The Last Empress - Anchee Min [129]
I received the news in the afternoon. Sugiyama had been on China's most-wanted list. He was responsible for Kang Yu-wei's and Liang Chi-chao's escape to Japan. Sugiyama had left his legation in Peking to greet the Allies' relief force at the railway station. Before he arrived he was set upon by General Tung's Moslem soldiers, who dragged him from his cart and hacked him to pieces.
The murder escalated the crisis. Although in the throne's name I issued an official apology to Japan and Sugiyama's family, the foreign newspapers believed that I had ordered the murder.
The London Times correspondent George Morrison confirmed that the murderer "was the favorite bodyguard of the Dowager Empress." A few days later, the Times published a follow-up article by Morrison that contained this fanciful fabrication: "While the crisis was impending, the Dowager Empress was giving a series of theatrical entertainments in the Summer Palace."
With the help of Li Lien-ying I climbed to the top of the Hill of Prosperity. While looking down over a sea of rooftops, I heard gunshots from the direction of the foreign legations. The legations occupied an area between the wall of the Forbidden City and the wall of inner Peking, a neighborhood of small houses and streets, canals and gardens. I was told that the foreigners in the legations had been building barricades. The exposed outer perimeter and all gates, crossroads and bridges were sandbagged.
Meanwhile, Yung Lu withdrew his divisions from the coast and attempted to insert them between the Boxers and the legations. He let the Boxers know that he wasn't against them, but he issued an order that anyone who violated the legations would be summarily executed.
As Yung Lu withdrew his forces, he worried about the weakened coastal defenses, especially the Taku forts. "I wish I knew how many foreign troops are headed this way," he said to me later. "I fear what they may do in the name of rescuing the diplomats."
My eunuchs worried about my safety. Since the Boxers had entered Peking, Li Lien-ying had climbed the Hill of Prosperity every day. It was there that he witnessed both the eastern and the southern cathedrals go up in flames. My eunuchs also informed me that the Americans would fire a volley from their roof every fifteen minutes on the off chance of hitting anyone who might be coming down the road. Nearly a hundred Boxers had already been killed. According to the Western press, legation residents had been shooting at any Chinese who wore "even a scrap of red."
The Allies' ultimatum was delivered by the British fleet's Admiral Seymour through our governor of Chihli. It read that the Allies were to "occupy provisionally, by consent or by force, the Taku forts by 2 a.m. on the 17 June."
What the governor hid from me, out of fear of his removal, was that his defensive line had already collapsed. Only a few days before, he had falsely reported that the Boxers in his province had "beaten the foreign warships back toward the sea." By the time I read the ultimatum, two British warships were gliding silently toward the forts under cover of darkness. The Taku forts would be captured in a matter of days.
With Guang-hsu at my side I summoned an emergency audience. I drafted a decree in response to the ultimatum: "The foreigners have called upon us to deliver up the Taku forts into their keeping, otherwise they will be taken by force. These threats are an example of the Western powers' aggressive disposition in all matters relating to intercourse with China. It is better to do our utmost and enter into the struggle than to seek self-preservation involving eternal disgrace. With tears we announce in our ancestral shrines the outbreak of war."
Memories of the i860 Opium War filled me with grief while I read the draft for the court's approval. Painful images flooded back: of past exile, of the death of my husband, of the unfair treaties he was forced to sign, of the destruction of my home Yuan Ming Yuan.
Seeing that I was unable to go on, Guang-hsu took over. "Ever