The Last Empress - Anchee Min [101]
I felt desolated.
Li nodded slightly and smiled. He looked frail and resigned to his fate.
We sat staring at the exotic cake in front of us.
After watching my friend disappear down a long corridor, I sat in my room for the rest of the afternoon.
Just before dusk I heard loud noises at my front gate. Li Lien-ying entered with a message from Yung Lu, who had joined the crowd outside begging me to stop the Emperor.
"Kang Yu-wei has talked His Majesty into issuing death warrants for the officers who refused their dismissals," Yung Lu's message read. "I have been ordered to arrest Li Hung-chang, who the reformers believe has been the major roadblock. I am sure it won't be long before I receive the order for my own execution."
Should I open the gate? Things seemed to be falling apart. How could the dynasty survive without Li Hung-chang and Yung Lu?
"The newly dismissed ministers and officers have come to kneel in front of the palace gate." Li Lien-ying looked overwhelmed.
I went out and crossed the courtyard and looked through the gate. Casting long shadows in the dying sunlight, the crowd was on its knees.
"Open it," I said to Li Lien-ying.
Two of my eunuchs pushed the gate open.
The crowd turned silent the moment I appeared on the terrace.
I was expected to speak, and I had to bite my tongue in order to swallow the words.
I remembered my promise to Guang-hsu. My son was only exercising his rights as Emperor, I told myself. He deserved complete independence.
The crowd stayed on its knees. It hurt me to see that people were filled with hope in me.
I turned around and told Li Lien-ying to shut the gate.
Behind me the crowd stirred, rising to its feet and muttering louder and louder.
Later I would learn that Yung Lu had other reasons to join the dismissed officials. While working on building the navy, he kept an eye on foreign governments to make sure they were not connected with subversive elements in China. However, intelligence showed that British and American missionaries and English adventurers with military backgrounds were secretly agitating in favor of a constitutional monarchy. Although Yung Lu's true purpose was to avoid being forced to crack down on reform, which by then had turned into a country-wide movement, he was especially alarmed by the high level of subversive activity going on at the Japanese legation. The suspected agents were members of the Genyosha Society, ultranationalists who were responsible for Queen Min's assassination in Korea.
Prince Ts'eng, his son and Prince Ch'un Junior were convinced that Kang Yu-wei was supported by the foreign powers as a cover for an armed coup.
Yung Lu said in a message to me, "The Emperor's trust in Kang Yu-wei has made my work impossible."
"I have no option but to support the throne," I wrote back to Yung Lu. "It is up to you to block any uprising."
31
Early one morning Yung Lu appeared unannounced at my palace. "Ito Hirobumi is on his way to Peking." Ito was the architect of Japan's Meiji Restoration and had served as prime minister during our recent war. He had played a leading role in the murder of Queen Min.
"Is ... Ito not afraid?" I asked. "Guang-hsu could order his beheading for what Japan has done to China."
Yung Lu paused a moment and then replied, "Your Majesty, Ito comes as the Emperor's guest."
"My son invited him?"
"Ito claims that he has retired from politics and is now a private citizen."
"Does Li Hung-chang know about this?"
"Yes. In fact, he sent me. While Li feels that it is no longer his role to offer the throne advice, he didn't want you to get the news from the Ironhats."
"His enemies accuse him of being self-serving, but our friend has always embodied what is most kind and wise in the Chinese character."
Yung Lu agreed. "Li refuses to offer the Ironhats an opportunity to jeopardize the Emperor's reform plans."
According to my son, Ito's visit was initiated by Kang Yu-wei and arranged by his disciple, a twenty-three-year-old scholar-adventurer named Tan Shih-tung.