Poetry Saint Du Fu once described the sufferings among the people he saw in his poems: " The rich family smells of wine and meat, and the road is frozen to death. The prosperity and withering are different, and it is hard to describe the melancholy again. " In fact, such a huge gap between the rich and the poor has been common in all dynasties.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the people outside the palace were living in dire straits, and the people almost reached the point of changing their children to eat. In the palace, Empress Dowager Cixi, who had a noble status, still lived a luxurious life. Even if the treasury is not enough to make ends meet, she would rather embezzle military spending than hold her birthday, which is also the reason why many historical books in later generations have poorly evaluated her.
The last luxury
On November 15, 1908, Empress Dowager Cixi, who had just celebrated her 73rd birthday, passed away due to illness. Cixi The rule of the Qing Dynasty lasted nearly half a century, and this was almost the darkest and most stormy half century in Chinese history.
Although the Qing Dynasty was already in a situation where the great powers were separatist and surviving, Cixi's funeral was not affected by any impact and was still preparing slowly, every detail was carved and luxurious. Cixi issued many orders regarding the specifications of the funeral and the items to be buried with her.
rumor that placing Night Pearl in the mouth of the deceased can ensure that the body is immortal for thousands of years. As a result, Cixi sent many people to find the high-quality night pearl. According to the "The Robbery Case of Cixi's Mausoleum", the night pearls contained in Cixi's mouth when she was buried weighed 4 taels, 2 qian and 7 cents, and were worth 1,080 taels.
Cixi's coffin is also very particular. Her coffin is made of golden nanmu , which is the most precious wood in the world. There is a sphere made of pure gold in the coffin, weighing more than 30 kilograms. The outside of the coffin is wrapped in silk, and the dragon and phoenix representing the royal family are embroidered with gold wire.
As for the gold, silver, jewelry and jade ornaments that are buried with you, there are countless. In order to carry Cixi and her burial objects to the mausoleum, the entire burial team used 7,920 people to carry the coffin. The funeral team was in a vast and endless way.
An extremely terrifying thing happened in such a grand funeral. When the team that was having funeral for Cixi was walking on the road, a bright sky suddenly blew with strong winds. At the same time, blood was flowing outwards along the gaps of the coffin, dripping and dripping, very creepy.
Such a scene scared the eunuch who was attending the funeral Li Lianying . However, he did not dare to make a statement about this matter until the coffin was sent to the tomb to open the coffin for inspection.
The scene in the coffin shocked everyone present and sweated.
The rat of the dynasty
Cixi's coffin was just opened, and a heavy smell of spice mixed with a stinky smell came to her nose. When Li Lianying pinched her nose and went up to check it out, she found dozens of huge mice lying in different postures in the coffin, with bloody orifices and ferocious death.
Even though Li Lianying followed Empress Dowager Cixi for many years and had seen countless scenes that ordinary people could not cope with, she was still frightened by the scene in front of her. He knew that this matter should not be made public, otherwise he would have the possibility of his life being lost, so he pretended to calmly order his subordinates to clean up the rat corpse in the coffin and then bury Cixi's coffin as if nothing had happened.
In order to learn the cause of the death of the rat in the coffin, Li Lianying secretly left a few rats and secretly searched for a foreign doctor to inspect the rats.
After testing the rat's corpse, foreign doctors clearly told Li Lianying that the mice died of the poisonous rat fragrance. After hearing this name, Li Lianying suddenly realized.
It turned out that Cixi began to build her own burial when she was still alive and sent people to collect treasures for burial. However, Cixi died before the treasures were collected. In order to meet many requirements for the funeral during Cixi's lifetime, everyone had to postpone the funeral for a year.
The corpse emits an unpleasant odor shortly after it is parked, which must be unacceptable. Therefore, during the funeral, in order to hide the odor, Li Lianying had to place a spice that emitted a strong fragrance in the coffin.
Cixi's corpse was decaying, and many mice were attracted, and they quietly crawled into the coffin. After the coffin was covered, they gradually lost air and inhaled a lot of poisonous rat fragrance and had nowhere to escape. In the end, they had to die in Cixi's coffin. The death was terrifying and bleeding from seven orifices.
Let the mouse penetrate into the coffin and let the rat's blood seep out of the coffin. None of these two crimes is enough for Li Lianying to be held accountable. At this time, Cixi had passed away. He had no support in the palace, so he simply resigned and returned home.
It was not until three years later, when Li Lianying's life was about to come to an end, that he told others about this thing that had been hidden in his heart, so that the bleeding of the coffin after Cixi's death would not become a terrifying unsolved case.
Women of the dynasty
In China's history, there are very few women who can have actual ruling power in the royal family, and Cixi is one of them. During the periods of the Qing Dynasty, the feudal forces struggled in the land of China. After the death of Cixi, Puyi, who was only three years old, ascended the throne, and the Qing Dynasty also quickly declined.
Hu Xi was born in 1835. In 1852, the seventeen-year-old Cixi entered the palace and became a concubine of Emperor Xianfeng and was named Concubine Lan. She was deeply favored by Emperor Xianfeng. She was named Yipin the second year of entering the palace. In 1856, she gave birth to the eldest son Zaichun, who later became Emperor Tongzhi.
After giving birth to the eldest son of the emperor, Cixi's position in the harem became stable. After the death of Xianfeng, Cixi and Empress Xiaozhen Ci'an were called the Empress Dowager together.
Before Xianfeng died, he arranged for Tongzhi eight ministers to assist him in handling political affairs. Cixi, together with Ci'an and Prince Gong, killed eight ministers of Gu Ming and seized the right to handle political affairs. From then on, the Qing Dynasty opened a long era of the two empress dowagers ruled behind the curtain.
Hu Xi's political philosophy was very conservative. She once returned the power to the then emperor Guangxu in 1889. Guangxu saw the rapid development of science and technology in the Western world and promoted Kang Youwei and others to reform the country. Cixi could not tolerate this change, and after launching the reform of 1898, , he took power back to his own use.
In terms of private life, Cixi was extravagant and enjoyed her best, regardless of the safety of the country and the people.
1894, the Qing Dynasty was fighting against the invading Japanese. In order to buy the army, the treasury was empty and funds were tight. This year, Cixi was exactly sixty years old. In order to make a glorious 60th birthday, Cixi embezzled more than 600 taels of silver for border defense and railway funds.
This indirectly led to the shortage of funds in China's military since then, and the Navy has no money to purchase advanced naval guns , so it was defeated by Japan in 895.
Cixi, who was incredible during her lifetime, also held a grand funeral after her death. However, it was her harsh requirements for the funeral that caused the coffin to not be buried immediately, causing the mouse to get in, causing the terrible phenomenon of bleeding from the coffin behind. This cannot be said to be a causal cycle.
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