Imperial Woman (35 page)

“We give permission for this Englishman to serve us,” the Empress Mother said at last and she made her voice calm and resolute. She paused while all again waited, and then she said, “We must accept, it seems, the service even of the enemy.”

And so saying, she dismissed the audience.

But when she had returned that night to her own palace she sat brooding and aloof for many hours, and none dared ask her thoughts. She was alarmed that Prince Kung, whom she had trusted, could put himself above her. Was this a portent of her failing power? Her mind went roving over the year past, searching for signs of omen, good or ill. Then she remembered that on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month of the solar year a strange dust storm had fallen out of season on the countryside, and so heavy that it brought early darkness. The sky turned black and mighty columns of darkening dust came sweeping down upon the wings of a hurricane wind. The canal between Peking and Tientsin, fifty miles long, eighteen feet wide and seven feet deep, was filled with dust, barges lay on sand piles and the waters were absorbed. The storm lasted for sixteen hours and many travelers were lost. Some were driven into ditches by the force of the wind and lying there were suffocated by the dust and of those who struggled through the blackness to some kind of shelter many were forever blind and others mad. In the palaces the lanterns were lit by three o’clock in the afternoon and here was the strangest part of the storm, that when one column of dust had blown past, the blue sky shone clear and bright for a moment until the next cloud came.

When the storm was over and the sandbanks cleared away, a task of many days, the Board of Astrologers sent report to the Throne that such a storm had great portent and in conjunction with the stars it signified that some vast struggle was about to take place in the nation, and though many would be killed, yet a stranger from the West would come like the mighty wind and he would bring victory to the Imperial Armies.

This she recalled and she was comforted and her spirit rose high again. No, she would not fail. Victory was foretold, and what victory could this mean except over the southern rebels? And was not Gordon the stranger from the West? Whom need she fear? She would act now to prove to Prince Kung that she, not he, was Regent until her son sat upon the Throne. Thousands of years ago the Viscount Ke had advised the Emperor Wu, then ruling, in this fashion:

“In times of disorder, the government should be strong. In times of good order, it should be mild. But whatever the time, do not permit a prince or a minister to usurp the royal prerogatives.”

And while her will worked again like tonic in her veins a thought came to her as though clouds parted above her and the Eye of Heaven shone through upon a beam of sunlight. She would do more than bring a proud prince low. She would seat her son now, this very day, upon the Dragon Throne. He would sit there, an Emperor, and she behind the Throne would whisper her commands for him to speak aloud as his own.

She moved the more swiftly to perform her plan, for within a few days the Chief Eunuch came in secret to report to her that Prince Kung had twice presented himself to Sakota, her co-Regent, and eunuchs in waiting there had told him that Prince Kung had much reproached the Empress Dowager for her weakness and had said that she should not allow the Empress Mother to have her way always.

The Chief Eunuch, enjoying intrigue, pretended nevertheless to be much offended at what he had to tell. “And then, Majesty, Prince Kung said since you give ear daily to Jung Lu, whom you, Majesty, he said, now permit to act almost as a father to the young Emperor, that he most sorrowfully gave some credence to a tale he had refused to hear before—”

“Enough!” the Empress Mother cried. She rose, her robes flying, and she drove the Chief Eunuch from her presence by the fury in her long black eyes. He retired, content nevertheless with the seed he had sown, for he knew her quick imagination could see a story whole in a handful of words.

As for the Empress Mother, she went that very afternoon to call upon her cousin Sakota, the Empress Dowager, and speaking sweetly and giving no hint of what she knew, she used greetings and pleasant small talk and gracious flattery. Then changing her voice and manner, she said:

“Sister, my true purpose in coming to you today is to say that you must act with me to bring down the pride of Prince Kung, who has outstripped himself. He goes beyond his place, taking power away from you. I do not speak of myself.”

She saw at once that the Empress Dowager caught her meaning. Something of the old childish Sakota still hid inside this wasted frame. A sickly flush spotted the thin face.

“I see you feel as I do,” the Empress Mother said. “You marked how this Prince spoke ahead of me at our last audience. And much else I find, now that I put my mind upon it. He even comes into the Throne Hall without waiting to be announced by the Chief Eunuch.”

The Empress Dowager put forward her weak defense. “Surely he has proved his faithfulness.”

“I do not forgive him that he dares to presume because he thinks he saved my life,” the Empress Mother made retort.

The Empress Dowager made a small show of courage. “And did he not save your life?”

“He should not remember it if he did,” the Empress Mother said, and her red lips curved in contempt. “Does a large-minded man boast of having done his duty? I think not. And how, pray, did he save my life? By coming to Jehol when I commanded? I think not.” She paused and then said boldly, “It was our kinsman, Jung Lu, who dashed aside the assassin’s dagger.”

The Empress Dowager said nothing, and the Empress Mother, seeming not to notice her silence, went on, her great eyes flashing in bright triumph, her lovely hands eloquent in gesture. “And do you hear how Prince Kung raises his voice when he speaks to us? As though we were stupid women!”

The Empress Dowager smiled faintly. “I am stupid, I know.”

“I am not,” the Empress Mother declared. “Nor are you—I will not have it so. And did we grant that we are stupid, for men think all women stupid, though they are the fools who think so, still Prince Kung must behave with humble courtesy, for we are the Regents, Empresses in our own right, and much more than women. I tell you, Elder Sister, if we do not put this prince down, he will one day usurp the Regency and we shall be imprisoned somewhere in secret rooms inside these walls and who will rescue us? Men will follow a man, and our end will be unknown forever. No, you must act with me, Sakota.”

She spoke the childish name and bent her black brows into a frown upon her cousin. Sakota shrank away, as she had always done, and hastened to agree.

“Do as you think best, Sister,” she said.

With this timid permission, the Empress Mother rose and made obeisance and took her leave while all the ladies watched from the distance, seeing but too far to hear.

Yet this bold and most beautiful woman could bide her time once her plan was perfected. She waited, her plan ripening all the while within her mind. She waited for the rebels to be quelled in the South while the year passed. For the Englishman Gordon did not rush his soldiers into battle. No, he would not risk the least defeat. With proud modesty he asked that he be allowed to make a military survey of the countryside around Shanghai before he became leader of the Ever-Victorious Army, in order that he might know what he must face in battle. Impatient as she was, the Empress Mother gave him his time. Alas, while Gordon prepared slowly, a lesser white man was for the time being put in his place, a pompous small man, who sought glory for himself. With that mixed army of mercenaries of men of many nations, the Ever-Victorious, twenty-five hundred in all, and an imperial brigade of twice the number, he laid siege to the walled city of T’aitan, near Shanghai, dreaming that when he won that city, he could attack Nanking itself. Yet such was his stupidity that he did not go to see how T’aitan stood, but he believed what Chinese mandarins had told him, that the moat surrounding the city wall was no more than a dry ditch. But on the morning when he marched his men to cross it, they found it thirty-five feet wide and brimming with water, and no boats near. Nevertheless he ordered his men to cross it somehow on the bamboo ladders which they had brought to breach the walls, but the ladders broke in midstream and many men fell into the water and were drowned, while on the city wall the rebels stood and fired their guns at those who struggled across, jeering at the drowning men.

“Oh, how we laughed!” the rebels boasted after victory. “We watched the Ever-Victorious Army come nearer to the creek with no bridges upon which to cross. How we laughed when we saw their ladders grow weak and fall into the moat! Our Heavenly King laughed loudest of all! ‘What general is he?’ he cried, ‘who sends his men to take a city without finding out first whether there is water in the moat?’ Then he grew angry to see the small number of the enemy who had come to conquer us. ‘Do they think we are cowards?’ he asked. ‘Arise!’ he shouted to us, ‘drive these devils from the land!’ We rose together and we shouted with one mighty voice, ‘Blood—Blood—Blood!’ And we advanced upon the foolish Ever-Victorious ones and we pursued them until all were dead or scattered, the English officers among them. These English did wrong in overstepping the boundary that they themselves had set between us, and we let them suffer. Indeed, we thank the English captain for the guns he left behind for us, and for the thirty-two pounders which we have now mounted on our walls as proof of our victory. It is not possible to believe how foolish he was, for he took the small guns before he removed the large ones and thus had no weapons wherewith to cover his retreat. Meanwhile let not the Imperial Armies think that they alone have the help of the foreigners. In our armies, too, are many white men, and it was a Frenchman who directed the guns at T’aitan. As for us, we will not transgress the boundary line, but the country we possess we will hold and we will utterly destroy those devils who come against us.”

When this monstrous boast was presented to the Dragon Throne the Empress Mother rose up in her wrath and she sent her emissaries to Gordon and commanded him at once to take the leadership of the Ever-Victorious and the Imperial Armies, and to avenge the Throne for the loss of T’aitan. Gordon obeyed, but he would not avenge that city alone. Indeed, he obeyed no one, but still taking such time as he thought needful, he sought in battle to find the very heart of the rebellion. Thus he trained his men to strike sudden blows where they were not expected, changing his ground with vigor and speed, always winning until he had forced the rebels into defense. He worked in closest union with Li Hung-chang, all forces converging upon the pivotal cities of Chanzu and Quinsan, near Shanghai, and from there he advanced steadily toward victory.

Meanwhile, lulled by the Empress Mother’s mildness during this crisis, Prince Kung had forgotten earlier rebukes, and worn with his cares and grown familiar with her ways, more often than ever he omitted small courtesies in her presence. She saw and still said nothing until one day, his mind upon affairs of state, he rose unbidden from his knees when holding audience with her. Swift as a tigress she pounced upon him.

Her eyes fixed under frowning brows, her voice majestic, she said, “You forget yourself, Prince! Is it not law and custom, declared by our ancestors, that all must kneel before the Dragon Throne? The purpose of this law is to protect the Throne from sudden attack. Dare you stand when every other must kneel? You plot treachery against the Regents!” She turned to the eunuchs. “Summon the guards and let Prince Kung be seized!”

Now Prince Kung was so dazed that he only smiled, thinking the Empress Mother jested. But the waiting eunuchs heard the command and they made haste to call the Imperial Guards who laid hold upon the Prince to force him from her presence.

He protested. “What—after all these years?”

She forbade him even one complaint. “None, however many years, nor if he be a kinsman, no, not one, may violate the safety of the Dragon Throne.”

He gave her one long look and let himself be led away. And she that same day sent out an edict sealed with the imperial seal upon her own name and the Empress Dowager’s as Regents. “Inasmuch,” thus she declared, “as Prince Kung has shown himself unworthy of Our confidence and has shown unrighteous favor to his own nephews in appointing them to high office, he is relieved of his duties as Grand Councilor and all other high offices wherewith he has been rewarded are taken from him. By this act We do sternly check his rebellious spirit and usurping ambition.”

Not one dared to plead the Prince’s cause though many went secretly to Jung Lu to beg that he would speak for this noble Prince, whom none believed disloyal. But Jung Lu would not speak—not yet.

“Let the people say what they think,” he told them. “When she finds that the people do not approve her she will change. She is too wise to oppose her will to them.”

For a month all waited, and it was true that everywhere the people complained in rising accord that the Empress Mother as Regent had been unjust to the brother of the late Emperor and her loyal subject. They recalled how Prince Kung had risked his life to stay in the capital when the late Emperor fled, and how he, with Kwei Liang, had made the treaty which provided peace, and how again and again he had negotiated with the foreigners to hold them off from battle.

The Empress Mother heard these complaints and seemingly without concern. She listened, her beautiful face as calm as a lotus flower. Yet secretly she measured the exact reach of her power and when she saw that Prince Kung submitted to his sentence and made no effort to oppose her, thus signifying that he accepted reproof, and when she heard the people muttering much against her, she issued two more edicts, both signed in the names of the Empress Regents. The first edict explained to the people that she must in duty punish with equal severity all who failed in humility before the Throne. In the second edict she wrote:

“Prince Kung has now repented him of evil and he has acknowledged his faults. We have no prejudice against him, being compelled to act only with pure justice. It was not Our wish to deal harshly with a Councilor so able, or to deny Ourselves the aid of such a Prince. We restore him now to the Grand Council but not to his place as advisor to the Throne. We admonish him from this day forward to reward Our leniency by greater faithfulness to duty, and We advise him to purify himself of evil thoughts and jealousies.”