The Last Empress (15 page)

Tutor Weng began one lesson by asking Guang-hsu if he had read
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
My adopted son replied that it was his favorite. The tutor then asked if he enjoyed the characters and if he could name them.

"The Three Kingdoms' prime minister was Chu-ko Liang! Who lived sixteen hundred years ago!" Guang-hsu became excited. "A powerful commander who was magical in predicting the enemy's next move!"

Dressed in his robe patterned with tall grass, Tutor Weng charmed his student by praising his knowledge. "However," the teacher said and pivoted his head, "his predictions were not magical but the result of hard work."

"Please explain!" Guang-hsu couldn't wait.

"Your Majesty, have you ever read a real letter composed by Chu-ko Liang?"

Guang-hsu shook his head.

"I would like to show you a letter. Are you interested?" The tutor bent over until his face was inches from his student's.

"I would be delighted!" cried Guang-hsu.

The title was "On Departure." It was a letter of advice from the ancient prime minister to his Emperor. Chu-ko Liang, who was very ill, was about to lead his army against the northern invaders. The departure was his final effort to rescue his failing kingdom.

"'Your father, my friend Emperor Liu, died in the middle of achieving his goal,'" Tutor Weng began to read. "'Although the Three Kingdoms has been established, the known truth is that our kingdom is the weakest. Your Majesty must realize that the reason you have been served well is because the ministers and generals lived to repay your father's kindness and trust.' In other words, Guang-hsu, it is crucial that you rule with fairness and justice and know who your true friends are."

Guang-hsu listened attentively as the venerable minister went on to recommend people whom he trusted—all the characters Guang-hsu knew well from the book he'd read.

Artfully, Tutor Weng presented the ancient situation to mirror the present. By placing Guang-hsu in the historical moment, he offered a valuable perspective.

Like Guang-hsu, this was the first time I truly comprehended the ancient classic. I realized that the elements Tutor Weng illustrated for my son were at the heart of Chinese morality.

Tutor Weng was near tears when he recited the last paragraph: "'The late Emperor knew that I was a careful person, and it was why he gave me such a grand responsibility. I could not sleep at night, worrying that there might be things I could have done but hadn't.'" Tutor Weng put down his book and raised his chin toward the ceiling and began to recite from memory: "'I am asking to be punished by death if I fail to defeat the northern enemy on this trip. I am leaving you with the dynasty's most intelligent and experienced officers.'" The tutor looked at Guang-hsu. "Join me now, Your Majesty."

Together, student and teacher read: "'I hope you have the mercy to make use of them. As for myself, Your Majesty, I have been given trust and friendship by your father. To devote my life to his son, until the day I die, would be my pleasure and happiness."

It started to happen in my sleep. I could hear the cracking of my thought-jammed skull. I could feel it while dressing or when I sat down to eat. Having "dead thoughts," or being "sick of having the same thoughts," was how I expressed the feeling. It was getting to me. The doctors said that it had to do with approaching old age.

When I was younger, I was used to my dark thoughts. They came and went like companions. I wasn't afraid of them. Often I let myself sink deep into the ocean bed of my mind and explore the murky terrain. Nuharoo said that she had the same experiences and the same sinking feelings. It was why she had turned to Buddhism. It was to save her from falling.

I called myself a Buddhist and even claimed to be able to see the Buddha beyond the wooden statue. In truth, however, I could not. "It doesn't cost much to offer food and animals to every altar in the palace," An-te-hai used to advise. "My lady, worshiping many gods will ensure an abundance of luck."

"Insincerity will be your true misfortune," Nuharoo predicted. "Lady Yehonala, you will never find peace of mind."

I didn't doubt that she was right, so I tried to help myself. Yet often it wasn't Buddha's voice but An-te-hai's that I would hear. "It is the dealing of the inner life cycle, my lady. It is death and birth. You are alive if you are aware of your dealings. But if you feel that you have given up, that is the beginning of the end."

I had always been afraid of spiritual death, so I sought meaning in everyday existence. Tung Chih, Yung Lu and An-te-hai were my elements. Fighting hopelessness had been my existence. I found myself achieving balance and harmony along the way, though I never questioned how I achieved it or whether I was only fooling myself.

I hadn't opened any doors since becoming an empress. In a dream I opened a door. I was surprised to see that red and pink flowers covered my entire courtyard. A heavy rain had fallen. The flowers were whipped down, but they still appeared full of vitality. Their wet heads drank the water from puddles. One by one the flowers began to rise like court officials. Their fragrance was strong, a mixture of gardenias and rotten vegetables.

Li Lien-ying brought in a dream interpreter, who asked what else I had seen in my dream. I told him that I had seen windows.

"What is inside the windows?" the interpreter asked.

"Red- and pink-faced women," I replied. "They squeezed into the windows like a bunch of poison poppies competing for sunshine. Every one of them had an extraordinarily long and thin neck."

The interpreter's hand moved quickly in the air as if taking notes on an invisible pad.

"Whose window was it?" The interpreter closed his eyes.

"I don't remember."

"I am getting to the bottom of it. I am ready to unlock the meaning of your dream, but you must provide that last detail. Let me ask you again: whose window was it?"

"It is my husband's window, I think."

"Where is it located?"

"At the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing."

"That's it! And then you summoned a fruit picker."

Shocked, I said that he was right.

"And with that fruit picker you took down the poppy heads one by one."

"Yes, I did."

"You then gathered those poppy heads in a basket, put them in a grinder and made soup."

I admitted that it all happened as he described.

"The problem is the soup. You should not have drunk it."

"But it was only a dream."

"It interprets truth."

"What truth?"

The man paused.

Quickly Li Lien-ying placed a bag of taels in his hand. The interpreter resumed, asking whether it was safe to utter what he knew.

Li Lien-ying assured him. The man drew in a breath and said, exhaling, "My lady, you have been poisoned by your own sickness."

I asked what kind of sickness. The man was reluctant to answer, but said that it contained elements of jealousy, resentment and secret yearnings for intimacy.

It was then that I asked him to stop.

"What would you advise?" Li Lien-ying said, grabbing the man's sleeve.

The interpreter said that he knew of no effective treatment. "We'll try anything," Li Lien-ying begged.

"Wait until autumn is deep. Leave Her Majesty's door open from evening until dawn. The purpose is to invite crickets in. The crickets will do the labor of suffering for her—they will sing themselves to death."

"How many crickets should I invite?" Li Lien-ying asked.

"As many as you can. There is a trick to luring them. You must place fresh grass and shelled soybeans in the room. Also lay wet bricks in each corner. The crickets will come to eat and then look for mating partners. They will sing throughout the night. Consider your treatment a success if you find dead crickets under your bed the following morning."

By the time I got used to the singing of crickets and waking up to find their dead bodies in my shoes, my dreams began to change. They became less frightening, more about my being tired and trying to escape.

I was again able to appreciate the beauty of the turning seasons. Walking along the garden paths had never meant so much to me. I would watch a worm-damaged plant swing in the wind and marvel at
its way of surviving. I would feel the force of life and experience rapture at the simple sight of insects sucking nectar from flower hearts. I would find myself breathing freely, and I would feel the spirit of Tung Chih and An-te-hai.

I still missed Yung Lu terribly, but had the strength to bear it.

I had been sitting in front of the mirror since three in the morning. I opened my eyes and saw that the wide board that held my hair made my head look like a giant mushroom.

"How do you like it, my lady?" Li Lien-ying asked.

"It's fine. Let's finish as quickly as possible." I rose so that he could get me into the heavily layered court robe.

I hardly paid attention to how I looked these days. My mind had been dealing with Russia to the north, British India to the west, French Indochina to the south, and Japan to the east.

A number of countries and territories—including Korea, the Ryu-kyu Islands, Annam and Burma—that had sent representatives and tribute to us during Tung Chih's reign, sent them less frequently, and soon not at all. The fact that China was unable to claim back its privileges showed that our standing was diminishing. With every defection, our outer defenses were further weakened.

I now wished that Tutor Weng would quit his pointless displays of sincerity and get on with preparing Guang-hsu for the business of rule. Lacking flexibility and cunning, Nuharoo and I were unable to adopt a line of conduct when problems threatened to overwhelm us. No one seemed to understand that our country had been heading downhill for centuries. China was like a diseased and dying person, only now the rot of the body had become visible.

Like a hungry tiger, Japan had been hiding in the bushes, waiting for the moment to attack. In the past we underestimated the degree of its hunger. We had been too kind to our small and resource-poor
neighbor from ancient times. Had I known that Japan's Meiji Emperor had stirred up his nation to swoop down and rob us, I would have encouraged the court to concentrate solely on defense.

Ten years earlier, in 1868, while I was concentrating my energy on establishing elementary schools in the countryside, Japan's Emperor had set in motion a full-scale reform, transforming its feudal system into a powerful modern capitalistic society. China had no idea what it meant when Japan began pressing to expand in a bracelet extending from its main islands in the north to Formosa in the south. Formosa, which the Mandarins called Taiwan, had been an island state paying tribute to the Chinese throne for centuries. In 1871, when some sailors from the Ryukyu Islands were murdered there by what most likely were local bandits, the Japanese seized on the incident as an excuse to interfere.

The Imperial bureaucracy and our own naiveté led us to fall for Japan's conspiracy. At first we tried to clarify that we were not to blame. Our Board of Foreign Affairs offered a carelessly worded response to Japan's demand for reparations: "We cannot be responsible for the actions of savages beyond the pale of civilization." This was interpreted by the Japanese as an invitation to take over the island state.

Without warning, the Japanese army invaded, claiming revenge on behalf of the people of the Ryukyu Islands.

It was too late when our provincial governor there realized that he had not only let the Japanese supplant us in the Ryukyus, but also relinquished our authority over the 250-mile-long, vitally important island of Taiwan.

After days of discussion and delay, our court concluded that China could not take on the new military power of Japan. We ended up paying 500,000 taels to Japan as an indemnity, only to receive more bad news six years later, when Japan "accepted" the Ryukyu Islands' official "surrender."

The British were also determined to extract all they could from any incident. In 1875 a British interpreter, A. R. Margary, was murdered in our southwestern Yunnan province. Margary was accompanying an expedition to reconnoiter trade routes from Burma into the mountains of Yunnan, Kweichow and Szechuan, provinces rich in minerals and ore. The foreigners paid no attention to warning signs of danger from Moslem rebels. The interpreter was ambushed and killed by either bandits or the rebels.

The British representative Sir Thomas Wade forced China's hand over a new treaty, to which I sent Li Hung-chang, then the viceroy of Chihli province, to negotiate. The Chefoo Convention was signed, by which several more ports were opened for trade with Western nations, including my hometown of Wuhu, on the Yangtze River.

With his hair smoothly braided in the back, the fifty-five-year-old Li Hung-chang came to beg for forgiveness. He was in his black court robe, embroidered with the brown and red symbols of bravery and luck. Although thin-framed, Li's posture was erect and his expression solemn. He had a southerner's fair skin, and his small, single-lidded eyes glowed with intelligence. His nose looked long on his chiseled face, and his lips were hidden behind a neatly trimmed beard.

"The British are trying to send another expedition from India through Burma, to delineate the Burmese-Chinese frontier," Li Hung-chang reported while on his knees.

"Are you implying that Burma has been annexed by Britain?"

"Precisely, Your Majesty."

I believed that if I had the viceroy's devotion, I would have China's stability. Against the court's advice, I continued Li Hung-chang's appointment as China's most important provincial official. Li would hold the same post in Chihli for twenty-three years.

I purposely ignored the fact that Li was overdue for rotation to another part of the empire. It was my intention to allow him to increase his wealth, connections and power. I was behind Li's reorganization and modernization of the northern military forces, under the name of the "New Army," which wags called the Li family army. I was fully aware that the field commanders were directly beholden to Li Hung-chang rather than to the throne.