The Crisis of Succession in the Late Qing Dynasty

The death of the Tongzhi Emperor in 1875 marked a pivotal moment in Qing dynasty history. At just 19 years old, the emperor left no heir, creating a constitutional crisis that exposed deep fractures within the imperial court. His mother, the formidable Empress Dowager Cixi, orchestrated the succession of her four-year-old nephew, the Guangxu Emperor, bypassing traditional dynastic inheritance rules. This decision, while securing Cixi’s continued regency, violated centuries-old Confucian principles of patrilineal succession that had governed Chinese imperial transitions since ancient times.

The Tongzhi Emperor’s widow, Empress Xiaozheyi, committed suicide shortly after her husband’s death—an act many interpreted as protest against Cixi’s manipulation of succession. This tragedy became the catalyst for what historians now call the “Succession Controversy of 1875,” where conservative Confucian officials challenged the legitimacy of Guangxu’s accession. At the heart of this conflict stood Wu Kedu, a minor official whose dramatic suicide would become one of the most famous acts of remonstrance in late imperial history.

Wu Kedu: The Scholar-Official Who Challenged Cixi

Wu Kedu was no ordinary bureaucrat. A 70-year-old former censor serving in the Board of Civil Office, he belonged to that class of Confucian literati who believed officials had a sacred duty to correct imperial misconduct. His career had been marked by previous acts of principled protest—he had been dismissed twice for memorials criticizing corruption—but the succession crisis presented what he saw as a fundamental threat to dynastic continuity.

For four years following Tongzhi’s death, Wu waited patiently, hoping Cixi would formally decree that any son born to Guangxu would be posthumously adopted as Tongzhi’s heir. When no such proclamation came, he chose the most dramatic form of protest available to a Confucian official: ritual suicide at the late emperor’s tomb. On March 20, 1879, during ceremonies marking the final interment of Tongzhi’s remains at the Eastern Qing Tombs, Wu hanged himself in a temple near the burial site, leaving behind three meticulously prepared documents that would shake the court to its core.

The Three Testaments: A Confucian Protest

Wu’s suicide was no impulsive act but a carefully choreographed political statement. His preparations reveal the mind of a scholar steeped in historical precedent and ritual propriety:

1. To the Temple Abbot: Wu left detailed instructions for his burial, insisting on simple black-lacquered coffin and a gravesite near Tongzhi’s tomb. He included exact sums for funeral expenses (20 taels for the coffin, 45 taels total) and specified cutting the leather soles from his boots—a traditional burial practice.

2. To His Son: This remarkable 1,500-word letter blended personal advice with political justification. Wu referenced Song Dynasty precedents where ministers died protesting irregular successions, emphasized family scholarly traditions spanning 18 generations, and warned against bringing his body home lest it attract official retaliation. Most poignantly, he distinguished his suicide from his brother’s personal disgrace decades earlier: “He died for private troubles; I die for the troubles of the state.”

3. The Memorial to the Throne: Wu’s formal protest drew direct parallels between Cixi’s actions and the controversial succession of Emperor Taizong in 976 CE, when the Song founder’s brother usurped the throne from his nephews. His central demand was clear: Cixi must issue an ironclad decree ensuring Guangxu’s future sons would be designated as Tongzhi’s heirs. The memorial’s closing lines invoked the ultimate Confucian justification for remonstrance: “A bird about to die sings mournfully; a man about to die speaks honestly.”

The Cultural Impact: Suicide as Political Discourse

Wu’s act resonated deeply within China’s Confucian framework, where suicide had long served as the ultimate form of protest. Since the Warring States period, officials like Qu Yuan (340–278 BCE) had established the precedent of using death to awaken rulers to misgovernment. The Ming Dynasty’s “Great Rites Controversy” (1521–1524) saw over a hundred officials beaten to death protesting the Jiajing Emperor’s succession—events Wu explicitly referenced.

What made Wu’s case extraordinary was its calculated timing and documentation. By dying during Tongzhi’s interment, he tied his protest directly to imperial mourning rituals. His meticulous letters transformed personal suicide into a public performance of loyalty, forcing the court to respond. As historian Mary Wright observed, “No other protest in late Qing so perfectly embodied the Confucian ideal that an official’s duty to correct misgovernment transcended even his duty to live.”

Cixi’s Response and Political Aftermath

Faced with this undeniable moral challenge, Cixi reacted with uncharacteristic concession. Within weeks, she issued an edict seemingly acceding to Wu’s demand, promising Guangxu’s future heir would indeed be designated as Tongzhi’s successor. Yet the decree contained careful ambiguities—it avoided specifying whether this would apply to Guangxu’s first son or allow for biological heirs first—leaving Cixi room for future manipulation.

The empress dowager’s private reaction betrayed deeper unease. Her initial angry response to earlier protests (“How dare you criticize your sovereign’s decisions!”) gave way to visible discomfort. Court records suggest she ordered Wu’s memorial distributed to provincial officials—an unprecedented honor for a critic. Later, during the Boxer Crisis, Cixi reportedly lamented that ignoring Wu’s warning had brought dynastic misfortune.

Legacy: The Last Confucian Protest

Wu’s death marked a turning point in Qing political culture. Coming just decades before the dynasty’s collapse, it represented perhaps the last major instance where traditional Confucian remonstrance influenced imperial policy. His act inspired immediate emulation—several officials submitted supporting memorials, and his tomb became a pilgrimage site for reformist scholars.

Historians debate Wu’s ultimate impact. Some argue his protest delayed republican reforms by reinforcing conservative values; others see it as early resistance to imperial autocracy. What remains undeniable is its cultural power—even today, Chinese textbooks present Wu as embodying the Confucian ideal that “a scholar’s death may be as weighty as Mount Tai.”

In the chaotic final years of the Qing, as modernizers dismissed Confucian rituals as obsolete, Wu’s ghost lingered. When the dynasty fell in 1912, many recalled his warning that violating ancestral laws would bring ruin. His carefully staged death thus became both a swan song for traditional remonstrance and a harbinger of the old order’s collapse—a moment when one man’s ritual suicide briefly shook an empire.