Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [176]
We nervously awaited the results. To our disappointment, half of the governors didn’t respond, and a quarter expressed a desire to reelect Tung Chih’s regents. No one mentioned any support for Prince Kung’s role in the government. Kung realized that he had underestimated Su Shun’s influence.
The silence and rejection not only put us in an embarrassing situation, but also ruined the timing—our victory over Su Shun had turned sour. People felt sorry for the underdog. Sympathetic comments began to arrive from every corner of China, which could very well lead to a revolt.
I knew we would need to act. We must reposition ourselves and move decisively. My suggestion was that Nuharoo and I issue an affi-davit claiming that before his death our late husband had privately appointed Prince Kung the senior advisor for Tung Chih. In exchange for this invention, Kung would propose to the court that Nuharoo and I rule alongside him. His influence should encourage people to vote for us.
Prince Kung agreed to the plan.
To speed the results, I visited a person whom I had wanted to contact since Su Shun’s downfall, the sixty-five-year-old scholar Chiang Tai, a well-connected social figure and a fervent critic of Su Shun’s. Su Shun had hated the scholar so much that he had the venerable man stripped of all his court titles.
On a pleasant day Chiang Tai and I met at his shabby hootong apartment. I invited him to come to the Forbidden City to be Tung Chih’s master tutor. Surprised and flattered, the man and his family threw themselves at my feet.
The next day Chiang Tai began campaigning for me. While he told everyone about his appointment as Emperor Tung Chih’s master tutor, he also said how wise and capable I was for recognizing true talent. He stressed how sincere and eager I had been to recruit men like him to serve the new government. After that, it took only a few weeks for the political wind to become favorable.
The court counted the votes, and we won.
On November 30, a hundred days after Hsien Feng’s death, the title of Tung Chih’s reign was changed from Well-Omened Happiness to Return to Order. It was Chiang Tai who gave Tung Chih’s reign the new epithet. The word “order” would be seen and pronounced every time a countryman looked at his calendar.
In our announcement, which was drafted by me and polished by Chiang Tai, we emphasized that it was not the choice of Nuharoo and me to rule. As regents, we were committed to helping Tung Chih, but we looked forward with enthusiasm to the day of our retirement. We asked for the nation’s understanding, support and forgiveness.
The change generated great excitement. Everyone in the Forbidden City had been waiting to discard their mourning costumes. For the entire hundred-day period of mourning, no one had worn anything but white. Since men hadn’t been allowed to shave, they looked like grizzled hermits, with scraggly beards and hair sticking out of their noses and ears.
In the period of a week, the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing was cleaned to a glossy shine. A three-by-nine-foot redwood desk was placed in the middle of the hall, covered with a yellow silk tablecloth embroidered with spring flowers. Behind the desk sat a pair of upholstered golden chairs, which were for Nuharoo and me. In front of where we would be sitting was a translucent yellow silk screen hanging from the ceiling. It was a symbolic gesture saying that it was not we who ruled, but Tung Chih. Tung Chih’s throne was placed in the center, in front of us.
On the morning of the ascension ceremony most of the senior ministers were awarded the right to ride either in palanquins or on horses when entering the Forbidden City. Ministers and officials