Yung Lu, who had returned from Tientsin especially for the interview, handed me a blank piece of paper as an evaluation. I imagined him losing interest the instant Kang began evading Li Hung-chang's questions.
I trusted Li Hung-chang, Yung Lu, Tutor Weng and Ambassador Chang; however, I felt that they, like me, belonged to the old society and were inescapably conservative in outlook. We weren't happy with the customs, but we were used to them. Emperor Guang-hsu's reform plan would naturally create difficulties and even suffering for the likes of us. My son had reason to remind me to expect the pain that goes along with the birth of a new system.
I had great hope in Guang-hsu, if not yet great faith. By choosing to stand by him, I believed I would be offering China a chance to survive.
30
I have never been so inspired!' The Emperor handed me a transcript of his long discussion with Kang Yu-wei. 'He and I went to work almost immediately on my plans. Mother, please don't object, but I granted him the privilege of contacting me directly. The censors and guards cannot be allowed to stand in my way!'
Before I had a chance to respond, Guang-hsu handed me a list of high-ranking ministers he had just fired. The first was his mentor of more than fourteen years, the sixty-eight-year-old Tutor Weng, the head of the Grand Council, the Board of Revenue, the Board of Foreign Affairs and the Hanlin Academy.
My son and Kang Yu-wei didn't seem to care that without Tutor Weng's approval they would have never met in the first place.
The grand tutor had been a father figure to my son. He had been his closest confidant throughout his adolescence, and since then they had weathered many storms together. Guang-hsu had even sided with Weng in his conflict with Li Hung-chang over the prosecution of the war with Japan, when the evidence so clearly weighed against him. Not until now, however, did Guang-hsu admit to me that Weng was responsible for having aggravated his nervous condition ever since he was a child. I had always wondered whether Guang-hsu's sense of self-doubt was the result of his tutor's constant correction.
I asked the Emperor the reasons he would give for firing Weng.
'His mismanagement of revenues and his faulty judgment in the war with Japan,' Guang-hsu replied. 'More than anything, I want to put a stop to his interfering with my decisions.'
The proud old Confucian bureaucrat would be heartbroken. It was near his birthday, and the disgrace would shatter him. I sent Tutor Weng a silk fan as a gift that might suggest this was simply a cooling-off period.
I wasn't entirely unhappy about his dismissal. Weng had been the Emperor's money man, and I was glad he was made to bear some responsibility. I had been accused of pocketing funds intended for the navy while Tutor Weng was praised for his virtues, and his firing would help to exonerate me. It was true that he had never embezzled a penny, but the people he hired, most of them his former students and close friends, stole from the treasury shamelessly.
Tutor Weng begged for a private audience, and I refused. Li Lien-ying told me that the old man was on his knees outside my gate all day. I let the tutor know that I had to respect the Emperor's decision-'I am not in a position to help'-and that I would invite him for dinner after he calmed down. I would tell him that it was time to leave his student alone. I would quote his own famous line: 'Tea, opera and poetry should not be missed-longevity depends on one's mental cultivation.'
I sat down to review the transcript of Guang-hsu's conversation with Kang Yu-wei. In my opinion, Kang's perspective was not much different from Li Hung-chang's. I didn't want to conclude that it was the young Emperor's willing ear that made Kang Yu-wei seem larger than life, but the transcript failed to show otherwise:
KANG YU-WEI: China is like a ruined palace, with every door broken and every window gone. It's useless to repair the doorsills and window trim and patch the walls. The palace has been hit by hurricanes, and more are coming. The only way to save the structure is to tear it down completely and build a new one.
GUANG-HSU: It's all controlled by the conservatives.
KANG YU-WEI: But Your Majesty is committed to reform.
GUANG-HSU: Yes, yes I am!
KANG YU-WEI: The buffoons at court are too incompetent to carry out Your Majesty's plans-assuming they agree to follow you.
GUANG-HSU: You make perfect sense!
KANG YU-WEI: The throne should learn from the Western establishment. The first thing to do is create a system of law.
This went on for page after page. I wondered what made my son think of Kang Yu-wei as an original mind. Prince Kung had long preached the idea of civil law. Li Hung-chang had introduced a system of laws not only in the northern states, where he had been viceroy, but also in the south. These laws met with great resistance, but their implementation had been going forward. The treaties we had signed with the Western powers were based on the understanding of such laws.
When Li Hung-chang traveled to the Western countries, his purpose was to 'check out the real tigers'-get firsthand information on how their governments worked. So it seemed to me that what Kang Yu-wei preached to the Emperor was already being accomplished by Li. Another example was education reform. Li Hung-chang supported the funding of Western-style colleges. With Robert Hart's help, we hired foreign missionary scholars to head our schools in the capital. At Li's suggestion, I encouraged the Manchus to send their sons and daughters to study abroad. Li believed that it would make his work easier if our own elite understood what he was trying to achieve. For me, if Manchus were to maintain their position as rulers, wider knowledge and perspective were as important as power itself.
Li Hung-chang made sense when he said, 'China's hope will arrive when her citizens feel proud to have their children take up such professions as engineering. We need railroads, mines and factories.' China had been transforming itself, but slowly and painstakingly. Young people were enthusiastic about seeing the world, even if they could not yet afford to go abroad. Before Li was shot in Japan, the royal families had made arrangements for their sons to go and live abroad. Afterward, some families changed their minds, fearing for their children's safety. Li himself continued to travel overseas, in part to show that such fears were unfounded, but no one followed his lead.
Kang Yu-wei emphasized the importance of establishing schools in the countryside. But for years the government had been offering tax credits to provincial governors and earmarking funds to help set up schools. Our efforts had to contend with superstitious peasants who protested when rundown temples were converted into classrooms. One group of angry peasants set fire to school buildings and the home of the governor of Jiangsu province.
Kang Yu-wei challenged the texts traditionally used in Chinese schools. He refused to see that in the states where Li Hung-chang governed, industrial techniques were already being taught in schools. Talented Chinese writers learned to become translators and journalists. In the newspapers Li controlled-the
I kept reading Kang's conversation with the Emperor in the hope of finding something surprising and valuable.
Kang Yu-wei, I came to realize, was not suggesting reform but a revolution. He asked the Emperor to set up an overarching 'Bureau of Institutions,' which Kang would head. 'It will handle reforms in all fields of China.' When the Emperor hesitated, Kang tried to convince him that 'determination conquers all.'
Guang-hsu was uneasy and emboldened at the same time. In Kang Yu-wei my son felt an absolute force, which he had long desired for himself. A force that would stop at nothing, acknowledge no boundary. A force that could transform a weak man into a powerful one.
I began to understand why Guang-hsu thought of Kang Yu-wei as his 'like-mind.' I didn't know Kang personally, but I had raised Guang-hsu. I was responsible for cultivating his ambition. I was aware that my boy had been tortured by self-doubt, which had stayed with him like a lingering disease.
