Guangxu Emperor

This is a Manchu name; the clan name is Aisin Gioro.

Guangxu Emperor 光緒帝
11th Qing Emperor of China
Reign	25 February 1875 – 14 November 1908
Predecessor	Tongzhi Emperor
Successor	Xuantong Emperor
Regents	Empress Dowager Ci'an (1875–1881) Empress Dowager Cixi (1875–1908)
Born	(1871-08-14)14 August 1871 Prince Chun Mansion, Beijing, China
Died	14 November 1908(1908-11-14) (aged 37) Zhongnanhai, Beijing, China
Burial	Chongling Mausoleum, Western Qing Tombs, China
Empress	Empress Xiaodingjing
Full name Chinese: Aixin Jueluo Zaitian (愛新覺羅·載湉) Manchu: Aisin-Gioro hala i Dzai Tiyan Mongolian: Altan-Gioro Sai Tiyan Era name and dates Chinese: Guangxu (光緒) Manchu: Badarangga Doro Mongolian: Badaragultu Törü: 6 February 1875 – 21 January 1909 Posthumous name Emperor Tongtian Chongyun Dazhong Zhizheng Jingwen Weiwu Renxiao Ruizhi Duanjian Kuanqin Jing (同天崇運大中至正經文緯武仁孝睿智端儉寬勤景皇帝) Temple name Qing Dezong (清德宗)
House	Aisin Gioro
Father	Yixuan
Mother	Wanzhen

The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian (Manchu: Dzai-Tiyan), was the eleventh emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, under Empress Dowager Cixi's influence, only from 1889 to 1898. He initiated the Hundred Days' Reform, but was abruptly stopped when the empress dowager launched a coup in 1898, after which he was put under house arrest until his death. His regnal name, "Guangxu", means "glorious succession".

Accession to the throne and upbringing

Zaitian was the second son of Yixuan (Prince Chun), and his primary spouse Yehenara Wanzhen, a younger sister of Empress Dowager Cixi. On 12 January 1875, Zaitian's cousin, the Tongzhi Emperor, died without a son to succeed him. Empress Dowager Ci'an suggested choosing one of Prince Gong's sons to be the next emperor, but was overruled by her co-regent, Empress Dowager Cixi. Instead, breaking the imperial convention that a new emperor must always be of a generation after that of the previous emperor, Cixi nominated Zaitian (her nephew) and the imperial clan agreed with her choice.

Zaitian was named heir and successor to his uncle, the Xianfeng Emperor, rather than his cousin and predecessor, the Tongzhi Emperor, so as to maintain the father-son succession law. He ascended to the throne at the age of four and adopted "Guangxu" as his regnal name, therefore he is known as the "Guangxu Emperor". He was adopted by Empress Dowager Cixi as a son. For her part, she remained as regent under the title "Holy Mother, Empress Dowager" (聖母皇太后) while her co-regent Empress Dowager Ci'an was called "Mother Empress, Empress Dowager" (母后皇太后).

Beginning in 1876, the Guangxu Emperor was taught by Weng Tonghe, who had also been involved in the disastrous upbringing of the Tongzhi Emperor, yet, somehow managed to be exonerated of all possible charges.^[1] Weng instilled in the Guangxu Emperor a notion of having to emphasise his filial piety towards the Empress Dowagers Cixi and Ci'an.^[2]

In 1881, when the Guangxu Emperor was nine, Empress Dowager Ci'an died unexpectedly, leaving Empress Dowager Cixi as sole regent for the boy. However, Cixi had been suffering from chronic ill health. During this time, the imperial eunuchs often abused their influence over the boy emperor.^[3] The Guangxu Emperor reportedly also had begun to hold some audiences on his own as an act of necessity.^[4]

Taking over the reins of power

In 1887, the Guangxu Emperor would have been old enough to begin to rule in his own right. However, the previous year, several courtiers, including Prince Chun and Weng Tonghe, had petitioned Empress Dowager Cixi to postpone her retirement from the regency. Despite Cixi's agreement to remain as regent, by 1886 the Guangxu Emperor had begun to write comments on memorials to the throne.^[4] In the spring of 1887, he partook in his first field-plowing ceremony, and by the end of the year, had begun to rule under the supervision of Cixi.

Eventually, in February 1889, in preparation for Empress Dowager Cixi's retirement, the Guangxu Emperor was married. Much to the emperor's dislike, Cixi had selected her own niece, Jingfen, to be the empress, who would be known as Empress Longyu. She also selected a pair of sisters, who became Consorts Jin and Zhen, to be the emperor's concubines. The following week, with the Guangxu Emperor married, Cixi retired from the regency.

Years in power

Even after the Guangxu Emperor began formal rule, Empress Dowager Cixi continued to influence his decisions and actions, despite residing several months of the year at the Summer Palace. Weng Tonghe reportedly observed that while the emperor attended to day-to-day state affairs, in more difficult cases, the emperor and the Grand Council sought the advice of the empress dowager.^[5] In fact, the emperor would quite often journey out to the Summer Palace to pay his respects to his aunt and to discuss state affairs with her.

In March 1891, the Guangxu Emperor received the foreign ministers to China at an audience in the "Pavilion of Purple Light", in what is now part of Zhongnanhai, repeating something that had also been done by the Tongzhi Emperor in 1873. That summer, under pressure from the foreign legations and in response to revolts in the Yangtze River valley that were targeting Christian missionaries, the emperor issued an edict ordering Christians to be placed under state protection.^[6]

The Guangxu Emperor, while growing up, apparently had been instilled with the notion of the importance of frugality. In this vein, in 1892, he tried to implement a series of draconian measures in order to reduce expenditures by the Imperial Household Department, which proved to be one of his few administrative successes.^[7] However, it was only a partial victory, as he had to approve higher expenditures than he would have liked, in order to meet the needs of Empress Dowager Cixi.

1894 saw the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War. During the war, even though the Guangxu Emperor was nominally the sovereign ruler of the Qing Empire, the officials often ignored his presence and instead sent their memorials to Empress Dowager Cixi for her reading and approval.^[8] Eventually, two sets of Grand Council memoranda were created, one for the emperor and the other for the empress dowager – a practice which would continue until it was rendered unnecessary by the events in the fall of 1898. Following the Qing Empire's defeat and forced agreement to the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Guangxu Emperor reportedly expressed his wish to abdicate.^[9] The emperor and the Qing government faced further humiliation in late 1897 when the German Empire used the murders of two priests in Shandong Province as an excuse to occupy Jiaozhou Bay, prompting a "scramble for concessions" by other foreign powers.

Following the war and the scramble for concessions, the Guangxu Emperor came to believe that by learning from constitutional monarchies like Japan, the Qing Empire would become more politically and economically powerful. In June 1898, the emperor began the Hundred Days' Reform, aimed at a series of sweeping political, legal and social changes. For a brief time, after the supposed retirement of Empress Dowager Cixi, the Guangxu Emperor issued edicts for a massive number of far-reaching modernising reforms with the help of more progressive officials such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao.

Changes ranged from infrastructure to industry and the civil examination system. The Guangxu Emperor issued decrees allowing the establishment of a modern university in Beijing, the construction of the Lu-Han railway, and a system of budgets similar to that of the west. The initial goal was to make China a modern constitutional empire, but still within the traditional framework, as with Japan's Meiji Restoration.

The reforms, however, were not only too sudden for a China still under significant neo-Confucian influence and other elements of traditional culture, but also came into conflict with Empress Dowager Cixi, who held real power. Many officials, deemed useless and dismissed by the Guangxu Emperor, were begging the empress dowager for help. Although Cixi did nothing to stop the Hundred Days' Reform from taking place, she knew the only way to secure her power base was to stage a military coup. The Guangxu Emperor became aware of such a plan, so he asked Kang Youwei and his reformist allies to plan his rescue. They decided to use the help of Yuan Shikai, who had a modernised army, albeit only 6,000-strong. Empress Dowager Cixi relied on Ronglu's army in Tianjin.

Ronglu also had an ally, general Dong Fuxiang, who commanded 10,000 Muslim Kansu Braves, including generals such as Ma Fuxiang and Ma Fulu. They were stationed in the Beijing metropolitan area. Armed with more advanced firearms and artillery, they sided with the conservative faction under Empress Dowager Cixi during the coup.^[10][11]

However, the day before the staged coup was supposed to take place, Yuan Shikai revealed all the plans to Ronglu, exposing the Guangxu Emperor's plans. This gained Yuan Shikai the trust of Empress Dowager Cixi, as well as the status of the lifetime enemy of the Guangxu Emperor, and later, the emperor's younger half-brother, Zaifeng. Following the exposure of the plot, the emperor and empress dowager met, and the emperor retreated to Yingtai Pavilion, a palace on a lake that is now part of the Zhongnanhai Compound.

Lei Chia-sheng (雷家聖), a Taiwanese history professor, proposes an alternative view that the Guangxu Emperor might have been led into a trap by the reformists led by Kang Youwei, who in his turn was in Lei's opinion tricked by British missionary Timothy Richard and former Japanese prime minister Itō Hirobumi into agreeing to appoint Itō as one of many foreign advisors.^[12] British ambassador Claude MacDonald said that the reformists had actually "much injured" the modernisation of China.^[13] According to Lei, Empress Dowager Cixi learned of the plot, and decided to put an end to it and save China from coming under foreign control.^[14]

Under house arrest after 1898

Portrait of the Guangxu Emperor in his study

The Guangxu Emperor's duties after 1898 became rather limited, compared to his position prior. While some have argued that the emperor was effectively removed from power as emperor (despite keeping the title) and was placed under house arrest, he actually did retain some status.

The emperor was kept informed of the state affairs, reading them with Empress Dowager Cixi prior to audiences,^[15] and was also present at audiences, sitting on a stool to Cixi’s left hand, while Cixi occupied the main throne. He discharged his ceremonial duties, such as offering sacrifices during ceremonies, but would never rule alone again.

In 1898, shortly after the collapse of the Hundred Days Reform, the Guangxu Emperor's health began to decline, prompting Empress Dowager Cixi to name Pujun, a son of the emperor's cousin, the reactionary Prince Duan, as heir presumptive. However, Pujun and his father were removed from their positions after the Boxer Rebellion. He was examined by a physician at the French Legation and diagnosed with chronic nephritis; he was also discovered to be impotent.

On 14 August 1900, the Guangxu Emperor, along with Empress Dowager Cixi, Empress Longyu and some other court officials, fled from Beijing as the forces of the Eight-Nation Alliance marched on the capital to relieve the legations which had been besieged during the Boxer Rebellion.

Returning to the capital in January 1902, after the withdrawal of the foreign powers, the Guangxu Emperor was known to have spent the next few years working in his isolated palace with watches and clocks, which had been a childhood fascination, some say in an effort to pass the time until the death of Empress Dowager Cixi. He also read widely and spent time learning English from Cixi's western-educated lady-in-waiting, Yu Deling.

Death

The Guangxu Emperor died on 14 November 1908, a day before the death of Empress Dowager Cixi. He died relatively young, at the age of 37. For a long time there were several theories about the emperor's death, none of which was completely accepted by historians. Most were inclined to believe that the Guangxu Emperor was poisoned by Empress Dowager Cixi (herself very ill) because she was afraid of the emperor reversing her policies after her death, and wanted to prevent this from happening. The fact that the two died a day apart is significant. Another theory is that the Guangxu Emperor was poisoned by Yuan Shikai, who knew that if the emperor were to ever come to power again, Yuan would likely be executed for treason.^[16] There were no reliable sources to prove who murdered the Guangxu Emperor. In 1911, Cixi's former eunuch Li Lianying was murdered, possibly by Yuan, implying that they had conspired in the emperor's murder. This theory was offered by Puyi in his biography, who claimed he heard it from an old eunuch.

The medical records kept by the Guangxu Emperor's physician show the emperor suffered from "spells of violent stomachache", and that his face turned blue, typical symptoms of arsenic poisoning.^[16] To dispel persistent rumours that the emperor had been poisoned, the Qing imperial court produced documents and doctors' records suggesting that the Guangxu Emperor died from natural causes, but these did not successfully divert suspicion.

On 4 November 2008, forensic tests revealed that the level of arsenic in the Guangxu Emperor's remains was 2,000 times higher than that of ordinary people. Scientists concluded that the poison could only be administered in a high dose one time. China Daily quoted a historian, Dai Yi, who speculated that Empress Dowager Cixi might have known of her imminent death and might worry that the Guangxu Emperor would continue his reforms after her death.^[17]

The Guangxu Emperor was succeeded by Empress Dowager Cixi's choice as heir, his nephew Puyi, who took the regnal name "Xuantong". The Guangxu Emperor's consort, who became Empress Dowager Longyu, signed the abdication decree as regent in 1912, ending two thousand years of imperial rule in China. Empress Dowager Longyu died childless in 1913.

After the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, the Republic of China funded the construction of the Guangxu Emperor's mausoleum in the Western Qing Tombs. The tomb was robbed during the Chinese Civil War and the underground palace (burial chamber) is now open to the public.

Historical views

In 1912, Sun Yat-sen praised the Guangxu Emperor for his educational reform package that allowed China to learn more about Western culture. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, historian Fan Wenlan (范文瀾) called the Guangxu Emperor "a Manchu noble who could accept Western ideas". Some historians believe that the Guangxu Emperor was the first Chinese leader to implement policies of modernisation and capitalism. The Guangxu Emperor also epitomised the lowest imperial power had come since the beginning of the Qing dynasty, and was the only Qing emperor to have been put under house arrest during his own reign.

Personal life

The wedding of the Guangxu Emperor and Empress Longyu

The Guangxu Emperor had one empress and two consorts in total. His principal spouse was Empress Xiaodingjing, while his two consorts were Consort Jin and Consort Zhen.

The emperor was forced by Empress Dowager Cixi to marry her niece (his cousin) Jingfen, who was two years his senior. Jingfen's father, Guixiang (Cixi's younger brother), and Cixi selected her to be the Guangxu Emperor's Empress Consort in order to strengthen the power of her own family. After the marriage, Jingfen was made empress and was granted the honorific title of "Longyu", meaning "auspicious and prosperous" (Chinese: 隆裕) after the death of her husband. However, the Guangxu Emperor detested Empress Longyu, and spent most of his time with his favourite concubine, Consort Zhen (Chinese: 珍妃), (better known in English as the "Pearl Consort"). Rumours say that in 1900, Consort Zhen was drowned by being thrown into a well on Cixi's order after Consort Zhen begged Empress Dowager Cixi to let the Guangxu Emperor stay in Beijing for negotiations with the foreign powers. That incident happened before Empress Dowager Cixi was preparing to leave the Forbidden City due to the occupation of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900. Like his predecessor, the Tongzhi Emperor, the Guangxu Emperor died without issue. After the Guangxu Emperor's death in 1908, Empress Dowager Longyu reigned in cooperation with Zaifeng (Prince Chun).

Honours ^[18]

• Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle (Kingdom of Prussia, 28 June 1898).
• Knight Grand Cross [in brilliants] of the Order of the Red Eagle (Kingdom of Prussia, 28 June 1898).
• Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I (Kingdom of Hawaii, 1882).
• Knight Grand Collar of the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum (Empire of Japan).

Ancestry

In popular culture

In the short alternative history story Foreign Devils by Walter Jon Williams, China is invaded by the same fearsome Martians depicted in H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. China suffers terrible death and destruction and the Emperor is forced to flee, but by the time the Martians have died off from earthly diseases, they have destroyed most of the Guangxu Emperor's human enemies. The Emperor then proceeds to eliminate his remaining foes, assume unquestioned power in China and enact his reforms, fully and unhinderd. He uses the disarray of European powers, which were also invaded by the Martians, to shake off colonial tutelage and make China a world power 50 years earlier than it did in our history. In this changed history, China remains a monarchy and there is no Chinese Republic. (The story appears in the collection War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches.)

References

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