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The Much Maligned Empress Dowager: A Revisionist Study of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi (1835–1908)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sue Fawn Chung
Sue Fawn Chung
Affiliation:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
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Extract

Clio, the Muse of History, has not been kind to the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi (1835–1908). Traditional Chinese historians always have been prejudiced against feminine influence in court. Moreover, historians have long relied upon the works of men such as K'ang Yu-wei (1858–1927) and Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (1873–1929), the two leaders of the radical reform movement, and other pro-Emperor radical reformers, most notably Wang Chao (1859–1935), Yün Yü-ting (1863–1918), Lo Tun-jung (d. 1923), and Li Hsi-sheng, for their information about the workings of the Ch'ing court during the period 1898 to 1900. Since these men were opposed to the power and conservatism of the Empress Dowager, their prejudice is reflected in their writings about the court at that time. Many historians also have relied upon the works of Western writers such as J. O. P. Bland, Sir Edmund Backhouse, and Hosea B. Morse for their information about this period. In fact, Bland and Backhouse's China Under the Empress Dowager is the book which has shaped many of our present-day negative images of Tz'u-hsi. Recently the reliability of Sir Edmund Backhouse has been seriously challenged by Hugh Trevor-Roper in his excellent study, Hermit of Peking. There can be no doubt that Western writers drew their facts from exchanges with the writings by the Chinese radical reformers, from unreliable eunuchs, and from highly biased newspapers, such as the North China Herald (a pro-reform Western-oriented Shanghai newspaper) and the Ch'ing-i pao [China Discussion], which was edited by Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and published in Yokohama.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1979 , pp. 177 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 For more information, see Hsiao, Kung-ch'üan, A Modern China and a New World: K'ang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian, 1858–1927 (Seattle and London, 1975)Google Scholar, and Esherick, Joseph W., Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (Berkeley, 1976).Google Scholar

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3 See for example, the documents dated october 5, 1898, KCT 12/191–2; October 7, 1898, KCT 12/214–16; and December 29, 1898, KCT 12/424.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.

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16 Mr and Mrs Isaac Taylor Headland assisted in Wang Chao's escape from China, but they also greatly admired the Empress Dowager. Court Life in China: The Capital, Its Officials, and People (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1909), p. 159.Google Scholar See also Yu-wei, K'ang, ‘Nien-p'u,’ p. 134.Google Scholar

17 See, for example, NCH (April 4, 1900).Google Scholar

18 Walker, , ‘China's Dowager Empress,' p. 494.Google Scholar

19 SL 427/5b-7a and TH 148/8a-b.

20 SL 428/5b-6b and TH 148/18a.

21 K'un-i, Liu, Works, ‘telegrams,’ dated october 13, 1898, 1/44b-45a.Google Scholar See also Chang Chih-tung, (1837–1909), Chang Wen-hsiang kung ch'üan-chi [The complete works of Chang Chih-tung], ed. by Wang, Shu-nan (Peiping: Wen-hua chai, 1928), 157/la-b and selection in WHPF 2/617.Google Scholar

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24 Chih-tung, Chang, Works, 80/16.Google Scholar

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26 Chang was particularly incensed by the ‘slanderous lies’, of K'ang Yu-wei.Chih-tung, Chang, Works, 159/ 27–28 and 103/15–16. See also, Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China.Google Scholar

27 SL 451/5b-6a.

28 SL 455/3a-4b.

29 SL 458/9a.

30 January 14, 1900, SL 458/11a-b.Google Scholar

31 SL 458/11a-b.

32 Chih-tung, Chang, Works, 51/24a-26a on his suppression of the Tz'u-li hui (Independence Society).Google Scholar

33 Ch'i-ch'ao, Liang, WHCPC, chüan 2 and in WHPF 1/256–9, lists six issues, but these two are the most significant and the ones usually cited by later historians.Google Scholar

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36 Ch'i-ch'ao, Liang, WHCPC, chüan 2 and in WHPF 1/260.Google Scholar

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41 Shen-pao (October 24, 1898).

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49 Ssu-ching, Hu, Kuo-wen pei-ch'eng [Record of national affairs], in T'ui lu ch'üan chi (Taipei, 1970), 3/2a-3b. Hu dates the quote as 1898, but changes some of the characters of the telegram and thus changes the entire meaning of Liu's message. Other writers often state that Liu sent this telegram (as misinterpreted by Hu) in late 1899 and therefore was a leader in the opposition to dethrone the Emperor.Google Scholar

50 Tun-jung, Lo, ‘Chu'üan-pien,’ 555–7.Google Scholar

51 NCH (March 14, 1900). See also, NCH (January 30, 1900 and May 2, 1900).

52 SL 426/13b and TH 148/6a.

53 Chi'-ch'ao, Liang, WHCPC, chüan 2 and WHPF 1/262.Google Scholar

54 Min-pao 1 (1905), 85.Google Scholar

55 MacDonald to Salisbury, China Blue Books, October 16, 1898, China No. 1 (1899), Doc. 358, p. 264.Google Scholar

56 MacDonald to Salisbury, China Blue Books, October 29, 1898, China No. 1 (1899), Doc. 373, p. 275.Google ScholarMorse, Hosea Ballou, International Relations, 3/145, stated that ‘It is certain that the emperor's life was only saved by the fear of foreign adverse opinion and by the difficulty of immediately finding a successor.’ This is an exaggeration of the situation. See also, NCH (September 4, 1899).Google Scholar

57 K'un-i, Liu, Works, ‘telegrams.’ October 13, 1898, 1/44b-45a; ‘shu-tu (letters), November 3, 1898, 13/1a.Google Scholar

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62 Ch'ing-i pao 20 (August 8, 1899), 16b and 29 (October 5, 1899), 17a.

63 For a detailed study of the Court's efforts at moderate reform during the period September 1898, to mid-1900, see my doctoral dissertation, ‘The Much Maligned Empress Dowager: A Revisionist Study of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi’ (unpublished dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1975), Ch. IIIGoogle Scholar

64 November 5, 1899, SL 452/5a-6b is one of many edicts describing the worsening conditions in the countryside.Google Scholar