Instalment 18 (1898)
Scene 1: At the court audience (continuation of the previous scene)
Kang Youwei stresses that all official should be loyal to the emperor. Those who obstruct reforms should therefore be executed. The high court official Gangyi is enraged and asks sarcastically: “Where is your knife? Kill me first!“ The conflict between reformers and conservatives before the emperor intensifies rapidly. Ronglu falls on his knees and the other court officials follow suit and kneel down to put moral pressure on the emperor. Ronglu markedly clears his throat in order to increase the indirect pressure on the emperor. But the emperor just offers to provide Ronglu with some new medicine which will help to rid him of his cough! Then the emperor exits the hall and the reforms are given permission to be carried out.
Scene 2: At the Palace
The emperor is occupying himself with the new reforms and discusses them enthusiastically with high court officials. Weng Tonghe walks through the imperial court lonely and sadly; he wears white (mourning) clothes and nobody pays attention to him.
Scene 3: At the reformers’ quarters
Liang Qichao is worried that although Kang Youwei has been granted an audience with the emperor (which is a privilege of high officials), the emperor nevertheless has not yet promoted Kang in rank. Kang counters Liang’s doubts stating that the emperor is in fact “a good emperor”, but that he is being obstructed by conservative officials. Therefore, the reformers now place all their hopes on the emperor and, in order to support him, they compose a host of petitions.
Ronglu is kneeling before Cixi’s private quarters hoping to be granted an audience. At first, Cixi does not wish to see him (having officially retired), but he continues to kneel and wait. Li Hongzhang, who is on his way to an audience with Cixi remarks to Ronglu: “If one’s life is made complicated one will harvest great success at a later stage. My post of general governor of Zhili is vacant…”. When Cixi and Li Hongzhang take their meal together, Cixi hopes to convince Li to help the emperor carry out the reforms “in a proper way”. But Li prefers to travel to Europe to take a look at the “true tiger” there. He contends that, until now, nobody has ever come to face the tiger on front: Instead they always saw pictures of him and copied those. Therefore he ask to be allowed to travel West. Cixi finally grants him permission and lets him go.
Kang Youwei’s students are composing many petitions on subjects such as agrarian reforms, educational reform etc. They hand these petitions to the official Yang Shenxiu because all petitions which Yang offered to the emperor so far have been accepted. The petitions urging for the institution of a parliament, though, are being held back since the power of the conservative faction is still too pervasive. The reformers do not want to bring the emperor into trouble.
After Ronglu has kneeled all day long, Cixi finally grants him an audience. He requests to be dismissed from his current post and instead to be appointed Governor General of Zhili and Beiyang since the military power is now located with the Beiyang Army. He points out to Cixi that Kang Youwei and Yuan Shikai already met once in Xiaozhan, suggesting a possible alliance of the reformers and the military. Thereupon, Cixi agrees to consider his request.
During the reforms, the emperor takes various measures: a machine factory is to be set up and selected students are to be sent to Japan to study; the number of official posts is to be reduced; new railroad lines are to be built; the name of the interpreter and diplomats school “Tongwenguan” is to be renamed to resemble a modern „teaching institution”; economics will be made a compulsory part of the official examinations; the “four books and five classic“ are deleted from the examination curriculum and instead candidates are now requested to compose an examination essay on state policies.
The emperor calls on Cixi, but he is so tired that he falls asleep. Cixi advises him that old officials should not be dismissed so easily since the younger officials still lack experience. She also contends that the emperor requires pragmatists to help him – men such as Ronglu.
Kang Youwei knows how difficult it is to push through reforms without political and military power. At the same time, Yang Shenxiu, in presence of the emperor, is defending the claim – against Xu Chengyu, the son of Xu Tong – that economics should be made a subject of official examinations. He accuses Xu for always attempting to block such petitions. In order to support the younger Xu, Gangyi (a high Manchu official and Cixi’s brother-in-law) in turn claims: “This is actually my fault”. The emperor is therefore angry at Gangyi. Gangyi, in turn, wants to call on Cixi to complain about Yang Shenxiu and Kang Youwei.
Gangyi’s wife pays Cixi a visit and tells her a story about the third daughter of an official. This daughter had been possessed by a fox spirit. Thus, the father visited Gangyi because he believed him to be the incarnation of the righteous judge Bao (a Song dynasty figure). Thus Gangyi should be able to drive away fox spirits. Now, however, the emperor has accused Gangyi and thus brought shame onto him (a hidden criticism of the emperor). Cixi – annoyed by the sudden political turn – contends that the emperor has made no mistake. She states that he is the emperor and therefore able to make wise decisions. She thereby makes clear to Gangyi’s wife that she does not wish to interfere in the emperor’s affairs. With slight irony, Cixi adds that women should really better stay at home and care for their husband and children!
The official Wang Zhao pays Gangyi a visit to hand him a petition he has composed for the emperor. Since the emperor’s new reform edict, every official is now allowed to hand in petitions. Gangyi, however, arrogantly refuses to accept his petition. During an argument of the two, the emperor enters the room and witnesses the ongoings. He has Gangyi dismissed from office and Wang Zhao rewarded.
Gangyi’s family comes to request an audience with Cixi and kneels in front of her chambers. But Cixi refuses to grant it.
Many petitions are amassed in the offices, but none are processed by the officials in charge. The emperor is greatly angered by this, but the officials claim that they do not have enough staff to process them all. The emperor, however, believes that the officials merely want to have positions, but do not want to work.
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