Anchee Min - Empress Orchid

Weeping, Tung Chih buried his face in his father’s chest.

“Tung Chih.” Hsien Feng opened his eyes again. His voice, though weak, was clear. “My son… let me… look at you. How are you? What can I get you?”

“Your Majesty,” I said, “will Tung Chih succeed you to the throne?”

Hsien Feng smiled affectionately. “Yes, of course, Tung Chih will succeed me to the throne.”

“Have you the title for his reign?”

“ Ch’i Hsiang, ” His Majesty said with the last thread of his breath.

“Well-Omened Happiness,” the Imperial secretary said as he wrote the words down.

Many have said that my initiative at that moment embodied an important principle: for a woman in the Manchu court, survival required audacity. They were right.

Soon after Doctor Sun Pao-tien pronounced His Majesty’s death, Nuharoo and I retreated from the hall. We went to the dressing room and removed our makeup. I was so shaky that my hands wouldn’t hold the washcloth. I wept when recalling Hsien Feng’s final words. The effort he made to deliver them showed that love must have been in his heart.

When Nuharoo and I returned we were dressed in coarse white sackcloth and our hair was wrapped in strips of white cloth. Our changed appearance signaled to all that our nation had entered the first stage of mourning for its Emperor.

Su Shun immediately requested a meeting with Nuharoo and me. It was no use when we said that we preferred to wait until our agitation had subsided. Su Shun insisted that he had to fulfill a promise he had made to our husband.

In the dressing room I had discussed with Nuharoo how we should deal with Su Shun. She had been distraught and told me that she could not think at this point. I knew Su Shun was ready. He would take advantage of the coming confusion to assert control over the court. We were in danger of being swept aside.

When he walked up to me, I spoke plainly and suggested that before anything else we open His Majesty’s will box.

Accustomed only to compliance from women, Su Shun was at a loss for words.

The court agreed with me.

It was close to midnight when the box was opened. Grand Secretary Kuei Liang read the will. It was as confusing as His Majesty’s manner of living. Besides naming Tung Chih as the new Emperor, he had estab-lished a Board of Regents, to be led by Su Shun, to administer the government until Tung Chih came of age. As if lacking confidence in his own decision, or intending to curb the regents’ power, or merely to set up the board as an orthodox regency, Emperor Hsien Feng entrusted Nuharoo and me with a pair of important seals: tungtiao, “a partnership,” and yushang, “Imperial will reflected.” We were given the power to validate Su Shun’s edicts drafted in Tung Chih’s voice. Nuharoo was to stamp the tungtiao seal at the beginning and I the yushang at the end.

Su Shun’s frustration was apparent. With Hsien Feng’s seals in our hands a chain had been put around his neck. Later Su Shun would do everything to ignore the restraint.

What I didn’t expect was that Hsien Feng had excluded all of his brothers, including Prince Kung, from power. This violated historical precedent and horrified the scholars and clansmen. They sat in the corner of the hall, visibly upset as they listened to the will.

I suspected that this was the work of Su Shun. According to Chow Tee, Su Shun had mentioned to His Majesty that Prince Kung was wasting his time dealing with foreigners. Evidently, Su Shun convinced His Majesty that Kung had sold his soul to the barbarians. The evidence offered was that the prince had employed foreigners to train his own personnel in all areas of the Chinese government, including the military and finance. Su Shun showed His Majesty Prince Kung’s reform plan, which was intended to move China’s political system toward Western models of governing.

On the evening of August 22, 1861, Jehol was soaked in mist. The branches outside the Hall of Fantastic Haze beat against the window panels, making disturbing noises.

Tung Chih had fallen asleep in my arms. He didn’t wake up when Doctor Sun Pao-tien removed him so Nuharoo and I could wash our husband’s face with wet silk towels. We touched Hsien Feng gently. He looked relieved in death.

“It is time to dress His Majesty,” Chief Eunuch Shim said. “Better to do it now, before His Majesty’s body hardens.”

The eunuchs came with the eternal robe and we bowed to our husband and then retreated.

An-te-hai carried the sleeping Tung Chih as we walked out of the Hall of Fantastic Haze.

I wept, thinking how terrible it was that Hsien Feng had died at such a young age.

Nuharoo interrupted my thoughts. “You shouldn’t have intruded. You made a fool of me in front of His Majesty.”

“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to,” I said.

“You embarrassed me by not trusting that I would take care of the matter.”

“Tung Chih needed to hear his father’s words, and there was no time.”

“If anyone should speak for Tung Chih, it should be me. Your action was at the very least thoughtless, Lady Yehonala!”

I was irritated but chose not to say anything. I knew I would need Nuharoo to win the war against Su Shun.

I held my son when I went to bed. It must have been hard for Su Shun to live with the fact that I was not only exempt from being buried alive but also granted the power to bar him from his ambition.

I was exhausted but couldn’t relax. My sorrow for Hsien Feng had begun to wash over me. Concern for the safety of my son cut through my melancholy. I recalled Yung Lu’s unannounced rescue. Had he been watching over Tung Chih and me? I must not forget that Su Shun was his superior. Was Yung Lu a part of Su Shun’s conspiracy?

Lying in bed, I went over the list of regents one by one. The men’s faces were clear in my mind. Aside from Su Shun, they were scholars who had earned the highest academic degrees and ministers who had served long in the court, including Tuan Hua, Su Shun’s half-brother, and Prince Yee, a bully who was a first cousin of Emperor Hsien Feng and also the Imperial commissioner. If I knew little of their accomplishments, I knew enough to realize that they were as power-hungry and dangerous as Su Shun.

I examined Prince Yee’s record particularly. He was the only relative to whom Hsien Feng had entrusted power. Su Shun must have whispered into the Emperor’s ear, but why? Prince Yee’s Imperial blood, I thought. Su Shun needed Yee to mask his evil intentions.

The next day, the regents, whom Nuharoo called the “Gang of Eight,” visited the two of us. It was plain that Su Shun held the keys to the gang’s thinking. At the reception, business was avoided. It seemed that Tung Chih’s schooling and care were enough responsibility for us. The gang proposed to lift our burden by sparing us from the court’s affairs, to which Nuharoo foolishly expressed appreciation.

Su Shun was the last to arrive. He said that he had been extremely busy with events on the frontier. I asked if he had heard anything from Prince Kung. He replied in the negative. He was lying. An-te-hai had re-ported that Prince Kung had sent four urgent documents for approval, none of which received attention.

I confronted Su Shun regarding the documents. He first denied having ever received them. Upon my suggestion that we summon Prince Kung, he admitted that the documents had been misplaced somewhere in his office. He asked me not to bother with matters I had nothing to do with. He emphasized that my interest in the court’s business was “an act of disrespect to the deceased Emperor.”

I reminded Su Shun that no edicts would be valid without the two seals Nuharoo and I possessed. Whether Prince Kung’s requests were granted, denied or held, Nuharoo and I must be informed. I hinted to Su Shun that I was aware of what he had been doing: promoting and demoting provincial governors on his own.