As the actual administrator of the Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi's birthday naturally cannot be compared with mortals, otherwise her face would not exist!
No, the tenth day of the first month of October in the lunar calendar in 1894 is approaching, and Cixi is about to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. The court was a busy mess, not only to deal with busy things, but also to try to please Lafayette. If this is happy that a promotion and salary increase are just around the corner, the career may be even more peaceful.
In order to celebrate Cixi's sixtieth birthday, the imperial court was prepared to spend 30 million taels of silver to celebrate her birthday, and even embezzled some naval military funds. At this time, we happened to encounter the challenge of Japan. It was such a small country that the Qing Empire had always looked down upon that had the audacity to provoke the Sino-Japanese Naval Battle.
In order to avoid extravagance and waste, some ministers suggested that the summer palace project be suspended, after all, it was during the war, and such a fanfare banquet seemed to have a lot of impact on the reputation. But Cixi's words instantly silenced all the ministers.
"Whoever displeases me today, I will make him unhappy for the rest of his life."
As long as they did not enter the capital, their birthdays were still passed, so the ministers hollowed out their hearts to curry favor with Cixi on the one hand, and Deng Shichang led the orders to resist the enemy on the other hand.
The ministers even used the excuse of giving Empress Dowager Cixi a life to frantically fish out the little oil and water from the poor people. As a result, it can be imagined that the soldiers on the front line did not have the slightest consciousness of wishing for a happy birthday, and of course none of them won the Sino-Japanese War.
In order not to affect her own birthday celebrations, Cixi hoped that foreign countries could intervene to end the war as soon as possible, and she was very much in favor of Li Hongzhang's peace policy and attacked the main war faction with Guangxu as the mainstay.
However, due to the increasing tension of the situation, if the celebration is held with great fanfare, it is likely to end up with a bad name. Therefore, the original plan had to be changed, but despite this, the luxury of its shrunken version of the birthday was far from being comparable to that of ordinary scale.
When the country was in trouble, Cixi still only cared about her own enjoyment, and put the people of the world in the midst of water and fire, which was really a cold-blooded and ruthless person. But on the surface, he likes to put up a label for himself as a compassionate and generous person.
She was a great believer in Buddhism and wanted to use Buddhism to show his compassion, so people called her Lafayette. To say that this most understands lafayette's heart is the eunuch Li Lianying, this is not, in order to show Cixi's compassion, Li Gonggong specially designed a release link. In this way, he accumulated merit for her and expressed his compassion.
This trick is indeed quite an appetite for Cixi. On the day of the celebration, many eunuchs carried bird cages to Wanshou Mountain and asked for release. Of course, Cixi approved, and went to the vicinity of the birdcage and recited the words in her mouth, "I hope that you will not be caught in the future and live a free life that belongs to you!"
After saying this, he asked the eunuch to open all the bird cages, but all the birds did not fly away and remained motionless in the cages.
Cixi's face became more and more ugly, and the whole scene was very tense at one point. If Cixi had lost her temper again, perhaps all the eunuchs present would have to lose their heads.
At this time, Li Lianying slowly walked out:
"Buddha, this is the bird thinking of your compassion and wanting to stay by your side and not want to leave!"
Cixi said:
"Little Plum, you are less mournful, there must be deception in it"!
"How dare the slave deceive you, I don't believe you will release the raw fish again." After all, since ancient times, there have been bird training, but there is no fish training, Buddha, you try? ”
After saying that, he let people carry a bucket of fish that had been prepared and put it in front of Cixi. Cixi poured the fish into the Kunming Lake, and as soon as the fish entered the lake, they immediately scattered and then immediately returned to their original places.
Li Lianying went on to say:
"Oh, the Buddha's compassion even the birds and the fish know, so they don't want to leave."
When Cixi heard this, her mouth could not be closed with pleasure, and she rewarded Li Lianying heavily.
But is this really the case? Were the animals really touched by Cixi's compassion?
The truth is far more cruel than you see, these birds have been locked in cages since birth, until a few days before Cixi's birthday was released from the cage, at this time the birds are naturally very excited, all of them flapping their wings vigorously and flying out.
But after all, they were flying for the first time, and their technology and strength were not enough to support them to fly. It didn't take long to fall off or land on the treetops. Some of the worst-flying birds were then taken back into their cages and locked up, and after a few such trainings, they were so unsure of their ability to fly that they did not dare to fly too far even when the cages were opened.
It is simpler to say that the fish are ornamental fish, and the water around the lake is taken and poured into the bucket beforehand. At the beginning of October, the water in the center of the lake has been particularly cold, and the water outside the lake that these fish are released from the bucket is the same as the water temperature in the bucket, which is the most suitable range of activity, if you swim to the center of the lake, you will quickly swim back because of the temperature difference. It's all survival instinct.