Page 58 - Vol. VII #7

Young Huli has pushed back the remnants of the Communists Party to Inner Mongolia. His tanks and yellow-shirted infantry have crushed the guerril- las that controlled the provinces below the Yangtze River and the remaining People’s Liberation Militia along the Yellow River. He has declared himself em- peror. His armies march across the provinces wav- ing blue banners with yellow half-moons, the new symbol for China.
New Work in New China
To celebrate his victories, the young emperor builds a palace in Tibet, his homeland, bordering the Gobi desert, the remnants of the Great Wall stretching in the background. To fill it, he has chosen one virgin from every province to be his concubine. This, he explains to the Chinese people, signifies the country’s unification into greatness. And the girls, whom he
will treat equally by going to bed with a different one every day of the month, represent his equal treatment of all the provinces. New China consists of thirty-one provinces, and he has declared that, in the months when there are only thirty days, he will not sleep with Manchuria.
One of the recent appointees is a man named Zhang Mei, a cook he met in Beijing during his siege of the city. The man is unusually loyal and trusting, but the emperor did not waive the cutting of the testicles. “Traditions,” he said to Zhang Mei, who was kneeling before him. A tradition as important and as common- ly known as the requirements to become a gong-gong, the emperor must strictly maintain.
In order to appease the growing demand for democ- racy—mostly among college students—the emperor has given his concubines certain powers. They will act as a sort of sexual senate. Each concubine will act as a representative to her respective province. They will be able to propose laws, suggest amendments, encourage pardons, and ask the emperor for con- sideration as a judge or military commander, all on their scheduled nights when the emperor sleeps with them. The college students remain unsatisfied, but the emperor understands that one cannot force-feed democracy. Such sudden freedoms might burst the nation’s stomach.
Zhang Mei is not from the city. He was born in the countryside, and snuck into Beijing when he was twenty, using a fake birth certificate. He did not know it was the new emperor Huli who was enjoying his hand-drawn noodles during the Siege of the Beijing, always sitting on that patch of dirt next to his conces- sion stand. The man looked more like a beggar, his face covered with hair, his teeth crooked, his nose long like an opium addict’s pipe. He sat there and ate and steam came out of his mouth, and he laughed with his entire body when his soldiers said something funny. Zhang thought he was an infantryman, or per- haps a tank commander. On one such occasion, Zhang was standing in front of the strange man, pouring
He believes his biggest problem will be keeping his palace court in order. Reforms bring about unfore- seen problems: how will the emperor maintain control of his sexual senate? He decides to reinstate an old tradition used by the emperors of past dynas- ties: the recruiting and training of gong-gongs. A gong-gong is a manservant of the emperor and the emperor’s concubines who, on appointment, is made a eunuch. The young emperor has read Romance
He has a cousin stuck in the countryside. This cousin, Pei Pei, has recently married his village sweetheart, and their dream is to live in Beijing or Shanghai. Zhang wants to help them. He calls his cousin using his government-issued cell phone, and urges him to come to Tibet and work for the emperor.
of the Three Kingdoms and Dreams of Red Mansion, and he understands that in China’s past, even when eunuchs and concubines were not given any official power, the intrigue reached such levels that they were
“You won’t have to worry about money anymore,” Zhang says in his new high-pitched voice. “Everyone will have to bow to you. I’ll put in a good word with the emperor.”
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At first Pei Pei thinks that the change in his cousin’s voice is due to the dry climate of the Gobi Desert. Then he realizes that it is because his cousin is not a
sometimes able to usurp the throne. He must pick his servants carefully.
him flour broth, when he saw a stray shrapnel flying toward their direction. He stepped in front of the man and knocked the hot shrapnel away with his wok.
In the process, he spilled the steaming broth on the soldiers. He was almost afraid the hairy man would lob a grenade at his concession stand. But instead, the man thanked him and brought him to Tibet, and then made him a eunuch. Zhang Mei considers his current station in New China to be most fortunate.
MicHael Xu wang