The Last Empress: The She-Dragon of China (20 page)

Li Hung-chang avoided contact with Gordon for over two months, at the same time meticulously sending all pay and equipment the mercenary force required. Gordon was mollified, and via the good offices of the slight, dapper Irishman Robert Hart (who was then in charge of Imperial Customs, and well-thought-of by both Chinese and foreign diplomats) a reconciliation was effected. But Li was still wary; the Ever-Victorious Army could be a thorn in the flesh of the Manchus were they to change sides, and Gordon’s ‘bad temper suddenly comes and goes, I do not know whether there will be any change later on’. Li was adamant that, as soon as the rebellion posed no threat, Gordon would be relieved of command and the mercenary force disbanded.

He did not have long to wait. By 1863, the Tai Ping had been split into three main groups, centred on Hangzhou, Changchou and Nanking, where the Heavenly King had been besieged along with two hundred thousand defenders for several years. The Imperial strategy was to pick off each area separately. Hangzhou was the first to fall, and as the area around the city succumbed to the Imperial advance, Gordon was wounded in the leg during mopping up operations against the insurgents at the town of Chin-t’an. Echoes of the death of Ward must have tormented Li Hung-chang when the news was first reported, but fortunately the wound was slight.

The defence of the Tai Ping western territories now hinged upon Changchou, and the battle for the city was desperate. Li recorded that while the rebels were initially awed by the European artillery used against them, they now understood that ‘although the artillery is able to blow up strong defences, the troops climbing over the walls can be obstinately resisted...there are approximately one hundred thousand brigands in Changchou...the violent bands of Guangdong [Canton] and Guangxi are suicide troops of long experience...’. Li doubted that the fight for Changchou would be costly, and at first, on 26th April, he wrote of his hopes to starve the rebels out rather than mount a frontal assault. But less than two weeks later, he agreed to an attack and surprisingly the city fell after just five hours of ferocious street-fighting. The Canton and Guangxi die-hards were exterminated to a man, with the approval of Gordon, who asked quarter only for those Tai Ping conscripts who were willing to surrender. Li agreed.

The fall of Changchou was effectively the end of the Tai Ping revolt. Although Nanking still held out, the rebels there were in no position to mount offensive actions. They could do no more than repulse the incessant attacks on the city and bay their defiance at the encircling Imperial troops. Li judged it time to disband the Ever-Victorious Army, and Gordon, his mission to suppress the rebellion achieved (and perhaps weary of the enormous blood-letting that was a characteristic of Chinese warfare) agreed. Demobilisation was effected quickly, with the Chinese giving generous bonuses (up to four thousand dollars) to the one hundred and four foreign officers who had commanded the force, several of whom had been severely wounded. A few foreigners were retained to drill Chinese recruits, but within a few short weeks the Ever-Victorious Army, one of the greatest and romantic ‘free companies’ the world has seen, had simply ceased to be.
¹³

Gordon’s reward was commensurate with his status. The year before, Yehonala decreed that he be rewarded for his services with ten thousand ounces of silver, but with characteristic distaste for lucre, Gordon had declined. This had left a great impression on all the Chinese, from the Empress Dowager down. Via the trusted intermediary, Robert Hart, Gordon let it be known that he served China not for money, but ‘only to win a good name’. Yehonala was much taken with the Englishman’s heroic attitude and, on Li Hung-chang’s personal recommendation, she granted Gordon his wish and bestowed upon the foreigner the coveted Yellow Jacket, the highest of military distinctions. Gordon was immensely proud of the award, which placed him in the highest echelons of Chinese society. He wrote to his mother in England that the ‘country is clear of rebels, and the Imperialists are quite able to be left to themselves. I may say the Chinese government have conferred upon me the highest military rank and the yellow jacket, a distinction conferred on not more than twenty other mandarins [Gordon obviously considered himself one of China’s scholar-gentlemen] in the empire and which constitutes the recipient as one of the emperor’s bodyguard.’ With the good name he had craved, Gordon left the Middle Kingdom to be lionised in English and European society as ‘Chinese Gordon’ until his heroic death at Khartoum in 1885 eclipsed the memory of his Chinese adventures in Europe–though not in China, where even today his memory is honoured.

This left only Nanking, the old, high-walled southern capital of the Empire, held by the Tai Ping Heavenly King since 1853, which, for reasons of national pride, Yehonala and the Manchu elite were insistent should be taken only by Chinese troops.

The situation inside the Tai Ping capital was desperate. The city had been under siege for over two years, the food supply was almost exhausted, and the defenders were reduced to one meagre meal a day. Despite this, Hung Hsui-chuan, the ‘Heavenly King’ and the root and origin of this huge conflict that had destroyed so many millions of lives, continued to act as if victory for his forces was assured and imminent. According to one account, when informed of the lack of food in the city, the Heavenly King ‘caused roots and leaves to be kneaded and rolled into pellets, which he had served out to his immediate followers, the rebel chiefs, saying, ‘This is manna from heaven; for a long time we in the Palace have eaten nothing else’. He gave orders that every household should collect ten loads of this stuff for storage in the palace granaries; some of the more ignorant people obeyed the order, but most of the rebels ignored it. Apparently immune to reality, on one tour of the defences the Heavenly King distributed pearls to his starving men. They wept in hopeless frustration. Pearls could not be eaten.

The account of the Loyal Prince Li Hsiu-cheng (who had successfully fought his way to the Tai Ping capital from Suzhou) reveals the atmosphere within the Heavenly King’s palace as utterly delusional. When he first arrived in Nanking, Li requested a conference with his leader to discuss the danger they faced. But the ‘Younger Brother of Jesus’ would not listen to talk of strategy, preferring to retreat into his visions which, he was adamant, had guaranteed him victory. He boasted that ‘The Most High Father has issued to me his sacred decree. God the father, and my Divine elder brother [i.e. Christ] have commanded me...to become the one true lord of all nations. What cause have I then to fear? Remain with me, or leave me, as you choose...I have at my command an angelic host of a million strong: how then could a hundred thousand or so of these unholy Imperialists enter the city?
^’14
Hearing this nonsense, the Loyal Prince, the most faithful of the Heavenly King’s supporters, finally realised his folly. He burst into tears and fled the council chamber.

Despite his vain boasting, as the Manchu battalions pressed ever more strongly upon the city defences, bombarding the walls and mining beneath them, even the Heavenly King came to realise that there could be only one outcome to the siege. On the 27th day of the 5th Moon (12th May 1864), he mixed poison with his wine. How his thoughts must have raced as he reviewed the last thirteen eventful years: from failed scholar to the Emperor of the southern half of the Middle Kingdom! And now it was ending. Holding the poisoned chalice aloft, he cried, ‘It is not God the Father that has deceived me, but it is I who have disobeyed God the Father’. Given the great fall from his early ideals of justice and equality in a Kingdom of Heavenly Peace to a gold- and jewel-bedecked ‘Emperor’ who presided over inequalities as great as anything in Manchu China, Hung Hsui-chuan’s final words are not without merit. He quaffed the cup in a single draught, but if Hung sought a speedy exit from this world he was to be disappointed. The poison was slow-acting and he lingered in agony until midnight. His immediate followers, fearful of a total collapse of morale among the defenders, buried his body in the palace grounds and tried to suppress any knowledge of his death. As the Heavenly King held himself in Emperor-like seclusion, this ruse was successful for some sixteen days. When the news did finally leak out, far from depressing the fighting spirit of the surviving Tai Ping troops it seems if anything to have strengthened their resolve to defend Nanking to the death.

At dawn on the 22nd July 1864 the final assault on Nanking was made. A huge mine was detonated, creating a sixty-yard breach in the walls, through which the Imperial army surged, sweeping away all opposition. The rebels exploded a magazine, killing many Imperialists and beginning a panic-stricken retreat which was only contained when the Manchu officers shot or cut down those leading the rout. By late afternoon it was obvious that the city had been won. Even so, not a single rebel surrendered voluntarily–all were either slain, or ‘buried themselves alive rather than be taken’, a fate chosen by the Heavenly King’s own son. Some few were overpowered after hard fighting, among them the wounded Loyal Prince, and two elder brothers of the rebel King. The latter pair seemed completely disorientated ‘and could only repeat incessantly ‘God the Father, God the Father’’. As I could get no information from them, and as they were sick unto death, I had them both beheaded...’.
¹⁵

The grave of the Heavenly King was discovered by Tseng Guo-feng and the body exhumed: ‘Even the feet of the corpse were wrapped in dragon embroideries,’ he reported to Yehonala, ‘he had a bald head and a beard streaked with grey.’ Tseng had the head of the decaying corpse removed and the trunk and limbs burned on a large bonfire. The Heavenly King’s severed head was fastened to a long pole and carried around the provinces he had conquered during the rebellion, officially ‘to assuage public indignation’ but also, it seems, to prove to the populace that Hung was truly dead, and to prevent any Tai Ping propaganda that he had escaped and would return to wreak vengeance on the Manchu.

Yehonala had ordered Tseng Guo-feng to bring the Loyal Prince, Li Hsiu-cheng, in an open cage to Beijing, where she had intended to display him publicly before his execution. However, Tseng had had several conversations with the rebel leader, and seems to have been favourably impressed with his prisoner. Tseng asked the Loyal Prince to write an account of the rebellion in his own words (an account which still survives, and gives a unique perspective on a popular rising–the losing side are rarely allowed a voice).
¹⁶
In a memorial to Yehonala, Tseng Guo-feng mentions that the Loyal Prince had advised the Manchu not to be too hard on the rebellious soldiery of Canton and Guangxi, the provinces at the heart of the insurrection. Such action would only produce even greater animosity towards the Dynasty, and foment further rebellions. Tseng concluded: ‘It seems to me there is much sense in his advice.’ He also noted the high prestige that the Loyal Prince was held in by the rank and file of the rebellion, and more worryingly by the ordinary peasants. ‘I feel that there would be some risk of Li starving himself to death on the journey, or that a rescue might even be attempted, for Li was extraordinarily popular with the common people.’ So worried was Tseng that, as soon as the prisoner had completed his history of the revolt, and directly against Yehonala’s orders, he immediately had the Loyal Prince beheaded.

The fall of the Tai Ping did much to enhance Yehonala’s status. In the mind of the ordinary people, the beginning of her reign (for no one in China was under any illusion who held the whip hand within the Forbidden City) was forever associated with the return of peace and good governance. Moreover, it had been Yehonala who had supported the promotion of Tseng Guo-feng, the generalissimo who had finally put paid to the thirteen year rebellion. With such an auspicious beginning, many were willing to turn a blind eye to the manner in which she had come to power.

One person now stood between Yehonala and the total, absolute power she craved–her erstwhile ally and would-be mentor, Prince Kung. While the Tai Ping rebellion still raged, strategy demanded the maintenance of at least the appearance of amity between these two rival personalities. But with the end of the rebellion, Yehonala’s hands were no longer tied.

Prince Kung was about to discover that his position and privileges were entirely dependent upon the goodwill of the young concubine he had helped make the most powerful female in the realm.

Just nine months after the fall of Nanking, and while mopping up operations against the rump of the Tai Ping still continued, Yehonala struck. During one of his regular discussions with the Emperor and the two Empresses Dowager, Prince Kung rose from his knees before the audience had ended. This was forbidden by long custom, as a precaution to prevent assassination of the sovereign. Prince Kung was therefore,
sensu strictu
, in the wrong. It may have been absent-mindedness, or a belief that his undoubted loyalty allowed him privileges denied to others, but Yehonala saw her chance and took it. She yelled wildly for aid, screaming treachery and ordering the palace guards to remove the Prince. Shocked and angry, he was hustled from the audience chamber. Retribution was swift; an Imperial decree in the name of the Empresses Regent stripped the Prince of all his titles and positions, accusing him of attempting to usurp the authority of the throne. However, it was the genius of Yehonala that, a month later, Prince Kung had been rehabilitated and all but one of his honours restored. This was done by way of a ‘Decree of Explanation’ in which Yehonala–and nominally Sakota–restated her reasons for punishing the Prince, but explained the measure as a device simply to chastise him for his arrogance, and to save him from himself! As this laudable end had now been accomplished, and following a deluge of memorials requesting that the Prince be pardoned for his errors, the decree stated that the Emperor (for which read his mother) was not averse to reconciliation.

The message was clear. Just as medieval European Popes claimed the right to make and unmake kings, Yehonala now considered herself the source and origin of all titles and honours within the Middle Kingdom. And the price demanded from both Pope and Empress was the same–unquestioning loyalty. If Yehonala could destroy Prince Kung in a moment, what might she do to lesser men?