The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

 

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Contents

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Permissions

Note on Chinese Names

Map

The Characters

The British Legation, Peking, July 1899

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part Two

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Part Three

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Afterword

Copyright

 

To HHA, PDLW and FR lePW

Permissions

Tang and Li Ho verses from
The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'Ang Exotics
by Edward H Schafer. Copyright © 1963 The Regents of the University of California.

‘To The Tune “A Lonely Flute on the Phoenix Terrace”' by Kenneth Rexroth, from
One Hundred More Poems from the Chinese,
copyright © 1970 by Kenneth Rexroth. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

In the UK:
The Yin Yang Butterfly: Ancient Chinese Sexual Secrets for Western Lovers
by Valentin Chu, originally published by Putnam Publishing Group, copyright © 1993 Valentin Chu.

          In all other territories: ‘The bee steals wild nectar…' translated by Valentin Chu from
The Yin Yang Butterfly: Ancient Chinese Sexual Secrets for Western Lovers
by Valentin Chu, copyright © 1993 Valentin Chu. Used by permission of Jeremy P Tarcher, an imprint of Penguin Putnam inc.

Boxer doggerel, quoted in
The Origins of the Boxer Uprising,
copyright © 1987 The Regents of the University of California.

Wang Wei poem in
Three Chinese Poets,
trs Vikram Seth, Faber and Faber, copyright © 1992 Vikram Seth

Note on Chinese Names

In transliterating the sounds of the Chinese language into English I have used where I can the modern Chinese Pinyin system rather than the Wade Giles spelling that would have been current in 1900.

For well-known place names and historical personages, however, I have used the spelling that would have been current at the time. The Chinese capital is therefore Peking rather than Beijing. I have the Boxers originating in Shantung Province rather than the modern Shandong. The reformist Chinese minister is Li Hung-chang rather than Li Hongzhang (as his name is spelt in Chinese history books today). And I have used the word Ch'ing for the name of the Chinese dynasty rather than the modern Qing.

In China the surname comes before the given names. Hence Fan Yimei is Miss Fan rather than Miss Yimei. And as in our own society a hundred years ago, even friends are more likely to use surname than forename. A title comes after the surname. For example, taking the words for Mister (Xiansheng, literally Firstborn), Miss (Xiaojie, literally little sister) or Master (of trades: Shifu), ‘Mr Lu' would be ‘Lu Xiansheng'. ‘Mandarin Liu' would be ‘Liu Da Ren' (Liu the Great One); ‘Master Zhao' would be ‘Zhao Shifu'; ‘Auntie Ma' (Frank's housemaid) would be ‘Ma Ayi'. Nicknames follow the same rules: for example, the brothel-keeper, ‘Mother Liu', is ‘Liu Mama' in Chinese.

Chinese also tend to show intimacy and respect through a descriptive epithet before or after the surname. The gatekeeper calls Fan Yimei ‘Fan Jiejie', i.e. ‘Elder Sister Fan'. An older friend might call her ‘Xiao Fan', or ‘Little Fan'. This is not derogatory at all. Nor is its opposite: ‘Lao Fan', or ‘Old Fan', the term of address that might be given by a younger friend to an older one. But sometimes there can be a different meaning if the adjective is put after the surname rather than before. The Chamberlain is customarily addressed as ‘Jin Lao', or literally ‘Jin Old'—but put this way it actually means ‘the Venerable Jin' and is a term of enormous respect, given by an inferior to a superior. To use ‘Lao Jin' in this case would be overfamiliar.

The Characters

(1) In Peking

 

(a)
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

The Empress Dowager Tz'u-Hsi: the power behind the throne, effective ruler of China

Li Hung-chang: elder statesman: ‘father' of China's international diplomacy and modernization under the Ching Dynasty, in disgrace after China's defeat by Japan in 1895

Prince Tuan: head of the xenophobic faction in the Chinese court

Prince Yi: a court official

Li Lien-ying: Tz'u Hsi's Chief Eunuch

 

(b)
THE FOREIGN COMMUNITY

Sir Claude MacDonald: British minister, head of the British Legation

Lady MacDonald: his wife

Douglas Pritchett: Ostensible interpreter at the British Legation, also head of intelligence

Monsieur Pichon: French minister, head of the French Legation

Madame Pichon: his wife

Dr G. E. Morrison:
Times
correspondent, traveller, adventurer

Herbert Squiers: first secretary at the American Legation

Countess Esterhazy: european aristocratic adventuress visiting Peking

B. L. Simpson: employee of the China Customs Service under Sir Robert Hart

Mr and Mrs Dawson: representatives of Babbit and Brenner, a chemicals company

Colonel Taro Hideyoshi: a military attaché at the Japanese Legation

 

(2) In Shishan

 

(a)
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

The Mandarin, Liu Daguang: the ‘Tao Tai,' or chief magistrate of Shishan

Jin Zhijian (called Jin Lao—Venerable Jin): the Mandarin's chamberlain and master of his household

Major Lin Fubo: head of the Mandarin's militia

 

(b)
THE MISSIONARY COMMUNITY

Dr Edward Airton: a Scottish Missionary Society doctor, practising in Shishan

Nellie Airton: his wife

George and Jenny Airton: his young children

Father Adolphus: deceased head of the Catholic mission in Shishan

Sisters Elena and Caterina: Italian nuns now working at Airton's mission

Zhang Erhao: Dr Airton's major-domo

Ah Li and Ah Sun: Dr Airton's Cantonese servants

The Rev. Septimus Millward: American Congregationalist missionary living in Shishan

Laetitia Millward: his wife

Hiram, Mildred, Isaiah, Miriam, Thomas, Martha, Lettie and Hannah Millward: his children

 

(c)
THE MERCHANT COMMUNITY

Frank Delamere: a ‘soap merchant,' representative of Babbit and Brenner in Shishan

Tang Dexin, Jin Shangui, Lu Jincai: merchants of Shishan

Mr Ding: textile dyer from Tsitsihar, one of Frank Delamere's customers

Hermann Fischer: chief of the railway building project in Shishan

Zhang Dongren (‘Charlie'): the westernised
compradore
at the railway and Fischer's interpreter

Zhang Haobin: foreman of the Chinese workers on the railway

Ma Ayi: Frank Delamere's housemaid

Lao Zhao: muleteer working for the railway company

 

(d)
THE PALACE OF HEAVENLY PLEASURE

Mother Liu: proprietress of the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, a notorious brothel

Ren Ren: her son

Fan Yimei: a courtesan in the Palace of Heavenly Pleasure, Major Lin's mistress

Shen Ping, Su Liping, Chen Meina: courtesans

Monkey: one of Ren Ren's disreputable friends

 

(e)
IN THE BLACK HILLS

Wang Tieren (Iron Man Wang): a shadowy figure, leader of a gang of bandits in the Black Hills

 

(f)
IN BASHU, AN OUTLYING VILLAGE

Pastor John Wang: head of the Christian community

Mother Wang: his wife

Mary and Martha: his daughters

Headman Yang: the village headman

Miller Zhang, Lao Yi: Christian villagers

Mother Yang, Xiao Hudie, Lao Dai, Wang Haotian, Zheng Fujia: non-Christian villagers

The village
bonze
: the local Buddhist priest

 

(3) Newcomers to Shishan

Henry Manners: formerly an officer in the British army, now working for the China Railways

Helen Frances Delamere: Frank Delamere's daughter fresh from convent school

Tom Cabot: Frank Delamere's new assistant

The Rev. Burton Fielding: representative of the American Board of Commissioners for Missions in China

Frederick Bowers: engineer, train driver

The Boxer Priest

 

(4) Other Players

Orkhon Baatar: a Mongolian herdsman

Sarantuya: his wife

Lieutenant Panin, Colonel Tubaichev: Russian officers

The Rev. Richard Brown: a medical missionary

Arthur Topps: an employee of Babbit and Brenner

James Airton: Edward Airton's brother, a bookseller in Glasgow

The Gillespies: medical missionaries in Tientsin, friends of the Airtons

Admiral Seymour, General Chaffee, General von Waldersee: leaders of the Allied Expeditionary Force to Peking

Edmund and Mary Airton: Edward Airton's children at school in Scotland

The British Legation, Peking, July 1899

Geography books will tell you that the dust storms of summer, though rare, are generally violent.

So it was this summer.

Strong winds from Siberia, sucked into the heatbowl of a north China plain already unprotected after three years of drought, effortlessly lifted sand from the Gobi desert and powdery loess soil from the Yellow River escarpments, and deluged the cracked farmlands under an amber cloud.

The advance of the storm was like that of a barbarian horde; or one of those peasant movements that, from time to time in imperial history, have erupted from obscure beginnings and overwhelmed the decadent armies that stood futilely in their way. Like the Yellow Turbans, or the Taipings, or the White Lotus, like any of the revolts in which bandit leaders have aspired to and sometimes attained the Dragon Throne, it grew on its successes, increasing in size and fury until its armies were strong enough to escalade the high walls and tall gatehouses of the Imperial capital, bursting into the narrow streets, penetrating even the courtyards of the Forbidden City, where a weak emperor still held the Mandate of Heaven in feeble hands. So this sandstorm, on a summer night in the last year of the old century, enveloped the streets of Peking. Its myriad conquering soldiers were let loose to pillage the invested town. Dust devils howled a devastating path through the
hutongs,
whipping down the signs on the ornamented shops, splintering the gates of courtyard houses, slicing the skin of those few passersby who had the temerity to go outside and brave the flying sand darts.