Part 30 (1/2)

”The Guang-hsu! Era! Your Majesty!”

I turned to Prince Ts'eng. ”Have I made my point clear to you? Guang-hsu is still the sitting Emperor.”

I told the confused Boxer to remove himself.

Prince Ts'eng looked offended. ”Your Majesty, you don't have to support the Boxers, but I need money to bring you victory.”

”Shut up” almost rolled off of my tongue. I had to inhale a mouthful of air to calm down. ”When I was asked to fund the Taku forts, I was told that it would keep away the foreigners for good. And when I was asked to fund a new navy, I was told the same. Tell me, Ts'eng Junior, how your bamboo spears will defeat the foreigners' guns and cannons?”

”Your Majesty, it will be fifty thousand Boxers against a few hundred foreign bureaucrats. I will select a moonless night and flood the legations with my men. We will be so near that their cannons will be useless.”

”And how will you deal with the foreign rescue forces that will come by sea?”

”We'll take hostages! Legations provide the perfect base for negotiations. The hostages will be our bargaining chip. I'll just have to make sure my men don't behead their captives.” Ts'eng laughed as if he had already won.

Prince Ts'eng insisted that he be given an opportunity to demonstrate his magic and that the Emperor be present. So the following day in my s.p.a.cious courtyard, before Guang-hsu and me, the Boxers performed. Their martial arts skills were magnificent. They chopped hard stone with their bare hands. In an intense fight of one against ten, Master Red Sword went hand to hand against swordsmen, besting them all. He was then attacked with spears and bullets and scorched by fire, yet he walked away unwounded. His opponents, on the other hand, were all on the ground, stunned and bloodied. Disbelieving my eyes, I tried to figure out his tricks. From beginning to end, Master Red Sword seemed in a drunken trance, which Prince Ts'eng explained was called ”spiritual engagement with the G.o.d of war.”

I was impressed, though not convinced. I praised the Boxers for their patriotic pa.s.sion. A strange feeling came over me when I turned to Guang-hsu and saw his none-of-my-business expression. I thought about Prince Ts'eng: Terrible as he is, at least he is willing to fight. Terrible as he is, at least he is willing to fight.

I had failed both my sons, and both my sons had failed China. Every time the Western papers accused Ts'eng of being ”pure evil” while honoring Guang-hsu as the ”wise Emperor,” my old scar would tear open. I envisioned how Guang-hsu would be ”rescued” by the foreign powers and turned into a puppet king. I began to hear my voice turn soft when speaking to characters like Prince Ts'eng.

The next morning, after Prince Ts'eng left, my eunuch appeared dressed in a Boxer's ragged red uniform. When Li Lien-ying presented me with a uniform of my own-a gift from Prince Ts'eng-I slapped his face.

Around noon Guang-hsu and I heard a strange noise like the sound of distant waves. I couldn't locate its source: it was not squirrels clambering in the trees, not wind blowing through the leaves, not the creek running beneath the rocks. I became alarmed and called for Li Lien-ying, but there was no answer. I looked for him around the grounds. Finally my eunuch returned, out of breath. He pointed behind him with his finger and mouthed the word ”Boxers.”

Before I could figure out what was going on, Prince Ts'eng was in front of me.

”How dare you surround my palace with your b.l.o.o.d.y bunch of killers!” I said.

He performed a sloppy kowtow. ”Everyone wants to personally hear your edict.” Ts'eng acted as if the Emperor were not in the room. ”Who says I am going to issue an edict?”

”It must be done without delay, Your Majesty.” Prince Ts'eng's hands went to tighten his belt. ”The Boxers won't leave until they hear your edict.”

I noticed that Li Lien-ying was now pointing toward the ceiling. When I looked up, I didn't see anything unusual. I looked back down and saw a ladder being carried past my window. A few moments later came the sound of footsteps on my roof.

”The Boxers are getting ready to fire on the legations, Your Majesty,” announced Prince Ts'eng.

”Go and stop them,” I ordered.

”But ... Your Majesty!”

”Emperor Guang-hsu would like to order Prince Ts'eng Junior to remove the Boxers immediately.” I turned to Guang-hsu, who was staring off into s.p.a.ce.

Guang-hsu turned and said, ”Prince Ts'eng Junior is ordered to remove the Boxers immediately.”

Ts'eng's eyebrows twisted into a ginger root and his breath was thick. He went to grab Guang-hsu's shoulders and hissed, ”The attack will take place at dawn, and that is is your edict!” your edict!”

41.

The mighty Manchu had fallen so low that no one dared to defend the throne, and the throne was afraid to ask.

Prince Ts'eng Junior was not shy about speaking his mind. He believed that his young son should become the next Emperor. I could see him appointing the boy himself. What couldn't a man do when he had tens of thousands of Boxers and Moslem troops at his disposal? Ts'eng entirely dropped his pretense of being loyal to me, for he now controlled the palaces' security guards and the Board of Punishment.

Whispering had been going on behind my curtains. Eunuchs made secret trips outside the Forbidden City. They had been gathering information on how to escape. The ladies in waiting and the servants were preparing for the worst: they kept red Boxer clothes under their beds.

Prince Ts'eng had demanded that I order Yung Lu to remove his troops so that he could ”move forward without worrying about being shot in the back.”

I warned Ts'eng that an attack on the foreign legations would mean the end of the dynasty, to which he replied, ”We will die if we fight and we will die if we don't. The foreign powers won't stop until the melon of China is sliced and eaten!”

I had ordered a telegram sent to Li Hung-chang, but during its transmission, the lines were cut. From then on, Peking was isolated from the outside world.

”I am sorry, Mother,” Guang-hsu said when I told him that we had lost control of Prince Ts'eng's Boxers and General Tung's Moslem troops.

Guang-hsu and I sat side by side in the empty audience hall. It was a bright morning in early summer. We stared at the teacups in front of us. I lost track of how many times the eunuchs had come to refill our cups with hot water. I had no idea what to expect of the situation. I only knew that it was getting worse. I felt like a convict in the lonely moments before her execution.

By ten o'clock Prince Ts'eng's message came. The Boxers had moved forward with their knives, bamboo spears, antique swords and muskets. The ”outer ring,” General Tung's twelve thousand ”Moslem Braves,” had entered the capital. They encountered an allied relief force and had been trying to take the ”middle ring” position.

According to Yung Lu, the ”inner ring” comprised Prince Ts'eng's ”Manchu Tigers,” a former Bannerman troop with tiger skins thrown over their shoulders and tigers' heads mounted on their s.h.i.+elds.

”Prince Ts'eng's strategy is another Ironhat fantasy,” Yung Lu said. His army had been keeping an eye on General Tung's Moslem troops. Yung Lu's best Chinese commander, General Nieh, was sent to scatter the Boxers.

On June 11, Prince Ts'eng announced his first victory: the capture and killing of a j.a.panese emba.s.sy chancellor, Akira Sugiyama.

I received the news in the afternoon. Sugiyama had been on China's most-wanted list. He was responsible for Kang Yu-wei's and Liang Chi-chao's escape to j.a.pan. Sugiyama had left his legation in Peking to greet the Allies' relief force at the railway station. Before he arrived he was set upon by General Tung's Moslem soldiers, who dragged him from his cart and hacked him to pieces.

The murder escalated the crisis. Although in the throne's name I issued an official apology to j.a.pan and Sugiyama's family, the foreign newspapers believed that I had ordered the murder.