响 POWER AND POLITICS IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA YUAN 5HI-KAI'S RISE TO POWER 31 Court Politics and the Empress Dowager Dowager to control her Court and to deflect responsibility for the It was the Empress Dowager's personal trust which assured Boxer rampage and the foreign occupation away from herself and Yuan Shi-kai his appointment to the Zhili posts,and this in turn onto Zai-yi's losing faction,which she subsequently purged alto- hinged on the strength of Yuan's position at her Court in exile.The gether.56 key to both was Yuan's alliance with the Manchu court politician By 1901 the makeup of the Empress Dowager's Court in exile had Rong-lu,a grand councillor since the coup of 1898 and the most drastically changed.The Boxer sympathizers(Zai-yi,his brother important single figure around the Empress Dowager until his Zai-lan,Ying-nian,Zhao Shu-jiao,Yu-xian,Zai-xun,Xu Tong,and death in 1903.Rong-lu's power at Court between 1898 and 1903 Gang-yi)were retired or dead.New grand councillors Qu Hong-ji has been compared to that of Yi-xin and Yi-huan(Prince Gong and and Li Hong-zhang,her plenipotentiaries in Beijing negotiating the Prince Chun)during the reign of the Tong-zhi emperor.54 Empress Dowager's most important advisory body on matters of The events of 1900,including the Boxer disturbances in north state.She was also in daily contact by telegraph with Prince Qing China,the occupation and sacking of Beijing and Tianjin by the and Li Hong-zhang,her plenipotentiaries in Beijing negotiating the powers,and forced exile to Xi'an,were an even greater trauma for Boxer Protocol with the Allied Powers.Now the two major oppos- the Empress Dowager than the threat posed by the Guang-xu ing factions were under the leadership of Rong-lu and Prince Qing Emperor and the reformers in 1898.She and Rong-lu had at least respectively.Added to this was the direct participation of the Pow- tacitly sided with the Boxers.Yet the dynasty and her regency ers for the first time in Beijing factional politics.The Germans, survived.By the fall of 1901 the Empress Dowager was once again British,and their allies sided with Rong-lu and his faction against in control of her Court and Empire.This she accomplished by Prince Qing and Li Hong-zhang,who were supported by the Rus- accommodating the foreign powers'demands for repentance and sians and their allies.In striking contrast to the 1890s,ideological reform and by shifting the blame for what had happened to a pro- differences between these two major factions seemed to have been Boxer faction at court. minimal.s7 Compared to the last decade of the Qing,court and bureaucratic The question of who should succeed Li Hong-zhang in Zhili was politics in Beijing during the Empress Dowager's reign in the late one of the issues dividing the two factions and their foreign sup- nineteenth century have been relatively well studied.In the process porters.Besides Rong-lu,traveling with the Empress Dowager and a consensus has emerged that the Empress Dowager ruled by supporting Yuan's appointment to the Zhili posts were grand balancing two or more contending factions at Court,each of which councillors Lu Chuan-lin,Wang Wen-shao,and Qu Hong-ji.Lu consisted of a mixture of Manchu and high Chinese officials.ss Chuan-lin (1836-1910)was an able senior official who had risen Between 1898 and 1900,Manchus Zai-yi and Gang-yi combined gradually up the bureaucratic ladder to governor-general of Liang- with such high Chinese officials as Xu Tong and Zhao Shu-giao as jiang in September,1900,when at Rong-lu's suggestion,the Em- the faction sympathetic to the Boxer movement.In opposition 56.For detailed accounts of the shift,see Tan,pnssim;Hummel,pp.393-94,405- were two factions:one of Rong-lu and his Chinese allies like Yuan 09:and Xia0Yi-shan,pp.2242-46,2249-53. Shi-kai,and the other led by Prince Qing and Li Hong-zhang.A 57.Also traveling with the Empress Dowager was her chief eunuch,Li Lian-ying, strategically timed shift of support during the summer of 1900 who was rumored to have played an advisory role in matters of state,especially during the Court exile in Xi'an.See,for example,the numerous references to him in from the former faction to the latter two enabled the Empress the works of Wu Yong and of Bland and Backhouse.There is no concrete evidence, however,that Li Lian-ying's opinion was as important as that of the grand council- 54.See,for example,Fang Chao-ying's biography of Rong-lu in Hummel,pp.405- lors in such matters as the appointment of Li Hong-zhang's successor in Zhili. 09. Regardless,Li Lian-ying was known to favor openly those who regularly bribed him 55.Wu Xiang-xiang,Wmt Qing gongding shiji (Taibei,1952);Lloyd Eastman,Throne with presents,and for this reason his relations with Rong-lu were good.Later on, and Mandarins(Cambridge,Mass.,1967):Cohen and Schrecker,Reform in Nineteenth- he became good friends also with Yuan Shi-kai,who was not averse to bribing Cemlury Chinn,esp.Kwang-Ching Liu,"Politics,Intellectual Outlook,and Reform: when necessary.On bribing Li Lian-ying in this period,see Des Forges,Hsi-linngd The T'ung-wen kuan Controversy of 1867,"pp.87-100,and Schrecker,"The Re- the Chrinesr Nationnl Revolution,p.26,and Rosemary Quested,The Russo-Chinese Bamk form Movement of 1898 and the Ch'ing-i." (Birmingham,1977),p.59
POWER AND POLITICS IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA YUAN SHI-KAI'S RISE TO POWER 33 32 press Dowager appointed him to the Grand Council.His broth- The opposition to Yuan's appointment was led by Prince Qing er-in-law and close confidant was Zhang Zhi-dong,who likewise and Li Hong-zhang in Beijing.Yi-kuang or Prince Qing (1836- seemed tacitly to support Yuan's appointment.ss Wang Wen-shao 1916)was a grandson of the original Prince Qing(Yong-lin).He (1829-1908)had been of direct assistance to Yuan's career in Bei- held his first important office in 1884 when he inherited the family jing in 1894-95 and had continued to help him as governor-general title and replaced Prince Gong (or Yi-xin)as the head of the Zongli of Zhili from 1895 to 1898,when Yuan was training the Newly Yamen.Prince Qing continued thereafter to hold high posts in Created Army at Xiaozhan.A grand councillor since 1898,Wang Beijing but never seemed to wield significant political power until was now old and in poor health.He had consistently sided with after 1898,when he emerged at court as a leader in opposition to Rong-lu in court politics since 1895.Thus,although Wang was less Rong-lu.In 1899,for example,Rong-lu and Prince Qing clashed obligated to Rong-lu than Lu Chuan-lin,he probably was just as over the former's opposition to the appointment of Li Hong-zhang willing to accept Rong-lu's choice of Yuan to succeed Li Hong- as Zhili governor-general.Thus,in 1901 it was Prince Qing's rivalry with Rong-lu and his alliance with the Russians through Li zhang.59 Qu Hong-ji(1850-1918)had a stronger personality and might Hong-zhang which dictated his opposition to Yuan's appointment have opposed Yuan's appointment had he dared to cross Rong-lu. to the Zhili posts.61 Qu was a brilliant scholar,receiving a jinshi degree in 1870 at the As for Li Hong-zhang,his opposition to Yuan was more per- age of twenty.But for the next twenty-five years his bureaucratic sonal,involving the grudge which ran back to the Sino-Japanese career was relatively undistinguished (perhaps because of his age) War of 1894-95.It is alleged that on the day he died,Li dictated to until 1897 when Li Hong-cao recommended his appointment as You Shi-mei,his secretary,a memorial recommending that Yuan provincial director of education (ezheng)of Jiangsu.The latter's Shi-kai succeed him as Zhili governor-general.Li is supposed to support and Qu's apparent friendship with Wang Kang-nian sug- have said:"Looking around the whole Empire,I see Yuan Shi-kai gests association with qingyi reformers of a less radical bent than standing head and shoulders above the rest."62 However,consider- Kang You-wei and Liang Qi-chao.Qu served in Jiangsu until late in ing Li's deeply-felt enmity for Yuan,and the fact that they ap- 1900 when he was ordered to report to the Empress Dowager's parently had been rivals a year earlier (late summer of 1900)for the court in Xi'an.Because of Rong-lu's endorsement,Qu was ap- Zhili appointments,this seems unlikely.63 In 1900-01,as governor- pointed in rapid succession (and sometimes concurrently):vice- general and governor of neighboring provinces,Li and Yuan rarely president of the Board of Rites,president of the Censorate( cooperated or corresponded.Neither among Li's published papers yushi),president of the Board of Works,and then in May,1901, nor among court records is there any trace of a memorial in which grand councillor and one of four members on a new Bureau of Li recommended Yuan for the Zhili posts.Moreover,Rong-lu was Government Affairs(zhengwu cha),created to coordinate the admin- opposed to Li in court politics,making it doubly unlikely that Li istration of reforms.Later,as spokesman for the"Hunan faction" at Court,Qu became one of the three or four most influential 61.Hummel,pp.964-65;Shen Yun-long,"Zhangwo wanging zhangbing zhi Yi- kuang,"Ximndai zhengzhi renwu shuuping (Taibei,1966),2:70;Morse,Internntional Relations, officials in the Empire and,as we shall see in Chapter 3,a leading vol.3,pp.173,181,191,200;NCH,Nov.13,1901;Bays,China Eters te Twenliell opponent of Yuan Shi-kai.Qu may have opposed Yuan as early as Cemlury,p.111. November,1901,but he was not willing to do so publicly and anger 62.Ch'en,Yuan 5hih-kni (1961),p.73;and Li Chien-nung,The Polilicnl History af Rong-lu,to whom he owed his central government appointments Ckimn,1840-1928(Princeton,1956),pp.186-87.A more contemporary source is Luo Dun-yong,"Gengzi guobian ji"in Zuo Shun-sheng,comp.,Zhonggno jimbni ninn shi and position on the Grand Council.60 ziliao(Shanghai,1926),pp.533-34.Quite possibly the source of the story was Yuan 58.Chen Kui-long.Mengjiao,2:22b;QS,pp.4909-10;Bays,China Enters the Shi-kai himself;see his authorized biography,Rongan dizi ji,juan 3:1a,and Xiao Yi- Twentieth Cemtury,pp.105-07,112. shan,p.2249.Ironically,in the pose of inheriting Li Hong-zhang's legacy,Yuan 59.QS,pp.4904-05;Liu Hou-sheng.Zhnng Jiam zhunji,p.130. praised Li's memory on a number of occasions and supported the erection of a 60.Xu Yi-shi,"Qu Hong-ji yu Zhang Bai-xi,"Yiskidanli,pp.112-27:QS,p.4905; monument to Li in Tianjin in 1903;YSKZZ,pp.345,713,966-67. Wu Yong,pp.123-24.Both c and jn can mean bureau or office.In the following. 63.Sheng Xuan-huai,Yuzhni cungno (Wujin,1939),jann 37:17a;Ch'en,Yumn 5hih- his translated as bureau and jn as office. k'ai(19721,p.50
34 POWER AND POLITICS IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA YUAN SHI-KAIS RISE TO POWER 35 would support Yuan,who was clearly Rong-lu's candidate.64 flattery,sex,and bribery upon her state decisions are misleading.70 In October,1901,the Empress Dowager left Xi'an for Beijing,re- To remain in power for almost fifty years,as she did,required turning from exile by permission of the Powers.The influence of political sophistication which was superior to that of most Manchu Rong-lu at the time-and of the Germans and British-was defi- nobles around her.Witness the fact that soon after the Empress nitely on the ascendancy.The two other senior officials with influ- Dowager's death in 1908,petty squabbles and jealousies amongst ence at her Court,Liu Kun-yi and Zhang Zhi-dong,had no objec- Manchus and splits over substantive issues between Manchus and tions to Yuan's appointment to the Zhili posts.65 Thus isolated in Chinese engulfed the Court and bureaucracy in Beijing,leading Beijing,Prince Qing and Li Hong-zhang were a minority of two, directly to the collapse of the dynasty in 1911-12.71 As a female with their ability to persuade seriously hampered by the distance ruler,the Empress Dowager's monarchical power was not legiti- between them and the Empress Dowager on the road between Xi'an mate in the eyes of many,if not most,of the male officials around and Beijing. her and of course she understood this very well.72 To survive as an Finally,the Empress Dowager had good reasons of her own for usurper,she had to balance factions at Court,never going too far appointing Yuan Shi-kai to the Zhili posts.In 1901 she held Yuan in in favoring one faction over another for fear of losing control and even higher personal esteem than she had after her coup d'etat of -ultimately-being removed from power.After the Boxer debacle 1898.In part this was because Yuan made timely contributions to of 1900,she was acutely aware as well of the foreign powers' the Empress Dowager's treasury in 1900 and 1901.On August 29, potential for removing her.Therefore,especially after 1900,con- 1900,while she was in flight to Xi'an,Yuan forwarded to her sistency on such issues as institutional reform mattered much less 100,000 taels of Shandong tax revenues and 160,000 taels of reve- to her than the realities of political power;survival was her chief nues being sent to Beijing from Anhui and Jiangsu provinces which concern. Yuan intercepted and diverted to Xi'an.66 A few weeks later Yuan In order to continue her domination of the national power struc- sent 100,000 taels more from Shandong's coffers and 37,000 taels ture,the Empress Dowager wanted Yuan Shi-kai,with his con- collected from local gentry.67 Yuan's contributions were apparently siderable diplomatic skills and his army,near her in Zhili.Men like the largest made by any single official.6s A year later,the relatively Xi-liang,Cen Chun-xuan,Duan-fang,Zhou Fu,Liu Kun-yi,and Qu poor province of Shandong contributed the second largest share to Hong-ji were equally as energetic and reform minded.But they the Boxer indemnity fund for 1901,the payment of which helped lacked experience in foreign affairs and/or were unacceptable to the to reestablish the Empress Dowager's credibility with the foreign British and the Germans.Moreover,the Powers insisted that the powers.69 But more important than monetary contributions were next Zhili governor-general be Chinese.The only other Chinese Yuan's proven talents and influence as a diplomat and military official with strong foreign backing was Zhang Zhi-dong.However commander. Zhang did not command an army of comparable strength to Basically,like Yuan Shi-kai,the Empress Dowager was a realist,a Yuan's nor by statute could he serve in Zhili,the province of his pragmatic political tactician with an instinct for survival and in- birth.In the final analysis,it was a combination of Yuan's leader- trigue.As Sue Fawn has rightly pointed out,traditional political ship of the largest modern army in the empire,his popularity with histories of this period which emphasize the influence of personal the British,Germans,and their allies,and the support his candi- dacy received from Rong-lu's dominant faction at Court which 64.Xu Yi-shi,"Rong-lu yu Yuan Shi-kai,"pp.110-11. lifted Yuan above other possible candidates and made him the 65.Bays,Ckina Enlers the Toi Crlury,pp.105-06,110-12:Zhang Zhi-dong. obvious choice. iag0,jmr47:35.48:6. 66.YSYZY,juan 6:8. 67.Rongan dizi ji,jun 2:19b-20a;Shil,junn 470:5b. 70.Sue Fawn,"The Image of the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi,"in Cohen and 68.Liu Hou-sheng,p.113. Schrecker,pp.101-10. 69.Luo Yu-dong,"Guangxu chao bujiu caizheng zhi fangce,"p.246;Ch'en,Yman 71.See Chapter 6. Shh-kai(1972),p.51. 72.See,for example,Schrecker,"Reform Movement of 1898
36 POWER AND POLITICS IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA The appointment itself was made while the Empress Dowager was en route from Xi'an to Beijing.Arriving at Sishui in the moun- CHAPTER II tains of northern Henan province,midway between Luoyang and Kaifeng,on November 6,1901,she received a telegram from Li Hong-zhang stating that he was too seriously ill to perform his Stabilizing Zhili: duties and that he had already ordered his judicial commissioner, Yuan Shi-kai's First Years Zhou Fu,to take over for him.On the next day,November 7,the Empress Dowager and her entourage stopped for the night in the as Governor-General, small mountain village of Rongyang and received there a telegram from Zhou Fu reporting Li Hong-zhang's death.On that same day 1901-1903 (November 7)she decreed that Yuan Shi-kai replace Li as Zhili governor-general and commissioner of trade for the northern ports.73 73.Xu Yi-shi,"Rong-lu yu Yuan Shi-kai,"Yishi denhui (1945),pp.110-11;Wang Yan-wei and Wang Liang,jsan 10:46;Wu Yong,pp.176-79. uan Shi-kai faced three very serious problems when he be- came governor-general of Zhili and commissioner of trade for the northern ports in November,1901.Foreign troops occupied and governed the province's major city and provincial capital,Tianjin. Popular unrest was still widespread in the countryside.And third- ly,the provincial treasury he took over from Li Hong-zhang was bankrupt. To further complicate the picture,Yuan had to spend the first month in office working in conjunction with General Ma Yu-kun on the costly and time-consuming effort of escorting the Empress Dowager and her traveling Court through troubled Zhili from the Henan border to Beijing.Early in December,the Empress Dowager and her entourage crossed into Zhili at Cizhou.Yuan preceded her, arranging each step of the Court's journey north.1 At enor- mous expense,he prepared the 150-mile first leg by palanquin to Z乙hengding: Throughout its entire distance the road over which the Im- perial palanquins were borne had been covered into a smooth, 1.YSKZZ,pp.363-65;PTT,Dec.21 (supplement)and 28(supp.),1901
38 POWER AND POLITICS IN LATE IMPERIAL CHINA STABILIZING ZHILI:FIRST YEARS,1901-1903 9 Zhengding on January 3,1902,and boarded a special train (of the new Beijing-Hankou Railway,then completed only as far as Zheng- ding)for Baoding,the temporary provincial capital.In Baoding,a Chiten city still in shambles from the ravages of a year before by foreign troops,Yuan and General Ma entertained the Empress Dowager HURIA and her Court lavishly.It must have been with considerable relief that Yuan left with the Empress Dowager by train for Beijing on January 7.3 KOREA Seemingly untroubled by foreigners or peasant disturbances,the Empress Dowager was pleased by the comfort,pomp,and incident- free quality of her trip north through Zhili.In Beijing she awarded Yuan a yellow jacket and reconfirmed his right to ride horseback in SHANXI the Forbidden City as a Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent(Taizi shaobao).In doing so,she allegedly told Yuan:"The lives of myself and my son have been saved by you alone."4 However,for Yuan the real test lay ahead,with his political future dependent upon his SHANDONG ability as Zhili's chief administrator to solve the province's serious .Internotionol boundary security and financial problems. -Provincol bourdary Yuan Shi-kai succeeded spectacularly,performing what seemed a HENAN --Leosed terrilcry miracle at the time.He restored Chinese government in Tianjin Zhili Province circa 1908 and stability to the province.But in the process,Yuan became frustrated by the military and financial limits which he was en- even surface of shining clay,soft and noiseless under foot;not countering in Zhili to the use and expansion of his political power. only had every stone been removed,but as the procession Moreover,for the quick recovery of Tianjin,he paid a political price approached gangs of men were employed in brushing the which would color the rest of his career.Yuan made a pact with the surface with feather brooms.At intervals of about ten miles British "foreign devils." well appointed resthouses had been built,where all manner of food was prepared.The cost of this King's highway,quite Negotiating the Withdrawal of Foreign Troops useless,of course,for ordinary traffic of the country,was stated by the native contractor to amount roughly to fifty Yuan Shi-kai's most celebrated achievement during his initial Mexican dollars for every eight yards-say 1,000 English year in Zhili was negotiating the rapid evacuation by the powers of pounds a mile-the clay having to be carried in some places Tianjin and the Beijing-Shenyang Railway (Jing-Feng Tielu).Ironi- from a great distance.2 cally,the story behind it is indicative of the reasons today Yuan is It was General Ma Yu-kun's responsibility to screen the Empress condemned as a maiguo zei-a "country-selling bandit."Tianjin was Dowager and her Court from the human misery and unrest so the administrative and economic capital of Zhili;the Beijing to pervasive at the time in southern Zhili and,as we shall soon see,so Shenyang [Mukden]Railway,the only completed trunk line in near the exploding point.Units of General Ma's Yijun had been north China,was of enormous economic and military value.Yuan engaged in"bandit suppression"along the Henan-Zhili border since 3.Sheng Xuan-huai,Yuzhni cngao,jMeN 56:30-1,33;PTT,Jan.11,1902 (supp.); October.The Empress Dowager and her party finally arrived at Shil,jaH486:14,487:4. 4.YSKZZ,p.391;Shilu,jnan 490:14b;Yuan Ke-wen,comp.,Danshang sicheng 2.Timies (London),March 13,1902,p.8. (Taibei,1966),P.4