In the 13th year of Tongzhi , Zaitian, who was only 4 years old, was appointed as the new emperor by the empress dowagers of the two palaces. The empress dowagers of the two palaces listened to the government behind the curtain. When Empress Dowager Ci'an died of illness, the power fell into the hands of Empress Dowager Cixi alone.
Cixi In order to help Zaitian grow up as quickly as possible, she asked Weng Tonghe to be his teacher and teach him how to read, write, and govern the country. In the first few years, Emperor Guangxu obeyed Weng Tonghe, but as he grew older, Emperor Guangxu began to become rebellious, and sometimes even became dissatisfied with many people.
When Emperor Guangxu grew into his teens, he had a habit of complaining. One year just after the Lantern Festival, the palace prepared a lot of snacks for the Empress Dowager Cixi, as well as specialties sent by officials from all over the country.
According to the usual practice, if the Queen Mother cannot finish the food, she will ask the young eunuch to give it to the prince, Belle, and Princess to try. Of course, the little emperor will also get a share, but everyone else has it, but the little emperor does not receive it. The person responsible for delivering snacks to the emperor was the eunuch chief Li Lianying.
Li Lianying did not give the snacks to Emperor Guangxu, but gave them to the little eunuchs around him. The reason why he did this was because he was scolded by Emperor Guangxu a few days ago and was angry. It seemed that the emperor could not offend his subordinates. Little devil, otherwise there will be times when you are put in small shoes.
When the little emperor learned about this, he was very angry. He thought that he was a high-ranking king but was being manipulated by a eunuch. How could he feel comfortable? So he ran to Cixi to complain and threatened to kill Li Lianying.
Soon Li Lianying was summoned and knelt in front of him. The little emperor asked Li Lianying angrily, "Why were the snacks not sent to him?" Looking at the childish little emperor, Li Lianying had already planned it. He would give it to the little emperor first. I apologized, and then said that I had too many things to do during the Lantern Festival, and I was so busy that I forgot about it for a while.
The little emperor felt that these were all excuses. The queen mother looked at the child-like emperor and felt funny in her heart. She also thought that Li Lianying was really busy with work, so it was understandable that she forgot. The little emperor still refused: "Nonsense, you clearly gave all the snacks to the eunuchs!"
The wily Li Lianying quickly replied: "Only when I was going to bed at night did I suddenly remember that the emperor's snacks had not been delivered yet, so I hurriedly delivered them.
I didn’t want the wind to blow sand into the snacks on the way.” The little emperor asked again: “Then why did you give it to the eunuch?” Li Lianying said, “How can the emperor eat dirty snacks, but this is a snack given by the Queen Mother, so you can’t give it to me. After throwing it away, I had to give it to the eunuchs to eat. "
The little emperor didn't know what to say for a while, but the Queen Mother valued Li Lianying even more, but all the scripts were designed by Li Lianying.
Although Emperor Guangxu was the most powerful emperor, he had no real power and was young.
How could he be the opponent of the cunning Li Lianying? Moreover, Li Lianying had the support of the Queen Mother. In the face of power, the Queen Mother might not care about the grievances of a teenage boy.
