Su Shun’s sons were beheaded, but I spared his daughter, bending the law in her case. She was a bright girl who once served me as a librarian. Nothing like her father, she was kind and reserved. Although I didn’t wish to continue our friendship, I felt she deserved to live. Su Shun’s eunuchs were all sentenced to death by whipping. They were the scapegoats, of course, but terror was needed in order to make a statement.
As for Su Shun himself, death by dismemberment was recommended by the judicial authority. But I determined that it be commuted. “Although Su Shun fully deserves the punishment,” my decree to the nation read, “we cannot make up our mind to impose the extreme penalty. Therefore, in token of our leniency, we sentence him to immediate decapitation.”
Three days before Su Shun’s execution a riot broke out in a district of Peking where many of his loyalists lived. The complaint was heard that Su Shun was Emperor Hsien Feng’s appointed minister. “If Su Shun has no virtue whatsoever and deserves such a harsh death, should we doubt His Late Majesty’s wisdom? Or should we suspect that His Majesty’s will is being violated?”
Yung Lu brought the riot under control. I demanded that Prince Kung and Yung Lu secure Su Shun’s execution. I pointed out that we must be extremely careful because Manchu Bannermen had in the past rescued the condemned as a way to start a rebellion.
Prince Kung paid little attention to my concerns. In his eyes, Su Shun was already dead. Believing that he had the full support of the people, Prince Kung proposed to change the place of execution from the vegetable market to the bigger livestock market, a space that could accommodate a crowd of ten thousand.
Feeling uneasy about the plans, I decided to investigate the background of the executioner. I sent An-te-hai and Li Lien-ying to do the job, and they returned quickly with distressing news. There was evidence that the executioner had already been bribed.
The man appointed by the court to behead Su Shun went by the name of One-Cough-he performed his job with reflexive speed. I had no idea that it was a tradition to bribe the executioner. In order to make a profit, the members of this gruesome trade, from the executioner down to the ax sharpener, worked in concert.
When a convict was brought to prison, he would be treated miserably if his family failed to properly bribe the right people. For example, invisible, undetectable injury could be done to bones and joints, leaving the prisoner handicapped for life. If the prisoner was sentenced to a lingering death by dismemberment, the executioner might take as long as nine days to carve him into a skeleton while keeping him breathing. If the executioner was satisfied with the bribe, his knife would go straight to the heart, ending the suffering before it began.
I learned that when it came to a beheading, there were levels of service. The condemned’s family and the executioner would actually sit down and negotiate. If the executioner was dissatisfied, he would chop the head off and let it roll away. With the help of his apprentices, who would hide among the crowd, the head would “disappear.” Until the family delivered the money, the head would not be “found.” Afterward the family would have to pay a leather worker to sew the head back onto the body. If paid enough, the executioner would make sure that the head and the body stayed attached by a flap of skin. This goal was difficult to achieve, and One-Cough was considered greatly talented in this area.
I asked Yung Lu to interview One-Cough for me. I wanted to hear with my own ears how he prepared himself to perform the beheading of Su Shun. I wanted to speak to One-Cough myself, but the law forbade this. So I observed One-Cough from behind a folded panel.
“The word ‘hack’ or ‘slaughter’ is incorrect in describing my job,” One-Cough began in a surprisingly soft tone. He was a small-headed, stocky-framed man with short, thick arms. “The correct word is ‘slice.’ That’s what I do. Slice. I’ll hold the knife backwards by the handle-that is, with the dull edge near my elbow and the blade facing out. When I receive the action order, I’ll push the knife right in from behind Su Shun’s neck. Most people awaiting death aren’t able to stand on their feet by the time they are brought to me. Nine out of ten have problems kneeling straight. So my assistant will keep the guy’s shoulders up by grabbing his queue. I’ll be standing behind Su Shun, a little bit to the left so he won’t see me. In fact, I will begin observing him the moment he is escorted onto the stage. I’ll study his neck in order to locate a spot where I can cut in.
“When I start, I’ll first tap his right shoulder with my left hand. I only have to tap lightly-he’s jumpy enough. The point is to alarm him so his neck will stick up, and I will immediately push my elbow. The blade will go right in between his spinal knuckles. And I will shove my knife to the left all the way, and before the edge comes out, I’ll raise my leg and give a kick to the body so it falls forward. I have to kick fast, otherwise my clothes will get drenched in blood, which my profession considers bad luck.”
The day of Su Shun’s execution came. Yung Lu told me later that he had never witnessed so many people at a beheading in his life. The streets were packed, as were the rooftops and trees. Children had filled their pockets with rocks. They sang songs of celebration. People spat on Su Shun as his cage went by. When he arrived at the place of execution, his face was covered with saliva and his skin was torn by rocks.
One-Cough emptied a bottle of liquor before he got on the stage. He could hardly believe that he was beheading Su Shun, for in the past he had taken orders from Su Shun to behead others.
As for Su Shun, he called his own failure “a boat turned upside down in sewage.” He shouted to the laughing crowd that “there is a salacious affair going on between the Empresses and the Imperial brother-in-law Prince Kung.” In no time Su Shun’s head rolled like a common felon’s.
I was haunted by the execution. The images Yung Lu described were vivid in my head. An-te-hai told me that I cried loudly in my dreams and said that all I wanted was to give birth to a dozen children and live the life of a peasant woman. An-te-hai said that in my sleep my neck wouldn’t stop twisting from side to side as if I were dodging the blade.
Su Shun’s immense fortune was divided among the royals as compensation for the abuse they had suffered. Overnight Nuharoo and I became wealthy. She purchased jewelry and clothes, and I paid for spies. The attempted assassination on me had shattered my sense of security. With what money was left I bought Su Shun’s opera troupe. In my lonely life as an Imperial widow, the opera became my solace.
The court voted and passed a proposal I submitted in the name of Tung Chih granting the promotion of Yung Lu and An-te-hai. From that moment forward Yung Lu held the highest position in China’s military. He was responsible for protecting not only the Forbidden City and the capital but also the entire country. His new title was Commander in Chief of Imperial Forces and Minister of the Imperial Household. As for An-te-hai, he was given Chief Eunuch Shim’s job. He earned a second rank, that of court minister, which was the highest a eunuch was allowed to achieve.
After all the tumult, I needed a few days of quiet. I invited Nuharoo and Tung Chih to join me at the Summer Palace, where we floated on Kunming Lake, away from the wreckage caused by the invaders. Surrounded by weeping willows, the lake surface was covered with flowering lotus. After the summer the fertile fields resembled the countryside south of the Yangtze River, the region of my hometown of Wuhu.
Tung Chih insisted on staying in Nuharoo’s large boat, which was filled with guests and entertainers. I floated by myself, with An-te-hai and Li Lien-ying in charge of the oars. The complete beauty of the place washed over me. I was so relieved that my troubles seemed finally to be over. I had visited the Summer Palace many times before, but always with the Grand Empress Lady Jin. She had so gotten under my skin that I had no idea of what the palace really looked like.