Instalment 17 (1898)
Scene 1: At the Palace
Ronglu sees the third memorial of Kang Youwei which has been sent to court from the Hanlin Academy. (Before, the memorials had all remained there and were not prompted to the emperor by Weng Tonghe).
Scene 2: At the Palace; assembly of the provincial governors
The provincial governors have come together headed by Weng Tonghe, the Minister of Revenue, to debate the financial situation in the provinces. The reparations to Japan are a great financial burden to the Court and the provinces have no more money in their treasuries. The governors report on the reasons for the missing taxes. The governor of Shandong explains the inability of the rural population and consequently the province to pay taxes by pointing to the great draughts and famines that have struck the Northern provinces. In Jiangsu province, where until recently it had been common to pay taxes with donations of cotton cloth, the cotton production has broken down due to the fierce competition of foreign firms. (This highlights the inability of officials to deal with the problems that are arising in the provinces). One governor who had fallen asleep during the meeting states that his journey to Beijing has taken forty days because the railways lines, which had been promised by the Court, have not yet been constructed. When Weng Tonghe hears about this, he invites the provincial governors to dine with him as a form of “compensation”.
Scene 3: At the Summer Palace
As a result of Ronglu’s interference, the Guangxu emperor now receives Kang Youwei’s third memorial and reads it. He then goes to visit Cixi. Cixi is sceptical of the enthusiasm with which the emperor speaks about Kang’s ideas. She says that the Gong Prince and Li Hongzhang have been reforming the state for the past thirty years and that she, too, hopes for successful reforms. But she leaves the decisions concerning the country’s future to the emperor. At the same time, though, she cautions him not to employ the “wrong people”. Cixi emphasises that any form of institutional change must always strive to preserve the power of the Qing dynasty.
The emperor is now turning more and more confident. He orders Weng Tonghe to hand him the previous two memorials by Kang Youwei and wishes to emancipate himself from the influence of his established advisors. He calls upon them to state their own respective views on reform and, against Weng’s wishes, even invites Kang to an audience in Beijing.
Kang has received the emperor’s invitation and requests his students to accompany him to the audience in Beijing. Liang Qichao informs his teacher that the “Zhongshan xuetang” (Zhongshan Academy, Zhongshan being the courtesy name of Sun Yatsen), a school which their contact person in Japan, Xu Qin, set up with Sun Yatsen, has been renamed into „Datong xuetang“ (Academy of the Great Union). Liang had expected that the news of the renaming – homage to Kang’s teachings (he would write a book entitled “Datongshu”) – would please Kang Youwei. Instead, Kang tells Liang to send a telegram to Xu Qin with the order to sever all ties with Sun Yatsen immediately.
Kang and his students arrive at the train station in Tianjin on their way to Beijing. Upon their arrival, Yuan Shikai has ordered that they be met by some of Yuan’s soldiers and accompanied to Yuan’s military base in Xiaozhan.
Yuan asks Kang Youwei to contact him after the audience with the emperor and inform him about the course and content of the conversation. He also hopes that Kang will hand the emperor a fictive map of a China that is being cut into pieces like a melon by foreign powers (a famous illustration used until today in history school textbooks) to demonstrate to the emperor the dangerous situation the country is in.
The emperor and Cixi pay a last visit to the Gong Prince who is on his death-bed. The emperor asks him whom he should employ to carry out reforms. The Gong Prince names Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong as reliable people but adds that Weng Tonghe cannot be trusted. After having said this, he dies.
After a personal conversation, the emperor distances himself from Weng and tells him that he will not forget his role as a tutor, but that he will relieve him from his present positions.
Weng’s dismissal is officially announced.
In the old destroyed Summer Palace, Kang Youwei discusses with his students the upcoming audience with the emperor and calls upon them to take on the position of conservative court officials for a rehearsal. Kang argues that reforms have not been fundamental (genben) until now. In his opinion, past reforms were not so much true reforms (bian fa), but rather changes in selected areas (bian shi). He believes that a reform is like the refurbishment of a ramshackle house: If one wishes to avoid its collapse, then both the pillars and the beams need to be replaced. It is useless to try and replace only individual isolated parts.
During the audience, the emperor treats Kang with much respect. Following the emperor’s request, Kang gives a speech advocating comprehensive reforms in the following areas: customs and habits, education, industry and the political system. In terms of changing customs and habits, Kang hopes to start with introducing a code governing that Western clothing styles and Western forms of greetings should be used only. Kang’s opponents immediately attack this minor point and stubbornly hold on to this marginal topic. Several times, the desperate emperor requests the officials to enter into a real discussion with Kang. The debate highlights both the differences between the old court elite and the reformer Kang Youwei, and the lingering conflict between Han and Manchu officials. The officials would love to see the “troublemaker” Kang sentenced to death. Kang, however, counters their opposition by citing the examples of Russia and Japan to exemplify successful reforms. He emphasises that the Japanese emperor had all top officials replaced during the Meiji reforms. And Tsar Peter the Great even had all the old ministers executed. Thus, Kang tries to persuade the emperor to follow lead and have the officials of the first and second rank – killed!
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