Concubine to an Emperor (1835–56)

In spring 1852, in one of the periodic nationwide selections for imperialconsorts, a sixteen-year-old girl caught the eye of the emperor and was chosenas a concubine. A Chinese emperor was entitled to one empress and as manyconcubines as he pleased. In the court registry she was entered simply as 'thewoman of the Nala family', with no name of her own. Female names were deemed tooinsignificant to be recorded. In fewer than ten years, however, this girl, whosename may have been lost for ever, had fought her way to become the ruler ofChina, and for decades – until her death in 1908 – would hold in her hands thefate of nearly one-third of the world's population. She was the Empress DowagerCixi (also spelt Tzu Hsi). This was her honorific name and means 'kindly andjoyous'.

She came from one of the oldest and most illustrious Manchu families. TheManchus were a people who originally lived in Manchuria, beyond the Great Wallto the northeast. In 1644, the Ming dynasty in China was overthrown by a peasantrebellion, and the last Ming emperor hanged himself from a tree in the backgarden of his palace. The Manchus seized the opportunity to smash across theGreat Wall. They defeated the peasant rebels, occupied the whole of China andset up a new dynasty called the Great Qing – 'Great Purity'. Taking over theMing capital, Beijing, as their own, the victorious Manchus went on to build anempire three times the size of the Ming empire, at its peak occupying aterritory of 13 million square kilometres – compared to 9.6 million today.

The Manchu conquerors, outnumbered by the indigenous Chinese, the Han, byapproximately 100:1, imposed their domination initially by brutal means. Theyforced the Han males to wear the Manchu men's hairstyle as the most visiblebadge of submission. The Han men traditionally grew their hair long and put itup in a bun, but the Manchu men shaved off an outer ring of hairs, leaving thecentre part to grow and plaiting it into a trailing queue. Anyone who refused towear the queue was summarily beheaded. In the capital, the conquerors pushed theHan out of the Inner City, to the Outer City, and separated the two ethnicgroups by walls and gates. The repression lessened over the years, and the Hangenerally came to live a life no worse than that of the Manchus. The ethnicanimosity diminished – even though top jobs remained in the hands of theManchus. Intermarriage was prohibited, which in a family-oriented society meantthere was little social intercourse between the two groups. And yet the Manchusadopted much of the Han culture and political system, and their empire'sadministration, extending to all corners of the country like a colossal octopus,was overwhelmingly manned by Han officials, who were selected from the literatiby the traditional Imperial Examinations that focused on Confucian classics.Indeed, Manchu emperors themselves were educated in the Confucian way, and somebecame greater Confucian scholars than the best of the Han. Thus the Manchusregarded themselves as Chinese, and referred to their empire as the 'Chinese'empire, or 'China', as well as the 'Qing'.

The ruling family, the Aisin-Gioros, produced a succession of able and hard-working emperors, who were absolute monarchs and made all important decisionspersonally. There was not even a Prime Minister, but only an office ofassistants, the Grand Council. The emperors would rise at the crack of dawn toread reports, hold meetings, receive officials and issue decrees. The reportsfrom all over China were dealt with as soon as they arrived, and rarely was anybusiness left undone for more than a few days. The seat of the throne was theForbidden City. Perhaps the largest imperial palace complex in the world, thisrectangular compound covered an area of 720,000 square metres, with a moat ofproportional size. It was surrounded by a majestic wall some 10 metres high andnearly 9 metres thick at the base, with a magnificent gate set into each side,and a splendid watchtower above each corner. Almost all the buildings in thecompound displayed glazed tiles in a shade of yellow reserved for the court. Insunshine, the sweeping roofs were a blaze of gold.

A district west of the Forbidden City formed a hub for the transportation ofcoal, bound for the capital. Brought from the mines west of Beijing, it wascarried by caravans of camels and mules, wearing tinkling bells. It was saidthat some 5,000 camels came into Beijing every day. The caravans paused here,and the porters did their shopping from stores whose names were embroidered oncolourful banners or gilded on lacquered plaques. The streets were unpaved, andthe soft, powdery dust that lay on top in dry weather would turn into a river ofmud after a downpour. There was a pervasive reek from a sewage system that wasas antiquated as the city itself. Refuse was simply dumped on the side of theroads, left to the scavenging dogs and birds. After their meals, large numbersof vultures and carrion crows would flock into the Forbidden City, perching onits golden roofs and blackening them.

Away from the hubbub lay a network of quiet, narrow alleys known as hu-tong.This is where, on the tenth day of the tenth lunar month in 1835, the futureEmpress Dowager of China, Cixi, was born. The houses here were spacious, withneatly arranged courtyards, scrupulously tidy and clean, in sharp contrast tothe dirty and chaotic streets. The main rooms had doors and windows open to thesouth to take in the sun, while the north was walled up to fend off the sandystorms that frequently swept the city. The roofs were covered with grey tiles.The colours of roof tiles were strictly stipulated: yellow for the royalpalaces, green for the princes, and grey for all others.

Cixi's family had been government employees for generations. Her father,Huizheng, worked as a secretary and then a section chief for the Ministry ofOfficials. The family was well-off; her childhood was carefree. As a Manchu, shewas spared foot-binding, a Han practice that tortured their women for amillennium by crushing a baby girl's feet and wrapping them tightly to restricttheir growth. Most other customs, such as male–female segregation, the Manchusshared with the Han. As a girl of an educated family, Cixi learned to read andwrite a little Chinese, to draw, to play chess, to embroider and to make dresses– all deemed desirable accomplishments for a young lady. She was a quick andenergetic learner and developed a wide range of interests. In the future, whenit was the ceremonial duty of the empress dowager, on a certain auspicious day,to cut the pattern for a dress of her own – as a symbol of womanhood – she wouldperform the task with tremendous competence.

Her education did not include learning the Manchu language, which she neitherspoke nor wrote. (When she became the ruler of China, she had to issue an orderfor reports written in Manchu to be translated into Chinese before she was shownthem.) Having been immersed in Chinese culture for 200 years, most Manchus didnot speak their own original tongue, even though it was the official language ofthe dynasty and various emperors had made efforts to preserve it. Cixi'sknowledge of written Chinese was rudimentary, and she may be considered 'semi-literate'.This does not mean that she lacked intelligence. The Chinese languageis extremely hard to learn. It is the only major linguistic system in the worldthat does not have an alphabet; and it is composed of numerous complicatedcharacters – ideograms – which have to be memorised one by one and, moreover,are totally unrelated to sounds. At Cixi's time, written texts were completelydivorced from the spoken form, so one could not simply write down what one spokeor thought. To qualify as 'educated', therefore, learners had to spend about adecade in their formative years imbibing Confucian classics, which were severelylimited in range and stimulation. Fewer than 1 per cent of the population wereable to read or write the bare minimum.

Cixi's lack of formal education was more than made up for by her intuitiveintelligence, which she liked to use from her earliest years. In 1843, when shewas seven, the empire had just finished its first war with the West, the OpiumWar, which had been started by Britain in reaction to Beijing clamping down onthe illegal opium trade conducted by British merchants. China was defeated andhad to pay a hefty indemnity. Desperate for funds, Emperor Daoguang (father ofCixi's future husband) held back the traditional presents for his sons' brides – goldnecklaces with corals and pearls – and vetoed elaborate banquets for theirweddings. New Year and birthday celebrations were scaled down, even cancelled,and minor royal concubines had to subsidise their reduced allowances by sellingtheir embroidery on the market through eunuchs. The emperor himself even went onsurprise raids of his concubines' wardrobes, to check whether they were hidingextravagant clothes against his orders. As part of a determined drive to stampout theft by officials, an investigation was conducted of the state coffer,which revealed that more than nine million taels of silver had gone missing.Furious, the emperor ordered all the senior keepers and inspectors of the silverreserve for the previous forty-four years to pay fines to make up the loss – whetheror not they were guilty. Cixi's great-grandfather had served as one ofthe keepers and his share of the fine amounted to 43,200 taels – a colossal sum,next to which his official salary had been a pittance. As he had died a longtime ago, his son, Cixi's grandfather, was obliged to pay half the sum, eventhough he worked in the Ministry of Punishments and had nothing to do with thestate coffer. After three years of futile struggle to raise money, he onlymanaged to hand over 1,800 taels, and an edict signed by the emperor confinedhim to prison, only to be released if and when his son, Cixi's father, deliveredthe balance.

The life of the family was turned upside down. Cixi, then eleven years old, hadto take in sewing jobs to earn extra money – which she would remember all herlife and would later talk about to her ladies-in-waiting in the court. As shewas the eldest of two daughters and three sons, her father discussed the matterwith her, and she rose to the occasion. Her ideas were carefully considered andpractical: what possessions to sell, what valuables to pawn, whom to turn to forloans and how to approach them. Finally, the family raised 60 per cent of thesum, enough to get her grandfather out of prison. The young Cixi's contributionto solving the crisis became a family legend, and her father paid her theultimate compliment: 'This daughter of mine is really more like a son!'

Treated like a son, Cixi was able to talk to her father about things that werenormally closed areas for women. Inevitably their conversations touched onofficial business and state affairs, which helped form Cixi's lifelong interest.Being consulted and having her views acted on, she acquired self-confidence andnever accepted the common assumption that women's brains were inferior to men's.The crisis also helped shape her future method of rule. Having tasted thebitter-ness of arbitrary punishment, she would make an effort to be fair to herofficials.

As he had raised a sizeable sum of money to pay the fine, Cixi's father,Huizheng, was rewarded in 1849 with an appointment from the emperor to be thegovernor of a large Mongolian region. That summer he travelled there with hisfamily, setting up home in Hohhot, today's provincial capital of Inner Mongolia.For the first time Cixi journeyed out of crowded Beijing, beyond the decayingGreat Wall and along a stony route that led to the Mongolian steppes, whereuninterrupted open grassland extended to a very distant horizon. Throughout herlife Cixi would feel passionate about fresh air and unrestricted space.

In his new job as governor, Cixi's father was responsible for collecting taxesand, in line with prevailing and age-old practice, he fleeced the localpopulation to make up for the family losses. That he should do so was taken forgranted. Officials, who were paid low salaries, were expected to subsidise theirincome with whatever extras they could make – 'within reason' – from thepopulation at large. Cixi grew up with corruption of this kind as a way of life.

In February 1850, months after the family settled in Mongolia, Emperor Daoguangdied and was succeeded by his son, Emperor Xianfeng. The new emperor, thennineteen years old, had been born prematurely and had been in poor health sincebirth. He had a thin face and melancholy eyes, as well as a limp, the result ofa fall from a horse in one of the hunting expeditions that were obligatory forthe princes. As an emperor is referred to as a 'dragon', gossips in Beijingnicknamed him 'the Limping Dragon'.

After his coronation, an empire-wide operation began to select consorts for him.(At this point, he had one consort, a concubine.) The candidates, teenage girls,had to be Manchu or Mongol; the Han were excluded. Their families had to beabove a certain rank, and had been obliged by law to register them when theyreached puberty.

Cixi was on the list and now, like other girls from all over China, shetravelled to Beijing. She settled back into the family's old house and waitedfor the occasion when all the candidates would parade in front of the emperor.After he had made his pick, some of the girls would be given to the princes andother royal males as consorts. Those who failed to be chosen were free to gohome and marry someone else. The inspection in the Forbidden City was scheduledfor March 1852.

The procedure for the inspection had been passed down over the generations. Onthe day before the fixed date, the candidates were taken to the palace in mule-drawncarts – 'taxis' of the day – which were hired by their families and paidfor by the court. These carts were like a trunk on two wheels, and were hoodedwith woven bamboo or rattan that had been soaked in tung-oil to become rain-andsnow-proof. Curtains of bright blue were draped over it, and felt and cottonmattresses and cushions were piled inside. This was a common conveyance even forthe families of princes, in which case the inside would be lined with fur orsatin, depending on the season, while the outside bore markers of its owner'srank. On seeing such a vehicle passing by silently and disappearing into thegathering darkness, Somerset Maugham (later) mused:

you wonder who it is that sits cross-legged within. Perhaps it is a scholar ...bound on a visit to a friend with whom he will exchange elaborate complimentsand discuss the golden age of Tang and Sung which can return no more; perhaps itis a singing girl in splendid silks and richly embroidered coat, with jade inher black hair, summoned to a party so that she may sing a little song andexchange elegant repartee with young blades cultured enough to appreciate wit.

The cart that seemed to Maugham to be carrying 'all the mystery of the East' wassingularly uncomfortable, as its wooden wheels were secured by wire and nails,without springs. The occupant was bounced up and down on the dirt-and-stoneroads, banging on all sides within. It was particularly challenging forEuropeans, who were not used to sitting cross-legged without seats. Thegrandfather of the Mitford sisters, Algernon Freeman-Mitford, soon to be anattaché in the British Legation in Beijing, remarked: 'After ten hours of aChinese cart a man is fit for little else than to be sold at an old rag and boneshop.'

Walking at a sedate pace, the carts of the candidates converged outside the backgate of the Royal City, the outer enclosure that cradled the Forbidden City. Asthe Forbidden City itself was already enormous, this gigantic outer area wassimilarly encircled by broad crimson-red walls under roof tiles glazed with thesame royal yellow colour. It housed temples, offices, warehouses and workshops,with horses and camels and donkeys coming and going, providing services for thecourt. On this day, at sunset, all activities stopped and a passage was leftclear for the carts bearing the candidates, which entered the Royal City in aprescribed order. Passing by the artificial hill Jingshan, and crossing themoat, they arrived outside the north gate to the Forbidden City, the Gate ofDivine Prowess, which had an imposing and ornate two-tiered roof over it.