30 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA THE“HUNDRED DAYS'”OF REFORM 31 China's impotence in the face of the demands of the foreign powers was his cousin,Tsai Tien,also a grandson of the Emperor Tao Kuing, brought reform zeal to fever heat,"It may fairly be said that,in the but possessing as his most valuable qualification the fact that he was Tzu spring of 1898,all the younger members of the mandarinate and the Hsi's nephew.His selection was in violation of immemorial custom,for gentry were reformers-some of them,perhaps,with a confused idea of being of the same generation as Tung Chih,he was unable to render what reform meant,but all ready to support moderate reform,and some resolved on radical measures."1 Just when the campaign of foreign ag- proper filial reverence to the spirit of his predecessor,and this aspect of the succession aroused many protests. gression was getting under way,Kang Yu-wei had come to Peking to From the very outset then,the Emperor Kuang Hsu (his reign name, take up a position as under-secretary to the Board of Works and,moved meaning "Brilliant Succession")was simply a tool in the hands of the by the spectacle of China's increasing weakness,he wrote an "Appeal to Empress Dowager.His minority was passed under her control,especially the Emperor on Behalf of the Nation and the Empire,"in which he bit- after the death of the co-regent,Tzu An.Even when in 1889 Tzu Hsi terly described the decay of the dynasty and the people of China and surrendered the nominal control of the government,she kept the reality again cited the cases of Russia under Peter the Great and of modern of power,appointing and dismissing officials and reading all state docu- Japan as the models which China must follow He urged the calling of a ments.2 She also arranged the marriage of Kuang Hsu to her niece,so council to discuss the measures advisable in the crisis,and pleaded for administrative reform.The conclusion of the appeal stated: that 'she might have first-hand reports on all his doings.Outwardly at least,the Emperor exhibited proper respect for his august aunt.But it is If Your Majesty will not decide,or will prefer to remain in the old grooves not to be wondered at that he came to desire the reality and not the mere of the Conservatives,then your territories will be swallowed up,your limbs will be semblance of power. bound,your viscera will be cut out,and Your Majesty will scarcely manage to retain your throne or to rule over more than a fragment of your ancient Empire !20 Unfortunately for his aspirations and hopes,Kuang Hsu was not of the material which makes successful autocrats.Frail,delicate,and sensi- The appeal was not in vain.The time was at hand when the Emperor tive,he was no match for the shrewd woman who,while apparently in would exert himself on behalf of his people,for in June 1898 was to retreat after her long regency,still watched the course of affairs with a begin the“Hundred Days'”of reform. wary eye.Kuang Hsu had his moments of decision and his flashes of The Emperor who thus came forward as the protagonist of reform temper,but they were not indicative of a very stern and resisting quality. was His Imperial Majesty Kuang Hsu,then a young man in the "late Emotionally he was intense,intellectually he was diffuse.One cannot twenties."He owed his imperial position chiefly to the determination and read the story of his struggle with the powers which in the end overcame ambition of his aunt,the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi When the Emperor him without feeling a profound sympathy for him as a man of fine im- Hsien Feng had died in 1861,during the troublous times of the Taiping pulses and intentions,hampered by the enervating conditions which rebellion,he had left as his heir a boy of five,the son not of the imperial surrounded him and by some deficiency which made him incapable of consort but of his secondary wife.During the minority of the new Em- grappling successfully with practical problems.2s He possessed an abun- peror,who assumed the reign name of Tung Chih,China was thus under dance of that quality that the sage Mencius had declared to be the very the control of a co-regency,the power being shared between the consort essence of the true imperial ruler,benevolence embracing all within his of the late Emperor,Tzu An,and the mother of Tung Chih,who now kingdom;yet had it not been for his contact with the "Modern Sage," became known as Tzu Hsi.In 1872 the Emperor came of age.He did Kang Yu-wei,these humanitarian and patriotic impulses would probably not live to enjoy his power long.He died in 1875 and was soon followed have remained half-formed,nebulous ideas destined to have no definite to the grave by his widow and their unborn child."Tung Chih's successor expression. 1Morse,International Relations,III,132.20 Wen Ching,op.cit.,pp.53-54. az Bland and Backhouse,op.cit.,p.162;Wen Ching,op.cit,p.112. a1 It has often been intimated that Tzu Hsi put her son out of the way so that she might continue to control the state (see Bland and Backhouse,China under the 28 For an illuminating description of Kuang Hsu,see Boulger,A Short History Empress Dowager,p.119).Princess Der Ling rejects this story,stating definitely of China,p.353.It has sometimes been declared that Kuang Hsu was mentally that Tung Chih died of smallpox.She does assert,however,that Tzu Hsi urged deficient.Princess Der Ling,who used to see him regularly in the days after he Tung Chih's widow to commit suicide as an act of marital piety and in order to had become a prisoner,rebuts these accusations.She declares that she always found avoid having to surrender to her the regency (Der Ling,Old Buddha,pp.171-173). him intelligent and very well informed about the Occident(Der Ling,Two Years in the Forbidden City,pp.113-115). 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