Li Hongzhang, a prominent politician in modern China, is a controversial historical figure. Some people praised him as "the only person in the Qing Empire who has the ability to compete with the world powers" and "the person who recreated Xuanhuang", believing that he continued the vitality of the decadent Qing Dynasty for decades by leading the Westernization Movement. However, some people were quite disgusted with him, calling him the "paste-maker" of the Qing Dynasty, believing that he was just a mediocre man with no talent and often made wrong decisions.
In addition, later generations have also criticized Li Hongzhang's ** problem many times, accusing him of defrauding the ** compensation. However, for Li Hongzhang, who is in a special historical period, it seems a bit hasty to judge him simply by his good or bad. Different historical standpoints will have different views and evaluations on Li Hongzhang. On the issue of Li Hongzhang's loyalty to Qing, we need to put his merits aside. What follows is the story I will tell about Li Hongzhang's loyalty to the Qing court.
Before telling the story, I will first give you a science popularization of the ** problem of the Qing Dynasty Internal Affairs Office. **Anyone who has ever experienced costume dramas knows that the emperor's diet and daily life are all taken care of by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and it has long been commonplace for this department to deduct ** and fill his pockets. The most rampant period of the Qing Dynasty's internal affairs government was the period of Jiaqing's accession to the throne.
Once, Jiaqing wanted to eat noodle soup, but the Ministry of Internal Affairs told him that if he wanted to eat noodle soup, he had to set up a special department to be in charge, and the imperial dining room needed to be specially allocated and purchased, and it would cost a lot of money. This confused Jiaqing, because he remembered that the noodle soup he ate on Qianmen Street when he was a child was only a few pennies a bowl. When he wanted the Ministry of Internal Affairs to buy them, he was told that the stalls were closed. It can be seen that the Internal Affairs Office even dared to fool the emperor, and did not hesitate to deceive the emperor in order to **.
What's more, after Jiaqing, the ** behavior of the Internal Affairs Office became more unscrupulous. In the Guangxu period, the Ministry of Internal Affairs even blatantly falsely reported accounts to the emperor. For example, in 1895, when Guangxu saw that the First Sino-Japanese Naval War was imminent, he ordered the whole dynasty to save money to prepare for war. He himself took the lead in reducing the number of eggs for breakfast from 4 to 2. When he asked the Ministry of Internal Affairs how much money could be saved in this way, the Minister of the Interior went so far as to claim that an egg would cost 10 taels of silver, so that at least 20 taels could be saved a day.
This ** already sounds very outrageous, although Guangxu has doubts, but because he has been pampered since he was a child, he doesn't know how much the real ** egg is. Li Hongzhang and Weng Tongyi gave completely different answers to Emperor Guangxu's question about eggs. Emperor Guangxu once asked Li Hongzhang about the ** of the ironclad ship, and was shocked after converting it into the number of eggs, thinking that Li Hongzhang had concealed the truth when he was **, so he rejected his ** procurement proposal.
Another minister, Weng Tongyi, replied that he rarely eats eggs on weekdays, and only occasionally needs them when he is sacrificing at home, but this answer makes Guangxu satisfied. The stark differences between the two ministers highlight some of the treacherous courtiers around the emperor in the late Qing dynasty, and their attitude towards truth and falsehood. This story reveals some of the political phenomena of the late Qing Dynasty, that is, the emperor was surrounded by treacherous courtiers who appeared to be loyal on the surface, but in fact had hidden scheming and often fooled the emperor.
Li Hongzhang was misunderstood as false, but Weng Tongxiao's answer was recognized as true, this phenomenon was just like a mirror of the imperial court at that time, reflecting the internal reasons for the fall of the Qing Dynasty. It is worth mentioning that there is a personal grudge between Li Hongzhang and Weng Tongyi. The two were even more politically opposed, especially after the start of the Westernization Movement, Weng Tongyi proposed that the funds for the construction of the Beiyang Naval Division be used to renovate the Summer Palace, and after the defeat in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, he took the lead in blaming Li Hongzhang.
These events make the loyalty and treachery of the two even more confusing. This story teaches us that for most historical figures, it is impossible to judge them by simple good or bad. Especially in those times of change, if one lacks flexibility and resourcefulness, how can one become a prominent figure of that era? Despite his controversy, it is undeniable that Li Hongzhang was an outstanding representative of his era.
In Search of Li Hongzhang: Paris 1896" vividly shows the image of Li Hongzhang, so that we can understand more clearly the success of this successful man back then. Can those successful experiences be used as a reference for the present generation?