After the Xinyou coup, Cixi and Prince Gong seized the supreme power, and none of the original eight ministers were spared, and only the final political judgment awaited them.
Among them, Zaiyuan, Duanhua, and Sushun, who are regarded as the "culprits", are already destined to accept the severe punishment of the Nanshan Iron Case and cannot be changed. Although the three men were condemned to death, Cixi showed the magnanimity of the victors at this time, and was lenient with their deaths.
Although Zaiyuan and Duanhua were extremely evil, they were royal relatives, and according to the ancestral system of "discussing relatives and nobles" in the Qing Dynasty, their punishment could be mitigated. In order to protect the dignity of Aixin Jueluo, the emperor specially ordered them to commit suicide.
As for Su Shun, who committed a more serious crime, although Cixi knew that he should be punished by Ling Chi's execution, because he was also a distant branch of the clan, she still ordered it to be changed to a beheading decision, and sent Prince Rui Renshou and the criminal department squire Zailing to supervise the execution.
As for the disposition of the three ministers, Zaiyuan, Duanhua, and Sushun, Cixi believed that they must be executed, because their crimes were extremely heinous, and there were many henchmen, and once they connived, there might be a danger of a comeback, and even if this danger was only one percent, it was unacceptable.
As for the remaining five ministers, the Qing court decided to dismiss them from their posts to end their political lives. Jing Shou received special leniency because he was the forehead of Emperor Daoguang, and he still retained the rank of duke and forehead after his dismissal.
The other four military ministers Mu Yin, Kuang Yuan, Du Han, and Jiao Youying, according to their crimes, Du Han committed the most serious crimes. When the Empress Dowager of the Two Palaces summoned Prince Gong, Du Han directly intervened to stop him, and when the Empress Dowager of the Two Palaces argued, he was the most prominent.
Du Han's background is very prominent, and his father is Du Shoutian, the master of Emperor Xianfeng. The reason why Cixi and Prince Gong treated him lightly was mainly because Prince Gong had concerns.
Yi believes that Du Shoutian played an important role in Xianfeng's seizure of the throne, which is already an open secret. If Duhan's crimes were to be highlighted in particular among the four military ministers, one might suspect that he was proclaiming a personal vendetta.
People are terrible and have to be guarded against, so he advocates being more tolerant of Duhan. However, the four military ministers cannot be treated equally, and if Du Han is forgiven, someone else must be found to take the blame, and unfortunately Mu Yin has become a scapegoat.
The Qing court sent Mu Yin to serve in the army to atone for his crimes on the grounds that he had "walked on the military minister for the longest time, had the highest status, and the circumstances were particularly serious". Kuang Yuan, Du Han, and Jiao Youying were only dismissed and were not assigned.
Under the leadership of the Qing court, 19 ** and eunuchs who were close to Sushun were dealt with to varying degrees, including Chen Fuen, the high-ranking official of the ministry, and Huang Zonghan, the right attendant of the ministry.
Chen Fuen's family property was confiscated and sent to Xinjiang to serve, and he was also required to return the plaque of "Honest and Good Minister" that he had been given by Emperor Daoguang; Huang Zonghan was dismissed from his post and never resigned, and was asked to return the plaque of "loyalty, diligence and integrity" that he had received from Emperor Xianfeng.
In this far-reaching palace coup, although only 3 people were executed and 24 punished, this was already a minimized blow. It is worth mentioning that the Empress Dowager of the Two Palaces and Prince Gong ordered that all the current accounts and letters confiscated from the Sushun Mansion be sent to the military aircraft and burned in public.
This practice makes the original ** who had dealings with Su Shun no longer everyone in danger, showing that the Queen Mother of the Two Palaces and Prince Gong have a certain politician's demeanor, at least know how to win people's hearts.
Su Shun, one of the eight ministers of Gu Ming, had the most miserable end. Since the founding of the Qing Dynasty, he may have been the only member of the Aixinjue Luo clan who was escorted to the execution ground and publicly beheaded.
In the face of death, he showed true manhood, regarded death as home, refused to kneel, and uttered disrespectful words. It is said that before the execution, he insisted on kneeling, which caused the bones of both legs to be broken, and the executioner still stirred in his mouth, and finally died in a blur of flesh and blood.