Page:China Under the Empress Dowager - ed. Backhouse and Bland - 1914.pdf/144



days of mourning for T'ung-Chih being done, his remains disposed of as auspiciously as the Court of Astronomers could desire, and his ghost placated, thanks to Wu K'o-tu, by solemn promises on the part of his mother to provide him with a suitable and legitimate heir in due season, life in the Forbidden City settled down once more into the old grooves under the joint Regency of the Empresses of the Eastern and Western Palaces.

But before long the new Emperor, a nervous and delicate boy, became, all unconsciously, a thorn in the side of the woman who put him on the Throne. As he passed from intancy to boyhood, it was a matter of common knowledge and report in the Palace that he showed a marked preference for the Empress Tzǔ An, who, by her kind and sympathetic treatment, had won the child's heart. In the innocence of his lonely youth he frequented therefore the Eastern Palace, while Tzǔ Hsi, whose pride could brook no rivals, even in the heart of a child, was compelled to look on, and to realise that the forming of the future ruler's mind was in the hands of another woman. There were not lacking those who told her that her colleague, secretly and with ulterior motives, encouraged the boy to oppose and displease her. Under these conditions, it was inevitable that the young Emperor should gradually become a cause of increasing jealousy and friction between the two women.

Tzǔ Hsi undoubtedly resented the boy's predilection as much as her colleague's action in encouraging it. At Court, where everyone and everything is a potential instrument for intrigue and party faction, the young Emperor's attitude could not fail to cause her grave concern. She