Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [0]
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Becoming Madam Mao
Katherine
Red Azalea
Wild Ginger
EMPRESS ORCHID
ANCHEE MIN
BLOOMSBURY
First published in Great Britain 2004
Copyright © 2004 by Anchee Min
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 38 Soho Square, London W1D 3HB
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7475 6698 4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives Plc
All papers used by Bloomsbury Publishing are natural, recyclable products
made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes
conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
For my daughter, Lauryann,
and all the adopted daughters from China
My intercourse with Tzu Hsi started in 1902 and continued until her death. I had kept an unusually close record of my secret association with the Empress and others, possessing notes and messages written to me by Her Majesty, but had the misfortune to lose all these manuscripts and papers.
—SIR EDMUND BACKHOUSE,
coauthor of China Under the Empress
Dowager (1910) and Annals and Memoirs
of the Court of Peking (1914)
In 1974, somewhat to Oxford’s embarrassment and to the private dismay of China scholars everywhere, Backhouse was revealed to be a counterfeiter … The con man had been exposed, but his counterfeit material was still bedrock scholarship.
—STERLING SEAGRAVE,
Dragon Lady: The Life and Legend of
the Last Empress of China (1992)
One of the ancient sages of China foretold that “China will be destroyed by a woman.” The prophecy is approaching fulfillment.
—DR. GEORGE ERNEST MORRISON,
London Times China correspondent,
1892–1912
[Tzu Hsi] has shown herself to be benevolent and economical. Her private character has been spotless.
—CHARLES DENBY,
American envoy to China, 1898
She was a mastermind of pure evil and intrigue.
—Chinese textbook (in print 1949–1991)
1. Orchid’s palace
2. Imperial Gardens
3. Nuharoo’s palace
4. Lady Soo’s palace
5. Grand Empress’s palace
6. Lady Mei’s palace
7. Lady Hui’s palace
8. Lady Yun’s palace
9. Lady Li’s palace
10. Palace of Celestial Purity
11. Emperor’s palace
12. Senior concubines’ palace and temple
13. Hall of Preserving Harmony
14. Hall of Perfect Harmony
15. Hall of Supreme Harmony
16. Gate of Supreme Harmony
THE FORBIDDEN CITY
Prelude
THE TRUTH IS that I have never been the mastermind of anything. I laugh when I hear people say that it was my desire to rule China from an early age. My life was shaped by forces at work before I was born. The dynasty’s conspiracies were old, and men and women were caught up in cutthroat rivalries long before I entered the Forbidden City and became a concubine. My dynasty, the Ch’ing, has been beyond saving ever since we lost the Opium Wars to Great Britain and its allies. My world has been an exasperating place of ritual where the only privacy has been inside my head. Not a day has gone by when I haven’t felt like a mouse escaping one more trap. For half a century, I participated in the elaborate etiquette of the court in all its meticulous detail. I am like a painting from the Imperial portrait gallery. When I sit on the throne my appearance is gracious, pleasant and placid.
In front of me is a gauze curtain—a translucent screen symbolically separating the female from the male. Guarding myself from criticism, I listen but speak little. Thoroughly schooled in the sensitivity of men, I understand that a simple look of cunning would disturb the councilors and ministers. To them the idea of a woman as the monarch is frightening. Jealous princes prey on ancient fears of women meddling in politics. When my husband died and I became the acting regent for our five-year-old son, Tung Chih, I satisfied the court by emphasizing in my decree that it was Tung Chih, the young Emperor, who would remain the ruler, not his mother.
While the men at court sought to impress each other with their intelligence, I hid mine. My business of running the