by Anchee Min
"Kang Yu-wei is an extraordinary talent, a political genius!" Guang-hsu insisted.
I asked how the Emperor had learned about this man.
"Pearl introduced his writings to me."
"I hope Pearl is aware that she could be punished for smuggling books," I said.
"She is, Mother. But she was right to bring me his books, for I have learned a way to set China on the right path."
Pearl's daring reminded me of my own when I was her age. I also remembered how I was hated by the entire court, especially Grand Councilor Su Shun, who had set his mind on destroying me.
"Pearl believes that I have the power to protect her."
"Do you, Guang-hsu?"
My son got up from his chair and went to sit in another. His foot nervously tapped the floor. "I guess I wouldn't be here if I did."
"You are willing to protect her, aren't you?" I asked. "Yes..." He seemed to hesitate.
"I want to make sure you mean what you say, so I know where I stand."
"I love Pearl."
"Does that mean you are willing to give up your throne for love?"
Guang-hsu looked at me. "You are trying to scare me, Mother."
"One thing I can see clearly. You may be forced to sign Pearl's death sentence if she is found to be involved in the Emperor's business. It doesn't matter if the invitation was from you. You know the rules."
"I am sorry for encouraging Pearl," Guang-hsu said. "But she deserves nothing but praise. She is brilliant and brave."
"I shall judge Pearl myself," I said.
"I am prepared to go ahead with or without the court's support," the Emperor said to me a few days later. His usually pale skin was flushed. "I have studied the reform models of Russia's Peter the Great and Japan's Hideyoshi. Both helped me clarify what I am setting out to do. Reform will make China strong and prosperous in ten years. Within twenty years China will be powerful enough to recover her lost territories and avenge her humiliations."
"Is this Kang Yu-wei's prediction?" I asked.
Guang-hsu straightened his posture and nodded. "Pearl has met with Kang Yu-wei on my behalf at Tutor Weng's."
"Are you sure Kang Yu-wei didn't approach Pearl first?"
"In fact, he approached Tutor Weng first. He asked him to pass a message to me."
"I assume he was refused."
"Yes, but Kang persisted. Pearl saw him at Tutor Weng's door, passing out pamphlets to anyone who was interested."
My son showed me a few of them. They were self-published and poorly made, but the titles caught my eye: Study of the Reforms in Japan, Confucius as a Reformer and Essays on China's Reconstruction.
"After I finished reading Kang Yu-wei," Guang-hsu said, "I ordered copies to be sent to the key viceroys and governors."
"You believe that Kang Yu-wei has a cure for China?"
"Absolutely." Guang-hsu was excited. "His writings are revolutionary. They speak my mind. No wonder the court and the Ironhats consider him dangerous."
I told Guang-hsu that the court had informed me of the scholar's background. "Do you know about Kang's failure to pass the civil service exams?"
"The court misjudges him!"
"Tell me, what is it about Kang Yu-wei that impresses you?"
"His insistence that drastic steps must be taken if reform is to succeed."
"Don't you think Li Hung-chang and Yung Lu are already making great progress?" I asked.
"They are not effective enough. The old ways must be abandoned completely."
If I were a portrait painter, I would have painted my son at that moment. He stood by the window as sunlight played on his shoulders. His eyes glowed, and he motioned with his hands to make a point.
"According to Kang Yu-wei, Japan was also a tradition-bound nation," the Emperor continued. "It was able to transform itself almost overnight from a feudal society to an industrial state."
"But when Japan began its reforms, it was not under attack," I pointed out, "nor did it carry tremendous domestic and international debts. Let me finish, Guang-hsu. People in Japan were ready to follow their Emperor when he called."
"What makes you think that my people won't follow me?"
"Guang-hsu, your own court is against you."
The Emperor screwed up his eyes. "The first thing on my reform agenda will be to get rid of that roadblock."
I felt a chill but tried not to show it.
"My edicts will bypass the Clan Council and the court." Guang-hsu sounded determined. "Kang Yu-wei believes I should speak directly to my people."
"The court will fight you, and there will be chaos."
"With your support, Mother, I shall fight back and win."
I didn't want to discourage him, although I believed that abandoning the court was a dangerous idea.
"Think again, son. The defeat by Japan has frightened our nation. Stability is everything."
"But reform can no longer wait, Mother." The gentleness in my son's voice was gone.
"I want you to be aware of the political realities."
"I am, Mother."
"There has been insurrection in the countryside. The radicals in Canton have been gaining political momentum. The latest spy report shows that the movement calling for a Chinese republic is being funded by the Japanese."
Guang-hsu grew impatient. "Nobody will stop me from moving forward. Nobody."
The standing clock in the corner struck twice. Li Lien-ying came in to remind me that lunch had already been reheated.
"May I tell the court that I have your permission to meet with Kang Yu-wei?" Guang-hsu asked.
"I'll see if I can get the court to loosen its grip."
"You have the power to dictate your will."
"It is better to make the granting of permission the court's decision."
He walked toward the door and then walked back, visibly upset. "Fear has caused China its sickness, its weakness, and soon its death!"
"Guang-hsu, may I reveal a bit of my struggle? Your uncles and senior councilors have been coming to me."
"What do they want?"
"They want you out." I opened a stack of documents I had been reviewing. "Listen to this. 'The Emperor has acted impetuously and is not to be trusted without a guiding hand.' 'Guang-hsu has not demonstrated the capability to arrive at decisions by consensus. It is necessary to remove him from the throne. We suggest that P'u-chun, Prince Ts'eng's grandson, succeed him.'"
"How dare they!" Guang-hsu was enraged. "I shall prosecute them for conspiracy!"
"Not if the entire court signed the petition." I pushed the documents aside.
Guang-hsu continued to protest, but his tone changed. He lowered his voice, seemed to pull himself back, and eventually he stopped talking, leaned against the window and folded his arms in front of his chest. He stared outside for a while and then turned toward me. "I need your support, Mother."
"Use me well, my son. When the court talks about putting the power back in my hands, it means their hands. My role has been a ceremonial one. The only time I become important is when I am needed as a figurehead. It is to lend legitimacy to the princes, grandees and high mandarins—the people who possess true power."
"But Mother..."
"I have ignored Li Hung-chang and Yung Lu, who have expressed their own doubts about you. To be honest, I have doubts myself. You have never proved yourself."
"But I am trying to do the right thing."
"That, my son, I do not doubt one bit."
When Guang-hsu begged me for the third time for a chance to meet with Kang Yu-wei, he was in tears. The redness in his eyes showed that he hadn't been sleeping well. "As you know, Mother, I'm a 'eunuch.' It is unlikely I will produce an heir, so successful reform will be my only legacy."
I was struck by his honesty and desperation. But I had to ask: "Do you mean you can't even make love to Pearl?"
Guang-hsu's voice was filled with sadness and shame when he murmured, "No, Mother, I can't. I will be despised by the natio
n because all believe that Heaven rewards sons only to those who behave virtuously."
"My child, I forbid you to speak like this. You are only twenty-six years old. You'll keep trying—"
"Mother, doctors have told me that it's over."
"It doesn't mean that you are finished."
He wept, and I opened my arms and embraced him. "You have to help me to help you, Guang-hsu."
"Let me meet with Kang Yu-wei, Mother. It is the only way!"
At my request, an interview of Kang Yu-wei was arranged. The interviewers I chose were Li Hung-chang, Yung Lu, Tutor Weng and Chang Yin-huan, the former ambassador to England and the United States. I wanted an evaluation of the Emperor's "like-mind."
Kang Yu-wei was summoned to the Board of Foreign Affairs on the last day of January. The interview went on for four hours. I had assumed it would be intimidating for a provincial Cantonese, but the transcript showed that the man's audacity was inborn. Kang demonstrated his ability as a dynamic speaker and was aggressive in pressing his views. I now understood why Pearl and Guang-hsu were captivated by him. A palace lad like Guang-hsu had never before met someone so brash, a man who apparently had nothing to lose.
According to Li Hung-chang, Kang Yu-wei had a moon face and was in his late thirties. Li's evaluation read that the interviewee "posed himself in a theatrical fashion" and that he "spent the whole time lecturing on subjects of reform and the advantages of a constitutional monarchy as if he were a teacher in his town's elementary classroom."
I had to credit the forbearance of the four powerful men who had to listen to Kang.
Li Hung-chang told Kang that his ideas were nothing original and that he was exploiting the work of others, which Kang denied. When Li asked Kang Yu-wei for his thoughts on generating revenue to repay foreign loans and to fund the national defense, Kang became abstract and vague. When Li pressed, Kang responded that the treaties "were signed unfairly, and therefore deserved to be dishonored." When asked how he would deal with a Japanese invasion, Kang Yu-wei gave a sage's dramatic laugh. "You can't make it my job to wipe your ass!"
In conclusion, Li Hung-chang found the man offensive and believed that he was an opportunist, a zealot and probably mentally ill.
Tutor Weng, in his report, for the most part agreed with Li Hung-chang, despite having initially claimed credit for the discovery of "a true political genius." Kang Yu-wei's arrogance offended the founding father of China's premier academic institutions. Tutor Weng took offense when Kang criticized the Ministry of Education and called the Imperial academies "dead ducks floating on a stagnant pond."
"He is resentful because of his own failures," Tutor Weng remarked in his evaluation. "I was the chief judge when he took the national examination, although I never personally graded his paper. Kang had enough tries, and he proved himself a loser each time. He didn't oppose the system until the system booted him in the gut.
"According to Kang's own description of himself," Tutor Weng continued, "he was 'destined to be a great sage like Confucius.' This is rude and unacceptable. I conclude that Kang Yu-wei is a man who craves the limelight and whose main goals are notoriety and celebrity."
Ambassador Chang Yin-huan expressed less disgust in his comments, but he didn't offer a positive evaluation either. It was his job, after all, to bring interesting people together. If the mingling produced results, he would gladly take the credit.
Yung Lu, who had returned from Tientsin especially for the interview, handed me a blank piece of paper as an evaluation. I imagined him losing interest the instant Kang began evading Li Hung-chang's questions.
I trusted Li Hung-chang, Yung Lu, Tutor Weng and Ambassador Chang; however, I felt that they, like me, belonged to the old society and were inescapably conservative in outlook. We weren't happy with the customs, but we were used to them. Emperor Guang-hsu's reform plan would naturally create difficulties and even suffering for the likes of us. My son had reason to remind me to expect the pain that goes along with the birth of a new system.
I had great hope in Guang-hsu, if not yet great faith. By choosing to stand by him, I believed I would be offering China a chance to survive.
30
I have never been so inspired!" The Emperor handed me a transcript of his long discussion with Kang Yu-wei. "He and I went to work almost immediately on my plans. Mother, please don't object, but I granted him the privilege of contacting me directly. The censors and guards cannot be allowed to stand in my way!"
Before I had a chance to respond, Guang-hsu handed me a list of high-ranking ministers he had just fired. The first was his mentor of more than fourteen years, the sixty-eight-year-old Tutor Weng, the head of the Grand Council, the Board of Revenue, the Board of Foreign Affairs and the Hanlin Academy.
My son and Kang Yu-wei didn't seem to care that without Tutor Weng's approval they would have never met in the first place.
The grand tutor had been a father figure to my son. He had been his closest confidant throughout his adolescence, and since then they had weathered many storms together. Guang-hsu had even sided with Weng in his conflict with Li Hung-chang over the prosecution of the war with Japan, when the evidence so clearly weighed against him. Not until now, however, did Guang-hsu admit to me that Weng was responsible for having aggravated his nervous condition ever since he was a child. I had always wondered whether Guang-hsu's sense of self-doubt was the result of his tutor's constant correction.
I asked the Emperor the reasons he would give for firing Weng.
"His mismanagement of revenues and his faulty judgment in the war with Japan," Guang-hsu replied. "More than anything, I want to put a stop to his interfering with my decisions."
The proud old Confucian bureaucrat would be heartbroken. It was near his birthday, and the disgrace would shatter him. I sent Tutor Weng a silk fan as a gift that might suggest this was simply a cooling-off period.
I wasn't entirely unhappy about his dismissal. Weng had been the Emperor's money man, and I was glad he was made to bear some responsibility. I had been accused of pocketing funds intended for the navy while Tutor Weng was praised for his virtues, and his firing would help to exonerate me. It was true that he had never embezzled a penny, but the people he hired, most of them his former students and close friends, stole from the treasury shamelessly.
Tutor Weng begged for a private audience, and I refused. Li Lien-ying told me that the old man was on his knees outside my gate all day. I let the tutor know that I had to respect the Emperor's decision—"I am not in a position to help"—and that I would invite him for dinner after he calmed down. I would tell him that it was time to leave his student alone. I would quote his own famous line: "Tea, opera and poetry should not be missed—longevity depends on one's mental cultivation."
I sat down to review the transcript of Guang-hsu's conversation with Kang Yu-wei. In my opinion, Kang's perspective was not much different from Li Hung-chang's. I didn't want to conclude that it was the young Emperor's willing ear that made Kang Yu-wei seem larger than life, but the transcript failed to show otherwise:
KANG YU-WEI: China is like a ruined palace, with every door broken and every window gone. It's useless to repair the doorsills and window trim and patch the walls. The palace has been hit by hurricanes, and more are coming. The only way to save the structure is to tear it down completely and build a new one.
GUANG-HSU: It's all controlled by the conservatives.
KANG YU-WEI: But Your Majesty is committed to reform.
GUANG-HSU: Yes, yes I am!
KANG YU-WEI: The buffoons at court are too incompetent to carry out Your Majesty's plans—assuming they agree to follow you.
GUANG-HSU: You make perfect sense!
KANG YU-WEI: The throne should learn from the Western establishment. The first thing to do is create a system of law.
This went on for page after page. I wondered what made my son think of Kang Yu-wei as an original mind. Prince Kung had long preached the idea of civil law. Li Hung-chang had int
roduced a system of laws not only in the northern states, where he had been viceroy, but also in the south. These laws met with great resistance, but their implementation had been going forward. The treaties we had signed with the Western powers were based on the understanding of such laws.
When Li Hung-chang traveled to the Western countries, his purpose was to "check out the real tigers"—get firsthand information on how their governments worked. So it seemed to me that what Kang Yu-wei preached to the Emperor was already being accomplished by Li. Another example was education reform. Li Hung-chang supported the funding of Western-style colleges. With Robert Hart's help, we hired foreign missionary scholars to head our schools in the capital. At Li's suggestion, I encouraged the Manchus to send their sons and daughters to study abroad. Li believed that it would make his work easier if our own elite understood what he was trying to achieve. For me, if Manchus were to maintain their position as rulers, wider knowledge and perspective were as important as power itself.
Li Hung-chang made sense when he said, "China's hope will arrive when her citizens feel proud to have their children take up such professions as engineering. We need railroads, mines and factories." China had been transforming itself, but slowly and painstakingly. Young people were enthusiastic about seeing the world, even if they could not yet afford to go abroad. Before Li was shot in Japan, the royal families had made arrangements for their sons to go and live abroad. Afterward, some families changed their minds, fearing for their children's safety. Li himself continued to travel overseas, in part to show that such fears were unfounded, but no one followed his lead.
Kang Yu-wei emphasized the importance of establishing schools in the countryside. But for years the government had been offering tax credits to provincial governors and earmarking funds to help set up schools. Our efforts had to contend with superstitious peasants who protested when rundown temples were converted into classrooms. One group of angry peasants set fire to school buildings and the home of the governor of Jiangsu province.