The man stood over me, recited his incantation, and then pronounced me one of China’s faithful. I nearly collapsed from relief. One of the other girls who had also been exonerated by the man ran over to help me. In the end, we were all spared. When we returned to her, Empress Cixi held us and wept. She wondered if the Boxers were actually testing her and not her servants. By agreeing to send us out, she obviously trusted them and was supporting them. She had passed their test. The rest had only been for show.

  The siege against the legations lasted a month. Foreigners, innocent Chinese, and countless Boxers died. The Boxers believed they were impervious to foreign bullets, which quickly proved untrue as they were mowed down by foreign guns, yet they still threw themselves in harm’s way. I will never understand the mind of a religious fanatic.

  Finally, the foreign powers marched on Peking itself. Many of the viceroys, magistrates, and princes fled the Forbidden City. The maids and eunuchs poured out, many never to be seen again. The princesses and ladies in waiting were collected by their families. When the foreign armies entered Peking and were only days away from the Forbidden City, the empress finally agreed to leave. When she sent for the carriages and horses she had standing by, however, she found out that they had been stolen by people fleeing the city. When one of the eunuchs returned to the empress and told her the transports were gone, Empress Cixi stood tall, walked up the stairs of the dais, and took her place on her throne. “Then we stay,” she declared. We all knew that if the empress was still in the Forbidden City when the foreign powers arrived, she would be killed. Worse, I feared she would issue herself a white scarf and do the job herself instead of allowing foreign devils to do it. I could not allow it.

  I went to my room and grabbed a huge handful of coins from my savings, which was rather significant by this time, and put the coins in a bag. I found General Yuan and gave him the bag. “You must take me to find Prince Gong’s daughter, Lady Hulan,” I demanded.

  “Madam, you know how dangerous it is outside the Forbidden City walls. Besides, the lady has probably already fled.”

  “I helped you save the empress’s life once. You must help me now!”

  General Yuan nodded. He called for his horse to be brought. He mounted his horse and then his men helped me up behind him. It had been many years since I had ridden a horse and my old legs were no longer used to it. But I knew the empress’s life depended on my ability to find help, so I held tightly to General Yuan as he deftly steered his horse through the ruins of Peking to find my daughter.

  When we arrived at the house where my daughter and Lady Yun lived, I feared they were gone. The house still stood, but it was dark and boarded up. General Yuan helped me down from the horse and I banged on the front gate. “Hulan! Lady Yun!” I yelled. “It’s Yaqian! Open the door!” General Yuan went around the building and banged on some of the windows. Eventually, we heard a noise on the other side.

  “Quiet! We don’t want anyone to know we are here!” my daughter barked.

  “Hulan!” I nearly cried. “I am so happy you are all right.”

  I heard some shuffling and boards being removed from the other side. Eventually, Hulan’s servants were able to open one of the doors. I stepped in and hugged my daughter.

  “Mother!” Hulan cried as she hugged me back. “What are you doing here? It is too dangerous for you to be out.”

  “It is dangerous everywhere,” I said. “The foreign armies are here. They are going to bust down the gates of the Forbidden City. We have lost.”

  “Oh, Mother,” she said. “What are you doing? Are you fleeing? Do you need a safe place to stay?”

  “The empress cannot flee. All of her carts and horses were stolen. She has accepted the fact that she will die.” My voice suddenly cracked and I held my hand to my mouth. This was the first time I had voiced my fears and I could not stop the tears from flowing. The empress had spent her life in service to the empire, but now, she would die in disgrace, murdered in her own rooms. I couldn’t imagine a world without her.

  Hulan wrapped her arms around me. “It is all right, Mother,” she said. “What can we do? Why did you come here?”

  “Do you have any horses or carts or know where we could get some?” I asked. “Did your father leave you anything that could help us?”

  “I do have some carts,” she said. “And some donkeys. Not many, and they are not used to pulling the carts much anymore. I don’t have much use for them. I don’t know why I haven’t sold them,” she said.

  “Heaven must have intervened!” I cried. “Even now, Prince Gong is Her Majesty’s only ally.” I began to weep again.

  My daughter held me as Lady Yun took charge. She ordered their servants to pull out some old carts and attach the donkeys to them. It would not be a comfortable way to travel, and the poor beasts had no idea of the terrible journey ahead of them, but the empress would be able to leave the city. I could ask for no more than this.

  Hulan and some of her servants went with us to guide the donkeys back to the Forbidden City. General Yuan and his men guarded our donkey carts with their lives. Indeed, just as happened forty years before, people were desperate to leave the city. Several people, regular people and some errant Boxers, tried to steal our carts. General Yuan had no time for mercy and shot anyone who got too close to us.

  When we arrived at the Forbidden City, we brought our small caravan in through the west gate and lined them up in the garden. Servants, ladies, the few princesses who were left, and everyone else trapped in the Forbidden City ran out to meet us. The empress and the emperor also came out. The empress could not hide her surprise.

  “Where did you find these?” she asked me.

  “My…student. Hulan. Prince Gong had left them to her and her home had not been ransacked. I am only sorry this is all we could find,” I explained.

  The empress shook her head and did her best to hide her tears. “No, it is more than I could have asked for. More than I deserve.” She walked over to me and put her hands on my shoulders. “When I heard you had left the Forbidden City, I thought you had left me.”

  I looked up at her, towering over me on her pot-bottomed shoes as I bent my knees in respect. “I would never abandon you, Your Majesty.”

  She turned to the rest of the people and the court, who were waiting for their orders. “We only have twelve carts, and the donkeys are small. Not everyone can go, and those who can, we must only take the bare minimum of items. We cannot weigh these poor creatures down or they will not be able to take us far.”

  “Where will we go?” Empress Longyu asked. “Will we go to Jehol?”

  My Empress visibly shuddered at the thought. “No, I will never set foot in that cursed place again. We must go to the interior. The foreigners will not want to go inland. We will go to Chang’an, the ancient capital.”

  With this, many people began to murmur and fret. Chang’an was nearly two thousand li from Peking through treacherous terrain. And since the empress lost contact with China outside of Peking, we had no idea what was happening in the villages and cities along the way. It would be a very dangerous journey.

  The empress began assigning the few donkey carts she had to various members of the court. There was one for her, one for the emperor, one for the young empress, one for Concubine Jade, a few for the princesses who had not been able to contact their families, and the rest were for some of the grandees who had stayed by her side. She turned to me with sad eyes. I shook my head. I knew that there would be no place for a lowly gōngnǚ on a journey of life and death.

  “The last cart is yours, Yaqian,” she said.

  “What?” I asked in shock.

  “I am sorry that we have no room for Mistress Gong. If it were not for her generosity and willingness to share her donkey carts, we would all perish here. Please forgive me,” she said to Hulan.

  “There is nothing to forgive, Your Majesty,” Hulan replied. “I will be safe at my home, I believe. I am so grateful that you are willing to take Mistress Yang with you.”

  The empress waved her hand as though it was nothing. “I will need at least one person to help me and the princesses on the journey. I cannot even undress myself without help.”

  “Thank you…thank you…” I finally managed to mumble.

  “Which cart is mine?” a voice piped up. Everyone turned and looked at Concubine Pearl. The girl was nervously chewing her bottom lip and wringing her hands. “I can ride with my sister,” she pleaded.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. We cannot burden one donkey with two people.”

  “I can walk,” she said.

  “A member of the royal court would not walk,” she said. “Besides you wouldn’t have the stamina. You would give out on the road.”

  “Then I am to stay here?” she asked. “You would abandon me to the foreign devils?”

  “Of course not,” the empress said. “I cannot have you betraying us to them, or allow them to have their way with you. Can you imagine a white devil lying with a consort of the Son of Heaven? What an insult!”

  “Then what?” she asked. “What is to happen to me?”

  The empress slowly stepped close to Pearl with her face dark and her eyes narrow. “You are a disgrace, Pearl,” she said. “You betrayed me, you betrayed your emperor, you have never given us an heir…”

  “That is not my fault…” Pearl started to object. The empress slapped the girl across the face before she could finish.

  “How dare you insult the Emperor of the Dragon Throne!” she screamed. “If there is any honor left in you, you will heed my order. Jump into that well,” she said pointing across the garden, “and drown yourself. It will be the only useful thing you have ever done.”

  “No!” Pearl screamed. “You cannot! I cannot! I love you. I love His Majesty.” She rushed to Guangxu, who stood still as a stone. “Please, my love! Save me.”

  Guangxu’s eyes watered, but he knew he could do nothing. As the head of the inner court and the empress dowager, Empress Cixi could indeed order any member of the inner court to commit suicide to prevent dishonor from settling on the imperial family. Guangxu did not look at Pearl as she grabbed his robe and wept.

  “You must stop her!” Pearl cried. “Don’t let her do this!”

  “Pearl!” the empress called out. “Do it now. I’ll not warn you again.”

  Pearl stumbled out of her pot-bottomed shoes and fell at the empress’s feet. “Please, have mercy!” she begged as she cried and clutched Her Majesty’s robe.

  “This is a mercy, Pearl,” the empress said stepping back. “Take the honorable way out.”

  We all stood in shock. Of course, the empress could have had Pearl executed long ago for her crimes, but she had spared her to save the emperor embarrassment. But to now watch as Pearl’s life slipped away was horrid. I clutched my daughter’s hands, so thankful she had escaped life in the Forbidden City when she did.

  “I’ll not do it! I’ll not die!” Pearl cried.

  The empress finally sighed with exasperation and nodded to her head eunuch, Li Lianying. Lianying then motioned for a low-ranking eunuch, a very tall and strong man – qualities usually sorely lacking in eunuchs – and ordered him to carry out the empress’s order. The eunuch hesitated for a moment, but only until the empress looked at him directly. Pearl stood up and tried to run, but the eunuch took only a few strides to reach her. He grabbed Pearl and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of rice. Pearl screamed and kicked, trying to get away, but she was no match for the unusually strong eunuch. When the eunuch reached the well, he looked at the empress again. The empress nodded and the eunuch dropped Pearl from his shoulder into the well. Time seemed to stop. Her scream lasted forever as she fell. We all held our breath as we waited for her to hit the water. We finally heard a splash and then more screams and coughs as she drowned. After a couple of tortuous minutes, the garden was silent.

  The empress finally broke the quiet. “Take as little with you as you can. We will leave before the hour of the goat.”

  * * *

  The road was indeed difficult. Our little donkeys lumbered along at a slow pace. Walking would have been faster, though impossible. Several eunuchs and maids who could not ride in the carts did follow us, but it was excruciating for them. Their clothes and shoes were not made for traveling.

  The last time we fled the Forbidden City, we had hundreds of carts with everything we needed to survive: food, clothes, tents. This time, we had nothing. We could not burden our little donkeys, so we were only allowed to bring one small bag of items. At least Her Majesty, the princesses, and I were smart enough to wear several layers of clothing. It was August, still a warm time of year in Peking, but our trip would take months and through all kinds of weather. The second day, it began to rain. We had no way to cover ourselves, so we were quickly soaked to the bone. The maids and eunuchs who traveled with us slogged through the mud as best they could. The donkeys slowed so they would not slip. We were all miserable.

  The road and the villages we came across were abandoned. The eunuchs searched several homes for provisions, but they found nothing. Many houses were burned and bodies were strewn everywhere, even those of children. The Boxers had mercilessly slaughtered everyone they suspected of being Christian converts, which sometimes meant whole villages of people were murdered. The empress wept at the carnage and destruction she saw.

  “I didn’t know…I didn’t know…” she wept. Indeed, she had no idea the Boxers had murdered so many of her own people, but she knew they had murdered some, which should have been enough. There was little difference between the Boxers of today and the Taiping of our youth.

  We finally came across an abandoned temple where we could rest, but it was so cold. The eunuchs could not find any dry wood with which to make a fire, but even if they had, they had no way to light it. Many of us had enough clothes with us that we would not freeze. Lying under several layers of wet clothes is at least warmer than not having any. The emperor, as someone used to having other people do everything for him, did not have the forethought to bring extra clothes with him. He sat in a corner and shivered for a long time before Li Lianying took pity on the boy and gave him his heavy overcoat. The boy wept in appreciation. I was only glad Lianying did not freeze to death himself. Lianying was a loyal and capable servant, someone the empress could not live without. The emperor was useless. He left the empire in ruins. He might have the blood of the Dragon, but he did not have the ability to run a nation. He tried to kill the empress! He also didn’t even look at my daughter or thank her for saving his life by sharing her donkey carts. His former lover and the mother of his only son! His only child! He couldn’t even look at her. As far as I was concerned, that worthless, sniveling brat could die in the wilderness just like the Xianfeng Emperor for all I cared.

  Our little caravan got smaller and smaller. Each day when we woke up, more eunuchs and maids were gone. They simply could not walk with us any longer. I have no idea where they thought they would go that would be a better situation. There was no food or lodging to be found anywhere, but they abandoned us nonetheless. We had very little food stuffs with us, and it quickly ran out. We had to chew on small twigs to fight the hunger pains and force our mouths to make water for us to drink. At night, the empress wept to me as I held her in my arms.

  “How could I have fallen so low?” she asked, not really wanting an answer.

  I didn’t know how to answer her anyway. Of course, giving authority to the Boxers was a mistake, but the foreign powers were taking advantage of us in our weakened state after our loss to Japan. But we only lost to Japan because of the emperor. It was not her fault. She had done all she could to prepare the country to succeed in her retirement. But it was not enough. She was not a man and she couldn’t rule the empire in her own right. She always had to hand the reins of power over to someone else, but no one else had proven worthy. Time and again she proved that she was the only person who had the will and the know-how to govern China, but she was always dismissed. And now she was old. Eventually, she would die, then who would rule? Even if we came through this nightmare unscathed, China was slowly ambling toward disaster.

  After traveling for a couple of weeks, things began to get better, bit-by-bit. The villages were slowly coming back to life so we were able to find better lodging and food. Riders from the Forbidden City began catching up with us with reports from the grandees who had stayed behind. Amazingly, the foreigners didn’t burn down the Forbidden City. They even forbade their men from looting. The empress’s mood lightened considerably. By the time we arrived at the palace in Chang’an four months after fleeing the Forbidden City, she arrived as regally as ever, with a full entourage, wearing a beautiful gown and headdress, and carried in a sedan chair by eight eunuchs.

  Even though enemies abroad such as the Wild Fox called for the foreigners to demand the return of the emperor to the throne, and the rebel named Sun Zhongshan said the imperial family should be removed altogether, the foreigners decided against such drastic actions. It was clear that the grandees still supported the empress, and the country needed a strong hand to help rebuild. The empress was thousands of li away in a remote place, but it quickly became apparent that she was still ruling the country. After the Boxer Rebellion, the foreigners did not feel they would have the support of the people if they tried to make any drastic changes, so they began to negotiate for the empress’s return.