Li Hongzhang was a major minister of the late Qing Dynasty. Together with Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang and Zhang Zhidong, he was known as the "Four Famous Ministers of Zhongxing".
Li Hongzhang was one of the main leaders of the Western Affairs Movement, and was an official of the Wenhuadian University, a directly subordinate governor, and a minister of Beiyang.
Li Hongzhang is proficient in foreign affairs and good at diplomacy. Japanese Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi said he was the only person in the Qing Empire who had the ability to compete with the world's great powers. On behalf of the Qing court, Li Hongzhang signed a series of unequal treaties with the great powers of various countries, such as the Treaty of Maguan and the Treaty of Xinugu.
After Li Hongzhang signed the traitorous treaty, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, he blamed Jie Gu Hongming and scolded: Qin Juniper, the traitor, and Li Hongzhang, the wrong person.
After Li Hongzhang listened, he vomited blood on the spot.
On November 7, 1901 (the 27th day of the ninth lunar month), Li Hongzhang, a figure who called the wind and rain in the political arena of the late Qing Dynasty, died at the age of 78.
When the news of Li Hongzhang's death came, Cixi's tears flowed down on the spot, and she sighed: "Now that the overall situation is undecided, if there is any accident, no one will share it anymore." ”
After that, Empress Dowager Cixi sent Prince Gong Puwei to the memorial, posthumously honored as "Wen Zhong", rewarded him with 5,000 taels of silver for funeral, and sent special envoys to escort the coffin back to his hometown of Hefei for burial.
Li Hongzhang was born in Modian Township (Qunzhi Village) in Hefei County, Luzhou Province. After his death, according to his last wishes, he was buried in Xia Xiaoyin (Daxingji) in Daxing Town, Dongxiang, Hefei. Li Hongzhang's wife Zhao Xiaolian was also buried here after her death.
Daxingji is not the place where Li Hongzhang was born, nor is it the location of his family's ancestral grave. Li Hongzhang chose his cemetery here because he admired Bao Qingtian very much in his life. In the daxingji area, the famous Song Dynasty minister Bao Zheng is buried. Li Hongzhang's tomb site is adjacent to Bao Cemetery.
Li Hongzhang's cemetery is about 300 meters away from Bao Zheng's tomb. But Li Hongzhang did not sleep here for long.
Half a century after Li Hongzhang was buried, the whole country set off a movement of "making steel for the whole people and building steel mills."
After the local steel mill was built, it was proposed that Li Hongzhang's mausoleum covered a large area and could be included in the factory area. As a result, Li Hongzhang's cemetery became part of the steel mill.
In 1958, some people also proposed that Li Hongzhang was a "traitor" and asked to organize manpower to excavate Li Hongzhang's tomb.
The proposal was approved by the superiors. After that, the senior production cooperative where Li Hongzhang's tomb is located dispatched thirty-two production team leaders to excavate Li Hongzhang's tomb, and Hu Zhengqing, deputy director of the senior production cooperative, was the general person in charge.
The excavation of Li Hongzhang's tomb is a huge project. After Hu Zhengqing led people to clean up the mounds on the ground, a sealed burial chamber was revealed. The burial chamber was made of imported refractory bricks, very strong, and a hammer fell down without the slightest reaction.
Therefore, some people proposed: use dozens of pounds of explosives to blow up the tomb!
After a loud noise, the burial chamber was basically intact, and the explosives did not work on the burial chamber.
Finally, someone came up with a solution: we dug a tunnel from a few tens of meters away, drilled into the burial chamber from below, and dragged the coffin out.
This approach has worked. In the end, the tomb of Li Hongzhang was successfully excavated. The two coffins of Li Hongzhang and his wife Zhao Xiaolian were dragged out.
The two coffins have been buried underground for more than 50 years, but they are still dark and shiny.
After opening the coffin, Zhao Xiaolian's body was well preserved. Zhao Xiaolian was dressed in luxurious clothes, as if she was asleep. The quilt in the coffin, especially the Sutra of the Queen Mother who was specially given for burial, was intact, and a villager took the Sutra home and washed it, and it was still used as a quilt. There was a small box in Zhao Xiaolian's coffin, and there was also a delicate wooden box in the small box. Opening the wooden box, there were two golden "golden bricks" inside, and someone weighed it with a scale, weighing nearly thirty pounds. Everyone was very happy and thought that the two "gold bricks" must have been made of gold, but after the bank's identification, it was found that they were made of copper. Later, Hu Zhengqing sent these two "golden bricks" to the county for safekeeping.
Li Hongzhang's coffin had been filled with water, and the bones of the corpse wearing the yellow coat had been corrupted. Next to the bones were a pair of glasses, a pocket watch, a crutch, and seven gold coins under the body, arranged in the shape of the seven stars of the Big Dipper. There was also a sword in the funeral offering, which was later borrowed by the provincial troupe as a prop for acting.
After the successful excavation of Li Hongzhang's tomb, everyone was very happy. Some people suggested that the bones of "Li Traitor" should simply be tied to a rope to parade through the streets. So people found ropes, tied the body of "Li Traitor", and hung it behind a tractor until the bones were gone.
After Li Hongzhang's tomb was excavated, a villager pulled the coffin home and made a table out of coffin boards.
More than forty years later, the local authorities copied a tomb of Li Hongzhang. But in this tomb of Li Hongzhang, there is only one coffin board where Li Hongzhang slept, which was found from the local villagers' homes.