The Last Empress - Anchee Min [123]
By the spring of 1899, the name of the roaming bands of youths was on everyone's lips: Fists of Righteous Harmony, I Ho Ch'uan—in short, the Boxers—had turned into a nationwide anti-foreigner movement. Although the I Ho Ch'uan was a peasant movement with strong Buddhist roots and Taoist underpinnings, it drew its adherents from all walks of life. With its professed belief in supernatural powers, it was, in Yung Lu's words, "the poor man's road to immortality."
Governors across the country had been waiting for my instructions on how to deal with the Boxers. Support or suppress them was the choice I had to make. The Boxers were reported to have spread over eighteen provinces and were beginning to be seen in the streets of Peking. The youths wore red turbans and dyed their outfits red, with matching wrist and ankle bands.
The youths claimed to employ a unique style of combat. Trained in the martial arts, they believed they were incarnations of the gods. One governor wrote in an urgent memorandum, "The Boxers have been rallying around Christian churches in my province. They have been threatening to kill with sword, ax, staff, fighting iron, halberd and a myriad of other weapons."
In my eyes it was another Taiping rebellion in the making. The difference was that this time the ringleaders were the Manchu Ironhats, which made arrests difficult.
On a clear morning in March, Prince Ts'eng Junior requested an immediate audience. He entered the hall and announced that he had joined the Boxers. Waving his fists, he swore loyalty to me. Lining up behind him were his brothers and cousins, including Prince Ch'un Junior.
I looked at Prince Ts'eng's face, which was marked with smallpox scars. His ferret-like eyes gave the impression of brutish ferocity. Ts'eng kept looking at his handsome and dashing cousin Ch'un, who had the look of his Bannerman ancestors. Although Prince Ch'un had grown into a personable character, his foul mouth revealed his flaws. Both princes were passionate sloganeers. Ch'un could move himself to tears when describing how he would sacrifice his life "to restore the Manchus' supremacy."
"What do you want from me?" I asked my nephews.
"To accept us as Boxers and support us," said Prince Ts'eng.
"To allow the Boxers to be paid like government troops!" said Prince Ch'un.
As if out of nowhere, men wearing Boxer uniforms streamed into my courtyard.
"Why come to me when you have already exchanged your resplendent Manchu military uniforms for beggars' rags?" I asked.
"Forgive us, Your Majesty." Prince Ch'un got down on his knees. "We came because we heard that the Forbidden City was under attack and you were in grave danger."
"Out!" I said to him. "Our military is not for hooligans and beggars!"
"You can't thrust aside a Heaven-sent force of champions, Your Majesty!" Prince Ts'eng challenged. "The masters of the Boxers are men with supernatural powers. When the spirits are with them, they are invisible and are immune to poison, spears, even bullets."
"Let me inform you that General Yuan recently lined some Boxers up before a firing squad and had them all shot dead."
"If they died, they were not real Boxers," Ts'eng insisted. "Or they only seemed to die—their spirits will return."
After dismissing the make-believe Boxers, I went to Ying-t'ai. The Emperor sat in the corner of his room like a shadow. The air around him reeked of bitter herbal medicines. Although he was fully dressed and shaved, he was spiritless.
"I am afraid that if we don't support the movement," I said, "it could turn against our rule and bring it down."
Guang-hsu made no response.
"Don't you care?"
"I am tired, Mother."
I got back in my palanquin, angrier and sadder than ever.
The winter of 1899 was the coldest in my life. Nothing could keep me warm. My astrologer said that my body had run out of its "fire." "Cold fingertips indicate bad blood circulation, reflecting problems of the heart," the doctors said.
I began to dream more frequently of the dead. First to show themselves were my parents. My father would appear in the same