"My child, I forbid you to speak like this. You are only twenty-six years old. You'll keep trying-"
"Mother, doctors have told me that it's over."
"It doesn't mean that you are finished."
He wept, and I opened my arms and embraced him. "You have to help me to help you, Guang-hsu."
"Let me meet with Kang Yu-wei, Mother. It is the only way!"
At my request, an interview of Kang Yu-wei was arranged. The interviewers I chose were Li Hung-chang, Yung Lu, Tutor Weng and Chang Yin-huan, the former ambassador to England and the United States. I wanted an evaluation of the Emperor's "like-mind."
Kang Yu-wei was summoned to the Board of Foreign Affairs on the last day of January. The interview went on for four hours. I had assumed it would be intimidating for a provincial Cantonese, but the transcript showed that the man's audacity was inborn. Kang demonstrated his ability as a dynamic speaker and was aggressive in pressing his views. I now understood why Pearl and Guang-hsu were captivated by him. A palace lad like Guang-hsu had never before met someone so brash, a man who apparently had nothing to lose.
According to Li Hung-chang, Kang Yu-wei had a moon face and was in his late thirties. Li's evaluation read that the interviewee "posed himself in a theatrical fashion" and that he "spent the whole time lecturing on subjects of reform and the advantages of a constitutional monarchy as if he were a teacher in his town's elementary classroom."
I had to credit the forbearance of the four powerful men who had to listen to Kang.
Li Hung-chang told Kang that his ideas were nothing original and that he was exploiting the work of others, which Kang denied. When Li asked Kang Yu-wei for his thoughts on generating revenue to repay foreign loans and to fund the national defense, Kang became abstract and vague. When Li pressed, Kang responded that the treaties "were signed unfairly, and therefore deserved to be dishonored." When asked how he would deal with a Japanese invasion, Kang Yu-wei gave a sage's dramatic laugh. "You can't make it my job to wipe your ass!"
In conclusion, Li Hung-chang found the man offensive and believed that he was an opportunist, a zealot and probably mentally ill.
Tutor Weng, in his report, for the most part agreed with Li Hung-chang, despite having initially claimed credit for the discovery of "a true political genius." Kang Yu-wei's arrogance offended the founding father of China's premier academic institutions. Tutor Weng took offense when Kang criticized the Ministry of Education and called the Imperial academies "dead ducks floating on a stagnant pond."
"He is resentful because of his own failures," Tutor Weng remarked in his evaluation. "I was the chief judge when he took the national examination, although I never personally graded his paper. Kang had enough tries, and he proved himself a loser each time. He didn't oppose the system until the system booted him in the gut.
"According to Kang's own description of himself," Tutor Weng continued, "he was 'destined to be a great sage like Confucius.' This is rude and unacceptable. I conclude that Kang Yu-wei is a man who craves the limelight and whose main goals are notoriety and celebrity."
Ambassador Chang Yin-huan expressed less disgust in his comments, but he didn't offer a positive evaluation either. It was his job, after all, to bring interesting people together. If the mingling produced results, he would gladly take the credit.
Yung Lu, who had returned from Tientsin especially for the interview, handed me a blank piece of paper as an evaluation. I imagined him losing interest the instant Kang began evading Li Hung-chang's questions.
I trusted Li Hung-chang, Yung Lu, Tutor Weng and Ambassador Chang; however, I felt that they, like me, belonged to the old society and were inescapably conservative in outlook. We weren't happy with the customs, but we were used to them. Emperor Guang-hsu's reform plan would naturally create difficulties and even suffering for the likes of us. My son had reason to remind me to expect the pain that goes along with the birth of a new system.
I had great hope in Guang-hsu, if not yet great faith. By choosing to stand by him, I believed I would be offering China a chance to survive.
30
I have never been so inspired!" The Emperor handed me a transcript of his long discussion with Kang Yu-wei. "He and I went to work almost immediately on my plans. Mother, please don't object, but I granted him the privilege of contacting me directly. The censors and guards cannot be allowed to stand in my way!"
Before I had a chance to respond, Guang-hsu handed me a list of high-ranking ministers he had just fired. The first was his mentor of more than fourteen years, the sixty-eight-year-old Tutor Weng, the head of the Grand Council, the Board of Revenue, the Board of Foreign Affairs and the Hanlin Academy.
My son and Kang Yu-wei didn't seem to care that without Tutor Weng's approval they would have never met in the first place.
The grand tutor had been a father figure to my son. He had been his closest confidant throughout his adolescence, and since then they had weathered many storms together. Guang-hsu had even sided with Weng in his conflict with Li Hung-chang over the prosecution of the war with Japan, when the evidence so clearly weighed against him. Not until now, however, did Guang-hsu admit to me that Weng was responsible for having aggravated his nervous condition ever since he was a child. I had always wondered whether Guang-hsu's sense of self-doubt was the result of his tutor's constant correction.
I asked the Emperor the reasons he would give for firing Weng.
"His mismanagement of revenues and his faulty judgment in the war with Japan," Guang-hsu replied. "More than anything, I want to put a stop to his interfering with my decisions."
The proud old Confucian bureaucrat would be heartbroken. It was near his birthday, and the disgrace would shatter him. I sent Tutor Weng a silk fan as a gift that might suggest this was simply a cooling-off period.
I wasn't entirely unhappy about his dismissal. Weng had been the Emperor's money man, and I was glad he was made to bear some responsibility. I had been accused of pocketing funds intended for the navy while Tutor Weng was praised for his virtues, and his firing would help to exonerate me. It was true that he had never embezzled a penny, but the people he hired, most of them his former students and close friends, stole from the treasury shamelessly.
Tutor Weng begged for a private audience, and I refused. Li Lien-ying told me that the old man was on his knees outside my gate all day. I let the tutor know that I had to respect the Emperor's decision-"I am not in a position to help"-and that I would invite him for dinner after he calmed down. I would tell him that it was time to leave his student alone. I would quote his own famous line: "Tea, opera and poetry should not be missed-longevity depends on one's mental cultivation."
I sat down to review the transcript of Guang-hsu's conversation with Kang Yu-wei. In my opinion, Kang's perspective was not much different from Li Hung-chang's. I didn't want to conclude that it was the young Emperor's willing ear that made Kang Yu-wei seem larger than life, but the transcript failed to show otherwise:
KANG YU-WEI: China is like a ruined palace, with every door broken and every window gone. It's useless to repair the doorsills and window trim and patch the walls. The palace has been hit by hurricanes, and more are coming. The only way to save the structure is to tear it down completely and build a new one.
GUANG-HSU: It's all controlled by the conservatives.
KANG YU-WEI: But Your Majesty is committed to reform.
GUANG-HSU: Yes, yes I am!
KANG YU-WEI: The buffoons at court are too incompetent to carry out Your Majesty's plans-assuming they agree to follow you.
GUANG-HSU: You make perfect sense!