November 3, 1908, was the Empress Dowager Cixi's 273rd birthday. However, all the eunuchs and maids in her palace were trembling and tiptoeing softly. There was no trace of joy on their faces.
Just now, Cixi got very angry, angrily denounced all the imperial doctors as a bunch of rubbish, and said that she just had a minor diarrhea problem, but it had not been cured even after being treated for so long.
But only a few people know that the real reason for Cixi's anger was that someone tipped her off. Guangxu heard the news of Cixi's illness and looked happy.
After hearing this, Cixi immediately said pitifully: "I will not die before you. ( I can't die first )"
These chilling words were criticized by the official in charge of daily life at the time " Yun Yuding "It was recorded truthfully and became important evidence for the statement that "Cixi poisoned Guangxu".
But these are just rumors after all, because Guangxu was very weak before his death, and coupled with the lack of historical data support, many people are more willing to believe that Guangxu died of illness.
This also made " Guangxu's violent death " and " Xiaozhuang marry", " Shunzhi become a monk ", " Yongzheng 's death ", " Qianlong's life experience " and be called the five major mysteries of the Qing Palace. .
In 1980, archaeologists cleaned up Guangxu's tomb. Because it had been looted by tomb robbers, experts only found Guangxu's remains, hair and a small number of cultural relics.
Taking into account the technical conditions at the time, experts temporarily sealed these items in the cultural relics warehouse of the Qingxi Mausoleum Management Office.
In 2003, CCTV came to the mausoleum district to film a Qing history documentary and learned that Guangxu's hair was sealed in the warehouse. Then I suddenly wondered whether the mystery of "Guangxu's sudden death" could be solved by analyzing Guangxu's hair.
In the end, multiple departments coordinated and established a special research group on " Cause of Death of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty ". At the same time, several strands of Guangxu's hair were sent to China Institute of Atomic Energy.
Hair can truly reflect the amount of trace elements in the human body, and because hair is constantly growing, hair is like a recorder that records changes in trace elements.
The hair growth rate of ordinary people is 1 cm per month. In other words, about one centimeter of hair reflects the changes in trace elements in the human body over a month.
Based on this, researchers divided Guangxu's hair into two groups according to length. The short group was divided into 26 segments according to one centimeter segments, and the long group was cut into 59 segments. The elemental content of each segment was then detected separately. The
test results showed that high concentrations of arsenic (As) were detected in both groups of Guangxu's hair, but the content in each section was significantly different, showing an obvious normal distribution .
The highest peaks of hair arsenic in Group 1 appeared in paragraph 10 (2404 μg/g) and paragraph 19 (262 μg/g).
The highest peaks of hair arsenic in Group 2 appeared in paragraph 26 (362.7 μg/g) and paragraph 45 (202.1 μg/g).
Arsenic usually exists in the form of compounds. Common arsenic compounds include realgar and crane crown , and crane crown red is one of the poisons that was often used in ancient times.
The arsenic content in normal human hair is generally 0.25-1 microgram/gram, while the arsenic content in Guangxu Emperor's hair is more than 2,000 times even based on the highest normal value. This is usually possible due to poisoning.
So after the results came out, someone shouted excitedly: "It's solved, it's solved, the mystery of Guangxu's sudden death is solved!".
Experts, however, have a different opinion.
First of all, this normal distribution is usually only possible when is acutely poisoned by . With such a large dose, Guangxu should have died on the spot. But obviously, Guangxu did not die, and lived for a long time after that, which is completely unreasonable.
Secondly, the arsenic content values measured from hair are also very different. Normally there should not be such a big difference. This is also a problem that is difficult to explain.
The expert's question made everyone think deeply. There is indeed an obvious contradiction.
At this time, the criminal investigation expert hired by the research team gave a reasonable explanation-the arsenic did not come from inside the hair, but from the outside, that is, it was contaminated on from the outside of .
This analysis suddenly enlightened everyone. They immediately went to the Guangxu Mausoleum and tested the soil, dust, debris, surface water, infiltrated water, etc. in the coffin and surrounding environment.
The test results proved that the arsenic content in these test items was far lower than the highest arsenic content in Guangxu's hair. Therefore, it can be judged that arsenic does not come from environmental pollution.
Then there is only one possibility left. The arsenic was contaminated by Guangxu before his death, not after his death.
Experts pin their last hope of solving the mystery on the remaining fragments of clothing and remains. If arsenic is contaminated in the hair, there is a high probability that it will be contaminated in other parts of the body as well.
Sure enough, experts found high concentrations of arsenic in many places on Guangxu's remains and on his clothing, with values close to the levels found in previous hair tests.
However, in the stomach of the remains, experts detected higher concentrations of arsenic from multiple layers of clothing, and the concentration was higher in the inner layers.
This shows that this part of the arsenic seeped out from the inside of the corpse due to the decay of the corpse's stomach, and gradually eroded all layers of clothing from the inside out. Therefore, the arsenic concentration in the inner layer of clothing is higher than that in the outer layer, which proves that Guangxu did take high-concentration arsenic compounds.
So whether this arsenic compound is Hedinghong? Experts tested the collected residues.
Arsenic compounds are divided into highly toxic third-order arsenic (crane top red), toxic fifth-order arsenic and slightly toxic organic arsenic.
Laboratory results confirmed that most of the stomach residue was third-order arsenic and fifth-order arsenic. The proportion of third-order arsenic reached 29.3%.
But where does fifth-order arsenic come from? Experts explained that third-order arsenic will be converted into fifth-order arsenic over time, so the proportion of third-order arsenic in Guangxu's stomach must have been much higher than 29.3%.
Based on this, it can be determined that Guangxu was taking Hedinghong at that time.
So now there is only one last question left. Is Heding Red the cause of Guangxu's death? It depends on the content of Heding Red.
According to research data, people who take 60-200 mg of Hedinghong will be poisoned and die.
According to previous measurements, the total amount of crane crown red that Guangxu spilled on his hair and clothes has reached 201.5 mg.
He would obviously not drink less than this amount.
So it can be concluded that Guangxu died of poisoning after drinking Hedinghong.
"There is no love between mother and child, no love between husband and wife, no pleasure of banquets and travels with ministers and attendants, no blessings for the people in peacetime, and there is a noble person who is better than one person."
This is probably a portrayal of Guangxu's life.
