The Last Empress - Anchee Min [96]
Guang-hsu's voice was filled with sadness and shame when he murmured, "No, Mother, I can't. I will be despised by the nation because all believe that Heaven rewards sons only to those who behave virtuously."
"My child, I forbid you to speak like this. You are only twenty-six years old. You'll keep trying—"
"Mother, doctors have told me that it's over."
"It doesn't mean that you are finished."
He wept, and I opened my arms and embraced him. "You have to help me to help you, Guang-hsu."
"Let me meet with Kang Yu-wei, Mother. It is the only way!"
At my request, an interview of Kang Yu-wei was arranged. The interviewers I chose were Li Hung-chang, Yung Lu, Tutor Weng and Chang Yin-huan, the former ambassador to England and the United States. I wanted an evaluation of the Emperor's "like-mind."
Kang Yu-wei was summoned to the Board of Foreign Affairs on the last day of January. The interview went on for four hours. I had assumed it would be intimidating for a provincial Cantonese, but the transcript showed that the man's audacity was inborn. Kang demonstrated his ability as a dynamic speaker and was aggressive in pressing his views. I now understood why Pearl and Guang-hsu were captivated by him. A palace lad like Guang-hsu had never before met someone so brash, a man who apparently had nothing to lose.
According to Li Hung-chang, Kang Yu-wei had a moon face and was in his late thirties. Li's evaluation read that the interviewee "posed himself in a theatrical fashion" and that he "spent the whole time lecturing on subjects of reform and the advantages of a constitutional monarchy as if he were a teacher in his town's elementary classroom."
I had to credit the forbearance of the four powerful men who had to listen to Kang.
Li Hung-chang told Kang that his ideas were nothing original and that he was exploiting the work of others, which Kang denied. When Li asked Kang Yu-wei for his thoughts on generating revenue to repay foreign loans and to fund the national defense, Kang became abstract and vague. When Li pressed, Kang responded that the treaties "were signed unfairly, and therefore deserved to be dishonored." When asked how he would deal with a Japanese invasion, Kang Yu-wei gave a sage's dramatic laugh. "You can't make it my job to wipe your ass!"
In conclusion, Li Hung-chang found the man offensive and believed that he was an opportunist, a zealot and probably mentally ill.
Tutor Weng, in his report, for the most part agreed with Li Hung-chang, despite having initially claimed credit for the discovery of "a true political genius." Kang Yu-wei's arrogance offended the founding father of China's premier academic institutions. Tutor Weng took offense when Kang criticized the Ministry of Education and called the Imperial academies "dead ducks floating on a stagnant pond."
"He is resentful because of his own failures," Tutor Weng remarked in his evaluation. "I was the chief judge when he took the national examination, although I never personally graded his paper. Kang had enough tries, and he proved himself a loser each time. He didn't oppose the system until the system booted him in the gut.
"According to Kang's own description of himself," Tutor Weng continued, "he was 'destined to be a great sage like Confucius.' This is rude and unacceptable. I conclude that Kang Yu-wei is a man who craves the limelight and whose main goals are notoriety and celebrity."
Ambassador Chang Yin-huan expressed less disgust in his comments, but he didn't offer a positive evaluation either. It was his job, after all, to bring interesting people together. If the mingling produced results, he would gladly take the credit.
Yung Lu, who had returned from Tientsin especially for the interview, handed me a blank piece of paper as an evaluation. I imagined him losing interest the instant Kang began evading Li Hung-chang's questions.
I trusted Li Hung-chang, Yung Lu, Tutor Weng and Ambassador Chang; however, I felt that they, like me, belonged to the old society and were inescapably conservative in outlook.