Tuesday, June 15, 2021 Sunny
I have been to the Summer Palace many times, usually by bicycle or subway. This afternoon I went on a boat with my friend Cher. We came to the Ziyuwan Pier in the Zizhu Courtyard and took a boat from here to the Summer Palace.
The South Long River waterway we took was the waterway that Empress Dowager Cixi had to pass through every summer more than 100 years ago, so it was called the Cixi Waterway. From the fourteenth year of Guangxu, after Empress Dowager Cixi embezzled naval funds to re-repair the Summer Palace, she dredged this waterway for the convenience of coming to the Summer Palace. The Summer Palace is a three-point mountain, seven points of water, and one acre of land.
When Cixi went in a carriage, she could only see a quarter of the Summer Palace. And by boat travel luck, the distant mountains like paintings, near the water like jade, like into the wonderland, the cruise ship through the pavilions between the pavilions, the boat seems to float in the clouds, people seem to walk in the painting. The capital is the capital of Tianzi, the Yangtze River is the royal royal road, Cixi has been to the Summer Palace more than 30 times in her life, and most of them take boats from this waterway. When we took a boat on the waterway of this blue and rippled south long river, we also felt the blue sky and white clouds, weeping willows, and picturesque scenery on both sides of the strait in Cixi's eyes.
Most of the places in the Summer Palace I have already visited, Kunming Lake imitates the West Lake of the "Su Causeway" and "Su Causeway Six Bridges" built of the "West Causeway", the lake embankment blue waves weeping willows, near the lake and distant mountains, the scenery presented looks like the West Lake, I have walked on it many times. It also walks through the world's longest promenade, and the paintings on the roof of the promenade are very rich, including landscapes, flowers, birds, fish and insects, myths and legends, character allusions, etc., all based on classical Chinese masterpieces, with unique ingenuity. Suzhou Street is also a commercial street built on both sides of the lake to imitate the style of Jiangnan Water Town, and I often stop and go in this trading street of "thousands of miles of warblers crying green and red, water village mountain Guo wine flag wind".
And I have never been to the Yulan Hall where the Guangxu Emperor was imprisoned, and this place should be the most beautiful prison in the world. Therefore, today's focus is on Yulan Hall. In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898), the Guangxu Emperor summoned Yuan Shikai at the Yulan Hall and Xu Yi, a high-ranking official Houlu, hoping that he would serve the Penghu Reform Law. Later, Tan Sitong and Yuan Shikai discussed the matter of putting Empress Dowager Cixi under house arrest, but Yuan Shikai reported to the prime minister Rong Lu, who informed Empress Dowager Cixi of the matter overnight.
The next day, Empress Dowager Cixi issued an edict in the Forbidden City, saying that the Guangxu Emperor was in trouble and that she would take the place of the emperor to train the government. Subsequently, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the killing of Tan Si and the equivalent "Six Gentlemen of Wushu", wanted Kang Youwei and others, and imprisoned the Guangxu Emperor, and the Penghu Reform Law ended here. When Empress Dowager Cixi was in the Forbidden City, the Guangxu Emperor was imprisoned in Yingtai, and when Empress Dowager Cixi was in the Summer Palace, the Guangxu Emperor was imprisoned in Yulantang.
Yulan Hall is a must-visit place to visit the Summer Palace, and I have hurried past the door every time before, and I have not gone in to investigate deeply. From the east gate of the Summer Palace, all the way to the west, past the Renshou Hall, you will arrive at the Yulan Gate, and there is a large stone on the left and right in front of the door, called the "Mother and Child Stone". It is said that after the failure of the Penghu Transformation Law, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered people to move the two "mother and child stones" that were originally in Xiangshan and place them here. Signal to the Guangxu Emperor to remind him that the stubborn stone still has the love of mother and son, but the Guangxu emperor is ungrateful and inferior to the stubborn stone.
Yulan Hall is a three-courtyard building, and the halls are interconnected and accessible in all directions. However, after the Guangxu Emperor was imprisoned, brick walls were built behind the Yulan Hall and in the Xiafen Room and the Lotus Xiang xie hall on the east and west sides to cut off access. Most of the brick walls have been demolished, but the brick walls inside the Xiafen Room and the Lotus Champs are still preserved, becoming a physical witness to the famous Penghu Transformation Method in Chinese history.
Although Guangxu and Zhenfei went to the Summer Palace together, they could not meet. After arriving at the Summer Palace, Guangxu was imprisoned in the compartment of the Yulan Hall, and Cixi used a thick wall to isolate him from the outside. Guangxu was imprisoned in the house, in a depressed mood, lonely and bitter, and missed Zhenfei in the tribulation very much.
Since then, the Guangxu Emperor has become a veritable puppet, just reading books in the Yulan Hall, and all the affairs of the court are decided by Cixi. Once, when the Guangxu Emperor saw the Romance of the Three Kingdoms on the table, he said sadly: I am not as good as the Han Xiandi emperor of that year! I don't know how much bitterness is contained in this sentence, how painful it is for a ruler of a country to lose his freedom.
The Guangxu Emperor was by no means a emperor, he clearly realized that the Qing Dynasty had reached the brink of extinction, so he and Kang Youwei and others wanted to recreate a new Qing Dynasty, but unfortunately, the Hou Party led by Cixi did not allow the Guangxu Emperor to change the law at all, and the Guangxu Emperor lacked military power, and in the end it could only end in failure.
Looking back at the stories that took place here more than a hundred years ago, especially the last ten years of the Guangxu Emperor's life as a prisoner, I can't help but sigh! Even if there is a colorful scenery around, when a person loses his freedom, there is no trace of hue in his eyes, just like a black and white camera, which can only illuminate black and white, an emperor should be so nestled, no different from a prisoner, and at any time there is a worry for his life, even his beloved woman can not protect, or even inferior to ordinary people, such an emperor is not appropriate.
I often think that if the Guangxu Emperor could bear the burden of humiliation at the beginning, when the strength did not reach the strength to compete with Cixi, he would not hit the stone with a pebble, and come out of power from the barrel of the ancient gun, and if he did not have the military power, he would never be angry and angry, and at this time, it was most important to preserve his strength. If he could carefully serve Cixi, obey cixi without complaint, and wait for Cixi to die like the Yue king, and then carry out a drastic restoration and change of law after he really took power, then the history of China's modern humiliation by foreign forces might be rewritten.
Or Lao Tzu said it well: do nothing and do nothing, that is, go with nature, do not act arbitrarily, if you can act in an attitude of inaction, then there is nothing in the world that cannot be done; there is something to do and not to do, to act according to the natural nature of things, to do things for them, to act against the nature of things, to do things is to fail, so there is something to do and something not to do. If the Guangxu Emperor had studied Lao Zhuang's philosophy well when he was young, perhaps he would not have been trapped and killed at a young age and without reward. The Empire has since come to an end.