Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433», sayfa 2

THE LATE EMPEROR OF CHINA

The announcement of a work by the late Dr Gutzlaff, entitled the Life of Taou-Kwang, late Emperor of China, with Memoirs of the Court of Peking,¹ excited a good deal of expectation; but for our own part, now that the book is published, we must confess our disappointment on finding it not a well-constructed memoir, but a volume bearing the appearance of a collection of materials put together just as they came to hand, with a view to re-arrangement. Declining health probably prevented the author from perfecting his plan, and hurried his pages to the press; death has now removed him from his labours. But a collection of authentic historic facts is valuable, however loosely embodied; and few writers have enjoyed such favourable opportunities as Dr Gutzlaff for obtaining them.

Referring first to the personal history of Taou-Kwang, we find that his education was more Tatar than Chinese. He was one of the numerous grandchildren of the imperial house of Keelung, but without any expectation of filling the throne, as both his mother and paternal grandmother were inferior members of the imperial harem. The discipline under which the royal family was trained, was of the strictest kind. Each of the male children, on completing his sixth year, was placed with the rest under a course of education superintended by the state. Though eminent doctors were engaged to instruct them in Chinese literature, yet archery and horsemanship were considered higher accomplishments, and the most expert masters from Mongolia and Manchooria trained them in these exercises. They were treated as mere schoolboys, were allotted a very small income for their maintenance, were closely confined to the apartments assigned to them, kept in entire ignorance of passing events, and allowed little intercourse with the court—none with the people. Not till each had passed his twentieth year, was there any relaxation of this discipline. Taou-Kwang was about this age when his father ascended the throne, in consequence of the somewhat capricious appointment of Keelung, who abdicated, and soon after died. The new emperor surrounded himself with buffoons, playactors, and boon-companions. The debaucheries, jealousies, and cruelties of his reign, remind us of what we have half sceptically read of Nero and Caligula. But Taou-Kwang kept aloof alike from the frivolities and the intrigues of his father's court: he seemed to have no desire ungratified so long as he had his bow and arrows, his horse and matchlock; and even after he was unexpectedly nominated heir to the throne, in consequence of having personally defended his father from a band of assassins, his new expectations made no difference in his frugal and modest way of life. The emperor at length died; it did not clearly appear by what means, and it would perhaps have been troublesome to inquire: the empress-dowager waived the claims of her son; and Taou-Kwang ascended the throne without bloodshed. The luxury of the preceding reign now gave place to sobriety and economy; though the usual ceremonies of the court were strictly observed, they were conducted in the least expensive manner; and the ruling passion of the monarch soon appeared to be avarice.

Taou-Kwang had no taste either for literature or the arts; and he jumbled together in one large magazine the beautiful pictures, clocks, and musical instruments accumulated by his ancestors. To explain and repair these, there had always been Europeans, chiefly Portuguese, in attendance; and to some of these we have been indebted in times past for memoirs of the court of Peking; but Taou-Kwang dismissed the last of them. It is believed that an undefined dread of Western power had much to do with this distaste for the products of its ingenuity.

The only orgies which the emperor seemed desirous of maintaining, were feasts for the promotion of Manchoo union; on which occasions, the Manchoos assembled to eat meat without rice—in order to maintain the recollection of their Nimrodic origin—and to drink an intoxicating liquor made of mare's milk. He had a favourite sequestered abode at no great distance from the capital, where he had allowed the vegetation to run wild and rank, in order to make it a rural retreat, instead of an imperial park. All business was excluded from the precincts, and here the emperor spent much of his time, wandering solitarily on foot among the trees, amusing himself with the friends of his youth, or sailing, with some of the ladies of his family, along the mimic rivers.

According to traditional usage, the monarch must perform a pilgrimage to the tombs of his ancestors. The astronomical, or rather astrological board having ascertained the month, the day, the hour, even the minute, when the stars would prove propitious, the cavalcade set out. The princes of the blood, the ladies of the palace, and the favourite ministers of the court, formed part of the train, which was attended by at least 2000 camels. But even an emperor cannot travel through waste and desert lands without inconvenience; and though great preparations had been made beforehand in erecting temporary dwellings where no villages were to be found, yet his Celestial majesty, with his court, had often to bivouac under tents in the open air. The people crowded in thousands to see their sovereign—a liberty which, it is well known, may not be used in Peking, where every one must hasten to hide his head as from the fabled Gorgon. The ancestral tombs at Mookden, where the imperial manes repose under care of a large garrison, were at length reached. And now Taou-Kwang became a family man, abandoning the forms of state and the pomp of empire, and mingling in familiar intercourse with his relatives and attendants. Such particulars prove that we must receive at very considerable discount the descriptions hitherto published concerning the extreme sacredness of the emperor's person, the monotonous routine of ceremony to which he is condemned, and the impossibility of his 'indulging in the least relaxation from the fatiguing support of his dignity.' Turn we now to public events.

By a series of unexpected conquests, the three largest empires in the world have been gradually approaching each other's frontiers in Asia. England, from the distant West, has formed military establishments bordering on Thibet; China, from the remote East, has come to take that country under its dominion; while Russia, the colossus of Europe, has traversed the ice-fields of Siberia, and furnished an extensive northern frontier to Mongolia and Manchooria, the Tatar dominions of China. These powers, by their combined influence, keep within bounds the lawless hordes of Asia, by whose frequent irruptions in past ages vast regions of more civilised territory were overwhelmed, and whole nations extirpated. The empire that effects most in this way is China, and that with the smallest amount of means. Its frontier army is indeed but a burlesque compared with the well-appointed warriors of England and Russia; yet the Usbecks, Calmuks, and Kinghis are kept in subjection. The volume before us gives some insight into the mode in which this is accomplished.

A formidable insurrection, excited partly by religious enthusiasm, broke out in the western parts of Chinese Tatary in 1826. An able leader was found in Tehangir, a descendant of one of the former princes. He proclaimed himself the deliverer of the faithful from the infidel yoke, drew multitudes to his standard, and proceeded victoriously from city to city. The imperial army sent to quell this insurrection cost on an average L.23,000 of our money per day; and though victories were, as usual, reported, there was no appearance of the war coming to a termination. What prowess could not effect was accomplished by bribery. The Mohammedans were themselves divided into rival factions; and the Karatak ('black caps') were induced by Chinese diplomacy to turn against the Altktak ('white caps'), to whom Tehangir belonged. He was betrayed, taken to Peking, and cut to pieces in presence of the emperor; after which, nearly the whole of Turkistan was laid waste by fire and sword. After twenty more of the rebels had been decapitated, the emperor enacted new laws for the country, with the view of attaching the people to himself by the mildness of his rule. The black caps were promoted either to offices of trust in their own country, or to places of distinction in the Chinese army. When Turkistan again became the seat of trouble in 1830, the emperor at once sent 4000 camels with 2,000,000 taëls of silver (about L.700,000) to settle matters, which was considered much wiser than to engage in a long and expensive war. A similar policy was pursued in 1847, when a formidable rising occurred, during which Kashgar was taken, and the Manchoo forces routed. The Mohammedan leaders agreed to accept the emperor's bounty; and on condition of all lives being spared, the imperial troops were allowed to recapture Kashgar as by military force. A splendid victory was of course announced in the Peking Gazette; and in the subsequent distribution of rewards, the diplomatist was raised ten steps above the general.

It is commonly believed that the Celestial Empire dwells in perpetual peace within itself, as the fruit of that universal spirit of subordination and filial obedience which is the great object of all its institutions. Nothing, however, can be more erroneous. Not only do the restless Tatars frequently break into revolt, but in China itself, the extortions of the mandarins, or the occurrence of famine, frequently excites a village, a city, or even a large district to rebellion; and there are cases of an infuriated population actually broiling their magistrates over a slow fire. The usual policy of Taou-Kwang in all such cases was to send an army, but at the same time to set the leaders at loggerheads by administering suitable bribes, and inducing them to betray each other. In this manner, a civil war can be brought to a speedy conclusion; and then the cruelty of the victorious government knows no bounds. 'The treatment of political prisoners,' says our author, 'is really so shocking as to be incredible, if one had not been an eye-witness of these inhuman deeds.'

The volume affords us some amusing particulars connected with the collision with England. When the British fleet was expected in the Chinese waters, the imperial orders were, to 'listen to no proposals, but fire on the ships, and annihilate them at once.' To the great emperor, it would have appeared quite ridiculous to condescend to negotiation with so inferior a power as Britain: he had given his orders; these must be obeyed; and his minister had himself written a letter to Queen Victoria, that she might not plead ignorance of the high behests of his Celestial majesty. It was not till the fleet appeared at the mouth of the Pei-Ho, and the capital was in danger, that Taou-Kwang deigned to seek an accommodation by means of his smooth-tongued minister Keshen, who negotiated an armistice, promising that all wrongs would be redressed by a commission appointed to meet the British representatives at Canton. But as soon as the fleet turned southward, the danger was considered visionary; and again the cry arose to punish the insolence of the Western barbarians, as the English were politely designated. The empress-dowager, who was never before known to meddle with state affairs, told her son that 'the English and Chinese could not co-exist under the canopy of heaven; that the Celestial Empire must assert its superiority over these barbarian robbers; and that unless he waged war to their utter extermination, his ancestors would never acknowledge him in Hades.' Keshen was now denounced as a traitor to his country for having come to any terms; he was sentenced to death; and though his execution was deferred, yet his whole property, amounting in silver alone to the value of three millions sterling, was confiscated; his very wives were sold by auction; and he who had been one of the richest men in the empire, had not the means of buying himself a jacket.

Elepoo, the imperial commissioner at Ning-poo, opposite Chusan, was also denounced. His crime was, that he had, according to the terms of the truce, surrendered the English prisoners, notwithstanding the counter-orders he had received to send them to Peking as trophies of victory, to be cut to pieces according to custom. Among them was a captain's wife, who had been wrecked, and had thus fallen into his power. A happy thought struck some of the mandarins—that she might be passed off as the sister of the barbarian Queen. She was accordingly put into a cage, and carried about for exhibition; but Elepoo delivered her from the excruciating death she would have suffered as Queen Victoria's sister, and restored her to her countrymen. The whole cabinet was indignant; he was summoned to appear immediately before his exasperated sovereign, and sentenced to transportation to the deserts of Manchooria.

When it came to fighting in earnest, and there was for the Chinese, as we know, nothing but utter defeat, still there was no report sent to court but of victory. But as million after million of taëls vanished, and grandee after grandee disappeared, the emperor was obliged to be informed of the real state of affairs, and his wrath knew no bounds. In vain he threatened utter destruction to the barbarians, if they did not instantly leave the coasts; in vain called on the people to arm themselves en masse, and protect their lives and property: no one stirred, and the emperor resorted to new counsellors for new plans of defence. It was now gravely proposed, to build a fleet three times as powerful as that of the British, and station it near Singapore and Anjeer, to intercept the British vessels ere they reached China, and annihilate their fleet piecemeal. The forests were to be felled to supply materials: the only thing wanting was some English men-of-war, to serve as models. Again, Hou-chunn, the Marshal Ney of China, was ready to face the whole British fleet if he had but a steamer to carry 6000 men, half divers, half gunners; the divers would jump into the water, and sink the English ships by boring large holes in them, while the gunners would keep up an incessant fire. Striking as this plan appeared, the emperor doubted its practicability. Imitation steamships had been attempted already; but though they looked quite like the foreign ones, they would not move: the paddles had to be turned like a treadmill. Another great suggestion, was to march 300,000 men right through the Russian territories to London, and put a stop to all further operations by crushing the English at home!

Meanwhile, the British arms prevailed; and when the fleet reached the first bend in the Yang-tse-kiang, there happened a solar eclipse; it was impossible not to see that the sun of China had set for ever!

When Taou-Kwang found that the danger actually threatened his throne and his person, he hastily packed up his effects, and prepared to fly to some of the interior provinces; but being assured that peace might yet be obtained, he gave carte blanche for its conclusion. 'One can form no adequate idea,' says Dr Gutzlaff, 'of the utter amazement of the Chinese on perceiving that the "son of heaven" was not invincible; and that he was even fallible; a revulsion of feeling took place, such as had never been known before; and the political supremacy which China had so proudly asserted, was humbled in the dust.'

As soon as peace was concluded, the first care of Taou-Kwang was to punish the champions who had clamoured for war, but proved cowards in the fight. Some had already died of grief, some had committed suicide, and others had fled. But those who remained within the monarch's grasp, besides many civil and military officers who had been compelled to surrender their cities, were treated with merciless severity. Keshen's extreme sentence was reversed, and he was made pipe-bearer to the emperor.

A new era had now commenced. It had been proved to a demonstration, that the mandarins were common mortals, and that the great emperor did not sway the whole world. Democratic assemblies rose in every part of the land; the people must be consulted where their happiness was concerned; the citizens and peasants turned politicians; and if in any case remonstrance failed, they proceeded, en masse, to the government offices, and carried by force what was denied to courtesy. The emperor learning these movements, instantly took the popular side; laid all the blame on the mandarins, and superseded those who had given offence. The taxes which had been refused, he remitted as an act of sovereign favour; and the laws were relaxed—often to the injury of well-disposed citizens. The people were again and again termed the dear children of the emperor, and every member of the cabinet found his best interest in advocating popular measures.

The rest of Taou-Kwang's reign was spent chiefly in endeavours to improve his naval and military forces, and in fruitless struggles to replenish the exhausted treasury of the state. His own, meanwhile, was full to overflowing, having received immense accessions from the confiscated property of his unsuccessful generals and degraded ministers. He died on the 25th of February 1850, aged sixty-nine. In his will, there appears the following notice of the English war: 'The little fools beyond the Western Ocean were chastised and quelled by our troops, and peace was soon made; but we presumed not to vaunt our martial powers.'