Text I Humanistic Perspective
Edit the I Nine Song
Three years after Xuan reunification, a 63-year-old man died of illness, and this person was not someone else, but Li Lianying. His death attracted the attention of the court of the late Qing Dynasty, after all, Li Lianying had been with Cixi for a long time, and he naturally experienced many important historical events in the late Qing Dynasty.
When Li Lianying died of illness, the late Qing Dynasty was already in a precarious situation, but the Qing court still took out 1,000 taels of silver and built a luxurious tomb in the eunuch cemetery in Enjizhuang, Beijing, which shows Li Lianying's status before her death.
In the fifth year of Xianfeng, Li Lianying was not in a good living condition at home, so he entered the palace as a eunuch. After Li Lianying entered the palace, she also started from a small eunuch. According to folklore, Li Lianying mastered a set of techniques for combing new hairstyles, and later he entrusted his fellow villager Shen Lanyu to introduce him, and had the honor of combing his hair in front of Cixi.
From this time on, Li Lianying was favored by Cixi. At this time, at Cixi's side, there was a great eunuch of An Dehai, who was deeply liked by Cixi. However, An Dehai was eventually beheaded by Ding Baozhen, the governor of Shandong, in the eighth year of Tongzhi (1869) for the crime of "violating the ancestral system and leaving the Beijing Division without permission".
For The death of An Dehai, Li Lianying was deeply touched by this, and he deeply realized that when doing things in the harem, we must act in a low-key manner, and we must not be overly arrogant. From this time on, Li Lianying not only learned to figure out Cixi's temper and preferences, but also tried every means to please Cixi.
The reason why Li Lianying was able to win cixi's favor in the complicated late Qing harem, we can see the secret of his success from his epitaph, "Respect in things, leniency in things, if there is a year, there is no slackness."
Li Lianying's epitaph probably means to be respectful to the master, generous to the subordinates, and dare not slacken off for many years. I have to say that Li Lianying did make some effort in studying Cixi's temper and preferences.
Of course, Li Lianying's efforts are highly rewarded, and Cixi continues to give him gifts. In 1874, the 26-year-old Li Lianying was appointed as the grand eunuch of the head of the Chuxiu Palace, and originally this position generally required 30 years of service in the palace to be eligible to serve, at this time Li Lianying had just entered the palace for 17 years.
In 1879, Li Lianying's position was promoted again, and he became the chief of the Four Pins of The Chuxiu Palace. As Empress Dowager Cixi's power grew, Li Lianying's prestige in the imperial palace naturally rose.
At the age of 31, Li Lianying's position in the palace was already on an equal footing with that of the Grand Master of the Honorable House (the chief eunuch of the Qing Palace). After this, Li Lianying has been with Cixi, almost inseparable, and the master-servant relationship between the two is by no means comparable to that of ordinary people.
At that time, the people who served Cixi changed wave after wave, but Li Lianying was always with her. However, Cixi will eventually pass away, and this day will come after all. On November 15, 1908, at the age of 74, Cixi died of illness at the Yiluan Temple in Zhongnanhai.
After Cixi's death, presumably Li Lianying was very sad in her heart, and her backer fell. Li Lianying completed Cixi's funeral and left the imperial palace where she had lived for 52 years on the second day of February in the first year of Xuan reunification (1909).
Why li Lianying couldn't wait to leave the palace after Cixi's illness and death. Before Cixi's death, puyi, who was three years old, succeeded to the throne and was overseen by the regent Zaifeng. There is an old Chinese saying that "one heavenly son and one courtier", Li Lianying is after all a eunuch by Cixi's side, if he is still in the palace at this time, the future outcome is difficult for anyone to predict.
More importantly, Li Lianying had lived in the imperial palace for more than fifty years, and Cixi was very fond of him, which inevitably offended many people. At this time, if Li Lianying did not withdraw and leave, if she wanted to leave the palace in the future, the difficulty would increase.