What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In the late Qing Dynasty, Cixi, as a ruler, had an unlimited future as long as she was pleased. But if you want to understand the old lady, you must first get close to the people around her, to say that there are many red people around Cixi, but there is only one Li Lianying who can stand permanently. Li Lianying, formerly known as Li Jinxi, was a seven-year-old eunuch in the fifth year of Xianfeng (1855). In the following year, he entered the imperial palace, and successively worked as an errand boy at the Concert Office and the Jingren Palace, until the third year of Tongzhi (1864), when he was transferred to changchun palace to serve Cixi.
Lian Ying's name was given to him by Cixi, also known as Lian Ying, but he was not a red man in the first place. At that time, Cixi also had a eunuch named An Dehai by her side, who entered the palace at the same time as Li Lianying, but her identity was one day and one place. Later, An Dehai was probably a red man for a long time, and became more and more crazy, and in the eighth year of Tongzhi (1869), Ding Baozhen, the governor of Shandong, beheaded him in the name of violating the ancestral system and leaving the beijing division without permission. And Li Lianying was very clever, and from this incident he understood the relationship between the master and the slave and became very cautious.
He not only knew how to figure out his master's temper and hobbies, please her, but also treated his subordinates with special leniency, and he had not slackened off for many years. Perhaps it was this character that allowed him to accompany Cixi for fifty-three years and become the most powerful eunuch at the end of the Qing Dynasty. In fact, from the old photos, Li Lianying's appearance is not very good, a face of numb, and even reveals a kind of insidiousness. However, for Cixi, the appearance of a eunuch is not so important, what is important is that this person can please her, not to be bored.
Li Lianying is also flexible, and once Cixi watched Yang Xiaolou's performance and wanted to give him a cake. Unexpectedly, Yang Xiaolou had the courage to say that he wanted the empress dowager to give a word, and Cixi was in a good mood that day, so he asked people to take pens, ink and paper, and waved a "fu" word. This can make Yang Xiaolou embarrassed, it turned out that the Fu character was written wrong, and he did not know whether to take it or not. And Cixi also reacted, but she was embarrassed to come back, Li Lianying looked at the scene, and smiled and said that Lafayette's blessing was naturally a little more than others.
Yang Xiaolou also reacted when he heard it, saying that he did not dare to take the blessing of ten thousand people. Cixi naturally pushed the boat along the water, and the embarrassment of the two was solved, and it is no wonder that he was favored by Cixi for decades. In the thirteenth year of Tongzhi (1874), the 26-year-old Li Lianying became the chief eunuch, and generally speaking, most of the people in this position entered the palace for 30 years, while Li Lianying only had 17 years. In the fifth year of Guangxu (1879), Li Lianying became the chief manager of the Four Pins of Flowers, and in the twentieth year of Guangxu (1894), he was rewarded with the top of the Two Pins to wear the Flower Plume. It should be known that the Qing Dynasty had regulations that the eunuch rank of four grades was the upper limit, and Cixi broke the ancestral rules for him.
In fact, for decades, this dry feeling is naturally extraordinary, so no matter how the people around her change, Li Lianying is always by her side. The qing dynasty ministers believed that he had tilted his power to the opposition, accepted bribes, and framed the reformers, but if he really interfered in politics, I am afraid that Cixi would not spare him. The insults in these folds are actually all spurious, at least Li Lianying did not violate the law, of course, his greed for money is true.
As the general manager, Li Lianying extorted officials as a common thing, and it was hundreds of taels of silver at every turn. However, Li Lianying's attitude towards Guangxu is relatively vague, Guangxu trusts him very much, and he also has a good understanding of Guangxu. But among those who killed Guangxu, Li Lianying also had a great possibility, perhaps he was on Cixi's side. On October 22, 1908, the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu(1908), Cixi died, and Li Lianying finally served her funeral. On the second day of february in the first year of Xuantong (1909), he left the imperial palace where he had lived for most of his life.
What many people don't know is that Li Lianying was finally assassinated and buried in a different place, and his grave was destroyed as early as 1966. Later, when I opened it, I found that there was only a head and a long braid in the coffin, and the body disappeared for no reason, but the inscription introduced that the body was complete. Therefore, it is possible that he offended too many people before he died, which led to the strangeness of his body, and the whereabouts of his body are unknown.