During the xianfeng emperor's time, empress dowager Cixi entered the palace at the age of 17, and she was still very simple and kind at that time, and she did not expect that she would spend her life in the palace. She even thought that the palace was like a back garden, coming and going whenever she wanted. But after spending a long time in the palace, Empress Dowager Cixi gradually understood that the palace was not a peaceful place.
She can't spend her life here in peace, if she doesn't harm others, someone else will harm her, if she doesn't get favored, she will be beaten into the cold palace, where she will die of depression. Therefore, in order to survive in the palace, Empress Dowager Cixi learned to scheming, play tricks, and understand conspiracies.
Step by step, Cixi went from an obscure concubine to the xianfeng Emperor's favorite concubine, and later sat on a high position and became a leader in the harem. In such a high position, Empress Dowager Cixi enjoyed a lot and lost a lot, and although she killed many people, she was still a woman after all. She will also be afraid of being alone in the palace, afraid that everything will be gone, so she must cling to the glory and wealth of the present.
However, it is easy to enter the luxury and difficult to be frugal, and Empress Dowager Cixi, who pursues the best in everything, feels more and more tasteless. Although the imperial dining room made many complicated dishes for her in different ways to cater to her tastes, there were some empresses who could taste them, and some that she did not like at all.
In fact, she was not willing to let the imperial dining room make her meal simpler, because only in this way could she satisfy her empress's desires, and she could feel that she had everything. Before Empress Dowager Cixi's sixtieth birthday, the Qing Dynasty was already crumbling, and after a series of local reparations, the Qing Treasury was almost empty. Although Empress Dowager Cixi was also worried about the prestige of the country, her sixtieth birthday was the most important thing for her.
She never thought that even the small island nation of Japan could bully the Qing Dynasty. At the beginning, the Qing government also ordered a rebellion, but these weak navies of the Qing Dynasty could not even defeat the Japanese island countries and had been deadlocked for a long time. Seeing that her sixtieth birthday was approaching, Empress Dowager Cixi was very dissatisfied with the stalemate of the war, her birthday should be a day of national celebration, how could it be spent in the war, so Empress Dowager Cixi finally ordered a strike.
The land can be lost, and the silver can be compensated, but the birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi cannot be ignored. However, at this time, Empress Dowager Cixi was already crippled and frail, and her appetite was not good. Although she ordered the sixtieth birthday, Cixi could not eat at all. In order to let Empress Dowager Cixi eat well in the imperial kitchen of the harem, she almost tried all kinds of methods. One day they served Cixi a bowl of mutton soup, which was milky white and had a few green onions floating on it.
It was this simple bowl of soup that made Empress Dowager Cixi overjoyed, and she felt that she suddenly had an appetite, and when she brought the soup to her mouth, she already smelled the fragrant aroma. The soup is soft and neutral, making Empress Dowager Cixi very comfortable. Empress Dowager Cixi liked it very much, and after eating and drinking two bowls of soup that day, her body seemed to come alive and she was full of energy.
Cixi, who was in a good mood, ordered a heavy reward for the imperial cook who made mutton soup, and for the next ten years, Empress Dowager Cixi had to drink a bowl every day, but the imperial cook who made the soup was already old and was about to leave the palace. Empress Dowager Cixi asked her to hand over the secret recipe for mutton soup, but the imperial cook refused. Empress Dowager Cixi, who was fierce, ordered the eunuch to torture the imperial cook, forcing him to write out the formula or refuse to let him go back. The old imperial chef could not bear the pain of skin and meat, there was no way but to recruit, the mutton soup was cooked with haggis and some goji ginseng herbs.
After hearing this news, Empress Dowager Cixi not only did not have great joy, but also very angrily ordered the eunuch to kill the imperial cook, because Empress Dowager Cixi felt that she was the empress dowager of the Qing Dynasty, and such a thing as haggis was not worthy of her identity. This imperial chef dared to hide from her and secretly let her eat these despicable things, which was indeed a sin worthy of death.
Although she was very happy to eat these things that Empress Dowager Cixi called inferior, no matter what, the narrow-minded and short-sighted Empress Dowager Cixi could not accept them, and because of such food, she thought that she was so noble that she had to eat the same thing as the common people. With this little thing, we can glimpse how selfish Empress Dowager Cixi really is, and people like her will not take the major affairs of the country to heart at all, and the demise of the Qing Dynasty will be inevitable.