The Tragic Life of Guangxu Emperor----Part V.'I can't die before HIM!'

Guangxu Emperor's Mausoleum, Hebei Province

Empress Dowager Cixi managed to return to Beijing in 1901 after truce negotiated by Li
Hongzhang came into effect. However, the cost for peace was enormous: not only did China have to pay the largest amount of money ever since the first Anglo-Chinese War, but much of her sovereignty had to be ceded to foreigners, while giving more prerogatives to the Concessions, even foreign troops were allowed to settle in Beijing. The Qing government became bankrupt after the invasion of the Eight Allies, since then, more and more people began to sympathize with the revolutionists, seeking to overthrow the Qing Dynasty altogether.

However, foreign powers couldn’t agree on the issue of who would be the sovereign of China. As Cixi had always been allying with the Russians, Russia and France supported the Emrpess Dowager. Japan and Britain, however, supported Guangxu Emperor. Finally, they made a compromise on this issue: Guangxu Emperor would always retain his nominal title of the Emperor of China, while Empress Dowager Cixi still held on to power.

Cixi seemed to become another person for the last 7 years of her life. She became open-minded to the world and friendly to foreigners. She would accept modern technologies such as photography and took dozens of photos of herself; she would receive wives of foreign ambassadors in the Summer Palace and exchange gifts with them; she would ask the American portrait painter Ms. Carl to paint an oil painting of herself; she would invite Princess Derling and Rongling, daughters of Chinese ambassador to France to come to live in the Summer Palace for two years to be her sectaries during meetings with foreigners. Above all, the conservative Cixi became a reformist by issuing reform measures even more radical than those once promulgated by her nephew! For instance, she ordered to abolish the imperial exams altogether in 1905 and she even set a calendar that China would become a constitutional monarchy after 12 years. We cannot tell the reason for Cixi to reform was out of her sincere will or was merely seeking a way to preserve her power, however, even if it were the former reason, it was already too late as the Chinese people no longer had faith in the Qing government since 1900.

As for Guangxu Emperor, the only thing he could do was to wait: wait for his aunt to die before him so that he could once again resume power. The only thing Cixi wouldn’t change was that she would always remain hostile to Guangxu, seeking means to abuse him mentally and physically from time to time. She still kept him in Yingtai and often searched through all his personal belongings, making sure that he was not plotting against her. Guangxu Emperor, on the other hand, remained modest and humble in the presence of his aunt. However, he was also preparing to regain power for a future day, no matter how vague this day seemed to be. He eagerly continued his study in the English language and ordered new political and economical books to read, most of which concerning constitutionalism. In his spare time, he would mend clocks, watches and music boxes as a way to release himself from all the miseries of life.

Guangxu Emperor was delighted when Princess Der ling and Princess Rongling became guests of the imperial family. In order to show her generosity and kindness in front of foreigners, Cixi allowed Guangxu to move to live in the Summer Palace during the stay of the two daughters of the ambassador. She would also permit Princess Der ling to teach Guangxu Emperor English. During private conversations, Guangxu would also confide some of his wishes, both concerning himself and China, to Princess Der ling. He expressed that he wished to continue with his reform and make China a more powerful country (while expressing the doubt if Cixi had the real intent to reform), however, in the meantime, he sighed that ‘ real reform in China could be still a long time from now’ . Guangxu also didn’t hide his personal wishes that he wished to Princess Derling (1885~1944) in a European outfit travel around Europe and the US, to see how the people of western countries work and live. Princess Der ling, on the other hand, showed great empathy towards the Emperor and in her 1936 novel ‘Son of Heaven’, she would praise Guangxu even with some exaggerations. Some have even speculated that the princess might had fallen in love with the Emperor, but that his constraint status impeded a love affaire. (Der ling would later

marry an American dentist).

After Princess Der ling left (some say expelled by Cixi) the Summer Palace, little was known about Guangxu Emperor until 1908, when he departed his miserable life on the 14th of November at the 37th year of his life, merely 20 hours before the death of his life-long rival Cixi. Guangxu had always been sick (he carried all kinds of sickness too numerous to be named here, in one word, though beautiful and elegant, he was frail in constitution) while Cixi had remained relatively healthy, making people believe for a long time that such an event was merely a coincidence. Referring to Qing official records, experts were once made to believe that Guangxu Emperor died of tuberculosis (for he always had chronic tuberculosis).

However, there have always been unofficial records saying that Guangxu Emperor had been poisoned to death. The 2008 scientific report justified this, but the assassinator remains unknown. The three main suspects are Empress Dowager Cixi; Yuan Shikai, who once betrayed Guangxu and the court eunuch Li Lianying, who used to abuse the Emperor during his youth.
The first suspect that can be excluded is Li Lianying, as it is a cliché to think that Li had always been bad to Guangxu Emperor. In fact, after 1900, Li had begun to reconcile with Guangxu by concrete actions, preparing in case that he outlived Cixi and resumed power. While Yuan Shikai and Empress Dowager Cixi both had motives enough to commit the regicide.

Some people suggest that it could not have been Cixi for she had not enough motives to murder her nephew: She was dying, how would she care for things after her death? Again, we have to consider her motives not for practical reasons like what Yuan Shikai had (he would very much likely be executed once Guangxu resumed power), but from her personality and beliefs (or rather superstitions).

The reason why I insist that Cixi was the main sponsor behind this plot was simple enough: The fact that Guangxu was poisoned to death had been covered for a whole century, why? Because the imperial medical records had been cheating historians, indicating that Guangxu’s health was worsening day by day before his death.

However, we can infer that those records were fake ones forged by imperial physicians if Guangxu really died of arsenic poisoning. Who had the power to order physicians to cheat? Only the Empress Dowager did. Guangxu Emperor could not have been murdered by anyone else without a trace in history book other than his ruthless aunt. Additionally, Cixi lived very close to Guangxu at that time in order to supervise his every action (both died in Zhongnanhai), she knew the best of his daily life, no one else could reach the Emperor without her consent.
It is said that, about ten days before Guangxu Emperor’s death, when Cixi fell very sick, someone who had been hostile to Guangxu told Cixi, ‘The Emperor seems happy after hearing that Your Majesty is sick.’ Cixi yelled ferociously, ‘I can’t die before HIM!’ After hearing the news of the Emperor’s death, she was reported to have ‘looked relieved rather than saddened’.
Of course, the truth could be that some conservative ministers and nobles (maybe including Yuan Shikai) together persuaded Cixi to eliminate Guangxu before she herself died, a situation much similar to the ones before Cixi’s repression of Hundred Days’ Reform and her determination of deposing Guangxu Emperor.

But from Cixi’s inner heart and mind, what could have led a woman to murder the son of her own sister, a boy meant to substitute her lost son and she had seen grown up to be a man? The easy answer, of course, is a personality distorted and corrupted by the desire for power.
But there are several points worth to be looked into. Firstly, Cixi once said, ‘Whoever makes me unhappy for a day will spend the rest of his life in misery.’ And she had also always considered herself as being the most powerful woman above all men, which could be reflected through the sculpture on her tombstone, on which a phoenix is above two dragons. Her nephew Guangxu once Death of Guangxu and Cixi on cover of ‘Le Petit Journal’ disobeyed her will and disgraced her in front of almost the whole civilized world (in her point of view), plus the fact the she considered herself ever superior than Guangxu, so that she would consider the idea of Guangxu Emperor resuming his power and doing whatever he wished after her death as outrageous. She would make every effort to prevent such a thing from happening, even it would mean murdering the son of her own sister.

Another factor that contributed to Cixi’s motive could be even more absurd seeing from a modern point of view: Guangxu Emperor failed to produce an heir. Cixi’s own son Tongzhi Emperor, whom she loved and almost spoiled, died young before producing an heir. In accordance with Confucian values, one of the most indecent things is to die without a male heir. Guangxu, who was Tongzhi’s cousin, could not succeed Tongzhi but rather succeeded the Emperor before him (Cixi’s husband). When Guangxu was made Emperor at 3 years old, an edict was promulgated by Cixi that the first male heir to throne produced by Guangxu Emperor should be the ‘son’ and successor of Tongzhi. So it could be perceived from the beginning that there would be no Emperor to succeed Guangxu and his aunt Cixi didn’t care about it. I believe that Guangxu Emperor would end up being better if only he were able to produce a male heir to succeed Cixi’s son. Slowly discovering that her nephew seemed to be sterile, Cixi became more and more resentful towards him. Indeed, one of the excuses that she held Guangxu under house arrest was that he could not produce an heir.