The Last Empress

by Anchee Min

  Perhaps my astrologer was correct in believing that the Emperor "had already chosen disappearance and death." Only I, however, was cruel enough to force him to continue to show his face.

  In looking back on the Hundred Days, I concluded that my son's attraction to Kang Yu-wei had to do with the allure of a foreign myth. The scholar peddled his fantasy of the West, and Guang-hsu had no idea what he was buying into. Li Hung-chang was right when he said that it wasn't foreign troops that defeated China, but our own negligence and inability to see the truth amid a sea of lies.

  The throne's planned inspection of the navy had been canceled because of the failed reforms. Everyone had been convinced of the rumor that the inspection would mark the day of Guang-hsu's dethroning. Our intelligence showed that the foreign powers were prepared to intervene.

  With Li Hung-chang's encouragement, I took a train to meet privately with the governors of key provinces, north and south. I stopped in Tientsin and visited the Great Machine Show, organized by Li Hung-chang's partner, S. S. Huan. I was most impressed by a machine that pulled individual threads out of silk cocoons, a task that had been done painstakingly by hand for centuries. The "flushing ceramic bowl" made me want to install them inside the Forbidden City.

  I couldn't believe the written description that said the toilet had been invented by a British prince for his mother. True or not, the story was telling: apparently the royal children of Great Britain were given a practical education. Tung Chih and Guang-hsu were taught the finest Chinese classics, yet both had led ineffectual lives.

  My fear increased as I admired all the other foreign inventions. How could China expect to survive when its enemies were so scientifically minded and relentless in their pursuit of progress?

  "The way to win a war is to know your enemy so well that you can predict his next move," Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War. I could hardly predict my own next move, but realized that it would be wise to learn from my enemies. I decided that on my sixty-fourth birthday I would invite a number of foreign ambassadors to Peking. I wanted them to see the "murderess" with their own eyes.

  Li Hung-chang was excited by the prospect. "Once it is known by the citizens of China that the Dowager Empress is herself willing to see and entertain foreigners, their own antipathy toward outsiders will be allayed."

  As expected, the Manchu Clan Council protested. I wasn't supposed to be seen at all, let alone talk with the barbarians. It was no use arguing that the Queen of England had not only been seen by the world, her face was stamped on every coin.

  After long negotiations, I was given the approval to host an all-female party, with the condition that Emperor Guang-hsu join me so that I would be accompanied by an Imperial male. The party was presented as an opportunity to satisfy my fashion curiosity. My guests included the wives of the ministers of Great Britain, Russia, Germany, France, Holland, the United States and Japan.

  According to the foreign affairs minister I-kuang, the foreign ministers had insisted that their ladies be received "with every mark of respect." It took six weeks to settle on everything from the style of palanquins to the choice of interpreters. "The foreigners are standing firm on all essential points," I-kuang reported. "I was afraid that I might have to cancel the invitations, but the ladies' curiosity finally proved stronger than their husbands' opposition."

  On December 13, 1898, the foreign ladies in all their finery were escorted to the Winter Palace, one of the "sea palaces" next to the Forbidden City. I sat on a dais behind a long, narrow table decorated with fruit and flowers. My golden costume was heavy and my hair board piled dangerously high. My eyes were having a feast.

  Aside from the wife of the Japanese ambassador, whose kimono and obi closely resembled our Tang Dynasty costumes, the ladies were dressed like magnificent festival lanterns. They curtsied and bowed to me. As I uttered "rise" to each of them, I was fascinated by the color of their eyes, their hair and curvaceous bodies. They were presented to me as a group, but they demonstrated complete individuality.

  I-kuang introduced the wife of the British minister, Lady MacDonald. She led the procession and was a tall, graceful woman in her forties. She wore a beautiful light blue satin dress with a large purplish ribbon tied behind her waist. She had a head full of golden curls, which was complemented by a large oval hat displaying ornaments. Lady Conger was the wife of the American minister. She was a Christian Scientist and was dressed in black fabric from head to toe.

  I told I-kuang to speed up his introductions and cut short the interpreter's ceremonial greetings. "Escort the guests to the banquet hall and have them start eating," I said. I was confident in presenting our cuisine, for I remembered something Li Hung-chang had said, that "there is nothing to eat in the West."

  I already regretted that I had promised the court not to speak or ask questions. After the meal, when the ladies were brought back so I could present them gifts, I took each by the hand and placed a gold ring in her palm. I let my smile tell them that I wanted us to be friends. I was grateful that they came to see this "calculating woman with a heart of ice."

  I was fully aware that I was being observed like an animal in a zoo. I expected a certain arrogance from them. Instead, the ladies showed nothing but warmth. I was overwhelmed by a feeling that if I treated them as my foreign sisters, maybe a conversation would follow. I wanted to ask Lady MacDonald about her life in London, and Lady Conger what it was like to be a Christian Scientist and a mother. Was she happy with the way her children were being raised?

  Unfortunately, observing and listening were the only things I was allowed to do. My eyes traveled from the ornaments dangling from the ladies' hats to the beads sewed onto their shoes. I stared at the ladies, and they stared back. My eunuchs turned away their heads when my guests moved with protruded torsos, chests and exposed shoulders. My ladies in waiting, on the other hand, stared wide-eyed. The foreigners' elegance, intelligent speech and respectful responses gave new meaning to the word "barbaric."

  When Lady MacDonald delivered a short well-wishing speech, I knew from her sweet voice that this woman had never starved a day in her life. I envied her bright, almost childlike smile.

  Guang-hsu hardly raised his eyes during the party. The foreign ladies stared at him in fascination. Though extremely uncomfortable, he kept his promise to stay until the end. He had initially refused to attend, for he knew that these ladies had learned of his medical condition from their husbands. I had promised to end the reception as soon as I could.

  I didn't expect any real understanding to come out of the party, but to my great surprise, it did. Later these women, especially Lady MacDonald, gave favorable impressions of me, against the world's opinion. The editor of the London Times published a criticism of the party, calling the ladies' presence there "disgusting, offensive and farcical." In response, Lady MacDonald wrote:

  I should say the Dowager Empress was a woman of some strength of character, certainly genial and kindly ... This is the opinion of all the ladies who accompanied me. I was fortunate in having as my interpreter the Chinese secretary of our legation, a gentleman of over twenty years' experience of China and the Chinese. Previous to our visit, his opinion of the Dowager Empress was what I may call the generally accepted one. My husband had requested him to take careful note of all that passed, especially with a view of endeavoring to arrive at some estimate of her true character. On his return he reported that all his previously conceived notions had been upset by what he had seen and heard.

  39

  By the spring of 1899, the name of the roaming bands of youths was on everyone's lips: Fists of Righteous Harmony, I Ho Ch'uan—in short, the Boxers—had turned into a nationwide anti-foreigner movement. Although the I Ho Ch'uan was a peasant movement with strong Buddhist roots and Taoist underpinnings, it drew its adherents from all walks of life. With its professed belief in supernatural powers, it was, in Yung Lu's words, "the poor man's road to immortality."

  Governors across the country had been waitin
g for my instructions on how to deal with the Boxers. Support or suppress them was the choice I had to make. The Boxers were reported to have spread over eighteen provinces and were beginning to be seen in the streets of Peking. The youths wore red turbans and dyed their outfits red, with matching wrist and ankle bands.

  The youths claimed to employ a unique style of combat. Trained in the martial arts, they believed they were incarnations of the gods. One governor wrote in an urgent memorandum, "The Boxers have been rallying around Christian churches in my province. They have been threatening to kill with sword, ax, staff, fighting iron, halberd and a myriad of other weapons."

  In my eyes it was another Taiping rebellion in the making. The difference was that this time the ringleaders were the Manchu Ironhats, which made arrests difficult.

  On a clear morning in March, Prince Ts'eng Junior requested an immediate audience. He entered the hall and announced that he had joined the Boxers. Waving his fists, he swore loyalty to me. Lining up behind him were his brothers and cousins, including Prince Ch'un Junior.

  I looked at Prince Ts'eng's face, which was marked with smallpox scars. His ferret-like eyes gave the impression of brutish ferocity. Ts'eng kept looking at his handsome and dashing cousin Ch'un, who had the look of his Bannerman ancestors. Although Prince Ch'un had grown into a personable character, his foul mouth revealed his flaws. Both princes were passionate sloganeers. Ch'un could move himself to tears when describing how he would sacrifice his life "to restore the Manchus' supremacy."

  "What do you want from me?" I asked my nephews.

  "To accept us as Boxers and support us," said Prince Ts'eng.

  "To allow the Boxers to be paid like government troops!" said Prince Ch'un.

  As if out of nowhere, men wearing Boxer uniforms streamed into my courtyard.

  "Why come to me when you have already exchanged your resplendent Manchu military uniforms for beggars' rags?" I asked.

  "Forgive us, Your Majesty." Prince Ch'un got down on his knees. "We came because we heard that the Forbidden City was under attack and you were in grave danger."

  "Out!" I said to him. "Our military is not for hooligans and beggars!"

  "You can't thrust aside a Heaven-sent force of champions, Your Majesty!" Prince Ts'eng challenged. "The masters of the Boxers are men with supernatural powers. When the spirits are with them, they are invisible and are immune to poison, spears, even bullets."

  "Let me inform you that General Yuan recently lined some Boxers up before a firing squad and had them all shot dead."

  "If they died, they were not real Boxers," Ts'eng insisted. "Or they only seemed to die—their spirits will return."

  After dismissing the make-believe Boxers, I went to Ying-t'ai. The Emperor sat in the corner of his room like a shadow. The air around him reeked of bitter herbal medicines. Although he was fully dressed and shaved, he was spiritless.

  "I am afraid that if we don't support the movement," I said, "it could turn against our rule and bring it down."

  Guang-hsu made no response.

  "Don't you care?"

  "I am tired, Mother."

  I got back in my palanquin, angrier and sadder than ever.

  The winter of 1899 was the coldest in my life. Nothing could keep me warm. My astrologer said that my body had run out of its "fire." "Cold fingertips indicate bad blood circulation, reflecting problems of the heart," the doctors said.

  I began to dream more frequently of the dead. First to show themselves were my parents. My father would appear in the same drab brown outfit with a disapproving expression. My mother would keep talking about Rong. "You need to take care of your sister, Orchid," she would repeat again and again.

  Nuharoo entered my nights with Hsien Feng by her side. The diamonds in her hair board grew larger in each succeeding dream. She held a bunch of pink peonies in her hand. Sunshine highlighted her shoulders like an aura. She looked content. Hsien Feng would smile, although he remained silent.

  Tung Chih's visit was never predictable. He usually appeared just before dawn. Often I wouldn't recognize him, not only because he had grown, but also because he had a different character. On a recent night he came as a Boxer wearing a red turban. After he identified himself, he described how he was shot by Yuan Shih-kai. He showed me the gaping hole in his chest. I was terrified and woke instantly.

  There were more reports of locals blaming foreigners for their hardship. Massive unemployment of bargemen on the Grand Canal was brought about by the introduction of steamships and railways. Several bad growing seasons in a row convinced the peasants that the spirits were angry. The governors pleaded for the throne to "ask the barbarians to take away their missionaries and their opium."

  There was little I could do. Yung Lu didn't have to remind me of the consequences of murdering missionaries. A German naval squadron had used the violent incidents involving their nationals to seize forts guarding the city of Tsingtao. Kiaochow was occupied, turning the bay into a German naval base.

  I tried to gather information on the missionaries and their converts, only to be told bizarre stories: some said the missionaries used drugs to woo converts, made medicine from fetuses, and opened orphanages only to collect infants for their cannibalistic orgies.

  In more logical and believable accounts, I found the missionaries' and their governments' behavior disturbing. Catholic churches seemed willing to go to any lengths to increase their conversions, taking in derelicts and criminals. Village ne'er-do-wells facing lawsuits had themselves baptized in order to gain a legal advantage—by treaty agreement, Christians were given Imperial protection.

  The mess left by the failed reform movement became a breeding ground for violence and riots. More troublemakers showed up on the political scene, among them Sun Yat-sen, whose idea of a Chinese republic attracted the nation's young. Working with the Japanese, Sun Yat-sen plotted assassination and destruction, especially of the government's financial establishments.

  I often conducted audiences alone these days. Guang-hsu's ill health left him so tired that he couldn't be counted on to be more than half awake. I didn't want the provincial governors, who sometimes waited a lifetime to meet with the Emperor, to be disappointed.

  I wanted the world to believe that the Guang-hsu regime was still powerful. I carried on so that China could continue to honor the treaties and rights granted to foreigners. In the meantime, I tried to gain understanding for the Boxers. My edict to all governors read: "The result of the failure to distinguish between good and evil is that men's minds are filled with fear and doubt. This proves not that the people are inherently lawless, but that our leaders have failed."

  I removed the governor of Shantung province after two German missionaries were killed there. I replaced him with the no-nonsense Yuan Shih-kai. I didn't order the former governor's prosecution—I knew such a move would enrage the citizenry and make myself more vulnerable. Instead, I had him transferred to another province, away from any heated response by the Germans. My investigation revealed that the main reason the former Shantung governor came under the intense pressure of the German government was not the death of its missionaries but the rights to China's resources.

  Another governor also reported trouble. He had tried to strike a balance by cajoling the Boxers into remaining a defensive and not an aggressive force. But before long the Boxer hooligans were setting fire to the railways and Christian churches and occupying government buildings. "Persuasion can no longer disperse the rebels," the governor cried, asking for permission to suppress them. "Our commanders, if hesitant and tolerant, will certainly lead us into unnecessary calamities."

  In Shantung, the new governor, Yuan Shih-kai, took matters into his own hands. He ignored my admonition that "the people must be persuaded to disperse, not crushed by brute force," and he hounded the Boxers out of his province.

  "These Boxers," Yuan wrote afterward in his telegram to the throne, "are gathering people to roam the streets. They cannot be said to be defending thems
elves and their families. They are setting fire to houses, kidnapping people and resisting government troops; they are freely engaging in criminal activities; they are plundering and killing the common people. They cannot be said to be merely anti-Christian."

  Because of the political disruptions, governments in villages along the Yellow River neglected the ever-present problem of flood control. In the summer of 1899 a disaster of great magnitude took place. Thousands of square miles in the north of China were inundated, crops were destroyed, and famine followed. Next came a period of drought, resulting in a million farming families becoming homeless. The recruitment of Boxers soared. "Until all the foreigners have been exterminated, the rain will never visit us," the frustrated poor believed.

  Under pressure from the Ironhats, the court began to lean toward supporting the Boxers. After being driven out of Shantung by Yuan Shih-kai, the Boxers traveled north, crossing Chihli province and then on to Peking itself. Joined along the way by thousands of peasants who believed they were invulnerable, the Boxers became an unstoppable force in Chinese society. "Protect the Manchu Dynasty and destroy the foreigners!" men shouted as they encircled the foreign legations.

  Yung Lu and I were helplessly undecided about whether or not to suppress the Boxers. The rest of the court, however, had made up their minds to join them.

  Yung Lu told me that he had no faith in the Boxers' true ability to win battles against foreign invaders. Yet I couldn't get him to challenge the court. I asked him to submit a memorandum, and I would explain to the court why the Boxers must be stopped. He agreed.

  When I received Yung Lu's draft, I thought about how strange our relationship had become. He was my most loyal and trusted official, and I depended on him constantly. We had come a long way from the days when we were young and poised on the brink of passion. I could, and did, relive those moments at my most private times. Now we had grown old, and the roles that brought us together were both comfortable and absolute. The feelings were still there, but they had mellowed and become deeper and lived side by side with the fact that now, in the midst of China's turmoil, our lives and survival depended on each other.