The Emperor’s Toy Boats

The ice on Kunming Lake, the vast, man-made sea within the grounds of the Summer Palace, had finally begun to melt at the edges, the dark water reflecting the pale, watery light of the early spring sun. It was here that Ying Zheng was "playing." A small flotilla of carved wooden boats bobbed in the shallows by the marble balustrade where he sat, his small legs dangling.

His attendants watched from a respectful distance. The boy Emperor had become even more quiet and withdrawn since the departure of his old tutor and the arrival of the new, stern regime led by Wo Ren. His only apparent joy was this new, simple pastime. He had commissioned the palace's carpenters to make him a set of toy boats.

Most of the boats were exquisite, detailed models of traditional Chinese naval vessels. There were flat-bottomed river junks with high sterns, sleek Fujian trading ships with their distinctive slitted sails, and even a few larger, multi-decked war junks, their hulls painted with fierce, glaring eyes meant to ward off evil spirits. But among this traditional fleet was one vessel that was starkly, brutally different. It was a crude, hastily carved model, but its form was unmistakable to anyone who had seen the foreign ships in the ports of Shanghai or Tianjin. It was a Western-style ironclad, low in the water, with a thick, armored hull, a single, tall smokestack, and a rotating turret for its main gun.

This afternoon, the Empress Dowager Cixi, on one of her own leisurely walks, came upon the scene. She had been in a foul mood for days. The debate over the Northern Fleet had consumed the court. Prince Gong, emboldened by some unknown source, was pushing relentlessly. Viceroy Li Hongzhang had sided with him. And now, even the British minister, Sir Thomas Wade, had been making subtle inquiries, signaling his government's approval only if the fleet's funds were managed under a structure that limited the court's own control. She felt cornered, her authority on the matter being slowly eroded from all sides.

She saw her "nephew" playing by the water's edge and decided to stop. She saw his strange collection of boats, and her lips thinned in annoyance. It seemed to her more evidence of the boy's unhealthy, lingering obsession with the tools of the foreign barbarians, a mental poison left over from Weng Tonghe's tenure.

"Still playing with your barbarian toys, Zaitian?" she asked, her voice deceptively light, but with a sharp, chiding edge.

Ying Zheng looked up, his face breaking into a bright, innocent smile that was a masterpiece of misdirection. "Yes, Huang A Ma! I am playing a war game. It is very exciting!"

He gestured to the flotilla with a small, sweeping hand. "This is our fleet, the navy of the Great Qing," he said, pointing to the collection of traditional, beautifully carved wooden junks. They bobbed elegantly on the water.

"And this," he said, his voice dropping with childish gravity as he pointed to the crude, grey-painted ironclad model, "is a Japanese pirate ship."

The choice of enemy was critical, and deliberate. Cixi, like most of the Manchu court, thought of the European powers as the primary threat—the great, hairy barbarians from across the ocean. But Japan? In the court's collective consciousness, Japan was still the "dwarf kingdom," the little brother nation that had borrowed its culture and learning from the Central Kingdom for centuries. They were an afterthought, an upstart, not a serious strategic threat.

Cixi watched, a flicker of amused contempt on her face, as the boy began his "game."

Ying Zheng leaned over the balustrade and gave the ironclad model a firm push. Its solid, heavy form slid through the water with a purposeful momentum. It plowed directly into the center of the fleet of wooden junks.

The result was a small-scale massacre. The heavy ironclad model smashed into the lighter, more fragile wooden boats. One of the war junks splintered, its delicate mast snapping. Another was simply shoved aside, capsizing with a gentle splash. The ironclad plowed through the center of the formation, its wake scattering the remaining ships, leaving them in disarray. It was a simple, brutal demonstration of mass and power.

Ying Zheng clapped his hands together with childish glee, his laughter echoing over the quiet water. "Look! The pirate ship wins! It is so strong! It broke all of our boats!"

He then turned to look up at Cixi, his joyful expression fading, replaced by one of serious, thoughtful concern. His acting was flawless.

"Huang A Ma," he said, his voice now quiet and troubled. "My tutors say the Japanese are also learning from the Westerners now. They are hiring British teachers and buying German machines." He looked back at the victorious ironclad model bobbing amongst the wreckage of his traditional fleet. "What if their real pirate ships become strong like this one? They are so close to us. Their islands are right there." He pointed east, across the lake. "Much closer than Britain or France."

Cixi stared down at the scene on the water. The boy's words, so simple and delivered with such innocence, struck her with the force of a physical blow. Her mind, so focused on the chess game of court politics, on the immediate threats posed by Prince Gong and the distant pressures from Russia and Europe, had completely discounted the threat from the east.

She, like her councillors, had dismissed Japan as an annoyance, a nation of clever imitators. But the boy was right. They were learning, modernizing at a terrifying pace. And they were close. Dangerously close.

She looked at the crude ironclad model that had so effortlessly smashed the traditional junks. The boy's "game" was no longer a game. It was a stark, simple, and utterly terrifying strategic lesson. It was a prophecy delivered with toy boats.

A powerful, modern navy was not just about projecting strength against the distant Europeans, a matter of pride and long-term security. It was about containing a rapidly modernizing, ambitious, and geographically intimate rival. The threat from Japan was not a distant possibility; it was an urgent, existential danger that no one else at court was seriously discussing.

Her opposition to the Northern Fleet, which she had viewed primarily as a political power play by Prince Gong's faction, now seemed dangerously short-sighted. The cost, the reliance on foreigners—all of it suddenly seemed secondary to the stark image of that single ironclad model dominating the water.

She left the lakeside pavilion a few minutes later, her mind deeply troubled. She did not say another word to the boy, but her expression had changed. The anger at Prince Gong had been replaced by a new, colder, and more genuine fear. It was a fear not for her own political power, but for the future of the dynasty itself.

Ying Zheng watched her walk away, a flicker of cold triumph in his ancient eyes. He had successfully reframed the entire debate. He had taken a contentious political issue and transformed it into a matter of urgent national survival. He had manipulated his greatest enemy into becoming a reluctant supporter of the very project he needed to begin preparing for the war he knew was coming in twenty years. The first keel of his new navy had just been laid, not in a shipyard, but in the troubled mind of the Empress Dowager herself.