3
WHEN I ENTERED THE FORBIDDEN CITY AS THE ADOPTED son of the preceding Emperors Tung Chih and Kuang Hsu, all their wives became my “mothers.” Although I was primarily the “son” of Tung Chih, and only secondarily the “son” of Kuang Hsu, the latter’s Empress chose to ignore this distinction and used her authority as Empress Dowager to push the wives of Tung Chih into the background. As a result, they were not really treated as my “mothers.” Thus, for example, when we all ate together, Lung Yu as Empress Dowager and I sat, while the others had to stand. After Lung Yu’s death, however, the three consorts of Tung Chih combined with Kuang Hsu’s consort to put their case before the princes and nobles, and succeeded in obtaining the title of High Consort. From then on, I addressed all of them as “august mother.”
But even though I had so many “mothers” I never knew any motherly love. One day when I was five I ate too many chestnuts and developed stomach trouble. For over a month, Lung Yu allowed me to eat only a thick congee soup. Even though I cried for more solid food and said I was hungry, no one paid any attention.
Shortly after this I was walking beside one of the lakes at the Winter Palace, and Lung Yu asked someone to give me some stale bread rolls with which to feed the fish. I couldn’t help but stuff one of them into my mouth, but the evidence that I gave of my hunger did not make Lung Yu change her mind about what I should eat.
Later, after I was restored to a regular diet, there were still times when I had to suffer. One day I ate six cakes at one sitting and the Chief Eunuch of the Presence found out about it. Afraid that I might have another attack of indigestion, he asked two eunuchs to pick me up by the arms, turn me upside down and bounce my head on the brick floor as if I were a sort of human pile driver.
Although this may seem unreasonable, there were many other things that were far more unreasonable. Before I was seven or eight, whenever I became angry or lost my temper and caused other people trouble, the chief eunuchs would seek to cure me by saying: “The Lord of Ten Thousand Years has fire in his heart. The best solution is for him to sing for a while to disperse the flames.”
While saying this they would shove me into a small room and lock the door. No matter how much I kicked and banged and shouted no one would pay any attention until I stopped, or, as the eunuchs would say, until I “had dispersed the flames.” Only then would they release me. This peculiar cure was not an invention of the eunuchs or of the Empress Dowager Lung Yu. It was a tradition in the royal family and my brothers and sisters also received similar treatment in my father’s mansion.
The Empress Dowager Lung Yu died when I was seven years old, so that I actually lived longer with the remaining four High Consorts. I saw them very infrequently, however, and I never sat with them or talked with them in a family way. Each morning I would go to them to pay my respects. At this time of day the consorts were having their hair dressed and, while this was being done, they would ask: “Did the Emperor sleep well? How far have you read in your book?” It was always the same banal talk. Sometimes they would give me clay toys to play with, but they never failed to end the audience with the same final phrase: “Emperor, please go out now and play.” This would be the end of the meeting and we would never see one another again for the whole day.
The High Consorts all addressed me as Emperor, as did my own parents and real grandmother. Everyone else called me “Your Majesty.” Even though I had a name, as well as a childhood nickname, none of my mothers—real or by adoption—used them. I have heard others say that when they think of their childhood names they recall their youth and maternal love, but I have never felt such an association. Some people have told me that when they left their homes to go away to school and fell ill they would think of their mothers and of the times when they had been nursed by them through a sickness. I have often been ill as an adult and have, at these times, recalled illness as a child and the visits to my sickbed of the High Consorts. But these recollections have never aroused any feelings of maternal love in me.
As a child, whenever I was sick, the High Consorts would indeed come to see me one by one. But all they would do would be to say: “Is the Emperor getting better? Have you had a good sweat?” In two or three minutes they would be off, and, what was worse than their stilted and distant questions, was the swarm of eunuchs who accompanied each of them on their visits and packed themselves into my bedroom. Within several minutes, after one High Consort had left with her retinue, another would arrive and the room would be packed again. Every day there would be four entrances and four exits and the air in my room would be disturbed four times.
Whenever I was ill, the Imperial Dispensary in the palace of the High Consort Tuan Kang would prepare my herb medicines. This dispensary was better equipped than the others in the Forbidden City. She had inherited it from the Dowager Empress Lung Yu. In fact, Tuan Kang had more control over me than the other High Consorts. This was not in accordance with Ch’ing Dynasty precedent and it precipitated a tragic conflict within the family that had dire consequences for my real mother.
Tuan Kang’s special position was derived from the interference of Yuan Shih-kai, for when Lung Yu died, Yuan had recommended to the Household Department that she should become the head of the High Consorts. I don’t know why Yuan recommended this. Some people said that Tuan Kang’s brother persuaded Yuan to make this recommendation; whether this was true or not I do not know. But at any rate, Than Kang became my “mother” of the first rank.
It was under such an arrangement that I reached the age of twelve or thirteen under the care of my four “mothers.” At that time, like any other child, I loved to play with new things and some of the Eunuchs of the Presence, in order to please me, bought me amusing things outside the Forbidden City. Once a eunuch bought me a uniform of an army officer of the Republic complete with a plume on the cap like a feather duster, and a sword and leather belt. When I put them on, I was pleased with myself and didn’t anticipate that Tuan Kang would become enraged when she found out about it. But as a result of an investigation, she not only found out about the uniform but also that I was wearing some foreign socks that a eunuch had bought for me. She regarded this as intolerable and ordered the two eunuchs responsible to her palace and had each of them given 200 strokes of the heavy rod and sent to the cleaning department for hard labor. After she had punished them, she sent for me.
“The Emperor of the Great Ch’ing Dynasty has sought to wear the uniform of the Republic and foreign socks,” she raged. “Where will this lead to?”
I thus had no alternative but to pack up the uniform and sword which I loved, take off my foreign socks and put on again my court clothes with the dragon designs.
If the High Consort Tuan Kang had limited her control of me to uniforms and socks, I would not later on have indulged in the disrespectful conduct I showed her. But Than Kang had set her heart on imitating the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi even though it had been her own sister, the “Pearl Concubine,” whom Tzu Hsi had ordered thrown down a well in the Forbidden City after the Boxer Rebellion. Still she wished to imitate her and thus she not only had the eunuchs severely beaten but she also sent a eunuch to the Mind Nurture Palace to spy on me. He would report to her in detail every day about me just as the Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi’s eunuchs had reported on Emperor Kuang Hsu. All this hurt my self-respect. Also my tutor, Chen Pao-shen, was both indignant and disturbed about it and lectured me on the distinctions between the first wife and the secondary wives, which was the category into which Than Kang fell. As a result, I boiled with anger.
After this had been going on for a while, one of the physicians of the Imperial Medical Department was fired by Than Kang. It became the occasion for a big explosion. This particular doctor was one of those attendant upon Tuan Kang so that his dismissal had really nothing to do with me. Nevertheless, I discussed it in detail with my tutors, one of whom explained that “this kind of monopolizing of influence is really too much for a person who is only an imperial consort.” Unexpectedly, too, the eunuch who had been the informer involved in the affair of the uniform and the socks now turned out to be on my side in the dispute over the physician. He adopted a similar point of view as my tutor.
“My Lord of Ten Thousand Years,” he said, “aren’t you becoming another Kuang Hsu? This affair of the Imperial College of Physicians requires a final word from you. Even your slave cannot bear to see such things happen.”
These insinuations enraged me to the point where I rushed over to the palace of Tuan Kang and shouted at her: “For what reasons did you dismiss the physician? You are too dictatorial! Am I not the Emperor? Who has the final say around here, me or you? This is really too much!”
Tuan Kang’s face turned white with anger but I did not wait for her answer. Instead, with a flick of my sleeve, I ran out of her palace.
The furious Tuan Kang did not call me back. Instead, she sent for my father and the other princes. With cries and shouts she asked them to support her decision. When I heard of this meeting, I asked all of them to come to the Imperial Study.
“Who is she?” I said. “She’s only a consort. In all the generations of the Ch‘ing Dynasty we have never had an emperor who had to call a consort of the previous generation ‘august mother.’ Are we to maintain no distinctions between the first wife and the secondary wives? If not, why does not my brother call his father’s secondary wives ‘mother’? Why should I have to listen to her at all?”
The princes, even after listening to my ranting, had nothing to say, but one of the other High Consorts who was also not on good terms with Tuan Kang came to see me after they had gone. “Take heed, Your Majesty,” she warned. “I hear it said that Than Kang is planning to invite your real mother and grandmother to the palace to see her.”
It was true! They were sent for by Than Kang, and although she had in fact got nothing by appealing to the princes, her shouting had an effect on my mother and grandmother. My grandmother, especially, became frightened and finally they both knelt before Than Kang and begged her to calm herself and promised to persuade me to say I was sorry.
When I reached the Lasting Peace Palace I found I could not resist the persuasion of my mother and grandmother, both of whom had tears in their eyes. I finally agreed to apologize to Than Kang.
But I resented having to make that apology. I walked up to her but did not look at her face. “Imperial August Mother,” I mumbled, “I was wrong.” Then I left. Although this saved Than Kang’s face and she stopped her crying and shouting, it precipitated my real mother’s suicide two days later.
In her whole life my mother had never been scolded by anyone. She had a strong personality and could not stand any form of correction, for she had been a favorite in her mother’s house and continually indulged by my father. The terrible scene she had been through was too much for her. And so, after she had returned to my father’s mansion from the Palace of Lasting Peace, she took an overdose of raw opium.
Than Kang, fearful lest I should order an official investigation of the circumstances of my mother’s death, changed her attitude toward me completely. She not only stopped restricting my activities but also became very agreeable. As a result, the family in the Forbidden City was restored to the quiet of former days, and the mother-son relationship with all the High Consorts was restored. But for this, my own real mother had been sacrificed.