Green Phoenix

by Poon, Alice;

  One day in the twelfth month, a teary-faced Siu Mui came into the lounge where Bumbutai was sitting doing needlework.

  “Mistress, our uncle and aunt and all our cousins in Guangzhou have been killed,” she sobbed. “Their neighbors who fled the town have just delivered the news.”

  “Oh Siu Mui, that’s so terrible! What happened to them?”

  “Guangzhou resisted the shave-head order and so a Ming defector general led an army to attack the town. They killed everyone they could. I don’t understand why some Hans can do unspeakable things to their fellow men like that. They are so evil. Our uncle’s family were our only relatives left. Now Siu Fa and I only have each other.” The maid couldn’t control her flood of tears as she spluttered out the news.

  “I’ve heard what happened there, it is a big tragedy,” said Bumbutai. “General Hong Chengchou is doing all he can to salvage the situation. Don’t be sad, Siu Mui. You have me. I have always treated you like a sister, haven’t I?” A pang of guilt jabbed at her. She wondered if she could have used her influence on Dorgon more persistently and sooner.

  “Yes, Venerable Empress Dowager, Siu Fa and I will always be indebted to you. We can never thank you enough for your kindness.” She used her sleeve to wipe away her tears.

  “Do you want to take a trip to Guangzhou to pay your respects?”

  “Yes, I think I want to at least try and find their bodies and give them a proper burial.”

  “I understand. You should go and pack at once then. I will ask General Hong to send a guard to take you in a carriage and protect you on the way. It’s too bad Siu Fa can’t go with you.”

  Bumbutai put down her needlework and went into her bed chamber, then returned holding a jewelry box. She took two green jade bracelets from it and gave them to Siu Mui, who dropped to her knees and bobbed her head a few times. The valuable jewels were more than enough to pay for the travel and burial expenses.

  “Take all the time you need, Siu Mui. But as soon as you’ve done what you need to do, come back. Scholar Lin has agreed to take you as his concubine. I’ll soon start planning for your wedding.”

  Scholar Lin was a favorite student of Scholar Fan’s and a Minister of Documents. She had met Lin a few times at the regular tea talks that she hosted for the Han literati, and had thought the middle-aged Scholar and Siu Mui would make a fine pair.

  “Venerable, I would rather stay here to serve you until I die. You are my family now. I don’t want to marry anyone.” Siu Mui plonked herself down on her knees again, drowning in tears.

  “Oh, Siu Mui, I would hate to see you leave me. But just think. You will have a much higher social status and a more comfortable life. Scholar Lin is a learned and kind man and he will treat you well….” Tears choked her too at the thought of having to let go of this second twin as well as the one already lost.

  Then Siu Mui remembered she had something important to tell her mistress. She looked around to make sure that Ah Lan was not nearby, then took from her sleeve a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to Bumbutai. It was one of the secret letters written in Chinese that Fulin wrote to his mother. Mother and son had been keeping in touch through letters which the maid furtively couriered between Dorgon’s mansion and Sumalagu’s quarters inside the Forbidden City. Sumalagu was responsible for serving Fulin breakfast each morning in his bed chamber.

  From Fulin’s letters, Bumbutai had read between the lines his deep-seated rage and bitterness towards Dorgon. In her replies, she would always try to coax him to lie low and pretend to care nothing about Court matters. She even encouraged him to pass the time in playing chess and indulging in sports like horse riding and archery. She told him that for his own safety, he must never do anything to provoke Uncle Dorgon, lest it would give him an excuse to usurp the throne by force. To her great consolation, Fulin seemed to understand well enough what she meant. On the surface at least, he kept his head down.

  When news of the capture of Guangzhou reached Dorgon, he was thinking of going on a trip to Kharahotun, his favorite hunting ground northeast of Beijing in the mountainous Province of Jehol, with its copious stash of wild life. He had set his heart on building a luxurious mountain retreat there. It was in a region with steep cliffs, plateaus, gorges, lakes and a large river running through the center, and because of its high altitude, summers were much more pleasant than in Beijing. But its winters could be brutal with erratic and severe snowstorms.

  Since his return from the Mukden wedding, Dorgon had been feeling unwell, but would not admit it to himself. But news of the Guangzhou victory was reason enough for a hunting celebration and he invited his brother Ajige to accompany him to Kharahotun with his favorite Plain White cavalrymen. Feeling in better spirits than he had for a very long time, he also extended an invitation to several of his favorite Han advisers, students of Scholar Fan. He wanted to show these weakling bookworms what gyrfalcon hunting was like. One of these advisers happened to be Scholar Lin.

  After several days of travel, the hunting expedition finally arrived late one afternoon at the camping grounds on a wide plateau naturally screened on all sides by high pine-covered hills. As it was already early winter and the mountain air was icy cold, they started bonfires to keep warm. In an instant, the dark evening sky morphed into an ominous pitch black. A violent blizzard began to howl and soon thrashed out several of the bonfires. It was with great effort that the hunters managed to set up their tents amidst the violent gusts. The agitated horses and gyrfalcons had to be pacified for a long time before they would settle down. The gales and sleet continued all night, and before dawn broke, a sudden monstrous hail shower pounded the tents with ice pellets, making a deafening noise.

  During the night, Dorgon had broken into a wheezing cough as the biting-cold mountain gales whipped through narrow openings in the tent walls. By morning, the sleet had changed into a heavy downpour of freezing rain. His cough became more sporadic.

  By midday, the rain finally stopped and the sun peered out timorously from behind thick blankets of leaden clouds. Buoyed by the clement break, the group buzzed with excitement and started to saddle up their horses and equip themselves with bows and arrows and gyrfalcons. Seasoned hunters filed out in front, followed by the scholars and the acolytes.

  Within these lush mountains thrived all sorts of wild game birds including pheasants, partridges, grouses and quail. There was no lack of mammal quarry either. Foxes, sables, beavers, elks, argali, deer, boars, rabbits, coneys, moles, squirrels and marmots all flourished in abundance. The hunters were eagerly looking forward to a dinner of roasted rabbits, quail and partridges and planned to hunt for furs on another day.

  In fine weather, the rocky slopes would present no challenge to such skillful riders as the Manchu and Mongol cavalrymen. But the blizzard of the night and the freezing rain in the early morning had rendered the terrain treacherous even for the most nimble of riders. Thus the group headed out into the mountain forests in a slow and cautious manner.

  After a while, though, the snail-paced movement was getting on Dorgon’s nerves and, against Ajige’s advice, he charged forward alone and soon disappeared from sight. Then the hunters and company began to scatter, some in pairs and some in groups of four or six, each going their own way, happy to have some space in their search for quarry.

  By sunset, most hunters and their attendants had returned to the camping ground and were preparing for a roasting feast. There was a steady buzz of conversation as the hunters bragged to each other about their day’s catch.

  When the last rays of twilight were about to disappear, Dorgon was still nowhere to be seen. Ajige was beginning to feel anxious and, tired of waiting, he took two of his cavalrymen and started out to look for his brother.

  Bright stars populated the dark vaulted sky and an eerie feeling overcame the hunters as in the moonlight, Ajige’s team could be seen at a distance, heads drooping, returning slowly to camp.
As they came nearer, Scholar Lin saw Dorgon on the back of one horse, bloodied and bruised, unconscious and prostrate. When Ajige had found him, he was lying unconscious in a dark pool of blood. The spot was on the steep incline of a fiendish crag. He had fallen from his horse, hitting his temple on the sharp edge of a jagged boulder.

  The scholar, who happened to have brought along some medicinal herbs for dressing bleeding cuts and scrapes, was immediately called by Ajige to tend to Dorgon’s wounds. There was a three-inch long deep gash just above his right eye. Scholar Lin pressed a handful of herbal powder onto the bone-revealing gash, covered it with a clean cloth pad and ran a strip of rag around his head to hold the pad in place. The cloth pad soon turned soggy with blood and had to be replaced.

  Lin fed Dorgon ginger tea, but it failed to return any color to his ashen white face. His sporadic groans indicated that he was suffering searing pain from the gash. Lin touched his forehead again and found he had a scalding fever.

  Ajige declared he would keep close vigil on his brother through the night. He then gave orders for the group to pack up and get ready to return to Beijing the next morning. When Lin last set eyes on Dorgon, his face was of a lifeless grey, and he was clutching a pink bundle in his trembling hand. A little after midnight, in his dying breath, Dorgon spoke his last words to Ajige. Moments later, Ajige was heard breaking into a loud wail. He then came out of his tent to call the group to attention, and with a solemn face announced Dorgon’s death. A loud gasp emitted from the group.

  Scholar Lin, who was in a tent right next to Ajige’s, was able to catch part of a conversation between Ajige and his personal guard: “We must take them by surprise if we’re to succeed. We’ll head straight to the Forbidden City and take Fulin. Once we have him, everything is set…..”

  Lin heard enough to make him sense grave danger taking shape and knew he must make a move ahead of Ajige in order to arrive in Beijing first. So before dawn, he quietly left the camping ground with Suksaha, a close friend of Jirgalang’s who had always disliked Ajige. Lin confided in him as to what he had heard. Suksaha had originally pledged allegiance to Dorgon under the Plain White Banner, but had later become irked by his self-indulgence and had turned into a sympathizer of Jirgalang. The scholar had met Suksaha at several of Bumbutai’s tea gatherings. Morning broke with an evil shroud of fog on what was the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month. A tense atmosphere permeated the camping ground as the group prepared for departure with Dorgon’s body.

  Scholar Lin and Suksaha appeared panting at Bumbutai’s door to pass on the news of Dorgon’s death and the plot against her son, and the news hit her like a thunderstroke. She crumpled into a heap and the two men had to prop her up as a numbing chill encompassed her entire body. But she had no time for thinking, only for action. Ajige’s usurping army would be at the gate of the Forbidden City any moment now. Still disoriented but without a second thought, she rode with Suksaha and Scholar Lin to Jirgalang’s residence to consult with him.

  All she could think of was that her life and her son’s life were now hanging by a thread. Daisan and Empress Dowager Jere had both passed on the previous year. There was now no authority figure in the Aisin Gioro clan except herself. She was still Shunzhi Emperor ’s birth mother and the Empress Dowager. She could only pray that she would be able to command sufficient respect.

  As soon as Jirgalang heard what was happening, he addressed Bumbutai.

  “Venerable Highness,” he said in a firm tone, “you have to issue two edicts as Empress Dowager at once. The first is to announce the death of Dorgon and to denounce Ajige as the traitor and usurper. The second is to command the Imperial Guards and the Seven Banner cavalrymen to gather inside Forbidden City to protect the Emperor and yourself.”

  He then turned to the scholar.

  “Scholar Lin, would you kindly start working on the edicts? My men will help with the posting. Then we must all head to the Forbidden City. As soon as our cavalrymen arrive, we will lock all the gates. I will personally direct my Border Blue men to waylay Ajige and his men near the Outer City gates.”

  Jirgalang showed himself to be an effective strategist and Bumbutai’s trembling started to ease a little. In her confusion, she was still able to discern that Jirgalang’s proposition was the best option. She was only glad that she had always kept on good terms with Jirgalang, Suksaha and Scholar Lin.

  As her nerves calmed, the full force of Dorgon’s untimely death finally struck her. She was left all alone now, no one to share intimate thoughts with any more. For all his faults, he had truly cared for her and taken her interests to heart. There was no denying that her heart had been firmly grafted onto his from the day of their first fateful encounter.

  Inwardly she upbraided herself for her hypocrisy in front of Little Jade that day in South Park, sounding all pompous and detached. Fulin was a duty imposed upon her, but Dorgon was the one who had lit up her life and had kept her going through the darkest hours. His abrupt departure was sending everything crumbling around her, the whole Qing Empire crashing down onto her shoulders. She just wished she could follow Dorgon into that other world, where she would not have to face all these mundane worries. Before she could further indulge in her reverie, Scholar Lin’s voice propelled her back to the stark present.“Venerable Empress Dowager, would you kindly take a look at the wording to see if it is acceptable?”

  “I trust you, Master Lin,” she said weakly, taking up a brush pen to put her name on the edicts. As she wrote, Scholar Lin said absent-mindedly, as if to himself:

  “When I last saw the Venerable Prince Regent, he was clutching something like a letter wrapped in a piece of pink kerchief. It must have meant something to him.”

  Bumbutai’s face blushed deep pink and her heart throbbed wildly, as if someone had caught her pilfering. She couldn’t believe that after all these years, Dorgon had still held onto her first love letter! Her eyes tinged red with emotion and hot tears escaped her. She quickly turned aside her face to hide it. It was with great difficulty that she managed to find words for a reply.

  “It must have belonged to Little Jade,” she said nonchalantly. She pretended to have a final look over the edicts, then handed them over to Jirgalang.

  “We must not waste any more time,” he urged impatiently. “I will get my men to make as many copies as possible and post all over the Inner City. Let’s all leave at once.”

  Eighteen

  Jirgalang had known that Ajige’s men would be coming down the main thoroughfare of the Outer City, as it was the only access route to the Inner City. There was a stretch on this road that was most tightly flanked by houses on both sides and archers had taken up position on the rooftops. When their quarry came into view and at Jirgalang’s chirping signal, the arrows rained down on them, trapping the blindsided cavalrymen. A chaotic melee ensued, in the midst of which Ajige’s horse was hit by an arrow, throwing him to the ground. Seizing the chance, Jirgalang bolted forward with two of his men and seized him. After a short but intense fight, all the riders, roughly equal in number to the ambush group but badly stung by surprise, were subdued and put in chains.

  A month later, in the Emperor’s Audience Hall, the young Shunzhi sat on his dragon throne seat with a stern look on his face, with Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang seated to his right. The Banner Chiefs and the Six Ministers made obeisance and stood in two lines in front of the marble throne dais. On the Emperor’s summons, announced by a eunuch, Jirgalang entered the Hall, bringing with him a defiant Ajige in chains.

  Shunzhi, who had earlier rehearsed his speech with the help of his mother, addressed the Banner Chiefs and the Ministers, briefing them on Dorgon’s accidental death and the subsequent treasonous act committed by Ajige. He then sought advice from the Court as to what should be done with the chief traitor and the other insurgents. After deliberation, they gave their unanimous consent to having Ajige placed under permanent house arrest, with all
the others being sentenced to immediate execution by beheading.

  Having taken the Court’s advice, Shunzhi issued an Imperial edict with the express endorsement of Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, declaring the immediate transfer to the Emperor of control of the two Yellow Banners and the Plain White Banner, now to be called the “Upper Three Banners”. Jirgalang had earlier secured the support of two generals, Oboi of the Border Yellow Banner and Suksaha from the Plain White Banner. In return for their allegiance to Shunzhi Emperor, Jirgalang allowed them to join the Emperor’s Private Council. As instructed by his mother, Shunzhi ordered that Dorgon be granted a state funeral and the posthumous title of “Righteous Emperor” in order to pacify his loyal followers.

  Six days later, in the first lunar month of the year, just a few days before Shunzhi’s thirteenth birthday, an extravagant ceremony was held at the Hall of Supreme Harmony to officially bestow on him full Imperial ruling powers, thus bringing a formal end to Dorgon’s Regency.

  Less than a month after the Emperor’s grant of the posthumous title to Dorgon, the generals Oboi and Suksaha requested an audience with the Emperor for the purpose of presenting to him evidence of Dorgon’s traitorous intentions before his death. He had acted, they said, like an Emperor himself, using the Imperial Jade Seal on Court documents without the Emperor’s knowledge; that he had murdered Hooge and taken his wife; that he had built an Imperial palace for his own use; that he had appropriated an Imperial golden robe embroidered with five dragons; and that he had not prostrated before the Emperor as he should have.