Unleashed Voices: Beijing’s increasingly Forbidden City / Part II
Xi Jinping, China’s most recent emperor, reaches deep into his nation’s past for a new lease on an ancient kingdom…We pick up the story with the Emperor Dowager through The Imperial Way 2023. Part II
By Audrey Ronning Topping
The controversial Empress Dowager Tzu-chi joined her ancestors on November 15, 1908, at the Hour of the Goat (between 1 PM and 3 PM). She had planned her own funeral which cost the already bankrupt nation 1.5 million silver taels (perhaps $40 million today). Thus ended China’s 2,000-year-old Imperial Dynastic Cycle. The `Mandate of Heaven' had run its course. A new era was about to begin for China as well as my mythical lion, still hiding in the North Wall Tower of The Forbidden City. The “Dragon Empress” was the last Manchu monarch of any consequence although her influence extended to 1911, the year of Sun Yat Sen's Republican Revolution. To the very end, the Dowager lived up to her reputation as a self-indulgent, egocentric monarch divorced from reality.
The day before she collapsed, she attended a fancy dress picnic in the gardens of the Summer Palace to celebrate her seventy-third birthday. The Dalai Lama had come from Tibet accompanied by 300 lesser lamas, a force of soldiers, 800 camels and 500 horses to pay his respects. The Dowager indulged her gluttonous appetite by consuming a large portion of crab-apples and whipped cream whereafter she suffered an acute attack of dysentery and fainted.
She was carried back to her palace in The Forbidden City where she dictated her last valediction to the Imperial Empire of China:
“Looking back upon the memories of these last fifty years, I perceive how calamities from within and aggression from without have come upon us in relentless succession, and that my life has never enjoyed a moment's respite from anxiety.”
In death, her limbs were straightened, her face turned towards the south. All orifices were protected from the evil spirits by the insertion of ceremonial jade. Then, in accordance with ritual, she was anointed with the oil of acanthus flower and swathed like a cocoon in the `Robes of Longevity' painstakingly embroidered in gold-wrapped silk thread and spun peacock feathers with scenes of a celestial paradise: curling clouds and the phoenix, (sign of the Empress), floating above a sea of waves where the Eight Jewels (pearls, coins, rhinoceros horns, musical stones, books, leaves, shells and scrolls) appear. Mythical creatures, bats, cranes and a myriad of immortality symbols were stitched around the edges.
It took court astrologers a year to find the most auspicious time for the Dowager's funeral. Finally, after a three-day banquet for the court officials, her embalmed corpse was carried out of the Forbidden City by 84 bearers, in a jeweled, four poster carriage to be buried in an elaborate mausoleum in the Eastern Tombs. It was followed by an astonishing funeral procession which to the Western eye looked like a cross between a coronation and a circus. Hundreds of Mandarin officials in resplendent robes walking under state umbrellas, followed by thousands of eunuchs in white mourning robes led the mile long procession.
Then came the Dalai Lama, draped in gold, riding in a glistening sedan chair before a parade of Lamas beating gongs and Buddhist monks in saffron robes, heads shaven to expose the nine sacred scars. Red tasseled camels carrying platforms of musicians playing doleful music were followed by horses drawing carts, loads of professional mourners and wailing relatives, everyone garlanded with streamers and paper flowers. They were flanked by Manchu cavalrymen in full regalia with banners flying. Finally, there came wagons filled with paper money and clothing and life-size statues of warriors, foot-soldiers and attendants all pulled on wheels and made of paper as well as three splendid chariots with curtains of Imperial Yellow silk, emblazoned with dragons and phoenixes to be burned at the funeral to rematerialize with the Empress in her next life. The procession took four days to reach the tombs where on November 9, 1909, her cadaver was sealed in the same vault as her husband, Emperor Hsien-feng, who had chosen her as a concubine of the third rank half a century earlier.
When the 2000 year-old Dynastic Cycle collapsed, China disintegrated into the Warlord Era; a jigsaw of military cliques fighting for power. By 1912 the Xinhai Revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen had ousted the last of the Manchu imperial court and established the Republic of China (ROC). When President Sun Yat Sen died in 1925 of cancer, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, seized power and became head of the Kuomintang (KMT). To contest the other warlords, Chiang’s Nationalists joined forces with Mao’s Communists. As comrades they proposed the “Northern Expedition.” They agreed to meet in Shanghai and together their armies would defeat the most powerful warlord, the Mukden Tiger who controlled Shanghai. However, in November, 1927, Chiang Kai-shek betrayed the Communists and attacked them instead. A massacre followed. The Civil War began.
The Communists retreated on a 6,000 mile “Long March” from Kiangsi to Shensi, through some of the most rugged territories in the world with enemy troops lying in wait along the route. They marched from Oct 1934 to Oct 1935 ending in the caves of Yanan where Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai formed Communist headquarters. The Long March had started as a retreat but wound up a memorable triumph. China’s Civil War was interrupted during World War ll when Chiang and Mao joined forces to fight the Japanese who were defeated and fled China in 1945.
An attempt by men, like Gen. George Marshal and my father, Canadian diplomat Chester Ronning, to negotiate peace between Chiang and Mao failed. The Civil War began again.
President Chiang Kai-shek closed the gates to the Forbidden City and used the imperial palaces as army barracks. The marble court yards were stables for his horses. In 1949 the Communists occupied Peking without a fight. On Oct. 1, 1949 Mao stood on the historic Gate of Heavenly Peace to declare victory and establish The Peoples Republic of China. Reconstruction of the Forbidden City began.
Nearly 22 years later, in May 1971, at a dinner with my father and Premier Zhou Enlai in The Great Hall of The People, I asked the first premier of the People's Republic of China if as a young revolutionary living in the caves of Yenan he ever dreamed he would become the Premier of China. He laughed and replied "Fighting the Nationalists was easy compared to governing China after victory. That is when our problems began."
After dinner, Zhou Enlai, in confidence, asked Ambassador Ronning if he could trust Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's National Security Advisor. Our dinner was two months before Kissinger would pay his first visit to China, shrouded in secrecy, to lay the basis for the President's landmark visit seven months later. At the time of our dinner, Kissinger was in Pakistan making secret preparations to come to Beijing and meet Zhou. Ronning had strongly protested the war in Vietnam, but now he assured Premier Zhou that any peaceful connections between China and the United States would be most beneficial to both.
Modern Connections
My mythical Chimaera wasn’t rescued until 1972 when I was assistant to producer Lucy Jarvis, producing a television documentary for NBC called “The Forbidden City.” But I really owe my terra cotta lion-dog to my father, Chester Ronning. It was because of his friendship with China’s then-Premier Zhou Enlai and Huang Hua, China’s Foreign Minister, previously ambassador to Canada, that our crew of “lucky nine” professionals were granted permission to enter communist China. Visas were previously denied because the United States had not yet recognized the People’s Republic of China since the Communists had won the civil war in 1949 and the bulk of our team were Americans.
On our first morning in Beijing, the TV crew climbed Prospect Hill, a man-made mountain east of the City Wall to shoot some environmental scenes. Spread below us, like Shangri-la, was an aerial view of the Forbidden City. In 1972, Prospect Hill was almost covered with green trees except for a spooky old pine tree with one bare branch marking the point where, in 1644, China’s 16th and last Ming Emperor had hung himself in a desperate attempt to “save face” when he could no longer defend China’s northern frontiers from the invading Manchu warriors. It also marked the end of my Chimaera’s royal role on the roof of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
The view was enhanced by the rays of the rising sun slowly igniting the 178 acres of gardens, pavilions, temples, and royal palaces with yellow-tiled roofs, all enclosed by the vermillion, rammed-earth wall reflecting in the moat flowing under four marble bridges leading to the “Center of the Celestial World.” Ninety major buildings encompassed—that’s right—9,000 interior spaces housing a unique collection of 9,999 gifts or tributes from the world’s lesser civilized nations. The Imperial City had been constructed in conformity with aesthetic rules and colors plus a series of geometrical and astronomical considerations "in harmony with the cosmic order" devised by “Ancient Wisemen.” Admiring this supreme example of spiritual symbolism and metaphysical elements combined with architecture, I was brought to tears as happens at times when I'm confronted with great art. For one glorious moment, the sun focused on the shimmering blue and purple tiles blending with the yellow tiles guarding the illusion of grandeur. Little did I know that my Chimaera was crouching in the North Corner Tower waiting for me.
Inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony stands the Forbidden City’s main attraction the golden “Dragon Throne," accessible only to the “Son of Heaven” while he reigned over the "Center of the World.”
Although the People’s Republic of China had been in the process of restoring the Forbidden City since 1949, some of the legendary palaces filmed by NBC still contained ruins of the deteriorating Manchu court.
Today’s China is one of the world’s two superpowers. Visitors who wander through the restored Imperial palaces and enchanting pavilions spaced in the magnificent gardens, can view the ghostly throne rooms exhibiting tributary trophies from the Imperial Empires. I could sense the spirits of the ancient sovereigns hovering like hungry ghosts over their earthly domains. During our two months in Beijing recording the story of the Forbidden City for NBC TV, I was befriended by the official Caretaker of the Forbidden City who carefully watched over the Foreign Devils. He was kind enough to offer me rides around the Forbidden City on the back of his bicycle while we were photographing the various locations. We sometimes found areas that had been closed for decades. When we pushed open the creaky doors, piles of undisturbed dust swirled over us, causing fits of coughing.
The Caretaker expressed shock when I scrambled to retrieve the broken shards of Ming-yellow and purple tiles strewn around the long-abandoned grounds. When I treated them like crown jewels, he said he was sorry they were all broken. Shortly before we departed, he presented me with my legendary Chimaera and told me the amazing tale of how one of his ancestors had secretly rescued the mythical beast from destruction.
After 300 years guarding the stately Hall of Supreme Harmony during the Ming dynasty and hiding for another 267 years in a Corner Tower during the Qing dynasty, my rare Ming-yellow Chimaera contrived, with the help of the Forbidden City’s compassionate Caretaker, to make a daring escape from the Peoples’ Republic of China. In 1972 in the depths of the Cultural Revolution, the Caretaker of the Forbidden City rescued my Chimaera from the North Tower, bound it in newspaper and carried it off on the back of his bicycle. The day I was leaving, he humbly presented the ancient treasure to me and told me how one of his ancestors had hidden it in the Corner Tower. My somewhat battered but beautiful Ming yellow Chimaera’s joined the green, purple, and blue shards I had rescued from the dust. I wrapped my treasures in newspaper and continued Chimaera’s improbable journey by rickshaw to a train filled with Red Guards travelling to Shanghai. When I introduced myself as Audrey Ronning it caused high hilarity “Aiya!” called one. “ We have a running dog of U.S. imperialism”. I waved my Canadian passport and said I was also against imperialism (British imperialism). Cradling my Chimaera, we flew to Canton, proceeded by ship to Hong Kong, and eventually across the Pacific via the “Empress of China” to Scarsdale, New York. Finally, to my living room in Connecticut.
My mythological Lion-dog has finally completed his incredible journey from the Hall of Supreme Harmony in China’s Forbidden City to America. Now my anthropomorphic Chimaera proudly presides on a Ming-yellow ceramic tile in my living room perhaps conjuring up another tale to tell and China itself looks to reshape its future role in the world.
And so we conclude our stroll through the Forbidden City, in the company of Audrey Topping and her Chimera, the mythical lion-dog …. Exploring the roots of today's power as Xi Jinping seeks to extend his control and that of today's Middle Kingdom.
For Part I, go to last week's Unleashed Voices: