by Poon, Alice;
“Please, Dorgon, go for my sake, I beg you,” she pleaded. “We only have to wait a few more months …”
“I’ve changed my orders just to please you, and this is how you reward me? It’s you who are pushing me to my new concubine tonight….” He laughed shortly, and strode out.
In the early dawn on the day before her wedding, she went into Fulin’s bed chamber in the Palace of Heavenly Purity to talk to him. He was still in bed when she entered.
“Fulin, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What is it, Mother?” The boy said, yawning, still half asleep and flushed pink from his deep slumber. “Master Fan will be coming to give me Chinese history lessons later.”
The child knew by instinct that the mere mention of Master Fan would please his mother.
“I know,” she replied with a smile. “It won’t take very long, my precious child.”
She took both Fulin’s little chubby hands in her own and gazed tenderly into his face, in which she noticed for the first time an amazing likeness to Hong Taiji, only without his fierceness. She paused for a moment, then continued.
“Starting from tomorrow, I will be living in your Uncle Dorgon’s house, but you will continue to live here. Your grandaunt Jere will still be looking after you as usual.”
“Then I won’t see you everyday like now?” His dark round eyes dilated in surprise.
“Don’t worry. Sumalagu will be visiting you every morning. You have to be a good boy and learn well your Manchu script from her. You also have to study hard and be a good student to Master Fan. Do you remember the reason for that?”
“Yes, because I have to learn how to be a good Emperor, like my father,” his answer almost came on reflex. Sensing a tension in this conversation, he couldn’t help blurting out: “But I want to see you every day, Mother!” He withdrew his little hands and puckered his lips, his eyes reddening.
“My precious boy, I will try to come to see you whenever I can. If you miss me, you can always write me letters. Then I will know how good you’re getting at it. Will you write me letters? In Chinese?”
“Yes, I will. But why do you have to live in Uncle Dorgon’s house?”
“Because your Uncle Dorgon will take care of me and protect me, like your father did when he was alive. If you’re good and do as your uncle says, he will let me see you.”
“I think I understand,” he said. But he couldn’t hide his sadness and was trying very hard to hold back his tears.
When Bumbutai saw this, she felt like her heart had been ripped apart. She put her arms round her child in a tight embrace and kissed his forehead over and over again as big teardrops slid down her cheeks. She turned her face away and wiped off her tears with her hand.
“Now let’s have our morning meal together,” she said coaxingly. “Sumalagu has made you your favorite dumplings. Will you promise me that you will remember to put on warm clothes when it gets cold?”
“Yes, Mother, I promise.”
To facilitate his daily trips to and from the Forbidden City, Dorgon had chosen to locate his new residence to the immediate south of the Meridian Gate. It had five lavishly furnished buildings perched on three sides of an expansive courtyard. The sumptuous residence provided ample lodging for his entire household consisting of six wives, four concubines and a large team of guards and house servants. He called this the “Prince Regent Mansion”.
In anticipation of Bumbutai joining his household, he had recently taken another grand mansion nearby with a medium-sized courtyard, being well aware of the importance that she attached to open space. This mansion had earlier belonged to Dodo, who had generously offered it to Dorgon as a wedding gift. He had also given orders to his house servants to have the courtyard landscaped exactly like Bumbutai’s Yongfu Palace garden in Mukden, complete with lavender lilies, willow trees and a pond filled with large white lotuses.
By this time, Dorgon had already upgraded his own title from “Uncle Prince Regent” to “Imperial Uncle Prince Regent”. He was now in the habit of abstaining from the prostrating posture of obeisance when he came into Shunzhi’s presence in the Audience Hall. Gradually, Dorgon began holding Court and receiving Ministers inside his own Mansion, instead of at the Emperor’s Audience Hall. He also pointedly kept the Imperial Jade Seal inside his residence. The Emperor, though still at a tender age, could discern the snub but said nothing.
The wedding was held at Cining Palace after the Emperor had issued an edict, on the advice of the Board of Rites, giving his blessings to the ceremony. Cining Palace, which Bumbutai had picked as her residence, was one of the smaller and modestly furnished Palaces situated in the quiet north-west corner of the Inner Court. Bright red lanterns had been hung round the porches of the Palace the previous night. Auspicious couplets written in black ink on red silk vertical scrolls adorned the two entrance pillars.
A scrumptious feast was served to guests seated in the main lounge at round tables draped in red satin. Dishes of roasted geese and piglets, grilled deer, lamb shank hotpot, steamed sturgeon and numerous Chinese delicacies including birds’ nest soup, along with copious quantities of mare’s milk wine, kept the guests’ palates happy.
The bride and groom had earlier performed the ritual of tea-offering to Empress Dowager Jere, Prince Daisan, Prince Jirgalang, Prince Ajige and Prince Dodo. The bride’s hair was piled up in a chignon at the back of her head and dressed in a Han-style pearl-studded wedding headdress with a veil of pearly strands. She donned a Han-style silver- and gold-thread brocaded satin jacket, embroidered on the front with two phoenixes, and a full-length red silk pleated skirt hemmed with silvery tassels.
When she moved about, the tassels would sway in sync with her steps, emitting a rustling sound like she was treading on sun-scorched sands. The sound reminded her of the dunes in which she and her horse Jirgal used to frolic. Closing her eyes, she prayed silently to her guardian spirit, the sand fox, for blessings on her beloved Jirgal, now ten years gone.
The bridal garment was an elegant work of art to which Sumalagu had devoted two months of toil. That evening, when the loyal maid saw how radiant the bride looked in her exquisite garb, she felt unspeakably proud, her eyes becoming all red and misty.
The feast was not one of the grandest wedding feasts, but was nonetheless one which thoroughly delighted the guests’ taste buds. The Board of Rites had taken the precaution to exclude all Han Ministers from the invitation list and to keep the number of guests small.
When all the guests had departed, Dorgon took his new bride in his carriage back to their new home just outside the Forbidden City. As she sat quietly beside her husband, Bumbutai felt mixed emotions of measured joy and lurking fear. Scene after scene of the hurdles that had been strewn on their path to love flickered across the vista of her mind.
She was at last joined with the man she loved with all her heart. At the same time, she couldn’t help but dwell on how the birth of Fulin had changed everything between them. Her life-long desire had now been gratified, yet in the far recesses of her mind there stirred an ominous foreboding. The man sitting next to her was a very different person from the warm and guileless lad she had met on the Mongolian steppe. His thoughts were like a fathomless black pit that defied light. Meanwhile, a voice in her head kept saying: You have a duty to protect your son. You owe this duty to your tribe and clan. Your son has Mongolian blood and is the anointed one who will eventually bring peace to the three peoples. You have to help him.
A few days after the wedding, Dorgon issued an Imperial edict requiring with immediate effect that all Court documents should address him as “Imperial Father Prince Regent”. He also gave strict orders to Scholar Fan to stop giving Chinese lessons to Shunzhi Emperor. Jirgalang, who had been coaching him on horse riding and archery, was also ordered to cease the training. Bumbutai was naturally distressed by these measures and did not hide h
er displeasure. One evening after dinner, she implored Dorgon to change his mind.
“Venerable Prince Regent, would you be kind enough to hear me speak? It is about your recent orders to stop all Fulin’s lessons.”
“I know what you’re going to say,” he said shortly. “Nothing will make me change my mind.”
“Dorgon, I made Hong Taiji a solemn promise, and that promise was to educate Fulin properly. Now you are making me break that promise. We owe this much to Hong Taiji.”
After a long pause, he spoke again, more softly.
“Fulin is just a child and he doesn’t need to be encumbered yet with serious studies. He has plenty of time ahead of him. Now then, instead of retracting my order, I will allow you one concession. I will issue an edict in Fulin’s name to permit inter-racial marriages between Han commoners and Manchu Banner women. The purpose of this edict is to ease the current racial tensions, and Fulin will earn the praise for initiating it. Would that please you?”
Bumbutai knew Dorgon was aware that knowledge could be a powerful tool for a fledgling Emperor and was thus bent on robbing Fulin of access to it. Keeping Fulin ignorant was a way of exerting permanent control over him. It reflected Dorgon’s deep insecurities and also his naked ambition to become a true Emperor himself. But she felt she had no better option now than to acquiesce to the deal.
Nothing pained Bumbutai more than helplessly watching Dorgon’s precipitous descent into the trap of power addiction. Tell-tale signs, large or small, didn’t escape her. Jirgalang had always behaved in a deferential manner towards Dorgon, but that was not enough to put him at ease. Before long, Dorgon stripped Jirgalang of all Imperial titles and Regency powers, letting him retain only his position as the Border Blue Banner Chief.
As Dorgon was amassing power in his hands, he was at the same time indulging his lust for beauties. Not satisfied with the number of his wives and concubines, he pressed the Banner Chiefs to select the most beautiful girls from their clans and to offer them to him as new concubines for his harem.
On one of his hunting trips to Inner Mongolia, he paid a visit to the Chakhar Mongol state, which was now a vassal territory and its tribal chief a vassal king. That day, he had brought along a hunting entourage of fifty cavalrymen, each carrying a trained Altai hunting gyrfalcon, the largest of the falcon species. After a whole day of game hunting with the skilled birds of prey on the rolling steppes, the hunters took their rest in tents erected near the vassal king’s village of gers, the portable tents of the steppe.
The vassal king had a nephew who had just taken a bride. The couple had been married just that afternoon. At dusk, the hunters gathered outside their tents and lit bonfires to roast the game they had caught earlier, and they invited the vassal king, his nephew and the new bride to join their merry-making.
Dorgon and his men had already had several rounds of mare’s milk wine when the nephew and his bride joined the party. The moment Dorgon laid eyes on the bride, he was startled by her striking likeness to the adolescent Bumbutai. Then alcohol did the trick of drowning him in a pool of fantasy. “I want a virgin,” he was heard slurring. The surroundings transformed in his mind into Bumbutai’s family compound, the star-studded sky as it had been when he first saw her dance. His personal guard, seeing the flame of desire in his eyes, went over to the vassal king and whispered something into his ear.
The vassal king was later seen talking to his nephew in a corner and stuffing gold bars into his hand. When the eating and merry-making was over, the nephew was nowhere to be found and his bride was left all on her own. Watching her retire alone to her ger, Dorgon, wobbling drunkenly, followed. The next day, he asked his guard to give the girl five gold bars before summoning his hunting group to take leave of their host.
When the story traveled and fell on Bumbutai’s ears, she didn’t know how to feel. She couldn’t help but wonder if she had played a part in pushing Dorgon over the cliff of wanton arrogance.
Sixteen
In the spring of the fifth year of the Manchu conquest of China, Dorgon led his army to Shanxi Province to put an end to an uprising incited by the remnants of Li Zicheng’s rebels. In the midst of the battle, news reached him that his little brother Dodo was dying from smallpox. He immediately relegated his Chief Commander’s duties to his deputy and headed back to Beijing with just a couple of guards.
While on the way, he received news that Dodo had just died on his sickbed. He was thunderstruck and broke into a deluge of tears. He had always doted on this brother and the unexpected news of his death cut him to the core. Without uttering a word to anyone, he dismounted and walked his horse to the nearest post-horse station, with his guards trailing mutely behind him. At the station he discarded his armor and tore out two strips of cloth from his white undergarment. He tied the narrower piece of white cloth round the crown of his head and the wider piece around his waist. Dazedly he mounted his horse again and galloped without stopping until he reached Dodo’s residence.
At his deathbed, Dorgon became inconsolably stricken with grief, shouting down servants who wanted to access the bed in order to embalm the corpse. He remained in a kneeling position by the bed throughout the night. For the following two days he couldn’t sleep or eat. When he finally recovered a little from his rending grief a couple of months later, he adopted Dodo’s fifth son Dorbo as his own heir, as he was still childless after all these years.
In the country south of Beijing lay a sweeping terrain of forested hills and rolling lowlands with rivers snaking through them. Dorgon had ordered for the scenic area to be fenced off and turned into an Imperial hunting park. It was given the name “South Park”. On the hilly northern side of the Park, he kept nearly a thousand gyrfalcons in a huge aviary. They were trained to hunt by a special team of falcon trainers. On the lowland side of the Park lived a herd of special deer named elaphures with huge antlers, slender legs and large hoofs. Apart from the falcons and elaphures, the Park teemed with all sorts of wild game fit for hunting. This land of natural wonder became Dorgon’s favorite haunt and Bumbutai’s spiritual sanctum.
Little Jade was an occasional visitor to South Park since taking up falconry lessons from one of the trainers. But her nature had always been of the sedentary kind and she had never taken a liking to the sport. For the last month, she had been sick and bedridden, but this bright early summer day she wanted to ride to the Park to take in the fresh air and visit the tame and mild-mannered elaphures. On her request, Bumbutai rode along to keep her company.
Little Jade was Bumbutai’s half-sister by a mistress of Jaisang’s. They had not grown up in the same household together, so they had never had a chance to become close before their respective marriages. It was only after Bumbutai moved into Dorgon’s mansion that the two sisters came to know each other better. Having once been abandoned to solitude herself, she felt compassion for her half-sister on learning how Dorgon had been mistreating her.
The sisters were riding towards a scenic spot beside a river which emanated from a waterfall tucked deep in a gorge and meandered downwards toward the densely wooded valley on the other side. It was here that the forest wardens kept the domesticated elaphures inside a ranch.
On reaching the spot, they dismounted and tied their horses to one of the poplars that lined both sides of the gurgling river, then started to stroll downstream. At places where protruding rocks blocked its flow, the river hissed, eddying in ripples and foams, and then wrested its way forward with renewed rigor. For a while Bumbutai stood still, enchanted by the struggling brook, her spirits lifted and were imbued with a refreshing sense of hope. Mother Earth’s healing hand could always do wonders to a world-wearied soul.
“Oh, look, there are deer coming out from those wild rose bushes!” she exclaimed. “Look at those antlers! They almost seem too heavy for their heads to hold.” Bumbutai couldn’t hide her excitement at the sight of those meek and slow-moving animals. Her heart
went out to the vulnerable fawns when she saw their doleful eyes. How captivity could sap an animal of all spirits! Her thought then turned to her favorite daughter Shuhui, who had chosen to live freely as a commoner in Mongolia with her husband. The thought of their leading a simple and happy life gave her great comfort.
Little Jade turned in the direction that Bumbutai was indicating and her face lit up for a moment, but the light soon gave way to nuances of gloom.
“They are so like me,” she said. “Clumsy and ugly.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Little Jade. You are beautiful and clever. You’ve been unwell for a long time and that has drained your spirit and energy. The sweet air here will do you good, I’m sure.”
Bumbutai wanted so much to impart her sense of joy to Little Jade as she drank in the free spirit of Nature. The green-clad mountains were in idle conversation with the demure blue sky, interrupted now and then by impish white clouds. The scene spontaneously harkened back to her happy, care-free girlhood days on the Mongolian steppe. Little Jade looked over at her.
“How I wish I could be more like you, Bumbutai,” she said. “You’re so brave, clever and full of life. No wonder you have the love of both Hong Taiji and Dorgon. You are so blessed.”
“Little Jade, sometimes things are not as they appear. The love of Hong Taiji’s life was Harjol, not me. He might have been infatuated with me at one time, but the thing is, he didn’t realize until he met her that what he felt for me was not love. You might call it a desire to possess, but it was not love. In return, I could only give him my affection out of duty.”
She paused to meditate for a while, before continuing.
“As for Dorgon and me, life has played a joke on us both,” she murmured, almost to herself. “How I wish he and I were not born Prince and Princess.”
