by Poon, Alice;
“He’s been really ill, and none of the Court physicians can do him any good. I’m so worried! Let’s walk over to the Nursery.” She held Bumbutai’s hand tightly and led her out.
The Royal Nursery was right next to Qingning Palace and just a short walk across from Guansui Palace. Anguish had piled years on Harjol’s youthful face. A few dull grey strands had intruded into her once shiny black mane, and her beautiful eyes had lost their usual luster. Bumbutai’s heart ached for her sister.
They found the baby sleeping fitfully in a hanging cot. His face was wrinkled like an old man’s, and his bony frame was the size of a cat. He was twitching in spasms underneath the quilted cover. Bumbutai’s eyes brimmed with tears when she saw her infant nephew. She quickly looked the other way lest she should make Harjol cry too. Her heart went all out to her sister.
“Let us go outside and pray together to Eternal Blue Sky in the garden,” She said. For the Mongols, in situations where human effort is apparently futile, the last spiritual refuge would always be Eternal Blue Sky.
The sisters knelt on low padded stools and prayed earnestly until the sun descended into the mellow depths of darkness. The twilight emitted an evil blood red glitter. Bumbutai then gave Harjol the Borjigit jade seal that Manggusi had passed to her, saying it was for her son and that she hoped it would bring him good luck. Sadly though, where life and death were concerned, Eternal Blue Sky seemed to have an iron will that no human had the power to bend.
By order of Empress Jere, festive activities for Chinese New Year at the Imperial Palaces were cut to a minimum due to the lingering sickness of the royal heir. No one dared mention that the eighth son of the Emperor had yet to have a name bestowed on him, as he had relapsed into ill health many times since his birth. On the first day of the New Year, the Emperor and Harjol went together, in separate royal sedans, to the Buddhist temple that stood on a small hill just outside the palatial district. They offered their prayers to Buddha and to the Goddess of Mercy, asking for good health to be restored to their beloved son.
Two days before the end of the first lunar month, a screech of agony tore through the Guansui Palace. Consort Chen went berserk with grief and was inconsolable. After her son’s bluish corpse had been wrested from her clutches, she seized her own hair with both hands and tried to pull with all her might, giving out blood-curdling shrill wails. All her maids were terrified and took flight. Her chief eunuch scrambled out and ran towards the Yongfu Palace to look for Consort Zhuang, who was very near the time of delivery for her own child.
Bumbutai made her way as fast as her heavily pregnant body could manage to the Guansui Palace. She saw her sister curled up in a prostrate position, groaning ceaselessly. Her hair was a tangled mass and she looked like a cadaver, with sunken eyes and sallow skin. She had no tears left. Bumbutai knelt beside her sister and put her arms round her. She knew that by custom she should not be visiting her bereaved sister, as the deep grief might bring bad fortune to her unborn infant. But she had never had a second thought about coming. She rocked her sister like a small child and said to her softly:
“Harjol, it’s alright to cry. Cry, my precious, cry out loud. You’ll feel better.”
There was no response. Harjol stared at her bulging belly for a long time and then at her face in a visionless gaze. Then her repressed tears erupted like a violent flash flood. Bumbutai continued to soothe her, rubbing warmth into her hands and saying tenderly:
“You’re still young. You’ll conceive again easily. Don’t be sad, don’t be sad.”
That night, Harjol had a high fever. Bumbutai stayed at her bedside throughout the night, bringing her fresh wet cloths to put on her forehead to cool her down. She heard her sister murmuring something to the effect that she was being punished by the gods for the evil she had done. To soothe her, she hummed a childhood song about fair-faced daughters. She stayed until the early hours of the morning, when Sumalagu came to relieve her.
The Emperor refused to see anyone after he received news of the baby’s death. The next day, he did not attend Court proceedings, nor did he take any food. The entire Imperial Complex was shrouded in a thick aura of grief.
On the following day, Bumbutai gave birth to a healthy male infant. She bade Sumalagu to deliver the news as quietly as possible to the Emperor. She also gave strict orders to the eunuchs, maids and servants that no celebration of any sort was to take place.
When the baby was one month old, she went to the Emperor’s Residence Palace and asked that her son be given a name. The Emperor decreed that his ninth royal son should be named Fulin, which meant the arrival of good fortune. She immediately wrote to her parents about the birth and the royally-decreed name.
Like other royal Princes and Princesses before him, Fulin was taken to the Royal Nursery to be breast-fed by a wet nurse. When he grew older, he would be placed in the care of Empress Jere, who would be his foster mother. The idea behind this practice was that Princes and Princesses had to be brought up according to a stringent set of etiquette and strict disciplines, without the pampering of their birth mothers. They would then be educated by specially appointed teachers and tutors. Bumbutai split her time between taking care of her sick sister and visiting her infant son on a daily basis. She also prayed daily to Eternal Blue Sky asking for the continued good health of her son.
When the Emperor was done grieving for his lost son, he focused his attention on the biggest prize yet of his dreams, which was Ming China. The Ming Court was now in its final stages of decay. Empty coffers, rampant corruption, a pestilence called smallpox and widespread mob uprisings constantly weakened the Empire. The Chongzhen Emperor had earlier succeeded in suppressing the subversive eunuch faction which under his brother’s reign had grown out of control. But that effort was just a drop in the ocean. Being an extremely insecure and paranoid person, he knew no better than to rely on his favorite eunuch for information about his Court officials. This only served to spawn yet another conniving eunuch network. Without the Emperor’s trust, the Court officials found it easier to please and collude with the eunuchs than to function dutifully. Corruption thrived once again.
Hong Taiji’s gut told him that the time was ripe for another attack. He foresaw the significance of these imminent battles, victories which would lift the reputation and status of all those involved. Hence he carefully circumvented Ajige, Dorgon and Dodo in his selection of commanding generals, and instead chose Hooge and Jirgalang. Hooge, for all his foibles, would still be the first choice to succeed him as Banner Chief for both the Plain and Border Yellow Banners. Bumbutai’s son was still only an infant.
Since the death of the Ming General Yuan Chonghuan, the Ming army had not changed its defensive strategy in the fortress towns of Jinzhou and Songshan along the Shanhai Pass corridor which protected the Great Wall of China. These towns were vital to the Manchu Army because they would be the key relay points in their supply lines. As of now, military supplies had to be looped through inhospitable Mongolian desert regions. Without these towns, it was also hard to have the loot from raids on Chinese border towns safely returned to Mukden.
After the victorious Battle of Dalinghe, the Manchu army had improved their mastery of artillery thanks to advice from Ming generals who had surrendered to them. The Manchu Emperor planned to replicate his Dalinghe siege tactics in the attacks on Jinzhou and Songshan.
Hong Chengchou was a patriotic military commander of Ming China who, like Yuan Chonghuan, was a strategic thinker with a strong faith in the use of European cannons in artillery warfare. In the twelfth year of Chongzhen Emperor’s reign, the Ming commander had successfully put down an uprising mob in southern China led by a desperado named Li Zicheng, After that, he was transferred to the north to fight against the invading Manchus.
In the early autumn of Chongzhen’s fifteenth year of reign, which was Hong Taiji’s fifteenth as ruler of the Manchu Empire, Ming general Zu Dashou was in cha
rge of defending Jinzhou. He had pretended to be a turncoat earlier in the Battle of Dalinghe and had surrendered to the Manchu army, offering to take Jinzhou for them. But when the fortress town had come under his control, he had changed sides again and defended the town for the Ming army, pushing out the Manchus. Now Jirgalang’s troops lay siege to the town, under the command of Hong Taiji. The small Jinzhou garrison was in an untenable position and Zu Dashou immediately wrote to Beijing asking for rescue forces to be sent.
In response, the Chongzhen Emperor appointed Hong Chengchou as the commanding general to lead 130,000 troops to liberate Jinzhou from the siege.
Geographically, Songshan and two other flanking mountainous towns formed a natural protective triangle for Jinzhou. If the Ming army could take up a defense position in those hilly towns before the Manchu forces reached them, then Zu Dashou could have a chance to break out of the siege. So Hong Chengchou brought his troops right into Songshan and stationed them there. Hong Taiji, meanwhile, led his Manchu and Mongolian Eight Banner cavalry of 80,000 to meet the enemy midway between Songshan and Jinzhou. In the first battle, the Manchu army suffered a terrible setback.
As Hong Taiji’s troops were outnumbered, he thought it best to use small-scale attack tactics with the aim of exhausting the enemy. He then asked some of his soldiers to scatter fear-mongering pamphlets in the battlefield, stressing the brutality of the Manchu cavalrymen towards captured enemy soldiers. Just when the Ming forces were least expecting it, he launched a sudden full-scale attack, employing cannons that had been produced based on the design of the Ming army’s Portuguese-made cannons. Many of the unsuspecting Ming infantry soldiers had arms and legs blown to pieces. They had never previously experienced the violent body-mangling power of the new cannons. Bone-chilling cries of agony made the surviving Ming soldiers cower in terror.
As the Ming army was trying to retreat from the front line, Hong Taiji ordered his cavalrymen to slaughter the retreating soldiers and to mutilate their bodies, creating pandemonium, and to raid the Ming camps’ supplies. Hong Chengchou lost 80,000 of his men and most of his military and food supplies. At last, he had no alternative but to withdraw into the Songshan fortress with only 10,000 men left.
Over at Jinzhou, which was surrounded tightly by Jirgalang’s troops, Zu Dashou’s men were getting restless as the hope of breaking out faded, while food supplies had long been depleted. Talk of eating corpses started to run wild among the starving soldiers.
Inside the Manchu Chief Commander’s camp, Jirgalang reported to Hong Taiji about the Jinzhou situation, while Hooge suggested an immediate siege of Songshan. The Chief Commander questioned the prudence of an immediate siege, pointing to the exhaustion of the cavalrymen after the strenuous battle. Just as the discussion was going on, a sentry guard came in to report a post-horse heading towards the camp.
A moment later, a dust-covered courier entered, knelt on one knee and bowed before the Emperor. One of the Emperor’s guards inspected the envelope that the courier handed him, then submitted it to the Emperor. He noticed there was a burned corner of the envelope and immediately felt an ominous unease. There was only one sentence in the letter: “The Court physician attending to Consort Chen said she is dying.”
His heart sank to the floor on reading the message. Without hesitation, he handed over the Chief Commander’s seal to Hooge and ordered three Imperial Guards to accompany him on a ride the next morning back to Mukden, brushing aside all requests for him to reconsider. The only image that filled his head was that of a smiling Harjol waving to him.
The four riders rode on day and night without rest. On the third night of the journey, they took a rest at a post-horse station, where they got news that Consort Chen could be gone any moment now. On hearing that, the Emperor fell down on his knees in tears and begged Buddha and the Goddess of Mercy to spare his beloved.
Two days later, Hong Taiji rode his black stallion through the Imperial pathway right up to the entrance of Guansui Palace. He jumped off his horse and scrambled into Harjol’s bed chamber. On her bed she lay peacefully, freshly made up and dressed in her bridal garment. In tears, Jere, Bumbutai and Sumalagu were kneeling beside the death bed. Eunuchs and maids were weeping aloud. Oblivious to the people and surroundings, Hong Taiji dashed forth and threw himself over the corpse in an outburst of tears and groans. He embraced the stiff body and madly kissed the stone-cold face. No one dared to try to stop him.
When Bumbutai saw this, she broke into sobs all over again. Perhaps she had been wrong about Hong Taiji. His love for Harjol was genuine after all.
Elven
As the highest tribute that could be granted to any deceased Imperial clan member, the Emperor ordered that his Consort be given a state funeral and mandated a one-year mourning period.
Five days after giving the order, the Emperor was found lying unconscious on the floor of his bed chambers. A Court physician told Empress Jere and Bumbutai that the Emperor had been suffering too much grief which had caused a sudden stroke. Bumbutai suggested that Buddhist monks be called to perform a psalm chanting ritual for the reincarnation of the dead Consort in order to pacify the Emperor. Empress Jere nodded in agreement. She also ordered that all Court banquets and all entertainments be banned in the Inner Palaces during the mourning period.
On the last day of the ninth lunar month, the Emperor led the whole Aisin Gioro clan in paying respects to the late Consort in a memorial rite. After the rite, the jeweled casket containing the embalmed body was carried in a white-silk-curtained palanquin, escorted by Princes dressed in white mourning garment. The cortege headed towards the Imperial mausoleum beyond the city walls. Heading the funeral procession were cavalrymen carrying white banners atop horses draped in white cloth, followed by clansmen and Court ministers. Behind the hearse trailed Princesses, Consorts and Concubines, all clothed in white hemp robes.
In the following month, the Emperor granted a posthumous title to his beloved Consort, naming her as his “First Consort”. The title carried in its prefix four bestowed characters that symbolized wisdom, geniality, modesty and graciousness. The title granting ceremony was attended by Jaisang and his wife who had come all the way from Inner Mongolia to mourn their daughter. In memory of his late wife, the Emperor bestowed the titles of Prince and Princess of the First Rank on Bumbutai’s aging parents. Bumbutai was thrilled to see them, especially her mother, but only wished the reunion were under happier circumstances. She was also glad that they had a chance to visit their grandson Fulin, who was now almost four years old. For the old couple, the experience of their short visit was a mix of bitter and sweet.
Sadly, all the rites and rituals could not console the Emperor over his tragic loss. He was losing stamina and increasingly avoiding Court attendance. No one close to him could ever have foreseen that a fierce leader such as he would abandon himself so utterly to grief over a deceased Consort.
By the second lunar month of the sixteenth year of Hong Taiji’s reign, with the Emperor not yet prepared to go back into the battlefield, Hooge decided to lay siege to Songshan, having successfully intercepted Ming rescue forces sent from Beijing. Hong Chengchou was facing a desperate situation similar to that of Zu Dashou in Jinzhou. Soldiers were starving and morale in the army was plunging. He tried to break out with his small number of men twice, but failed both times.
One of his subordinates surnamed Xia lost his nerve and one starless night sneaked out of the camp and, holding a white flag, waded across the moat. He crawled his way through the heavily-guarded barricade in the dark. A Manchu sentinel guard seized him on sight and took him to the Chief Commander.After telling Hooge the exact state of the forces inside the fortress, Xia offered to secretly open the fortress gate to let in the Manchu troops the following night, in exchange for his life and freedom. He would shoot a burning arrow as the signal. Being anxious to claim victory, Hooge readily agreed. Xia snaked his way unnoticed back into the fortress
.
When daylight began to recede the next evening, Hooge ordered his troops to stand by and wait for the signal. A full-scale escalade attack on the fortress was in the offing with as many scaling ladders as were available. Hooge figured that his forces outnumbered those of his enemy by a wide margin and thus a concerted and sudden attack would ensure victory. Half of his men would engage in the scaling of the battlements, while the other half would be on horseback and charge straight through the opened gate.
Hong Chengchou and his half-starved men were startled out of their sleep when they heard the outburst of thunderous noises outside the crenellated walls. Hardly did they have time to absorb the first shock when they watched with dropped jaws the heavy metal gate swinging open and hordes of cavalrymen flooding in through the lowered drawbridge. Up on the fortress terrace, machete-wielding Manchu soldiers who had climbed up ladders were swarming in and cutting down stunned sentry guards like melons. On the ground, other soldiers fell under the horse hoofs and drawn swords of the invaders.
Xia saw a good friend of his having his head chopped off, and he ran over shrieking, wracked with guilt and remorse. With one hand he picked up the head, with the other he thrust his sword into the horse carrying the killer. The beast screeched in agony and fell on its side while the cavalryman slumped to the ground. Xia went forward and chopped off the man’s head in a fit of frenzy. A group of cavalrymen rode up and surrounded Xia. One of them slashed his throat, another cut off his right arm, and a third finished him off by sticking a sword through his heart.
The remaining Ming soldiers were too fear-stricken to fight on. They had no option but to surrender. Hong Chengchou and his three generals were captured alive and brought back to Hooge’s camp, where the three generals were executed on the spot.
As soon as news of victory at Songshan reached Jirgalang, he ordered an all-out attack on Jinzhou, an attack which also ended in victory. General Zu Dashou was captured. Under strict orders from the Emperor Hong Taiji, Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou were kept alive and promptly brought back to Mukden, as the Emperor insisted on persuading them to defect to his rule.