taking the picture books away, he fought with me.
Tung Chih was willing to do anything to get away from me. First he pretended to be sick in order to avoid his classes. When I caught him, Nuharoo would come to his defense. She even secretly ordered Doctor Sun Pao-tien to lie about the “fever” that kept him out of school.
If this was the way we prepared Tung Chih to be the next emperor, the dynasty was doomed. I decided to take the matter into my own hands. In my eyes, the situation was of national significance. All I knew was that my time was running out.
Every day I escorted my son to his tutors and then waited outside until the classes were over. Nuharoo was upset that I didn’t trust her, but I was too angry to worry about her feelings. I wanted to change Tung Chih before it was too late.
Tung Chih knew how to play Nuharoo and me off each other. He knew that I couldn’t deny his visiting Nuharoo, so he went as often as he could, to make me jealous. Unfortunately I fell into his trap. And he continued to cause trouble in school. One day he pulled out the rabbit-toothed tutor’s two longest eyebrow hairs. He knew full well that the old man regarded them as his “longevity sign.” The man was so crushed, he was seized by a stroke and sent home for good. Nuharoo saw the incident as a comedy. I didn’t agree, and intended to punish my son for his cruelty.
The court replaced the old tutor with a new one, but he was fired by his student the first day on the job. Tung Chih’s stated reason was that the man farted during lessons. He charged the tutor with “disrespect for the Son of Heaven.” The man was whipped. Upon hearing this, Nuharoo praised Tung Chih for “acting like a true ruler,” while I was shattered.
The more I pressed, the worse Tung Chih rebelled. Instead of supporting me, the court asked Nuharoo to “watch over” my “outrageous behavior.” I wondered if Su Shun was behind it. Tung Chih now had no problem talking back to me in front of the eunuchs and the maids. He was good with words. Sometimes he sounded too sophisticated for a five-year-old. He would say, “How low of you to deny my nature!” or “I am an endowed animal!” or “It’s wrong for you to put me to sleep in order to play the tamer!”
I had heard the same from Nuharoo: “Allow Tung Chih to journey forth, Lady Yehonala” and “He is a traveler who understands the universe. He thinks not of himself, but of the voyage, of dreams and of the soul of the Buddha’s spirituality” and “Throw your keys to the winds, and leave his cage open!”
I began to doubt her intentions. There had always been something perverse about her approach to Tung Chih. No matter what he did, she was always the loving one. I realized that unless I stopped Nuharoo, I wouldn’t be able to stop Tung Chih. For me the struggle had turned into a battle to save my son. I spent days thinking about how to talk to her. I wanted to be firm about my intentions without injuring her pride. I wanted her to understand that I appreciated her affection for Tung Chih, but she had to learn to discipline him.
To my surprise, Nuharoo came to me before I went to her. She was dressed casually in an ivory gown. She brought fresh lotus flowers as a gift. She complained about my restrictions on Tung Chih’s diet. She insisted that he was too thin. I explained that I had no problem with his eating more, but that his diet must be balanced. I told her that Tung Chih sat for hours on the chamber pot without producing a single turd.
“I don’t see it as a problem,” Nuharoo said. “Children take their time when it comes to the potty.”
“The children of peasants never have that problem,” I argued. “They eat plenty of roughage.”
“But Tung Chih is no peasant’s child. It is insulting to make that comparison.” Nuharoo’s expression turned cold. “It is only right that Tung Chih follow the Imperial diet.”
I had personally hired a chef to prepare healthful meals, but Tung Chih complained to Nuharoo that the chef had served him rotten shrimp, giving him cramps. No one except Nuharoo believed the lie. However, to please Tung Chih, she fired the chef.
I had to restrain myself from fighting openly with Nuharoo. I made a decision to concentrate on Tung Chih’s studies first. Every morning I took a whip and escorted Tung Chih to his tutor.
He was being taught about the celestial globe. I asked the tutor for a copy of the text and said to my son that I would test him myself after he finished the lesson.
As I expected, Tung Chih couldn’t recall a word of what he had learned. He had just come from school and we were about to eat our dinner. I ordered his meal to be removed and took him by the hand. As we left I picked up the whip. I took him to a small shed in the back garden, away from the main halls and apartments. I told Tung Chih that he would not be released until he recited the full text.
He let out a loud cry to see if anyone would come to his rescue. I had prepared for this. An-te-hai had been told to keep the tutors away, and I had expressly ordered that no one inform Nuharoo of Tung Chih’s whereabouts.
“‘In very early times,’” I said, to start my son off. “Begin.”
Tung Chih sobbed and pretended not to hear.
I grabbed the whip and lifted my arm so that its length danced before him.
He started to recite. “‘In very early times, there were four huge star patterns in the starry sky. Along the Yellow River there were figures of animals…’”
“Go on. ‘A dragon…’”
“‘A dragon, a tortoise with a snake, a tiger and a bird, which rises up and then sets down…’” He shook his head and said that he didn’t remember the next line.
“Start over and read it again!”
He opened his textbook but stumbled over the words.
I read to him. “‘… One after another, arcing around the north celestial pole, flows an asterism called the Northern Dipper.’”
“This is too hard,” he complained, and threw down the text.
I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “This is for a spoiled boy who lives without laws and without any thought of the consequences!” I lifted him off the floor and stripped away his robe. I raised my arm and let the whip fall.
A clear red line settled on his little behind.
Tung Chih screamed.
My tears fell, but I struck again. I had to force myself to continue. I had let him run loose for too long. This was my punishment and my last chance.
“How dare you whip me!” His expression was incredulous. The little eyebrows met in the center of his frightened face. “No one hits the son of the Emperor!”
I whipped harder. “This is to make you hear the sound of foreign cannons. This is to make you read the treaties!” I felt the collapsing of an emotional dam. An invisible arrow shot through my head. Choking, I continued, “This… is… to make you look your father in the face… I want you to know how he turned into a hollow man.”
As if acting under its own power, the whip changed direction. Instead of landing on Tung Chih, it landed on me. The sound was loud and crisp. Like a hot snake, the leather wrapped around my body, leaving its bloody trace with every slap.
Intoxicated by the spectacle, Tung Chih fell silent.
Exhaustion overwhelmed me and I collapsed and hugged my knees to my chest. I cried because Hsien Feng wouldn’t be alive to educate his son; I cried because I couldn’t see myself raising Tung Chih properly with Nuharoo standing between us; I cried because I heard my son shouting that he hated me and that he couldn’t wait for Nuharoo to punish me; and I cried because deep down I was disappointed in myself and, more fearfully, I didn’t know what else to do.
I continued with the lesson as I held the whip high. “Answer me, Tung Chih. What does the dragon signify?”
“The dragon signifies a transformation,” the terrified little man replied.
“Of what?”
“What ‘what’?”
“A transformation of…?”
“Transformation of… of a fish. It is about the fish’s ability to leap over a dam.”
“That’s correct. That was what made the fish a dragon.” I put down the whip. “It was about the effort it made against a monstrous obstacle. It was about the heroic leaping action it took. Its bones were broken and its scales scraped away. It could have died from the effort, but it didn’t give in. That was what set it apart from the ordinary fish.”
