The Last Empress - Anchee Min [116]
It was the saddest moment of my life. I refused to accept such defeat. Turning cold and hard, I said to him, "No, I will not grant you the right to quit."
"Why?" he cried.
"Because it will only prove to the world that what Kang has said about me is true."
"Aren't my seals on his arrest warrant proof enough?"
Suddenly I wondered what my son would regret more, the loss of my affection or Kang Yu-wei's incompetence in having me killed.
Yung Lu abandoned the manhunt for Liang Chi-chao—Kang Yu-wei's right-hand man and disciple—because "the subject had made a successful escape to Japan."
Liang Chi-chao was a journalist and translator who had worked as a Chinese secretary for the Welsh Baptist and political activist Timothy Richard, whose goal was to subvert the Manchu regime. Liang was known for his powerful writing and was called by the court "the poison pen."
When the edict ordering Liang Chi-chao's arrest and beheading was issued, he was still in Peking. Yung Lu's men secured the city gates, and Liang sought refuge at the Japanese legation. It must have been a sweet surprise for the fugitive to find out that Ito Hirobumi happened to be a guest there.
"Liang was disguised as a Japanese and sent off to Tientsin," Yung Lu reported. "His escort was an infamous agent of the Genyosha."
My son looked like a blind man, gazing blankly into the middle distance as he listened to Yung Lu.
"Under the protection of the Japanese consul, Liang Chi-chao reached the anchorage at Taku and boarded the gunboat Oshima," Yung Lu continued. "Since we had been watching his movements closely, we caught up with the Oshima on the open sea. My men demanded the fugitive's surrender, but the Japanese captain refused to hand him over. He claimed that we had violated international law. It was impossible to carry out a search, although we knew Liang was hiding in one of the cabins."
My son turned away when Yung Lu placed a copy of Japan's Kobe Chronicle in front of him. The paper claimed that on October 22 the Oshima was bringing to Japan "a very valuable present."
Japan had reason to celebrate. In exile Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao were reunited. As the houseguest of Japan's foreign minister, Shig-enobu Okuma, for five months, Kang was well fed and his braided hair, according to one report, had a "healthy, glossy shine." Over the next several years the two men worked together tirelessly. They succeeded in cobbling together a portrait of me as an evil tyrant, confirming everyone's worst suppositions and prejudices.
Kang and Liang achieved the international recognition they craved. The West regarded them as the heroes of China's reform movement. The "moon-faced" Kang Yu-wei was described as "the sage of modern China." His interviews and articles were made into books that sold thousands of copies in many lands. Readers far from China had their first authoritative glimpse of who I was.
But more than my pride was at stake. Kang and Liang's salacious attacks provided opportunities for those who wished war on China. Since "the true leaders of China are begging the country to be saved," what more excuse did anyone need to oust a "corrupt," "besotted," "reptilian" female dictator?
Western audiences that gathered to hear Kang Yu-wei wanted so much to see China transformed into a Christian utopia that they were susceptible to Kang's lies. From Li Hung-chang I learned that Japan had provided funds for Kang Yu-wei to make a separate tour of the United States, where he was lauded by critics and scholars as "the man who would have brought China American-style democracy."
"Heaven gave us this saint to save China," Kang would open his speeches praising my son. "Although His Majesty has been imprisoned and dethroned, luckily he is still with us. Heaven has not yet abandoned China!"
Collecting more than $300,000 from overseas Chinese merchants who wanted to guarantee the goodwill of any new regime, and with the assistance of Japan's Genyosha secret agents who operated from inland