Kang Youwei Empress Dowager Cixi Liang Qichao
For some time after the signing of ‘Treaty of Shimonoseki’, Guangxu Emperor sank into a period of deep depression. Just as he said, ‘People’s faith in the government has all gone with the ceding of Taiwan, how can I still be qualified to be the sovereign of China?’ Guangxu Emperor wanted change in the old system, however, he didn’t know where to start and how to get rid of the fetters set by Empress Dowager Cixi, his omnipresent aunt. While he was pondering, a flow of reformist thoughts among civilian intellectuals gave him inspiration.
Kang Youwei was the leading Confucian intellectual in this movement of thoughts. He not only wrote a treatise in which he declared that the real Confucian philosophy is in favor of reforms, but also established the ‘Society for the Study of National Strengthening’. Kang was a scholar in favor of the rights of civilians and constitutional monarchy. He believed that China could only be saved if she learnt from the model of Japan. After knowing of the ceding of Taiwan, he waged the ‘Gongche Shangshu Movement’ among intellectuals, presenting long letters of ways to reform China to Guangxu Emperor. However, the first four letters had been blocked by the conservative bureaucrats and only the fifth letter managed to reach the Emperor, again, through the efforts of Weng Tonghe.
The role of Weng in the reform movement was tricky. Indeed, Weng had always been the leader of the Emperor’s party, however, he might not necessarily be a man with reformist thoughts. In fact, some evidence shows that there was a considerable tension and disagreement between Weng and Kang Youwei. But despite this, Weng still recommended Kang Youwei to Guangxu for the interest of the Emperor’s party. Unfortunately, Weng was dismissed by Cixi the next day after the formal promulgation of ‘Hundred Days’ Reform’, with a clear intent to weaken the power of Guangxu Emperor.
Guangxu Emperor read and studies carefully the documents presented by Kang Youwei, notably ‘The Reform of Japan’ and ‘The Partition of Poland’. Apparently, Kang would like the Emperor to know that if China would not reform like Japan did, she would be partitioned by colonial powers like Poland by Prussia and Russia. Guangxu Emperor was profoundly affected and his determination to reform strengthened.
It is not correct to say, however, that Guangxu Emperor promulgated the edict to reform China on June 11th, 1898 merely out of youth impulse. Guangxu had always been an open-minded man, indeed, Philip. W. Sergeant, author of ‘The Great Empress Dowager of China’ described Guangxu as an iconoclast and perhaps the most pro-foreign among his Manchu and Han peers. This description is partially right and partially wrong. Guangxu was pro-foreign in aspects such as that he encouraged missionaries to preach in China not long after his formal reign, addressing that there is no difference between various kinds of teachings on love and charity, whether it be Confucian or Christian. (He himself studies the Bible for some time). However, the wrong side of this statement was that Guangxu did all these merely for the well-being of the Chinese people. He considered being open-minded and doing good to his people as coherent rather than contradictory notions.
Kang also recommended his disciples to Guangxu to assist him with the reform, most notably Liang Qichao, another important thinker in late Qing Dynasty. Though Liang was never given any important post in the reform, he was another spiritual leader. Compared to Kang Youwei, Liang was more radical in deeds and more conservative in thoughts, overall, more realistic and less contradictory. (Kang Youwei was a self-contradicting figure to a great extent. His thoughts went so radical as to advocate ‘quasi-communism’ in his work ‘Da Tong Shu’ while he became a typical conservative after the republican revolution in 1911, still supporting the Manchu monarch and participated in a failed restoration in 1917). Guangxu also appointed four ministers (the most important being Tan Sitong) to help him implement the reform measures, ignoring the opposition in the Grand Council appointed by the Empress Dowager.
The measures to reform include: to encourage commerce and industry; to establish a new school which would later become Beijing University and to add western sciences into the content of education; to abolish the eight-legged style writing in the imperial exams; to grant the freedom of speech in general (publication of books, newspapers, and that anyone can report discontent directly to court); to sponsor talented students to study abroad; to reform the military system thoroughly and to strengthen naval power.
Chinese high school textbooks nowadays widely argue that the reform measures promulgated by Guangxu Emperor only touched superficial issues such as education and economics, but did not mention political reforms at all, which indicated that Guangxu Emperor himself was still a representative of the ruling class and was not willing to share power with the people. However, this is a great misconception. In fact, Guangxu believed in constitutional monarchy to the extent that he was willing to give in his own power (just like the British monarchy) if necessary. (This corresponds to his words I quoted on the cover page) However, at a time when even those ‘superficial measures’ were being frustrated by the conservatives, how could he manage to establish constitutional monarchy in China so soon?
The reform immediately confronted opposition: Some Manchu officials who held vacant posts had been dismissed and deprived of privileges; traditional Confucian scholars were furious when hearing of the abolition of the ‘eight-legged’ literary style; conservatives in general were irritated by the fact that even the ‘meanest’ peasants could now directly report to the Emperor.
During the first meeting between Kang Youwei and Guangxu Emperor, knowing that the Emperor held no significant power, Kang suggested only to add new ministers but not to remove the strong conservatives. However, as the reform progressed, Guangxu Emperor found himself in a dilemma: that if he didn’t dismiss some ministers belonging to the Empress Dowager’s party, the reform would come to a standstill. Thus, the Emperor determinately deprived six conservative ministers of their posts against the will of Empress Dowager Cixi, of which action would prove to be disastrous soon after.
Cixi’s motivation in suppressing the reform is highly controversial. In another word, what sparked the coup d’état on the 21st of September, 1898, 103 days after the promulgation of this abortive reform? Indeed, from a general perspective, the reform was due to fail due to the weakness of the Chinese new civil class and the powerful orthodox opposition. The Manchu minister whose interest had been undermined by the reform all turned to the Empress Dowager for help, expecting that she would come to the political front stage again and handle the situation. Cixi didn’t oppose Guangxu Emperor’s reform at first, however, she grew more and more vigilant later on, partly because of the appeals from conservative Manchu ministers. She felt that her authority would be threatened by the sweeping reform initiated by her ‘unfilial’ and ‘heretic’ nephew. When Guangxu Emperor met with Ito Hirobumi, the Japanese Prime Minister at that time, hoping to seek advice of reform from him, Cixi became very suspicious of her nephew’s real intentions and supervised his whole conversation with Hirobumi.
But what is the exact event behind the coup d’état? The most popular version is that the reformists, desperate to push on the reform, were aching to get rid of Cixi and her conservative peers. So that they plotted a coup d’état to surround the Summer Palace (Cixi’s residence) with an army and hold Cixi under house arrest. Tan Sitong was sent for the task of negotiating with General Yuan Shikai, hoping that Yuan could remove his army for this mission. But Yuan the sly opportunist betrayed the reformists and the Emperor by leaking this confidential information to Ronglu, the most important figure in the Empress Dowager’s party and rumored to be Cixi’s lover. Ronglu, in turn, immediately transferred this plot to Cixi.
Such is the standard version, but the historical fact could be far more complicated. Firstly, Guangxu Emperor denied that he ever participated in such a plot. Shall we suppose that he was lying? Probably no. As we know of his character, that he had always been honest and upright (even Ronglu didn’t deny this fact, declaring that, ‘The Empress Dowager’s character is calm but insidious and unfathomable; while the Emperor’s character is impulsive but straightforward and simple.’) Plus, Guangxu Emperor had always been a filial son as he believed in Confucian teachings, so that it’s hard to imagine that he would do anything so unfilial to Cixi intentionally. In recent years, scholars speculate that Kang Youwei might take a great responsibility for the failure of reform as it was certainly him who initiated such a plot. More repulsively, Kang might have counterfeited an order from the Emperor to carry on his plot to imprison and even assassinate Cixi. Indeed, Kang’s role in the Hundred Days’ Reform had been exaggerated later by himself; the fact is that later in the reform, Guangxu Emperor became skeptical about his ability to ease the tensions between the reformists and the conservatives (As Kang was so pretentious that he despised all the opposition) that he sent Kang out of Beijing, with the intention of not having him cause trouble. But Kang regarded this as a sign of the Emperor’s giving up the reform, so that he hastily planned everything about the plot to sack the Summer Palace and imprison Cixi, thinking that he could save the reform but actually ruining it.
An even more controversial point of view has been raised in recent years, that Kang was planning a federation of China with Japan, Britain and the USA with the British missionary Timothy Richard, under which federation China would share fiscal, military and diplomatic powers with these three countries in order to push forward the reform. This might seem extremely unrealistic but we could infer that such a dreamer like Kang Youwei could have done this. Kang suggested the idea of a world united under one country in his utopian ‘Da Tong Shu’ , so that he might had tried to put it into practice. Later, the British and the US authorities claimed that they knew nothing of the federation while the Japanese might be aware of it, with an intent to relinquish the sovereign power of China. Though there is not much source to support this, we can infer this from the events that happened later: Japan increased its power in China after the Hundred Days’ Reform and soon substituted the status of Britain to become the top foreign power in China (which decades later proved to be distatrous). If seeing from this light, the repression of the Gapsin coup in Korea by Queen Min could somehow be compared to the repression of the Hundred Days’ Reform by Empress Dowager Cixi, making the coup d’état by Cixi seem less evil.
However, Guangxu’s intent to ally with the Japanese was no other than learning from their reform experience. It might also be possible that he wanted to ally the Japanese to resist Russian’s influence as well as the pro-Russian party in China led by Li Hongzhang and backed by Cixi. While the Japanese government backed this special Sino-Japanese relationship mainly to increase their own interest in China.
Whatever happened that prompted Cixi’s reactions was not important, for after the coup d’état on 21st of September, the reformists that supported Guangxu Emperor were captured and executed, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao fled to Japan, and Guangxu Emperor himself held under house arrest by Cixi in Yintai, an island within Zhongnanhai, declaring to the outside that the Emperor was seriously ill. At first, Cixi didn’t want to abolish all reform measures, however, some ministers suggested that if they were not all abolished, the legitimacy of repressing the reform would be lacking. Cixi agreed and all reform achievements except for the new school in Beijing were eliminated. Then, Cixi began to stage a series of reactionary measures against the previous reform.
Kang Youwei was the leading Confucian intellectual in this movement of thoughts. He not only wrote a treatise in which he declared that the real Confucian philosophy is in favor of reforms, but also established the ‘Society for the Study of National Strengthening’. Kang was a scholar in favor of the rights of civilians and constitutional monarchy. He believed that China could only be saved if she learnt from the model of Japan. After knowing of the ceding of Taiwan, he waged the ‘Gongche Shangshu Movement’ among intellectuals, presenting long letters of ways to reform China to Guangxu Emperor. However, the first four letters had been blocked by the conservative bureaucrats and only the fifth letter managed to reach the Emperor, again, through the efforts of Weng Tonghe.
The role of Weng in the reform movement was tricky. Indeed, Weng had always been the leader of the Emperor’s party, however, he might not necessarily be a man with reformist thoughts. In fact, some evidence shows that there was a considerable tension and disagreement between Weng and Kang Youwei. But despite this, Weng still recommended Kang Youwei to Guangxu for the interest of the Emperor’s party. Unfortunately, Weng was dismissed by Cixi the next day after the formal promulgation of ‘Hundred Days’ Reform’, with a clear intent to weaken the power of Guangxu Emperor.
Guangxu Emperor read and studies carefully the documents presented by Kang Youwei, notably ‘The Reform of Japan’ and ‘The Partition of Poland’. Apparently, Kang would like the Emperor to know that if China would not reform like Japan did, she would be partitioned by colonial powers like Poland by Prussia and Russia. Guangxu Emperor was profoundly affected and his determination to reform strengthened.
It is not correct to say, however, that Guangxu Emperor promulgated the edict to reform China on June 11th, 1898 merely out of youth impulse. Guangxu had always been an open-minded man, indeed, Philip. W. Sergeant, author of ‘The Great Empress Dowager of China’ described Guangxu as an iconoclast and perhaps the most pro-foreign among his Manchu and Han peers. This description is partially right and partially wrong. Guangxu was pro-foreign in aspects such as that he encouraged missionaries to preach in China not long after his formal reign, addressing that there is no difference between various kinds of teachings on love and charity, whether it be Confucian or Christian. (He himself studies the Bible for some time). However, the wrong side of this statement was that Guangxu did all these merely for the well-being of the Chinese people. He considered being open-minded and doing good to his people as coherent rather than contradictory notions.
Kang also recommended his disciples to Guangxu to assist him with the reform, most notably Liang Qichao, another important thinker in late Qing Dynasty. Though Liang was never given any important post in the reform, he was another spiritual leader. Compared to Kang Youwei, Liang was more radical in deeds and more conservative in thoughts, overall, more realistic and less contradictory. (Kang Youwei was a self-contradicting figure to a great extent. His thoughts went so radical as to advocate ‘quasi-communism’ in his work ‘Da Tong Shu’ while he became a typical conservative after the republican revolution in 1911, still supporting the Manchu monarch and participated in a failed restoration in 1917). Guangxu also appointed four ministers (the most important being Tan Sitong) to help him implement the reform measures, ignoring the opposition in the Grand Council appointed by the Empress Dowager.
The measures to reform include: to encourage commerce and industry; to establish a new school which would later become Beijing University and to add western sciences into the content of education; to abolish the eight-legged style writing in the imperial exams; to grant the freedom of speech in general (publication of books, newspapers, and that anyone can report discontent directly to court); to sponsor talented students to study abroad; to reform the military system thoroughly and to strengthen naval power.
Chinese high school textbooks nowadays widely argue that the reform measures promulgated by Guangxu Emperor only touched superficial issues such as education and economics, but did not mention political reforms at all, which indicated that Guangxu Emperor himself was still a representative of the ruling class and was not willing to share power with the people. However, this is a great misconception. In fact, Guangxu believed in constitutional monarchy to the extent that he was willing to give in his own power (just like the British monarchy) if necessary. (This corresponds to his words I quoted on the cover page) However, at a time when even those ‘superficial measures’ were being frustrated by the conservatives, how could he manage to establish constitutional monarchy in China so soon?
The reform immediately confronted opposition: Some Manchu officials who held vacant posts had been dismissed and deprived of privileges; traditional Confucian scholars were furious when hearing of the abolition of the ‘eight-legged’ literary style; conservatives in general were irritated by the fact that even the ‘meanest’ peasants could now directly report to the Emperor.
During the first meeting between Kang Youwei and Guangxu Emperor, knowing that the Emperor held no significant power, Kang suggested only to add new ministers but not to remove the strong conservatives. However, as the reform progressed, Guangxu Emperor found himself in a dilemma: that if he didn’t dismiss some ministers belonging to the Empress Dowager’s party, the reform would come to a standstill. Thus, the Emperor determinately deprived six conservative ministers of their posts against the will of Empress Dowager Cixi, of which action would prove to be disastrous soon after.
Cixi’s motivation in suppressing the reform is highly controversial. In another word, what sparked the coup d’état on the 21st of September, 1898, 103 days after the promulgation of this abortive reform? Indeed, from a general perspective, the reform was due to fail due to the weakness of the Chinese new civil class and the powerful orthodox opposition. The Manchu minister whose interest had been undermined by the reform all turned to the Empress Dowager for help, expecting that she would come to the political front stage again and handle the situation. Cixi didn’t oppose Guangxu Emperor’s reform at first, however, she grew more and more vigilant later on, partly because of the appeals from conservative Manchu ministers. She felt that her authority would be threatened by the sweeping reform initiated by her ‘unfilial’ and ‘heretic’ nephew. When Guangxu Emperor met with Ito Hirobumi, the Japanese Prime Minister at that time, hoping to seek advice of reform from him, Cixi became very suspicious of her nephew’s real intentions and supervised his whole conversation with Hirobumi.
But what is the exact event behind the coup d’état? The most popular version is that the reformists, desperate to push on the reform, were aching to get rid of Cixi and her conservative peers. So that they plotted a coup d’état to surround the Summer Palace (Cixi’s residence) with an army and hold Cixi under house arrest. Tan Sitong was sent for the task of negotiating with General Yuan Shikai, hoping that Yuan could remove his army for this mission. But Yuan the sly opportunist betrayed the reformists and the Emperor by leaking this confidential information to Ronglu, the most important figure in the Empress Dowager’s party and rumored to be Cixi’s lover. Ronglu, in turn, immediately transferred this plot to Cixi.
Such is the standard version, but the historical fact could be far more complicated. Firstly, Guangxu Emperor denied that he ever participated in such a plot. Shall we suppose that he was lying? Probably no. As we know of his character, that he had always been honest and upright (even Ronglu didn’t deny this fact, declaring that, ‘The Empress Dowager’s character is calm but insidious and unfathomable; while the Emperor’s character is impulsive but straightforward and simple.’) Plus, Guangxu Emperor had always been a filial son as he believed in Confucian teachings, so that it’s hard to imagine that he would do anything so unfilial to Cixi intentionally. In recent years, scholars speculate that Kang Youwei might take a great responsibility for the failure of reform as it was certainly him who initiated such a plot. More repulsively, Kang might have counterfeited an order from the Emperor to carry on his plot to imprison and even assassinate Cixi. Indeed, Kang’s role in the Hundred Days’ Reform had been exaggerated later by himself; the fact is that later in the reform, Guangxu Emperor became skeptical about his ability to ease the tensions between the reformists and the conservatives (As Kang was so pretentious that he despised all the opposition) that he sent Kang out of Beijing, with the intention of not having him cause trouble. But Kang regarded this as a sign of the Emperor’s giving up the reform, so that he hastily planned everything about the plot to sack the Summer Palace and imprison Cixi, thinking that he could save the reform but actually ruining it.
An even more controversial point of view has been raised in recent years, that Kang was planning a federation of China with Japan, Britain and the USA with the British missionary Timothy Richard, under which federation China would share fiscal, military and diplomatic powers with these three countries in order to push forward the reform. This might seem extremely unrealistic but we could infer that such a dreamer like Kang Youwei could have done this. Kang suggested the idea of a world united under one country in his utopian ‘Da Tong Shu’ , so that he might had tried to put it into practice. Later, the British and the US authorities claimed that they knew nothing of the federation while the Japanese might be aware of it, with an intent to relinquish the sovereign power of China. Though there is not much source to support this, we can infer this from the events that happened later: Japan increased its power in China after the Hundred Days’ Reform and soon substituted the status of Britain to become the top foreign power in China (which decades later proved to be distatrous). If seeing from this light, the repression of the Gapsin coup in Korea by Queen Min could somehow be compared to the repression of the Hundred Days’ Reform by Empress Dowager Cixi, making the coup d’état by Cixi seem less evil.
However, Guangxu’s intent to ally with the Japanese was no other than learning from their reform experience. It might also be possible that he wanted to ally the Japanese to resist Russian’s influence as well as the pro-Russian party in China led by Li Hongzhang and backed by Cixi. While the Japanese government backed this special Sino-Japanese relationship mainly to increase their own interest in China.
Whatever happened that prompted Cixi’s reactions was not important, for after the coup d’état on 21st of September, the reformists that supported Guangxu Emperor were captured and executed, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao fled to Japan, and Guangxu Emperor himself held under house arrest by Cixi in Yintai, an island within Zhongnanhai, declaring to the outside that the Emperor was seriously ill. At first, Cixi didn’t want to abolish all reform measures, however, some ministers suggested that if they were not all abolished, the legitimacy of repressing the reform would be lacking. Cixi agreed and all reform achievements except for the new school in Beijing were eliminated. Then, Cixi began to stage a series of reactionary measures against the previous reform.
Bravo! Wow you did go ahead to quote Sergeant :)
回复删除He seemed to have borrowed from sources such as Issac Headland, as he himself never had a chance to meet Guangxu.
How do you like Headland's account of Guangxu and his era?
Thanks, June. This is also an exerpt from my essay...
回复删除I'll visit your blog after finishing my essay, sending it to you first.For I am really in muddy waters recently, with the new semester and our team project, which seems like a mission impossible now because of the lack of cohesion of our team.
See you then!