She lifted up her head. “I promise.”
“Majesty,” Kang Yi said, “you do wrong. Your heart grows soft with age. You do not allow even foreigners to be done away with. Yet one word from you and they would be gone, even to their dogs and fowls, and of their dwellings not one brick would be left to stand upon another.”
His spies had told him how Jung Lu was his enemy and he had made haste to audience.
She turned away her head. “I am weary of you all,” she said.
“But, Majesty,” he urged, “now is not the time for weariness. It is the hour of victory. And need you lift a hand? No, only speak, and others do your work. My son attended Chi Shou-cheng’s theatricals yesterday and he said everyone was talking of Jung Lu’s folly in allowing the foreign troops to enter the city. And Chi’s father-in-law, Yu Hsien, wrote last month from Shansi saying that while there are not many Boxers in his provinces he is encouraging men to join them, so that his province may unite with all the others when the time comes to strike the blow against the Western enemy. We wait your word—only your word, Majesty.”
She shook her head. “I cannot speak it,” she said.
“Majesty,” Tung Fu-hsiang said, “give me your leave and I will demolish the foreign buildings in our city in five days.”
The Empress sat at audience in the Winter Palace. She had returned to the Forbidden City the day before, leaving the autumn beauty of the Summer Palace behind her. The Boxers, without permission, had burned the railway to Tientsin.
Alas, were they invulnerable? Who could know? In the heat of midsummer she had sent for her bearers to bring her here, fanning herself all the way.
“Majesty,” Kang Yi said, “I beg that you will excuse Tung. He has the coarse ways of a soldier, but he is on our side, though he is Chinese.”
“This right arm,” Tung boasted, and held out his thick right arm.
The Empress turned away her head. She glanced toward the assembled council. Jung Lu was not there. He had asked for leave two days ago but she had not replied. Nevertheless he was gone.
“Majesty,” the Grand Councilor Ch’i Hsiu said, “let me prepare a decree for your signature. At least let us break off relations with these foreigners. This will frighten them, if no more.”
“You may prepare it,” the Empress said, “but I will make no promise to sign it.”
“Majesty,” Kang Yi said again, “yesterday I went to the birthday celebration of the first lady in the household of Duke Lan. More than a hundred Boxers live in his outer courtyard, under their own commander. They have the gift of calling upon magic spirits to enter their bodies. I saw youths no more than fourteen or fifteen years old, who went into trances and spoke strange languages. Duke Lan says that when the time comes these spirits will lead the Boxers to the houses of Christians to destroy them.”
“I have not seen it with my own eyes,” the Empress declared. She raised her hand to end the audience.
“Majesty,” Li Lien-ying said in the twilight, “many citizens are sheltering the Boxers.” He hesitated and then whispered, “If you will not be angry, Majesty—your own adopted daughter, the Princess Imperial, is paying for two hundred and fifty Boxers to be quartered outside the back gate of the city, and her brother, Prince Ts’ai Ying, is learning their magic. The Boxers from Kansu are preparing to enter the city. Many people are leaving, fearing a war. All await your word, Majesty.”
“I cannot give it,” the Empress said.
On the sixteenth day of that fifth moon she sent Li Lien-ying to find Jung Lu and bring him to her. She must take back her promise. This morning her spies had brought her news that still more foreign soldiers were marching overland from the coast. This was to avenge the death of yet another foreigner, killed by angry Chinese in the province of Kansu.
It was noon before Jung Lu came, dressed in his outdoor garments as though he came from garden or hillside. But she paid no heed to his looks.
“Am I still to be silent while the city fills with foreign soldiers?” she demanded. “The people will rise against the throne and the dynasty be lost.”
“Majesty, I agree that we must not allow more foreign soldiers to enter the city,” Jung Lu replied. “Nevertheless I say that it will disgrace us if we attack the envoys of foreign nations. They will think us savage and ignorant of the laws of hospitality. One does not poison the guest inside the house.”
“What would you have me do?” she inquired with bitter looks.
“Invite the foreign ministers to leave the city, with their families and their friends,” Jung Lu said. “When they are gone their troops will go with them.”
“And if they will not go?”
“Perhaps they will go,” he said calmly. “If they do not, then you cannot be blamed.”
“Do you release me from my promise?” she demanded.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “tomorrow—tomorrow.”
In the night, in the deepest darkness, she was suddenly awakened by bright light. As always she slept with her bed curtains drawn back and now the light shone through the windows. It fell not from a lantern or the moon but from the sky itself, crimson and on fire. She sat up and called to her women who slept on pallets on the floor about her bed. They woke, one and then the other three, and they ran to the window.
“Aie,” they cried, “aie-aie-aie—”
The door burst open and from behind it, his face carefully turned away, Li Lien-ying shouted that a foreign temple was in flames, the fire lit by unknown hands.
The Empress rose from her bed and cried out that she must be dressed at once. Quickly the women put on her robes and then with her eunuchs she went outside into her most distant courtyard and there climbed her peony mountain, from whence she could look over the walls and down into the city. Smoke mingled with flames hid the scene but soon a fearful stench of roasting flesh spread into the air. Behind her handkerchief the Empress inquired what this stench was and Li Lien-ying told her. The Boxers were burning the French church near by, and inside were hundreds of Christian Chinese, men, women and children.
“What horror,” the Empress moaned. “Oh, that I had forbidden the foreigners from the very beginning! Years ago I should have forbidden them, and the people could not have strayed to foreign gods!”
“Majesty,” Li Lien-ying said, “be comforted. It was the foreigners who fired first upon a crowd at the gate of the church and brave Boxers took revenge.”
“Alas,” she mourned, “the Canon of History tells us that when fires rage in the imperial city common pebbles and precious jade alike are consumed.”
She turned away and refused to look any more and brooding that whole day upon what she had seen, while the air reeked with the scent of death, she commanded the eunuch to move her goods and her books to the Palace of Peaceful Longevity, where she could not see or hear what went on in the city and where the air was purified by distance.
“Majesty,” they urged, “unless you would see all lost, you must use the magic of Boxers. The foreign soldiers are filling the streets like flood waters flowing through the city gates.”
“Now, now, Majesty, without delay—”
“Majesty, Majesty—”
They clamored before her. She gazed at one face and another in the small throne room, Kang Yi, Prince Tuan, Yuan Shih-k’ai, and her highest princes and ministers. They had come in haste at her summons for meeting before audience, and they stood in disarray. This was no time for obeisance or ceremony.
At her right the Emperor sat upon a low carved chair, his head bowed, his face pale, his long thin hands folded in listlessness upon his knees.
“Son of Heaven,” she said to him, “shall we use the Boxer horde against our enemies?”
If he said yes, was not his the blame?
“Whatever you will, Holy Mother,” he said and did not lift his head.
She looked at Jung Lu. He stood apart, his head bowed, his arms folded.
“Majesty, Majesty!” the voices cried about her, the voic
es of men, roaring and echoing into the high painted beams of the lofty roof.
She rose to her feet and raised her arms for silence in the twilight of this early morning hour. She had eaten nothing and she had not slept while the fires burned on and foreign soldiers marched through the gate—nay, not one gate but through four, converging from the four corners of the earth upon this, her city. What remained except war?
“The hour has come,” she cried. “We must destroy the foreigners in their legations!” she cried aloud in the sudden silence. “One brick must not be left upon another nor one human being allowed to live!”
Silence followed again. She had broken her promise to Jung Lu. He strode forward and fell before her in obeisance.
“Majesty,” he cried, and the tears ran down his cheeks, “Majesty, though these foreigners are indeed our enemies, though they have only themselves to blame for their own destruction, yet I beseech you to consider what you do. If we destroy these few buildings, this handful of foreigners, their governments will denounce us in wrath, their armies, their navies, will fly across land and sea to attack us. Our ancestral shrines will be crushed into dust, even the tutelary gods and the people’s altars will be razed to the ground!”
In her bosom her heart trembled and the blood turned cold in her veins. Yet she hid her terror. She had never shown herself afraid and the old strong habit held, though her fear was monstrous and near despair. Her beautiful face did not change nor her eyelids quiver.
“I cannot restrain the people,” she declared. “They are mad with vengeance. If they do not rend our enemies, they will rend even me. I have no choice. As for you, Grand Councilor, if you have no better advice than this to bestow upon the Throne, then leave us. You are excused from further attendance.”
Immediately Jung Lu rose up, his tears dried on his cheeks, and without word or gesture, he left her presence.
When he was gone the Councilor Ch’i Hsiu drew from his high velvet boot a folded paper. This he opened slowly and with great dignity he approached the throne and in obeisance he presented the folded paper. “Majesty,” he said, “I have presumed to suggest a decree. If I am permitted, I will read it aloud.”
“Do so,” the Empress commanded. Her lips were stiff and cold, but she sat motionless and in state.
He began to read, and all could hear what he had written. It was a decree of war against the foreigners, to be signed, if she approved, by the Empress and sealed with the imperial seal. He read to the end, while all listened, the silence so deep that his one voice echoed to the roof. When he had finished he waited for her will and all waited with him.
“It is excellent,” the Empress said in a calm cold voice. “Let it be sent forth as a decree from the Throne.”
All cried approval, not loudly but in low solemn tones, and Ch’i Hsiu folded the paper and put it again in his velvet boot and making obeisance he stepped back to his place.
It was now dawn, the usual hour appointed for general audience, to which this was preliminary, and Li Lien-ying came forward and held out his arm and the Empress put her right hand upon his forearm and stepped down from the throne and into her sedan which waited on the terrace. From here she was carried to her own palace to drink tea and eat a few sweetmeats, but without long delay she entered her sedan again and was borne this time to the Hall of Diligent Government. There the Emperor waited for her in his own palanquin, and when she arrived he came down first to receive her, kneeling as she stepped from her sedan.
He gave greeting. “Benevolent Mother!”
She nodded slightly but did not answer him and at the entrance to the Hall she walked slowly, supported on her right by Li Lien-ying and on her left by a second eunuch, her hands resting on their forearms. At this entrance knelt the chiefs of her clan, the princes, the Grand Councilors except Jung Lu, the Presidents of the Six Boards and the Nine Ministries, the twenty-four Lieutenant-generals of the twenty-four Banner Divisions, and the Comptrollers of the Household.
Behind the Empress the young Emperor followed slowly, his face was wax pale, his large eyes downcast and his pallid hands folded on his belt. The Empress sat upon the Dragon Throne and he took the lower throne at her right.
When all courtesies and dignities had been performed, and each group of officials stood in proper place, the Empress began to speak. At first her voice was weaker than she wished, but as she considered what her enemies had done, anger lent strength to her voice and brilliance to her sleepless eyes.
“Our will is set,” she declared, “our mind is firm. We can no longer tolerate, in decency and pride, the outrageous demands of the foreigners. It was our intention indeed to suppress if possible the Chinese Boxers. Now it is no longer possible. They have heard the threats of our enemies, which extend even to my own person, for yesterday they sent their envoys to declare that I must withdraw from the Throne and allow my nephew to rule—and this, though all know how lamentably he has failed as a ruler! And why do they wish me to withdraw? It is because they fear me. They know I am not to be changed, whereas if my nephew sat in my place they could shape him like wax to their fingers. The insolence of these foreigners is exemplified in the French Consul at Tientsin who demanded the Taku forts as part of the price for the death of a mere priest.”
She paused and looked regally about the great Hall. The light of flaring torches fell upon the grave and troubled faces turned toward her and upon the drooping head of the Emperor at her side.
“Will you not speak?” she demanded of him.
The Emperor did not lift his head. He wet his lips and clasped and unclasped again his long thin hands. For a time it seemed he could not speak. She waited, her great eyes unwavering upon him, and at last she heard his mild trembling voice.
“Holy Mother,” he said, wetting his lips between every two words. “I can only say—perhaps it is not for me to say, but since you ask me—it seems to me that what Jung Lu said is wise. That is to say—in order to avoid bloodshed—that is, and since it is impossible for us to fight the world—we having no ships of war or Western weapons—it is better to allow the foreign ministers and their families to leave the city peacefully. But it is not I—of course not I—who can make such decision. It must be as my Benign Mother wills.”
Immediately a member of the Council spoke to the Empress. “I beg you, Majesty, proceed with your own plan,” he said loudly. “Let every foreigner be killed and their kind exterminated. When this is done the Throne will have time and strength next to crush the Chinese rebels who foment the south again.”
The Empress welcomed this approval and she said, “I have heard Jung Lu’s advice and it need not be repeated to me. Let the edict be prepared declaring war.”
She rose as though to end the audience but immediately there was an outcry of dissension. While some upheld and approved what she had decreed, others besought her to hear them and she could only sit down again and hear one after the other, this one declaring that a war would be the end of the dynasty, for China would certainly be defeated, in which case the Chinese would seize the throne. The Minister of the Foreign Office even said that he had found the foreigners entirely reasonable in their dealings and for his part he did not believe that they had sent a document demanding her withdrawal from the Throne. Had not the foreign ladies praised her? Indeed, he had himself noticed that the foreign ministers were milder and more courteous since she had received their ladies.
At this Prince Tuan rose up in anger, and the Empress bade the minister withdraw in order to avoid a quarrel. Then Duke Lan, protector of the Boxers, rose up in his turn to say that he had had a dream the night before, wherein he had seen Yu Huang, the Jade Emperor god, surrounded by a vast horde of Boxers in their patriotic exercises and the god approved.
To this dream the Empress listened with all her heart and she smiled her lovely smile and said mildly that she remembered from her books that so the Jade Emperor had appeared to an Empress in ancient times. “It is a good omen,” she concluded, “and it means th
at the gods are for us and against the barbarian enemies.” But still she did not promise to use the magic of the Boxers. Who knew it to be true or false?
She dismissed them then and returned to her own palace and not once did she speak to the Emperor again or seem to see him present. Now that her will was done her fears lessened and she was weary and longed for sleep.
“I will sleep this whole day,” she told her ladies while they prepared her for bed. “Let no one wake me.”
It was an hour after noon, at the Hour of Sheep, when she was waked suddenly by the voice of Li Lien-ying outside her door.
“Majesty,” he called, “Prince Ch’ing waits and with him is Kang Yi.”
The Empress could not evade such summons and so, once more robed and in her proper headdress, she went out and there in her antechamber she found the two in much impatience.
“Majesty,” Kang Yi exclaimed when he had made obeisance, “war has begun already. En Hai, a Manchu sergeant, this morning killed two foreigners, one the German minister who rode through the city in his sedan—coming, it was said, to beg you for a special audience. En Hai killed them both, and hastened to Prince Ch’ing to get reward.”
The Empress felt fear clutch her heart dry.
“But how could our edict reach the people so quickly?” she demanded. “Be sure the sergeant should not be rewarded if he killed without command.”
Prince Ch’ing hesitated and cleared his throat. “Majesty,” he said, “since this is crisis, Prince Tuan and Ch’i Hsui issued orders immediately after audience today that all foreigners were to be killed wherever seen.”
The two men looked at each other.
“Majesty,” Kang Yi urged, “indeed, our enemies have wrought their own destruction. The sergeant says that the white guards fired first and killed three Chinese.”
“Oh, horror!” the Empress cried. Her fear became distress and she wrung her hands together. “Where is Jung Lu?” she cried, distracted. “Make haste—fetch him here—the war begins too soon—we are not ready.” So saying she turned and fled into her own chamber again. There refusing food or comfort she waited for Jung Lu and in two hours he came, looking gloomy and too grave for her beseeching eyes.