Li Hongzhang was one of the most important ministers in the late Qing Dynasty, witnessing the darkest, most corrupt, and most incompetent process of the late Qing Dynasty.
Some people think that he is a traitor to the country and betrayed the interests of many Chinese countries, so that the Chinese people have lived in a deep and fierce situation since then, and China has completely degenerated into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society; some people believe that he has made indispensable contributions to the Chinese nation, and without his existence, the suffering of the Chinese nation may be even deeper.
Li Hongzhang died in 1902 at the age of 78, and the supreme ruler at the time, Empress Dowager Cixi, remembered her merits to the imperial court, so she allocated 5,000 taels of silver and sent someone to escort him to Daxingji, Hefei, for burial.
Although Li Hongzhang was a heavy courtier in the imperial court, his status was inferior to that of a eunuch around Cixi, and it should be known that when Li Lianying's mother died, Cixi took out 480,000 taels of silver for him to squander, and even promised to go to Yuan Shikai if he was not enough.
It can be seen from this that Li Hongzhang's status was not so important in Cixi's eyes, and the death of him as a Hanchen was not a big deal, which was exactly the same as the situation when Zeng Guofan died.
If Li Hongzhang had known about it, I believe he would have felt very uncomfortable with Cixi's practice.
In fact, in the eyes of the Manchu rulers, Hanchen has always been an unpopular existence, and almost all important posts are controlled by the Manchus, even "shengming" such as Kangxi and Yongzheng are more defensive than trusting in the treatment of Hanchen.
In Cixi, this trait was even more obvious, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement defeated the Manchu Qing army, he hoped that Han Chen would come out to preside over the overall situation, and when Zeng Guofan and others destroyed the Taiping Army, they let the Manchu generals enjoy their success and forced Zeng Guofan to surrender military power.
Li Hongzhang, as Zeng Guofan's former beloved disciple, was better than Blue out of blue, and he also pulled up a Huai army, in order to vote for the good of Empress Dowager Cixi, Li Hongzhang even broke with his mentor Zeng Guofan, which was also the most outrageous place where Li Hongzhang was wrong.
The Han ministers led by Zeng Guofan lost power in the power struggle of the central imperial court, and the Manchus continued to control the government of the dynasty, resulting in many good decrees not being thoroughly implemented, and making the foreign affairs movement led by The Hanchen-led movement fall short, and Li Hongzhang was really guilty of a great crime.
In the Sino-Japanese War, Li Hongzhang implemented the surrender policy of Empress Dowager Cixi, blindly sought peace, disregarded the desperate killing of the enemy by the soldiers on the front line, and flattered little Japan, and finally signed the "Maguan Treaty" that lost power and humiliated the country, so that the historical status of China and Japan was reversed for the first time, and thus caused a deep disaster of more than half a century, and tens of millions of people died under the butcher's knife of the Japanese.
Therefore, from beginning to end, Li Hongzhang stood in the same trench as Cixi, so he was so trusted and opposed by Han Chen.
In Cixi's eyes, Li Hongzhang was more like a slave than a minister of the Manchu Qing government, and for his own slaves, the reward was entirely up to his own preferences.
Before Li Hongzhang died, he wanted to be buried next to bao cemetery, and Cixi fulfilled his wish, but did Li Hongzhang deserve such treatment? How did he feel that he could be in the company of Bao Gong, or even sit on an equal footing?
I am afraid that only Li Hongzhang's heart knows this.
But for outsiders, Li Hongzhang is dead and guilty.
Therefore, in the more than fifty years after Li Hongzhang's death, his tomb has been subjected to various kinds of damage, especially in the late fifties, when ordinary people based on righteous indignation decided to blow up Li Hongzhang's mausoleum and take out the material mouth for iron smelting.
This time, Li Hongzhang was completely doomed, and when his body was exhumed by the common people, he was chained to the back of the tractor and then dragged to the streets to show the public.
After his death, Li Hongzhang witnessed the fanaticism of a special era, and also used his own bones to record the madness of a period of history.
Later, the descendants of Li Hongzhang, who had become rich, wanted to rebury him, but they could not find any remains, even if the family had ten thousand fortunes, but the bones did not exist, and the filial piety of the descendants could only be buried in the stomach with tears.
Chinese often talk about going into the soil for safety, and generally no one will bother these dead ancestors, unless it is the kind of person who is extremely evil and bitter and has a deep hatred, he will be dug up and whipped.
What do you think of what happened to Li Hongzhang after his death?