On the evening of November 14, 1908, the thirty-eight-year-old Guangxu Emperor Qingdezong Ai Xinjueluo Zaixiang died at the Hanyuan Hall in Yingtai, Zhongnanhai. On the afternoon of the second day of Guangxu's death, his mother, political enemy, and Empress Dowager Cixi, who had manipulated the late Qing Dynasty for half a century, also died at the age of seventy-four.
Why did a young man who was rich and powerful and a young man die within 20 hours? This coincidence shocked both Chinese and foreign countries, and also caused people to speculate.
It is widely believed that the thirty-eight-year-old Guangxu died in front of the seventy-four-year-old Cixi, less than a day apart, which is not a coincidence, but a deliberate murder. Because Cixi was afraid that he would die, Guangxu would make a comeback and re-implement the Restoration and Reform Law, and the theory that Cixi murdered him to death was born.
However, according to rumors in the palace, since the fall of the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (1908), when the Guangxu Emperor fell ill, Cixi's attitude toward the Guangxu Emperor was much better than before. Once upon a time, the Guangxu Emperor asked Cixi for peace, sometimes kneeling for an hour or two. Later, when the Guangxu Emperor fell ill, Cixi ordered the eunuchs, and the emperor asked An not to let him wait outside for a long time. During the ascension to the throne, the Guangxu Emperor wanted to kneel down to greet Cixi, and he was spared. On Cixi's birthday, the Guangxu Emperor said that he was too weak to come over and kowtow to an emperor. Cixi has always attached importance to her birthday, as important as the Sino-Japanese War, Cixi did not want to delay her birthday, but this time the Guangxu Emperor said that he could not come over, Cixi listened to it and said: "It is important to take care of your health, and it is much more important to be sick than to kowtow." From this point of view, Cixi was still very concerned about Emperor Guangxu when he was ill. It should be unlikely that Cixi wanted to kill the Guangxu Emperor.
The last emperor Puyi also said that although cixi killed the Guangxu Emperor, he believed that Cixi did not expect that he would die in one day on the day he announced his succession, that is, the day the Guangxu Emperor died. Because two hours after the announcement of the death of the Guangxu Emperor, Cixi yiyi appointed Zaifeng as regent, and said: "All military and state affairs must be carried out in accordance with my instructions." In other words, the regent must obey Cixi at every turn, which proves that Cixi does not think that she will die soon and preemptively. In addition, according to the medical archives of Cixi before his death preserved in the First Historical Archives, Cixi actually had a chronic disease, and his condition gradually worsened, and when the Guangxu Emperor was critically ill, there were no dangerous symptoms, so Cixi could not have preemptively attacked because she was worried that she would die first.
With the academic research on archival newspaper materials, the Guangxu Emperor's "natural death theory" seems to have become the mainstream.
It is mainly based on the medical records of the doctors who saw the Guangxu Emperor at that time and the oral accounts of the Guangxu Emperor himself on the condition. The Guangxu Emperor was raised by Cixi in the palace from an early age, and no one else could approach him, only Cixi could get close. But Cixi had too many things to do, and she was not very thoughtful about the life of the Guangxu Emperor.
Some eunuchs recalled that the Guangxu Emperor had three meals a day, and there were dozens of meals, which filled the whole table, but the dishes that were far away from the Guangxu Emperor did not change for many days in a row, and most of them had rotted; those close to the Guangxu Emperor, although not rotten, were not fresh, they were repeatedly heated, and they were not delicious.
The Guangxu Emperor wanted to add vegetables, and the imperial dining room had to inform Cixi. Because Cixi did not know the specific situation of Emperor Guangxu's meals, she rebuked him for extravagance and waste, so that Emperor Guangxu starved from an early age. Because of this, the Guangxu Emperor was very weak since childhood.
The Guangxu Emperor said in his 37-year-old self-report that he had lost his sperm for nearly twenty years, and his tinnitus had been nearly ten years, his back was sore, and he would have a headache if he encountered wind and cold.
The "Pulse Case" of the Twenty-sixth Year of Guangxu (1900) records that the Guangxu Emperor's condition continued to deteriorate. From the perspective of modern medicine, he seems to suffer from severe neurosis, arthritis and tuberculosis and blood system problems.
In the spring of the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (1908), his condition was already very serious, and the imperial doctor was helpless.
Cixi issued an edict to recruit famous Jiangsu doctors Chen Bingjun and Cao Yuanheng to enter Beijing to see the Guangxu Emperor. Subsequently, he recruited famous doctors from all over the country and demanded quick tribute to medicinal herbs.
On the ninth day of march, Cao Yuanheng wrote in the medical case: The emperor's liver and kidneys are yin and yang, spleen and yang are insufficient, qi and blood are lost, and there is no medicine to save. So he only prescribed some tonedotherapy.
On the tenth day of the first month of May, Chen Bingjun wrote in the "Pulse Case", "When the conditioning is long, there is no -- point curative effect." The Guangxu Emperor was also very anxious about his growing illness, and he once reprimanded the imperial doctors for being incompetent, saying that they were perfunctory.
By mid-October, Emperor Guangxu's condition continued to deteriorate and he developed dangerous symptoms. Du Zhongjun said to the courtiers, "This disease will not be more than four days old, and there will be danger." On the twentieth day, the Guangxu Emperor's eyelids were slightly open, it was difficult to open them, and the corners of his mouth that were drooling were trembling slightly. That night, he was in a state of dying, delirious. At noon on the twenty-first day, the pulse seemed to be nothing, the eyes were looking straight, and the mouth was open to inhale; in the evening, the breath died.
From the perspective of modern medicine, Guangxu Emperor is mainly a long-term chronic attack of tuberculosis, liver, heart and rheumatism, which leads to a decline in his resistance, a variety of complications, and finally lead to the failure of cardiopulmonary function.
It can be seen that the Guangxu Emperor's illness is deteriorating step by step and should belong to normal death.
In addition, at that time, the "Declaration" also paid attention to the condition of the Guangxu Emperor, reporting more than thirty times in a row, and repeatedly published the doctor's "pulse case", including the pulse records of the imperial doctor, and the prescription taken. It shows that from the summer of this year, the guangxu emperor's illness gradually worsened. Therefore, from this point of view, the death of the Guangxu Emperor should belong to normal illness and death.
But a hundred years later, Chinese officials tested it with modern forensic techniques to confirm that the Guangxu Emperor had died of arsenic poisoning. In 2008, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of the Guangxu Emperor, the National Qing History Compilation Committee, the Qing Xiling Cultural Relics Management Office, the Forensic Examination and Appraisal Center of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau and other units jointly formed the "Cause of Death of the Qing Guangxu Emperor" special research group, and determined that Guangxu died because of "acute gastrointestinal arsenic poisoning".
Through modern forensic science, researchers repeatedly tested, studied and analyzed the hair, bones, clothes and environmental samples inside and outside the tomb of Guangxu's body.
Experts found that Guangxu's collar and hair were contaminated with a high concentration of arsenic trioxide (i.e., arsenic cream), and the arsenic trioxide in the stomach area of the robe was caused by the erosion of body fluids when the corpse was decomposed, and the arsenic trioxide in the hair and collar was also a remnant of the erosion of corpse fluid.
The average person who takes arsenic cream for 60 to 200 mg will die, and the total amount of arsenic detected on some of the clothes and hair of the Guangxu Emperor alone is as high as about 201 mg, and the cause of death of Guangxu is widely known.