14
UPON MY ARRIVAL AT TIENTSIN26 I FOUND THAT Lo CHEN-YU had not told me the exact truth when he had said that my house was suitably prepared, and I therefore had to stay for one day at the Yamato Hotel. The next day Wan Jung and Wen Hsiu, as well as the others who had been in the Japanese Legation with me, arrived and we all moved into the hastily furnished Chang Garden.
The Chang Garden covered over three acres and included a large two-story house in the center. Originally used as an amusement park, it belonged to a former Manchu general who would not accept any rent for it from me, and at first, every day, personally swept the yard as a sign of loyalty. I stayed in the Chang Garden for five years, but after his death I moved to the Quiet Garden when his son assumed the face of a landlord and asked me for rent.
My reason for coming to Tientsin had been to enable me to voyage abroad, but I ended up by spending seven years there, seven years in which I wavered back and forth between different factions among my advisers. The princes, my father included, had far less power over me, and Johnston, who had returned to Wei-hai-wei, ceased to be my tutor. He did, however, visit me in 1926 and canvassed unsuccessfully for support for me from the war lord Wu Pei-fu and others. Later he returned to England, was knighted, and became a professor at the University of London.
One could divide the people who struggled to win my favor in those seven years into various groups. There were the “old ministers” led by Chen Pao-shen who at first hoped for the restoration of the Articles of Favorable Treatment and later were content with the status quo. They could be called the “back to the palace” faction. Another group around Lo Chen-yu put their hopes in my going abroad and in getting help from foreign countries, principally Japan; they could be considered as the “ally with Japan” or “going abroad” faction, and they included retired Ch’ing officials as well as one or two of the Manchu princes, such as Pu Wei. A third group, of which I was the leading figure, thought the best method was to get in touch with and “buy up” the war lords. This “employing military men” group was rather heterogeneous and included retired Ch’ing officials and Republican politicians.
When Cheng Hsiao-hsu, who had unsuccessfully sought to reorganize the Household Department, came back to my service, he did not attach himself to any clique. He seemed both to praise and to attack the proposals which the others put forward; then he would suggest ideas that none of them had brought up, such as the use of foreign advisers and an open-door policy of cooperating with any country that was willing to help me in a restoration, but his suggestions were opposed by all the other factions. Later, when he finally adopted the policy of relying on Japan, he overcame all his old rivals including Lo Chen-yu, who had from the beginning been the leader of the pro-Japanese clique.
I was able to associate with as many war lords as I liked during my seven years in Tientsin, and they all gave me illusions—some more, some less. In a letter Wu Pei-fu described himself as a servant, Chang Tso-lin kowtowed to me, and on his own initiative Tuan Chi-jui requested an audience with me. Those in whom I had the highest hopes were the Manchurian or Fengtien war lords, and it was with them that I associated most closely. This began when Chang Tso-lin kowtowed to me.
One day in June, 1925, after I had arrived in Tientsin, my father-in-law Jung Yuan came to tell me in great excitement that Chang Tso-lin had sent a trusted envoy to give me $100,000 and to tell me that Chang hoped he would be able to meet me in the house where he was staying. I refused to go to see him on the advice of my tutor Chen Pao-shen, but, to my surprise, Jung Yuan brought Chang’s envoy again the following night. The man insisted that I would be in no danger in Chinese territory, and explained that it was not convenient for Chang Tso-lin to enter the concession and that was why he was repeating his invitation. Without telling anyone else I got into an automobile and set off.
That early summer evening was the first time I had ventured out of the Japanese concession. When I arrived at the Tsao Family Garden, where Chang Tso-lin was staying, I saw a strange guard of honor—tall soldiers dressed in gray who carried ancient swords and spears as well as modern rifles. The car passed slowly between their double ranks from the main gate to the house.
When I got out of the car I was led into a brightly lit hall, where a very short man with a moustache wearing civilian clothes came toward me. I recognized him at once as Chang Tso-lin, and hesitated since I did not know how to greet him. This was the first time I had sought out an important Republican figure and Jung Yuan had given me no instructions. But to my astonishment, Chang knelt on the floor without a moment’s pause and kowtowed, saying, “How is Your Majesty?”
“How are you, Marshal?” I replied as I helped him to his feet and we walked toward the reception room together. I was in very good spirits and grateful for what he had just done to end my uneasy feeling that I had lowered my dignity by coming to see him. What made me even more pleased, of course, was to discover that this very powerful and influential man had not forgotten the past.
The room was furnished expensively in a melange of furniture that included Chinese hardwood tables and chairs, Western-style sofas, and a modern glass screen. We sat down at a round table facing each other and Chang Tso-lin started talking as he smoked one cigarette after another. No sooner had he opened his mouth than he started to curse Feng Yu-hsiang for forcing me out of the Forbidden City in order to get at the palace treasures. He himself, he claimed, attached the greatest importance to the preservation of China’s ancient culture and riches, had looked after the Ch’ing palace in Fengtien very well and was planning to get possession of a set of the famous Four Libraries of books, which had been made at the orders of the Emperor Chien Lung (1707—1799), so that he could preserve them in their entirety. He said in a reproachful tone that I should not have fled to the Japanese Legation at a time when he had plenty of troops in Peking who could have ensured my safety. He asked me about my life since my departure from Peking and said that I had only to tell him if I wanted anything.
I said that I was well aware of how thoughtful he had been on my behalf, but since Feng’s men were still in Peking, I had been forced to flee to the Japanese Legation. I went on to observe that I had known how well the imperial palaces and mausoleums in Mukden had been looked after and that I appreciated his understanding and sentiments.
“If Your Majesty would like to come up to our Mukden and live in the palace there, it would be quite possible for me to arrange it.”
“Marshal Chang, you are too kind. . . .”
But Marshal Chang then changed the subject to my daily life. “If you need anything from now on just write to me.”
The only thing I lacked was a throne, but I could scarcely say so in so many words while I was talking to him. During our conversation we were alone in the room except for a swarm of flies, and it occurred to me that there were never flies in the middle of the night in the concession.
An aide-de-camp came in after a while and said, “The Chief of Staff wants to see you, sir,” Chang Tso-lin waved his hand and said, “There’s no hurry. Tell him to wait for me.”
I immediately got up and said that I would be going since he must be very busy. He replied at once, “No hurry, no hurry,” but at that point I caught a glimpse of a woman’s face behind the screen (I learned later that this was his fifth concubine) and I felt that he must really be busy. I took my leave of him again and this time he did not try to keep me.
When I had left the concession I had been accompanied by one of the plainclothes Japanese policemen who were stationed at the Chang Garden. Apparently, Chang Tso-lin had not noticed him standing beside my car, for as he saw me off he said in a loud voice:
“If those damn Japs put a finger on you, let me know and I’ll sort them out for you.”
The following morning, the Japanese Consul General delivered the following warning: “If Your Majesty makes another secret trip to Chinese territory, the Japanese Government will no longer be able to guarantee your safety.”
My relations with the Fengtien war lords had been growing closer, and after my meeting with Chang Tso-lin they were entirely in the open. When they came to the Chang Garden the etiquette observed was no longer that of the Forbidden City: they did not kowtow to me and I did not confer upon them the right to ride a horse or be carried in a sedan chair at court. They merely bowed or shook hands, and then we would behave as equals; and I did not affect the style of an Emperor when writing to them. The closeness of the relationship between me and the Fengtien generals would be decided by their attitude toward my restoration.
In 1928 Chang Tso-lin was murdered by the Japanese. I later heard that the reason they killed him was because he was becoming less amenable to their demands because he was under the influence of his son, the “Young Marshal” Chang Hsueh-liang, who wanted to break with Japan and make friends with the United States. Although this murder frightened me, and some of the retired Ch’ing officials regarded it as an object lesson, it did not deter me from my course because I did not regard myself in the same class as Chang Tso-lin. He, after all, was a military commander for whom a substitute could easily be found. But I was the Emperor, and the Japanese could not find another one in the whole of China. As my advisers explained: “The Japanese are strong enough to take Manchuria by force, but if they My Exile did so they would not be capable of running it; without Your Majesty on the throne they will find it very difficult to achieve anything.” I was completely convinced that Japan recognized these facts, and built my policy on this assumption as well as the necessity of winning the hearts of the people of the Northeast.