Reflections on Emperor Guangxu's Residence in the Summer Palace

'Yulan Tang', Guangxu's residence





.....surrounded by walls built by Cixi



'Mother and Son' stones, put in front of the hall by Cixi to warn Guangxu


Viewed at the gate of 'Yulan Tang'


I had the chance to pay a visit to Emperor Guangxu's residence, more precisely his prison in the Summer Palace several days ago. It's a traditional four-section compound with three rooms around one yard, a residence called 'YuLan Tang', namely 'The Hall of the Jade Wave'. It was first used as his residence when he attended the levee of Empress Dowager Cixi, after the coup in 1898, this very place became his prison in summer months.

Yulan Tang is faced to Kunming Lake at the front gate and thus has a panorama of the beautiful imperial garden, that even mountains in the distant Western suburbs can be seen from that very place. Nonetheless, in order to warn Emperor Guangxu that he was no more than a prisoner, Cixi ordered walls to be built around the yard that all view from afar would be blocked.

The yard was so crowded with tourists that we had to stand upon our toes to take a look at the Emperor's bedchamber through the window pane, it is said that all the furniture have been arranged in the way it used to be when Guangxu lived here. I felt a nameless pain in my heart as my eyes wandered from the bed on which he slept to the clock he had once repaired.

What struck me the most were the relics of the thick grey walls. Before that day, I had always been somewhat skeptical towards the mentality of Cixi, that she might not have been that evil and distorted after all. However, ever since that day when I saw all those cold walls myself, I immediately realized that she hated her nephew to death that it was no surprise that she finally poisoned him.

The trees surrounding the house are mostly more than one hundred years old, after one day's exhausting walk in the garden under the blazing summer sun, I stood beneath an old tree and rubbed its wrinkled trunk with my palm, imagining that not much more than one century ago, a handsome yet melancholic young man had stroked on the very same spot of the tree, looking towards the very same pagoda upon the mountain, only to bend down his head again, lamenting his fate...

A Visit to Emperor Guangxu's Mausoleum on His Birthday

The 14th of August was the 138th anniversary of Emperor Guangxu's birth according to solar calendar while tomorrow, the 18th of August, is his birthday according to lunar calendar this year (which should have been the 28th of June).

I paid a visit to His Majesty's mausoleum: the Chong Mausoleum on the 14th of August last Friday. Chong Mausoleum is the smallest among all four 'Western Mausoleums' , the place where four Emperors of Qing Dynasty had been buried: Yongzheng, Jiaqing, Daoguang and Guangxu respectively. Although Emperor Guangxu died in 1908, the construction of his mausoleum was not totally finished until 1915, which was highly unusual in Chinese history: most Emperors built their grand mausoleums while they were alive to prepare for their permanent resting place in foreseeable future. Such was not the case for Guangxu: he believed that he would not die any time soon and therefore never thought of building a mausoleum for himself while he was alive. As a result, when Emperor Guangxu and his aunt Empress Dowager Cixi died one day after another, while the coffin of the latter was immediately transported to the luxurious mausoleum she had prepared for herself, that of the Emperor had to be kept temporarily in the Forbidden City as the construction of his mausoleum had just begun.

After Emperor Guangxu's wife, the then Empress Dowager Longyu signed the declaration of abdication of throne for Emperor Puyi, China declared itself to be a newborn republic. The new government was exceptionally benign to the imperial family: not only were the imperial members allowed to continue to live in the Forbidden City, the government was also willing to take over the construction of Chong Mausoleum. Therefore, only after the underground mausoleum was completed in 1913 had Emperor Guangxu being carried to his final resting place. Empress Dowager Longyu died that year and was buried there alongside her husband.

In 1938, one year after the Japanese invasion, Chong Mausoleum was forced open by an anonymous armed bandit and the treasures in the coffins were plundered. When archeologists discovered the underground mausoleum in 1982, they found that Emperor Guangxu's legs had already being pulled out while the lid upon Longyu's coffin overturned. Guangxu's remains had kept its relatively complete skeleton structure while that of Longyu had turned into mud. The bandit that plundered the tomb were indeed despicable, however, paradoxically, it was thanks to them that Guangxu's mysterious death could finally be resolved as archeologists were able to take his hair and bones for examination.

I stayed for quite a long time in the underground mausoleum, kneeling down in front of the coffin in which lies the man I have been admiring for more than a decade. Before I left, I put down the printed paper presented by several fans of the Emperor(including me, it was June who originally came up with this idea) on a small table in front of his coffin, hoping that it would be a consolation for this tragic son of heaven.

To my great delight, I came across another fan of Emperor Guangxu that day. She is a girl one year older than me and has also been loving the Emperor for one decade. We exchanged our mutual commitment to the Emperor and planned to visit the Summer Palace together the next day for the sake of Guangxu~