In her later years, Empress Dowager Cixi especially enjoyed playing Go. Although she has average chess skills, she loves to play chess and is very addicted to playing chess for several days. In order to play chess, she also had to specially call some people to play with her, of which Li Hongzhang was the object she especially liked to call. On the one hand, he was an old minister, and he was very smart and effective and often not in Beijing, so he naturally had to call to the palace to show his grace when he came, so Li Hongzhang naturally often came to accompany Cixi to play chess.
Just before the Sino-French War, Li Hongzhang was ordered to play chess, Empress Dowager Cixi and Li Hongzhang opened a game, and playing chess with Cixi was a science, except for Li Hongzhang, everyone else was very uncomfortable. Because you can't win Cixi too much, otherwise you will make her unhappy, if you deliberately lose is also very embarrassing, it will make Cixi feel that you are patting yourself on the back, so Li Hongzhang's routines are very subtle, no wins and no losses, there are backs and forths, but very serious, which makes Empress Dowager Cixi very comfortable.
Just when the two of them played chess for more than an hour, there came a sonata, this sonata was Zuo Zongtang's urgent telegram, Li Hongzhang immediately said that he had lost and did not want to play again, but Empress Dowager Cixi said that she would play chess first and then look at it. Li Hongzhang resolutely asked Empress Dowager Cixi to read the recital before playing chess. Cixi felt very strange, and she said to Li Hongzhang: The world says that you and Zuo Zongtang are political enemies? Why did you have to let me see his fold? At this time, Li Hongzhang smiled and said: The empress dowager knows that although Zuo Zongtang and I have a dispute in the imperial court, it is for public affairs, and he is a talent of the country's pillars, and he cannot abolish the public because of private interests. Cixi was very happy, and after Li Hongzhang left, Cixi felt that Li Hongzhang really understood the overall situation. However, after Li Lianying told Rong Lu about the matter, Rong Lu's views were completely different, rong Lu felt that Li Hongzhang said this because he knew that if he did not know each other, then there was a suspicion of authoritarian arbitrariness, and empress Dowager Xi had always been a taboo on the outside and inside, in fact, it was not completely trusted, and if the hat of arbitrary dictatorship was buttoned, it would be troublesome.
Rong Lu also believed that Li Hongzhang was indeed holding the weight of the old cheng in doing so, but instead put Zuo Zongtang on the shelf. It can be said that it is a deep calculation, and it is relaxed and moderate, and it is worthy of a generation of masters. At the same time, Rong Lu knew that Empress Dowager Xi was actually very important to Li Hongzhang Zuo Zongtang, and Li Hongzhang had made great contributions to the establishment of the foreign affairs movement, including a series of industries such as the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau and the Steamship Merchants Bureau, which were all written by Li Hongzhang. Zuo Zongtang was very strong in defending against foreign enemies, destroying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the early years, the current Sino-French war, and the previous sweeping of Xinjiang are all the credits of Zuo Zongtang, it can be said that Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang are both in the world to protect the world's peace, if there is only one person, the situation in the world is turbulent but the Qing Dynasty is not dead. If both of them are gone, then the end of the Qing court is only afraid to arrive.
Sure enough, just ten years after Li Hongzhang's death, the Qing Dynasty was destroyed by the Xinhai Revolution, and it can be said that Rong Lu saw it very accurately and accurately.