Court Life in China | Page 6

suffering country from a fate we
dare not own.
--"Yuan Fan," Translated by I. T. C.

II
THE EMPRESS DOWAGER--HER YEARS OF TRAINING
The year our little Miss Chao entered the palace was a memorable one
in the history of China. The Tai-ping rebellion, which had begun in the
south some three years earlier (1850), had established its capital at
Nanking, on the Yangtse River, and had sent its "long-haired" rebels
north on an expedition of conquest, the ultimate aim of which was
Peking. By the end of the year 1853 they had arrived within one
hundred miles of the capital, conquering everything before them, and
leaving devastation and destruction in their wake.
Their success had been extraordinary. Starting in the southwest with an
army of ten thousand men they had eighty thousand when they arrived
before the walls of Nanking. They were an undisciplined horde,
without commissariat, without drilled military leaders, but with such
reckless daring and bravery that the imperial troops were paralyzed
with fear and never dared to meet them in the open field. Thousands of
common thieves and robbers flocked to their standards with every new
conquest, impelled by no higher motive than that of pillage and gain.
Rumours became rife in every village and hamlet, and as they neared
the capital the wildest tales were told in every nook and corner of the
city, from the palace of the young Emperor in the Forbidden City to the
mat shed of the meanest beggar beneath the city wall.
My wife says: "I remember just after going to China, sitting one
evening on a kang, or brick bed, with Yin-ma, an old nurse, our only
light being a wick floating in a dish of oil. Yin-ma was about the age of

the Empress Dowager, but, unlike Her Majesty, her locks were
snow-white. When I entered the dimly lighted room she was sitting in
the midst of a group of women and girls--patients in the hospital--who
listened with bated breath as she told them of the horrors of the
Tai-ping rebellion.
" 'Why!' said the old nurse, 'all that the rebels had to do on their way to
Peking, was to cut out as many paper soldiers as they wanted, put them
in boxes, and breathe upon them when they met the imperial troops,
and they were transformed into such fierce warriors that no one was
able to withstand them. Then when the battle was over and they had
come off victors they only needed to breathe upon them again, when
they were changed into paper images and packed in their boxes,
requiring neither food nor clothing. Indeed the spirits of the rebels were
everywhere, and no matter who cut out paper troops they could change
them into real soldiers.'
" 'But, Yin-ma, you do not believe those superstitions, do you?'
" 'These are not superstitions, doctor, these are facts, which everybody
believed in those days, and it was not safe for a woman to be seen with
scissors and paper, lest her neighbours report that she was cutting out
troops for the rebels. The country was filled with all kinds of rumours,
and every one had to be very careful of all their conduct, and of
everything they said, lest they be arrested for sympathizing with the
enemy.'
" 'But, Yin-ma, did you ever see any of these paper images transformed
into soldiers?'
" 'No, I never did myself, but there was an old woman lived near our
place, who was said to be in sympathy with the rebels. One night my
father saw soldiers going into her house and when he had followed
them he could find nothing but paper images. You may not have
anything of this kind happen in America, but very many people saw
them in those terrible days of pillage and bloodshed here.' "
Such stories are common in all parts of China during every period of

rebellion, war, riot or disturbance of any kind. The people go about
with fear on their faces, and horror in their voices, telling each other in
undertones of what some one, somewhere, is said to have seen or heard.
Nor are these superstitions confined to the common people. Many of
the better classes believe them and are filled with fear.
As the Tai-ping rebellion broke out when Miss Chao was about fifteen
or sixteen years of age, she would hear these stories for two or three
years before she entered the palace. After she had been taken into the
Forbidden City she would continue to hear them, brought in by the
eunuchs and circulated not only among all the women of the palace, but
among their own associates as well, and here they would take on a
more mysterious and alarming aspect to these people shut