"I am sure Lan doesn't deserve me," Guang-hsu said. The regret in his eyes was sincere. He held himself responsible for not being able to produce an heir, and said that for some time he had been feeling weak and tired. "I am not asking you to forgive me." He made an effort to push back his tears. "I let you down…" He began to weep. "I am beyond shame as an Imperial man. Soon the world will know."
"Your condition will remain a secret until we find a cure." I tried to comfort him, but now I saw that beyond being despondent he might be truly ill.
"What about Lan?" Guang-hsu raised his tearful eyes. "I am afraid there will come a day when she will publicly attack me."
"Leave her to me."
Lan refused to accept my explanation of Guang-hsu's medical condition. Stubbornly she believed that her husband meant to reject her. "He is listless with me, but he is full of spirit when with his other concubines, especially Pearl."
I made sure that Lan would not let her feelings of frustration run away with her. "We are the ladies of masks," I told her. "Cloaking ourselves in divine glory and sacrifice is our destiny."
I was grateful that Guang-hsu allowed me to bring in doctors to examine him, and he answered their most intimate questions. He had borne so much pain and humiliation. I admired him for being above himself in conquering his personal sufferings.
The diagnosis was delivered, and it broke my heart: Guang-hsu had a lung condition. He had contracted bronchitis, and was vulnerable to tuberculosis. The image of Tung Chih lying on his bed came back to me. I held Guang-hsu in my arms and wept.
25
The city of Peking ran out of firewood during the New Year of 1894. The wood we did receive was green and damp and produced thick smoke. We coughed and hacked while conducting audiences. The minister of the Board of the Interior was summoned and questioned. He kept apologizing and promising that the next load would be smoke free. According to Yung Lu, the northern section of the railroad responsible for transporting the wood had been destroyed by desperate peasant rebels. The tracks were dislodged and the wooden ties were sold for burning. The troops Yung Lu sent could not fix the problem fast enough.
Early on the morning of New Year's Day, an urgent message woke me: Prince Ch'un had died. "The Emperor's father had a stroke while inspecting naval installations," the message read.
Doctor Sun Pao-tien said that exhaustion had claimed Prince Ch'un's life. The prince had been determined to show his readiness to launch a counterattack against Japan. He had denounced his brother Prince Kung and Viceroy Li Hung-chang. He bragged about his ability to get the job done, "the way a Mongolian plays jump-rope without breaking a sweat."
Prince Ch'un wouldn't consult with Kung or Li. He was not about to "pick up a rock and smash his own toes with it"-he refused to "insult" himself. I had seen the same self-defeating behavior in the rest of the Imperial family. Prince Ch'un might have covered his home with calligraphed maxims about pursuing the simple life, but power meant everything to him.
I remembered being concerned about the discoloration of Prince Ch'un's lips. He believed that his dizziness was just a part of his morning-after hangover. He continued to throw banquets, believing that small talk and private deals were the way to get things done.
Guang-hsu was grief-stricken. He was much closer to his father than his mother, of course. Kneeling between his uncles, he couldn't bring himself to finish the death announcement at the morning audience.
Later, at the reception before the burial, my sister made a show of demanding that her younger son, Prince Ch'un Junior, be given his father's position.
When I denied her request, Rong turned to Guang-hsu and said, "Let's hear what the Emperor has to say."
Guang-hsu stared blankly at his mother as if not understanding her.
"It's my birthright!" Prince Ch'un Junior claimed. He towered over Guang-hsu by half a head. As the leader of the new Manchu generation, the young Ch'un was a man of neither modesty nor patience. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath thick with alcohol. He reminded me of a bull in the mood for a fight.
"Discipline your younger son," I said to my sister.
"Guang-hsu is nothing but an embroidered pillowcase stuffed with straw," Rong said. "Ch'un Junior should have been the one for the throne!"
I could hardly believe my sister. I turned to look at Guang-hsu, who was visibly distraught. Then I nodded at Li Lien-ying, who then yelled, "Her Majesty's and His Majesty's palanquins!"
While riding back to the palace, I realized I had witnessed in our family the decay of the whole royal class. It didn't occur to young Prince Ch'un that he could fail just as his father did.
Rong and I had grown so far apart that even seeing each other became unbearable. It worried me that Prince Ch'un Junior could be next in line if something should happen to Guang-hsu. Ch'un Junior had the physical stature but little in the way of a mind. Although I had been encouraging the young Manchus to pursue the path of their ancestors and had been rewarding them with promotions, I was disappointed in my nephew. I insisted that he take an apprenticeship under either Prince Kung or Li Hung-chang. Since the boy refused to follow my instructions, his position in court remained insignificant.
For the next few weeks, while Guang-hsu conducted audiences, I sat in one royal temple or another receiving guests who came to mourn Prince Ch'un. Surrounded by beating drums, loud music and chanting lamas, I performed rituals and gave my approval to various requests regarding the prince's funeraclass="underline" the number of banquets and guests, the style and scent of candles, the color of the dead's wrapping sheets and the carvings on the dead's decorative buttons. No one seemed to care about the ongoing war. The daily death toll from the frontier didn't seem to bother Ch'un Junior or his Ironhat friends. They drank to excess and fought over prostitutes.
I was feeling my age. My bleak view of the future made me sick to my stomach.
"That's because you are not drinking scorpion soup, my lady," Li Lien-ying said.
I told him, "You look like you have a smile mask sewn on your face."
Li Lien-ying ignored me and continued with his advice. "The theory behind the scorpion soup is that it takes poison to fight poison."
On September 17, 1894, at the mouth of the Yalu River, the Japanese destroyed half of our navy in a single afternoon, and not a single ship of theirs was seriously damaged. The coast was now literally clear, and Japan could land men and arms and march on Peking.
On November 16, Li Hung-chang reported that the Manchu princes, whom he was forced to do business with, had profited from the war by supplying our troops with defective ammunition. Only one month into the fighting, Port Arthur had been captured. Rather than surrender, Li Hung-chang's field commanders led their soldiers to commit suicide.
Thanks to the dead Prince Ch'un, who had been fabricating field reports and then supplying only the good news to me, I had foolishly felt secure enough to begin preparing for my sixtieth birthday party. Thinking that it would be the moment to celebrate my retirement, I had planned to use the occasion to befriend the wives of foreign ambassadors. I hadn't been able to invite any of them until now, when I was considered officially retired. In the eyes of the court, China's pride would not be injured as much. The foreign embassies seemed to share the same ease. Being retired meant that I didn't have to be taken seriously.
Perhaps I had never been taken seriously, on or off the throne. What pride had China left to be injured? As long as I was free to help my son, I didn't care what people thought. If being retired meant having more opportunities to make friends who might be of service to the country, I would not only welcome it, I would enjoy it as well.