Empress Dowager Cixi's extravagance is second to none among China's thousands of years of feudal emperors. She has been in charge of the Qing Dynasty for nearly 50 years in her lifetime, eating, living, using and traveling to the fullest luxury, and enjoying the glory and wealth of the world.
On the occasion of Cixi's 60th birthday, her various jewelry alone cost 10,000 taels of gold and 380,000 taels of silver. The countless sets of various new clothes purchased were even used for 230,000 taels of silver. From the Summer Palace to the Forbidden City, the lights and decorations along the way cost a total of 2.4 million taels of silver. According to historical records, Cixi's entire 60th birthday cost nearly 10 million taels of silver.
(Portrait of Cixi)
Before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Li Hongzhang, the founder of the Beiyang Marine Division, had played to Cixi several times, hoping to purchase several new warships to improve the navy's combat effectiveness. However, Cixi refused Li Hongzhang's request on the grounds that "the times are difficult and the money is difficult".
If the cost of Cixi's 60th birthday was used to buy warships, it would be enough to form a powerful cruiser fleet. Nor will it allow the Beiyang Marine Division, which was originally known as the first in Asia, to encounter the situation of total annihilation. There will also be no end where Western powers invade Beijing and Cixi wanders west.
In addition to these astonishing extravagant moves, Cixi also owned a special train. So, what does her car look like? What was the final whereabouts?
Cixi's special train is closely related to the ups and downs of china's railways.
In 1865, a British merchant built a 0.5-kilometer-long railway outside Beijing to pilot small trains. But I didn't think that this move actually made a joke. Because the people had never seen a train, it caused a wave of onlookers. The loud noise and vibration of the train caused panic among the people. When Cixi heard about it, she ordered the demolition of this section of the railway on the grounds that "losing myself dangerously hindered, harming my fields, and hindering my feng shui."
Ten years later, the British secretly built a 10-kilometer-long Wusong Railway. However, due to the death of people in the process of operation, the people were excited. Cixi ordered that the railway be recovered with nearly 300,000 taels of silver and then dismantled.
(Old photo of Li Hongzhang)
At the same time, in order to solve the coal transportation needs of the Kaiping Mining Bureau, Li Hongzhang asked Cixi to build the Tangxu Railway. Unexpectedly, the group of ministers opposed it, and the matter was not resolved. A few years later, thanks to the unremitting efforts of Li Hongzhang, the Tangxu Railway was finally completed in 1881. But ironically, Qing court officials, fearing that the sound of the train running alarmed the ancestors of the ancestors in Tanglin and ordered the locomotive to be towed with mules and horses.
In this context, in order to obtain Cixi's strong support for the construction of the railway, Li Hongzhang thought of borrowing the Xiyuan Three Seas Project, which was being expanded, to build a special Xiyuan Railway for Cixi and equip her with a special train.
The Xiyuan Railway was soon completed in 1888, and six custom-built royal carriages and a locomotive from France also arrived in Beijing. Of course, in order to curry favor with Cixi and not let her be disturbed by the vibrations and noises of the locomotive when it was moving, the officials adopted the method of letting the eunuchs drag Huang Pan along. "Four people in each car are dragged through the rope", and a funny farce was staged.
Of course, Li Hongzhang's move still received a return. After that, Cixi would take the train with great interest almost every day, between the Yiluan Hall and the Beihai Mirror Qingzhai to enjoy the scenery along the road, and no longer blindly resisted the construction of the railway.
In 1902, Cixi suddenly proposed the idea of taking a train to visit Xiling, and Guangxu immediately ordered the construction of the Xinyi Railway, and ordered Yuan Shikai and Sheng Huaixuan to carefully prepare Lafayette's "royal train".
(Cixi Special Train)
Yuan and Sheng, who had received the edict, took great pains to think about how to decorate Cixi's special train to the fullest luxury. They first wrapped the whole car with golden flannel cloth, and then lined the car with white felt cloth, removed all the seats and sleeping beds in the car, replaced them all with the carved beds that Cixi usually liked, and added exquisite brocade quilts and mattress pillows to facilitate Lafayette to rest and smoke opium on the way.
The carriage was also full of all kinds of jade, famous calligraphy and paintings, and rare antiques that Cixi usually liked. Even the details of Cixi's toilet are very thoughtful and considerate. They designed a secret door next to the bed, "Kaizhi Ruyi Bucket". In order to prevent odor and make noise when going to the toilet, Yuan Shikai can be said to be racking his brains, he asked to lay yellow sand at the bottom of the "Ruyi Bucket", and then pour mercury into it, "Feces fell into the mercury, and there was no trace." On the outside of the barrel, it is decorated with a brocade velvet cover from the court, which looks like an embroidered pier, and it is not at all obvious that it is a toilet.
After everything was ready, the official in charge of the decoration respectfully asked Yuan Shikai and Sheng Huaixuan to board the car for inspection. The two were very satisfied, praising "the car is full of furnishings, as one". Subsequently, Li Lianying carried out the final acceptance, and he applauded the design of the smoke bed, believing that Yuan and Sheng were loyal and commendable. But it also proposes an improvement, that is, to take into account that Lafayette is very convenient and comfortable to board the car.
Then, Yuan Shikai ordered people to make a carved wooden bridge with carpets between the platform and the carriage. In this way, as long as Lafayette supports the wooden bridge, he can board the train effortlessly.
In 1903, after the opening of the Xinyi Railway, Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor boarded the train and went to Xiling to pay tribute. In the face of this exquisitely decorated and brilliant special train, Cixi was full of praise and praised Yuan Shikai's loyalty. But what she didn't know was that for her two-day trip, Yuan and Sheng had been preparing for half a year, and just by rearranging this "royal" car, the Ministry of Internal Affairs spent a total of 2 million taels of silver.
So, what is the final whereabouts of the most expensive special train in history?
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, this train was once used as a special train for Sun Wen, the pioneer of the democratic revolution, and later reached the hands of Zhang Zuolin, the king of the northeast. In the Huanggutun Incident, Cixi's former special train was blown up by the Japanese and became a pile of scrap iron.
(Reference: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty)