Everything Under the Sky by Matilde Asensi Page B

legend?”
    “If it were false, madame, what other object in this chest could have motivated three imperial eunuchs to come here from Peking? What else could bring two menacing Japanese dignitaries to my store accompanied by Pockmarked Huang? Remember, Japan still has a powerful emperor on the throne who is unquestioned by his people and has demonstrated more than once that he's willing to back an imperial restoration by becoming militarily involved in China. In fact, for years he's provided millions of yen to certain princes loyal to the Qing in order to maintain Manchu and Mongol armies that continue to harry the Republic. The Mikado wants to make that fool Puyi a puppet emperor under his control and thus take over all of China in a single, masterful move. You can be absolutely sure that uncovering the tomb of the First Emperor of China would be the definitive blow. All Puyi would have to do is claim it as a divine sign, say that Shi Huang Ti blesses him from heaven and recognizes him as his son or some such thing in order for hundreds of millions of poor peasants to humbly throw themselves at his feet. People here are very superstitious, madame; they still believe in mystical events like that. And you foreigners, the Yang-kwei , would undoubtedly be massacred and expelled from China before you could ask yourselves what was happening.”
    “Yes, but, Mr. Jiang, you're forgetting one minor detail,” I protested, feeling somewhat offended that the antiquarian had used the pejorative expression Yang-kwei, or “foreign devils,” to refer to me as well. “You told me the chest came from the Forbidden City. Your agent in Peking acquired it after the first fire at the Palace of Established Happiness. I remember because I liked that name; it seemed so poetic. If Puyi could do everything you say with help from the Japanese if the chest were in his possession, why hasn't he done it already? Unless I was misinformed, Puyi lost power over China in 1911.”
    “In 1911, madame, Puyi was six years old. He's now eighteen and recently married, which means he has come of age. If the revolution hadn't occurred, this would have meant the end of his father's regency, that ignorant Prince Chun, and Puyi's rise to power as Son of Heaven. It would have been absurd to think about the restoration before now. Indeed, there have been attempts in the intervening years, all of which amounted to ridiculous failures, as ridiculous as the very fact that four million Manchus want to continue governing four hundred million sons of Han. The Qing court lives in the past, maintaining the old customs and ancient rituals behind the high walls of the Forbidden City, and doesn't realize there's no longer any place for True Dragons or Sons of Heaven in this country. Puyi dreams of a kingdom full of Qing queues, 10 a time that will fortunately never return. Unless, of course, a miracle should occur, such as the divine discovery of the lost tomb of Shi Huang Ti, the first great emperor of China. The common man is fed up with power struggles, military governors who become warlords with private armies, and internal disputes throughout the Republic, not to mention that there is a strong pro-monarchist party, spurred on by the Japanese, the Dwarf Invaders, that sympathizes with the military because it disagrees with the current political system. If, madame, you combine Puyi's recent age of majority and his open desire to regain the throne with the discovery of Shi Huang Ti's sacred mausoleum, you'll see that conditions are ripe for a monarchical restoration.”
    I was moved by Mr. Jiang's words and, above all, by the zeal with which he spoke. Without realizing it, I may have looked at him more intently than decorum allowed. If my first impression of him had been that of an authentic mandarin, an aristocrat, I was now discovering a man passionately devoted to his thousand-year-old race, heartbroken by the decline of his people and his culture, and full of disdain for