The ancients have always been more superstitious, whether it is the common people or the royal family and nobles, they like to divinate and ask questions or measure feng shui before doing anything, in order to seek peace of mind. This kind of superstitious thinking was still common until the Republic of China period, and Yuan Shikai, president of the Republic of China, was a very superstitious person, who not only liked divination and fortune-telling when doing things, but also used people, and because of this, he gave some people the opportunity to please him.
Yuan Shikai was a heavy courtier of the late Qing Dynasty, who was deeply valued by the Guangxu Emperor, but later when there was a conflict between the Guangxu Emperor and The Empress Dowager Cixi, he betrayed the Guangxu Emperor and threw himself at the Empress Dowager Cixi, resulting in the Guangxu Emperor being imprisoned by The Guangxu Empress dowager, and even dying for it. Because of this incident, the courtiers who supported the Guangxu Emperor hated Yuan Shikai. When Empress Dowager Cixi died, Puyi succeeded to the throne, and due to his young age, the government was almost controlled by the regent Zaifeng. Zaifeng supported the Guangxu Emperor's faction, so he did not like Yuan Shikai either, and dismissed Yuan Shikai as soon as he seized power.
After his dismissal, Yuan Shikai was indignant, he did not feel that he was wrong, only felt that he was unlucky, so how to reverse this situation? At this time, someone told him that it was his ancestral tomb that had bad feng shui, so he would be unlucky enough to be dismissed. After Yuan Shikai listened, he believed it to be true, and immediately invited a few feng shui gentlemen to check the ancestral tomb.
After these feng shui gentlemen opened the altar offering, they told Yuan Shikai that his ancestral tomb was a true dragon's lair, but the real dragon was trapped, which would cause feng shui to deteriorate. After Yuan Shikai heard this, he immediately ordered people to tear down the wall around the ancestral tomb and repair the ancestral tomb again, in an attempt to make the feng shui of the ancestral tomb better.
Soon after this incident, Yuan Shikai was indeed reused again. At this time, an astronomer heard that Yuan Shikai was very superstitious, so in order to please him, he said that he was looking at the sky at night, and found that the emperor star had been illuminating Xiangcheng in Henan, and said that the emperor star had moved from Xiangcheng to Beijing. Yuan Shikai was very happy to hear this, because his hometown was Xiangcheng, Henan, did this mean that he was about to become emperor?
Sure enough, he went all the way up like a bamboo, directly overthrew the Qing government, became the provisional president of the Republic of China, and his dream of emperor was realized. After this incident, Yuan Shikai became more and more superstitious, not only liked divination and fortune-telling before doing things, but also in terms of employing people.
For example, once, a subordinate recommended Wu Dingchang to him, thinking that he was quite talented and could be the chief financial officer. After Yuan Shikai listened, he asked Wu Dingchang to come and show him. Who knew that after he saw it, he felt that Wu Dingchang's face was very similar to Cao Cao's, and he was a perfidious person behind his back. Therefore, in the end, Yuan Shikai did not let Wu Dingchang become the chief financial officer, but only let him be the director of the mint.
Yuan Shikai has a very beautiful teacup, which is his beloved object and will often be held in his hand and played with. But once, while he was sleeping, a tea boy came in and poured tea for him. At this time, the tea boy saw that Yuan Shikai had not yet woken up, so he stood aside and waited for him to wake up. But Xu was a little tired after standing for a long time, just when the tea boy was preparing to change his posture, he slipped his hand and accidentally broke the teacup in his hand, which scared the tea boy silly.
When Yuan Shikai woke up when he heard the movement, he saw the broken teacup on the ground, and immediately became angry, just as he was about to scold fiercely, the tea boy suddenly had a clever move, immediately knelt down and said to Yuan Shikai, he just looked away, and saw Yuan Shikai as a golden dragon, which would break the teacup out of control. After Yuan Shikai heard this, his mood immediately became very happy, he not only did not blame the tea boy, but also casually rewarded him with a valuable thing, and asked the tea boy not to talk to anyone about it.
Later, although Yuan Shikai was ousted from power, he still did not give up his dream of emperor. Once, the tombkeeper in charge of guarding the ancestral tomb in his family came to see Yuan Shikai on purpose, saying that a wisteria shaped like a real dragon had grown on the grave of Yuan Shikai's father. After hearing this news, Yuan Shikai was very happy and thought that this meant that he still had hope of becoming emperor.
So he immediately rewarded the gravester. However, Yuan Shikai still had doubts, he did not know whether this matter was true, so he deliberately asked his son Yuan Kewen to go to the ancestral tomb to check. Later, Yuan Kewen wrote back to tell him that there was indeed such a thing, and Yuan Shikai was overjoyed, and immediately ordered people to build a wall near the ancestral tomb to protect the wisteria, and even arranged for special personnel to inspect it.
It can be seen from this that Yuan Shikai is a superstitious person, he always thinks that he is a true dragon, a person who wants to be an emperor, for which he stole the fruits of the Xinhai Revolution and became the president of the Republic of China, and was therefore criticized by the world as a thief who stole the country.