire. The decrees issued by the great Kcang-
Hsi (1662-1722)—certainly one of the strongest and ablest
monarchs who have occupied the throne of China—bear ample
witness, in their phraseology, to the deep respect and deference
shown by him to the empress-dowager of those days and to the
filial devotion with which he accepted and acted upon that
illustrious lady’s “ commands.” It is needless to ask whether
K?ang-Hsi and his successors on the throne of China were
sincere in their professions of devotion to the principles of filial
piety. Perhaps at times they merely paid lip-service to what
they knew to be a fundamental law of Chinese ethics. In any
case, they were fully conscious of the excellent effect that their
pious language would have on the Confucian literati whose
support and loyalty were...”
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Page 34
“...32
TWILIGHT IN THE FORBIDDEN CITY
empress-dowager T‘zu-Hsi after her “ retirement,” and how
far-reaching were the powers and prerogatives which were still
at her disposal if she chose to exercise them, we shall find no
great difficulty in understanding how it was that she was able
to emerge from her seclusion, crush the unhappy young emperor,
and put the reform party in China to utter confusion and dis-
may. It is quite unnecessary to assume, as the Western-
trained onlooker is apt to do, that her success proved the strength
and vigour of her own character and intellect and that the
emperor’s failure proved the weakness and imbecility of his. It
is unfair to dismiss K‘ang Yu-wei, as Morse does, “ as a visionary
enthusiast,” and the emperor as “an inexperienced weakling.”
The empress-dowager’s position, both theoretically and prac-
tically, was an immensely stronger one than the emperor’s :
theoretically, because of her super-imperial rank which she
owed not to her abilities but to the fact...”
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Page 35
“...COLLAPSE OF THE REFORM MOVEMENT
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invoke the aid of the one personage in China who could claim
the constitutional and (what was in China more important) the
ethical right to over-rule the emperor.
It was by no means a foregone conclusion that she would do so.
K‘ang Yu-wei and the emperor both hoped, at first, not without
some reason, that she would refuse to return to the world of
politics. She was delighted with her new plaything, the Summer
Palace, she took an almost childish pleasure in her picnics and
her theatricals (she had two theatres of her own in the Summer
Palace), she loved dabbling in art and poetry, and she was, in her
peculiar way, a devout Buddhist. There was much to interest her
in her quiet life in her new country home, and there was no
reason to suppose that she was bored or craved excitement. It
is true that she had no sympathy whatever with reform schemes
of any kind, but it was mainly in matters affecting the status
and privileges of members of the imperial clan,...”
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Page 36
“...and an honest and loyal servant of the State. Unfortunately, for
the reasons already given, and for other reasons of a more per-
sonal nature, his loyalty was directed towards the person of the
empress-dowager rather than towards that of the emperor. Yet
it is very doubtful whether he would have taken any steps against
the reformers on his own initiative, for there is justification for
the belief that in spite of his conservatism he was one of the few
high Manchu officials who realised that if China was to be saved
from the internal and external dangers by which she was
threatened, she must follow the example of Japan and tread
the path of reform. It is questionable whether even the censor
Yang Ch‘ung-yi and his colleagues would have been able, of
themselves, to divert him from a policy of non-interference.
What prompted him to take the action he did was something
which weighed with him more heavily than the censor’s argu-
ments.
The emperor Kuang-Hsu was by no means oblivious of the
magnitude...”
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Page 39
“...“ wait and see.”8
Nor was Kuang-Hsii ignorant of the nature of the action which
the reactionaries were likely to take if they were given time and
opportunity to think out their plan of campaign. He knew that
in the empress-dowager they would find a ready sympathiser ; he
knew that she hated and despised foreigners and foreign ways,
and that any scheme of political or social reform that implied the
recognition of foreign methods and institutions as superior to
Chinese or worthy of adoption by China would stand in her eyes
self-condemned. He knew that her position in the State, in spite
of her withdrawal from the regency nine years earlier, invested
her with an authority which in the last resort was superior to his
own. He knew that she was ignorant and superstitious and
extremely susceptible to flattery; and he was fully aware of the
risk that the enemies of reform might find in her a willing, active
and all-powerful leader. She had already, as we have seen,
compelled him to dismiss from...”
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Page 40
“...that the emperor ordered
Yuan Shih-k‘ai to have Jung Lu put out of the way, by assas-
sination if necessary, and to place the empress-dowager under
close arrest.9 It would not have been to the emperor’s advantage,
or to the advantage of the cause of reform which he had at heart,
to have had either of these acts carried out. Drastic action
against the empress-dowager would have caused a public
scandal which he could never have lived down; and political
assassinations were much less common in the China of that day
than they have since become. Nor is there the smallest reason
to believe that Kuang-Hsu was by nature either bloodthirsty or
vindictive. It would have been amply sufficient for all the prac-
tical purposes he had in view if Yuan Shih-keai had so disposed
his forces as to make it impossible for the reactionaries to get into
direct communication with T‘zu-Hsi, and impossible for Tfizu-
Hsi to return to her quarters in the Forbidden City. This, it
seems probable, is all that the emperor...”
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Page 45
“...sentences pronounced by China’s empress-dowager were not so
harmless as those of a royal lady of kindred temper—the Queen
of Wonderland. When the “ Venerable Buddha ” said “ Off
with his head ” there was no Alice to retort “ stuff and non-
sense.”
As for the emperor himself, he would have been saved ten
years of misery and degradation had he shared the fate of the
six martyrs. It was not from any pity or tenderness that his life
was spared. Rumours that he was likely to die were rife in Peking.
In China it was customary to break the news of the impending
death of an emperor by the issue of public summonses to the
leading members of the medical fraternity throughout the land
to hasten at once with their bottles and remedies to the imperial
bedside. When therefore the high provincial authorities were
commanded to hunt out the most distinguished physicians and
send them forthwith to the Forbidden City, it was universally
assumed that the emperor was on the point of 64 ascending to be
a guest on...”
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Page 46
“...every country outside China inhabited
by Chinese merchants and colonists. These Chinese had nothing
to fear from the vengeance of the Peking authorities, and used
language which gravely upset the equanimity of the Court. But
T‘zu-Hsi and her party bowed to the storm, and though the
project of nominating a successor to the throne was not given up,
the idea of dethroning or taking the life of the emperor was for
the time reluctantly abandoned.
Its abandonment brought no joy or relief to Kuang-Hsii,
whose position from that time onwards was always one of nerve-
destroying peril, misery and humiliation. He was fated to become
a pitiable fragment of shattered humanity and to endure a living
death for ten long years. He had done all in his power to save
China and to promote the welfare of his people, but he had been
overwhelmed. Yuan Shih-kcai, who had betrayed him, never
raised a hand to help him or to soften the rigours of his imprison-
ment. Nor has the Nationalist China of our own day had the...”
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