by Zoey Gong
“Guozhi would not concede,” he says. “Not a bit. He thought he had the advantage. But when battle broke out—” He shakes his head. “We were severely outmatched. Their guns are far more powerful than any we have. And every one of their men is armed. Our people, only a few have guns. Most expected a swordfight. And our armor—” His face twists from sorrow to anger. “I had no idea, but most of the men, their armor is merely woven rattan!”
“What?” I ask, thinking that this cannot be true.
“I am not the general, nor the head of the war council. I do what I am told in times like this, the same as any soldier. But I have good armor, real armor, so I thought everyone else did too. That seems to not be the case. Armor is expensive, and we have had no wars in two hundred years. For most of the people, the armor—” He shudders. “The armor was mainly for show. When the foreigners opened fire…” He gets a haunted look on his face as he looks out into the courtyard. “It was a slaughter, Lihua. Our men fell long before they reached the enemy.”
“The emperor,” I say. “Was his armor woven?”
“No,” he says. “But it is old. It’s the same armor our ancestor wore when he first rode into Peking to take the palace from the Ming.”
I shake my head. I cannot believe that Guozhi would risk his life, risk his country, for the sake of honoring an ancestor that stole China hundreds of years ago. Such foolish pride!
“What is happening now?” I ask. “There is a war, but the emperor is here, injured. What are we going to do?”
“If we are lucky, the foreigners will be here in a matter of days,” he says.
“If we are lucky?” I ask, horrified. “How can that be lucky?”
“If we are unlucky, the foreign armies will take their time,” he says. “They will mow down our troops and then pillage the countryside. They might send troops to other major cities to take them. Thousands will die, if not millions.”
I have to turn away and hold my hand to my mouth. I am near to vomiting. How could this happen? How could Guozhi allow this to happen?
“What will happen when the foreign army reaches us?”
“They will take the fort,” he says. “They will then force Guozhi to sign a treaty at gunpoint. It will not be much of a treaty, though. It will be an abdication of power.”
“And if he refuses to sign?” I ask, as this seems the most likely outcome given Guozhi’s actions so far.
“They will kill him and force me to sign it.”
“And will you?”
He doesn’t answer. I’m not sure if it is because he doesn’t want to tell me the truth or if it is because he doesn’t know himself yet.
“Is there a way to stop this?” I ask. “Any way to still broker a peace? Even if the treaty is unfair, it will save millions of lives.”
“There is a treaty on the table,” he says. “Guozhi can sign it at any time. If he were to do that, then I could take it to the foreign leaders and this would all be at an end.”
“But he will never do that,” I say. “Not now that he has come so far.”
“Exactly.”
I give him a long look, begging him to hear me ask the question that is treason to speak aloud. I think he hears me, but he will not tell me what I want to hear if I do not ask him.
“And if the emperor dies?” I finally say.
“I would sign it,” he says with almost no hesitation.
I look away, my eyes watering. I don’t want to wish for the emperor’s death. I don’t want Guozhi to die. I don’t want my country to be forced into an unfair treaty. My people are oppressed enough by the Manchu. I can’t imagine how difficult their lives will be if even the Manchu are oppressed.
“There has to be another way,” I say. “There has to be!”
“I wish there was,” he says. “But I cannot disobey my brother, my emperor.”
“Your stupid pride!” I yell, jumping to my feet. “Your worthless honor! What good is it to us if we are all dead?”
“And what would you have me do?” he growls, standing up and facing me. He is considerably taller than me. I must crane my neck to look up at him. But I do not cower. I do not back down. Honghui doesn’t intimidate me. I know him far too well.
“Sign the treaty,” I say. “Tell them your brother is too injured to rule or make decisions. Rule in his place and save us.”
He takes a step back and turns away from me. He runs his hand over his face. I think he might actually be considering it. I allow myself to hope, just for a moment.
“I cannot,” he says, finally looking back at me. “Guozhi would never forgive me. He would probably execute me for treason.”
“He’s your brother—”
“All the more reason! I should be the person he can trust most in this world.”
I don’t know what to say to this. He’s right, of course. As much as Guozhi might love his brother, I have no doubt he would see him put to death for such an egregious injury. Guozhi’s pride will always reign over his love.
“Besides,” Honghui goes on, “he would just invalidate the treaty at the first opportunity and we would end up in the same place again.”
I cannot refute this. I sit back down on the stone bench. There is nothing we can do to stop the foreigners from coming. From overtaking the Winter Palace. What will happen to us? To me?
“What can we do now?” I ask. “What should we be doing?”
“We need to seal the gates. Put as many men between us and the coming armies as possible.”
“We cannot knowingly send men to be slaughtered.”
“We need to buy time. We must shore up as many supplies as possible. Food and barrels of water. There will be a siege. We have to continue putting up a fight for as long as possible. Maybe a solution will present itself that I cannot see yet.”
“What about the people?” I ask. “There are thousands of people outside the wall who came here thinking that the emperor would protect them. Will we bring them within the walls?”
“Certainly not!” Honghui says. “We will be short on supplies as it is.”
“So…they will just be left to fend for themselves? Left to be pillaged and murdered?”
“We can’t save them, Lihua,” Honghui says. “We can’t stop what is coming. Only Guozhi has the power to do that, and he will not do it.”
I am at once disgusted and terrified. All those people, women, children. People I have been giving food and money to just to help them weather a storm I thought would come to an end. People I gave hope to. How can I let them die now? But what can I do?
“Your majesty, your highness,” a eunuch says, bowing to us both. “The emperor is awake. He wishes to speak to the both of you.”
21
I allow Prince Honghui to enter the chamber ahead of me. The room is quite dark, but a brazier is burning, making the room stiflingly hot. I have to tug on the collar of my robe for a bit of air, but it doesn’t help much. There are dozens of joss sticks burning, filling the room with smoke and the scent of musk. As strong as the smell is, though, it is unable to mask the rusty scent of blood, a scent I haven’t smelled this strongly since Empress Caihong died in my arms. A monk kneels on the floor, bowing repeatedly, uttering a chant with his voice too low for me to understand him.
As I approach the emperor’s bed, I suddenly stop and can move no closer. It is as if some invincible force is preventing me from taking another step. Honghui, however, moves closer without stopping. From where I am standing, I cannot tell if Guozhi is breathing, and I fear he is already dead. Is it wrong of me to feel a small sense of relief? If he were dead, Honghui would be emperor and this war would be at an end.
A weak cough from the bed tells me that Guozhi still clings to life. He starts to utter something to Honghui, but his voice is small and I cannot hear what he is saying. I force my feet to move and I stand at the foot of the bed.
“…hold them back as long as possible,” Guozhi is saying. “The road is narrow. We can pick them off a
s they come through the pass.”
Or they can pick us off instead, I think to myself. It is our people who would be slaughtered with such a tactic!
“I will do my best, your majesty,” Honghui says. “But I will not be able to hold them off forever. You know this—”
“Do not question me!” Guozhi strains to yell at his brother, but he devolves into a fit of coughing, then he grips his abdomen in pain. I go to a table and pour him a cup of water. I stand beside the bed, opposite Honghui, and help the emperor drink.
“Do not strain yourself, your majesty,” I say. “You should reserve your strength.”
“Do not worry, Lihua,” he says. “I will recover. I’ll not let the foreigners have the satisfaction of having done me in.” I help him drink a little more, then he lays back on his pillow with a sigh. “I do not suppose you know if you are carrying my heir?” he asks after a long moment.
I shake my head. “I do not know. It is still possible. I anxiously await any signs.”
He starts to nod, but even that much movement seems to pain him.
“Your majesty,” Hinghui says, “I would not be doing my duty if I did not try one last time to persuade you to sign the treaty.”
Guozhi scoffs. “You know my position on that.”
“But if the foreigners have to take the Winter Palace by force, countless lives will be lost.”
“Including the people outside,” I add. “The refugees from the city who came here for protection.”
“They should have stayed in their homes,” Guozhi says. “They should have defended the city to the very last man. Instead, they fled like cowards.”
I grit my teeth and turn away from him, putting the cup back on the table hard. There are able-bodied men in the crowd, yes. But they are trying to protect their families. There are far more women, children, and elderly persons outside than strong, young men. Does he expect children to carry swords against an army?
“Your majesty. Brother,” Honghui tries. “I do not want to see you lose your country.”
“Nor will I become some puppet of imperialist dogs!” Guozhi says with more fore than I thought him capable of. “Those people are nothing more than foreign barbarians!”
“So are you!” I whirl around and yell. My heart is racing and my fists are clenched. I thought I had said the words to myself, but as Guozhi and Honghui look at me, I realize I said them out loud.
“I mean, so am I. So are we.” I am fumbling for the right words. “All of us. The Manchu. Hundreds of years ago, your—our—ancestors were nothing more than barbarians behind the wall. They invaded China and took what was not theirs.”
“How dare you?” Guozhi hisses at me, coughing, gripping his stomach.
“Lihua—” Honghui says with a warning in his voice. But I’ll not stop now. This entire affair is foolish and a waste of human lives and I’ll not let it happen without saying my piece.
“What if all this is a punishment for the two-hundred years of suffering for the Han people?” I say. “What if this is divine judgment from Heaven?”
“What do you know of it, foolish girl?” Guozhi says.
“Far more than you think,” I say. “I’m—” I try to tell him the truth. Tell him that I am Daiyu. That I am a true Chinese, unlike him.
“Be silent!” Guozhi orders, stopping me. “Get out of my sight. You have dishonored me. You bring shame to your own people. You are the empress of China, yet you speak like a traitor. Be gone! I’ll listen to your serpent tongue no longer.”
Guozhi turns away from me in his bed. I try to speak again, but Honghui grabs my arms and pulls me away, out of the room, closing the door behind us.
“Are you mad?” Honghui asks me when we are outside again. “He could order your death for that! He will certainly demote you.”
I bark a laugh. “You said yourself, either he will die from his injuries or the foreigners will kill him after they have taken the fort. What can he possibly do to me?”
“Far more than you give him credit for,” Honghui says, worry on his face. “He still commands the army, the guards. He could order your death right now. Why don’t you think before you speak, Lihua?”
“And how can you stay silent?” I ask. “How can you let a man who is delirious with pain and power bring about the fall of us all? Manchu and Han will die when the foreigners arrive. How can you stand here and do nothing?”
“Because that is my position!” he says. “I am the brother to the emperor, not the emperor himself. Heaven did not favor me, it chose him. I must follow him—to the very end if necessary.”
My eyes water and fear settles into my stomach like a stone. “Then you are a coward,” I say, my voice cracking.
Honghui’s eyes glisten and he runs his hand over his chin, taking a step back from me. “Don’t do this, Lihua. Don’t say that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love you,” he says. “I need you by my side for whatever happens next.”
I suddenly feel very guilty for calling him a coward. It was unkind, and not true. I know he is not a coward. He is one of the bravest men I know. A man who has saved my life more than once.
Honghui pulls me into his arms and I lay against his chest as I cry. I feel his body shake and know he is crying too. He kisses the top of my head and holds me tightly.
“What will become of us?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But we will face it together.” He turns my face to his and kisses me. His kiss is sad and hungry and mirrors my own.
“Let’s run away,” I say when I pull away from him, my breath panting, my arms around his neck.
“What?”
“Get a horse and some supplies and let’s run away. Leave this place. If Guozhi will let China fall, we don’t need to be here to see it. Let’s run far away from here. Somewhere the foreigners can’t find us. We can take the girls, too. We could be a…a family.”
He looks down at me, his fingers tense on my back. He opens his mouth, but then thinks better of it and looks away.
“I can’t, Lihua,” he finally says in a near whisper. “I can’t leave him.”
I should not have expected otherwise. I nod and lay my head against his chest again.
“You could,” he says.
I look up at him. “What?”
“You could leave,” he says. “It would be safer for you. Guozhi wouldn’t be able to punish you that way, and the foreigners wouldn’t be able to find you either.”
“No,” I say. “I can’t leave you here alone. Besides, I can’t leave the others, my servants, my friends. The children! I couldn’t leave them behind, not ever.”
He hugs me tightly and kisses my forehead. “Oh, Lihua. If only I knew what to do. Some way to avoid the coming battle.”
“You’ll think of something,” I say. “I’m sure of it.”
A voice clears, and we look up to see Fiyanggu standing at the entrance to the courtyard, his eyes downcast. Honghui and I practically push one another away.
“The emperor is…not doing well,” I say. “I was crying. His highness was just trying to comfort me.”
“Of course,” Fiyanggu says, but I cannot read his expression. Does he believe me? Does he not believe me but will look the other way? Will he use this against me later?
“The ladies are anxious for news since the emperor’s return,” Fiyanggu says. “What should I tell them?”
“I’ll speak to them,” I say. “Please, give me a moment.” Fiyanggu bows and backs away out of sight.
“What will you tell them?” Honghui asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Some lie, I suppose. Words of comfort that will lose all meaning as the army draws closer.”
“If anything changes, I’ll tell you immediately,” he says. I nod and turn away. I look back just before I exit the courtyard and am sure the pain in his face is reflected in his own.
What am I to do? I wonder as I walk back to my palace. What can I do? If Honghui has
no idea how to stop this war, how could I ever have a chance at coming up with a plan?
A eunuch leading a donkey cart crosses my path. As the animal brays, something prickles in the back of my mind. It is as if I have forgotten something, something important. Something I need to remember. But what?
I enter the courtyard of my palace and see one of the trunks that I had packed back at the Forbidden City in preparation to flee. The prickling gets stronger. But what is it? I can’t flee again. Not now. Where would I go? What would happen to me and the girls? And what about Honghui? He needs me.
I slump down onto the trunk and look out over the courtyard. The grass is trampled. The fishpond is half empty of water. A stone bench is cracked and a stone stool is overturned. I hadn’t noticed how much this palace had fallen into disrepair. It had seemed so beautiful before. A sign of hope. Honghui had said that we would be safe here, safe from the war, safe from the foreigners. He said that if I were captured—
I jump to my feet as I remember what he said. That was why I had planned to flee in the first place. Honghui had said that if I were captured, Guozhi would have to sign the treaty because he would not be able to withstand the shame of having his empress held hostage by his enemies.
I know what I have to do.
I run to my room and find a bag. I take my phoenix crown from my dressing table and place it gently inside. I then shed my fancy robe and put on the plain garments of a maid. I need to wear something more practical. Something I can ride a horse in.
Suyin enters the room as I am tying a belt about my waist. “Your majesty, what are you doing?”
“Shh!” I say, running to her. “I’m leaving.”
“What?” she shrieks. I slap my hand over her mouth and shake my head. “What?” she asks more quietly.
“It is the only way to stop the war. To stop the foreigners from destroying the Winter Palace. It is the only way to get the emperor to sign the treaty.”
“What are you talking about?” Suyin asks, and I realize she doesn’t know any of what Honghui has told me about the situation.
“I can’t explain it all right now,” I say. “I just need you to trust me.”
