China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

that she was using the last of her strength. “Go now, Guanji. Before the barbarians get here.”

“Are you going to kill yourself?”

“Don’t ask questions. Do as your mother tells you. Go! Quickly, quickly!”

So he turned and ran.

—

Guanji’s memory of that day was like a dream. There were bangs, and shouting from the eastern gate like a distant echo. Yet the street was strangely empty as he ran away from his home. The wall of their neighbors’ house had been partly blown down, and between the wall’s jagged edges he could see in. They had a well in the middle of their yard.

The head of that family was an old man. Guanji did not know the old man’s name, but in his youth he had come to Zhapu from Beijing, so everybody called him Old Man from Beijing. His sons had gone out to fight, but he was standing there with his son’s wife and her three little children. The old man saw Guanji and stared at him blankly. He had a broad Mongolian face, but his brow and cheeks were creased with such deep vertical lines that it looked as if the skin had been put in a vise and compressed.

It seemed that the old man had also decided that the garrison was about to fall. For turning his gaze back to his grandchildren, he sadly picked up the first, a boy about Guanji’s age, and dropped him down the well. Then he picked up a little girl and did the same. Their mother, a pretty young woman, had a baby in her arms. At a nod from her father-in-law, she climbed over the side of the well, and they both disappeared.

Guanji stood there, watching. Old Man from Beijing gazed back at him. Guanji suddenly thought that maybe the old man was going to come for him, too, and he prepared to run for his life. But instead, Old Man from Beijing slowly sat down with his back to the well, and taking out a knife, he calmly drew it across his throat, almost absently, as if he were doing something else. Guanji watched as the red line began to spurt blood. Old Man from Beijing turned his eyes towards Guanji again. They looked sad. Then Guanji heard shouts at the end of the street, so he stopped looking at the old man and bolted.

The way to his uncle’s house led through a series of familiar alleys to a small side door in the garrison wall, guarded by half a dozen men. “We’re closing the door in a minute,” one of the guards told him. “You won’t be able to get back.”

“My mother sent me to my uncle’s house,” he cried. Nobody tried to stop him.

Running westward, he soon came to the big north–south street, from which he could see that the northern gate was still open. He ran out quickly before the guards there even had time to question him and took a small lane that led through straggling suburbs. His uncle’s house lay a mile away. Fortunately, he didn’t see any barbarians on his journey.

Years ago, when his uncle had got permission to live outside the garrison, he’d built up a pleasant family compound of small two-story houses. The most important building, revered as a temple, though it looked more like a small barn, was the Harmony Hall, which contained the memorial tablets to the family ancestors. In a modest courtyard to one side were some strange little shrines. They were used only occasionally, at deaths and marriages, by the shaman priests—who still at such times would remind the Manchu clans of their ancient ways, when they lived in the northern forests and plains, above the Great Wall of China.

His uncle wasn’t home, but his aunt and her children were. Her daughter was fourteen years old, her elder son was twelve. The third child was a girl of about his own age. The baby of the family was a boy of three. When she saw him, his aunt didn’t look too pleased, but when he explained what happened, she nodded grimly. Then she noticed the knife he was carrying.

“Give me the knife, little Guanji,” she said. But he shook his head and backed away.

If the barbarians came and they all had to kill themselves, Guanji was going to use the knife the way his mother had shown him. When Old Man from Beijing had slit his throat, it didn’t look too bad. He didn’t know if his aunt was planning to drown her children. But he was determined about one thing. He didn’t want to go down any well. So he clutched the knife tightly and kept out of her reach. His aunt looked angry, but she was too preoccupied to insist upon it.

—

An hour passed. They saw smoke rising from the garrison. But nobody from the garrison came out their way; neither did the British barbarians. Finally his aunt told them all to go into the house. But she didn’t join them. She kept watch at the gate until, at the end of the afternoon, her husband arrived, having ridden as fast as he could from the city of Hangzhou.

—

There was no more fighting at Zhapu that night. In the morning, his uncle went out to assess the situation. He came back at noon.

“The British have the garrison, and they’ll leave a small force to hold it. They’re not interested in anything else. Their object is Beijing. They want a treaty from the emperor.”

“And the defenders…?” his wife began before he signaled her not to ask.

He turned to Guanji. “Little nephew, you can be a very proud boy today. Your father died defending the gate to the last. He died a hero,” he said firmly. “A Manchu hero!” he cried to them all. “An honor to our noble clan.”

“And my mother?” Guanji asked.

“She must have been in pain when you left her. You know her leg…”

“Yes, Uncle. I saw.”

“I think she ended her life just after