Cixi was able to bow the curtain and prove that she was definitely not a simple woman, so it was certainly not easy to please such a figure. Presumably everyone has heard that Cixi has a particularly favored eunuch named Li Lianying, why can Li Lianying get Cixi's special favor? What is so great about him?
Most of the Qing emperors had the habit of giving words, and when they were still emperors, they needed to undergo strict writing training, and they could write well, so those officials or ordinary people were often ecstatic when they got the emperor's words. And Cixi is not an emperor, nor has she been systematically cultivated, so her own calligraphy is not good, of course, this "bad" refers to the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, simply saying that Cixi's calligraphy is still better than many people now. She did not give the words to show the prestige of the royal family, but for the purpose of showing off, she just wanted to listen to everyone's flattery.
There is also a story about Cixi's gift: that day, a drama team came to the palace to perform for Cixi, and Cixi was very happy after watching it, and one of the plays proposed that Cixi would give a word to himself so that his next life could go smoothly. Cixi was on her head, and naturally she agreed without saying a word.
However, perhaps too happy, Cixi actually wrote the wrong word when writing the word "Fu", and wrote an extra stroke next to the word "Fu". In front of everyone's eyes, Cixi could not rewrite it, but if she gave him this word, wouldn't she have to have one more laughing stock? Just when Cixi was in a dilemma, Li Lianying suddenly applauded, bluntly saying that Lafayette was really a chosen person and had extraordinary ingenuity, and said to the man: You see, the word "Fu" given to you by Lafayette is different, and the most important thing is that it is a little more than the "Fu" word of others, which means that your blessing is a little more than others.
When Cixi heard this, she immediately smiled, and the people at the bottom also understood Li Lianying's meaning, and hurriedly said, "The little man is blessed, I am afraid that I cannot afford such a big blessing." Cixi then said, "Then I will write another one for you," and the wrong word was torn off, and this time Cixi wrote the correct word "Fu" out.
If there was no Li Lianying, the situation at that time was very embarrassing, no one could break the siege for Cixi, and maybe Cixi would have killed the play in order to cover up her mistakes. It is not without reason that Li Lianying can become the chief eunuch of Cixi, and Li Lianying's excellent emotional intelligence is not something that anyone can copy casually.
Cixi also violated the rules set by the ancestors of the Qing Dynasty for Li Lianying: the Yongzheng Emperor had ordered that eunuchs could only sit up to four pins, but in the twenty years of Guangxu, Li Lianying was given a two-pin top wearing a flower plume. Before Li Lianying, there had never been a eunuch who could be treated so highly. In "Insights on Court Life in the Late Qing Dynasty", we can see that Cixi and Li Lianying can be said to be inseparable, and Cixi's weight on him completely exceeds that of ordinary eunuchs.
Resources:
"Current Rules and Regulations in the Palace of the King", "Treatise on the Canonical System of Eunuchs in the Qing Dynasty"