Imperial Woman (30 page)

“This Tseng Kuo-fan,” she told the Prince Kung, “how dare he keep back the full force of the Braves while every day the rebels rob us of more southern provinces? When the realm is gone, what value are his Braves?”

“Most High,” the Prince replied, “the Braves cannot be everywhere at once, even when they attack.”

“They must be everywhere at once,” the Empress Mother declared. “It is their leader’s duty to send them everywhere, striking here where the rebels gather, there where they plan to attack and anywhere that they threaten to break through our ranks. A stubborn man, this Tseng Kuo-fan, pursuing his own plans alone!”

“Most High,” the Prince said, “I venture to propose a strategy. The English, with whom we presently are in a state of truce, have urged us to accept an English warrior to organize our resistance to the rebels. At first these white men approved the rebel Hung because he calls himself a Christian, but now they see him as a madman, and we have the advantage.”

The Empress considered what Prince Kung had said. Her slender hands had rested on the carved arms of her throne, as peaceful as jeweled birds. Soon her fingers began a restless drumming, her golden nail shields striking against the hard wood.

“Does Tseng Kuo-fan know the English make this offer?” she inquired.

“He knows,” Prince Kung replied, “and will have none of it. I do believe this general is so stubborn that he would rather lose the realm to a rebel of our own than win by a foreigner.”

She began suddenly to like this Tseng Kuo-fan. “His reason?” she inquired.

“If we accept help from the English, he says they will surely ask a price.”

The jeweled hands gripped the chair. “True, true,” she cried. “They will claim the land they saved for us. Ha, I begin to trust this Tseng Kuo-fan! But I will have no more delay. He must cease his preparations and begin attack. Let him surround the city of Nanking and gather all his forces in a closing circle about that place. If the leader-Hung is killed, the followers will disperse.”

“Most High,” the Prince said coldly, “I venture at my own risk to say that I doubt it wise for you to advise Tseng Kuo-fan in matters of war.”

She flashed her great eyes at him sidewise. “I do not ask for your advice, Prince.”

Her voice was gentle but he saw her face grow white with rage and her frame trembled. He bowed his head, controlling his own anger, and immediately he withdrew from her presence. When he was gone she came down from her throne and went to her writing table and there wrote her own edict to the distant general.

“Hard pressed though you may be,” she wrote, after greeting, “it is time now to put forth all strength. Bring to your side your younger brother, Tseng Kuo-ch’uan. Call him from Kiangsi to advance on Anhuei province with you. Seize Anking, the provincial capital, and make it the first step in the large plan to seize Nanking. We know that Anking has been held for nine years by the rebels, and doubtless they call it their home. Dislodge them, that they may know what it is to be driven from entrenchment. Next, recall from his guerrilla warfare the general, Pao Ch’ao. This man is fearless, brave in attack, and loyal to the Throne. We recall how he struck down the rebels at Yochow and Wuchang, though often wounded. Keep this general flexible, ready to move swiftly with his armies, so that when you encircle the central city of Nanking, tightening the circle day by day, Pao Ch’ao may be detached to fly to the rear if the rebels rise again behind you in Kiangsi. For you have a double task—to kill the leader Hung, and while you press toward this end, to scotch every uprising that may spring up behind your circle. Meanwhile, do not memorialize the Throne with difficulties. You may not complain. What must be done, shall be done, if not by you, then by another. Reward will be generous when the rebel Hung is dead.”

In such words, interspersed with frequent courtesies and compliments, the Empress Mother shaped her edict and with her own hands she stamped the imperial seal upon the parchment and summoning the Chief Eunuch she sent the edict to Prince Kung to be copied for the records and then taken south by courier to Tseng Kuo-fan.

The Chief Eunuch returned with the jade emblem that was Prince Kung’s reply to prove he had received the edict and would obey. This the Empress Mother received and she smiled, her eyes like dark jewels beneath her black lashes.

“Did he say a word?” she asked.

“Benevolent,” the Chief Eunuch replied, “the Prince read the edict line by line, and then he said, ‘An emperor sits inside this woman’s brain.’”

The Empress Mother laughed softly behind her embroidered sleeve. “Did he—did he, indeed!”

The Chief Eunuch, knowing how she loved to hear such praise, added to it.

“Most High, I say the Prince speaks truly. So say we all.”

He touched the tip of his tongue to his handsome lips, and grinned and went away before she could reproach him.

Still smiling when he was gone, she fell into reflection. What should be the name for her son in his new reign? The Three Traitors had chosen the name Chi Hsiang, which is “Auspicious Happiness.” She would not have the empty windy words, signifying nothing. No, she craved a sound strong peace, founded on unity within the nation, the people willing subjects and the Throne benevolent. Peace and benevolence—she loved good words fitly placed, suited to their time, exact in meaning. Her taste in words had been shaped by masters in prose and poetry, and now after long thought, she chose two words to be her son’s name as Emperor. These words
Tung,
meaning to pervade, and
Chih,
meaning peace, a tranquil peace, rooted deep in heart and spirit, she chose. It was a bold choice, for the times were troubled and the nation was beset by enemies. Yet by this name she announced her will for peace, and for her to will was also to do.

She had won the people’s faith. Affairs large and small of the whole realm were brought daily to her Audience Hall. Such small matters as the curbing of a distant magistrate who oppressed his region cruelly, or in a city the price of rice which rose too high because a handful of men had bought the surplus of the last year’s harvest, or a decree that since snow had not fallen in late winter when the wheatfields needed snow as fertilizer, the gods must be persuaded by three days of public reproach, the priests carrying the gods out from their pleasant temples to survey the dry and frozen fields, from such small matters to the great ones of protecting coastlines from the ships of foreign enemies and regulating the hateful opium trade with white men, the Empress Mother found patience for all.

Yet she remembered also her vast household in the palaces. She took most jealous notice of her son, keeping him beside her each day for as long as she could, he running about her Audience Hall or in her private library where she read memorials and wrote her commands, and while she worked she lifted her eyes often to watch him and paused to feel if his flesh were solid and cool, the skin moist but not damp, and she looked at the color of his eyes, the dark luminous and black and the white very pure, and she looked inside his mouth to see the soundness of his teeth and if his tongue were red and his breath sweet, and she heard his voice and listened for his laughter. And while she did this, she thought beyond him of the needs of all. She scanned the household bills, the records of food received as tribute, of foods bought, of silks and satins received and stored, and not one bolt of silk was taken from the storehouses without her private seal set to the order. She knew well how thievery within a palace spreads at last to all the nation, and she let every serving man and woman and every prince and minister feel the coldness of her watching eyes upon him.

Yet she rewarded richly and often. A eunuch who obeyed her well was given silver and a faithful serving woman gained a satin jacket. Not all rewards were costly. When she had eaten her fill of dishes on the imperial table, while her ladies waited, she would summon one who pleased her to eat of her own favorite dish and by this mark of favor insure the lady’s place within the palace, for all made haste to serve one favored by the Empress Mother.

None knew except herself the great rewards she planned for those two, Jung Lu and Prince Kung. She had delayed the presentations until she could decide which should come first. Jung Lu had saved her life and the Emperor’s and for this he deserved whatever she willed to give him. But Prince Kung had saved the capital, not by arms but by the skill of his bargaining with the enemy. True, much was lost. The treaty lay heavy on the Throne, and she did not let herself forget that within the walls of the capital white men now lived and with them their aides and families. Yet the city was not destroyed as the enemy had threatened to destroy it. The Summer Palace she had resolutely forgotten, until she remembered against her will the gardens and the lakes, the rockeries and grottoes, the fairy pagodas hung against the hills, the treasure houses of tribute from around the four seas, the libraries, the books and the paintings, the jade, the splendid furniture. At such times her heart hardened against Prince Kung. Could he not have prevented somehow the fearful loss? More loss was it than to herself who loved the Summer Palace, more loss even than to one nation, for such stores of beauty belonged to beauty everywhere, a sacred treasure. Then Jung Lu she would put first. He at least had not allowed destruction. Yet her hardening heart could still be prudent and prudence told her that she must summon Prince Kung and pretend to ask his advice.

She waited, therefore, for a fortunate day, and this came after heavy snowfall, for the gods, besought and urged and blamed, had seen at last the dry fields and hungry peasants and thus sent a heavy snow to cover city and countryside, so deep that it was full three weeks before the last white drift was gone. The fields which had been bitter dry were now a soft green beneath the snow, and when the sun had shone a few mild days, the winter wheat sprang up as far as eye could reach. For this the Empress Mother was given full thanks, and the people said it was her grace and power that had compelled the gods.

This, then, was the fortunate day, a day in late winter and so near to spring that a warm mist hung over the city, as hot sun shone down upon cold earth. The Empress Mother sent the Chief Eunuch to summon Prince Kung to her private Audience Hall. He came soon, splendid in his robe of state, a blue brocade from neck to ankle, a dark hue, for the Court was still in mourning and must be for three years after the death of an emperor. He looked so proud, so stately, as he approached her throne, that she was displeased. He bowed, she fancied, somewhat slightly, as though he grew familiar. A thrust of secret anger stabbed her breast, but she put it aside. She had the task of winning him to something that she wished. It was not the time to reproach him for his pride.

“I pray you let us not stand on ceremony,” she said, her voice pure music. “Let us confer together. You are my lord’s brother, upon whom he bade me always lean when he was gone.”

Thus invited he sat down at the right side of the hall and now she did not like the readiness with which he did what she had bade him do. True, he made a show of protest, though only with a word or two, before he sat in her presence.

“I have in my mind,” she said, “to bestow a reward upon the Commander of the Imperial Guard. I do not forget that he saved my life when the traitors would have taken it. His loyalty to the Dragon Throne is like the Mount of Omei, never to be shaken, steadfast in every storm. I do not value my life overmuch, yet had I died, those traitors would have kept the throne for themselves, and never would the Heir have been the Emperor. The reward is not for my sake but for my son, the Emperor, and through him the people, for had those traitors won their way, the Throne would have fallen.”

Now Prince Kung did not look at her face while she spoke, but his acute hearing and his clever mind perceived inner meaning in what she said.

“Most High,” he said, “what reward have you in mind?”

She seized the moment boldly. It was not her habit to evade a crisis. “The post of a Grand Councilor has been empty since Su Shun’s death. It is my will to put Jung Lu there.”

She lifted her head that she might look into the Prince’s face, but when he felt her powerful gaze upon him he returned the look.

“It is impossible.”

These were his words, while eyes met eyes.

“Nothing is impossible if I will it.”

These were her words, and her eyes flamed against his eyes. But he was ruthless.

“You know that gossip creeps unending through the Court. You know how rumor whispers its way from eunuch to eunuch. Deny rumor as I do always for the honor of the Throne and for my clan, yet I cannot kill it.”

She made her eyes innocent. “What gossip?”

He could not be persuaded of her innocence and yet since she was so young a woman, it might be she was still innocent. And speak he must, having said so much, and he spoke plainly.

“Some doubt the young Emperor’s paternity.”

She looked away, her eyelids fluttered, her lips trembled and she put her silk kerchief to her mouth.

“Oh,” she moaned, “and I thought my enemies were dead!”

He said, “I speak for your sake. I am no enemy.”

Tears, hanging on her lashes, dried in rage. “Yet you should have put to death the ones who spoke such filth against me! You should not have let them live an hour. If you did not dare, then should you have told me and I would myself have seen them die!”

Was she innocent? He did not know, and would never know. He stayed silent.

She drew herself erect upon her throne. “I ask advice no more. Today, as soon as you are gone, I shall proclaim Jung Lu my Grand Councilor. And if any dares to speak against him—”

“What will you do?” he asked. “What if the whole Court is swept by gossip?”

She leaned forward and forgot courtesy. “I’ll silence them! And I bid you, Prince, be silent!”

Never in all their years had these two come to open anger. Then they recalled the mutual need of loyalty, each to the other.

The Prince was first. “Most High, forgive me.” He rose to his feet and made obeisance.