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If anyone in the murder of Minister Klinder fooled the world with a lie, he could only be Kodaz.
But why did Kodaz lie? One possible explanation is his guilt. There was chaos, and Kodaz jumped out of the palanquin and fled, ignoring the minister. Afterwards, he felt guilty, so to describe the events that he did not see clearly as a cold-blooded murder scene, it would appear that he was completely helpless.
1. How did Klinder die?
I need to go back to the morning of June 20, 1900, and deduce carefully what happened.
When Minister Klinder came out of the minister's meeting, he was very angry and quite nervous. To hide his panic, he carried a revolver with him. He hesitated for a long time whether to ask for a German escort, and then heeded Kodaz's advice and did not want to escort the guards, so as not to cause trouble.
After sitting in the palanquin, in order to observe the situation outside, the German envoy made an exception and ordered the palanquin man not to lower the curtain. Kodas's report said that he was "very impressed with the minister's husbandly spirit" at that time, so he also asked the palanquin to roll up the curtain. In fact, the minister was nervous and insecure at that time. Kodaz thought the minister did not carry a gun, so he did not take his "Winchester" pistol.
After leaving the embassy district, the streets were full of soldiers, and every corner was guarded by soldiers. The soldiers were curious about the foreigners' palanquins, but did not make hostile moves. The minister held a revolver in his hand and nervously observed the ground.
At this time, the palace elite unit Shenji Battalion Thunder Team was responsible for guarding the area around the Dongshan Archway. It is possible that they have received orders from Prince Qing Yixiu to prepare for war, because the Chinese ultimatum will arrive at 4 p.m. on June 20.
In addition, they already knew that the Chinese were ready to declare war on the foreigners, so the soldiers in the Dongdan archway were on high alert. Zhang Jing Enhai and his subordinates are in charge of the section of the street corner.
They suddenly noticed two foreigners' palanquins appearing around the bend. Enhai ordered his subordinates to return to their combat posts. Minister Klinde is from a military background, has conditioned reflexes to the movements of Enhai and others, and also raises a gun to prepare. At this time, it is possible that the minister's revolver went off, or it is possible that he subconsciously fired the gun first. The Manchu soldiers immediately returned fire, while the Belgian embassy guards on the opposite side also opened fire in self-defense, thinking that the Chinese were attacking, all within seconds.
Kodas, who did not see what was happening in the back of the minister's palanquin, was shot in the thigh when he jumped up. Seeing that the foreigners were no longer fighting back in the palanquin, the soldiers of the Shenji Battalion stopped shooting and went to the palanquin to inspect it. They were angry at a shot fired from the palanquin, so they pushed and shoved, but found that the foreigner in the palanquin was on the verge of death.
Kodashi jumped out of the palanquin and fled, but Enhai and the others did not pay attention to him. They carried the minister to a nearby alley and found him dead. Enhai guarded the corpse while ordering people to report to their superiors. During the time of guarding the corpse, he found the minister's silver pocket watch, so he took the sheep by hand.
At the same time, Kodaz dragged his injured leg through the streets without anyone chasing and harassing him.
Eventually he found the American Baptist mission, received first aid from American missionaries, and fainted. When he woke up, he didn't understand what was happening, and he felt guilty about running away.
But when he soon heard that the minister was dead, his account became isolated evidence, so his mood improved, and he began to compile the story of the incident, portraying events that he did not see clearly as a rather dramatic murder.
After his earliest claims have been reported in newspapers around the world, he is reluctant to revise them. In his post-war reports to the Berlin government, he had to report truthfully on certain issues, which created the possibility of contradicting his earliest claims. After capturing Enhai, Kodaz tried his best to extract a perfect testimony from Enhaikou.
Enhaishi realized that if he insisted that the incident was an accident, he would lose the military spirit of doing what he was ordered to do and carry out his duty, so he did not deny that there was an order from the "prince".
However, Enhai's personality and personality are relatively upright, so his testimony does not meet Kodashi's requirements at all, and it is of no help to Kodaz nor himself. After the incident, the premier's officials could not figure out the cause of the accident for a while. When Pegasus, another horseback guard of Klinde, went to the General Administration to report the crime, he found that only one Zhang Jing was on duty.
2. The death of Klinde and the declaration of war by the Qing court
After surveying the scene with him, Zhang Jing immediately determined that the Germans fired the gun first. So a note was sent to the German Museum that afternoon, protesting that the two Germans were the first to provoke, causing the Chinese to return fire and kill one of them.
At this moment, the mission had decided to reject the Chinese ultimatum in view of the killing of the German envoy, and all the diplomats had determined that the Qing court was the mastermind of Klind's death.
The Qing court was also in a dilemma at this time, regardless of whether Klinder's killing was an accident or not, he died in Chinese territory, and the Chinese side had irrefutable responsibility until the ultimatum was reached.
The Qing court realized that Klinde's death had made it impossible to escort the foreigners out of Beijing. But the ultimatum had already been issued and it was impossible to collect it, so there was a siege of the embassy.
It should be noted that in the afternoon of that day, Empress Dowager Cixi had received a report of the fall of the Dagu Fort. That is to say, the original idea of escorting the minister to Tianjin to block the pretext of the countries and thwart their attack on the battery is now meaningless.
3. The reason for the siege of the embassy
Shortly after Klinde was killed, the Chinese government officially replied to the mission, agreeing to postpone his departure from Beijing, but the ground in the capital was not calm, and asked the minister not to consult with the General Administration.
When the British envoy Dou Nale first received this letter, he felt optimistic, he said:
"The killing of the German envoy has forced the Chinese government to be vigilant and steer its policy in the direction of peace."
However, he continued:
This optimism at that time did not take into account the powerful main war faction that existed in the imperial court. The Prime Minister's Office has not been able to represent the government since the beginning of June, so the GAO's correspondence with us is only indicative of some moderate attitudes. ”
The letter was the last communication before the attack on the embassy. At 4 p.m. on the same day (June 20), the ultimatum expired and the Chinese troops immediately opened fire.
A British sergeant major saluted Captain Strauss and reported: "The offensive has begun." ”
Captain Strauss replied, "Thank you, Sergeant Major Murphy." Thus, the farcical siege of the embassy officially began.
In a sense, going to war is a relief for both sides, and it at least puts an end to the unbearable psychological suspense.
The death of the German minister made foreigners feel that they had almost fallen for the Chinese government, and now they had no choice but to fight to the death. The Chinese side also felt relieved that the news that the Dagu Fort had fallen had arrived in the afternoon, and the ultimatum itself had lost its effect. In any case, the responsibility for starting a war lies with the foreigners, and the Chinese side has no choice but to go to war.
The Chinese side does not know what the purpose of the siege of the embassy is.
It seems that he wants to take foreigners as hostages, and he can try to turn around in the future, and he has no intention of killing them all. Although its statement is extremely absurd, the edict itself is a masterpiece, but its ancient style is difficult to translate in English.
In fact, Empress Dowager Cixi realized this was a mistake from the beginning of the declaration of war and the beginning of the siege of the embassy.
On June 21, the Qing court issued an edict calling on the military and people of the whole country to "share the same hatred" and "fight against the invaders." This edict is often referred to as the "edict of declaration of war."
In fact, this edict is a war mobilization order issued at home calling on the military and people of the whole country to resist foolishness, rather than a "declaration of war" submitted to foreign countries to declare a state of war with the other side.
In fact, in this war, the great powers never declared war on China, and the Qing government never declared war on the foreign powers. The two sides have not even severed diplomatic relations.
Yun Yuding's book "Chongling Chuanxin" describes this war as being launched by the Qing government and calling this edict a "declaration of war." This is a deliberate distortion of history and the Qing government's forced resistance to the outside world as taking the initiative to declare war on the outside world. However, for nearly 100 years, people have been using the term "declaration of war" and have become a habit. In order to avoid noun entanglement, the word "declaration of war" is still used here, but with quotation marks to show dissent.
4. Eun Hai's testimony
Another direct party to Klinder's killing was Zhang Jing of the Shenji Battalion Thunder Character Team, a Manchu officer Enhai.
Eunhai is a divine machine camp Zhangjing commanded by Yixiu the Prince of Qing. Eighty days after Minister Klinder was killed, Enhai was arrested in the capital.
The first person to notice Enhai suspicious was a Japanese journalist. He found Minister Klinder's silver pocket watch with the inscription "K" on it in a pawnshop in the Japanese-occupied area. Lieutenant Colonel Shibatoro, military attache of the Japanese Legation, followed the vine and chased him to Enhai. Shibagoro did not interrogate him carefully, because the German authorities immediately asked for his extradition when they heard about it.
Therefore, the main interrogations were conducted in the hands of the Germans. Enhai was arrested on September 8, and on September 13, German Admiral Bandermann in China had reported to Allied Commander Wadesi, who was sailing to China at sea, that Enhai had confessed in its entirety and admitted that the order to assassinate Klinder had come from the highest echelons of the Qing court.
It can be seen that the so-called Enhai confession was obtained at lightning speed.
More importantly, the administrator of the German occupation zone in Beijing was Kodaz himself, and he presided over the task of interrogating Enhai, even the interpreter.
The existing "Enhai testimony" in Germany shows that Enhai's interpretation of the case is very close to Kodaz's conclusion.
The questions raised during the interrogation were carefully designed to corroborate Kodaz's account, so the reliability of the "Enhai testimony" should be greatly compromised.
Nevertheless, Kodaz may not have realized when finalizing the testimony that there were several major clues in the "Enhai testimony."
First of all, there are big problems with the details about Enhai's confirmation of Kodaz's so-called "high-level conspiracy". Kodashi was most concerned about who was behind it, and Eunhae was reluctant to say from beginning to end that he was ordered by King Zaiyi of Duanjun, insisting that his boss was Prince Qing Yixiu, which greatly embarrassed the German authorities.
Prince Qing was a well-known peacemaker and the most willing German negotiating minister in Beijing, and Enhai's statement was not conducive to the negotiation process.
According to testimony records, Enhai's order to say "Prince" was received between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on June 19. It says: "When you see a foreigner, shoot and kill." Kodashi immediately asked, at this time that afternoon, he happened to go to the Prime Minister's Yamen to run an errand, why didn't you do it? Enhai immediately said that he himself had not yet received the order. Kodashi asked again which "prince", and Enhai said that my boss was only Prince Qing, and that the king of Duanjun commanded the Tiger God Battalion, not the Shenji Battalion.
The record of this testimony itself is deeply questionable. Even if a certain "prince" did give this order, it could only be regarded as an order to massacre all foreigners, and there was absolutely no specific goal, let alone the German minister as the target of assassination.
On the morning of 20 June, in the transcript of his testimony, Enhai said that he and his men had been ordered to wait for the target of the attack. Soon two foreigners' palanquins suddenly appeared near the Dongshan archway, so he ordered his subordinates to enter a combat mode, and he fired a first shot as a signal, and then began to attack.
What embarrassed the interrogator Kodaz the most was that Enhai went on to reveal that Minister Klinder had also fired a shot. Moreover, while searching the minister's palanquin, Enhai found a revolver with 5 rounds in its chamber, and the sixth bullet had just been fired. As for how Kodashi was able to escape, Enhai said that he ordered his subordinates not to pursue "your Lord Administrator" because his task was to guard the block.
It can be seen that this testimony and Kodas's statement have major contradictions in two aspects:
First, the order of the "prince" (assuming the existence of this order) was by no means the order of the conspiracy to kill the German minister. At this time, the Qing court was already preparing to declare war and issued a note restricting the departure of Beijing, and it was inevitable to control the foreigners by force.
More importantly, Prince Qing, who had always been cautious about foreigners, was unlikely to give such an order.
Nine months later, Enhai, who had been imprisoned by the Germans for a long time, was brought to justice by the Germans in Beijing.
It is said that before the execution, Eun Hai suddenly began to truly confess, saying:
I am just following the orders of my superiors, otherwise how dare I assassinate the honorable German minister as a small person? My boss promised 70 taels of silver and a promotion, and I agreed to carry out this task. After completing the task, I only received 40 taels of silver, but I was not promoted. So I stayed in Beijing and waited for a promotion, so I was arrested.
Here Enhai's account is completely different from the testimony, and the prince's order to "shoot and kill" becomes a murder contract, and the German minister becomes the only target of the contract.
In fact, the top level of the Qing court could not know that the German envoy was going to come out on the evening of the 19th. The Chinese government was also unaware that the German envoy had been isolated at the ministers' meeting on the morning of June 20 and insisted on coming.
Even if some envoys are coming, it is impossible for the Chinese side to confirm that they must be German envoys. Therefore, the assassination "contract" against the German envoy is difficult to execute. Therefore, Enhai's so-called "final confession" is certainly unreliable. Either he was lying, or he did not make such a confession at all, and the ability of the German authorities to falsify this confession cannot be ruled out.
Personality-wise, Eun Hae is not a coward. When Enhai was first arrested, Bellow's chargé d'affaires reported to Berlin that the man had a hard bone, "confessed" to the killing of the minister, and "asked for immediate capital punishment." Since the German authorities obtained Enhai's testimony with great speed, why did they keep him in detention? Enhai has confessed in full, and there must be an ulterior reason for his continued detention.
Shortly after Enhai's arrest, Li Hongzhang, a plenipotentiary and minister appointed by the Qing court, sent a telegram to Empress Dowager Cixi, who was on a western tour in mid-September 1900, reporting:
"Wen De took the flag soldiers of the German envoy in Beijing and confessed."
Li suggested that the statement in the previous "edict" that the German envoy "was harmed by the unruly people" be revised and admitted that he was killed by officers and soldiers in order to quell the German anger.
Enhai's superior, Prince Qing Yixiu, also reported to the imperial court in October that the Germans were the most difficult to deal with because of the killing of ministers. He advised the imperial court to explain to Germany that this fact was an accidental incident, and that "the change of knowledge was sudden and the head was not protected, and it was not the original intention of the imperial court." Prince Qing probably won't lie here.
In the second respect, the "Enhai testimony" contradicts Kodaz's account, because Minister Klinder did shoot a shot.
The question is how to explain the motives of Minister Klinder, who probably observed some sign of danger and fired the shot, or for some other reason.
After the war, the German authorities said nothing about it. General Lesser, commander of the German Expeditionary Force, even made up a new story, saying that after Enhai saw the German envoy's palanquin, he actually had time to ask his superiors. General Lesser said that Enhai asked his superiors whether to kill "this German minister whom Chinese very respectful?" The boss immediately agreed. This claim can only be made up.
In short, if the minister had fired a shot, it would have been impossible to prove Kodaz's statement correct. For it is impossible for the minister to die unaware of what happened at that time. It is possible that Kodaz did not witness the entire process of the incident, or that he deliberately concealed this important fact.
General Lesser was the host of Enhai's execution, and the details of his execution are also noteworthy. Prior to this, the German Foreign Ministry had asked whether the death penalty was necessary for Enhai, who was nothing more than a soldier who carried out orders. Lesser replied that as a soldier, he agreed with the Foreign Office.
But he also consulted Marshal Wadesi , who believed that capital punishment should be imposed Chinese the release of Enhai as a weakness of Germany. Lesser's account of the execution scene is similar to that of Wade's diary, and Enhai "looks at ease and maintains dignity" and does not make any pleas for mercy.
(End of text)
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