CHAPTER IX

TZE-HI SOLE REGENT

' I ""HE Empress Dowager Tze-hi was about forty-
six years of age when she became sole ruler of
the Chinese Empire on behalf of the child whom
she had herself chosen to sit upon the throne. Nor
was her authority an unreal one compared with that
of any of the Emperors who had governed China
before her. She was not an absolute despot, it is
true, except within the walls of the Forbidden City.
But neither were her male predecessors at Peking
absolute despots outside the palaces. The Chinese
theory of Imperial rule did not allow the unrestrained
tyranny of the Son of Heaven over his subjects.
Only his fellow-Manchus called themselves " slaves "
of the Emperor, and even their slavery was of an
honorary kind. The Emperor of China i^ in many
ways as much of a figurehead as any constitutional
monarch. His influence over the destinies of his
country is exercised chiefly through the power which
he has of choosing his advisers. But even here it
seems difficult for him to prevent a great man from
rising, by sheer force of merit, to the highest offices,
including what is equivalent to a place in the Cabinet.
The chief obstacle which Tze-hi found to the

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ii8 GREAT EMPRESS DOWAGER OF CHINA

satisfactory enjoyment of her position was that occa-
sioned by her sex. The stringent laws of etiquette
which hedged her about were not lightly to be
broken, and she was too thoroughly a woman of
China to try to flout the rules of feminine propriety
which had been established by immemorial antiquity.
