China -- Court and courtiers -- Anecdotes; Cixi, Empress dowager of China, 1835-1908 -- Anecdotes; Empresses -- China -- Anecdotes
A blast of trumpets announced the coming of the Empress of Heaven and
she soon arrived accompanied by all the Buddhist Priests and their
attendants. When the Empress of Heaven saw all the peaches and wine had
disappeared, she woke the attendants and asked them why they were asleep
and where the peaches and wine had gone. They said that they did not
know, that they were waiting for her to come and fell asleep. Then one
of the guests suggested that she should find out what had become of the
feast, and attendants were sent out to the guard to find out from
the soldiers if anyone had gone out of the gate recently. Before the
messenger had time to return, the Guard of Heaven came and informed the
Empress that a big monkey, who was very drunk and carrying a big stick,
had just gone out of the gate. When she was told this, she ordered the
soldiers of heaven and several buddhas to go and find him at his place.
It seems that this monkey had originally been made from a piece of stone
and lived in a large hole in a mountain on the earth. He was endowed
with supernatural powers and could walk on the clouds. He was allowed
to come to heaven and the Empress of Heaven gave him a position looking
after the Imperial orchards.
When they got to his place on the earth, they found that he had taken
some of the peaches with him and he, with other monkeys, was having a
feast. The soldiers challenged him to come out and fight. He immediately
accepted this challenge, but the soldiers could do nothing with him. He
pulled the hair out of his coat and transformed each hair into a little
monkey and each monkey had an iron rod in its hand. He himself had
a special iron rod, which had been given to him by the King of Sea
Dragons. This rod he could make any size he wanted from a needle to a
crowbar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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