Two days after the dramatic arrest of Prince Su, the political climate within the Forbidden City had shifted from tense to dangerously volatile. Prince Gong was, on the surface, victorious. He had successfully halted the diversion of military funds and publicly checkmated the Empress Dowager. But his victory had come at a steep price. He was now isolated, a marked man. The factions loyal to Cixi, which included the majority of the court, now viewed him with open hostility. He had won the battle, but he was in danger of losing the war if he could not secure allies.
It was this urgent need that led him to summon the Imperial Tutor, Weng Tonghe, to his private mansion.
Weng Tonghe arrived at the Prince's residence in a state of quiet terror. The summons had felt like a death sentence. He was a scholar, a man of books and poetry, not a political conspirator. Yet he found himself trapped between the two most powerful, and now openly antagonistic, forces in the empire: the Regent and the Prince. He felt like a blade of grass caught between two grinding millstones.
Prince Gong's study was, as always, a place of stark, masculine order. He received the tutor not with the elaborate ceremony of the court, but with a directness that was far more unnerving. He poured two cups of hot tea himself and gestured for the trembling scholar to sit.
"Grand Tutor," the Prince began, dispensing with all pleasantries the moment his aide had closed the door. "Let us not waste each other's time with pointless denials. You and I both know the Emperor's 'story' about General Yue Fei and the pearls was no childish fable. It was a message. A very precise and effective message."
Weng Tonghe's heart hammered against his ribs. He opened his mouth to protest, to swear his innocence, but the Prince held up a hand, silencing him.
"I do not know who you are working for," Prince Gong continued, his voice a low, intense rumble. "Perhaps it is one of the southern viceroys. Perhaps it is a faction of reformist ministers who are too cowardly to speak for themselves. Frankly, at this moment, I do not care who it is." He leaned forward, his gaze sharp and penetrating. "What I care about is that you have access. You have the Emperor's ear every single day. I need that access."
Weng Tonghe finally found his voice, though it came out as a weak, reedy squeak. "Your Highness, I swear upon the graves of my ancestors, I know nothing of what you speak! The Emperor is… merely a child! He says strange things! I am but his humble teacher, I do not understand…"
"Do not play the fool with me, Tutor!" Prince Gong's voice rose, not in anger, but in sheer, frustrated force. "A fool would not have survived this long in your position. You are a scholar of the Hanlin Academy. You are a man of intelligence and perception. You know exactly what is happening."
He stood up and began to pace before the hearth, his shadow long and imposing in the firelight. "Listen to me carefully, Weng Tonghe. After the events at the reception, the Empress Dowager now sees me as a declared enemy. That is a dangerous but clear position. But she now sees you as a hidden one. A secret conspirator. A snake in the grass. In her eyes, you are the one whispering poison into the Emperor's ear. Of the two of us, you are in the more precarious position."
He stopped pacing and turned to face the pale, sweating scholar. "Our interests, whether you like it or not, are now aligned. Cixi will move against us both. She will try to isolate me further and find an excuse to have you stripped of your titles and exiled, or worse. We can either allow ourselves to be picked off one by one, or we can find strength in a common cause."
He was offering a deal. It was a lifeline thrown to a drowning man, but the rope was a hangman's noose.
Prince Gong laid out his terms with cold, pragmatic clarity. He could not shield the tutor from Cixi's displeasure completely, but he could offer his considerable political cover. He could ensure that any formal move against Weng Tonghe would be met with stiff opposition from his faction at court. In exchange, he wanted Weng Tonghe to be his eyes and ears. He wanted to know everything the Emperor said, every question he asked, every story he told, every text he showed an interest in. The Prince was convinced that Weng Tonghe was the conduit for a hidden group of reformist ministers who were using the boy Emperor as their mouthpiece. He wanted to make contact with this hidden faction, to form a grand alliance to save the Qing from Cixi's disastrous leadership.
Weng Tonghe sat in stunned silence, the teacup trembling in his hand. He was trapped in a nightmare of another's making. He was innocent, a simple scholar caught in a political hurricane. But he knew, with the weary wisdom of a lifelong courtier, that in the Forbidden City, perception was reality. Cixi believed he was a conspirator. Prince Gong believed he was a conspirator. His own protestations of innocence were as meaningless as a whisper in a thunderstorm.
His choices were stark: to stand alone and be crushed by Cixi, or to align himself with the Prince and become the very thing they all thought he was. It was no choice at all. It was a matter of survival.
With a deep, shuddering sigh of resignation, Weng Tonghe gave a slow, defeated nod. "I… I will do as Your Highness asks," he said, his voice barely audible. "I will listen. I will report."
The alliance was forged.
It was a monumental, unforeseen victory for Ying Zheng. From his quiet chambers, he had orchestrated a political coup without ever speaking a single word to its main actor. His two most important potential assets—the man with daily access to his ear, Weng Tonghe, and the man with the political power to act, Prince Gong—had now formed a pact of convenience. They believed they were working together against Cixi, seeking out a mysterious third faction of reformers.
In reality, they had both just become the primary, unwitting pawns in Ying Zheng's much larger, much older game. He now had a secure, deniable channel to feed information and suggestions directly to Prince Gong, using his own terrified tutor as the messenger. The gilded leash Cixi had placed on him had just become his own private line of command.