1908年，皇帝在38歲時去世。次日，太后也去世了。這只是巧合嗎？

《神州大地》系列 總第 9 集：「1908 年帝皇在 38 歲去世。太后隔日去世。巧合？」是本集影片的完整圖文轉錄，可逐字閱讀，也可前往影片頁觀看對應畫面。

1908 年 11 月 14 日。晚上。中南海，北京。

在被環繞著水的島上，

在一個名叫漢元的廳內，一個被囚禁了十年的皇帝

在那裡去世了。他是 38 歲。

隔天下午，曾經把他留在那裡的婦人也死了。

兩人死亡的時間相隔不過一天。一個在位三十四年但實際掌權時間為零的皇帝，一個為他掌權四十七年的太后——在同一城市，死亡時間相隔不過一天。

那一點事實就留下了

一個仍然未能解答的問題。這一幕是關於

法院如何更換最高領導人——並且

為什麼最後還是無法如此。

從他住的地方開始。

在中南海內有一個水域叫做南湖，

在中間有一個島嶼叫做英台。 在明朝時曾被稱為

南台;在順治皇帝時期改名為英台。其正殿名為漢園大殿——正是在這裡，光緒帝度過了他最後十年的歲月。

有一點需要明確:

這並不是法律上的監禁。儘管如此，他仍然是皇帝。

禮制——祭天祭祖、頒布曆書

仍是他的名義

在宮內文書上仍被稱為「聖主」

但一切實際上的運作卻是相反的：朝廷奏疏先呈報給皇后

任命罷免都由她決定

錢糧也經過她的手

皇帝看到的都是已经決定好的紙張

等著他進行禮儀。

他每天過的日子如何?

迎泰是被水圍繞著的，進出只有

一座橋。

當湖面在冬天結冰時

太監們會在冰上走來走去

把東西送到另一邊。 他在漢元殿

中讀書寫作，每天早晨都會把一些

練習的字句記下來，這是清朝的

王子們從小就養成的習慣。

皇家醫院的病歷記載了他的

抱怨：失眠、耳鳴、背痛、食慾

不振，以及一種從來沒有癒

好的長期病症。

那時的處方一個接一個地變化了，十年過去了。當時的人對此有個說法：「名為皇帝，鳥在籠中。」

他還有一個住所：玉潤堂，位於頤和園內。

頤和園位於海淀。

它最初被稱為清水園

在乾隆時期，遭到英法聯軍在 1860 年的焚毀，並在 1888 年後以海軍資金重建，並更名為頤和園

她晚年在此度過的日子

多於在宮中:

她居住在樂壽堂，聽政在仁壽堂

光緒也曾來此

1898年政變後，他被關押在

玉澗堂。記載指玉澗堂的後門朝外被填土築牆，與之相鄰的宜韻莊的通道被截斷，當時他進出玉澗堂的門全部安排好了。

今日的夏宮對外開放，仍然有那個被填土築牆的門。 它是本集的第一個東西

你還可以親眼目睹它。

一個被監禁的皇帝 —— 為什麼不直接罷黜他

換上別人呢？

實際上，宮廷也試過這種辦法。

那時的日期是 1900 年初。

清光緒二十五年正月二十四日，慈禧下詔，封

載宜為大阿哥，封之為「大阿哥」，大阿哥是指皇子

的尊稱，一個十五歲的男孩被帶進宮中，

放在皇帝身旁，供他學習。

也有記載，宮中

為了改變皇帝的稱號，

決定將新的一年稱為「保慶年」

並計畫讓光緒帝退位為太上皇

然而，立太子的事

卻無法悄悄地進行。 該事後，總理衙門不得不

向北京各國公使館解釋，內閣並無

意圖廢黜任何人。原計於一年內

更換，已經草擬新年號，未曾實施過。

關鍵在於頭銜。

他們所設立的，並非「皇太子」

。而是「駙都府」首領。

那個處理這件事情的人是正使

榮祿。 他把它說得這麼樣:

溥俊是 "繼承當朝

君主, 並繼續穆宗的

血統"。 那個男孩被虛擬

立為當朝皇帝的兒子,

同時也繼承了晚年的同治皇帝

的皇位。 為什麼要這麼迂迴呢？

Because changing the title changes the nature

of the act. Installing a "crown prince"

concedes that the present emperor is to

step aside. Installing a " First Prince" to

continue Tongzhi''s line says instead: this supplies

a descendant to a previous emperor

and Guangxu''s title stays intact.

Cixi wanted him replaced, but did not

want to carry the two words "deposed

emperor. " This was a problem she had

to work around.

On January 27, 1900 — three days after the edict

a group in Shanghai stood up.

The leader was Jing Yuanshan, director of

the Shanghai Telegraph Office.

He joined with 1,231 others in a

public telegram asking the emperor to "attend

to government despite illness, and abandon all

thought of abdication. " The list of signatories

included Zhang Binglin, Cai Yuanpei, Huang Yanpei

and Tang Caichang. This was not a

few men sending up a memorial.

It was a public telegram — the fastest,

most public channel available then, the equivalent

of an open letter.

A single telegram sent from Shanghai could

be reprinted by newspapers across the country.

One Shanghai official, with more than a

thousand names behind him, publicly opposing the

court''s intention to change emperors.

And then? Then nothing.

After the telegram, Cixi ordered Jing Yuanshan''s

arrest. He left Shanghai and eventually made

his way to Macao.

The replacement itself did not end there

either. Zaiyi and his son Pu Jun

were later named by the foreign powers

as among the instigators of the 1900

crisis and exiled to Xinjiang.

The title of " First Prince" was not

formally abolished until 1901. The 1,231 names did

not change any decision made that day.

In this episode, they are the only

group who spoke publicly on behalf of

the man who was being held.

That same year something larger happened.

In the summer of 1900 the Boxers

entered Beijing. They burned churches and killed

converts, tore up railway track and cut

telegraph poles. The court''s position changed almost

daily: first suppress them, then support them.

On June 21 the court declared war on

the foreign powers in the emperor''s name.

On August 14 the Eight-Nation Alliance fought its

way into Beijing. Before dawn the next

day, Cixi left the palace through the

Gate of Divine Prowess, taking Guangxu,

the empress and a few eunuchs and

maids. She took off her Manchu robes,

put on a blue cotton jacket,

and dressed her hair in a Han

style — disguised as an old woman from

the countryside. She was gone more than

a year. They went west: Juyong Pass,

Xuanhua, Datong, Taiyuan, and finally Xi''an.

Over seventy days, more than two thousand

li. There were no imperial kitchens on

the road; they ate coarse grain.

At Huailai in Hebei a local person

brought out a bowl of mung-bean porridge,

and someone in the party wrote the

scene down. In September 1901 the treaty was

signed. In January 1902 she returned to Beijing.

The emperor went out with her.

The emperor came back with her.

On the day she left the palace,

she did not take Consort Zhen.

Zhen was of the Tatara clan,

of the Manchu Bordered Red Banner,

born in 1876. In 1889, at thirteen, she entered

the palace together with her elder sister,

and was later given the rank of

Consort Zhen. She could write and paint,

and was bolder than most consorts

when the palace said a camera would

steal a person''s soul, she insisted on

being photographed. In 1894 she was demoted for

selling offices. A man named Lu Boyang

had bought his way into the post

of Shanghai daotai; another, Yu Ming,

who could barely read, obtained a salt

administration post in Sichuan.

When the case was investigated, it reached

Consort Zhen and the eunuchs around her.

After 1898 she was confined in the Beisansuo,

north of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity.

The door was locked from the outside

and food was passed in through a

window opening. Two years later, on that

morning, Cixi was about to leave.

It is recorded that she had Consort

Zhen brought out, and that in the

end Zhen was pushed into the well

behind the Palace of Tranquil Longevity.

She was twenty-four. There are two accounts.

One says Zhen asked that the emperor

be left in Beijing to handle the

situation, which angered Cixi.

The other says Cixi simply gave the

order, on the ground that she could

not be taken along.

Both are recorded; this episode does not

choose between them. After reaching Xi''an,

Cixi issued an edict saying Zhen had

drowned herself "to preserve her honor, "

and posthumously raised her to Noble Consort

Zhen. In 1913 her coffin was moved to

the consorts'' tombs beside the Chongling mausoleum.

The well visitors walk past in the

Palace Museum today is called the Well

of Consort Zhen.

To talk about Cixi''s forty-seven years,

one man cannot be passed over:

the eunuch Li Lianying.

He was born in 1848 in Dacheng county,

Hejian prefecture, in Zhili, into a poor

family; his father dealt in hides.

He was castrated at six, first entered

the household of Prince Zheng, and came

into the Forbidden City in 1856.

His birth name was Li Yingtai;

in the palace he was called Li

Jinxi; the name " Lianying" was given him

by Cixi. His real rise came in 1869.

That year the chief eunuch beside Cixi,

An Dehai, left the palace on imperial

business and traveled south.

In Shandong he was arrested by Governor

Ding Baozhen and executed on the spot.

With An Dehai gone, Li Lianying took

his place. From then on he stayed

at Cixi''s side for nearly forty years,

until she died.

Cixi did one thing that broke the

rules: she gave Li Lianying the rank

and peacock feather of a second-grade official.

Qing eunuchs had a ceiling on rank,

and after the Yongzheng emperor an iron

tablet expressly forbade eunuchs from involving themselves

in government. Giving a eunuch second-grade insignia

broke the precedent. What was he like

day to day? The contemporary record runs

in two directions. On one side:

cautious and careful, often speaking up for

palace servants, and sometimes putting in a

good word for the neglected emperor

in the palace he was called "respectful

and prudent. " It is said that even

after being granted the second-grade insignia he

did not dare wear it.

On the other side, he took money.

Officials competed to cultivate him, and a

good number of houses stood in his

name. Two things are remembered more clearly.

One comes from the flight in 1900:

a member of the party recalled that

the night was cold and bedding short,

and Li Lianying took his own bedding

to the emperor and sat up all

night wrapped in his clothes.

The other is from the hairdressing room.

The empress dowager did not want to

see a single fallen hair.

According to a late-Qing palace maid,

when Li Lianying combed her hair he

slipped the fallen strands into his sleeve

so she would not see them.

That a eunuch could reach such a

position is itself a mirror of that

court. After Cixi died in 1908 he observed

a hundred days of mourning and left

the palace. He died of illness in

March 1911 and was buried at Enjizhuang,

the eunuchs'' cemetery outside Fucheng Gate in

Beijing. There is also a widely told

story about his grave: that it was

opened in 1966 and only a skull was

found. But those who took part in

the clearing recall that the grave already

had a robbers'' hole and the remains

were decayed and incomplete — the matter is

still unsettled.

Now, how a day of Cixi''s went.

She rose early — before daylight — washed,

had her hair dressed, then went to

court and received people.

There were two main meals a day:

the morning meal around six or seven,

the evening meal around midday.

A meal laid out a hundred or

more dishes, on several tables pushed together,

with eunuchs announcing each dish.

The rule was "no more than three

spoonfuls of any dish" — three mouthfuls and

it was taken away.

The real problem came after: most of

that food was there to be looked

at. The afternoon was her time for

amusement. She loved opera.

In the palace there was the Changyin

Pavilion; in the Summer Palace, the Dehe

Garden theatre — both three-storey stages.

Leading actors such as Tan Xinpei were

called in to perform; a good performance

brought reward, a mistake brought punishment.

She also loved being photographed.

In 1903 the two daughters of Yu Geng

entered the palace, and their brother Xunling

became the palace photographer.

Among the photographs that survive is one

of her dressed as Guanyin, with eunuchs

beside her as guardian figures.

She kept dogs — the Summer Palace had

a dedicated kennel. She smoked water tobacco

from a silver pipe.

She kept long nails in nail guards,

tended daily. These days were lived on

top of a court that was coming

apart.

To replace a ruler, to hold on

to power, to keep an army,

to run new policies — all of it

takes money. So where did the money

come from in those years?

The largest single item was the Boxer

indemnity. Fixed by the Boxer Protocol of

1901: 450 million haiguan taels, at four

percent annual interest, to be repaid over

thirty-nine years. Principal and interest together came

to about 982 million taels.

It was not paid in one sum.

It was paid every year — principal plus

interest came to more than twenty-one million

taels a year. Secured on what?

The treaty pledged China''s maritime customs,

the native customs, and the salt tax.

And who handled the money?

Five banks — Hongkong and Shanghai, Deutsch-Asiatische,

Russo-Chinese, Banque de l'' Indochine, and Yokohama Specie

together with Citibank, formed a commission to

administer it.

Where did twenty-one million taels a year

come from? It was apportioned among the

provinces, and the provinces apportioned it further

down. The written names of the levies:

land tax, the grain-commuted tax, grain surcharge,

deed tax, salt surcharge, the likin transit

tax, the consolidated tax.

Apportioned far enough down, it landed on

those who farmed, those who traded,

those who ate salt.

Ordinary people gave these additions a name:

the "foreign levy" — money paid to foreigners,

charged to me. One study counts more

than three hundred popular disturbances over refusal

to pay such levies in China during

the 1900s. A chain ran from a

single treaty in Beijing all the way

to the tax collector at every village

entrance. Whether the court changed its emperor

mattered far less to the people at

that end of the chain than how

much levy they had to pay this

year.

What did it cost to live in

Beijing then? First, how many people were

in the city. In the late Qing,

the Inner and Outer Cities together held

roughly seven to eight hundred thousand.

Bannermen made up a substantial share

they lived on stipends issued by the

court, known as the "iron crop. "

A rickshaw puller could earn a few

dozen copper cash a day; a vernacular

newspaper sold for a few coppers;

a policeman drew a monthly wage in

silver dollars. That was the ledger of

people in the city who had work.

The countryside kept a different ledger.

After 1900, the extra levy a village carried

often equalled several months'' grain for a

family. The court''s accounts were reckoned in

the halls; the people''s were collected at

the village entrance. Same year, same court.

Besides the indemnity, the court had its

own spending. The " New Policies" after 1901

training a new army, opening schools,

building railways, setting up new offices

every item was expenditure.

The plan called for thirty-six divisions of

the new army; what was actually formed

was fourteen divisions and twenty brigades,

about 190,000 men. When money ran short,

it borrowed. In 1910 the court compiled its

first national budget. In April 1911 it borrowed

ten million pounds from the British,

French, German and American banking consortium.

On one side, over twenty million taels

of indemnity every year; on the other,

the cost of soldiering and schooling;

and in between, one foreign loan after

another. This account had not been balanced

by the day the dynasty ended.

Amid all these accounts, one item was

the exception. The Beijing–Zhangjiakou railway,

from Beijing to Zhangjiakou, was begun in 1905

and completed in 1909. Its chief engineer was

Zhan Tianyou. The difficulty was around Badaling.

The mountains were high and the gradient

steep, and trains could not climb it;

the engineers laid a " Y"-shaped switchback

at Qinglongqiao so trains could reverse up

the slope. The Badaling tunnel runs about

1,090 metres. How was it cut?

There was no heavy machinery.

Workers sank vertical shafts from the ridge

down, then drove headings from the shaft

in both directions — one working face became

four — and that is how they got

through more than a kilometre of mountain.

Explosives, shovels and handcarts: muscle.

The steepest stretch exceeded thirty parts per

thousand; an ordinary locomotive could not haul

a train up it, so an extra

engine was coupled ahead — pulling in front,

pushing behind. There is also a much-quoted

line: that a foreigner declared the Chinese

engineer who could build this line had

not yet been born.

The saying is often repeated, but no

original source has been found; it is

given here only as a story.

The key figure is the cost:

the whole line actually cost some 5.72

million taels, averaging about 34,500 taels per

kilometre — among the lowest unit costs of

any railway in China at the time.

Someone worked out the comparison: one year''s

Boxer indemnity apportionment, over twenty-one million taels,

would have built roughly four Beijing–

Zhangjiakou lines. The same money, paying a

debt on one side, building a railway

on the other. Two faces of the

same court.

While the court was changing its ruler

and paying its debts, society was changing

too. On September 2, 1905, the court ordered the

examination system abolished. Counting from the Sui

and Tang, thirteen hundred years of examinations

ended that day. Scholars no longer entered

office through the eight-legged essay; they went

to new-style schools. A year earlier,

in 1904, the court had promulgated the " Guimao

school system, " dividing schools nationwide into elementary,

middle and higher. The Imperial University in

the capital stood at the top.

Young people with no school to enter

and no wish to stay home went

to Japan. In 1907 there were about fifteen

thousand Chinese students in Japan.

A person''s prospects shifted from "which essay

do I sit" to "which school,

and where to study abroad" — the deepest

and quietest change of that decade.

Why did the court suddenly want a

constitution? The answer lies in someone else''s

war. In February 1904 Japan and Russia went

to war in China''s northeast.

The fighting was in Liaodong and Fengtian.

The Qing government declared itself "neutral" and

set aside a stretch of its own

territory as a battlefield.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese became refugees

on their own land.

In May 1905 the Japanese navy destroyed the

Russian fleet in the Strait of Tsushima.

In September the two countries signed the

treaty at Portsmouth, in the United States.

Chinese newspapers and officials at the time

read the war as a single conclusion:

Japan was a constitutional state, Russia an

autocracy, and the small constitutional country had

beaten the large autocratic one.

Whether that conclusion was right is another

matter — but it spread fast.

In July 1905, Yuan Shikai, governor-general of Zhili,

Zhang Zhidong, governor-general of Huguang, and Zhou

Fu, governor-general of Liangjiang, jointly memorialized asking

the court for a constitution.

Six months later the court sent five

ministers abroad to study foreign governments.

A war fought to its end on

someone else''s land became the court''s answer

to "whom should we learn from. "

On the political system too, the court

moved. In 1905 it sent five ministers abroad

to study constitutions. In 1906 it announced "preparation

for constitutional government. " In 1908 it promulgated the

Outline of the Constitution, setting a nine-year

preparatory period, with a parliament planned for

1917. In 1909 the provinces held elections for

consultative assemblies — the first elections to a

local representative body in Chinese history.

But time was not on the court''s

side. It asked for nine years;

others would not wait nine years.

Nine years were set for preparation.

Only three were had.

Back to the city itself.

Leshou Hall in the Summer Palace was

among the first places to be fitted

with electric light. Among the palace women,

Consort Zhen was among the earliest to

take up photography, and left a number

of photographs. The city had vernacular newspapers,

photographic studios, and rickshaws on the streets.

The other side: bannermen lived on the

court''s stipends — the "iron crop" — and by

the late Qing those stipends went less

and less far, so that holding office

and mortgaging property existed side by side.

Cixi loved opera. The Dehe Garden theatre

in the Summer Palace, a three-storey stage,

was built for that; performers like Tan

Xinpei were summoned to sing at court.

Electric light, cameras, newspapers, opera stages

the last decade of an old court

was also its liveliest.

Back to that November.

On November 14, 1908, Guangxu died at Hanyuan Hall

on Yingtai, aged thirty-eight, in the thirty-fourth

year of his reign.

The next day, November 15, in the wei

hour, Cixi died at Yiluan Hall in

Zhongnanhai, aged seventy-four. An emperor who wanted

reform but was held for ten years

died on an island ringed by water.

A woman who had held power for

him for forty-seven years died in a

hall not far away.

Less than a day apart.

That coincidence of timing became, over the

century since, the most often told part

of the story.

How did the emperor die?

The question has been discussed for a

century. There are four main accounts;

they are set out here side by

side. First, illness. Guangxu was frail and

sickly for years, and the palace medical

records list a body full of complaints.

This account rests on those case records.

Second, that Cixi killed him.

The reasoning: the two deaths came too

close together, and Cixi did not want

Guangxu to hold power again after she

was gone. Third, that Li Lianying killed

him. This appears in some memoirs.

Fourth, that Yuan Shikai and Yi Kuang

killed him. The reasoning: both had crossed

the emperor in the 1898 coup.

Each of the four has its own

basis and its own sources; none has

complete, direct evidence. All four are set

out here, and no verdict is offered.

The turn came in recent decades.

In 1980 archaeologists cleared the underground palace of

the Chongling mausoleum in the Western Qing

tombs — Guangxu''s tomb. His remains were examined

then, and no clear sign of poisoning

was found. After 2003 a research group on

the cause of Guangxu''s death took a

different approach. Instead of looking only at

bone, they tested his hair and the

burial garments. In 2008 the group published its

conclusion: arsenic levels in Guangxu''s hair and

clothing were abnormally high, consistent with acute

arsenic poisoning. That November the finding was

widely reported. The same question: in 1980 they

looked at bone, in 2008 at hair.

Change the evidence and the answer changes.

This is the scientific method — and also

an attitude toward history: what counts as

settled often depends on what method you

look with.

On the day before she died,

Cixi made one last decision.

She made Puyi, son of Prince Chun

(Zaifeng), emperor. Puyi was three years old.

Zaifeng was made regent, to hold power

for the child emperor.

A woman who had guarded power for

forty-seven years handed the court, at the

end, to a three-year-old and a regent.

Three years later, that court was gone.

But that is the next episode.

This one stops inside those two days.

This city holds another ending, two hundred

and sixty-four years earlier.

On March 19, 1644, Li Zicheng''s army entered Beijing.

It was not yet light.

Zhu Youjian, the last Ming emperor

the Chongzhen emperor — came out of the

Forbidden City and walked onto a mound

of earth to the north.

In the Ming it was called Coal

Hill; today it is Jingshan.

Before the manner of his death,

what sort of emperor he was.

He was among the hardest-working of the

Ming emperors. For seventeen years he rose

before dawn and was still reading memorials

at night; he was frugal, and wore

patched clothes. But he was also suspicious

and hasty: in seventeen years he went

through more than fifty grand secretaries,

had a minister of war executed,

and put to death Yuan Chonghuan,

the commander in Ji and Liao.

At that dawn he had the bells

rung in the palace to summon the

officials to court. The bells rang a

long time. No one came.

He went back to the inner palace,

had Empress Zhou kill herself, and with

his own hand slashed his sixteen-year-old daughter

Princess Changping and killed the young Princess

Zhaoren. Then he and the eunuch Wang

Cheng''en went up Coal Hill, and he

hanged himself from a tree on the

eastern slope. Wang Cheng''en hanged himself from

a tree nearby. According to the Ming

shi, he left words on the front

of his robe to this effect:

I have reigned seventeen years, and my

ministers have failed me; I have no

face to meet my ancestors; I take

off my crown and cover my face

with my hair; let the rebels do

as they will with my body,

only do not harm the people.

After his death the body was hastily

buried in the tomb of Consort Tian.

Only after the Qing entered the Pass

was he reburied, under the name " Siling"

one of the smallest among the thirteen

Ming tombs.

Jingshan is still there, directly across from

the Gate of Divine Prowess of the

Palace Museum. Two stelae stand on the

hill: one reads " Place where Emperor Sizong

of Ming died for his state, "

written by Shen Yinmo in 1930; the other

is the " Stele for the three-hundredth anniversary, "

erected in 1944. The locust tree from which

Chongzhen hanged himself was given a name

by the early Qing: the " Guilty Locust, "

and was chained with an iron chain.

The tree on the hill today was

planted later. Wanchun Pavilion, the highest point

of Jingshan, is the high point of

Beijing''s central axis — look south from it

and you see the whole Forbidden City;

look north and you see the Bell

and Drum Towers. In 1644 an emperor hanged

himself on this hill.

In 1908 another emperor died on an island

ringed by water. Two hundred and sixty-four

years, one city, two different endings.

Of the places in this episode,

which can still be visited?

The Chongling mausoleum, where Guangxu ended up,

is in the Western Qing tombs at

Yixian in Hebei. Work began in 1909;

Guangxu was interred in 1913; it was completed

in 1915. It was robbed in 1938, cleared and

opened in 1980, and today you can walk

down into the underground palace.

At Yulantang in the Summer Palace,

the bricked-up rear doorway is still there,

and visitors can walk right up to

it. The Summer Palace was inscribed on

the World Heritage List in 1998.

The Well of Consort Zhen is in

the Palace Museum — the well visitors walk

past. The consorts'' tombs beside Chongling are

where Zhen was later reburied.

The Chongling underground palace is open today;

you can go down the stone steps

and see the stone doors and the

vaulted ceiling. The Hall of Mental Cultivation

in the Palace Museum, where Guangxu worked

and lived during the years he held

power, is open to visitors.

Yiluan Hall in Zhongnanhai, where Cixi spent

her last days, was burned by the

Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900 and later rebuilt;

it stands in a government compound and

is not open to the public.

Yingtai, also in Zhongnanhai, is likewise closed

it lies inside the government compound and

can only be seen in old photographs.

Of Enjizhuang, the eunuchs'' cemetery, very little

survives; some rubbings of epitaphs remain.

Jingshan is open, and you can climb

it. It is directly across from the

north gate of the Palace Museum.

Back to the main line.

An emperor held for ten years,

and a dowager empress who held power

for forty-seven years, died in the same

city less than a day apart.

It was not that the court never

thought of replacing him.

In 1900 they had even drafted the new

reign name, and still it did not

happen. Why could they not?

The title could not be gotten around;

a successor could not be made to

stand; outsiders would not recognize it;

and the guns were not in their

hands. In the end they handed this

court to a three-year-old and a regent.

Three years later, the court was gone.

That day is the next episode.

The full script of this film is

at sylogs.com.

▶ 觀看本集影片（含畫面與地圖）：In 1908 the emperor died at 38. The Empress Dowager died the next day. Coincidence?