Imperial Woman (34 page)

She did not like this proud apology. “I do not excuse you,” she said in her cold and beautiful voice. “Therefore it scarcely matters if you excuse yourself.”

He was confounded, and pride meeting pride, he rose and made obeisance. “Majesty, I leave your presence. Forgive me that I came without your summons.”

He went away, his noble head held high, and she watched him thoughtfully. Let him go, for she could always recall him. Meanwhile she would find out for herself what the news was from the south, and prepared with her own knowledge she could accept or refuse his counsel. Until she knew all she could not judge advice. She sent her eunuch therefore to fetch the Chief Eunuch. In a few minutes that sleeper arrived, his eyes still drowsy, and he knelt before her and rested his head on his hands to hide his yawns.

“You are to summon the two generals, Tseng and Li, to the Audience Hall tomorrow,” she told him. “Inform Prince Kung and the Grand Councilor Jung Lu that I shall require their presence. Invite the Eastern Empress Dowager to come an hour earlier than usual. We have grave matters to hear.”

She turned to Li Lien-ying, “Say to the Grand Councilor that I shall not come to the archery field today, and he is to take care that the black horse my son rides is fed no grain, lest he become restive under the bridle.”

“Yes, Majesty,” the eunuch said, and went off to do his duty. In a few minutes he was back while she was still sitting on her throne, pondering what Prince Kung had said. He made obeisance.

“What now?” she asked. “Why am I troubled again?”

“Majesty,” he said, “the young Emperor is weeping because you are not there to see his new saddle. The Grand Councilor prays you come.”

She rose immediately, for she could not bear to hear that the child was weeping, and her ladies following her, she went to the archery field, where the young Emperor was sitting on his horse. Jung Lu stood by, his own silver gray Arabian saddled and waiting and held by a eunuch.

How kingly handsome was her son! The Empress Mother paused to look at him before he saw her. He sat upon the new saddle, made of sand-colored leather set upon a blanket of black felt embroidered in many colors. His short legs, stretched astride, could barely reach across the wide back of the horse and only the tips of his velvet boots touched the golden stirrups. His scarlet robe was gathered under his jeweled girdle and his yellow brocaded pantaloons showed to the waist. He had taken off his imperial hat, and his hair, braided in two braids and tied with stiff red silk cord, stood out from his head. Jung Lu, his handsome face uplifted to the child in love and laughter, was listening to the high gleeful voice. Suddenly the little Emperor saw his mother.

“My mother!” he cried. “See the saddle Jung Lu has given to me!”

So she must go and look at the saddle and inspect its wonders and her eyes met Jung Lu’s in mutual pride and laughter. And then upon an impulse she said in a low voice while the child brandished his whip:

“Do you know that the two generals have come from the south?”

“I have heard it,” he said.

“They propose to let the merchants of Shanghai build a stronger army, under a new foreign leader. Is this wise?”

“The first task,” he replied, “is to put an end to the rebellion. As it is, there are two wars at the same time, one with the rebels and one with the white men. Between them we shall be so squeezed that we cannot survive. Crush the rebels, using whatever means is to be found, and then with strength the white men can be driven away.”

She, nodding and smiling all this time as though she thought only of the child, now watched him gallop around the field. Jung Lu mounted his own horse to be at his side, and she stood there, her ladies somewhat at a distance, the wind fluttering her long blue satin robe, for she was still in mourning for the late Emperor. She gazed at these two whom she loved, the child so small and gallant, the man straight and tall, as they sat erect and pliant upon the galloping horses. The man’s face was turned to watch the child, to speak a word of counsel, ready at any moment to catch him if he fell. But the child looked well ahead, his head high, his hands holding the reins with a mastery wonderful to see.

“An emperor born,” she thought, “and he is my son!”

When they had drawn their horses to a standstill at the opposite end of the field she waved her kerchief and, followed by her ladies, she returned to her own palace.

In the chill gray dawn of the next day the two Empress Dowagers sat, each on her own throne upon a raised dais. It was the hour of the Audience of the Grand Council and before the two Empresses hung the thin curtain of yellow silk through which they could see dimly, without being seen, the figures of the Councilors as they came in, one by one, in order of their seniority, Prince Kung entering first in accordance with his rank. Now it was the duty of the Chief Eunuch to announce each Councilor and even Prince Kung must wait for the call of the Chief Eunuch, but today he did not, and Li Lien-ying leaned to whisper to the Empress Mother:

“Majesty, it is not my business, but jealous of your dignity, I see that Prince Kung has come in without waiting for his name to be called.”

So attuned was this eunuch to every mood and thought of his sovereign that somehow already he had caught from her the odor of her displeasure with Prince Kung.

The Empress Mother seemed not to hear but he knew she had heard and she put down in the inexorable record of her memory this second discourtesy of the Prince. She was too wise to act swiftly until she knew all. Surely he could not be her enemy. Yet she could trust no one except Jung Lu, and even he was now wed to another woman.

She put aside such thoughts. Intrigue she must always suspect and for her own safety, but not at this moment. Nevertheless, Prince Kung, living outside the Forbidden City, was able to come and go as he pleased, whereas she must always stay locked inside these walls, and could he not intrigue as he liked without her knowledge? What guarantee had she of his honor except his word? She sighed, knowing herself forever alone. This, too, she must accept. It was her destiny.

Beside her Sakota sat musing, hearing and seeing nothing. She hated these audiences at dawn, for she was one who did not wake before noon, and now, half drowsing, she waited to return to her bed. Meanwhile the Grand Council assembled. All knelt before the Dragon Throne, their faces to the floor, and Prince Kung began his recitative of the memorial he held in both hands. He read well, his voice deep and sonorous, and he made every word as clear and shaped as gems set separately from each other upon a chain of gold.

“In the fourth month of this moon year,” he read, “and the fifth month of this solar year, the Chinese rebels, called T’ai P’ing, became exceedingly troublesome in the countryside surrounding the city of Shanghai. Not content with setting up their kingdom in the southern capital of Nanking, they came close to Shanghai and in sorties they ventured even into the settlements and burned several houses. The local army of Shanghai, called the Ever-Victorious, pursued them but did not kill many, for the rebels knew the ditches and gullies of the terrain and leaped over them easily and escaped. Meanwhile the peasants are terrified and more than fifteen thousand of them are crowding into the city, creating disorder. The foreign merchants are angry, for they see that among these peasants are many strong young men who ought to be fighting the rebels instead of taking refuge with the women and children and old persons. In order to persuade all young men to resist, they now propose to summon one Gordon, an Englishman known for his fearless nature and great rectitude, to lead the Ever-Victorious. This memorial of the two generals Tseng and Li is before the Throne.”

Behind the silken curtain the Empress Mother bit her lips. She was not pleased that Prince Kung had presented the memorial. She said, her voice clear and firm:

“Let us hear what the two generals themselves wish to declare before the Dragon Throne.”

Prince Kung, thus rebuked, could only summon first General Tseng, as the elder, who prostrated himself before the Dragon Throne, and he said, after greetings:

“I pray that my brother general, Li Hung-chang, may speak for both of us, since he is the acting governor of the province of Kiangsu and his headquarters are in the city of Shanghai. Though but thirty-nine years of age, Li Hung-chang is the most able of my younger generals and I present him to the Dragon Throne with full recommendation.”

Again without waiting for the Empress Mother to command, Prince Kung said:

“Let Li Hung-chang come forward.”

Behind the screen the Empress Mother did not speak but her secret anger increased. Nevertheless she held it controlled until the affairs of state were settled. Li Hung-chang came forward and prostrated himself before the empty Dragon Throne and he said, after greetings:

“In the third month of this moon year, or as the foreigners have it, in the fourth month of the solar year, I led my army into the city of Shanghai, under the command of my superior, General Tseng Kuo-fan. There I found the city protected not by Imperial Armies, which indeed were elsewhere engaged, for nearly the whole of the province is in rebel hands, but by the Ever-Victorious, who are mercenaries in the pay of the city merchants and led by an American mercenary, surnamed Ward. This Ward was a good soldier but unfortunately he was killed in a rebel attack in the ninth month of this solar year, which is the eighth month of the moon year. A second American, surnamed Bourgevine, then sought his post but this man is an adventurer. Although he is well loved by the mercenaries, for he divides with them whatever spoils he takes, yet he is insubordinate to our command. He thinks of himself as a king and the mercenaries of the Ever-Victorious Army as his private army and, counting upon their loyalty, he makes war only when and where he pleases. Thus when I commanded him to proceed to Nanking, for my superior officer had sent word that the situation there was critical and ordered me to send reinforcements at once, Bourgevine refused to go. For this I deprived him of his post, and I reproved him, whereupon Bourgevine attacked the treasure houses of the Merchants’ Guild, which collects the money for the Ever-Victorious Army. He hit this guard and that in the face with his right hand and ordered the soldiers to take forty thousand silver taels from the coffers, a sum, which, it is true, was in arrears, and he distributed the taels among the mercenaries, thereby winning even stronger loyalty from them. I then discharged him and threatened to disband the Ever-Victorious Army, knowing that unless the leader be under my orders, as I am under the orders of my superior officer, the soldiers may themselves become the nucleus for a new rebellion.”

“This leaves the Ever-Victorious Army without a leader,” Prince Kung observed.

“It does indeed, Highness,” Li Hung-chang replied.

Now the Empress Mother had listened to this memorial with the greatest care, and though she could not see Li Hung-chang clearly, she discerned through the silk curtains a tall man, and she could hear his voice, decisive and deep, and all he said was plain and well spoken. Here was a man who could be useful to her, and she marked him in her mind. But she said nothing, for she was again displeased that Prince Kung had spoken without first waiting for her reply. She could not blame Li Hung-chang for answering Prince Kung, who was his superior in rank, but she could and did blame the Prince.

“Do you still wish to disband the mercenaries?” she inquired after silence. Her voice, silvery clear, proceeding thus from behind the yellow curtain, startled the two men. Both looked toward her without being able to see her.

“Majesty,” Li replied. “Those soldiers are well trained and though they are arrogant to a degree, we cannot afford to lose their skill against the rebels. I propose to invite the Englishman surnamed Gordon to take the leadership of the Ever-Victorious Army and proceed to battle.”

“Does any one of you know this Gordon?” the Empress Mother now asked.

Prince Kung made obeisance toward the Throne. “Majesty, by chance I know something of him.”

“What chance?” she asked.

All could perceive displeasure in her cold voice, but Prince Kung, unthinking, replied without pause. “Majesty, when the invaders destroyed the palaces of Yüan Ming Yüan, I could not restrain myself from hastening thither to see if by any means I could save our national treasure. Alas, already the flames reached as high as Heaven, and man could do nothing. While I stood there grieving and sick at heart I saw a tall pale man near by. He wore the uniform of an English officer and he leaned upon a bamboo cane, and when I looked at his face I saw to my amazement that he, too, was sorrowing. When he in turn saw me, he came near and speaking very tolerably in Chinese, he told me that he was ashamed to see his compatriots and fellow-Europeans so greedy for plunder, even destroying what they could not carry. The mirrors, the watches, the clocks, the carved screens, the screens of carved ivory, the coral screens, the heaps of silk, the treasures in the storehouses—”

“Silence!” The voice of the Empress Mother came strange and strangled from behind the curtain.

“Majesty,” Prince Kung persisted, “I saw a French soldier pay a looter a handful of small coins for a string of imperial pearls which next day he sold for thousands of silver dollars. Gold ornaments were burned as brass and the ebony which lined the Throne Hall—”

“Silence!” the Empress Mother’s voice rang out again.

Prince Kung was still too proud to yield and he spoke sternly indeed.

“Majesty, I claim the right to speak. I then inquired of Gordon. I asked, ‘Can you not call off your soldiers?’

“He said, ‘Why did your Emperor allow the torture of our officers and our men, sent in good faith under a white flag to proclaim a truce, so that fourteen of them died?’ Majesty, how could I answer?”

“Be quiet!” the voice of the Empress Mother cried out insistent from behind the curtain. She was bitter with fury, for she knew that Prince Kung reproached her publicly because she had persuaded the Emperor, now dead, to send Prince Seng, the Mongol general, to seize the foreign truce party. She bit her lips and was silent for a full minute. Meanwhile Prince Kung bowed to the Dragon Throne and he stepped back into his place. All waited for the voice of command from behind the yellow curtain.