because someone had to move the valuables. The maids couldn’t go outside the gates without permits. I also suspected members of the royal family. They knew where the valuables were.
As the investigation went on, my suspicions were proven correct. Apparently the concubines had colluded with the eunuchs to split the profits. Ladies Mei, Hui and Li were found to be involved. Hsien Feng was furious, and he ordered them thrown out of their palaces. It was Nuharoo and I who talked him out of his rage. “It is a terrible time to expect nobility from everyone,” we said. “Haven’t we had enough embarrassment?”
Sitting inside the palanquin all day made my joints ache. I thought of the people who were walking on their blisters. After we got out of Peking, the road became bumpier and dustier. We stopped at a village for the night, and I met with Nuharoo. I was surprised by the way she had dressed. She looked like she was going to a party. She carried an ivory fan and a small incense burner. Her robe was made of golden satin embroidered with Buddhist symbols.
For the entire trip Nuharoo wore the same robe. It took me a while to realize that she was more than terrified. “In case we are attacked and I am killed,” she said, “I want to be sure to enter my next life in proper dress.”
It didn’t make sense to me. If we were attacked, her robe would be the first thing anyone would rob. She might end up being naked in her next life. I had heard back in Wuhu that tomb robbers would chop off a dead person’s head for what was around the neck, and hands for what was on the fingers.
I made sure to dress as plainly as possible. Nuharoo told me that my dress, which I took from an elderly maid, disgraced my status. Her words made me feel safer. When I tried to dress Tung Chih the same way, Nuharoo became upset. “For Buddha’s sake, he is the Son of Heaven! How dare you dress him like a beggar!” She took off Tung Chih’s plain cotton robe and changed him into a gold-laced robe, one with symbols that matched hers.
The villagers didn’t know what was going on; the bad news from Peking hadn’t reached them. They certainly couldn’t tell that disaster was near from the way Nuharoo and Tung Chih dressed. They were simply honored that we chose to stop in their village for the night, and served us steaming-hot whole wheat buns and vegetable soup.
Messengers sent by Prince Kung came and went. There was one bit of good news amid all the bad. An influential foreign officer named Parkes, along with another named Loch, had been captured. Prince Kung was using them as leverage for negotiations. The last messenger reported that the Allies had taken the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and Yuan Ming Yuan. “The Allied commander is living in Your Majesty’s bedroom with a Chinese prostitute,” the messenger reported.
His Majesty’s pale face was dripping with sweat. He opened his mouth but was unable to utter a word. A few hours later he coughed up a bolus of blood.
Eighteen
SPEAK!” Emperor Hsien Feng ordered the eunuch who had been in charge of security in Yuan Ming Yuan. The eunuch had been sent by his senior, who had committed suicide after failing in his duty.
“It began on October fifth.” The eunuch made an effort to calm his quavery voice. “It was cloudy in the morning. The palace was quiet and there was no sign that anything was unusual. By noon it started to rain. The guards asked me if they could go inside. I gave them permission. We were all very tired… It was then that I heard the cannons. I thought I was dreaming and so did the guards. One even claimed that he had heard thunder. But in a moment we smelled smoke. A short while later a guard ran to tell us that the barbarians were at the Gate of High Virtue and the Gate of Peace. My senior asked what had happened to General Seng-ko-lin-chin’s troops. The guard answered that the barbarians had captured them… We now knew that we were without protection.
“My senior ordered me to guard the Garden of Happiness, the Garden of Clear Rippling Waters, the Garden of Still Moon, and the Garden of Bright Sunshine while he himself went to guard the Garden of Evergreen and the Garden of June. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do this. How could fewer than a hundred protect gardens that stretched for twenty miles?
“While we rushed to hide the furniture, the barbarians appeared in the garden. I instructed my people to drop the lesser valuables and bury the important ones. But we couldn’t dig fast enough. I buried what I could, including the great clock and the moving universe, and others threw in scrolls.
“As we dragged the bags out, we were confronted by the barbarians. They fired on us. The guards fell one after another. Those who weren’t shot were captured and were later thrown into the lake. The barbarians tied me to the bronze crane near the fountain. They slashed open our bags and were thrilled to discover the treasure. Their pockets were too small to fit everything, so they pulled out Your Majesty’s robes and turned them into sacks. They filled them and hung them around their shoulders and waists. They grabbed what they could take and destroyed what they couldn’t. They fought among themselves over the spoils.
“The barbarians who arrived later tried to move what remained. They dismantled Your Majesty’s astrological bronze animals but not the giant gold jar, which was too heavy to move. Eventually they scraped off all the decorative gold from the columns and beams with knives. The looting continued for two days. The barbarians broke through walls and dug up the grounds.”
“What did they find?” I asked.
“Everything, my lady. I saw one barbarian walk past the fountain wearing your ceremonial robe.”
I tried not to picture the scene as the eunuch went on to describe the ransacking of the rest of Yuan Ming Yuan. But my mind’s eye vividly saw the barbarians marching into the Apricot Village, the Peony Pavilion and the Lotus Leaf Teahouse. I could see their faces glow as they rushed through the golden, richly carved halls of the central buildings. I could see them enter my room and ransack my drawers. I could see them break into my storage chamber where I had hidden my jade, silver and enamel, paintings, embroideries and trinkets.
“… There was too much to take, so the barbarians stripped the marble-sized pearls from Empress Nuharoo’s robes and emptied Her Majesty’s diamond cases…”
“Where was Prince Kung?” Emperor Hsien Feng was sliding off his chair and trying hard to push himself back up.
“Prince Kung was working outside of Peking. He struck a deal with the barbarians by releasing their captured officials, Parkes and Loch. But it was too late to stop the looting. To cover their crime, the foreign devils… Your Majesty, I can’t… say it…” The eunuch crashed to the floor as if he no longer had a spinal cord.
“Say it!”
“Yes, Your Majesty. The devils… set fire…”
Emperor Hsien Feng shut his eyes. He struggled for breath. His neck twisted as if it was in the grip of a ghost.
On October 13, the barbarians set fire to more than two hundred pavilions, halls and temples, and the grounds of five palaces. The flames consumed everything. Smoke and ash were carried by the wind over the walls. An acrid dense cloud hung above the city, eventually settling in people’s hair, eyes, clothes, beds and bowls. Nothing survived in Yuan Ming Yuan except the marble pagoda and the stone bridge. Among the thousands of acres of gardens, the only building left standing was the Pavilion of Precious Clouds, high on a hill above the lake.
I would later learn from Prince Kung about the “thunder-like sound” people described. It was not the sound of thunder but of explosives. The British Royal Engineers had placed dynamite charges in many of our pavilions.
For the rest of my life, my mind would return to this scene of magnificence suddenly transformed into crumbling piles of masonry. Miles and miles of flames swallowing six thousand dwellings-the palace of my body and soul, along with treasures and works of art collected by generations of emperors.
Hsien Feng had to live with this shame, which eventually ate him up. In my old age, whenever I tired of working or thought of quitting, I would go and visit the ruins of Yuan Ming Yuan. The moment I stepped among the broken stones, I could hear the barbarians cheering. The image would choke me as if the smoke still hung in the air.
A brassy sun peered down upon the moving festival. We continued our long journey to Jehol. I was bitter and sad when I thought about my husband’s “hunting” excuse. In marvelous clothing the ministers and princes were borne in richly decorated palanquins on the shoulders of toiling bearers while guards patrolled on Mongolian ponies.
The chanting of the chair bearers had been replaced by a deep and tortured silence. I no longer heard the slap and slither of sandaled feet over the loose stones. Instead I saw the pain from blisters etched into the lines of grimy
