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

Even the twenty-five seals of the Celestial Empire count for nothing against the barrel of a gun.

The only puzzle, one might say, is why Prince Sushun was so foolish. In my opinion, Prince Sushun was arrogant, where Prince Gong was humble—and the humble man has an advantage over the arrogant man. And why was Prince Sushun so arrogant? It may have been because he was so rich. Rich people are used to getting their own way all the time. So they get arrogant and make mistakes. Prince Sushun made a mistake and lost his head.

—

It was two days after the arrest of Prince Sushun that Mr. Liu came to Prince Gong’s house. The two of them were closeted together for some time. Then Mr. Liu came out and started towards the quarters of the princess. I was standing just outside her receiving room in the passageway, so Mr. Liu and I came face-to-face.

I hadn’t seen him since the day he tricked me into missing the court’s departure for the Great Wall. And as he’d only just come back from there himself, I thought he might not even know that I was still alive. I really wasn’t sure what to say to him. So I just bowed low.

But he didn’t look surprised to see me at all. His face lit up with a big smile. “Ah, Lacquer Nail, there you are,” he says. “I’ve heard all about your exploits. You’ve turned into a warrior since we last met. A slayer of barbarians. A rescuer of princesses. Splendid, splendid.” You’d have thought he was my greatest benefactor.

“Your humble servant, Mr. Liu,” I answered quietly.

“I’ve come to call on the princess,” he went on. “Would you go in and ask if she will receive me?”

Not with any pleasure, she won’t, I thought to myself, remembering how she’d once told me he was an awful man. But moments later I was holding the door open for him. And I was quite astonished when I heard her say, in the friendliest voice: “My dear Mr. Liu. How can we thank you for all you have done for us?” And then to me: “Close the door, Lacquer Nail.” By which she meant that I should be on the outside of it. So I heard no more.

Later that day, after Mr. Liu had gone, I did venture to say to the princess that I’d been quite surprised at how pleased she was to see him. For a moment she didn’t reply.

“You’re clever, Lacquer Nail,” she remarked finally. “But you have a lot to learn.”

It took me a while to realize what she meant: It must have been Mr. Liu who was in secret communication with Prince Gong from above the Great Wall, Mr. Liu who had warned him of the order on its way to execute the British hostages. And no doubt he’d been sending messages to Prince Gong in this last crisis. No wonder the princess was grateful to him. Of course, she wasn’t going to tell me all this.

To this day, I can’t be quite sure. But I do know one thing: Mr. Liu always seemed to come out on the winning side.

—

My greatest joy, however, was yet to come.

The new regime was quite ingenious. The boy emperor became the official ruler of China right away. The decrees all went out in his name, and he received the officials himself in person. Naturally the little fellow couldn’t yet know what to say, so the two dowager empresses remained in the room with him. But they sat behind the throne, hidden by a yellow curtain. A mandarin would deliver his report, and the empresses would whisper to the little boy what he should say—which usually meant that his mother would do the whispering, since the dear empress herself had hardly more idea what to say than the boy.

But everyone understood that this was a formality, so that was all right.

The real power lay with a small advisory council. There were no troublemakers, just long-standing, reliable men whom all the mandarins and officials knew and respected, and with Prince Gong as their head. The idea was to restore calm and follow precedent in the good old-fashioned way. But Prince Gong was also expected to add some judicious modernizing, just as he had when he formed the Beijing brigade.

And to emphasize the stability of the regime, the position of the two dowager empresses was ratified by granting them new honors and titles. The title given to the empress meant “Motherly and Restful”—which was a tactful way of putting it! As for my former mistress, her title was Cixi—which meant “Motherly and Auspicious.” And that’s how she was officially known for the rest of her life: Cixi.

But Prince Gong, in his wisdom, arranged one other kindness for the two women. It was clever also, I suspect, in that it prevented anyone claiming that he himself had profited from the destruction of the former regents. The entire vast fortune of the executed Prince Sushun was confiscated and given to the two dowager empresses, half each.

After all her tribulations, my former mistress was now suddenly one of the richest persons in the empire.

—

There had been a light dusting of snow over Beijing on the day I was told by Prince Gong that I was to report to the palace. The sky was a crystalline blue. The huge all-white expanse in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony shone so brightly in the sun that I had to blink. Its vast roof, however, since the snow was so thin, gleamed white in the furrows, with myriad ribs of gold where the yellow tiles showed through.

It was, I think, the most magical thing I ever saw.

I was shown into the presence of the Dowager Empress Cixi in a small throne room, where to my astonishment, she received me quite alone. She was dressed in white. But I smelled the familiar jasmine scent she had worn before.

“Well, Lacquer Nail,” she said