The Last Empress

by Anchee Min

  I would have liked to ask him so many questions, but I did not know where to begin. Since there were other officials and ministers present, I could not simply speak my mind; I had to be careful what I said to a foreigner. I began with the royal formula and asked about his journey—the time of his departure, how long it took for him to reach Peking. I asked if his trip was a smooth one and if the weather had been fair. I also asked if he had been well fed and if he had slept soundly.

  Our twenty minutes was nearly over and I felt that I barely knew my friend. He told me that he had a residence in Peking, but he was hardly home because his work required constant travel.

  After tea, I asked him to move three feet closer—both to honor my guest and so I could make out the details of his face.

  The man had gentle but penetrating eyes. I found it humorous because he appeared eager to get a good look at me as well. Our eyes met and we both smiled and were a little embarrassed. I said that I could not thank him enough for what he had done for the throne. I told him that he had first been recommended by Prince Kung, then by Li Hung-chang.

  "I admire your dedication," I said. "You have been working for China for forty-one years, haven't you?"

  Sir Robert was moved that I remembered his years of service.

  "You have a Ningpo accent." I smiled. "Have you ever lived in southern China? I am from Wuhu, in Anhwei province, which is not far from Ningpo."

  "Your Majesty is very perceptive. I landed in Ningpo when I first came to China. I was twenty-five years old and was a student translator. I haven't been able to rid myself of my backward ways."

  "I love your accent, Sir Robert," I said. "Don't you ever correct it."

  "One always tries to escape one's past, but one never can," he said.

  Then our time was up.

  On April 11, 1903, I was shattered by the news: Yung Lu had died. Guang-hsu and I were preparing a motion for a parliamentary government when word came. I felt that my insides were collapsing and had to ask my son to finish reviewing the documents. Li Lien-ying escorted me to a side room where I could have a moment to myself. I became dizzy and fainted. Li Lien-ying called for a doctor. Guang-hsu was scared. He came to my palace and stayed with me through the night.

  In a way, Yung Lu had been preparing me for his death for months. He had worked tirelessly with the reluctant Emperor, trying to smooth over his relationship with Yuan Shih-kai. Both conservatives and radicals were using terror as a means to get their way. It was hard to control the situation without Li Hung-chang.

  Doctors attended Yung Lu during our meetings in the Forbidden City. In order to introduce Guang-hsu and me to the men he trusted, Yung Lu came to audiences every day, and the last few days he arrived on a stretcher. No matter how ill he was, he always wore his official robe with the starched white collar.

  Together we received S. S. Huan, the "money man" Li Hung-chang had recommended and whose relationship with Yuan Shih-kai had recently grown sensitive. Huan proposed that Yuan's responsibilities be expanded to include those of the commissioner of trade, suggesting there was disharmony between the two. Yung Lu and I had understood Huan's fear of Yuan Shih-kai, whose police were rumored to be responsible for the disappearance of a number of his powerful rivals.

  In his sickbed, Yung Lu had talked with both Yuan Shih-kai and S. S. Huan. The two men promised to embrace harmony and let go of their differences.

  Two days later, Willow notified me of her husband's collapse. Ignoring etiquette, I went to Yung Lu's residence in a palanquin to see him for the last time.

  He was weak and thin, his skin paler than the cotton sheet beneath him. His body lay straight and flat, with both hands by his thighs. He had had a stroke and could no longer speak. His eyes were wide and his pupils were dilated.

  Willow thanked me for coming and then excused herself. I sat by Yung Lu and tried to keep my composure.

  He was in his eternal robe. Beneath his ceremonial hat, his hair was oiled and colored lacquer-black.

  I reached out and touched his face. It was hard not to cry, and I forced myself to smile. "You are about to go on a hunting trip, and I will join you. I will prepare the bows and you will do the shooting. I'd like you to bring me a wild duck, a rabbit and a deer. Maybe not a deer but a wild pig. I will build a fire and roast it. We will have sweet yam wine and we will talk..."

  His eyes became moist.

  "But we will not talk about the Boxers or legations, of course. Only our good times together. We will talk about our friends Prince Kung and Li Hung-chang. I will tell you how much I missed you when you went to Sinkiang. You owe me a good seven years. You already know this, but I am going to tell you anyway: I am a happy woman when I am with you."

  Tears slowly fell from the corners of his eyes.

  46

  My astrologer suggested that I dress like the Kuan-yin Buddha to invite good spirits. Li Lien-ying told me I looked so weary that his labors over my hair and makeup no longer helped. Devastated by Yung Lu's passing, I asked myself: Why bother to go on? If Li Hung-chang's death had shaken me, Yung Lu's swept my legs out from under me. I no longer wanted to get out of the bed each morning. I felt dead inside.

  On my seventieth birthday the royal photographer was sent to take a picture of me. I had no desire to be seen, but the court convinced me that there should be a record of how I looked. European kings and queens posed throughout their lives, and even on their deathbeds, I was told. In any case, I finally agreed; perhaps I was attracted by the idea that this would be my final image.

  When the costumes and props arrived, Li Lien-ying was conveniently assigned to stand in as the Buddha's servant boy. A couple of my ladies in waiting were asked to take the role of fairies.

  The photographing took several afternoons. After I left an audience, I would pose on a boat by Kun Ming Lake or in my receiving room, which was transformed into an opera stage. Against a backdrop of mountains, rivers and forests, I concentrated on looking my part while my mind dealt with the troubles at court. I had conducted both Li Hung-chang's and Yung Lu's funerals and was burdened by the guilt that I had worked both men to death. Li Lien-ying stood next to me holding a lotus flower. When the photographer told him to relax, the eunuch broke down and sobbed. When I asked why, he replied, "The parliament has called for the abolition of the eunuch system. What do I tell the parents whose boys have just been castrated?"

  The photographer asked if I wanted to look behind his camera. I wished that the upside-down ghostly image I saw there might bring me closer to the world where Li Hung-chang and Yung Lu had gone.

  A few weeks later the finished pictures were presented to me. I was shocked by my own likeness. There was no trace of the beautiful Orchid in them. My eyes had shrunk and my skin sagged. The lines on both sides of my mouth were hard, as in a crude woodcarving.

  "You must go on," the astrologer encouraged. "A picture of Your Majesty sitting on a boat floating among acres of lotus symbolizes your leading the people as they rise above the water of suffering."

  Yesterday, five members of the new parliament whom I had granted permission to study governments abroad were killed by explosives. The news shocked the nation. The murders were plotted by Sun Yat-sen, who had been living in Japan and spreading his message that the Manchu government would fall by violence.

  I spoke at the memorial service for the five men. "Sun Yat-sen means to stop me. He does not want China to establish a parliament. I am here to tell him that I am more motivated than ever before."

  Afterward, my son asked me about the intentions behind my words.

  "It is time for me to step down," I said. "You should run for the presidency of China."

  "But Mother." Guang-hsu became nervous. "I have survived by staying in your shadow."

  "You are thirty-five years old—a grown man, Guang-hsu!"

  The Emperor went down on his knees. "Mother, please. I ... don't have faith in myself."

  "You must, my son." The words pushed themselves out through my c
lenched teeth.

  "Yuan Shih-kai has been shot," Guang-hsu announced, entering my room.

  "Shot? Is he dead?"

  "No, fortunately. But his wound is critical."

  "When and where did this take place?"

  "Yesterday, at the parliament."

  "Everyone knew Yuan Shih-kai represented me." I sighed. "I am the real target of this."

  My son agreed. "Without Yuan Shih-kai I would be an emperor without a country. The fact that I hate him makes it worse. It is why you can't step down, Mother. Yuan doesn't work for me, he works for you."

  The day Yuan Shih-kai got out of the hospital, I joined him for a military inspection. We stood side by side, to show my support and to compensate Yuan for the injustice done him. He had been shot by a jealous prince, a cousin of the Emperor, which meant that a rigorous prosecution was unlikely to happen.

  The morning was windy at the military field outside Peking. I could hear flags fluttering as I stepped out of my palanquin. Li Lien-ying had secured my hair board so tightly that my scalp hurt.

  The soldiers stood in formation, saluted and shouted, "Long live Your Majesty!"

  Yuan Shih-kai's movements were stiff and he moved with difficulty. We were led to a giant tent where a makeshift throne was set up for me. My son had declined to attend because he did not want to be seen with Yuan.

  I watched the soldiers march and was reminded of Yung Lu and his Bannermen. The memory of the morning when I met with him on the training ground came back. Tears blurred my vision. Yuan Shih-kai begged to know why I was weeping. I replied that sand had gotten into my eyes.

  I stood by him until the inspection was over. The soldiers stood at attention to listen to my speech. I began by asking Yuan whether he was bothered that some in our nation hated him. Before he could answer, I turned to the crowd and said, "There are only two people who are truly committed to reform. I am one, and Yuan Shih-kai is the other. As you can see, both of us have been putting our lives on the line."

  "Long live Your Majesty!" the soldiers cheered. "Hail to our commander in chief, Yuan Shih-kai!"

  It was time to depart. I decided to try something I had never done before—I offered my hand for Yuan to shake.

  He was so startled he could not make himself take my hand.

  I had learned about shaking hands from Li Hung-chang, who had learned it during his trips to foreign countries. "Amazing the first time I did it," I remembered him saying.

  I meant my handshake to be the talk of the nation; I meant to shock the Ironhat conservatives; and I meant to send the message that everything was possible.

  "Take it," I said to Yuan Shih-kai. My right hand was in the air right under his stunned face.

  The commander in chief threw himself at my feet and knocked his forehead on the ground. "I am too small a man to accept this honor, Your Majesty."

  "I am trying to lend you legitimacy while I am still alive," I whispered. "I am honoring you for what you have done for me, and also for what you will do for my son."

  My dreams were consumed with the dead.

  "It wasn't easy to find my way back to you, my lady," An-te-hai complained in one dream. He was as handsome as before, except his transparently white cheeks were tinted with rouge, which gave off a hint of the underworld.

  "What brings you here?" I asked.

  "I have questions about the decorations for your palace," An-te-hai said. "The eunuchs are planting oleander. I had to yell at them: 'How can you put in these cheap plants for my lady?' I asked for peonies and orchids."

  Tung Chih was always in the midst of a rebellious prank when he entered my dreams. Once he was riding the dragon wall of the Forbidden City. He broke the dragon's beard and hit his eunuchs with the dragon's scales. "Try to catch me!" he shouted.

  I held a fashion parade in the back of the Summer Palace and invited all the concubines, regardless of rank. I displayed gowns and robes and dresses that I had collected since I was eighteen. Most of my winter clothes had a theme of plum flowers, and my spring outfits featured peonies. My summer dresses favored lotus flower motifs, and my fall frocks had chrysanthemums on them. When I told the concubines that each of them could pick out one thing as a souvenir, the ladies charged the clothing like tomb robbers.

  I let Lien-ying keep my fur coats. "This will be your pension," I said to him. The opposite of An-te-hai, Li Lien-ying lived modestly. Most of his savings went to buy virtues: instead of collecting wives and concubines for show, he gave away money to families whose boys were castrated but were not picked to enter the Forbidden City. Li Lien-ying was known to refuse most bribes. Once in a while he would take a small bribe just so he would not make enemies. He would then find a way to pass it on in the form of a gift. In this way, he avoided being in anyone's debt.

  Li said that he would become a monk after I died. I didn't know that he had already joined a monastery near the tomb where I would soon rest for eternity. I only knew that he had been sending contributions there.

  My health had started to decline. For months the doctors' efforts to stop my persistent diarrhea had failed. I began to lose weight. I felt dizzy constantly and developed double vision. Small movements would leave me short of breath. I had to quit my lifelong habit of walking after meals. I missed watching the sunset and strolling down the long paths of the Forbidden City. Li Lien-ying ground all my food to make it easier for my system to digest, but my body no longer cooperated. I soon became as thin as a coat hanger.

  Watching my body abandoning itself was a terrifying experience. Yet there was nothing I could do. I continued to follow the doctors' advice and took the bitterest herbs, but each morning I felt worse than the day before.

  My body had begun to consume itself, and I knew my time had come. Before the eyes of the court I tried to mask my condition. Makeup helped. So did cotton batting worn under my clothes. Only Li Lien-ying knew that I was a bag of bones and that my stools lacked all formation. I began coughing up blood.

  I tried to prepare my son, but stopped short of revealing my true condition. "Your survival depends on your domination," I said to him.

  "Mother, I feel unwell and unsure." Guang-hsu looked at me sad-eyed.

  The dynasty has exhausted its essence was the thought that came to my mind.

  My astrologer suggested that I invite an opera troupe to perform happy songs. "It will help drive out the mean spirits," he said.

  A letter of farewell from Robert Hart reached me. He was returning home to England for good. He would depart on November 7, 1908.

  I could hardly bear the thought that I was losing another good friend. Though I was in no condition to receive guests, I summoned him.

  Dressed in his official Mandarin robe, he bowed solemnly.

  "Look at us," I said. "We are both white-haired." I did not have the energy even to tell him to sit down, so I gestured toward the chair. He understood and took the seat.

  "Forgive me for not being able to attend your farewell ceremony," I said. "I haven't been well, and death is waiting for me."

  "Also for me." He smiled. "However, it is the good memories that count."

  "I could not agree more, Sir Robert."

  "I come to thank you for offering me so much over the years."

  "I can only take credit for my effort to meet you this time. Once again the court was against it."

  "I know how hard it is to make exceptions. Foreigners have a bad reputation in China. Deservedly so."

  "You are seventy-two years old, aren't you, Sir Robert?"

  "Yes, I am, Your Majesty."

  "And you have been living in China for..."

  "Forty-seven years."

  "What can I say? You should be proud."

  "I am indeed."

  "I trust that you have made arrangements for someone to take over your duties."

  "There is nothing to worry about, Your Majesty. The customs service is a well-oiled machine. It will run itself."

  It surprised me that he never mentioned the
honors he received from the Queen of England, nor did he talk about his English wife, from whom he had been separated for more than thirty-two years. He did mention his Chinese concubine of ten years and the three children they had. Her death. His regrets. He mentioned her suffering. "She was the sensible one," he said, and wished that he had done more to protect her.

  I told him of my troubles with both of my sons—something I had never shared with anyone else. We sighed over the fact that loving our children was not enough to help them survive.

  When I asked Sir Robert to tell me about his best time in China, he answered that it was working under Prince Kung and Li Hung-chang. "Both were courageous and brilliant men," he said, "and both were helplessly stubborn in their own unique ways."

  Last we mentioned Yung Lu. From the way Sir Robert looked at me, I knew he understood everything.

  "You must have heard the rumors," I said.

  "How could I not? The rumors and the fabrications of the Western journalists and some of the truth."

  "What did you think?"

  "What did I think? I didn't know what to think, to be honest. You were quite a couple. I mean, you worked together well."

  "I loved him." Shocked by my own confession, I stared at him.

  He didn't seem to be surprised. "I am happy for my friend's soul, then. I had long sensed that he had feelings for you."

  "We did the best we could. Which was less than what it should have been. It was very hard."

  "I had great admiration for Yung Lu. Although we were friends, I didn't get to know him well until the legation mess. He saved us by firing his shells over the rooftops. Afterward, he delivered five watermelons to me. I was certain it was you who had sent him."

  I smiled.

  "Just out of curiosity," Robert Hart said, "how did you get the court to agree?"