The Infamous Marble Barge

While we were at the Summer Palace, the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi (or more commonly referred to as Cixi) was talked about throughout the tour.  Our guides painted her as the Wicked Witch of the East and I made a note in my travel journal to read more about her when I returned to the states.  They showed us the building where she imprisoned her own son, the Emperor.  They talked about how this concubine murdered and seduced her way to the top of the throne.   But the worst act was her embezzling funds from the royal navy to build the above marble boat. "This was the reason China lost the war to Japan," our guide said.  "She bankrupted the navy."    Wow!  I had to get her biography!

Well, seven years later, I finally managed to read one.  I just finished Sterling Seagrave's Dragon Lady.  The Life and Legend of the Last Empress of China, and she was not the monster that the tour guides so colorfully maintained.  It is a book to read slowly because the history of China is so rich and complex.  I want to share with you a quote from the book:

"Prince Chun had made extravagant plans to complete the restoration of one wing of the Summer Palace as Tzu Hsi's principal residence in retirement, and put the arm on Li for the necessary funds. . . Instead of going to foreign banks for a loan, Li launched a discreet money-raising campaign disguised as a secret navy defense fund drive. . .It was later said that Tzu Hsi squandered all the money set aside for the improvement of China's navy to build a Marble Barge on Lake Kunming, a charge that has been repeated dogmatically in both popular and scholarly works.  The truth is that the Marble Barge was built by Emperor Chien Lung a century earlier, not by Tzu Hsi, and after being defaced by the Allies in 1860 it was restored cosmetically on the orders of Prince Chun as a way to flatter her."

The myths we were fed on the tour were debunked by Sterling one by one.

"How could they not know this?" I asked my travel buddy.  "Were they deliberately lying or just trying to be entertaining?"

"I don't know.  We were fed a lot of propaganda on that tour."

I write this as a reminder to myself to always question what I am told.  Read more history.  Educate myself before I travel, not after.