Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [143]
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