The Beginning

In 1852, a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl from an important but impoverished family of the Yehonala clan arrived in Peking as a minor concubine to the young Emperor, Hsien Feng. Tzu Hsi, known as Orchid as a girl, was one among hundreds of concubines whose sole purpose was to bear the Emperor a son.

It was not a good time to enter the Forbidden City, a vast complex of palaces and gardens run by thousands of eunuchs and encircled by a wall in the center of Peking. The Ch’ing Dynasty was losing its vitality and the court had become an insular, xenophobic place. A few decades earlier, China had lost the first Opium War, and it had done little since to strengthen its defenses or improve its diplomatic ties to other nations.

Within the walls of the Forbidden City the consequences of a misstep were often deadly. As one of hundreds of women vying for the attention of the Emperor, Orchid discovered that she must take matters into her own hands. After training herself in the art of pleasing a man, she risked everything by bribing her way into the royal bedchamber and seducing the monarch. Hsien Feng was a troubled man, but for a time their love was passionate and genuine, and soon she had the great fortune to bear him his only son and heir. Elevated to the rank of Empress, Orchid still had to struggle to maintain her position as the Emperor took new lovers. The right to raise her own child, who was under the control of Empress Nuharoo, the Emperor’s senior wife, was constantly at issue.

The invasion by Britain, France, and Russia in 1860, and the subsequent occupation of Peking, forced the Chinese court into exile in the distant hunting reserve of Jehol, beyond the Great Wall. There the humiliating news of the harsh terms for peace contributed to the decline of the Emperor’s health. With the death of Hsien Feng came a palace coup, which Orchid helped to foil with the help of her brother-in-law Prince Kung and General Yung Lu. The handsome Yung Lu reignited romantic feelings in the still young Orchid, but in her new position of power there was little opportunity for a personal life. As coregent with Empress Nuharoo until her son’s maturity, Empress Orchid was at the beginning of a long and tumultuous reign that would last into the next century.

1

Mother’s eyes were closed when she died. But a moment later they cracked open and remained open.

“Your Majesty, please hold the eyelids and try your best to close them,” Doctor Sun Pao-tien instructed.

My hands trembled as I tried.

Rong, my sister, said that Mother meant to close her eyes. She had waited for me for too long. Mother did not want to interrupt my audience.

“Try not to trouble people” was Mother’s philosophy. She would have been disappointed to know that she needed help to close her eyes. I wished that I could disregard Nuharoo’s order and bring my son to bid a final goodbye. “It shouldn’t matter that Tung Chih is the Emperor of China,” I would have argued. “He is my mother’s grandson first.”

I turned to my brother, Kuei Hsiang, and asked if Mother had left any words for me.

“Yes.” Kuei Hsiang nodded, stepping back to stand on the other side of Mother’s bed. “ ‘All is well.’ “

My tears came.

“What kind of burial ceremony do you have in mind for Mother?” Rong asked.

“I can’t think right now,” I replied. “We will discuss it later.”

“No, Orchid,” Rong protested. “It will be impossible to reach you once you leave here. I would like to know your intentions. Mother deserves the same honor as Grand Empress Lady Jin.”

Copyright © 2007 by Anchee Min. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.