In the mouths of the older generation, there is a saying: "It is better to learn well than to marry well." It means that it is useless to study all day, and it is useless to find a good job, it is better to marry a good family, and this good family usually refers to those rich and noble families. I believe that any highly educated girl will scoff at this sentence, after all, the fate must be in their own hands to be reliable.
Of course, this sentence is wrong in modern times, but it is undeniable that in ancient Chinese society, and even modern society, marrying well is really far more important than learning well. The protagonist in today's story, known as "the most cattle old man in the Republic of China", he has arranged the marriage of his 24 children early on, and his family is a cow, including Yuan Shikai, Li Hongzhang, Sheng Xuanhuai, etc., so who is he? And how?
Sun Baoqi, born in 1867 in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, a family of eunuchs, his father was a Zhengsipin official, and was deeply favored by the emperor, with his father's influence, Sun Baoqi naturally lived a carefree life of food and clothing, and easily entered the dynasty as an official. Although this Sun Baoqi has no skills and mediocre ability, he is particularly good at being a person, so he has been favored by Cixi, and he has always been with Cixi when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China.
With this experience, Cixi naturally trusted him more and more, and directly promoted him to The Yin (正三品) of The Shuntianfu, equivalent to the mayor of Beijing today, which was quite beautiful, but Sun Baoqi knew that this was far from enough, and he would continue to consolidate his position.
As a result, he made "elaborate arrangements" for the 24 children born to his 5 wives, especially 16 of them, who were married to either relatives of the emperor or noble courtiers, such as the eldest daughter, married to the son of Sheng Xuanhuai (late Qing Dynasty minister, the richest man in the late Qing Dynasty); the second daughter, married to the son of Prince Yi of Qing (a heavy minister of the late Qing Dynasty, who was deeply favored by Cixi and embezzled and bribed countless times); the third daughter married to the grandson of Wang Wenshao (a heavy minister at the end of the Qing Dynasty); and the fifth daughter married to the son of Yuan Shikai The seventh daughter married the son of Zhang Peilun (Li Hongzhang's son-in-law) ...
Since he and Yi Li, Sheng Xuanhuai, and Yuan Shikai have become relatives, then of course everyone must "take more care" of each other, so Yi Li recommended Sun Baoqi as the inspector of Shandong on the front foot, and Li Hongzhang made Sun Baoqi the minister in France and concurrently the minister in Spain on the back foot, which is called a "beauty".
However, this kind of marriage that is simply combined for the sake of profit, naturally there is no happiness to speak of, most of Sun Baoqi's daughters have ushered in tragedies, especially the seventh daughter Sun Yongfan, her husband Zhang Zhiyi (Zhang Ailing's father), has already married a wife before, but later divorced, so the honor is as noble as Sun Yongfan, but it is only the stepmother wife. Later, she also learned badly with her husband, smoked opium together, became a pair of "smokers", and finally lost the family property, living in a small house of 14 square meters, poor and poor.
And the father Sun Baoqi, who caused the source of all the tragedies, eventually also ate the bitter fruit, when the family Sheng Xuanhuai died, he took over the chairmanship of the Hanyeping Steel Company founded by the Sheng family, and the descendants of the Sheng family were not reliable at all, all day long they only knew how to spend the day and drink, mixed food and drink, and then the money was spent, and also deceived the family Sun Baoqi to spend 200,000 yuan, bought the company's stock, and then ran away.
In March 1927, Sun Baoqi formally resigned, quit the political arena, the result was deceived by others to invest, owed a bunch of debts, the great Sun family, surprisingly so defeated, on February 3, 1931, Sun Baoqi suffered a stomach attack, died at home, only 65 years old, with his death, the Sun family also fell down and scattered, disappeared in the torrent of history.