A Committee of Vipers

The victory in securing funding for the Northern Fleet was only the first skirmish in a much larger war. The debate now shifted from whether to build a navy to the far more contentious question of who would build it. The Grand Council chamber, which had briefly returned to its usual sleepy state, was once again a viper's nest of political intrigue. The prize was the leadership of the newly proposed "Office of the Beiyang Fleet," a government body that would wield immense power, controlling a budget larger than that of many entire provinces and overseeing the single most important military project of the era.

Cixi, having been forced into reluctant support for the project by the clever machinations of her nephew, was now determined to control it from the inside. If she could not stop the river of silver from flowing, she would ensure she controlled the men who held the buckets. Her strategy was simple and direct: pack the new naval office with her own loyalists.

Her chosen champion, the ever-obsequious Grand Councillor Ronglu, stood to present their list of candidates. His voice was filled with a self-important gravity, as if he were announcing a new holy scripture.

"Your Imperial Majesties, esteemed Councillors," he began, his gaze sweeping the room. "The leadership of this new, vital Office of the Beiyang Fleet must, above all, be entrusted to men of proven and unwavering loyalty to the throne and to the regency. This is a matter of the highest imperial security. We cannot place the nation's new shield in the hands of men whose ambitions are unknown."

He then read out a list of names for the top positions—Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner, Head of Procurement. They were all high-ranking Manchu nobles from powerful families, men whose careers and fortunes were inextricably linked to Cixi's patronage. They were also, without exception, men who had no knowledge of naval affairs, modern technology, or Western industry. One was a renowned poet, another an expert on court ritual, and a third was known primarily for his collection of rare crickets. They were sycophants, not strategists. Their real purpose was not to build a fleet, but to act as Cixi's proxies, ensuring she maintained absolute control over the vast sums of money and the lucrative contracts that would soon be awarded.

Prince Gong listened, his face a mask of stone, his fury a tightly coiled spring. As soon as Ronglu finished, he was on his feet.

"Loyalty?" the Prince's voice boomed, sharp and contemptuous. "The Councillor speaks of loyalty when he should be speaking of competence! The loyalty of these men is not in question, but their ignorance is! Do you want the esteemed Lord Naran, a man who cannot tell the bow of a ship from its stern, deciding which cannons to mount on our new ironclads? Do you want Duke Aisin-Gioro, whose greatest engineering achievement is designing a more elaborate cage for his birds, to be in charge of procuring steam engines from Germany?"

He slammed his hand on the table. "This is not a poetry society! It is the foundation of our national defense! We need men who understand steam and steel, not the Confucian classics! We need experts, not nobles!"

Prince Gong and the powerful Viceroy Li Hongzhang, who had once again traveled to the capital to champion the cause of modernization, proposed their own slate of candidates. Their list was composed of provincial officials who had experience with Western trade, younger scholars from the Hanlin Academy who had secretly studied Western engineering texts, and even a few men who had traveled abroad. They were competent, pragmatic, and ambitious—and therefore, in Cixi's eyes, untrustworthy.

"The Prince speaks of competence," Ronglu sneered back, "but his list is filled with obscure provincials and young hotheads besotted with barbarian ideas. He would have us entrust our navy to men who admire the West more than they respect their own ancestors."

The debate raged, the two factions locked in a bitter stalemate. Cixi's faction held a slight advantage in the council; her network of patronage ran deep, and many officials were too terrified to openly defy her. It seemed inevitable that her list of incompetent but loyal cronies would be approved, dooming the Northern Fleet to become another failed, corrupt project before the first piece of steel was even forged.

Ying Zheng, miles away in his study, received hourly reports on the deadlock from his network. Little An, his pliable eunuch, would deliver bowls of tea or snacks, and tucked into the folds of the napkin would be a tiny, rolled-up piece of rice paper with a summary of the council's proceedings from Liang Wen.

He read the reports, his mind cold and clear. He knew he had to intervene. He had successfully manipulated the court into creating the fleet; he could not allow them to staff it with fools who would guarantee its failure. He needed to break the stalemate, and to do that, he had to give Prince Gong a new weapon, a new candidate so perfect that Cixi would find it almost impossible to object to him.

He needed to create another piece of "evidence" of the Emperor's divine will.

He sat at his lesson table, the ever-present gazes of his three tutors fixed upon him. Today's lesson, dictated by the rigid curriculum of Wo Ren, was a tedious exercise in bureaucratic knowledge. He was being forced to practice his calligraphy by copying out the official names and titles of every major official in the central government—a lesson designed to instill in him a deep respect for the existing hierarchy.

As he was dutifully copying the long and elaborate title of Grand Councillor Ronglu, one of Cixi's proposed candidates for the naval office, he made his move. With a small, "inadvertent" lurch, he jostled his inkpot. A large, black blot of ink fell upon the paper, completely smearing the name he had just written.

"Aiyah!" he cried out, his voice a perfect pitch of childish frustration. "I have ruined it! The name is all black and ugly now!" He threw the brush down in a convincing display of petulance.

Wo Ren looked down at him, his face a mask of stern disapproval. "An undisciplined mind leads to an undisciplined hand, Your Majesty. You must learn to control your frustrations. Begin again. On a fresh sheet."

Ying Zheng sniffled, then picked up a new brush and turned to a clean sheet of paper. "I do not want to write that name again," he said stubbornly. "I will practice the name of a better official. A good official who does good work for the empire."

Then, with an air of immense, painstaking concentration, he began to write. He drew the characters slowly, carefully, as if each one were a precious jewel. The name he wrote was not one of the great ministers or princes on the list. It was a name that most in the palace would not even recognize: Li Fengbao.

Li Fengbao was a real historical figure, a low-ranking diplomat who had spent several years attached to the Qing legation in France. He was quiet, unassuming, and had no powerful political patrons. But, as Shen Ke's exhaustive analysis of government personnel records had revealed, he had spent his time in Europe obsessively studying naval technology and shipyard management. He was, perhaps, the single most knowledgeable man on the subject in the entire Qing government. And because he belonged to no faction, he was politically neutral. He was the perfect candidate.

Later that afternoon, the ink-smeared paper and the "practice sheet" with Li Fengbao's name were, as per the daily routine, set aside by a eunuch to be disposed of. But Ying Zheng's loyal agent, Little An, ensured these two specific sheets were not burned. They were "accidentally" misplaced, included in a stack of unrelated historical documents that were being sent to Weng Tonghe in the archives for cross-referencing. The stage was now set for the Emperor's will to be known once more.