Chapter 1
Like Discarding Worn-out Shoes, Shunzhi Renounces theThrone
In the Sea of Retribution and Lovesickness He Finds Himself Adrift
In fact, Emperor Shunzhi had not passed away at all. He was still alive. Right now, he was alone in the Hall of Mental Cultivation after the Empress Dowager and Empress had left him in tears. His agitation gradually subsided and an inexplicable melancholy suddenly came over him. Unable to stand the powerful scent of the lily incense in the glazed gold tripod cauldron, he impatiently ordered that the incense be emptied out of the tripod cauldron. Yet even then, still feeling very restless, Shunzhi simply walked out of the Hall of Mental Cultivation, stood on the red painted stone terrace and took a deep breath, as if the crisp chilly air could help dispel his deep depression.
The cumulus in the leaden sky moved slowly and cumbersomely toward the south. Shunzhi looked up in silence at the mysterious and capricious heavens.Caught in a wintry gust of wind, he subconsciously stroked his shoulders. The elderly imperial guard Chang Hao immediately draped a green brocade round neck-coat embroidered with dragon-fox fur over his back. Shunzhi knitted his brows and chided, “Why did you come up with this coat again?” Chang Hao calmly kneeled down and explained, “This is a reply to your majesty’s inquiry. The Empress Dowager told me not to bring you the plain white fox fur coat since you are not in a good mood …” Unwilling to defy the edict of the Empress Dowager, Shunzhi decided against saying anything further. He lifted his face without emotion and said to himself: “Looks like it’s going to snow. The palace as well as the world will become white. Everything will be enveloped in a white coat, from the yellow glazed tiles, the blue brick ground, the bronze crane to the sundial and…Not even the Empress Dowager can do anything about that.”
The seventeenth year of Shunzhi’s reign was an inauspicious year.Starting from the first lunar month, he received reports on the natural disasters and famines that ravaged Jucheng and Ningyang counties. Up to June of that year, the drought-stricken Zhili, Shandong, Sha’anxi and Suzhou provinces had not even grown a single blade of grass. Though he was the supreme leader over all the common people, he found that Heaven was not being cooperative at all. Could it be possible that he had committed any sin? Shunzhi therefore issued an edict of self-condemnation during the month of May. The Prime Minister Luoba Hana followed suit and submitted a memorial enumerating his own faults and requesting that the Emperor remove him from office to comply with the will of Heaven. In the month of July, Shunzhi walked to the southern suburbs where he stayed and went on a fast. His piety must have truly moved the God of Heaven because the next few days there was a continuously a heavy downpour. This brought a sense of relief to Shunzhi, who felt that in the coming New Year he should encounter less trouble. Though he knew this was indeed a most inauspicious year, this streak of bad luck was not supposed to run throughout the whole year, was it?
But who would have thought that his beloved Concubine Dong-e would die of a disease in August!
Shunzhi was so overwhelmed with grief, he felt as if he were struck by thunder. His blacked out cried yet was unable to shed any tears. He ascended to the throne at the age of seven. At the age of fifteen, he purged Dorgon’s faction, pacified the former southern Ming provinces, and defeated Zheng Chenggong. After this, he started the imperial exams to purposely help him find talented Han Chinese to support his regime. Shunzhi was nearly in his twenties when the political situation finally stabilized. However, though everything was going well, he was still very unhappy about his marriage. When the Chief Regent Prince Dorgon was in his heyday, he engaged himself in all kinds of evildoing. Under his pressure, Wu Keshan, who was the Zhuoli Ketu Prince of Ke’erqin, married off his daughter Bo’er Qijin to him. At that time, the Empress Dowager, who got married with Dorgon, a man of lower rank, also joined in to pressure him. This was indeed like forcing an unwilling ox to drink water. Shunzhi feigned compliance for two years before he demoted her to a concubine of the third rank (“a jing concubine”) and moved her to the side Palace. With throngs of beauties in his harem, he was only in love with Dong-e, who was five years older than him.
Probably due to her longing for her former husband, Dong-e had not stopped ceased frowning ever since she went into the Palace. Heaven knows what kind of strange emotional attachment this was! The more grief-stricken Dong-e became, the more Shunzhi was unable to let her go. He tried every means to cheer her up.
And now, all things were in the past. For the fragrant soul of Dong-e had already transcended into the third heavens. What was the use of still thinking of her now? Compared to the unparalleled beauty of that woman with knitted brows, the whole world appeared ugly and dirty to Shunzhi now. She was gone forever, like a lovely flower mercilessly ravaged by the wind and rain. He was at a completely loss as to how to get over this inexplicable pain in his life.
Shunzhi stood in front of the Hall for some time when a gust of wind blew a few scattered grains of snow across his face, invoking the raw pain inside him and sending shivers down his spine. Walking back to the Hall, he ignored the heaps of memorials and official documents piled high on his desk and went directly toward the Western Chamber of Warmth. The head maid Suma Lagu, who had been standing at the door of the Chamber, was the most capable girl under the control of the Empress. Seeing Shunzhi step into the Chamber, she winked at the attending guards Wo He, Xi Zhu, Zheke Tu, and Gioro Sai’erbi. They took her hint and retreated after bowing to Shunzhi in silence.
As Suma Lagu stood in the veranda, she was also heavy-hearted. Conscripted into the Palace in the eighth year of Shunzhi’s reign, she was the daughter of Geleng Tai, a company chief in the Plain Blue Banner. Her mother died when she was six. Her father then made a proposal to the niece of Sai Luo, the leader of the Plain Blue Banner. Sai Luo’s niece, who was quite straightforward, told the matchmaker directly, “Let me make it clear to Geleng Tai. I would have no objection to marrying him if not for his baggage. I do not have the patience to be anyone’s stepmother. He’d better give up his wishful thinking!” Sai Luo, who forwarded the message of her rejection to Geleng Tai, was also his direct superior. Caught in this dilemma, Geleng Tai was quite helpless when the selection of elegant girls for the Palace happened to be held in that year. He made use of this opportunity and sent his daughter to the Palace. Probably by sheer luck, Empress Dowager Xiao Zhuang happened to arrive at the Hall of Gathering Elegance. She saw a crowd of elegant girls waiting to be selected and came near to have a closer look. She found a small girl watching her with big sparkling eyes, so she bent down to lift Suma Lagu to her feet to take a more careful look. Deprived of any affection since her mother’s death, Suma Lagu looked at this kindly lady and burst out with the word “Granny”, her tears gushing from her eyes immediately.
The clear bright sound of the child stirred the compassion of the Empress Dowager, who was so touched that she bent over and embraced Suma Laguin her arms. She turned around to the eunuch in charge and instructed, “I will have this child as my maid. Pick an experienced girl to wait on her. – My dear child, granny has a lot of fruits for you to eat. Come with granny!”
Since then Suma Lagu became a maid for Empress Dowager Xiao Zhuang. Xiao Zhuang was idle most of the day so she spent her time playing with her and teaching her to write and read. Not only did she relate the story of the “Three Kingdoms” to her, but when Suma Lagu grew a little older, she also imparted to her considerable knowledge regarding the institutions and regulations of both the former Ming and Qing Dynasties. Suma Lagu was a precocious young girl. By the tender age of ten, she had read many poems and articles on different schools of thought. By age fourteen, she was already very well-learned. Delighted with her talents, the Empress Dowager dispatched her to attend on Emperor Shunzhi.
She stood there for a while deep in thought when a cold wind swept into the veranda. She shivered with cold and went in the direction of the moon-gate.
Once in the Western Chamber of Warmth, Shunzhi looked around and grew more sentimental. In the past four months, he had come to this Chamber more times than any other place. Everything remained the same as when Concubine Dong-e was still alive. At the corner of the Chamber there stood a red sandalwood shelf, on which there was a jade plate filled with several golden fruits of yellow horn, still giving off a faint fragrance. On the desk and under a thin layer of dust was a zheng (a zither-like plucked instrument) with a broken string curled in a circle. The powder box, jewelry, and the salt and soap that she used to use on the dressing table were intact. The only difference was a freshly painted miniature portrait of Dong-e dressed in an imperial costume hanging above the bed inlaid with jade and ivory.
