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November 14, 1908. Evening. Zhongnanhai, Beijing.
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On an island ringed by water,
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in a hall called Hanyuan, an emperor
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who had been held there for ten
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years died. He was thirty-eight.
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The next afternoon, the woman who had
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kept him there died too.
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The two deaths came less than a
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day apart. An emperor who reigned thirty-four
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years but held real power for none
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of his last ten, and a dowager
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empress who had held it for him
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for forty-seven years — dead in the same
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city, less than a day apart.
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That fact alone left a question that
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is still unsettled. This episode is about
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how a court goes about replacing its
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top man — and why, in the end,
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it could not.
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Start with where he lived.
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Inside Zhongnanhai there is a stretch of
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water called the South Lake, and in
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the middle of it an island called
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Yingtai. In the Ming it was called
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Nantai; it was renamed Yingtai under the
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Shunzhi emperor. Its main hall is Hanyuan
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Hall — and that is where Guangxu spent
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his last ten years.
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One thing needs to be clear:
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this was not imprisonment in a legal
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sense. He was still the emperor.
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The rites — sacrifice to Heaven, to the
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ancestors, the promulgation of the calendar
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were still nominally his.
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In court documents he was still "the Sovereign. "
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But everything that actually governed ran the
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other way: memorials went to the empress
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dowager first; appointments and dismissals were decided
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by her; money moved through her hands.
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What the emperor saw were mostly papers
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already decided, waiting for his formality.
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How did he pass his days?
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Yingtai is surrounded by water, with a
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single bridge in and out.
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When the lake froze in winter,
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eunuchs crossed on the ice to deliver
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things. He read and wrote in Hanyuan
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Hall, and each morning put down a
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few lines of exercise — the habit Qing
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princes were raised with.
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The medical records kept by the Imperial
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Hospital list his complaints: insomnia, ringing in
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the ears, back pain, poor appetite,
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and a long-standing condition that never healed.
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The prescriptions changed, one after another,
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for ten years. People at the time
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had a phrase for it: "an emperor
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in name, a bird in a cage. "
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He had a second residence: Yulantang,
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inside the Summer Palace.
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The Summer Palace stands in Haidian.
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It began as the Garden of Clear
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Ripples under Qianlong, was burned by the
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Anglo-French forces in 1860, and was rebuilt after 1888
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nominally with naval funds — and renamed Yiheyuan.
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In her later years Cixi spent more
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days here than in the palace:
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she lived in Leshou Hall and heard
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business in Renshou Hall.
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Guangxu came here too.
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After the 1898 coup, he was kept
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in Yulantang. It is recorded that the
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rear gate of Yulantang leading outward was
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bricked up, and the passage to the
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adjacent Yiyun Lodge was cut off
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which doors he entered and left by
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were all arranged for him.
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The Summer Palace is open to visitors
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today, and that bricked-up doorway is still
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there. It is the first thing in
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this episode you can still go and
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see with your own eyes.
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An emperor kept under guard — why not
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simply depose him and put in someone
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else? The court actually tried.
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The date was early 1900.
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On the 24th day of the 12th
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month, Guangxu 25 — January 24, 1900 — Cixi issued an
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edict in the emperor's name making Pu
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Jun, son of Prince Duan (Zaiyi),
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the " First Prince" (da age). "
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" First Prince" is how an imperial son
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is addressed. A boy of fifteen was
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brought into the palace and placed beside
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the emperor to study.
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It is also recorded that the court
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drafted a new reign name, " Baoqing, "
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and intended to retire Guangxu as emperor
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emeritus — they had even settled on the
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new era name. But establishing an heir
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was too large a thing to do
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quietly. The Zongli Yamen later had to
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explain to the foreign legations in Beijing
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that the court had no intention of
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deposing anyone. A replacement planned for a
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full year, with a new reign name
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already drafted, never went through.
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The key is hidden in the title.
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What they installed was not a "crown
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prince. " It was a " First Prince. "
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The man handling it was Grand Secretary
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Ronglu. He put it this way:
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Pu Jun was "heir to the reigning
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sovereign, and also adopted to continue the
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line of Muzong. " The boy was nominally
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made a son of the reigning emperor,
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while also carrying the succession of the
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late Tongzhi emperor. Why the detour?
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Because changing the title changes the nature
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of the act. Installing a "crown prince"
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concedes that the present emperor is to
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step aside. Installing a " First Prince" to
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continue Tongzhi's line says instead: this supplies
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a descendant to a previous emperor
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and Guangxu's title stays intact.
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Cixi wanted him replaced, but did not
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want to carry the two words "deposed
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emperor. " This was a problem she had
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to work around.
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On January 27, 1900 — three days after the edict
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a group in Shanghai stood up.
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The leader was Jing Yuanshan, director of
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the Shanghai Telegraph Office.
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He joined with 1,231 others in a
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public telegram asking the emperor to "attend
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to government despite illness, and abandon all
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thought of abdication. " The list of signatories
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included Zhang Binglin, Cai Yuanpei, Huang Yanpei
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and Tang Caichang. This was not a
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few men sending up a memorial.
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It was a public telegram — the fastest,
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most public channel available then, the equivalent
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of an open letter.
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A single telegram sent from Shanghai could
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be reprinted by newspapers across the country.
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One Shanghai official, with more than a
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thousand names behind him, publicly opposing the
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court's intention to change emperors.
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And then? Then nothing.
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After the telegram, Cixi ordered Jing Yuanshan's
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arrest. He left Shanghai and eventually made
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his way to Macao.
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The replacement itself did not end there
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either. Zaiyi and his son Pu Jun
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were later named by the foreign powers
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as among the instigators of the 1900
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crisis and exiled to Xinjiang.
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The title of " First Prince" was not
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formally abolished until 1901. The 1,231 names did
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not change any decision made that day.
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In this episode, they are the only
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group who spoke publicly on behalf of
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the man who was being held.
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That same year something larger happened.
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In the summer of 1900 the Boxers
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entered Beijing. They burned churches and killed
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converts, tore up railway track and cut
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telegraph poles. The court's position changed almost
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daily: first suppress them, then support them.
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On June 21 the court declared war on
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the foreign powers in the emperor's name.
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On August 14 the Eight-Nation Alliance fought its
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way into Beijing. Before dawn the next
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day, Cixi left the palace through the
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Gate of Divine Prowess, taking Guangxu,
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the empress and a few eunuchs and
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maids. She took off her Manchu robes,
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put on a blue cotton jacket,
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and dressed her hair in a Han
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style — disguised as an old woman from
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the countryside. She was gone more than
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a year. They went west: Juyong Pass,
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Xuanhua, Datong, Taiyuan, and finally Xi'an.
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Over seventy days, more than two thousand
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li. There were no imperial kitchens on
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the road; they ate coarse grain.
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At Huailai in Hebei a local person
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brought out a bowl of mung-bean porridge,
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and someone in the party wrote the
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scene down. In September 1901 the treaty was
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signed. In January 1902 she returned to Beijing.
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The emperor went out with her.
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The emperor came back with her.
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On the day she left the palace,
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she did not take Consort Zhen.
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Zhen was of the Tatara clan,
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of the Manchu Bordered Red Banner,
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born in 1876. In 1889, at thirteen, she entered
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the palace together with her elder sister,
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and was later given the rank of
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Consort Zhen. She could write and paint,
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and was bolder than most consorts
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when the palace said a camera would
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steal a person's soul, she insisted on
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being photographed. In 1894 she was demoted for
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selling offices. A man named Lu Boyang
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had bought his way into the post
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of Shanghai daotai; another, Yu Ming,
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who could barely read, obtained a salt
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administration post in Sichuan.
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When the case was investigated, it reached
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Consort Zhen and the eunuchs around her.
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After 1898 she was confined in the Beisansuo,
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north of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity.
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The door was locked from the outside
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and food was passed in through a
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window opening. Two years later, on that
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morning, Cixi was about to leave.
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It is recorded that she had Consort
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Zhen brought out, and that in the
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end Zhen was pushed into the well
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behind the Palace of Tranquil Longevity.
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She was twenty-four. There are two accounts.
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One says Zhen asked that the emperor
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be left in Beijing to handle the
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situation, which angered Cixi.
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The other says Cixi simply gave the
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order, on the ground that she could
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not be taken along.
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Both are recorded; this episode does not
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choose between them. After reaching Xi'an,
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Cixi issued an edict saying Zhen had
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drowned herself "to preserve her honor, "
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and posthumously raised her to Noble Consort
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Zhen. In 1913 her coffin was moved to
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the consorts' tombs beside the Chongling mausoleum.
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The well visitors walk past in the
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Palace Museum today is called the Well
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of Consort Zhen.
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To talk about Cixi's forty-seven years,
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one man cannot be passed over:
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the eunuch Li Lianying.
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He was born in 1848 in Dacheng county,
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Hejian prefecture, in Zhili, into a poor
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family; his father dealt in hides.
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He was castrated at six, first entered
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the household of Prince Zheng, and came
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into the Forbidden City in 1856.
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His birth name was Li Yingtai;
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in the palace he was called Li
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Jinxi; the name " Lianying" was given him
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by Cixi. His real rise came in 1869.
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That year the chief eunuch beside Cixi,
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An Dehai, left the palace on imperial
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business and traveled south.
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In Shandong he was arrested by Governor
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Ding Baozhen and executed on the spot.
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With An Dehai gone, Li Lianying took
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his place. From then on he stayed
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at Cixi's side for nearly forty years,
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until she died.
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Cixi did one thing that broke the
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rules: she gave Li Lianying the rank
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and peacock feather of a second-grade official.
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00:13:02,220 --> 00:13:04,550
Qing eunuchs had a ceiling on rank,
266
00:13:04,910 --> 00:13:07,380
and after the Yongzheng emperor an iron
267
00:13:07,390 --> 00:13:11,070
tablet expressly forbade eunuchs from involving themselves
268
00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:15,100
in government. Giving a eunuch second-grade insignia
269
00:13:15,110 --> 00:13:17,760
broke the precedent. What was he like
270
00:13:17,780 --> 00:13:21,000
day to day? The contemporary record runs
271
00:13:21,020 --> 00:13:23,800
in two directions. On one side:
272
00:13:24,260 --> 00:13:27,190
cautious and careful, often speaking up for
273
00:13:27,200 --> 00:13:29,950
palace servants, and sometimes putting in a
274
00:13:29,970 --> 00:13:32,010
good word for the neglected emperor
275
00:13:32,390 --> 00:13:34,740
in the palace he was called "respectful
276
00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:37,280
and prudent. " It is said that even
277
00:13:37,290 --> 00:13:40,350
after being granted the second-grade insignia he
278
00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:41,790
did not dare wear it.
279
00:13:42,260 --> 00:13:44,380
On the other side, he took money.
280
00:13:44,850 --> 00:13:47,910
Officials competed to cultivate him, and a
281
00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:50,140
good number of houses stood in his
282
00:13:50,160 --> 00:13:53,630
name. Two things are remembered more clearly.
283
00:13:54,110 --> 00:13:56,600
One comes from the flight in 1900:
284
00:13:57,230 --> 00:13:58,980
a member of the party recalled that
285
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:01,140
the night was cold and bedding short,
286
00:14:01,510 --> 00:14:03,570
and Li Lianying took his own bedding
287
00:14:03,580 --> 00:14:05,230
to the emperor and sat up all
288
00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:06,950
night wrapped in his clothes.
289
00:14:07,390 --> 00:14:10,000
The other is from the hairdressing room.
290
00:14:10,440 --> 00:14:12,580
The empress dowager did not want to
291
00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:14,480
see a single fallen hair.
292
00:14:14,970 --> 00:14:17,290
According to a late-Qing palace maid,
293
00:14:17,660 --> 00:14:20,320
when Li Lianying combed her hair he
294
00:14:20,330 --> 00:14:22,830
slipped the fallen strands into his sleeve
295
00:14:23,010 --> 00:14:24,440
so she would not see them.
296
00:14:24,910 --> 00:14:26,830
That a eunuch could reach such a
297
00:14:26,850 --> 00:14:29,440
position is itself a mirror of that
298
00:14:29,450 --> 00:14:33,670
court. After Cixi died in 1908 he observed
299
00:14:33,690 --> 00:14:35,640
a hundred days of mourning and left
300
00:14:35,660 --> 00:14:38,230
the palace. He died of illness in
301
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:41,700
March 1911 and was buried at Enjizhuang,
302
00:14:42,380 --> 00:14:45,190
the eunuchs' cemetery outside Fucheng Gate in
303
00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:48,100
Beijing. There is also a widely told
304
00:14:48,110 --> 00:14:50,890
story about his grave: that it was
305
00:14:50,910 --> 00:14:54,140
opened in 1966 and only a skull was
306
00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:56,520
found. But those who took part in
307
00:14:56,540 --> 00:14:58,850
the clearing recall that the grave already
308
00:14:58,860 --> 00:15:00,860
had a robbers' hole and the remains
309
00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:03,790
were decayed and incomplete — the matter is
310
00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:04,890
still unsettled.
311
00:15:05,990 --> 00:15:08,220
Now, how a day of Cixi's went.
312
00:15:08,740 --> 00:15:11,580
She rose early — before daylight — washed,
313
00:15:11,590 --> 00:15:14,180
had her hair dressed, then went to
314
00:15:14,190 --> 00:15:15,850
court and received people.
315
00:15:16,320 --> 00:15:18,060
There were two main meals a day:
316
00:15:18,820 --> 00:15:20,970
the morning meal around six or seven,
317
00:15:21,600 --> 00:15:23,470
the evening meal around midday.
318
00:15:23,940 --> 00:15:25,710
A meal laid out a hundred or
319
00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:29,130
more dishes, on several tables pushed together,
320
00:15:29,460 --> 00:15:31,660
with eunuchs announcing each dish.
321
00:15:32,130 --> 00:15:34,240
The rule was "no more than three
322
00:15:34,250 --> 00:15:37,850
spoonfuls of any dish" — three mouthfuls and
323
00:15:37,870 --> 00:15:39,020
it was taken away.
324
00:15:39,500 --> 00:15:41,850
The real problem came after: most of
325
00:15:41,870 --> 00:15:43,690
that food was there to be looked
326
00:15:43,710 --> 00:15:46,530
at. The afternoon was her time for
327
00:15:46,550 --> 00:15:48,980
amusement. She loved opera.
328
00:15:49,460 --> 00:15:51,400
In the palace there was the Changyin
329
00:15:51,410 --> 00:15:54,310
Pavilion; in the Summer Palace, the Dehe
330
00:15:54,320 --> 00:15:57,120
Garden theatre — both three-storey stages.
331
00:15:57,590 --> 00:16:00,090
Leading actors such as Tan Xinpei were
332
00:16:00,100 --> 00:16:03,130
called in to perform; a good performance
333
00:16:03,150 --> 00:16:06,400
brought reward, a mistake brought punishment.
334
00:16:06,820 --> 00:16:09,240
She also loved being photographed.
335
00:16:09,720 --> 00:16:12,620
In 1903 the two daughters of Yu Geng
336
00:16:12,630 --> 00:16:15,720
entered the palace, and their brother Xunling
337
00:16:15,740 --> 00:16:17,620
became the palace photographer.
338
00:16:18,090 --> 00:16:20,650
Among the photographs that survive is one
339
00:16:20,660 --> 00:16:23,500
of her dressed as Guanyin, with eunuchs
340
00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:25,650
beside her as guardian figures.
341
00:16:26,070 --> 00:16:28,600
She kept dogs — the Summer Palace had
342
00:16:28,620 --> 00:16:32,190
a dedicated kennel. She smoked water tobacco
343
00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:33,600
from a silver pipe.
344
00:16:34,020 --> 00:16:36,490
She kept long nails in nail guards,
345
00:16:36,540 --> 00:16:39,600
tended daily. These days were lived on
346
00:16:39,620 --> 00:16:41,400
top of a court that was coming
347
00:16:41,410 --> 00:16:42,060
apart.
348
00:16:43,210 --> 00:16:45,240
To replace a ruler, to hold on
349
00:16:45,250 --> 00:16:46,960
to power, to keep an army,
350
00:16:46,990 --> 00:16:49,300
to run new policies — all of it
351
00:16:49,310 --> 00:16:51,750
takes money. So where did the money
352
00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:53,530
come from in those years?
353
00:16:53,990 --> 00:16:56,600
The largest single item was the Boxer
354
00:16:56,620 --> 00:16:59,930
indemnity. Fixed by the Boxer Protocol of
355
00:16:59,940 --> 00:17:04,780
1901: 450 million haiguan taels, at four
356
00:17:04,800 --> 00:17:07,800
percent annual interest, to be repaid over
357
00:17:07,810 --> 00:17:11,690
thirty-nine years. Principal and interest together came
358
00:17:11,710 --> 00:17:14,650
to about 982 million taels.
359
00:17:15,070 --> 00:17:17,100
It was not paid in one sum.
360
00:17:17,530 --> 00:17:20,440
It was paid every year — principal plus
361
00:17:20,450 --> 00:17:23,030
interest came to more than twenty-one million
362
00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:25,880
taels a year. Secured on what?
363
00:17:26,350 --> 00:17:29,130
The treaty pledged China's maritime customs,
364
00:17:29,750 --> 00:17:32,650
the native customs, and the salt tax.
365
00:17:33,070 --> 00:17:34,700
And who handled the money?
366
00:17:35,180 --> 00:17:39,240
Five banks — Hongkong and Shanghai, Deutsch-Asiatische,
367
00:17:39,250 --> 00:17:43,840
Russo-Chinese, Banque de l' Indochine, and Yokohama Specie
368
00:17:44,540 --> 00:17:47,470
together with Citibank, formed a commission to
369
00:17:47,490 --> 00:17:48,320
administer it.
370
00:17:49,490 --> 00:17:52,150
Where did twenty-one million taels a year
371
00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:55,060
come from? It was apportioned among the
372
00:17:55,070 --> 00:17:58,750
provinces, and the provinces apportioned it further
373
00:17:58,760 --> 00:18:01,370
down. The written names of the levies:
374
00:18:02,030 --> 00:18:06,320
land tax, the grain-commuted tax, grain surcharge,
375
00:18:06,720 --> 00:18:10,720
deed tax, salt surcharge, the likin transit
376
00:18:10,740 --> 00:18:13,130
tax, the consolidated tax.
377
00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:16,160
Apportioned far enough down, it landed on
378
00:18:16,180 --> 00:18:18,340
those who farmed, those who traded,
379
00:18:18,370 --> 00:18:19,630
those who ate salt.
380
00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:22,810
Ordinary people gave these additions a name:
381
00:18:23,490 --> 00:18:26,960
the "foreign levy" — money paid to foreigners,
382
00:18:27,150 --> 00:18:30,250
charged to me. One study counts more
383
00:18:30,260 --> 00:18:33,650
than three hundred popular disturbances over refusal
384
00:18:33,660 --> 00:18:35,870
to pay such levies in China during
385
00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:38,820
the 1900s. A chain ran from a
386
00:18:38,840 --> 00:18:41,250
single treaty in Beijing all the way
387
00:18:41,260 --> 00:18:43,540
to the tax collector at every village
388
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:46,650
entrance. Whether the court changed its emperor
389
00:18:46,660 --> 00:18:48,710
mattered far less to the people at
390
00:18:48,720 --> 00:18:50,310
that end of the chain than how
391
00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:51,940
much levy they had to pay this
392
00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:52,340
year.
393
00:18:53,460 --> 00:18:54,980
What did it cost to live in
394
00:18:54,990 --> 00:18:58,290
Beijing then? First, how many people were
395
00:18:58,300 --> 00:19:00,730
in the city. In the late Qing,
396
00:19:00,760 --> 00:19:03,180
the Inner and Outer Cities together held
397
00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:05,440
roughly seven to eight hundred thousand.
398
00:19:05,900 --> 00:19:08,260
Bannermen made up a substantial share
399
00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:10,860
they lived on stipends issued by the
400
00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:13,550
court, known as the "iron crop. "
401
00:19:14,040 --> 00:19:15,800
A rickshaw puller could earn a few
402
00:19:15,820 --> 00:19:18,820
dozen copper cash a day; a vernacular
403
00:19:18,830 --> 00:19:21,010
newspaper sold for a few coppers;
404
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:23,960
a policeman drew a monthly wage in
405
00:19:23,980 --> 00:19:26,880
silver dollars. That was the ledger of
406
00:19:26,890 --> 00:19:29,160
people in the city who had work.
407
00:19:29,630 --> 00:19:32,200
The countryside kept a different ledger.
408
00:19:32,670 --> 00:19:36,540
After 1900, the extra levy a village carried
409
00:19:36,570 --> 00:19:38,960
often equalled several months' grain for a
410
00:19:38,980 --> 00:19:42,040
family. The court's accounts were reckoned in
411
00:19:42,050 --> 00:19:44,980
the halls; the people's were collected at
412
00:19:44,990 --> 00:19:48,260
the village entrance. Same year, same court.
413
00:19:49,410 --> 00:19:52,030
Besides the indemnity, the court had its
414
00:19:52,050 --> 00:19:56,000
own spending. The " New Policies" after 1901
415
00:19:56,380 --> 00:19:59,020
training a new army, opening schools,
416
00:19:59,030 --> 00:20:01,930
building railways, setting up new offices
417
00:20:02,500 --> 00:20:04,240
every item was expenditure.
418
00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:07,340
The plan called for thirty-six divisions of
419
00:20:07,360 --> 00:20:10,080
the new army; what was actually formed
420
00:20:10,090 --> 00:20:12,800
was fourteen divisions and twenty brigades,
421
00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:17,210
about 190,000 men. When money ran short,
422
00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:21,190
it borrowed. In 1910 the court compiled its
423
00:20:21,210 --> 00:20:25,340
first national budget. In April 1911 it borrowed
424
00:20:25,360 --> 00:20:27,520
ten million pounds from the British,
425
00:20:27,650 --> 00:20:30,990
French, German and American banking consortium.
426
00:20:31,460 --> 00:20:33,970
On one side, over twenty million taels
427
00:20:33,990 --> 00:20:36,740
of indemnity every year; on the other,
428
00:20:36,770 --> 00:20:38,810
the cost of soldiering and schooling;
429
00:20:39,160 --> 00:20:41,710
and in between, one foreign loan after
430
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:44,960
another. This account had not been balanced
431
00:20:44,970 --> 00:20:47,000
by the day the dynasty ended.
432
00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:50,730
Amid all these accounts, one item was
433
00:20:50,750 --> 00:20:54,390
the exception. The Beijing–Zhangjiakou railway,
434
00:20:54,750 --> 00:20:59,010
from Beijing to Zhangjiakou, was begun in 1905
435
00:20:59,040 --> 00:21:03,090
and completed in 1909. Its chief engineer was
436
00:21:03,100 --> 00:21:07,350
Zhan Tianyou. The difficulty was around Badaling.
437
00:21:07,820 --> 00:21:09,610
The mountains were high and the gradient
438
00:21:09,630 --> 00:21:12,070
steep, and trains could not climb it;
439
00:21:12,820 --> 00:21:16,250
the engineers laid a " Y"-shaped switchback
440
00:21:16,260 --> 00:21:18,750
at Qinglongqiao so trains could reverse up
441
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,920
the slope. The Badaling tunnel runs about
442
00:21:21,940 --> 00:21:25,270
1,090 metres. How was it cut?
443
00:21:25,730 --> 00:21:27,600
There was no heavy machinery.
444
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:30,470
Workers sank vertical shafts from the ridge
445
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,100
down, then drove headings from the shaft
446
00:21:33,110 --> 00:21:36,070
in both directions — one working face became
447
00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:38,160
four — and that is how they got
448
00:21:38,170 --> 00:21:40,170
through more than a kilometre of mountain.
449
00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:45,200
Explosives, shovels and handcarts: muscle.
450
00:21:45,690 --> 00:21:48,170
The steepest stretch exceeded thirty parts per
451
00:21:48,190 --> 00:21:51,630
thousand; an ordinary locomotive could not haul
452
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:53,480
a train up it, so an extra
453
00:21:53,500 --> 00:21:56,330
engine was coupled ahead — pulling in front,
454
00:21:56,360 --> 00:21:59,500
pushing behind. There is also a much-quoted
455
00:21:59,510 --> 00:22:02,670
line: that a foreigner declared the Chinese
456
00:22:02,690 --> 00:22:04,920
engineer who could build this line had
457
00:22:04,940 --> 00:22:06,240
not yet been born.
458
00:22:06,730 --> 00:22:09,380
The saying is often repeated, but no
459
00:22:09,390 --> 00:22:12,220
original source has been found; it is
460
00:22:12,230 --> 00:22:14,380
given here only as a story.
461
00:22:14,850 --> 00:22:16,510
The key figure is the cost:
462
00:22:17,110 --> 00:22:20,080
the whole line actually cost some 5.72
463
00:22:20,100 --> 00:22:24,690
million taels, averaging about 34,500 taels per
464
00:22:24,700 --> 00:22:27,820
kilometre — among the lowest unit costs of
465
00:22:27,830 --> 00:22:30,020
any railway in China at the time.
466
00:22:30,500 --> 00:22:33,630
Someone worked out the comparison: one year's
467
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,630
Boxer indemnity apportionment, over twenty-one million taels,
468
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,050
would have built roughly four Beijing–
469
00:22:40,070 --> 00:22:43,170
Zhangjiakou lines. The same money, paying a
470
00:22:43,190 --> 00:22:45,960
debt on one side, building a railway
471
00:22:45,980 --> 00:22:48,290
on the other. Two faces of the
472
00:22:48,300 --> 00:22:49,190
same court.
473
00:22:50,350 --> 00:22:52,590
While the court was changing its ruler
474
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:55,110
and paying its debts, society was changing
475
00:22:55,130 --> 00:23:00,200
too. On September 2, 1905, the court ordered the
476
00:23:00,220 --> 00:23:04,320
examination system abolished. Counting from the Sui
477
00:23:04,340 --> 00:23:07,810
and Tang, thirteen hundred years of examinations
478
00:23:07,820 --> 00:23:11,030
ended that day. Scholars no longer entered
479
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:14,360
office through the eight-legged essay; they went
480
00:23:14,380 --> 00:23:17,230
to new-style schools. A year earlier,
481
00:23:17,480 --> 00:23:21,280
in 1904, the court had promulgated the " Guimao
482
00:23:21,290 --> 00:23:25,860
school system, " dividing schools nationwide into elementary,
483
00:23:26,420 --> 00:23:29,780
middle and higher. The Imperial University in
484
00:23:29,790 --> 00:23:31,850
the capital stood at the top.
485
00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:34,720
Young people with no school to enter
486
00:23:34,730 --> 00:23:36,480
and no wish to stay home went
487
00:23:36,500 --> 00:23:40,360
to Japan. In 1907 there were about fifteen
488
00:23:40,380 --> 00:23:42,720
thousand Chinese students in Japan.
489
00:23:43,190 --> 00:23:46,440
A person's prospects shifted from "which essay
490
00:23:46,450 --> 00:23:48,410
do I sit" to "which school,
491
00:23:49,110 --> 00:23:51,980
and where to study abroad" — the deepest
492
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,000
and quietest change of that decade.
493
00:23:55,140 --> 00:23:57,160
Why did the court suddenly want a
494
00:23:57,180 --> 00:24:00,990
constitution? The answer lies in someone else's
495
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:05,210
war. In February 1904 Japan and Russia went
496
00:24:05,220 --> 00:24:07,330
to war in China's northeast.
497
00:24:07,780 --> 00:24:10,740
The fighting was in Liaodong and Fengtian.
498
00:24:11,210 --> 00:24:14,500
The Qing government declared itself "neutral" and
499
00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:16,460
set aside a stretch of its own
500
00:24:16,470 --> 00:24:18,400
territory as a battlefield.
501
00:24:18,870 --> 00:24:22,310
Hundreds of thousands of Chinese became refugees
502
00:24:22,330 --> 00:24:23,520
on their own land.
503
00:24:23,990 --> 00:24:27,580
In May 1905 the Japanese navy destroyed the
504
00:24:27,590 --> 00:24:30,080
Russian fleet in the Strait of Tsushima.
505
00:24:30,550 --> 00:24:32,890
In September the two countries signed the
506
00:24:32,900 --> 00:24:36,050
treaty at Portsmouth, in the United States.
507
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,140
Chinese newspapers and officials at the time
508
00:24:39,150 --> 00:24:41,520
read the war as a single conclusion:
509
00:24:42,300 --> 00:24:45,270
Japan was a constitutional state, Russia an
510
00:24:45,280 --> 00:24:48,780
autocracy, and the small constitutional country had
511
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:50,740
beaten the large autocratic one.
512
00:24:51,220 --> 00:24:53,900
Whether that conclusion was right is another
513
00:24:53,910 --> 00:24:55,870
matter — but it spread fast.
514
00:24:56,340 --> 00:25:01,360
In July 1905, Yuan Shikai, governor-general of Zhili,
515
00:25:01,930 --> 00:25:05,910
Zhang Zhidong, governor-general of Huguang, and Zhou
516
00:25:05,930 --> 00:25:11,340
Fu, governor-general of Liangjiang, jointly memorialized asking
517
00:25:11,360 --> 00:25:13,080
the court for a constitution.
518
00:25:13,550 --> 00:25:16,080
Six months later the court sent five
519
00:25:16,090 --> 00:25:19,030
ministers abroad to study foreign governments.
520
00:25:19,500 --> 00:25:21,400
A war fought to its end on
521
00:25:21,410 --> 00:25:24,250
someone else's land became the court's answer
522
00:25:24,270 --> 00:25:26,080
to "whom should we learn from. "
523
00:25:27,220 --> 00:25:29,560
On the political system too, the court
524
00:25:29,580 --> 00:25:34,090
moved. In 1905 it sent five ministers abroad
525
00:25:34,100 --> 00:25:39,370
to study constitutions. In 1906 it announced "preparation
526
00:25:39,390 --> 00:25:43,830
for constitutional government. " In 1908 it promulgated the
527
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,280
Outline of the Constitution, setting a nine-year
528
00:25:47,300 --> 00:25:50,360
preparatory period, with a parliament planned for
529
00:25:50,370 --> 00:25:55,330
1917. In 1909 the provinces held elections for
530
00:25:55,340 --> 00:25:58,690
consultative assemblies — the first elections to a
531
00:25:58,710 --> 00:26:01,550
local representative body in Chinese history.
532
00:26:02,020 --> 00:26:03,900
But time was not on the court's
533
00:26:03,910 --> 00:26:06,490
side. It asked for nine years;
534
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,360
others would not wait nine years.
535
00:26:09,830 --> 00:26:12,400
Nine years were set for preparation.
536
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:14,240
Only three were had.
537
00:26:15,370 --> 00:26:17,180
Back to the city itself.
538
00:26:17,650 --> 00:26:20,160
Leshou Hall in the Summer Palace was
539
00:26:20,180 --> 00:26:22,440
among the first places to be fitted
540
00:26:22,460 --> 00:26:25,750
with electric light. Among the palace women,
541
00:26:26,090 --> 00:26:28,510
Consort Zhen was among the earliest to
542
00:26:28,530 --> 00:26:31,310
take up photography, and left a number
543
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:35,260
of photographs. The city had vernacular newspapers,
544
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,650
photographic studios, and rickshaws on the streets.
545
00:26:40,120 --> 00:26:42,850
The other side: bannermen lived on the
546
00:26:42,870 --> 00:26:46,150
court's stipends — the "iron crop" — and by
547
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:48,510
the late Qing those stipends went less
548
00:26:48,530 --> 00:26:51,220
and less far, so that holding office
549
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,150
and mortgaging property existed side by side.
550
00:26:54,570 --> 00:26:57,910
Cixi loved opera. The Dehe Garden theatre
551
00:26:57,930 --> 00:27:00,510
in the Summer Palace, a three-storey stage,
552
00:27:00,540 --> 00:27:03,570
was built for that; performers like Tan
553
00:27:03,590 --> 00:27:06,000
Xinpei were summoned to sing at court.
554
00:27:06,470 --> 00:27:10,740
Electric light, cameras, newspapers, opera stages
555
00:27:11,120 --> 00:27:13,010
the last decade of an old court
556
00:27:13,030 --> 00:27:14,630
was also its liveliest.
557
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:17,300
Back to that November.
558
00:27:17,780 --> 00:27:22,880
On November 14, 1908, Guangxu died at Hanyuan Hall
559
00:27:22,890 --> 00:27:27,050
on Yingtai, aged thirty-eight, in the thirty-fourth
560
00:27:27,070 --> 00:27:28,190
year of his reign.
561
00:27:28,660 --> 00:27:31,690
The next day, November 15, in the wei
562
00:27:31,700 --> 00:27:34,820
hour, Cixi died at Yiluan Hall in
563
00:27:34,830 --> 00:27:39,570
Zhongnanhai, aged seventy-four. An emperor who wanted
564
00:27:39,580 --> 00:27:41,760
reform but was held for ten years
565
00:27:41,780 --> 00:27:44,300
died on an island ringed by water.
566
00:27:44,780 --> 00:27:46,640
A woman who had held power for
567
00:27:46,660 --> 00:27:49,040
him for forty-seven years died in a
568
00:27:49,050 --> 00:27:50,640
hall not far away.
569
00:27:51,070 --> 00:27:52,610
Less than a day apart.
570
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,800
That coincidence of timing became, over the
571
00:27:55,820 --> 00:27:58,600
century since, the most often told part
572
00:27:58,610 --> 00:27:59,440
of the story.
573
00:28:00,580 --> 00:28:02,020
How did the emperor die?
574
00:28:02,460 --> 00:28:04,660
The question has been discussed for a
575
00:28:04,670 --> 00:28:07,550
century. There are four main accounts;
576
00:28:07,890 --> 00:28:09,540
they are set out here side by
577
00:28:09,550 --> 00:28:14,220
side. First, illness. Guangxu was frail and
578
00:28:14,230 --> 00:28:17,240
sickly for years, and the palace medical
579
00:28:17,260 --> 00:28:19,860
records list a body full of complaints.
580
00:28:20,300 --> 00:28:23,080
This account rests on those case records.
581
00:28:23,550 --> 00:28:25,790
Second, that Cixi killed him.
582
00:28:26,260 --> 00:28:29,160
The reasoning: the two deaths came too
583
00:28:29,170 --> 00:28:32,230
close together, and Cixi did not want
584
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:34,720
Guangxu to hold power again after she
585
00:28:34,730 --> 00:28:38,200
was gone. Third, that Li Lianying killed
586
00:28:38,220 --> 00:28:41,240
him. This appears in some memoirs.
587
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,320
Fourth, that Yuan Shikai and Yi Kuang
588
00:28:44,330 --> 00:28:47,940
killed him. The reasoning: both had crossed
589
00:28:47,950 --> 00:28:50,330
the emperor in the 1898 coup.
590
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:52,500
Each of the four has its own
591
00:28:52,510 --> 00:28:55,830
basis and its own sources; none has
592
00:28:55,850 --> 00:28:59,290
complete, direct evidence. All four are set
593
00:28:59,300 --> 00:29:01,880
out here, and no verdict is offered.
594
00:29:02,990 --> 00:29:05,380
The turn came in recent decades.
595
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,740
In 1980 archaeologists cleared the underground palace of
596
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,320
the Chongling mausoleum in the Western Qing
597
00:29:12,330 --> 00:29:17,050
tombs — Guangxu's tomb. His remains were examined
598
00:29:17,070 --> 00:29:20,010
then, and no clear sign of poisoning
599
00:29:20,020 --> 00:29:23,890
was found. After 2003 a research group on
600
00:29:23,900 --> 00:29:25,920
the cause of Guangxu's death took a
601
00:29:25,930 --> 00:29:29,100
different approach. Instead of looking only at
602
00:29:29,110 --> 00:29:31,740
bone, they tested his hair and the
603
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:35,600
burial garments. In 2008 the group published its
604
00:29:35,610 --> 00:29:39,520
conclusion: arsenic levels in Guangxu's hair and
605
00:29:39,540 --> 00:29:43,300
clothing were abnormally high, consistent with acute
606
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:46,840
arsenic poisoning. That November the finding was
607
00:29:46,860 --> 00:29:51,210
widely reported. The same question: in 1980 they
608
00:29:51,230 --> 00:29:53,790
looked at bone, in 2008 at hair.
609
00:29:54,260 --> 00:29:57,170
Change the evidence and the answer changes.
610
00:29:57,620 --> 00:29:59,960
This is the scientific method — and also
611
00:29:59,980 --> 00:30:02,950
an attitude toward history: what counts as
612
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:05,230
settled often depends on what method you
613
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:05,830
look with.
614
00:30:06,940 --> 00:30:08,700
On the day before she died,
615
00:30:09,290 --> 00:30:11,600
Cixi made one last decision.
616
00:30:12,070 --> 00:30:15,170
She made Puyi, son of Prince Chun
617
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,670
(Zaifeng), emperor. Puyi was three years old.
618
00:30:20,140 --> 00:30:23,260
Zaifeng was made regent, to hold power
619
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:24,660
for the child emperor.
620
00:30:25,130 --> 00:30:27,060
A woman who had guarded power for
621
00:30:27,070 --> 00:30:29,860
forty-seven years handed the court, at the
622
00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:32,850
end, to a three-year-old and a regent.
623
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:35,700
Three years later, that court was gone.
624
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,320
But that is the next episode.
625
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,480
This one stops inside those two days.
626
00:30:42,580 --> 00:30:45,490
This city holds another ending, two hundred
627
00:30:45,500 --> 00:30:47,340
and sixty-four years earlier.
628
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:53,740
On March 19, 1644, Li Zicheng's army entered Beijing.
629
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:55,640
It was not yet light.
630
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,420
Zhu Youjian, the last Ming emperor
631
00:30:58,450 --> 00:31:00,680
the Chongzhen emperor — came out of the
632
00:31:00,700 --> 00:31:02,930
Forbidden City and walked onto a mound
633
00:31:02,950 --> 00:31:04,210
of earth to the north.
634
00:31:04,670 --> 00:31:06,280
In the Ming it was called Coal
635
00:31:06,300 --> 00:31:09,170
Hill; today it is Jingshan.
636
00:31:09,670 --> 00:31:11,680
Before the manner of his death,
637
00:31:11,710 --> 00:31:13,530
what sort of emperor he was.
638
00:31:14,050 --> 00:31:16,530
He was among the hardest-working of the
639
00:31:16,550 --> 00:31:19,810
Ming emperors. For seventeen years he rose
640
00:31:19,830 --> 00:31:22,550
before dawn and was still reading memorials
641
00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:25,480
at night; he was frugal, and wore
642
00:31:25,490 --> 00:31:28,610
patched clothes. But he was also suspicious
643
00:31:28,620 --> 00:31:31,330
and hasty: in seventeen years he went
644
00:31:31,340 --> 00:31:33,580
through more than fifty grand secretaries,
645
00:31:33,610 --> 00:31:36,140
had a minister of war executed,
646
00:31:36,390 --> 00:31:38,360
and put to death Yuan Chonghuan,
647
00:31:38,390 --> 00:31:40,400
the commander in Ji and Liao.
648
00:31:40,870 --> 00:31:42,900
At that dawn he had the bells
649
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:44,890
rung in the palace to summon the
650
00:31:44,900 --> 00:31:47,610
officials to court. The bells rang a
651
00:31:47,620 --> 00:31:49,870
long time. No one came.
652
00:31:50,590 --> 00:31:52,700
He went back to the inner palace,
653
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:55,680
had Empress Zhou kill herself, and with
654
00:31:55,700 --> 00:31:58,430
his own hand slashed his sixteen-year-old daughter
655
00:31:58,450 --> 00:32:01,140
Princess Changping and killed the young Princess
656
00:32:01,150 --> 00:32:03,800
Zhaoren. Then he and the eunuch Wang
657
00:32:03,810 --> 00:32:06,220
Cheng'en went up Coal Hill, and he
658
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:08,000
hanged himself from a tree on the
659
00:32:08,020 --> 00:32:11,520
eastern slope. Wang Cheng'en hanged himself from
660
00:32:11,530 --> 00:32:14,080
a tree nearby. According to the Ming
661
00:32:14,090 --> 00:32:16,340
shi, he left words on the front
662
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:17,930
of his robe to this effect:
663
00:32:18,550 --> 00:32:20,640
I have reigned seventeen years, and my
664
00:32:20,650 --> 00:32:23,170
ministers have failed me; I have no
665
00:32:23,180 --> 00:32:25,830
face to meet my ancestors; I take
666
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:27,720
off my crown and cover my face
667
00:32:27,740 --> 00:32:30,110
with my hair; let the rebels do
668
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:31,590
as they will with my body,
669
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:33,310
only do not harm the people.
670
00:32:33,780 --> 00:32:36,340
After his death the body was hastily
671
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:39,050
buried in the tomb of Consort Tian.
672
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:41,810
Only after the Qing entered the Pass
673
00:32:41,830 --> 00:32:44,750
was he reburied, under the name " Siling"
674
00:32:45,450 --> 00:32:47,700
one of the smallest among the thirteen
675
00:32:47,710 --> 00:32:48,610
Ming tombs.
676
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:53,190
Jingshan is still there, directly across from
677
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,130
the Gate of Divine Prowess of the
678
00:32:55,140 --> 00:32:57,990
Palace Museum. Two stelae stand on the
679
00:32:58,010 --> 00:33:01,570
hill: one reads " Place where Emperor Sizong
680
00:33:01,580 --> 00:33:03,110
of Ming died for his state, "
681
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:07,640
written by Shen Yinmo in 1930; the other
682
00:33:07,660 --> 00:33:10,290
is the " Stele for the three-hundredth anniversary, "
683
00:33:10,850 --> 00:33:14,720
erected in 1944. The locust tree from which
684
00:33:14,730 --> 00:33:17,190
Chongzhen hanged himself was given a name
685
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,510
by the early Qing: the " Guilty Locust, "
686
00:33:20,950 --> 00:33:23,040
and was chained with an iron chain.
687
00:33:23,490 --> 00:33:25,440
The tree on the hill today was
688
00:33:25,450 --> 00:33:28,940
planted later. Wanchun Pavilion, the highest point
689
00:33:28,950 --> 00:33:31,020
of Jingshan, is the high point of
690
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:34,360
Beijing's central axis — look south from it
691
00:33:34,380 --> 00:33:36,190
and you see the whole Forbidden City;
692
00:33:37,020 --> 00:33:38,820
look north and you see the Bell
693
00:33:38,830 --> 00:33:42,980
and Drum Towers. In 1644 an emperor hanged
694
00:33:42,990 --> 00:33:44,450
himself on this hill.
695
00:33:44,910 --> 00:33:48,420
In 1908 another emperor died on an island
696
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:51,230
ringed by water. Two hundred and sixty-four
697
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:53,960
years, one city, two different endings.
698
00:33:55,110 --> 00:33:57,330
Of the places in this episode,
699
00:33:57,360 --> 00:33:59,080
which can still be visited?
700
00:33:59,540 --> 00:34:02,730
The Chongling mausoleum, where Guangxu ended up,
701
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,140
is in the Western Qing tombs at
702
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:09,040
Yixian in Hebei. Work began in 1909;
703
00:34:09,850 --> 00:34:14,240
Guangxu was interred in 1913; it was completed
704
00:34:14,260 --> 00:34:19,290
in 1915. It was robbed in 1938, cleared and
705
00:34:19,300 --> 00:34:22,380
opened in 1980, and today you can walk
706
00:34:22,390 --> 00:34:24,360
down into the underground palace.
707
00:34:24,830 --> 00:34:26,860
At Yulantang in the Summer Palace,
708
00:34:26,890 --> 00:34:29,350
the bricked-up rear doorway is still there,
709
00:34:29,830 --> 00:34:31,860
and visitors can walk right up to
710
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:34,890
it. The Summer Palace was inscribed on
711
00:34:34,910 --> 00:34:37,880
the World Heritage List in 1998.
712
00:34:38,330 --> 00:34:40,300
The Well of Consort Zhen is in
713
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:42,980
the Palace Museum — the well visitors walk
714
00:34:42,990 --> 00:34:46,660
past. The consorts' tombs beside Chongling are
715
00:34:46,670 --> 00:34:48,760
where Zhen was later reburied.
716
00:34:49,230 --> 00:34:52,200
The Chongling underground palace is open today;
717
00:34:53,020 --> 00:34:54,850
you can go down the stone steps
718
00:34:54,860 --> 00:34:56,710
and see the stone doors and the
719
00:34:56,730 --> 00:35:00,100
vaulted ceiling. The Hall of Mental Cultivation
720
00:35:00,110 --> 00:35:03,100
in the Palace Museum, where Guangxu worked
721
00:35:03,110 --> 00:35:04,980
and lived during the years he held
722
00:35:04,990 --> 00:35:07,520
power, is open to visitors.
723
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:11,510
Yiluan Hall in Zhongnanhai, where Cixi spent
724
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,960
her last days, was burned by the
725
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:17,330
Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900 and later rebuilt;
726
00:35:18,180 --> 00:35:20,350
it stands in a government compound and
727
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:22,070
is not open to the public.
728
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:26,130
Yingtai, also in Zhongnanhai, is likewise closed
729
00:35:26,930 --> 00:35:29,420
it lies inside the government compound and
730
00:35:29,430 --> 00:35:31,760
can only be seen in old photographs.
731
00:35:32,230 --> 00:35:36,230
Of Enjizhuang, the eunuchs' cemetery, very little
732
00:35:36,240 --> 00:35:40,240
survives; some rubbings of epitaphs remain.
733
00:35:40,700 --> 00:35:42,960
Jingshan is open, and you can climb
734
00:35:42,980 --> 00:35:45,410
it. It is directly across from the
735
00:35:45,420 --> 00:35:47,480
north gate of the Palace Museum.
736
00:35:48,630 --> 00:35:49,980
Back to the main line.
737
00:35:50,450 --> 00:35:52,380
An emperor held for ten years,
738
00:35:52,660 --> 00:35:55,030
and a dowager empress who held power
739
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:57,930
for forty-seven years, died in the same
740
00:35:57,940 --> 00:35:59,840
city less than a day apart.
741
00:36:00,260 --> 00:36:02,160
It was not that the court never
742
00:36:02,170 --> 00:36:03,730
thought of replacing him.
743
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:06,910
In 1900 they had even drafted the new
744
00:36:06,930 --> 00:36:09,200
reign name, and still it did not
745
00:36:09,220 --> 00:36:11,350
happen. Why could they not?
746
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:13,980
The title could not be gotten around;
747
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,280
a successor could not be made to
748
00:36:16,290 --> 00:36:19,730
stand; outsiders would not recognize it;
749
00:36:20,060 --> 00:36:21,690
and the guns were not in their
750
00:36:21,700 --> 00:36:24,480
hands. In the end they handed this
751
00:36:24,500 --> 00:36:27,090
court to a three-year-old and a regent.
752
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:29,850
Three years later, the court was gone.
753
00:36:30,290 --> 00:36:32,530
That day is the next episode.
754
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:35,640
The full script of this film is
755
00:36:35,660 --> 00:36:37,520
at sylogs.com.