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The Green Phoenix: A Novel of Empress Xiaozhuang, the Woman Who Re-Made Asia
by Alice Poon
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Born Borjigit Bumbutai, a Khorchin Mongol princess, the future Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang enters Hong Taiji’s Manchu court through a political marriage in 1625. The novel follows her transformation from junior consort into the mother of the Shunzhi Emperor and the senior woman of a dynasty still fighting for survival. Her imagined forbidden love for Dorgon places personal sacrifice beside the succession struggle that follows Hong Taiji’s sudden death.
As Dorgon’s armies enter Beijing and complete the first phase of the Qing conquest, Bumbutai must safeguard her young son, negotiate rivalries within the Aisin Gioro clan and preserve a workable relationship between Manchu, Mongol and Chinese elites. Later, as grandmother and adviser to the Kangxi Emperor, she helps secure the dynasty’s future. The novel presents the founding of Qing rule through the emotional and political life of a woman whose influence operated through kinship, counsel and control of the imperial household.
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