On August 15, 1900, with the fall of Tianjin, the guns of the Eight-Power Alliance began to attack the city of Beijing, and Cixi, who had been full of confidence in the war, also began to panic.
In the early morning of August 15, after learning that the Temple of Heaven had been captured by the enemy army, Empress Dowager Cixi, as the supreme ruler of the Qing Dynasty, first thought of not the rivers and mountains of the Qing Dynasty and the people of the world, but to save her own life!
So she fled with the Guangxu Emperor and other imperial relatives, in order to save face, Cixi escaped in the name of "hunting the west tour", so the descendants gave Cixi a rather elegant name for the west escape - "Gengzi Xi hunting".
However, no matter how beautiful the surface is, in the final analysis, it is still an escape, and the actual layout naturally cannot be compared with the past. Could it be that Cixi, who had been extravagant all her life, could even escape with great fanfare and play a sightseeing tour? How many people are in her ranks?
First, flee in a daze
On August 15, after hearing the sound of stray bullets falling on the roof of the Leshou Hall, Cixi could not take care of anything else, so she quickly disguised herself as an old Han woman, cut off her two-inch-long fingernails, and fled from the Shenwu Gate with the Guangxu Emperor, Empress Longyu, the Eldest Brother, and other concubines.
The fleeing procession was streamlined, with two eunuchs riding mules in front of them, followed by four simple carriages, one each by Cixi and Guangxu, followed by other imperial princes and nobles, and some palace eunuchs.
However, if you only bring some imperial relatives and attendants who have no power to bind chickens, then Cixi's road will be difficult to be peaceful. Therefore, the westward escape team was also equipped with some guards and dart board people, so they pieced together a disguised team of dozens of people and went on the road.
After leaving the city of Beijing, Cixi and his party encountered the Armed Guards led by Ma Yukun who came to join them, and they drew up a westward escape route and faithfully escorted the safety of Cixi and his party. As the news of Cixi's "Western Hunting" spread, more and more ministers were rushing to converge on the road, and finally such a team of more than 2,000 people marched westward in a mighty way.
Second, it is difficult to survive
The west flight was hasty, not only did I not bring any clothes to change, but I didn't even have food! However, everywhere they went, the shops on the street were closed doors and windows, the people were displaced, and there were fleeing people and horses everywhere, mixed with some remnants of soldiers looking for food, and some of them directly smashed open the houses and went in to rob them.
Cixi and his party only brought some broken silver, but they did not expect that the street was such a tragic scene, no one dared to do business, and there was no place to make money.
While passing through Changpingzhou, Cixi originally wanted to go into the city for a short rest. But because they didn't inform anyone when they fled, and they didn't carry anything to prove their identity, Changping Zhizhou regarded them as liars and directly fired guns to drive them away.
Although Cixi was angry, she did not dare to stay long, so she could only bypass the city gate and continue westward.
It wasn't until she picked some cowpeas and corn while passing by a farmland that Cixi ate her first meal after leaving the palace.
At this time, it was the scorching afternoon sun, and Cixi and his party did not dare to stay for a moment after eating enough. The weather was unbearable, all the way down the crowd encountered the problem of lack of water, the eunuch palace women could not help but take the corn stalks that they had brought on the car to their mouths and chew, so that they could barely quench their thirst, originally Cixi still maintained the dignity of her empress, and finally could not help the torture of thirst, and chewed the corn stalks together.
When it was dark, they found a ruined temple along the road, but due to the limited space, except for Cixi and Guangxu who could live in the main room, the others were either crowded in the low room or crowded into the carriage for the night, and there was no room for the floor. And so they struggled through the night.
In the subsequent journey, the situation of food, clothing, shelter and transportation did not improve in any way, and the shortage of water and food along the way was never broken, and the eunuch officers and soldiers and even the imperial relatives and nobles could only quench their thirst by drinking horse urine!
Three meals a day can only be supported by the food obtained. By August 17, there were no more fleeing people on the road, so Cixi met Wu Yong of Zhi County, Huailai County, who had rushed to pick up the driver at the Yulinbao Station.
After Wu Yong's identity resume, Cixi seemed to be a little excited to tell Wu Yong about the hardships along the way, plus she was dressed in coarse clothes and cloth, and the situation was no different from that of an old woman in the countryside!
Originally, Wu Yong had prepared a good meal for Cixi, but he was plundered by the soldiers and refugees halfway through, and when he saw Cixi, he was left with only a pot of millet mung bean porridge. Originally, Wu Yong was still a little scared because he had not completed the task, but Cixi was happy to hear it: "There is millet porridge?" Very good, very good, can be fast forward".
If it is changed to a weekday, how can this rough pot of porridge get into the eyes of the empress? But when the country was in trouble and there was a lot of hunger, she was already hungry and did not choose to eat! Subsequently, Wu Yong arranged for them to live in the Ya Nei Mansion in Huailai County, and carefully took care of the food, clothing, and housing of Cixi and others.
Later, Wu Yong not only promoted him to an official, but also followed Cixi "all the way to the west", and Changping Zhizhou, which had previously rejected Cixi without a license, was also killed by Cixi After the Autumn Settlement.
Third, settle in Xi'an
In the future itinerary, Cixi's food, clothing, shelter and transportation have improved a lot, not only has Wu Yong taken care of him all the way, but also the worship of various local officials after each place, and even the officials have spared no effort to temporarily build a luxurious palace for Cixi and his party, which can be described as a tasteful life!
What is even more hateful is that the eunuchs and officials under Cixi also made a blessing to the people in all the places they passed, and the adultery and plundering were extremely cruel, almost like locusts and ants that brought endless disasters to the people!
At first, Cixi planned to settle in Taiyuan, but because of the "bitter drought, and the poor people with barren land, the supply was difficult." And the magistrate there also committed suicide because he could not afford cixi's food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, so cixi turned around and ran to Xi'an after staying there for less than twenty days.
However, when she arrived in Xi'an, far from the capital and without the pursuing soldiers, she began to put up her Lafayette shelf again. At first, she was in the Futai South Courtyard, but later she felt that it was dilapidated and moved to the North Courtyard of the Fu Bureau, and asked that the furnishings there should be similar to those in the Beijing Palace, and the utensils were all left behind by the Qianlong Emperor.
In terms of diet, it is not only required to select a hundred kinds of recipes every day, but also requires precious ingredients such as bird's nest shark fin soup that has been paid tribute from the south, and the chicken, duck and fish meat can not be less, and her daily food cost alone is as high as two hundred taels of silver!
In order to win the hearts and minds of the people, she also wantonly rewarded her entourage and officers and soldiers, and the money was squandered like water, and in the past month, she squandered more than 290,000 taels of silver! So where did this huge amount of expense come from? According to historical records, one relied on a large amount of military salaries and silver grains to be transferred to the provinces, and the other was a people's fat and people's anointing that was looted from the people along the way.
In this way, Cixi spent more than a year in Xi'an, until the Qing Dynasty signed the "Xinugu Treaty" with foreigners, and Cixi and Guangxu returned to the long-separated city of Beijing in 1902.
Although Cixi suffered some hardships at the beginning of her fall, what did she gain compared to the hundreds of millions of people displaced by her?
Text/Oil Mess
Resources:
1. "The Decadent Life after Cixi's Flight to the West", Ye Xiuyun and Ye Zhiru
2. "Cixi Flees west and the luxury is still the same", Wang Guangyue and Qu Chunhai