It can be seen from the old ** that the Empress Dowager Cixi is keen to dress up as the Guanyin Bodhisattva who is compassionate and compassionate.
The eunuchs and palace ladies were also well versed in the preferences of their masters, and from time to time they dressed up the Empress Dowager Cixi to satisfy Cixi's greedy and vain desires.
Cixi once hung the curtain, disciplined the government three times, and was in charge of the late Qing Dynasty for 47 years, and was the actual ruler of the Qing Dynasty and the Guangxu Dynasty.
But the reality of Cixi's actions was the opposite of what she imagined, and under her rule, the people were miserable, and the Qing Dynasty gradually declined.
All this karma is inseparable from the Empress Dowager Cixi's lustful character.
In 1894, the Sino-Japanese First Sino-Japanese War, which was related to the fortunes of the country, broke out, and at that time, Cixi was also the same as Emperor Guangxu, and "no weak words are allowed".
However, it happened to be the 60th birthday of the Empress Dowager Cixi, and when someone proposed to stop the Summer Palace project and stop the relocation of the scenery for military expenses, Cixi was furious: Whoever makes me unhappy today, I will also make him unhappy for life.
It can be seen that Cixi's temperament and pattern of putting her own interests first are not better than those of Yamanomura.
It was not until the war was lost, Dalian fell, and Lushun was in danger that Cixi had to spend her 60th birthday in Ningshou Palace.
After the defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War, China ceded land and paid reparations, and the world powers set off a frenzy to carve up China, and the national crisis was unprecedentedly serious.
In 1898, Kang Youwei wrote to Emperor Guangxu to request that the law be changed as soon as possible in imitation of Japan's Meiji Restoration, otherwise the catastrophe of the destruction of the country was imminent.
Emperor Guangxu was greatly touched and said to Prince Qing Yixuan: If the Queen Mother does not give me the right to do things, I am willing to give up this position and am not willing to be the king of the country.
When Cixi heard this, she said angrily: He doesn't want to sit in this position, I don't want him to sit in this position for a long time, with a face where the world is under her control.
Yixuan persuaded again and again, but Cixi agreed, and then left the words: let him do it, and he will talk about it if he can't do it.
Later, Cixi carefully read the Kang Youwei memorabilia forwarded by Emperor Guangxu, and also felt that there was some truth, and claimed: If you can get rich and strong, you can do it yourself, and I don't control it internally.
This sentence can be interpreted as saying that if the reform and reform implemented did not damage the authority of the Empress Dowager Cixi and the law of the ancestors, then Cixi "I will not control it internally", otherwise it will be "impossible to do it".
This laid the groundwork for the Empress Dowager Cixi's suppression of the Wuxu Reform Law in the future, because Cixi doubted whether the change was in line with her standards from the beginning.
On June 11, 1898, Guangxu issued the "Edict of the Named Country", marking the beginning of the reform of the law.
When the edicts of the law change came down one after anotherInevitably touching the interests and rules of the bureaucratic class, the conservative ** was very frightened, and knelt down to ask the Empress Dowager Cixi to come forward to prohibit the change of the law. But at this time, he had just started to change the law, and he had not yet touched Cixi's bottom line, so he ignored it.
However, in order to prevent the law from getting out of control, Cixi made personnel additions in the imperial court, and firmly controlled the personnel, finance, and military power in her own hands.
In the face of the conservative ** repeatedly obstructing the change of the law, Emperor Guangxu was angry and did not report to Cixi, so he dismissed the six ministers together, and at the same time promoted Tan Si to the same change of law, which hurt Cixi's authority.
Cixi told the wife of the dismissed minister Waitabu to "bear with me for the time being" and immediately summoned her cronies to take countermeasures.
On the 29th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, Emperor Guangxu met with the Empress Dowager Cixi, and saw that "the Empress Dowager did not answer, and her expression was abnormal", knowing that the big thing was not good, and came back to discuss with Lin Xu, Liu Guangdi, and Tan Si equally.
Tan Sitong met with Yuan Shikai, the envoy of Zhili who was training troops at the small station in Tianjin, and asked him to support Emperor Guangxu in getting rid of Rong Lu, the governor of Zhili, to complete the reform plan. Yuan Shikai agreed on the surface, but secretly told Rong Lu, the governor of Zhili.
It coincided with the arrival of former Japanese Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito in Beijing, and Emperor Guangxu was preparing to summon him on the fifth day of the eighth month. Some reformers believed that if Ito and others were appointed, the New Deal would succeed and the country would be able to turn the crisis into peace.
The conservative forces believe that if Ito fruit is used, the ancestors will pass it on to the world, which is tantamount to giving it to others. They cried to the Empress Dowager Cixi: Discipline the government to curb the chaos.
Originally, Cixi had already received a report that the Governor of Zhili, Ronglu Restoration, was going to rebel, and now Emperor Guangxu was going to appoint the Oriental Ito Hirobumi, which was repaid!
Cixi had already finished arranging, and immediately returned to the palace from the Summer Palace on the fourth day of the eighth month, went straight to the palace of Emperor Guangxu, copied all the folds, and imprisoned Emperor Guangxu in Yingtai.
On the sixth day of the first lunar month, Cixi re-disciplined in the name of Emperor Guangxu, and was dismissed from his post and questioned by the people who changed the law on the charge of "forming a party for personal gain, and disrupting the government".
A few days later, six people, including Tan Sitong and Kang Guangren, the backbone of the Wuxu Reform, were killed.
Many of those who participated in or supported the reform of the law were punished. A New Deal was repealed, and the Wuxu Reform Law ended in failure.
Modern scholar Kong Xiangji said Cixi most appropriately: "Fifty years is a fairly long historical period. During this period, many countries on the earth developed science and technology, prospered economically, and improved politically, but China was controlled by such a woman full of power desire, lifeless, and sluggish development.
Kong Xiangji emphasized: Not only that, but the harm caused by Cixi has left a heavy burden on our nation: her enthusiasm for power and the legacy of advocating ** cannot be said to have been completely wiped out today.