Court Life in China | Page 8

effect the rescue. The
Chinese were aghast, but they paid the money."
This incident does not stand alone, but is one of a number of similar
experiences which the Chinese government had in her relation with the
powers of Europe, and which have been reported by such writers as
Holcomb, Beresford, Gorst Colquhoun and others in trying to account
for the feelings the Chinese have towards us, all of which was
embodied in the years of training of our little concubine.
It should be remembered that many concubines are selected whom the
Emperor never takes the trouble to see. After being taken in, their
temper and disposition are carefully noted, their faithfulness in the
duties assigned them, their diligence in the performance of their tasks,
their kindness to their inferiors, their treatment of their equals, and their
politeness and obedience to their superiors, and upon all these things,
with many others, as we shall see, their promotion will finally depend.
When Miss Chao entered the palace, like most girls of her class or
station in life, she was uneducated. She may have studied the small
"Classic for Girls" in which she learned:
"You should rise from bed as early in the morning as the sun, Nor retire
at evening's closing till your work is wholly done."

Or, further, she may have been told,
When the wheel of life's at fifteen, Or when twenty years have passed,
As a girl with home and kindred these will surely be your last; While
expert in all employments that compose a woman's life, You should
study as a daughter all the duties of a wife."
Or she may have read the "Filial Piety Classic for Girls" in which she
learned the importance of the attitude she assumed towards those who
were in authority over her, but certain it is she was not educated.
She had, however, what was better than education--a disposition to
learn. And so when she had the good fortune,--or shall we say
misfortune,-- for as we have seen it is variously regarded by Chinese
parents to be taken into the palace, she found there educated eunuchs
who were set aside as teachers of the imperial harem. She was bright,
attractive, and I think I may add without fear of contradiction, very
ambitious, and this in no bad sense. She devoted herself to her studies
with such energy and diligence as not only to attract the attention of the
teacher, but to make herself a fair scholar, a good penman, and an
exceptional painter, and it was not long until, from among all the
concubines, she had gained the attention and won the admiration--and
shall we say affection--not only of the Empress, but of the Emperor
himself, and she was selected as the first concubine or kuei fei, and
from that time until the death of the Empress the two women were the
staunchest of friends.
The new favourite had been a healthy and vigorous girl, with plenty of
outdoor life in childhood, and it was not long before she became the
happy mother of Hsien Feng's only son. She was thenceforward known
as the Empress-mother. In a short time she was raised to the position of
wife, and given the title of Western Empress, as the other was known as
the Eastern, from which time the two women were equal in rank, and,
in the eyes of the world, equal in power.
The first Empress was a pampered daughter of wealth, neither vigorous
of body nor strong of mind, caring nothing for political power if only
she might have ease and comfort, and there is nothing that exhibits the

Empress Dowager's real greatness more convincingly than the fact that
she was able to live for thirty years the more fortunate mother of her
country's ruler, and, in power, the mistress of her superior, without
arousing the latter's envy, jealousy, anger, or enmity. Let any woman
who reads this imagine, if she can, herself placed in the position of
either of these ladies without being inclined to despise the less
fortunate, ease-loving Empress if she be the dowager, or hating the
more powerful dowager if she be the Empress. Such a state of affairs as
these two women lived in for more than a quarter of a century is almost
if not entirely unique in history.
Perhaps the incident which made most impression upon her was one
which happened in 1860 and is recorded in history as the Arrow War.
A few years before a number of Chinese, who owned a boat called the
Arrow, had it registered in Hongkong and hence were allowed to sail
under the British flag. There is no question I think but that these
Chinese were committing acts of piracy, and as this was one of the
causes of