Empress
Page 26
Scribe of Loyalty withdrew and had the newly translated sutra disclosed. My nephews used the opportunity to instigate my deification. They were impatient to be the imperial household and change my husband’s relations into outsiders. The monasteries of the Great Cloud built in the four corners of the Empire rang their bonze bells, whipping up fervor among the people. As a celestial daughter and bodhisattva who would be Savior of the World, I was hope and happiness and the promise of a better life. From that moment on, the people prayed for my well-being before statues of Buddha Maitreya of the Future who bore my enigmatic smile. They begged me to lead them back to the path of deliverance toward the Heaven of Pure Rejoicing. With this faith, I was ready to defy the ancestors, the deceased, and the living—to become the first woman emperor of all time.
The Tang dynasty, founded by conquerors and sullied by blood and warfare, would be turned like the page of a book. Every form of renewal is a purification. I did away with the calendar of the ancient Xia dynasty and applied the Zhou calendar, used by my glorious ancestors, in which the new year begins in the eleventh moon. I undertook to change the way things were written by publishing a series of new characters including my name, Heavenlight, now represented as the Sun and the Moon carried by the Heavens. My eldest nephew, Piety, had recently been named Great Chancellor of the Left, and while he busied himself trying to alter the course of history, I very quietly suggested my decision to the government: My sacred mission would be accomplished only if I inaugurated a new dynasty based on peace, compassion, and divine justice.
On the morning of the third day of the ninth moon-phase, shouting broke out by the Gate to the Forbidden City and interrupted the morning salutation. The overseeing magistrate, Fu Yu Yi, stepped forward and presented me with a petition signed by the 900 men and women kneeling before the southern entrance. I had the scroll opened; it was covered with signatures, some beautiful, some hideous, others simple thumbprints: “The sky does not have two suns; the earth does not recognize two kings. Your Sacred Majesty must obey the will of the gods who entrust the sovereignty of the Empire to her. Heaven is commanding her to inaugurate a new dynasty, and to gratify her son, her successor, with her name—Wu. So that henceforth her lineage may prosper and illuminate the four seas for eternity.”
Without waiting for a reaction from the high-ranking officials, I dictated my reply: “I, who obey the wishes of the previous emperor; I who am devoted to serving Heaven and who long for peace in the world and joy in the hearts of every people; I am determined to take on my duties without claiming any glory.”
A ripple rang through the audience hall. Several ministers stepped forward from the ranks, trying to make me accept the celestial invitation and reasons of State. Their numbers were far from the majority. I rejected their request but rewarded Fu Yu Yi, who had understood my intention. I immediately appointed him councilor to the Chancellery.
The following day I learned that the 900 inhabitants of Luoyang had still not moved. They had been joined by monks and Taoists, traders and beggars, children and the elderly. Twelve thousand people were now kneeling before the Forbidden City, determined to rise to their feet only once I agreed to satisfy the petition. Accompanied by my ministers, I climbed to the highest level of the Pagoda of Contemplation and saw a carpet of prostrate figures before the Forbidden City. My heart faltered with emotion. This change of dynasty would see no bloodshed or violence. For the first time in our history, the people were choosing their sovereign. Let their wishes be heard!
Still, I hardened my tone to voice my refusal: “The sun shines, but it wears no crown. The gods govern this earth, but our offerings are paltry in the face of their goodness. Buddha’s power lies in his boundless and universal compassion. He asks only for prayer. The sovereign who transcends divine goodness, and the blessings of our forebears must be the most humble servant of the Empire, an officiator in religious rituals constrained to moral purity. The sovereign should have no belongings or glory. My power was passed on to me by the previous emperor; my vocation was revealed by Heaven. I deserve no special title.”
Two days later there were sixty thousand people outside the Southern Gate; they had come from the four corners of the Empire calling for my eternal reign. During the morning salutation, the officials, officers, princes, and barbarian kings also presented me with a petition. The Great Eunuch Overseer took it upon himself to give me a letter sent by the entire population of the gynaeceum. I also received a letter from my daughter, the Princess of Eternal Peace, expressing the wish of all the women dignitaries to see me found a new dynasty. Finally, my son Miracle, whose silent existence had been a mute form of opposition, announced to the world that he had abdicated. He publicly asked for my permission to abandon his paternal name, Li, and to bear my name, Wu.
Voices strangled with emotion cried out in every direction to try and persuade me: “At dawn this morning, a phoenix flew over the Southern Gate, followed by hundreds of different birds. Then thousands of scarlet sparrows came from east of the horizon, escorted by golden orioles. When the sun rose, clouds tinged with happiness spread over the sky for a long time before dispersing. The whole capital witnessed this marvel, and your servants heard your people proclaiming: ‘The presence of these celestial beings heralds a sacred revolution! Scarlet sparrows symbolize fire, golden orioles represent the earth. Now, according to the law of the five elements, fire begets the earth. That is why the golden orioles escorting the scarlet sparrows announce a celestial oracle: The son shall follow the mother, shall bear the maternal name!’
“In the Book of Mutation, the Ancients observed: ‘When a great man receives the mandate of Heaven, he can overturn the former order, and his actions are called Revolution.’ Your servants have learned that when a great man obeys the will of Heaven, he becomes invincible; when he obeys the will of the people, his lineage will prosper. Today Heaven has appointed Your Majesty master, and the people have asked for Your Majesty as a mother. The law of Heaven is destiny; the intentions of the people are fate. Your Majesty is disobeying Heaven and showing contempt for the people, but she is choosing virtue and modesty: These actions run counter to the course of history and to the Law of Distribution. Your servants will no longer be able to venerate you! Your Majesty’s refusal is a betrayal of Heaven and a blow to the people: How can you govern now?”
After uttering the refusal three times, in keeping with the ancient code, I bowed before the Will of Heaven. The imperial soothsayers and Great Ministers chose the ninth day of the ninth moon, the day of the Double Sun, to celebrate my enthronement.
On that morning, I wore over my white tunic the indigo-colored imperial cloak embroidered with twelve rows of sacred drawings and painted with dragons riding astride clouds. With the crown of twenty-four tiers of jade pearls on my head and the emerald scepter in my hand, I climbed the steps to the Gate of Celestial Law amid the ringing of bronze bells and the chiming of sounding stones. I was preceded by a cortège of servants from the Inner Court and followed by princes and Great Ministers. I announced to the world the beginning of my dynasty, the Zhou dynasty. Its peace and prosperity would be inaugurated by the Era of the Celestial Mandate. Cheers from officials and shouts of joy from the people rang out. Heaven descended and wrapped me in its crystalline blue. All the power of the House of Tang was expiring, and a woman who had become Emperor was founding her own dynasty without scorching Chinese soil with war. This marvel confirmed once more that I truly was the envoy of the gods.
The whole world knew that my terrestrial legitimacy could be traced right back to the ancient Zhou dynasty whose kings were my ancestors. I took every opportunity to proclaim that I was descended from them by using their crimson banners—the color of fire, the element they venerated. The Sacred Hearth of the Empire was transferred from Long Peace to Luoyang, which was promoted to Imperial Capital. I went back through the family tree, and seven generations of ancestors were given the posthumous title of emperor. Seven temples were built to the east of the Fo
rbidden City, and here their spirits could receive offerings and adorations. My son Miracle became the Imperial Descendent and enjoyed the privileges accorded to the Supreme Son. Piety, Spirit, and Tranquility, the eldest three of my nephews, became kings, and their cousins were raised to the rank of county kings. Having been a wood merchant, a fighting warrior, and then a dignitary kept far from the Court, Father could rise up at last, thanks to his daughter’s accession. In her lifetime, Mother would have been terrified to have given birth to an emperor, a god. As it was, they were both silenced by their pride.
They were exhumed and reburied with the posthumous titles of Emperor and Empress of Pious Clarity.
I stopped asking myself: Who am I? And where do I come from?
The Court had just offered me the title of August Sovereign Divinity. I was the Beginning, the Source of Sources. I was the identity, the root that would become a tree in the centuries to come.
ELEVEN
The world forgot Confucius’s maxim: “It is as scandalous for a woman to meddle with politics as for a hen to crow like a cockerel.” Men forgot their indignation at seeing a widow emerge from the gynaeceum and command an empire, and all the rumors about my sexual exploits faded. The cheers of the people still reverberated through the Forbidden City; it was these heartfelt cries of a humble people—rather than any crown or imperial cloak—which restored the confidence of a sovereign dented by betrayal and revolts among her officials. I had become an inescapable truth, and now, as I sat on my throne facing my ministers and generals, I no longer saw them all as potential traitors.
I no longer needed the blood-thirsty judges—who I myself had appointed after Xu Jing Yei’s uprising three years earlier—to quash further conspiracies. I began to understand that some of them had earned promotion by exposing imaginary plots. It was time to reestablish justice in the special judgment court I had built within the Forbidden City, behind the Gate of Magnificent Landscape. I decided to eliminate those prosecutors and magistrates who were acting on their own initiative like the princes of independent kingdoms. A secret investigation revealed that they brought charges with no more proof than a simple denunciation; and, from the moment of their arrest, all of the accused were subjected to torture during interrogations. The tortures were given names such as “the phoenix spreading its wings,” “the braced donkey,” “the immortal offering divine fruit” and “the Daughter of Jade climbing the ladder.” To ensure that no culprit was spared, these trials condemned innocent men. On the pretext of quashing rebellions, the judges had created a parallel power that was beyond my control.
Their spies were proliferating throughout the Empire, even within the walls of my palace. To strike quickly and efficiently, I chose one judge who was familiar with the network’s every secret, strength, and weakness. Lai Jun Chen, famed for his cruelty, was the Lodge of Purification’s prosecutor. A former criminal, he had been sentenced to death by beheading. When I had opened my court four years before and given audience to humble commoners, he had obliged his jailor to accompany him to the capital, where he had dared to plead his innocence before me. I had pardoned his crimes and appointed him as prosecutor to hunt down his fellow creatures. The man who owed me his life received his orders without comment. One by one, he exterminated his colleagues, patiently and methodically. I learned that, to obtain a confession from Zhou Xing—a judge reputed to be a sinister torturer—Lai Jun Chen invited him to dine with him, and during the course of the meal, he asked his advice on how to interrogate especially resistant conspirators. Zhou Xing replied, “Put them in an earthenware jar over a pile of logs, set light to it, and let them cook dry. Even the dumb speak then.” It was then that the prosecutor drew the arrest warrant from his sleeve and announced, “At the entrance to this room, there is an earthenware jar set up on a blazing fire. Her Majesty suspects you of stirring up a plot against her. I beg permission to interrogate you on this matter.”
Lai Jun Chen triumphed over his own kind.
Decapitated: Qiu Shen Ji, Great General of the Golden Scepter of the Left, who crushed rebellious armies in their blood.
Decapitated: Magistrate Suo Yuan Li, a Turk scholar with the eyes of a lynx, an eagle nose, and a Barbarian heart.
Exiled: Zhou Xing, the ill jurist who drew his strength from his fevered interrogations. He was eventually assassinated.
Decapitated: Fu Yu Yi, the councilor for the chancellery who instigated the people’s petition calling for my enthronement.
Decapitated: Justice of the Peace Wang Hong Yi.
Decapitated: Judge Ho Si Zhi, the illiterate peasant who thrived on his intuitions and his ferocious cruelty and who despised wealth and pleasure. I shall never forget our brief exchange when I smiled and asked him, “You cannot read. How can you conduct investigations?”
Quite unperturbed, he replied, “Legend confers on the sacred griffon the ability to distinguish between good and evil. It can neither read nor write, and yet it recognizes the truth.”
Decapitated: Those three years of merciless repression. Bloodshed wiped away bloodshed; crime assassinated crime.
I summoned the prosecutor Lai Jun Chen to a private audience. He prostrated himself before me and then stood a few paces from me, upright and motionless. His face was magnificently chiseled; he would have been a beautiful man if there had been a hint of color in his ashen cheeks, if his face had been animated, and if his eyes had looked on this life with any warmth.
I showed him scrolls of denunciations.
“Zhou Xing, Suo Yuan Li, Fu Yu Yi, and Wang Hong Yi are dead; you alone are alive. There are just as many accusations leveled at you: corruption, buying favors, attempts to seize power—how dare you disobey the law?”
His face remained marble-like and his voice devoid of emotion as he replied, “Zhou Xing and Suo Yuan Li were anonymous scholars. When Your Majesty discovered their talents, they were able to make careers for themselves as magistrates, and this position meant they could take their revenge on the rich and the powerful. As for Fu Yu Yi and Wang Hong Yi, they both came from the lower depths of the Empire. They used flattery and intrigue to achieve their ends. Your Majesty likes unusual talents, their pride at the recognition you granted them outweighed their gratitude: They exploited their independence to build a separate network of power, and that is how they came to nurture the evil ambition of challenging Your Majesty’s strength. I was condemned to death and kept in a dungeon when Your Majesty heard my cry and gave me the opportunity to live and serve her. Ever since that day, I have sworn myself to my sovereign, body and soul. The real Lai Jun Chen was already dead. The one who prostrates himself at Your Majesty’s feet is another man, a creature who lives only to follow her orders and only by her will. The day that he ceases to be of use to her will be the day he returns to the shades. The officials understand the powerful ties I have to the sovereign; they are afraid of my intransigent devotion. That is why I have frequently been attacked by their paid assassins, and when their attempts at murder fail, they slander me. They want to be rid of me by whatever means they can, to weaken Your Majesty.”
I looked Lai Jun Chen in the eye for a long time. Other judges harbored anger, hatred, and perversion, but this prosecutor fascinated me with his coldness and his calm. The judges’ ferocity had served their own longings for power, and that was why I had them killed once they had served my ends. But Lai Jun Chen’s ferocity knew no vanity; this man who was once condemned to death was probably the greatest torturer of all time. He carried the Abyss within him, the Eternal Fire, Hell itself. He wanted neither to conquer nor to subdue. He was a destructive force—both chilling and blazing—offered to me by the gods.
I threw the denunciations into a brazier.
“I shall give you your life once again. You are now master of the Court at the Gate of Magnificent Landscape. I want no more persecutions and torture. Men apply hatred in response to hatred; my dynasty shall apply compassion.”
I was careful not to admit that this magnanimity was calcu
lated. By leaving the most feared and loathed magistrate in his position, I was implying to officials that I had ceased to fight, but was by no means disarmed.
Lai Jun Chen prostrated himself before me. His voice was still echoing around the room as he backed out: “May my sullied existence allow Your Majesty to remain immaculate.”
MY DAY BEGAN at three in the morning, summer and winter. Every other day I received the Salutation of my officials at daybreak. After the prostrations and the ceremonial wish for ten thousand years of my reign, some presented reports, and others received my instructions. At the end of the audience, the officials went to their respective ministries, and I moved to my private room to read political files and discuss them with Great Ministers.
On the intervening days, I remained in my bed chamber until dawn when I received the prostrations of the overseeing eunuchs and the lady governesses who presented me with accounts, bills, plans for forthcoming banquets, lists of birthday gifts, embroidery designs for official costumes, and requests for promotions and punishments. As Emperor of China, I was also my own empress.