In the ninth year of the Qing Dynasty, France watched the European and American powers divide the Qing Dynasty, and they fished out a lot of pots and pans, and for a time they rushed to attack their hearts, and they also wanted to squeeze in and share a piece of the pie. The French took a different approach, they chose to start from the Qing Dynasty's vassal state of Vietnam, wanted to seize Vietnam as their sphere of influence, and then used this as a springboard to gradually encroach on the territory of the Qing Dynasty. Unable to resist the French invasion, Vietnam hurried to the suzerainty of the Qing Dynasty for help.
At that time, the Qing Dynasty had just experienced the baptism of the Western affairs movement, a large number of world-class guns and artillery equipment were popularized into the army, the soldiers were strong and the morale was high, and they fully possessed the strength to break the wrists of the Western powers, so Cixi, who was bullied and suffered by the Western powers, finally plucked up the courage to harden up once, decided to fight a battle with France with real swords and real guns, and also took the opportunity to test the combat effectiveness of the Qing Dynasty army.
In March of the eleventh year of Guangxu, the key battle of the Sino-French War, the Battle of Zhennanguan, began at the junction of Guangxi and Vietnam. On the Qing side, it was the veteran general Feng Zicai and a number of other generals who calmly responded to the battle and made good dispatches, and finally won a great victory, killing the corpses of the French army all over the field, "killing more than a thousand bandits and beheading hundreds", "and seizing countless guns and cannons", creating a major victory in foreign wars in the late Qing Dynasty, greatly inspiring the fighting spirit of the Chinese people to resist foreign aggression, and also dealing a heavy blow to the arrogance of Western invaders.
Later generations mentioned this big war, generally only remembered the old and strong veteran General Feng Zicai, in fact, the Qing Dynasty participated in this battle of many generals, Feng Zicai was only one of them, his identity in this battle was "deputy to Guangxi Guanwai military affairs", and there was a military general with outstanding merits, but it was ignored. He was Su Yuanchun, who was then the viceroy of Guangxi.
Therefore, in a strict sense, Su Yuanchun was the main commander officially recognized by this campaign, and Su Yuanchun's performance in the battle was not inferior to Feng Zicai. Su Yuanchun won cixi's trust with this battle record, and since then, he has taken the lead alone, guarding Guangxi and presiding over the military affairs of the Sino-Vietnamese border for nearly twenty years, and is regarded by the Qing court as a famous general of the Great Wall of Southern Xinjiang.
But in the twenty-eighth year of Guangxu, the 58-year-old Su Yuanchun was in trouble. At the behest of Cixi, Su Yuanchun, who fought for the Qing Dynasty for half his life, was dismissed from his post and imprisoned, for reasons that are different and still a mystery. The first theory is that Su Yuanchun had offended the Qing Dynasty minister Cen Chunxuan in his early years, and Cen Chunxuan ascended to heaven one step after receiving Cixi's favored letter, became the governor of Liangguang, and became Su Yuanchun's superior, deliberately fabricating charges to take revenge on Su for personal gain.
The second theory is that Su Yuanchun was greedy for military salaries. During Su Yuanchun's tenure as the viceroy of Guangxi, there was a huge deficit in the military salaries he handled, accumulating as much as 120,000 taels of silver over the years. Some people say that these silver were confiscated by Su Yuanchun as his own, and some people say that Su Yuanchun did not covet ink, but only embezzled, and he used this silver to build the long wall and fortifications on the border of Guangxi, and he did not take anything.
The third argument is even more bizarre. This statement comes from Su Yuanrui, the chief soldier of Zhenyuan Town, Guizhou in the Qing Dynasty. Su Yuanrui is Su Yuanchun's brother, the two are flesh and blood compatriots, almost at the same time joined the army, fought side by side to participate in many wars, in the Battle of Zhennanguan, there is also Su Yuanrui's figure, and the performance is quite brave, made battle merits, after the war was awarded the Guizhou Weining Town General Soldier, named Asty, and then transferred to guizhou Zhenyuan Town Commandery.
Su Yuanrui has been in the Qing court for many years and is familiar with many so-called "insiders". After Su Yuanrui retired, he once told people that the reason why Su Yuanchun had an accident was because he had been favored by Cixi, and he refused. In the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu, Su Yuanchun once entered the capital and visited His Majesty in Beijing, and successively worshipped Guangxu and Cixi. Su Yuanchun was tall and handsome, and although he was over fifty years old at that time, he still did not lose his year. Cixi took a look at him and had a good feeling for him, once "hinting" at Su Yuanchun in his words, frightening Su Yuanchun to prostrate his head, and even said "Wei Chen did not dare to look forward", as a result, Cixi was ashamed and angry, and he held a grudge in his heart, and he would take revenge. This saying was popular at the time, and "those who have lived in Beijing for a long time know it."
According to common sense, Cixi and Su Yuanchun were both elderly at that time, one in his sixties and one in his fifties, and his identities were very different, and it was unlikely that he would have a "twilight love". However, Su Yuanrui is also the brother of the person concerned, and it is unlikely that he will make up wild history with his brother's unfortunate experience, and how the truth will be further explored and studied by future generations.
References: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Behind the Curtain of Su Yuanchun's Unjust Imprisonment, Chronicle of Fang Jiayuan Miscellaneous Songs