Over the next eight years, even as my son issued repeated edicts condemning his former mentor, Kang Yu-wei would continue to plot my murder.
Now I begged Guang-hsu to open the door. I said I had lost Tung Chih and I could not go on living if I had to lose him.
Guang-hsu told me he was ashamed and would never forgive himself for what he had done. He said that he could see in my eyes that I no longer had any love for him.
Yet I could not tell him that my love for him hadn't been affected. "I am not myself because I am hurting," I confessed. I dared not speak further-I felt the anger beneath my skin. To give voice to that anger would only cause more harm. I was on the lookout to keep the damage to myself and those around me to a minimum.
Guang-hsu asked what I wanted from "a worthless skin-bag" like him.
I said that I was willing to work to mend our relationship. I let him know that his refusal to pick himself up hurt me more than anything. Yet I could feel myself giving up too. I knew that I had failed with this boy I had adopted and raised since the age of four. I had also failed to keep my promise to my sister Rong. "After Tung Chih's death, I invested my hope in you," I said to Guang-hsu. Not only had I lost hope, but also the courage to try again.
Some part of me would never believe that Guang-hsu meant to murder me. But he had made a grievous error, and it was too big even for me to fix.
Guang-hsu begged to be dethroned and said that all he wanted was to retreat from the public eye and never be seen again.
It was the saddest moment of my life. I refused to accept such defeat. Turning cold and hard, I said to him, "No, I will not grant you the right to quit."
"Why?" he cried.
"Because it will only prove to the world that what Kang has said about me is true."
"Aren't my seals on his arrest warrant proof enough?"
Suddenly I wondered what my son would regret more, the loss of my affection or Kang Yu-wei's incompetence in having me killed.
Yung Lu abandoned the manhunt for Liang Chi-chao-Kang Yu-wei's right-hand man and disciple-because "the subject had made a successful escape to Japan."
Liang Chi-chao was a journalist and translator who had worked as a Chinese secretary for the Welsh Baptist and political activist Timothy Richard, whose goal was to subvert the Manchu regime. Liang was known for his powerful writing and was called by the court "the poison pen."
When the edict ordering Liang Chi-chao's arrest and beheading was issued, he was still in Peking. Yung Lu's men secured the city gates, and Liang sought refuge at the Japanese legation. It must have been a sweet surprise for the fugitive to find out that Ito Hirobumi happened to be a guest there.
"Liang was disguised as a Japanese and sent off to Tientsin," Yung Lu reported. "His escort was an infamous agent of the Genyosha."
My son looked like a blind man, gazing blankly into the middle distance as he listened to Yung Lu.
"Under the protection of the Japanese consul, Liang Chi-chao reached the anchorage at Taku and boarded the gunboat Oshima," Yung Lu continued. "Since we had been watching his movements closely, we caught up with the Oshima on the open sea. My men demanded the fugitive's surrender, but the Japanese captain refused to hand him over. He claimed that we had violated international law. It was impossible to carry out a search, although we knew Liang was hiding in one of the cabins."
My son turned away when Yung Lu placed a copy of Japan's Kobe Chronicle in front of him. The paper claimed that on October 22 the Oshima was bringing to Japan "a very valuable present."
Japan had reason to celebrate. In exile Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao were reunited. As the houseguest of Japan's foreign minister, Shig-enobu Okuma, for five months, Kang was well fed and his braided hair, according to one report, had a "healthy, glossy shine." Over the next several years the two men worked together tirelessly. They succeeded in cobbling together a portrait of me as an evil tyrant, confirming everyone's worst suppositions and prejudices.
Kang and Liang achieved the international recognition they craved. The West regarded them as the heroes of China's reform movement. The "moon-faced" Kang Yu-wei was described as "the sage of modern China." His interviews and articles were made into books that sold thousands of copies in many lands. Readers far from China had their first authoritative glimpse of who I was.
But more than my pride was at stake. Kang and Liang's salacious attacks provided opportunities for those who wished war on China. Since "the true leaders of China are begging the country to be saved," what more excuse did anyone need to oust a "corrupt," "besotted," "reptilian" female dictator?
Western audiences that gathered to hear Kang Yu-wei wanted so much to see China transformed into a Christian utopia that they were susceptible to Kang's lies. From Li Hung-chang I learned that Japan had provided funds for Kang Yu-wei to make a separate tour of the United States, where he was lauded by critics and scholars as "the man who would have brought China American-style democracy."
"Heaven gave us this saint to save China," Kang would open his speeches praising my son. "Although His Majesty has been imprisoned and dethroned, luckily he is still with us. Heaven has not yet abandoned China!"
Collecting more than $300,000 from overseas Chinese merchants who wanted to guarantee the goodwill of any new regime, and with the assistance of Japan's Genyosha secret agents who operated from inland China, Kang Yu-wei began to prepare an armed uprising.
The duet of Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chi-chao was picked up by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the London Times. "All Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi knows is a life of pleasure-seeking, and all Yung Lu knows is a lust for power. Has the Empress ever spared a thought for the good of her country? A tortoise cannot grow hair, a rabbit cannot sprout horns, a cockerel cannot lay eggs, and a withered tree cannot produce blossoms, because it is not in her nature to do so-we cannot expect what doesn't exist in her heart!"
37
On top of the reform disaster, 1898 also turned out to be a long and bitter year of flood and famine. First the harvest failed in Shantung and surrounding provinces, then the Yellow River engulfed hundreds of villages in a savage flood. Thousands became homeless, making it impossible to sow the next year's crops. Worse, locusts descended to devour the meager remains. The squatters, the out-of-work, the discontented and the dispossessed longed for a reason, a cause, a scapegoat.
I was kept busy trying to put out the fires. The Ironhats had proposed hanging Pearl Concubine as a means of making the Emperor bear responsibility. Pearl was found guilty of violating numerous palace rules. I rejected the trumped-up charges, offering no explanation.
The anti-foreign riots continued. An English missionary was murdered in the southwest province of Kweichow, and a French priest was tortured and killed in Hupeh. In the provinces where foreigners lived in close quarters with Chinese, grievances fomented unrest, particularly in German-controlled Kiaochow, the birthplace of Confucius. Locals resented Christianity. In the British- and Russian-controlled areas of Weihaiwei and Liaotung violence broke out when the foreigners decided that they, as leaseholders, were entitled to benefit from Chinese taxes.
In the name of protecting me, Prince Ts'eng and his sons called for the Emperor's abdication. Ts'eng's faction was backed by the Manchu Clan Council and General Tung's Moslem army. Though hard for me to continue to support Guang-hsu, I knew the dynasty would fall with Prince Ts'eng in power. All of the industries and international connections Li Hung-chang had built, including our diplomatic relationships with Western countries, would end. A civil war would give the foreign powers a perfect excuse to intervene.