If you want to say that the most tragic emperor of the Qing Dynasty is none other than Guangxu. At the age of 4, he was made emperor by Empress Dowager Cixi, and from then on began a life of sorrow and sorrow. Guangxu, who entered the palace at the age of 4, was very afraid of Empress Dowager Cixi, and Empress Dowager Cixi was very strict with her, and she beat and scolded her at every turn. So much so that after Guangxu took over the government, he was extremely afraid of Empress Dowager Cixi, and his whole body was involuntarily trembling, and Guangxu had always called Cixi the Emperor's father.
He has been a puppet since he became emperor, and the only thing he did after pro-government was to change the law in an attempt to change the law and become stronger, but he was put in a coup d'état by Empress Dowager Cixi and killed the six gentlemen of Wushu. The Guangxu Emperor was imprisoned in Yingtai from then on, living the life of a prisoner, and even the palace eunuchs could bully him. In 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance invaded Beijing, and before leaving, Empress Dowager Cixi pushed the Guangxu Emperor's favorite concubine, Concubine Zhen, into a well and fell to her death.
On the way to the west, no one cared about the emperor's life and death, and according to him later, he almost froze to death on the road and starved to death. In 1908, the Guangxu Emperor died suddenly, and the day after that, Empress Dowager Cixi also died peacefully, and at this time Guangxu was only 38 years old, and Cixi was 84 years old! Death after death made the death of the Guangxu Emperor foggy.
There are probably three theories, one is that he was killed by Yuan Shikai's people, which is mainly recorded in Puyi's memoirs. Because the main reason for the failure of the Wushu Reform Law was Yuan Shikai's betrayal, he was afraid that after Empress Dowager Cixi's death, Guangxu would kill himself when he took power! So it's better to be the first to do it! Second, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered Li Lianying to poison the Guangxu Emperor! This statement best illustrates this coincidence, after Guangxu's death, Empress Dowager Cixi died safely and was relieved. But it could not be verified, and Li Lianying did not mention this matter in her memoirs in her later years! Third, natural death. Because the Guangxu Emperor was frail and sick from an early age, and had been deeply tortured, coupled with more than ten years in Yingtai, he died of illness.
Although opinions vary, the death of the Guangxu Emperor is still foggy. In 2003, 95 years after Guangxu's death, archaeologists conducted a key study on the cause of Guangxu's death. In its mausoleum extracted its well-preserved, no rotten hair, modern technology testing, after testing found that the amount of arsenic in Guangxu hair is more than 2,000 times that of ordinary people, and a huge amount of arsenic elements were also detected from its clothes.
In ancient times, there was only one possibility for so many arsenic, that is, arsenic, which poisoned rats, contained a huge amount of arsenic, that is, the Guangxu Emperor was poisoned by arsenic. The cause of his death is also known to the world. Under the conditions at that time, Empress Dowager Cixi was critically ill, and the people who could run to the palace and poison Guangxu must be the palace people, and these eunuch palace women, without Empress Dowager Cixi's instructions, would not dare to do so under any circumstances. That is to say, Empress Dowager Cixi had to poison Guangxu before she died, which was simply vicious!