In the first year of Tongzhi (1862), on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, a sudden flash flood broke out in Pingfan County (present-day Yongdeng County, Gansu), a natural disaster that did not cause much damage to the peasants, but drowned a governor of Shaanxi and Gansu and thirty-five retinues. This unfortunate governor was Shen Zhaolin, who was quite famous in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty.
Shen Zhaolin, Zi Zhisheng, No. Yu Ting, Zhejiang Qiantang people. In the sixteenth year of Daoguang (1836), he was admitted to the jinshi and was elected as a Shujishi of Hanlin Academy and edited. Daoguang has been studying politics in Shaanxi and Gansu for twenty years, and has been in office for three years, working diligently, and has a good reputation in Shilin.
After serving as a foreign official for several years, Shen Zhaolin was transferred back to the Beijing Division to be reused by Daoguang. After the death of the Daoguang Emperor, most of the sacrifice texts on the funeral ceremony came from Shen Zhi's hand. In the early years of Xianfeng, Shen Zhaolin was again sent out to study politics in Jiangxi, which coincided with the Taiping Army's passage through Jiangxi, so he organized local soldiers to fight against the Taiping Army.
In the fifth year of Xianfeng, Shen Zhaolin returned to the Beijing Division and entered the study, and it just so happened that Prince Gong Yi bi was idle after class and was punished to study in the upper study. So, they formed a friendship between them. In the ten years of Xianfeng, the emperor left Rehe, and Sushun spread rumors about Prince Gong, and Shen Zhaolin took the initiative to help him clarify, and twice asked Emperor Xianfeng to return to Beijing.
At this time, Shen Zhaolin was already in a high position as an official, serving as the Han Shangshu of the Hubu Department, and the Manchu Shangshu was Sushun. Because everything was constrained by Su Shun, he could not exert his fists and feet, and his heart was very unhappy. After the Anglo-French army invaded Beijing, Shen Zhaolin stayed in the Beijing Division and fought with Yi Bi against the Sushun clique. In foreign affairs, Shen Zhaolin also has quite an opinion, which often coincides with Yi Bi and Wen Xiang.
After the coup d'état of Xin You, the Party of Su stepped down, and a group of old ministers such as Qi Liaozao, Jia Zhen, Zhou Zupei, Weng Xincun, and others re-emerged from the mountains. However, after all, these people are too senior, and there are many protégés and former officials, so it is easy to form a party. If they were all placed in the position of military aircraft minister, it would obviously not be a good thing for the young Yi Bi.
Therefore, Yi Bi needed to select a group of manageable ministers from the second echelon to enter the military aircraft. Looking at the six departments, the official Shangshu Chen Fuen has been dismissed, and the most important thing outside the official department is the household department. Hubu Han Shangshu Shen Zhaolin, from the perspective of seniority, connections, and influence, he obviously cannot be compared with Qi Liaozao, Zhou Zupei, etc., but he is above others, and the political views are basically the same as those of Yi Bi, so that he can enter the military aircraft, which can be controlled and balanced.
Soon, Shen Zhaolin was reappointed as the Shangshu of the Military Department and walked on the Military Aircraft Minister. Yi Bi's original intention was to let Shen Zhaolin be a puppet in the military plane, but he did not expect that Shen Zhaolin was usually a person who was "not inferior to others". As soon as he joined the military aircraft department, he was extremely dissatisfied with Yi Bi's monopoly of power, and from time to time contradictions arose.
Yi Bi was wrong one step at a time, not one step at a time, and seeing that Shen Zhaolin was not a puppet that could be controlled at will, he used a little means to squeeze him out of the military plane. Shen Zhaolin, a military minister, had only been in office for fifteen days, and he was sent to Gansu to investigate and handle the case. In May of the first year of Tongzhi, after the investigation of the case in Gansu was completed, Yi Bi also designed to dismiss him from his post as military minister and release him as the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, so as to "not let him return to Beijing."
The imperial court's order Shen Zhaolin had to accept, but after all, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu was a feudal official, and he was not too aggrieved. On the seventh day of the first month of July of that year, Shen Zhaolin and his party of thirty-seven people traveled three kilometers outside the city of Yongdeng County, and suddenly the wind was fierce, and Shen Zhaolin misjudged the geographical location, thinking that it was close to the county seat, so that the car driver accelerated forward, not wanting the flash flood to suddenly emerge at this time.
Not to mention, Shen Zhaolin was not afraid of danger, he thought that he was the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, and he could use guan wei to suppress the mountain gods and force back the mountain torrent. He first took off his shoes and threw them into the water to stop the flash flood. Not wanting to do so but not working, at this time the flash flood was getting bigger and bigger, and the caravan and the guards were terrified and fled. Shen Zhaolin used his killer skills and took out the Governor's Great Seal and threw it into the water, trying to suppress the flood, but it was still useless.
The huge torrent immediately swept away Shen Zhaolin and his party, except for the two servants who escaped to the mountain and survived, the rest of the people were all swept away by the flash flood and drowned. After the water receded, local officials found Shen Zhaolin's body, which was mutilated. Later, the local people described in vivid colors that shen Zhaolin was often seen flying alone to the mountains in the place where he died. The local government built a "Shen Gong Ancestral Hall" for him as a memorial.
Some local people said that Shen Zhaolin's name was not good, and he was also called Yuting, and his name was full of water, and he was eventually flooded by rainwater. After Shen Zhaolin's death, the imperial court made a statement and posthumously awarded him the title of Crown Prince Taibao (太保) and was posthumously honored as "Wen Zhong".