Green Phoenix

by Poon, Alice;

  Suksaha, with the two powerful White Banners behind him, was the only one who still had the nerve to challenge Oboi in Court. In cases of serious disputes, Suksaha would report to the Grand Empress Dowager, and only when the latter decisively interfered would Oboi grudgingly back down.

  Oboi did not deal kindly with dissenters, and he was not lenient with those who had thwarted his land exchange plan. In order to preempt Suksaha seeking help from the Grand Empress Dowager, he played cunningly to keep him isolated as he set in motion his plans for reprisal.

  Having been the Chief of the Imperial Guards under Shunzhi’s reign, he had enough loyal followers to form his own personal guard force. One day, a troop of Imperial Guards marched into the residence of the Minister of Revenue, chained him in front of his family, took him away and dumped him in jail. On the same day, a provincial governor and an investigation envoy directly under him, both of whom had voiced their objection to Oboi’s land exchange proposal, were also imprisoned. All three were tortured into confessing to corruption charges, obviously trumped up. The next day, they were beheaded.

  The next few years would see Oboi and his cronies embark on a forced land exchange and land grabbing spree. Many Hans who had hitherto lived peacefully around Beijing, were forcibly evicted from their properties. At a time when Han society was beginning to heal from the endless battles and rebellions and accept Manchu hegemony, the Oboi regency reversed everything that Shunzhi had done to harmonize the relationship between Manchus and Hans.

  Earlier, right after Kangxi was enthroned, a Han scholar named Zhou from Jiangnan had petitioned for the Grand Empress Dowager to take up the regency herself, as she was much-loved and respected by all the Qing subjects. Much as she appreciated the petitioner’s good intentions, Bumbutai loved freedom too much to want to wield such power over others.

  “My only mission is to bring peace to all and to help my Xuanye make a mark on history as a truly benevolent Emperor,” she said. By accomplishing that mission, she would fulfill her Mongolian obligation as well as her promise to Hong Taiji, and would have no regrets. One secret dream that she had never shared with anyone was her longing for the day when she could return to her homeland.

  While she kept a low profile, Bumbutai did not let matters of governance escape her sight. She had the foresight to see what Oboi was up to. For the time being, while Kangxi was still a minor, she knew she had to exercise the greatest restraint. Protocol ruled that he could only acquire full imperial power at the age of fifteen, but she was contemplating how to nudge that date forward.

  Meanwhile, she did all she could to encourage Kangxi, who had been living with her in Cining Palace since his enthronement, to learn well the Chinese Four Books and Five Classics, as well as Chinese, Mongolian and Manchu history. She was secretly pleased that she had nothing to worry about in this respect, as the child Emperor was industrious and extremely intelligent, and had a natural affinity with Chinese literature and history. He was tall, well-built and well-proportioned, and was interested in all kinds of physical activity, with a particular bent for hunting and archery.

  For Bumbutai, it was an immeasurable joy to be living under the same roof as her favorite grandson and watching him grow. This was a joy of which she had sadly been deprived with her son. She made herself a solemn promise to dedicate all her attention to cultivating Xuanye’s moral character as well as his intellect.

  In order to set him on the right track, she wrote on a parchment her special advice to him and bade him read it once each day.

  Every morning, before getting out of bed, he would quietly read what was on the parchment, which he kept in a small lacquered box placed next to his pillow. The text read thus:

  “The ancients once said: ‘An Emperor’s work is the hardest of all work. Why? Because he, as a supreme leader, has his subjects to take care of. The subjects are like his children, who look to him for provident care.’ Your grandfather used to say: that if you can win the hearts of your subjects, then you will truly win the nation. You will do well to contemplate these words. In short, it is your natural duty to strive hard to give your subjects a good life, which they can extend to their future generations, and you are not to rest until this is achieved. If you can nurture a generous and kind heart, be gentle and respectful, be cautious in your behavior and words, be diligent and be mindful of your ancestors’ teachings, you will have no regrets in your life.”

  In the spring of the following year, Kangxi’s birth mother, Consort Tunggiya, contracted an illness and passed away. In accordance with Inner Court rules, Kangxi had been brought up not by his birth mother but by Shunzhi’s second Empress (Bumbutai’s grandniece, now the Empress Dowager) who had no child of her own. As a consequence, Kangxi had since infanthood developed a deeper bond of affection with his foster mother. It was Bumbutai who had willed this, as her grandniece was a purebred Borjigit with aristocratic Mongolian blood. Shortly after Kangxi’s birth, she had said in private to her grandniece:

  “I know Shunzhi has neglected you, but Eternal Blue Sky is kind to you and has given you Xuanye to bring up. I trust you to teach him to love Mother Nature like all Mongols. Only such love can purify and strengthen our souls. Take him to the South Park Retreat as often as you can and teach him to ride and shoot when he is old enough. Love him as if he were your own.”

  The young Kangxi appreciated all that his foster mother had taught him, and never ceased looking up to his Nana as a pillar of strength and trust. But he was always proud of his mother’s Chinese influence, which cultivated in him a soft spot for the Chinese language and culture. His natural aptitudes were further honed by the education he received from prominent Han scholars, whom Nana meticulously selected as his teachers.

  When the funeral rituals were over, nine-year-old Kangxi sat at the writing table in his bed chambers and personally wrote an edict under Nana’s guidance, granting Consort Tunggiya the posthumous title of Empress Dowager. While comforting her grandson, Bumbutai gave instructions to the Board of Rites to have the late Consort buried alongside Shunzhi and Donggo in the Imperial Mausoleum.

  Since Shunzhi’s death, Father Schall von Bell was rarely called to the Imperial Palaces. One of his subordinates, surnamed Yang, was a xenophobic self-styled astronomer who believed in the faulty Mohammedan version of calendar. He used every occasion to vilify the priest’s version which was based on astronomical calculations, while harboring a deep grudge against him for winning the late Emperor’s special favor. Ignorance, jealousy and presumption superseded reason. Now, seeing the priest falling out of imperial favor, he launched a full-scale attack. Not even the priest’s poor health was enough to hold back his malevolence.

  On a gloomy autumn day three years after Shunzhi’s death, the Jesuit priest and other Christian missionaries living in Beijing were chained and thrown into prison on charges of high treason and propagation of an evil religion. The conservative Regents, in particular Oboi, were pleased to see the Christians’ influence on society vitiated, because foreign spiritual influence was always something to be wary of.

  When Donggo’s infant son died, the German priest had supposedly been asked to select a propitious date for the burial rite. It was now alleged that he had selected an unlucky date, which had subsequently jinxed the Emperor’s favorite Consort and led to her untimely death. Schall von Bell was unable to answer the charges himself due to his illness, so his fellow Jesuit priest Ferdinand Verbiest was present at the various trial hearings to speak on his behalf. After further investigation, it was discovered that Schall von Bell had never been asked to pick the date, which fact thus invalidated this charge. But the Court Magistrate still pressed on with the other allegation, that the priest had leveraged his Court appointment to propagate an evil religion. To this charge, Father Verbiest replied that Schall von Bell had never desired his appointment as Director of the Board of Mathematics, and that the late Emperor had bestowed it on him against his wishes
. In the end, the Minister of Punishments, who, together with the Court Magistrate, was in fact answerable to the anti-Christian Regents, delivered a guilty verdict on this charge.

  In the fourth month of the following year, Schall von Bell was condemned to death by slicing and beheading. In the late morning of the fifteenth day of the fourth month, the sky was raven black with blood-red streaks. Crows cawed non-stop, frogs leapt out of their swampy abodes in large numbers, snakes woke from their deep slumber and slithered everywhere. A deafening clap of thunder followed a blinding spark of lightening. Then a monstrous spurt of black rain cleaved open the bowels of the sky.

  The old German priest was inside a wooden cage on a wheeled cart, which was rumbling along a muddied cobblestoned street toward the execution ground. His fellow missionaries and Christian followers braved the noxious weather to follow the procession, chanting prayers in a low murmur, their faces glistening and stoic. The square was packed with spectators. Well-dressed merchants carrying their abacuses, trades people with their toolbags slung over their shoulders, maids with straw baskets looped through their forearms, peddlers laden with their wares, market hawkers… They were a hardhearted bunch who never tired of gawking at others’ tragedies. The sudden downpour sent them all scrambling to find shelter.

  Oboi had been careful to keep Bumbutai entirely ignorant of news regarding the priest. Around noon on this day she was in discussion with Sumalagu and Siu Fa about her intended choice of a bride for Kangxi, who was nearing the age of eleven.

  “I have heard that Sonin’s granddaughter is about one year older than Xuanye. Is that the case?” she asked of the old maid, almost a sage to her eyes.

  “Venerable, you are correct. She is a little beauty too, and very well read.” Sumalagu always understood her mistress well and replied with confidence, having earlier gathered all the available information regarding the girl. Her father Gabula, Sonin’s eldest son, had recently replaced Oboi as the Chief of the Imperial Guards.

  “But Venerable, don’t you want to have a Borjigit Princess to be the bride?” asked Siu Fa. Her mind was not as sharp as the older maid’s.

  “Siu Fa, the Grand Empress Dowager has her reasons,” said Sumalagu. “There is a need to curb those who are too powerful….”

  “I know that Oboi has plans to propose his niece to become Empress,” said Bumbutai with a sigh. “He is so presumptuous! But what I have in mind is not going to please him.”

  Looking up, she was stunned to see through the latticed screen window an eerie blood red sky that was darkening in shade with every passing second. A chill ran down her spine.

  “Is there an execution in the square today?” she asked.

  “I’ll send Ah Tak at once to find out,” said the vigilant Sumalagu. Ah Tak was a young Han bondservant serving in Cining Palace who had become the maid’s protégé and her eyes and ears.

  As Ah Tak galloped toward the execution ground, all the forces of Nature seemed to have converged with deafening roars of thunder smothering a ferocious downpour of pebble-size hailstones. The horse was startled and reared up on its hind legs several times, almost throwing the servant to the ground. The young man braced himself against the hailstorm and forged his way forward. Peering out from under his black hood, he saw a meteorite with a shiny tail shooting across the crimson sky. The premonition of something bizarre about to happen made his skin crawl, but he had no time to reflect and, with a whack of the whip, pressed his horse to race ahead.

  As he approached the square, he craned his neck and got a glimpse of the execution scaffold with a white-haired figure being tied to a pole. Then in the blink of an eye, the earth itself split open and caved in. The violent earthquake sent the scaffold crashing on one side and mayhem ensued in the crowd, people scattering in all directions, like mercury spilt on the ground.

  The Jesuit priests and the Christians stayed where they were and were miraculously untouched. One of them, whom Ah Tak recognized as Father Verbiest, jumped onto the half-collapsed scaffold to untie the elderly priest from the pole and carried him off. Too frightened to put the old man back in chains, the cowering guards made no move to stop them.

  Elsewhere, a flash of lightening hit the roof of the Court Magistrate’s workplace, where the death sentence for Schall von Bell had been deliberated and passed. Half the roof caved in, turning the building into a heap of debris. At the time, the Magistrate was inside his work chamber and came within an inch of being hit by falling beams.

  Twenty-five

  When Bumbutai heard Ah Tak’s report, she bolted from her seat and began pacing the lounge in agitation. She had never expected Oboi to have the nerve to seize and torture one of her closest allies. But she was grateful to Eternal Blue Sky for preserving Fulin’s Mafa, and she cringed in visualizing what would have otherwise happened. She realized that unless she took a stand, Oboi would walk all over her, and for that matter, the Emperor too.

  After a moment of contemplation, she sat down to write an edict in her own hand. She then she summoned the Minister of Punishments to her Palace and questioned him on the causes and events surrounding the case of the German priest. When all her questions had been answered, she glowered at the Minister in anger.

  “As far as I can see, there is absolutely no case against Father Schall von Bell,” she said.

  “The priest was tried by the Provincial and Court Magistrates and they passed the guilty verdict,” the Minister replied, trying to shirk the blame.

  “But on what grounds? I know for a fact that the Court appointment was against the priest’s wishes, and that he had the late Emperor’s explicit permission to preach the Christian faith wherever he wanted. So, where is the guilt?”

  The Minister was unable to come up with an answer and kept his head bowed in reply.

  “Who gave you the authority to impose such a totally ridiculous sentence on him?” she demanded. “Were you not aware that Father Schall von Bell was the late Emperor’s Mafa?”

  The Minister realized he was in deep trouble, and he threw himself on his knees.

  “It was… it was Regent Oboi,” he stammered. “No! It was the Four Regents.…”

  “Listen to me carefully!” she said, cutting him off. “I now order you to immediately annul the sentence, rescind the guilty verdict and release the priest. If anyone questions your action, show him this edict.” She handed him the scroll. “You are dismissed,” she added with a wave of her hand.

  As soon as he was gone, Bumbutai summoned the Minister of Civil Office and ordered him to dismiss the Minister of Punishments with immediate effect and replace him with a cousin of the late Shunzhi named Mingju, a member of the aristocratic Nalan clan and one of the most trusted Senior Imperial Guards from the Plain Yellow Banner.

  Her mind was also now made up about Kangxi’s bride. Sonin’s Heseri clan was a powerful and trusted clan. Both his sons, Gabula and Songgoto, were valiant generals under the Plain Yellow and both served as Senior Imperial Guards, with Gabula as the Chief. In order to build a strong alliance to resist Oboi, she would need the help of the Heseri clan. Thus Gabula’s twelve-year-old daughter would be a perfect match for eleven-year-old Kangxi.

  Early the following month, Schall von Bell was allowed to return to his house and resume his missionary practice. But due to the ill treatment he suffered in prison, the life in him was ebbing away and he would die a year later.

  Bumbutai felt a strong sense of urgency in establishing Kangxi’s adulthood and wanted an Empress by his side without further delay. In the late summer, she asked the Minister of Rites to announce the Emperor’s betrothal to Regent Sonin’s granddaughter and to fix the date of the ceremony.

  When Oboi heard the news, he stormed into Cining Palace unannounced to confront Bumbutai. The Dowager Empress, fully expecting such a move, was sitting calmly in her lounge reading Chinese poetry.

  “Venerable Highness,” he shout
ed with only a veneer of courtesy visible, “I have heard that Sonin wants to make an Empress of his infant granddaughter. Is there any truth to this rumor?”

  “You may have it wrong. The idea was mine and not Sonin’s. I wonder why that would make you so unhappy?” Bumbutai said in a glacial tone, not bothering to look up from her book.

  “…..But why Sonin’s granddaughter?”

  “And why not? Are you questioning my choice of a granddaughter-in-law?”

  “I don’t mean to be impertinent. I am just wondering… why… there is such a rush. His Imperial Highness is still just a boy….” he stuttered, taken aback by Bumbutai’s curt response.

  “Xuanye is a grown adult physically and mentally, as the Empress Dowager can readily attest to. Besides, the Emperor’s marriage is entirely a family matter. I don’t see why it should concern anyone outside the family,” she continued in a dispassionate voice.

  “Venerable …I…I apologize for … disturbing you. Please forgive me.” He realized he had gone too far.

  “I have known for some time that your beautiful niece has reached marriageable age,” Bumbutai added. “If you trust my judgment, I would be happy to make a suitable match for her. I do have several candidates in mind.”

  “That would be our family’s honor, Venerable. The girl’s parents would be very grateful for your kind assistance. But I must not take any more of your time.”

  Oboi left Cining Palace in a sour mood.

  The Imperial wedding went smoothly as planned. On the wedding night, Kangxi was delighted to find that his bride was a charming and genteel girl. What pleased him most was that she also happened to be a lover of Chinese poetry and literature like himself. He chatted with her all night long and the two youngsters became good friends instantly.