The Last Empress - Anchee Min [135]
Believing that my son could outmaneuver a man like Ito Hirobumi had been my weakness. Allowing Guang-hsu to appoint Kang Yu-wei as his chief minister was also a mistake on my part. I had known that Kang was not the man he pretended to be, but I'd said yes to please my son.
I had been devastated by my son's suffering. He couldn't accept his own failure, which I considered more mine than his. If I had been murdered on my own son's order, I would have considered it my fate, for I knew how much he loved me.
The most important thing I might have said to Pearl, however, was that my son, her husband, had been up against forces beyond his control: the weight of tradition, the blindness and selfishness of power, history itself. China's great wealth and the glories of its civilization had made it complacent and unfamiliar with change. Resource-poor Japan had been forced to expand, move forward, modernize; the Japanese Emperor had merely led the way for a willing people. China had been surpassed and needed to change, but no Emperor alone could move a nation that was only just wakening to the need for change. No man alone—attempts at such change had already claimed the lives of so many: my husband, my son, Prince Kung, others, and I feared that number would soon include another son.
For the next few weeks we traveled day and night. If we were lucky enough to reach a town by evening, I would get to sleep on a bed. Most days we settled on camping in the fields and forests, where insects crawled all over me. Although Li Lien-ying made sure that I was covered from head to toe, I was bitten on the neck and face. One bite became so swollen that I looked as if I had an egg growing from my chin.
I had summoned Li Hung-chang to begin negotiating with the foreigners, but was told that he hadn't yet left Canton.
There were two reasons Li Hung-chang had been dragging his feet, Yung Lu believed. "First, he considers the negotiation an impossible task. Second, he doesn't want to work with I-kuang."
I understood his reluctance. I had selected I-kuang because the Manchu Clan Council had insisted on having one of their own to "lead" Li.
"I-kuang is ineffective and corrupt," Yung Lu said. "When I questioned him, he complained about Li's overbearing ways and blamed others for 'forcing gifts' on him."
Yung Lu and I were frustrated because all we could do was discuss our misfortune. I told him that Queen Min had visited me in a dream. It began with her rising from a pyre two stories high. "Then she sat by my bed in her burned clothing. She told me how to survive the flames. She didn't seem to realize that she was half flesh and half skeleton. I couldn't understand a word she said because she had no lips."
Yung Lu promised that he would stay near.
Days later, Yung Lu found out the real reason Li Hung-chang had been slow in coming. "The Allies have a list of the people they believe are responsible for the destruction of the legations. They are demanding arrests and punishment before negotiations begin."
"Did Li Hung-chang know about the list?" I asked.
"Yes. In fact he has it, but is afraid to present it to you himself. Here is a copy."
I put on my glasses to read it. Though hardly unexpected, I was still shocked: my name was first on the list.
Yung Lu believed that Li Hung-chang was also reluctant to come to the aid of Guang-hsu yet again. The Emperor had repeatedly been the cause of Li's forced departures, which had resulted in great political and financial losses for Li. His rivals and enemies, mostly the Manchu princes, had gradually taken over his major industrial holdings, including the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, the Imperial Telegraph Administration and the Kaiping mines.
After ignoring several of my summonses, which promised to restore his original post and business properties, Li moved to Shanghai for several weeks, claiming