Throughout the ancient Chinese feudal dynasties, although most of the time men were the actual rulers of the country and led the country to move forward, there were actually many women who played a very important role in the process of historical development. Role.
Among these women, Empress Lu , Wu Zetian and Empress Dowager Cixi are represented.
Compared with the first two people, Cixi seemed to have never made any contribution to the country except wasting national resources throughout her life. Machiavellian and political struggle abilities are inversely proportional to her ability in diplomacy .
Facing the Chinese people, Cixi used her power to crazily suppress them. She could face foreigners, but she could only grovel, please and beg for mercy.. It is precisely because of this that countless Chinese people still feel disgusted when mentioning Cixi.
So how much was Cixi's arrogance and licentiousness in her life?
What many people don't know is that in addition to her many acts of greed and corruption, she also set up a secret room to hide treasures.
When Empress Dowager Longyu later opened this secret room, she couldn't help but feel ashamed and sighed. Compared with Cixi, her self-righteous enjoyment was nothing at all.
Crazy Sixty Years Old
As long as Cixi’s extravagant and wasteful life is mentioned, Sixty Years Old must be a topic that no one can avoid.
It was precisely because of this birthday that Cixi openly misappropriated the military expenditures required for the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which indirectly led to the failure of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. From then on, the second wave of Western powers' second round of carving up China was triggered.
According to historical records, in order to prepare for her 60th birthday, Cixi started asking her servants to prepare relevant matters two years in advance.
In addition to her own troubles with , , even the emperor Guangxu specially arranged relevant departments to prepare.
Under normal circumstances, there was no problem if the rulers during the feudal dynasty wanted to hold activities for their own birthday banquets.
But what we need to be clear about is that the Qing dynasty at that time was devastated by internal and external troubles..
Especially after experiencing the invasion of Western powers and the impact of the Taiping Rebellion , the entire country can be said to be an empty shell, barely maintaining the operation of the state machine .
Under such circumstances, as long as the rulers still have a shred of sense, they should use their limited wealth on the edge .
But Cixi didn't think so. In her eyes, personal interests should always be higher than the interests of the country. For this reason, no matter how much silver was spent, how much manpower and material resources of the Manchu dynasty would be wasted, Cixi did not take it to heart.
" Qing History " records that in order to satisfy Cixi's personal desires, not only a large amount of silver was withdrawn from the treasury, but even the silver used to prepare military pay and border defense funds became part of Cixi's birthday party part.
More importantly, after spending such a huge amount of money, the Qing Dynasty royal family still required officials inside and outside the capital to apportion relevant silver coins.
A simple understanding is that as the actual ruler of the country, I (Cixi) need to celebrate a birthday now, and officials at all levels should be more sensible .
Everyone should pay as much as they should, so they should pay it honestly.
In this way, Cixi forced her ministers to spend money to celebrate her birthday. Cixi can be said to be the first person in history.
Cixi's Secret Chamber
We all know the subsequent development, because military expenditures were misappropriated , plus the entire Qing Dynasty had completely different attitudes towards the Qing Dynasty and Japan towards the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 . In the end, the Qing Dynasty was in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894. After a disastrous defeat, Li Hongzhang was forced to sign " Treaty of Shimonoseki " .
What is sad is that the 200 million taels of silver compensation in the treaty were only obtained after Li Hongzhang was shot in Japan. It can be called a national shame.
However, faced with such a situation, Cixi still showed no repentance expression. It was just that the pressure from the government and the opposition was too great, so Cixi behaved a little lower-key on related matters.
But even so, Cixi still kept collecting relevant treasures and stored them in a secret room that she quietly built.
As time went by, after Cixi passed away, Empress Dowager Longyu imitated Cixi and took advantage of Puyi Emperor was young and ignorant and listened to politics behind the curtain in an attempt to concentrate the power of the country in his own hands.
But one day, Empress Dowager Longyu ordered someone to find a way to open Cixi's secret chamber, only to discover that the treasures she had collected since taking power were not even one percent of Empress Dowager Cixi's .
But at this time, the Queen Mother Longyu also did not understand. The reason why such a situation occurred was that it just proved that the country was constantly weakening and its wealth was being plundered.
In the end, driven by the inevitability of historical development, Empress Dowager Longyu had no choice but to issue " The Edict on the Abdication of the Qing Emperor " , and the rule of the Qing Dynasty came to an end.
And what about Cixi? In addition to the large amount of treasures in the secret room, Cixi also brought a large number of precious funerary objects into her tomb.
It's just that Cixi couldn't have imagined that not long after her death, all the treasures in her tomb would be stolen. Everything that valued so much during his lifetime was not left behind even after his death.
