Free Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang Page B

ambition. He had composed eulogies to his half-brother, as befitted a prince to an emperor, and had written poetic lines on his brother’s paintings, which was something done between close friends. The prince’s character had won him the trust of his half-brother. Emperor Xianfeng had left him alone in the capital to deal with the Europeans, who he knew preferred the prince to him and were entertaining plans to put Prince Gong on the throne in his place. Prince Gong’s impeccable record of loyalty, his lack of interest in supreme power and in intrigue were also important factors to Cixi as she prepared to make herself his boss.
    So, within days of her husband’s death, Cixi quietly extracted an edict out of the Regents allowing PrinceGong to visit the Hunting Lodge to bid his late half-brother farewell – in spite of the late emperor’s order. Not to allow the prince to come would simply be unseemly.
    When Prince Gong arrived, he threw himself to the floor in front of the bier and cried out in floods of tears. An eye-witness observed that‘no one had shown so much grief as he did’. Those present in the hall were moved and started sobbing themselves. After this show of sorrow, a eunuch came with a message from Cixi and Empress Zhen, summoning the prince to the harem. Some grandees were against the meeting, pointing out that tradition dictated that brothers and sisters-in-law should be kept apart, especially when the sister-in-law had just lost her husband – even if there was the obligatory screen to separate them. But the Two Dowager Empresses insisted, sending more eunuchs to deliver their request.Prince Gong, always anxious to behave correctly, asked the Regents to go in with him. But the two women sent out a firm ‘No’. He went in alone, and did not re-emerge for two hours.
    This was a very long audience, much longer than any the Regents had been given. But it rang no alarm bells with them. They believed Prince Gong’s explanation that he had to spend a great deal of time trying to persuade the women to return to Beijing as soon as possible, and to reassure them that there would be no danger from the foreigners. The Regents had total confidence in Prince Gong’s probity, and had been lulled by the two women into a relaxed and complacent frame of mind.
    Knowing how prudent the prince was, Cixi, it seems, did not broach the idea of a coup at this first meeting. Overturning the late emperor’s solemn will was not something he would readily contemplate. What the conversation seems to have achieved was an acceptance from Prince Gong that the empire should not be left entirely in the hands of the Board of Regents, who, after all, had such a woeful track record. On this basis, the prince agreed to get someone in his camp to petition for the Two Dowager Empresses to take part in decision-making, and for ‘one or two close princes of the blood to be selected to assist with state affairs’. The petition would not mention Prince Gong by name. He clearly wanted to avoid the impression that he coveted power, even though he had solid ground to stake a claim.
    This idea was secretly conveyed to Prince Gong’s camp in Beijing, and a relatively junior subordinate was designated to write the petition. Prince Gong feared that the Board of Regents might detect the link with him when they saw the petition, so he left the Hunting Lodge before it arrived. On the eve of his departure for Beijing, he saw Cixi and Empress Zhen again. And this time the discussion was inescapably about what should be done if the Regents turned down the proposal.
    It seems that Prince Gong agreed that force could be used to oust the Regents – but only as a last resort, and only after some unpardonable act on their part had been exposed, so that the coup would appear legitimate. The prince cared very much about his honour. What his role would be after the coup was still not decided, which suggests that Prince Gong thought it unlikely that the coup