My Splendid Concubine

by Lofthouse, Lloyd

  Robert and Prince Kung reached the footbridge on the far side of the lake from the Nine Dragon Screen. The bridge led to the Jade Flowery Islet in the middle of the lake. Once across, they climbed the stairs toward the White Dagoba. “Did you know that before this Tibetan dagoba was built in 1651, Kublai Khan had his palace here?”

  “I heard he met Marco Polo in that palace,” Robert replied.

  Kung stopped. He signaled the servants and guards to take a few steps back. Robert and Kung looked toward the Five Dragon Pavilions lined along the far shore of the lake.

  “If it hadn’t been for your suggestion that I go to Jehol, Su Shun would have succeeded,” Prince Kung said. “You are truly ‘Our Hart’.” Kung put a hand on Robert’s arm and squeezed affectionately as only a friend or relative would do.

  He didn’t know what to say. He was overwhelmed with emotion and tears filled his eyes. He blinked them away knowing then that he would probably be the only Westerner Prince Kung would ever trust.

  “You should also know that Minister Wen-hsiang followed your directions about the thefts inside the Forbidden City. He took special care recruiting the young boys that will search the city. He is very hopeful.”

  In the end, Su Shun was beheaded in public in Peking’s vegetable market on Greengrocer Street. The public notification of the date for his execution was posted everywhere.

  Out of curiosity, Robert went to watch. Knowing a Chinese merchant who lived there, he took precautions. The bottom floor was a warehouse, and the top floor was where the merchant lived with his family.

  He’d met the merchant in a bath and teahouse near the Yamen. Their conversations led to several invitations for dinner. Not wanting to risk being stoned again, Robert arrived early. The day of the execution was a bright, sunny day, and crowds stuffed the streets.

  “Many of these people camped here last night to secure the best viewing spots,” the merchant said. “They are acting as if this were a festival. Look at the street venders selling treats.”

  Robert peered in safety from behind a latticed, second-floor window and saw children sitting in the trees, on walls and roofs. When the cart that caged Su Shun like a beast rolled past, people spit at him. Even from the window, Robert saw Su Shun’s face dripping with saliva.

  He had seen the same thing near General Yue Fei’s tomb. There were four-life sized, kneeling iron statues with hands tied behind their backs inside a fenced area. These statues represented the ministers that lied and turned the emperor against the general. People visited daily and spit on those statues to insult men dead seven centuries.

  The platform where the executioner waited was within sight. It took the executioner one stroke and Su Shun’s head was off, but it did not roll away. Robert watched in horror as the head swung back and forth attached to the body by a thin strip of skin at the front of the neck. He lost his appetite and trembled. If Su Shun had won, that could be him or Prince Kung down there.

  “They say that Su Shun’s family bribed the executioner with enough money to insure that the head and body were still connected by a strip of skin,” the merchant said.

  “But why?” Robert asked. “You would think they would need that money now that he’s dead.”

  “It is considered bad luck in the next life if you arrive missing any parts and one of the most important is the head.”

  As he watched the body being carried away, he recalled that Su Shun had been one breath away from being the guardian of the young emperor and the regent of China. Prince Kung had said that if he had succeeded in assassinating Empress Tzu Hsi, he would have eventually set himself on the Dragon Throne as the emperor.

  With the removal of Su Shun, Prince Kung, in a partnership with the two empresses, was the power behind the child emperor.

  Robert believed that it was his responsibility to produce a reliable, steady source of income for the Dynasty, so China would not only survive but also modernize and prosper.

  Even with Su Shun and his Iron Hats out of the picture, it wasn’t going to be easy making the changes. He had a vague idea how he could make that happen but knew it might take decades.

  Chapter 46

  After Su Shun’s execution, Robert drafted his proposal to solve the Dynasty’s money problems. He hoped Prince Kung and his cabinet would accept them. With a six-year-old emperor, most of the power belonged to Kung then the dowager empresses.

  Robert slept only when he was too tired to think. Often, he would nod off holding the pen to wake and find a blot of dried ink obliterating what he had written. He wished Guan-jiah had been there to grind the ink so the eunuch would be there to take the pen when Robert fell asleep.

  The floor became littered with discarded drafts. After he finished the English version, he translated that into Chinese. It was difficult. Keeping in mind the Chinese way of thinking, every sentence had to be a masterpiece.

  This caused headaches, and his stomach churned. He gripped the pen so hard at times his hand ached. He couldn’t afford to make one mistake with the Chinese characters. Every stroke had to be exact.

  He imagined Ayaou saying, “It will not be easy, Robert. There will be resistance everywhere you go. The imperials are cut off from reality inside the walls of the Forbidden City. They do not know what is going on in China. Everything they hear is filtered like tea through a sieve.”

  She was right, and his proposals might be rejected. After all, his ideas would upset the way things had been done for centuries. Even with the Iron Hats dead or stripped of their power, there were still conservative governors in the provinces that Shu Shun had appointed in the name of the emperor.

  China’s government was decentralized. The provincial governors ruled as if they were kings and had their own armies and tax collectors. To rule a province, all a governor had to do was pay the emperor a set rent. Any provincial taxes collected beyond that amount, the governor kept.

  If Robert’s plan was accepted, it meant the governors were going to lose a source of revenue. The silver and gold from foreign duties was going to pour into The Forbidden City’s treasury instead of to the provincial governors. Although the domestic trade was left untouched, the governors would not be happy with this.

  Before the end of October, Robert completed The Regulations of Trade throughout the Ports of the Yangtze River. He proposed that all foreign merchants entering inland China by water pay a tax in Shanghai first. The regulations also insisted that the merchants pay half the tax before leaving China with their goods.

  He planned to have his employees implement the same standards in every treaty port. As it stood now, each port operated under different rules depending on the local governor and the influence of the Chinese and foreign merchants.

  If the governors and merchants knew what he was up to, they would stop at nothing to discredit him and remove him from his position as Acting Inspector General. There might even attempt to have him assassinated.

  The day Robert turned the proposed regulations over to Prince Kung was a day he could not focus on work. He tried, but the idea that he might hear ‘no’ haunted him.

  The imperial cabinet knew about the power of the merchants, both foreign and domestic, and some imperial ministers were probably in the pay of people like Patridge.

  In addition, it was possible that the provincial governors would refuse to cooperate. There would be pressure to keep things the same. After all, many had become rich and powerful because of the old system. Upsetting the proverbial apple cart would ruffle feathers. The more he thought about it, the more he believed he was going to fail.

  Days went by as Robert waited. It would have been easier if Ayaou had been with him. When he was under stress, she calmed him. Her methods were amazing. If sex wouldn’t do it, she’d get him to discuss poetry or drag him to a play. Once, she had given him a lesson on ink painting then declared he had no talent.

  Highly agitated and not to be undone when his proposal was rejected as he expected, he started drafting another plan.<
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  The door to his office creaked and drifted open. That was odd. His men always knocked. Thinking the worst, Robert pulled open the drawer where he kept his pistol and rested a hand on it.

  Prince Kung stepped the room. Robert took his hand from the drawer and closed it while trying to read the expression on Kung’s face, but true to form, the prince gave nothing away.

  With a sinking feeling, he noticed that the prince’s hands were empty. What had happened to the Regulations of Trade? Had it been burned or worse? He shuddered, thinking of all the work he had put into drafting that proposal.

  He nodded and Prince Kung mirrored him. Servants arrived with tea and sliced fruit with the skin removed. Robert and Kung settled into chairs to drink and make small talk while Robert fought the hive of curious bees swarming inside his head.

  Finally, an hour later, the moment of reckoning arrived. He felt it in the air as the topic they had been discussing drifted to a conclusion. This had to be how a man convicted of a capital crime felt before the verdict was announced.

  Would it be life or death?

  “Robert,” Prince Kung said, “your ideas and proposals for regulating trade in China were—” Prince Kung paused to cover his mouth. He coughed politely then sipped tea. “I apologize. The discussion was long and loud. My throat is raw.” His eyes shifted to the sliced fruit. He picked up a piece of apple. “This should help.”

  It was a challenge for Robert to hold his tongue and look calm while Kung chewed the slice of apple. Was the news so bad that even Kung was having trouble delivering it? Robert’s stomach filled with dread. How was he going to do his job if he couldn’t collect those taxes?

  When Kung finished the apple, his eyes were smiling. “Your plans were excellent and practical. My cabinet praised them to the emperor’s ministers. The agreement for your proposal was unanimous. We thank you for producing a plan that will go far in saving China.”

  Had he heard correctly? He sensed that there was more. He imagined the blade coming down.

  “Robert, it reads as if a Chinese wrote it. Did you have help?”

  Robert took a breath and relaxed. “No. I wrote every word.” Despite how excited he was, he would not reveal his emotions. If Kung acted inscrutable so could he.

  He wanted to tell the prince that some credit should go to Ayaou and Shao-mei, but he knew Kung would never accept that. Women in China received little or no credit for anything they did. Robert was sure that Kung had consulted with the dowager empresses, but he had not mentioned it.

  The truth was that without Ayaou’s insights and what he had learned from her and Shao-mei during his early years in Ningpo, Robert would have never come up with language tailor-designed to fit the culture and traditions of China. Until this moment, he hadn’t been confident in his written Chinese. This felt as if he had passed an important examination.

  A month later, Robert was angry. He had known it wouldn’t be easy to change the way import and export taxes were collected in China from foreign merchants. However, he had not expected it to be this difficult and endanger the lives of his people.

  The first warning arrived from his agent in Hankow. “Kuan-wen, the governor general, doesn’t accept the regulations of trade that you have set up along the Yangtze River,” the agent wrote.

  “We haven’t been able to do anything since we arrived and moved into our offices. We fear being seen on the streets. If it were not for our loyal Chinese servants risking their lives to go out and buy food, we’d starve.

  “Kuan-wen has sent proposals to the emperor in an attempt to change the regulations. He has also gained the support of other governors. They have repeatedly rejected our requests to open offices in ports along the river.”

  Robert decided to confront Kuan-wen himself and went to Prince Kung with the idea.

  “That will not be wise,” Kung said. “Kuan-wen was appointed by Su Shun.”

  He knew that Ayaou would have agreed with the prince. “I have no choice,” Robert replied. “If the regulations of trade along the Yangtze are going to work, I must have cooperation from the governors.”

  “You would be risking your life. Send someone else. You do not see any of the imperial princes rushing off to solve these problems. We send generals and armies to do our work.”

  “I am one of your generals.”

  Prince Kung’s face froze as he stared at Robert for a moment. Then he nodded. “But you do not have an army.”

  “I will not go unarmed. I will have my pistol.”

  Kung raised an eyebrow. “I can see that you are determined.”

  “If I cannot establish the system that you and the council have approved through the name of the emperor, I will not be able to raise the money you expect.”

  “I see,” Kung replied. “Then you will be accompanied by a dozen bannermen. I will have General Jung Lu pick them himself. Their lives will depend on seeing that Our Hart returns still breathing.”

  In early November, before Robert set out on his journey to the river port of Hankow in Hupeh Province, he had no idea what he was going to face.

  “How dangerous can a journey upriver be?” he asked. He was in his office talking to his assistant, Henry. “Surely, you exaggerate. It can’t be that dangerous. Since I arrived in China, I have survived pirates, Taipings, assassins, kidnapers, mercenaries, and a rebel rocket that almost hit me in Canton during the Arrow War. I will survive this too. Besides, I’m going to travel from Shanghai by water. That is less risk than going overland.”

  “I still don’t like it, Inspector General,” Henry replied. “It will be risky.”

  “I’m not worried. Why should you be?”

  “The Taipings control much of the Yangtze,” Henry said. “We can’t afford to lose you. Send me instead.”

  “No, Kuan-wen won’t listen to anyone else. We already have agents there. They are afraid for their lives and are in hiding. We are getting nowhere. If there is to be progress, governor Kuan-wen must cooperate. I don’t see how he can refuse. After all, I serve the emperor the same as he does. I am the Acting Inspector General of Chinese Maritime Customs. The governor must hear me out.”

  “Just because you serve the emperor, doesn’t mean Kuan-wen does. I believe he serves his interests first.”

  “No matter. If he proves disloyal to the new emperor, he may lose his head.”

  “The emperor would have to send an army to replace him. To get there, they would have to fight through the Taipings first, since they are between Hankow and Shanghai.”

  “I am going anyway. We cannot have progress without risk.”

  “The price might not be worth it.”

  “Enough,” Robert said. “I’ll hear no more protests.”

  That night, Robert wrote a last will and testament leaving half of his money in the care of Guan-jiah with instructions to support Ayaou and Anna. The other half was to go to his family in Ireland. He was confident that he could depend on Guan-jiah.

  “Henry,” he said the following morning. “If something happens to me, I trust that I can depend on you to see that my wishes are carried out.” He handed the papers to his assistant.

  “That will not happen, Inspector General.”

  “But if it does—”

  “I will see that it is done.”

  It took a week to make the arrangements. Robert used his Chinese friend Wang Dewie to find boats with captains he could depend on. The merchant owned the house off Greengrocer Street where Robert had witnessed Su Shun’s execution, and the captain of the first boat was his cousin.

  After departing Shanghai, Robert sailed through a zone controlled by the Taipings. While passing Nanking, a large group of rebels, at least a hundred, came alongside and demanded that the boat stop for an inspection.

  The captain hid Robert and his guards in a cabin below the waterline. It was stuffy in that oven of a room. Robert handed the captain a purse filled with yuan to help pay a bribe if needed.

  If the Taipings discovered
him and his bodyguards in that cramped cabin, they would be slaughtered, and the captain could lose his head. There would be no way to defend themselves in that cramped, coffin shaped space. He remembered that time in Ningpo when the Cantonese pirates set fire to that lorcha filled with Portuguese pirates. He slipped his hand into his pocket resolved that if that happened, he’d shoot himself before the fire reached him.

  His guards stood between him and the door and all were willing to die. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. The air grew thicker and was difficult to breathe. Robert sweated rivers and his clothing was soaked. He saw that his escort was in the same condition. Nevertheless, they stayed alert with hands on weapons watching the door.

  At one point, the Taipings were outside the cabin in the narrow hall. Robert pressed his ear to the bulkhead to hear. With his heart beating like a loud drum, he listened to them talking to the boat’s captain.

  The Taipings would pay handsomely for Robert’s head. He hoped this cousin of merchant Wang could be trusted. He felt sorry for his friend. If he died because of Wang’s cousin, the merchant would feel responsible and be riddled with guilt. He might take his life due to the loss of face.

  Robert sighed in relief when the voices moved away. An hour later, the boat was underway again. He did not ask for the yuan back. The captain offered, but Robert refused.

  “Your family needs this more than I do. Besides, you risked your life for me today.”

  “It is an honor to serve you, Inspector General. The Longhaired Bandits are not China. They are a plague on all our houses.”

  Kuan-wen received Robert in the audience hall inside his palace compound. The room was large and voices echoed. The floor was white marble. The structure was wood. The roof was tile. Heavily armed Chinese soldiers in battle armor stood along the walls. It was a show meant to intimidate.

  When Robert started to speak in perfect Mandarin, the governor’s face showed surprise.