Imperial Woman (29 page)

Moreover, the treaty said, the Empress Mother and Regent must find thousands of pounds of gold for the foreigners, as recompense for the war which the invaders had forced. Was this justice, that a war which her people had not wanted should be paid for by them rather than by those who had brought it to pass?

And, furthermore, the treaty said, new ports were to be opened to these white men from the West, even the port of Tientsin, which was less than a hundred miles from the capital itself. Did this not mean that goods as well as men would be continually brought hither, and when the people saw foreign goods, would not false desires rise in their unenlightened hearts? This would bring further confusion.

And foreign priests, the treaty said, bringing their own religions, were to be allowed to wander through the country at will, settling where they liked and persuading the people to new gods. This had already brought disaster to the nation.

Of these and many like evils the Empress Mother read during that dark day in her lonely palace, and she spoke to no one. When food was brought she did not eat. Night fell but she paid no heed. None dared to speak to her or beg her to sleep. Her eunuch set a pot of her favorite green tea on the table and poured a bowl where her hand could reach it, but she did not look up or put out her hand.

Sometime in the small hours she set the parchment aside. Yet still she did not rise from her chair to go to her bedchamber. The great red candles burned low into the sockets of the golden candlesticks, and their flames, leaping up, made strange shadows on the painted beams of the high ceiling. The eunuch, ever watchful, came forward and put in fresh candles and went away again. She sat on, her chin in her right hand, in meditation deeper than she had ever known. The young Emperor, her son, was but five years old, his sixth birthday still half a year away. She, his mother, was twenty-six years of age. He could not sit upon the Dragon Throne before his sixteenth birthday. For ten years of her young womanhood she must rule in her son’s place. And what was her realm? A country vaster than she could guess, a nation older than history, a people whose number had never been counted, to whom she was herself an alien. In peace this realm would have been a monstrous burden, and there was no peace. Rebellion raged, the country was divided, for the rebel Hung ruled as Emperor in Nanking, the southern capital of the last Chinese Ming dynasty. The Imperial Armies fought incessantly against him but his power held, and between the armies the beggared people starved. Her armies, as she well knew, were little better than the rebels, for they were seldom paid, and to keep themselves from starving they fed from the people, robbing as they fought, until the country folk, their villages burned and their crops laid waste, hated rebels and imperial soldiers with an equal hatred.

This was her burden.

At the same time, a new rebellion had risen among the Muslim in the southern province of Yunnan. These Muslim were the offspring of mideastern tribes, Arabs who had come as traders in earlier centuries and had stayed to marry Chinese women and rear mongrel children. They clung to their own gods, and as the number of their children grew, the worshippers of these alien gods grew bold. When Chinese Viceroys, appointed by the Dragon Throne but living far away, ruled over them with greed and hardship, the Muslim, rebelling, vowed that they would cut off their lands from the realm and set up their own government.

This was her burden.

And of her burdens there was yet another. She was a woman. The Chinese did not trust a woman for their ruler. Women, they said, were evil rulers. The Empress Mother acknowledged some truth here. She had read history well in long lonely hours and she knew that in the eighth century, in the dynasty of T’ang, the Empress Wu, wife of the great Emperor Kao Tsung, had seized the Throne for herself against her own son, and her wickedness had sullied the name of all women. Men rose against her, and freed the young Emperor from the jail in which his own mother had cast him. Yet he was still not safe, for then his wife, the Empress Wei, in her turn coveted the Throne, and she hid behind curtains and listened to gossip and stirred up such mischief that death alone could quiet her. No sooner was she in her grave, a heavy stone upon it to hold her down, than the Princess T’ai-p’ing, her enemy, plotted to poison the Emperor’s son, the Heir, and she, too, must be killed. But this same Heir, when he was the Emperor Hsüan Tsung, fell under the power of his beautiful concubine, Kuei-fei, who did so bewitch the Emperor by her beauty and the brilliance of her mind, and did so ruin him by her love of gems and silks and perfumes, that the people again rebelled, and their leader forced Kuei-fei to hang herself before her royal lover’s eyes. Yet the glory of T’ang died with her, for the Emperor would not rule again but hid himself in perpetual mourning. The history of these women was evil and they were still her enemies, though long dead. Would the people now believe that a woman could rule justly and well?

This was her burden.

Greatest of all her burdens was the burden of herself. Though she was learned beyond the reach of many scholars, she knew her faults and dangers and that, still young and of passionate heart, she could be betrayed by her own desires. Well she knew that she was not all of a piece, one woman molded whole. A score of various women hid within her frame, and not all were strong and calm. She had her softness, her fears, her longing for one stronger than she was, a man whom she could trust. Where was he now?

Upon this question she put an end to her meditation. She rose, chilled to the heart, and Li Lien-ying came forward.

“Venerable, surely now you will take your rest.”

So saying he put out his arm, and she placed her hand upon it, and let him lead her to the closed door of her bedchamber. He opened it before her, and her woman, waiting there, received her from the eunuch and closed the door.

Sharp winter sunshine woke her from sleep, and she lay in her bed considering her mood of the night before. She had her burdens, but did she not have also the means of bearing them? She was young, but to be young was strength. She was a woman, but she had borne a son who was the Emperor. She would not follow in the evil path of those dead women who had put themselves above all others, even their sons, that they might rule alone. She would think only of her son. In these ten years while she was Regent, she would speak softly, be courteous to all, think never of her own good, be angry only when she saw her son forgotten, be careful always for his future power. She would build the Empire strong and sound for him, and when he ascended to his place, she would retire, for none should be his rival, not even she. She would prove a woman could be good. Youth came to her aid, and health and will, and she rose from her bed renewed by her own energy.

From this day on, all saw a new Empress, a strong, gentle and mild-mannered lady, who looked no man in the face, who turned her head away from eunuchs and spoke courteously to low and high alike. She was distant, far above them all. None was her intimate and none knew her thoughts and dreams. She lived alone, this Empress, the walls of her courtesy impregnable and inviolate, and through that wall there was no gate.

As though to cut herself off from the past, she moved from the palaces which had so long been her home, and she chose instead a distant palace in the imperial city, the Winter Palace, in that part called the Eastern Road, its six halls and many gardens built and furnished by the Ancestor Ch’ien Lung. Near to it was a vast library, built also by that Ancestor and filled with thirty-six thousand most ancient books, in which were enshrined the minds and memories of all great scholars. At the entrance to the palaces there stood a spirit screen, upon which were nine imperial dragons made of porcelain in many colors. Behind this screen the largest hall was the Audience Hall, and it opened upon a wide marble terrace. Behind this hall were the other halls, each with its courtyard. One she chose for her private throne room, where princes and ministers who wished for conference alone could kneel before her. The next was her living place. Behind it was her bedchamber, small and quiet, the bed built into one wall, its mattress yellow satin, its curtains yellow gauze embroidered with the red pomegranate flowers she loved. The next hall she kept as her secret shrine and here above the marble altar a gold Buddha stood, and beside him on the right a small gold Kuan Yin and on his left a gilded Lohan, who was the guiding spirit of wisdom. Behind the shrine was a long room where her eunuchs stayed on guard, out of sight and sound and yet near her always.

These rooms in which the Empress now lived were furnished with the luxury that she loved, with inlaid tables, chairs and couches cushioned in scarlet satin. Here were her many clocks, her flowers and birds, her embroidered pallets for her dogs, her books and desk for writing, her cabinets of scrolls. Between each two rooms were vermilion-painted doors, overhung with gilded rooflets. A side door led from her most private court into a garden, much loved by the Ancestor Ch’ien Lung. Here he had sat when he was old, and in the sunshine filtering through the bamboo leaves he dreamed. The doors to this garden were moon-shaped and framed in marble delicately carved, and the walls were set with many colored marbles in mosaic. Beneath the ancient pines, bent to the earth with age, the moss grew deep, and when the sun shone down the scent of pine needles perfumed the air. In a far corner, where the sun fell warm, stood a locked pavilion, to which the Empress held the only key, and here Ch’ien Lung, the Great Ancestor, had slept in his coffin while he waited for the auspicious day of burial.

In this silent ancient place, the young Empress Mother walked often and always alone, her burdens upon her shoulders, and she felt their growing weight. None but the strong could endure the life which she now set for herself. She rose daily in the cold and bitter dawn and when she was dressed she went in her imperial yellow-sedan to the Audience Hall. She would not go alone however, for, mindful of her firm will to be always modest and invincible in courtesy, she commanded her sister-Regent to sit with her on a second throne behind a curtain. And the Empress Mother would not sit without this curtain. The Dragon Throne was empty and would be empty, she declared, until the young Emperor could himself rule the nation. Behind the silken curtain, then, the two Empress Dowagers sat side by side, surrounded by their ladies and eunuchs, and to the right of the empty throne Prince Kung stood and heard the memorials of princes and ministers and all who brought their petitions.

Foremost among the suppliants were some who came one winter’s day to beseech the Regents to end the rule of the rebel Hung in the southern city of Nanking. The Viceroys of those provinces had been driven away and now they appeared to ask for redress.

The elder Viceroy, who had long ruled the province of Kiangsu, was old and fat. A little beard hung from his chin and two long ends of gray hair on his upper lip were mingled with his scanty beard. He knelt uneasily, the cold marble of the floor creeping through the horsehair cushions to his knees. Yet kneel he must before the empty Throne and the hanging silken curtain.

“This rebel Hung,” he declared, “began his evil career as a Christian. That is, he ate a foreign religion. Nor is he a true Chinese. His father was a farmer, an ignorant man of no learning, one of the dark-skinned Hakka tribe of southern hillmen. But this Hung, whose name is Hsiu Tsuan, wished to rise and he studied and went up for imperial examination, hoping to become a governor. He failed, and tried again and failed again. Three times he failed, but somewhere as he came and went he met a Christian who told him of the descent to earth of the foreign god Jesus and his incarnation as a human being, so that when he was killed by enemies he rose again and ascended once more on High. Therefore Hung, downcast by failure, envied the god and he began to have dreams and visions and he declared himself the reincarnation of Jesus, and he summoned all discontents and rebellious sons to follow him, so that he could with their help overthrow the dynasty and set up a new kingdom under his own rule which was to be called the Kingdom of the Great Peace, and he swore that the rich would all be made poor and the poor would become rich, those that are high be brought low, and the low raised up. With such promises his followers were many and their number has swelled into the millions. By robbery and murder he has taken lands and gold, and he has bought guns from the white men. Bandits and disorderly persons join themselves to him daily and they call him Heavenly King. Under his magic powers his followers fall into trances and see visions. It is said that this Heavenly King can cut soldiers out of paper and breathe upon them and they become men. Good people everywhere are distracted with terror. Indeed, our whole country will be lost unless this devil is destroyed. Yet who dares to approach him? Without conscience, without fear, caring nothing for right or wrong, he confounds the righteous.”

Behind the yellow silk curtain, the Empress Mother heard this memorial with increasing anger. Was one man to destroy the nation while her son was but a child? The Imperial Armies must be reorganized. New generals must be raised up. She could be lenient where it was well to be lenient, but she would not longer tolerate this rebel, lest he eat up the realm, and then who could drive him out?

After audience that day, when Prince Kung came as usual to her private throne room to confer with her, he found a woman cold, haughty, determined. This was her other self. For she had two selves among her many, and these two as different as man from woman. She could be lenient so that the people called her Our Benevolent and Sacred Mother, and Kuan Yin of the Benign Countenance, and she could be hard and cruel as a headsman at the block. On this day Prince Kung found no Benevolent Mother nor Benign Countenance but a strong, angry queen, who would have no weakness in her ministers.

“Where is that general who commands our Imperial Armies?” she demanded from her throne. “Where is that Tseng Kuo-fan?”

Now Tseng Kuo-fan, Commander of the Imperial Armies against Chinese rebels, was the son of a great country family in the mid-southern province of Hunan. His grandfather had taught him wisdom and learning, and, inspired by this ancestor, the young man studied well and went up for the imperial examinations, at which he early won high honors, and he was soon received at the capital and given a post in government. When the rebellion rose, Tseng Kuo-fan, already experienced in the affairs of government, was appointed by the Throne to go south, there to organize the imperial armies which were being routed by the rebel Hung. Tseng Kuo-fan then trained the noble army called the Hunan Braves, and before he sent them against the rebels he seasoned them in war against local bandits. Indeed, so long did he train those peasant warriors that other generals were angry, for the rebel Hung was winning half the south away, and they complained against Tseng Kuo-fan for his long delay. The Empress Mother now enforced the complaints of warriors by her own command.