The Mystery of the Death of the Guangxu Emperor is most likely to die of arsenic poisoning

The Guangxu Emperor's tomb contained a number of hair, bones, and clothes, so the conclusion that arsenic killed him was actually much more reliable than Napoleon's.

An emperor should not die casually. When he was alive, it was impossible to eat, travel, or even have sex casually, let alone die. When the total amount of arsenic stained only on part of the clothes and hair of Guangxu's decaying body was as high as two hundred milligrams, people remembered Napoleon. Arsenic, an ancient poison, has once again stepped onto the stage of history.

Arsenic trioxide, commonly known as arsenic cream, molecular formula As2O3, is the most commercially valuable arsenic compound and the main arsenic chemical material, odorless and odorless, the appearance of white frost powder. This is a highly toxic by-product produced during the treatment of certain minerals, such as smelting gold ore, high-temperature distillation of arsenic pyrite (poisonous sand), condensation of its white smoke, and arsenic can be obtained.

In the "pulse case" of the first nine days of March in the 34th year of Guangxu, the imperial doctor Cao Yuanheng wrote these words: The emperor "liver and kidney yin deficiency, spleen and yang deficiency, qi and blood loss", the disease situation to the extent that there is no medicine available. In the "pulse case" of the first ten days of May of the same year, the imperial doctor Chen Bingjun wrote that "the conditioning has been long, and there is no effect". Du Zhongjun, a famous doctor in Jiangsu, also said after seeing the emperor, "I don't seek merit, but only do not make mistakes." The "Pulse Case" in September of the same year pointed out that at this time, Guangxu's pathology was more complex and changeable, and the function of the internal organs had been completely out of balance.

Perhaps these files are conducive to overturning the conclusion that Guangxu was poisoned, but the diagnosis of foreign doctors recommended by the British minister in China Dou Nale cannot be ignored, saying that Guangxu is "cured by blood and disease-free".

Compared with Napoleon, who died eighty-seven years before Guangxu, the common denominator of the two lies in the depression of years of seclusion and sudden emergencies before death.

Historically, the arsenic family (arsenic) was the king of poisons. This completely odorless and easy-to-carry poison played an important role in the inheritance of many family property. Because the symptoms of arsenic poisoning are similar to those of diarrhea, food poisoning, cholera, and some normal diseases, it has become the drug of choice for killers. After Emperor Taizong of Song killed Li Yu, several members of the imperial family died one after another. It is said that the emperor was well versed in toxicology, presumably with an in-depth study of arsenic.

In the 1950s, swedish dentist Sten was convinced that Napoleon had died of chronic arsenic poisoning. He had asked for access to Napoleon's body, which had been refused. A hair that Napoleon's attendant, Louis Machand, took from Napoleon on the day of his death ended up in Sten's hands. The hair was developed in 1960 in the Forensic Medicine Laboratory of the University of Glasgow and underwent neutron activation analysis (NAA).

The results were staggering: the arsenic concentration of that hair was as high as 10 ppm (million percent concentration), almost thirteen times the normal amount. Professor Hamilton Smith provided an analytical theory at the time: the growth cycle of hair is about 0.014 inches per day, and if arsenic is absorbed from the natural environment, then every hair segment should be the same, while Napoleon's hair has different levels of each segment: from the lowest to the highest. In 1974, In their co-authored Murder on St. Helena, Sten and Ben Weid asserted that Napoleon had shown thirty of the thirty known symptoms of arsenic poisoning!

However, their conclusions have also been questioned a lot. Some people think that Sten thinks that the standard for arsenic content in normal human hair is not "standard". In heavily polluted Mexico City, it is not uncommon for hair to contain 4 ppm of arsenic. Moreover, an isolated test of an individual's hair without samples of the hair of contemporaries on the island of St. Helena was not convincing enough.

In 1862, Count Flahautdela Billardrie, who had been Napoleon's comrade-in-arms, taunted: "The last twenty years I have seen so much supposedly Napoleon's hair that it can be carpeted to cover the entire Palace of Versailles." ”

The French suspected that the British might have killed Napoleon not with arsenic, but with poor medical techniques. We are amazed by the great advances in medical technology of the 20th century and deeply aware of how frightening medical activities of the past have been. Roughly speaking, the most valuable theories of Western medicine have been based on a set of "hell" theories for more than a thousand years. The most influential School of Sarenneau was the true academic institution of medieval medicine. Just as the world is made up of four elements, they say, fire, air, water, and earth, the human body also has the same four corresponding liquids. When the Crusaders were sick, they would first pray to the toes or other parts of a saint for a speedy recovery. Holy relics are the last remedy, curative of all diseases, and each saint has his own tricks: St. Bulles specializes in treating the thorns stuck in the throat, and St. Agasha specializes in treating inflamed breasts. On July 2, 1881, James Abram Garfield, the twentieth president of the United States, was shot by the Assassins in Washington. Doctors arrived quickly, and he used an unsterilized metal probe to find the bullet. Graham Bell moved a coil around the president's body in an attempt to find the bullet through electromagnetic induction. He detected the greatest induction in one place, but doctors didn't find anything there. On September 19, the president died. The autopsy found that the bullet was ten inches from that place. However, Bell's invention was later changed to a mine detector.

On January 16, 1912, the cold winter wind in Beijing blew through George Ernest Morrison's carriage. The carriage reached T-Shaped Street, and it was nearly noon, but there were few diners in the shops. In China at that time, many toiling people ate only two meals a day.

In Chinese history, more people refer to Morrison as "Morrison", an old friend of Yuan Shikai and a foreign consultant with old qualifications. Born in Australia, Morrison walked from Shanghai to Yangon in 1894 and wrote "An Australian in China", which tells the story of his three-thousand-mile journey for eighteen pounds, which is the earliest foreign backpacker in history to travel to China. With this unusual experience, The Times hired him as a correspondent and funded his continued travel and interviews from Bangkok to Kunming and later through the three eastern provinces.

This was Mo Lixun's fifth year in Beijing, when he had a new identity: military minister and adviser to Shangshu Yuan Shikai of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His carriage was in Yuan Shikai's convoy. The most powerful man in China just withdrew from the dynasty, leading a large group of staff and guards out of Donghuamen in a carriage, passing through Dong'anmen to Dingzi Street, which is today's Wangfujing (600859, Sharebar).

At this moment, Mo Lixun heard the sound of heavy objects flying by, exploding! The convoy was quickly thrown into chaos.

"I immediately realized that someone had dropped a bomb, a horse rushed past the pursuing people, and after a moment of silence, Yuan Shikai's carriage quickly rushed out of the accident site under the protection of the guards. Thank God, Yuan Shikai is safe and sound. Morrison later recalled.

But Mo Lixun did not foresee that the Chinese hero he was worried about at the time would then embark on the road of becoming emperor. Mo Li followed Yuan Shikai, just like Beethoven to Napoleon, from admiration to incomprehension to final scorn. In his previous political career, Yuan Shikai's behavior was only two words: betrayal. He betrayed his friends, betrayed the court, betrayed the emperor. Few people have explored his true heart—he is only loyal to himself.

This is the Donghuamen Incident, also known as the T-Street Bomb Case. After the Xinhai Uprising, the uprising near Gyeonggi in the northern region was wiped out by Yuan Shikai. The revolutionaries believe that without the removal of Yuan Shikai, the greatest obstacle to China's reunification and progress toward democracy cannot be removed. On January 16, 1912, eighteen revolutionaries, including Huang Zhimeng, Zhang Xianpei, Wu Ruolong, Qian Tieru, Yang Yuchang, Zheng Yuxiu, and Luo Mingdian, were ambushed in advance on the upper floors of roadside shops. When they saw the convoy coming, they dropped bombs one after another, killing Yuan's guard captain and more than a dozen other people on the spot. However, Huang Zhimeng, Zhang Xianpei, Yang Yuchang and ten others were arrested. On January 17, Huang, Zhang, Yang and others took up their righteousness in Beijing.

This article is excerpted from "The Best of the Best people in the Late Qing Dynasty"