Eating ten thousand dollars on the day, there is no place to go. - Book of Jin
The famous thinker Xun Zi once said: "If the strong is strong and used sparingly, then the sky cannot be poor." "Since ancient times, thrift and thrift have been China's fine virtues. However, once the status of man reaches a certain height, there will be a situation where it is difficult to fill the gap, and then extravagance and waste will gradually lead to ruin. Empress Dowager Cixi of the Qing Dynasty is a good example, her extravagant life is world-famous, and the demise of the Qing Dynasty is not unrelated to the extravagance she advocated.
According to ye shi records, Xiao Dezhang, the last governor of the late Qing Dynasty, recalled that Empress Dowager Cixi's daily expenses were about 40,000 taels of silver a day. Moreover, this grand master will also use the silver two places every day, saying specifically and in a small way. Although the history of the wild is not fully believed, it also shows Cixi's luxury from the side.
Kangxi once said to John Tang: "The degree of use of my court in one year is not as good as the degree of use of the previous day." If he knew about the defeated behavior of the fifth granddaughter-in-law, Cixi, he would not know how to feel.
Then, some people asked, Cixi consumes 40,000 taels of silver every day, how much yuan is it now equivalent? Where did all this money go? That's all for you.
What is the value of forty thousand taels of silver?
First, with the consumption level at that time, what can 40,000 taels of silver do? According to historical records, the annual salary of the empress of the Qing Dynasty was 1,000 taels of silver, of course, the empress dowager would be more, but compared with 40,000 taels of silver, it was a dime. In comparison, Cixi's one-day consumption is on top of 40 empresses a year's Worth of Feng Lu.
In addition, during the Sino-Japanese War, the qing dynasty's fiscal revenue was only 88 million taels of silver a year, and Cixi alone used 16.5% of the fiscal revenue. To give a more specific example, at that time, a main warship of the Beiyang Marine Division was about 1.4 million taels of silver, that is to say, Cixi could consume a main battleship in 35 days, and a navy was gone in a year, which was really a loser.
How much is forty thousand taels of silver worth today? If it is simply calculated at the current price of silver, it is obviously biased, after all, the times are different, so it will be closer to the reality to convert it at the price of grain, because grain can reflect the contemporary consumption power.
Through this calculation, it is learned that the 40,000 taels of silver converted into the current yuan is about 1.1 million yuan, that is to say, Cixi's annual consumption is hundreds of millions, and this exaggerated consumption is estimated that the world's top rich people can not do it, which is amazing. So, where did Cixi spend so much money?
Eating, living and having fun is extravagant
First of all, let's look at "eating", it is said that there are more than 100 cooks who specialize in serving Empress Dowager Cixi, who are proficient in more than 4,000 main dishes and more than 400 kinds of dim sum. Cixi eats two "main meals" a day, both of which are more than 100 dishes, and also eats two "snacks", including various snacks and the like, about 50 bowls. Whenever she was eating, she saw what she wanted to eat, so she asked the eunuch who was waiting for her to offer a few bites to eat, and the rest was given to the next person.
Whether it is a main course or a snack, the best ingredients are chosen. For example, Cixi's favorite dish, duck tongue soup, does not know how many high-grade ducks to consume to make it, and cabbage only eats the most tender piece of vegetable heart in the middle.
Cixi also loves to drink flower tea, flowers are flowers, water is the spring water of Yuquan Mountain, but also use white jade tea cup, it can be said that a cup of tea is worth several pairs of silver. Even for a while, Cixi used human milk as a tonic for prolonging life.
Speaking of "wearing", according to the palace women around Cixi, there are more than 2,000 pieces of clothes, hundreds of pairs of shoes, and countless gold and silver jewelry. If she goes out, her clothes and accessories are loaded with a train car, which is extremely luxurious.
Moreover, her clothes and shoes are hand-sewn by special embroidery girls, and each piece is worth a lot, such as a shawl, which is made of three thousand five hundred or so pearls the size of a pigeon's egg, each pearl is the same size and color, so Cixi raises thousands of embroidery girls, and these costs are much larger than in terms of eating.
As for "living", Cixi, as Lafayette, certainly did not have to worry about it. However, every year the palace is renovated or renovated, and it costs tens of millions of taels of silver a year, which is counted in her consumption.
There is also "line", if you want to go out, for Cixi, who pays attention to luxury in all aspects, the cost is indispensable, it is said that a trip is to spend millions of taels of silver, hundreds of people accompany.
Finally, "Le", Cixi is a person who likes to enjoy, in the words of the eunuch next to her, her life is "singing and dancing without rest". Cixi bathed in a bath of petals, and the petals were all transported from other places in a large truck, and only a handful of the most fragrant ones were used in the end. She also loves fruits, especially apples, which are her favorites, but she doesn't eat apples, but likes to smell them, consuming 150,000 apples a year.
Behind Cixi's extravagant waste
All that I said earlier is a reflection of how extravagant and wasteful Cixi is. So, does Cixi know that she spends a lot? The answer is yes, but what does she think?
For example, eating, every meal so many dishes can not eat, why do you want to do this? Cixi said that this was for the dignity of the royal family, to appear noble, and these ceremonies were indispensable.
Puyi once wrote in his biography "The First Half of My Life" that when he was a child, he had to consume 810 kilograms of pork and 240 chickens and ducks a month, as well as countless snacks. You know, this is still in the case of the decline of the Qing Dynasty, you can imagine the luxury of Cixi in that year.
In fact, Cixi's consumption of 40,000 taels of silver a day was not really consumed, and there were other reasons behind it. According to historians, the cost of the Qing Dynasty's court use was three or seven kai, that is to say, 30% was actual consumption, and the remaining 70% was the share of the people who handled it.
For example, Cixi had a big birthday and ordered Xiao Dezhang to run it, just to build a pergola to watch the play, and he replied that he used 300,000 taels of silver, but in fact it only used less than 100,000 taels. There was also the meal at the Cixi Birthday Feast, and an egg cost 18 taels of silver, all of which caught up with the real price of golden eggs.
It can be seen from this that Cixi's so-called spending of 40,000 taels of silver a day was largely embezzled by the people below. Does Cixi know about this so-called "three seven open" unspoken rule? All the signs were that, of course, she knew. But for this kind of "small things", of course, she is not idle, in her own words, as long as she does not "mess with the rules".
epilogue
Cixi was so extravagant and wasteful, the Qing Dynasty really had more money than enough to spend. During the Sino-Japanese War that year, Li Hongzhang went to the imperial court to ask for money to buy warships, and Weng Tonggong, who was in charge of finances, said that he did not, but Cixi's birthday spent tens of millions of taels of silver, which made the foreigners at the birthday banquet at that time marveled: "Cixi's life is really unparalleled!" ”。 It is no wonder that Li Hongzhang later complained: "Working with women and children is also a last resort!" ”
Think of the Qing Dynasty at that time, it was the most dangerous moment, the peasant revolt, foreign invasion, land-cutting indemnity, the national treasury was empty, the people were not happy, and everywhere was devastated.
However, Cixi still went her own way, disregarding the security of the country and only seeking her own pleasure, which was too much, so the final demise of the Qing Dynasty also had a lot to do with Cixi's extravagant expenditure.
However, the evil people have their own evil people's retribution, and the warlord Sun Dianying later stole the tomb of Empress Dowager Cixi, not only taking away countless gold and silver treasures, but also the watermelon jade pillow and the night pearl in his mouth, and the body was also destroyed, which is also the retribution that Cixi deserves.