How did Empress Dowager Cixi deduce the loyalty of officials? This way is shameful, no wonder the Qing Dynasty fell to the country
Cixi was the de facto ruler of the late Qing Dynasty, she was extremely extravagant and arrogant, and she was extremely "approved" of the gifts given to her by her ministers, and considered it the best way to show loyalty.
In the late Qing Dynasty, internal and external troubles, the people did not talk about life, but Cixi did not reduce her quality of life at all, one of the most representative of her luxurious life is her most luxurious bathing hobby, not only she needs many maids to take a bath, but also needs to use more than a hundred towels for each wash, which is very shocking.
Because Cixi enjoys such a luxurious life, she is of course very concerned about the gifts given by the people around her.
On the tenth day of October 1894, on the occasion of Empress Dowager Cixi's 60th birthday, Putian celebrated, and the bowls, plates, plates and other porcelain of this birthday feast were probably used nearly 30,000 pieces, and 10 million taels of silver were spent, and its extravagance was jaw-dropping.
And the whole country boiled over in order to be able to offer her the most precious treasure, because the most satisfying gift to be offered to Empress Dowager Cixi on the day of her 69th birthday was a moment of official fortune.
It is reported that on the same day, Cixi's confidant Li Lianying came to "receive gifts", and Li Lianying divided the gift list into two types, one is a heavy gift, the other is a thin gift, some rare toys and rare treasures, of course, belong to the heavy gift.
It is said that whose treasure is the most sincere, which means who is the most loyal to the empress, so the officials began to compare with each other, and Empress Dowager Cixi used this method to deduce who was the most loyal to her, which became the unspoken rule of the officialdom.
As for gifts, Cixi also has a big hobby: they must be paired up in pairs. Because Empress Dowager Cixi was a very superstitious person who liked perfection, if it was given to her as an odd gift, it would be considered an unlucky symbol.
So the officials who gave gifts to Empress Dowager Cixi had to rack their brains and make a lot of trouble.
It is reported that there are "triple gifts" at Cixi's birthday banquet: first, gold and silver jewelry. This kind of gift is the least attractive to Cixi, the Qing Dynasty is in cixi's hands, a little money, it is impossible to enter Cixi's eyes; the second is antiques. Cixi is very fond of collecting, and the things she collects are basically of great value, unless the minister can win by surprise, and the antique gifts can not be placed in the corner; the third is Western goods. Western goods are very novel, such as: Western phonographs and so on. Such a novelty was naturally loved by Cixi.
Cixi also received a "special" gift called "Dong Rong Seok choru". This gift is a large ganoderma lucidum, but its shape is a ruyi. After receiving this gift, Cixi was very happy and rewarded the minister heavily, and the more expensive the gift, the more loyal she was.
Of course, for those who do not take the initiative to give gifts, or give small gifts, they are lightly given a cold bench and the focus is on punishment. A concubine of the former emperor gave Cixi a mahogany gift box containing three suzhou silk satins. This gift was obviously relatively light, and the satin was less than three feet, only one foot, and Cixi was furious when she learned of this. Soon after, the concubine was troubled, the matter had been revealed, there was obviously no room for maneuver, and within ten days she was frightened out of her illness and died.
Cixi's reign in the late Qing Dynasty for half a century was breathtaking in such a way as to infer the loyalty of officials from the nobility of gifts, and under her toss, the demise of the Great Qing was justified.