The Last Empress - Anchee Min [108]
"Guang-hsu, what's wrong with you? It was your idea."
"How many people are going?"
"What's the matter?"
"I want to know!"
"Just you and I."
"Why Tientsin? Why a military inspection? Is there something you want to do there?" His face was inches from mine. "It's a setup, isn't it?"
As if suddenly gripped by fear, Guang-hsu's frame began to tremble. He held himself against the wall as if trying to conquer it. The moment took me back to his childhood, when he once stopped breathing while listening to a ghost story.
"Here is the reason I am going," I said. "First, I'd like to find out if the foreign loans we took have indeed been spent on our defenses. Second, I would like to honor our troops. I want the world, especially Japan, to know that China is on its way toward having a modern military."
Guang-hsu remained tense, but he finally let himself breathe.
It took me ten days to get him to explain what had been on his mind. His advisors had told him that I had planned to use the military event to depose him. "They are concerned about my safety."
I laughed. "If I were to dethrone you, it would be much easier to have it done inside the Forbidden City."
Guang-hsu wiped the sweat from his face with both hands. "I didn't want to take a chance."
"As you know, there have been proposals regarding your replacement."
"What do you think of the proposals, Mother?"
"What do I think? Are you still sitting on the Dragon Throne?" Guang-hsu looked down but spoke clearly: "The way you listen to the Ironhats made me worry that you were changing your mind about me."
"Of course I listen. I have to in order to play fair. I must listen or pretend to listen to everybody. That's how I protect you."
"Will Prince Ts'eng's idea become yours?"
"It depends. I will look foolish if it has to happen. I want the world to think that I knew what I was doing when I picked you to be the Emperor of China."
"And moving the capital to Shanghai?"
"Who would be responsible for your safety in Shanghai? After all, it is closer to Japan. Queen Min's assassination and Li Hung-chang's being shot certainly were no accident."
"It will not happen to me, Mother."
"What would I do if it did? I only know what Japan would demand in exchange for your life. Ito would get to collect the architectural splendor of the Forbidden City."
"Kang Yu-wei has assured me of my safety."
"Moving the capital to Shanghai is a bad idea."
"I have given Kang Yu-wei my word to do whatever it takes to achieve reform."
"Let me meet with Kang Yu-wei myself. It's time."
34
Either afraid that Kang Yu-wei would not get a fair hearing from me or unsure about the reformer himself, my son ordered him to move to Shanghai and run a local newspaper. This Imperial edict Kang disobeyed. The reformer would later tell the world that the Emperor was forced to send him away and that he, "despite the danger, remained in Peking in order to rescue the throne."
In any event, I didn't pursue a meeting with Kang Yu-wei because something more pressing demanded my attention. An attack on foreign missionaries by inland peasants quickly became an international incident. I guessed that Prince Ts'eng's Ironhats were secretly encouraging the peasants. Since I denounced neither the prince nor the troublemaking peasants, the foreign papers soon labeled me a "suspected murderer." In the meantime, the so-called conflict between my son and me, which was created and trumped up by Kang Yu-wei, led the masses to believe that there was a "Throne Party" and a "Dowager Party." I was beginning to be described as a "mastermind of evil."
I was naive to think that the tension whipped up by the incident could be defused without the use of force. I spoke to my ministers about the power of superstition among Chinese farmers, and that we must not joke about their belief that the rusty water that dripped from oxidized telegraph wires was "the blood of outraged spirits." I emphasized that only by our respect and understanding could we begin to educate the peasants.