Cixi Rules Until the End...

This is a simple post for people interested in China.   Hopefully, this will inspire my readers’ to read more Chinese History.  There’s some good stuff tucked away in those 5000 years.  (just sayin’)  The only thing equivalent to the stories and lessons learned Chinese History is The Bible.    It is interesting to note at the time of the Death of Christ, China already had at least 30 million people.   Jerusalem at most 70,000 people.  China’s biggest city meanwhile, Changan, “only” had 300,000 people.

I think up to now we’ve seen Cixi for what she really was during the first half of her reign:  an uber competent person, stuck in an era nearly all Chinese Emperor’s throughout history were able themselves to avoid.  An era they had no control over.  An era where they were unable to control the narrative.  A time in Chinese History where they were forced to be reactive rather than proactive.  

An era for which the Emperor of China rarely had to worry about any direct competitor.   A time when events moved so quickly China itself for the first time ever was not able to manipulate or slow down events to suit its own purposes.

I am certain nearly any Emperor facing the same challenges Cixi had on her plate would have done no better.  And most likely would have led China to suffer the same fate.  The fate of being overpowered by other nations.  Still as we shall see, there is no question towards the end of her reign many of China’s troubles were directly of her own doing.

From the last year of Daoguang’s reign in 1850, followed by Xianfeng, whose reign ended in 1861, to the new kid on the block, Tongzhi, whose reign officially took place in 1861, but really didn’t take power until 1873, China’s quick succession of inexperienced leaders without question weakened the country.   The lack of continuity weakened China’s message to the World.  

If there ever was a time for continuity, for a strong leader, this was it.  China had shown to the world the chinks in its armor.  The West was ready to pounce.  Still, despite the uncertainty within China, Cixi was always there.  She was the hand that kept the helm straight.  The power behind the curtain. Could the 8 Regents have done any better?   Not if they did not speak with one voice.

In 1873, the wait was over, and the Tongzhi Emperor formally took over as the Emperor of China.

During Tongzhi’s youth what had been going on in China?

Sticking to her “reformist” ways, Cixi had implemented a series of reforms and improvements that became known as the “Tongzhi Restoration”.   Remember, it was at this time Japan was also undergoing its own Meiji Restoration, learning from the West to make Japan strong.  This Japanese Restoration succeeded beyond its wildest dreams, at great expense to China and the rest of Asia, up to 1945. 

This was China’s last great opportunity to quite frankly, “pull its self together”.  To reform itself.   Yes, there would be another time, but by then it would be much too late.    By then China would be in a near death spiral.  

And Tongzhi himself had nothing to do with this reformation, for obvious reasons, his youth.    The main takeaway from this effort was simple; while China put on a great show of cosmetic reform, all change is not really such if the thinking of the regime from top down does not itself drive the effort.

As such, the Tongzhi Restoration was really nothing but a restoration of the old ways.   An affirmation of that classic phrase, “the more things change, the more they stay the same”.

Without knowing it, by the time the so called “Restoration” petered out, China was a dead man walking.   Unless the Tongzhi Emperor could come to the rescue, that is.

And why couldn’t he?  All his life China had waited patiently for him to come of age.   He had a very good education.   Cixi thought she had prepared him well.

I will not speak much here of Tongzhi’s supposedly good preparation for ruling China.  Did he speak a foreign language (like all my bad ass readers do!)

Did he have much interaction with non Chinese? Did he travel abroad?

Somehow, despite his first class upbringing, Tongzhi infamously grew up to be a very unimpressive individual.   Immature, and all to ready to use his power, even abuse it.

One thing that comes to mind is the obvious comparison between Tongzhi’s penchant for firing experienced leaders and North Korea’s present day leader, Kim Jung Un.   For instance, both leaders had a habit of getting rid of far more experienced advisors, usually relatives.  Not long after taking power Tongzhi for example in one short fiery outburst basically stripped all his Uncles of power.  Kim Jung Un notoriously killed his. 

To be fair, the Chinese Emperor himself was only 17.   And more likely than not he probably would have grown out of his adolescent behavior and his superior education would have eventually taken over.    Think of Kangxi.  Emperor of China for 61 years.   Was Kangxi really that much better of an emperor at the age of 17 than Tongzhi?  

Still, all Tongzhi needed to do was stay alive for a few solid years.   Get China back on the right track.  Remind the world of her strength and power and historical influence.   And the more sure footed he became in his position, the less power Cixi herself would also have.

It is important to remind readers that Cixi was at this stage basically retired…or perhaps we should say “retiring”. 

Was she still the power behind the throne?  Sort of.  She still called the shots, but only for a little while longer.  It was inevitable that Tongzhi, a strong personality, would take over.  Even more so, Cixi would have little grounds for keeping her visibility.  She would be expected to ….disappear.   As such, I believe Cixi fully expected to “fade away”.    Why wouldn’t she expect her son to live a long life?   Perhaps reign for decades! 

Now there are a few more things one must know of this guy; he loved his sex, and he loved his wife, the Empress Jiashun. 

I bring the former up purely because Tongzhi has historically been believed to have died of syphilis.  Others believe he died of smallpox.     Yet if the former is true, it would be because the Jiashun Empress and Cixi simply did not get along. It is here we really begin to understand the brutal application of Cixi’s power during this timeframe.      Cixi was seemingly quite unhappy with her son’s lack of a serious approach to ruling as Emperor, and in a show of power, thus ordered Tongzhi separated from his wife, Jiashun.  To her credit, the capable person she was, she full well understood the energy and attention to detail needed to “run” a kingdom. 

And Tongzhi was lacking. 

Perhaps we will deal with Tongzhi in another post someday, but Jiashun obviously did not count on Her Man dying so soon, or else why go out of one’s way to piss off Cixi?  It’s one thing to not get along with one’s mother inlaw.  But when your mother in law has shown the ability to put people to death, and is the leader of China, shouldn’t you give a little more slack than one might to the average mother in law?  Jiashun obviously thought she could outlast the “old lady”.  

Jiashun, her inability to "strategically" get along with Cixi was no doubt her undoing.

What was the end result of all this?

Once Tongzhi was physically kept from his own wife, the eunuchs got in his ear and mentioned the Beijing Brothels.   Tongzhi took a liking to these brothels.  Not long after he died. (But historians now believe he died of smallpox.)

Upon Tongzhi’s death Cixi and Ci’an again took the reins of power.  This time for good. 

And what of Jiashun?  Rumor had it she was pregnant.   She died a few months later.  Conveniently removing another rival of power from within the Forbidden City.   Cixi most certainly had her disposed of.  

Poisoned perhaps?   

What if Jiashun had a son?   Upon having a son, would not Jiashun also become the Empress Dowager?

By the time of Tongzhi’s untimely death, Cixi was barely 39.   If by now only she believed she could “save” China, in my view the answer would be “Correct”.

Cixi’s next challenge was to name a successor.  Whether there was a “man” able enough, experienced enough, to “run” China was not the point.  Here again Chinese “tradition” proved to be its undoing.  By killing Jiashun, Cixi had seen to it that no “direct line” to succession could be possible.   Cixi simply could not live with Jiashun trying to usurp her on the throne of China.   If Cixi had allowed Jiashun to live, if Jiashun had indeed borne the late Emperor a son, there is the strong possibility that Civil War would have commenced within a short time. 

Jiashun obviously would have worked to have Cixi banished from the Capital. 

No, she had to go.   Grandson or no, it is my belief Cixi simply could not endure to live a life that saw her grow weaker and Jiashun stronger by the day.   

While I am tempted to blame Chinese Imperial “Tradition” for what happened next, one must admit other European dynasties probably had the same custom.  Ie no older generation could replace a younger generation at the throne.  As such, Prince Gong could not rule.  Nor could any of the other brothers of the Xianfeng Emperor.  China’s future leader must come from either the current or future generation.  All the same, this gave Cixi more time on the throne.   More time to even further centralize her rule.

The person Cixi chose was the ill-fated Guangxu.  At the age of 18, a year older than Tongzhi when he became Emperor, Guangxu became ruler of China.  The year was 1889.  And once again, Cixi “retired”.

Guangxu

Guangxu has been on my list of posts for quite some time.  He deserves his own post.  But Cixi’s final legacy simply cannot be written without mentioning Guangxu.   I’ve gotten away without mentioning the Taiping Rebellion.  But I cannot do the same with Guangxu.

He was the nephew of Cixi.  The son of Prince Chun, himself the younger brother of Xianfeng.  Guangxu was also the son of Cixi’s sister.   He was properly educated, lived a long time, and was less careless then Tongzhi.  Further, despite the repeated stereotype many have of Cixi as a power hungry and ruthless manipulator behind the curtain, she actually gave Guangxu a lot of leeway.   Until she didn’t.

So what happened?

I think the biggest issue with Guangxu is he had no memory of the Opium Wars.  Or of China as a Great Power.  Rather, he was involved with the West from the very beginning.   He was simply born in times of great upheaval and disarray.  No new Chinese Leader could have succeeded.  And he was always in the shadow of The Great Cixi.  

One here begins to see Cixi as tired.   Spending most of her time secluded away from the Forbidden City.  Seemingly nonchalant as China is slowly consumed one port and land grab at a time.  Having seen this game playout, she seems void of any sense of urgency.  No doubt she pondered how China had come to this.  How China had changed from 1851 to now, nearly forty years later.

Guangxu has a better temperament than Tongzhi.  A better sense of awareness.  Perhaps this is what kept Cixi at ease.    Events however, led Guangxu towards radical change.  The Japanese had given China a good licking, once again exposing China as nothing but a Paper Dragon.   Indeed, it was clear while reforms in China were haphazard at best, the problem with China was its society was simply too big to change.    China had never adopted any real governmental reforms.   How could China really change if power was top down, opaque, and in the hands of one? 

In 1898, Guangxu attempted a “crash” reform.  It was this attempt at reform that begins to give Cixi her bad name.   While one blames Cixi, one must ask; shouldn’t Guangxu have known better?  Didn’t his knowledge of Cixi tell him how ill-fated this attempt would have been?  Shouldn’t he at least attempted to gain her approval and support? 

While some of his attempts at reform no doubt were harmless (such as the establishment of a Naval Academy and agricultural schools), those that directly challenged her well-earned prerogative to decide what was right for China were not.  By this time perhaps Cixi was the only person alive in China’s Imperial Household that had ever looked Xianfeng in the eyes.  That knew the Emperor.  She had outwitted the dimwitted Sushun.  Outlasted Ci’an.   Out maneuvered Prince Gong.

Sacrificed allies, executed others.

Nevermind what was right or wrong, dammit.  She had earned the right to maintain power!

Cixi, with the help of Yuan Shikai’s betrayal of Guangxu, stopped the movement.   Nevermind how she treated Guangxu in future, by stopping the reforms of the young Emperor, she had shown her hand as a leader of the world’s largest nation, mentally ill equipped for change.  And I think in hindsight credit must be given for her point of view.

We seem to forget that Beijing was not a microcosm of Chinese Society at the time.  While one could see more and more Chinese intent on changing China, on modernizing China, one must not forget that the real China lay only a few miles beyond the Forbidden City’s gates.  Confucianism reign supreme.   China was too big to change, let alone within 100 days.   The daring of Cixi cum 1861, the Manchu Concubine with the audacity to stage a coup against the Xianfeng Regency was simply not the seasoned, content Cixi of 1898. 

Still ruthless, like most older folks, she simply feared Change.  And she knew China was not ready for change. 

Thus she cast Guangxu aside.   Cixi no doubt often wondered why the young Emperor simply threw it all away……?

“All this could’ve been yours”, I’m sure she often wondered, “If you’d just slowed down and minded your place.”

However, for much of China’s officialdom, I’m quite sure her move was a popular move.   Afterall, she surrounded herself with people that thought like her.

In 1898, the culmination of drought, Western missionaries and unemployed youth jelled to form the all too familiar refrain of xenophobia.    This is my simple explanation of the cause of the Boxer Movement.   And it is here where Cixi is most remembered, though believe it or not, she does even dumber things to ruin her reputation in the future.

To the Chinese, this was nothing if not just another drought, another rebellion.   Another cultish society formed from ignorance and superstition.   However, their attacking and murdering of Westerners changed things for China.  As such, with Westerners involved, events could no longer simply called an internal matter.   And as such, China lost the ability to control the narrative.

Cixi declared war on all Westerners in China.  She felt the Chinese Han would rise up.  They did not.  It was an incredible gamble but Cixi had numbers on her side.    It failed and Cixi had to sneak out of Beijing dressed as a peasant.    One cannot blame Cixi for thinking numbers were on her side.  One can blame her for thinking the West would just wilt away.  China simply offered too much opportunity for too many Western Adventurers to leave China alone.

Among the interesting decisions was the one made by Yuan Shikai.  The man who betrayed Guangxu, and henceforth a strong ally of Cixi’s.  He thought it over and came to the conclusion the Boxers were more of a threat to his power and influence than the Barbarian.  He attacked the Boxers and killed thousands.

Yuan Shikai.  Ruthless, Cixi's kind of man.  

But ambitious and self serving.

The end of the Boxer Rebellion eventually cost China 600 million taels of silver.  That is, the foolhardy decision of one person to declare war on the West caused China great financial hardship. 

One can argue from a financial basis, China was financially crippled from this decision to declare war on the laowai, until the rule of Deng Xiaoping.

So what did Cixi do?  Returning to Beijing she had no choice but to reform China, as fast as possible, before the next damn war.  The only problem was she was already an entire generation behind the Japanese.  

If one remembers part one, did not the Chinese believe Japan would be their biggest threat?  They were right.   Alas, she was way too late.   China’s procrastination at the top, along with the influence of the Confucian Class, sentenced China to humiliation and occupation, until 1949.   More so than any British Fleet ever could have accomplished on its own.

But Cixi had one last act of cruelty to allow us to remember her by.   Sensing, either wrongly or rightly (probably rightly), that Guangxu would regain power upon her death and change Chinese Policy contrary to her wishes she had him poisoned with arsenic.   That is, she killed him out of spite. 

He was only 37 when he died.  

What if Guangxu had lived?

Would China have continued its downward spiral into a country divided by warlords and Japanese domination?  Would we ever know of Mao and Chiang Kai Shek?

Would China have finally had its own restoration?  Perhaps the “Guangxu Restoration”?

And not for the last time, “the terrible ifs accumulate”.   

 

 The Great Cixi.  My favorite painting of her.