The cause of death of the Guangxu Emperor was rumored
The Guangxu Emperor, as the most thoughtful and ambitious king at the end of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, caught up with a powerful Empress Dowager Cixi and became the first puppet emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. He and Cixi died one after another, and many people believe that the cause of his death was because Cixi was poisoned.
Unfortunately, there was no evidence for this rumor, until the Nian archaeological team excavated the Guangxu Mausoleum in 1980, and finally let the truth surface - the Guangxu Emperor did die because of poisoning!
The feud between Guangxu and Cixi
The turmoil in the late Qing Dynasty stemmed partly from the Qing rulers' policy of closing off the country, and partly because Empress Dowager Cixi's greed for power caused the whole of China to lose the opportunity to revitalize.
After the death of the Tongzhi Emperor, because he had no heirs, the choice of successor made Cixi very worried. After all, when the new emperor ascends the throne, the emperor's mother is the empress dowager, and with the assistance of the empress's family strength, it is easy to weaken and deprive Cixi of her power step by step. How to retain the power in his hands is a prerequisite for Cixi's priority.
So, she looked at her sister and her child. Zai Mian can be said to be close to Cixi in terms of kinship, Zai Mi's father is the brother of Cixi's husband Xianfeng Emperor, he himself is the cousin of the Tongzhi Emperor, and because his mother is Cixi's sister, that is to say, Cixi is both his aunt and aunt.
It was because of this relationship that Cixi felt secure, and she gave the Zaiman family such great respect, and they supported her no matter what. In this way, the four-year-old Zai Mang ascended the throne for the Guangxu Emperor. Therefore, in terms of power alone, Cixi is kind to Guangxu and his entire family.
Unfortunately, since the prosperity of the Kang Qian dynasty, many political shortcomings began to manifest themselves throughout the Manchu government. By the time of the Guangxu Emperor, the Manchu government was ruthlessly oppressed and plundered by imperialism. Since the beginning of the Guangxu Emperor's understanding, he has hated the imperialist aggression and the inaction of the Manchu government.
In particular, Cixi nominally obeyed the government, but in fact controlled the entire court. The powerless Guangxu Emperor could only be at his mercy, watching himself sign agreements such as the Treaty of Shimonoseki and other agreements that humiliated the country, but he had no choice. From this point on, Guangxu began to want to cultivate his own strength, and no emperor wanted to be the king of the dead country.
After the Xin You's coup d'état in 1861, Cixi began to reuse the Westernist faction and launched the Westernist movement. Only more than 30 years passed until the total destruction of the Beiyang Navy in the Sino-Japanese naval battle. Guangxu, who was 24 years old that year, witnessed Cixi using a large amount of military funds to celebrate his birthday, and corruption in the imperial court led to military and political defeats.
In April of the same year, Kang Youwei, together with 1,300 candidates who participated in the examination in Beijing, signed a letter asking the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office to refuse peace, move the capital, and change the law.
Later, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao established the "Strong Society" and gradually came together with officials who supported Guangxu, causing Guangxu to understand the power of people with lofty ideals in the people.
Through the bonding role of these officials, Guangxu saw Kang Youwei's letter for the first time, in which the intention of changing the law deeply pierced Guangxu's heart, and when imperialism set off a frenzy to divide China, Guangxu gradually strengthened the idea of changing the law.
Guangxu and others' change of law was correct in the sense and beneficial to China at that time, but the proposed reform measures still had certain limitations. Culturally and educationally, we advocate new learning to fight old learning, economically promote the modernization of capitalism, open the shackles politically, and give people a certain degree of language freedom.
However, these actions completely touched the interests of the old aristocracy, especially those diehards who followed the old ways, and the "leader" of these diehards was the high-ranking Empress Dowager Cixi.
Whenever Guangxu gave any order, it was resisted and opposed by the feudal and conservative forces, and even some ministers accused Guangxu in person and moved out of Cixi's "Yi Will" to counter the New Deal. Cixi herself also showed her dissatisfaction with this situation, and she coerced the Guangxu Emperor that all new officials above the second rank in the future must go to the Summer Palace to thank her.
As for what conversations Cixi will have with the new officials, no one can guarantee. In this way, it has created hidden dangers in terms of stability and unity for the reform team that has not yet achieved the climate. At the same time, Cixi arranged his trusted minister Ronglu as acting governor to further control the military power near Beijing and Tianjin.
Not to be outdone, Guangxu dismissed all six people including Waitabu from his hands, and appointed Tan Sitong, Liu Guangdi, and others as military aircraft Zhang Jing to participate in the new policy. This completely angered Cixi, and coupled with the complaints of the old guard to Cixi, Cixi and Ronglu began to secretly plot to depose the Guangxu Emperor during the military parade in Tianjin.
As the date of the parade drew closer, Guangxu gradually became flustered, and he handed Yang Rui a secret edict: "The situation is difficult, and it is not enough to save China without changing the law", "Today, the position is not guaranteed, Ru Kang Youwei, Yang Rui, Lin Xu, Tan Sitong, Liu Guangdi, etc., can quickly plan and try to save each other."
The crowd wept bitterly and ran around for help. None of the mansions in various countries was willing to help, and everyone had to put their hopes on Yuan Shikai, who participated in the Qiang Academy and held the new army. Kang Youwei planned to besiege the Summer Palace, and he would kill Cixi for Guangxu.
Unfortunately, Yuan Shikai defected and snitched on Ronglu. When Cixi found out, he quickly ordered the arrest of Kang Youwei and other restorationists, and the coup d'état took place. Kang Youwei escaped from Beijing in advance, and six people, including Tan Sitong and Liu Guangdi, were beheaded and killed in Caishikou, Beijing, and were known in history as the "Six Gentlemen of Peng".
After this incident, Guangxu was imprisoned by Cixi, and the reform of the law completely failed.
Death of the Guangxu Emperor
Originally, the Guangxu Emperor was determined to revive the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but many of his decisions and the suggestions of the Restorationists were too radical and had certain limitations. As a result, the Restoration Movement can neither be carried out from the top down nor from the bottom up. Touching the interests of the nobles and not being able to properly handle the relationship with the nobles was one of the reasons for Guangxu's failure.
Regarding the cause of death of the Guangxu Emperor, the most identifiable and relatively true information comes from the calligrapher Mr. Qigong. Mr. Qi Gong was a descendant of the Qing imperial family, and his great-grandfather Pu Liang served as a secretary of the Ministry of Rites at that time. In "Qigong Oral History", he records the history told by his great-grandfather.
"When my great-grandfather was serving as Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites, he just happened to 'die' in time for the Western Empress Dowager (Cixi) and the Guangxu Emperor." The Ministry of Ceremonies has always been related to the face of the royal family and the key department to inherit the etiquette system, so as the head of the Ministry of Ceremonies, "my great-grandfather waited day and night outside the main hall of the Empress Dowager's Leshou Hall. This also laid the foundation for Pu Liang to see the whole picture.
Mr. Qi Gong wrote that it was at this special time that a eunuch came out of the house with a bowl. This is a strange and counterintuitive move. So Pu Liang, who was a Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites, hurriedly stepped forward to interrogate, and in this tense situation, he, the Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites, was the most stressed.
The eunuch seemed apprehensive, and he told Pu Liang that the bowl of Tula (yogurt in Manchu) had been given to the Guangxu Emperor by Empress Dowager Cixi. Pu Liang felt very wrong at that time, Empress Dowager Cixi is now dying, even so, she did not release the Guangxu Emperor in seclusion, how could she "find conscience" to give the Guangxu Emperor a bowl of yogurt at this moment?
Sure enough, it didn't take long for the Guangxu Emperor to first bring news - the emperor died!
Mr. Qi Gong also wrote later: "This bowl of yogurt was investigated by great-grandfather, and it was indeed a bowl of poison. And the main hall of the imperial hospital who rushed to see the Guangxu Emperor was surnamed Zhang, and later our family often invited him to see when he was sick. ”
Mr. Qigong's statement has been taken seriously by many historians, and it has been verified that the imperial doctor surnamed Zhang was named Zhang Zhongyuan, and there is also relevant evidence that this person once told people about the fact that Cixi poisoned Guangxu during the Republic of China.
But the rumors were rumors after all, not enough to prove that Cixi had indeed poisoned the yogurt, and it was not until 1980 that the archaeological team opened the tomb of the Guangxu Emperor that the truth came to light.
In order to verify the rumors, experts tested Guangxu Emperor's hair and found a large amount of arsenic residue in the hair. Arsenic may seem strange, but if it is an important part of arsenic, everyone must be familiar with it.
In this way, it can indeed be determined that the Guangxu Emperor died of arsenic poisoning, and it can also corroborate Mr. Qigong's records. But with such a large amount of arsenic, there is no reason why it appears in the hair. As we all know, if you commit suicide by taking poison, the strongest place of the toxin should be the stomach.
The toxin will enter the blood vessels along the stomach and slowly penetrate into the various textures of the body. If you want to penetrate the hair, then it must not be achieved all at once, at least it takes time for the blood to carry the toxins over. Moreover, the arsenic content measured in the first strand of Guangxu's hair was 2404 micrograms, which was 2000 times that of normal human hair.
However, such a huge amount of arsenic can completely poison many elephants, and normal people can cause death by ingesting 60-200 micrograms, so it is impossible to have time to slowly drain the blood.
Experts also investigated and analyzed other parts of Guangxu Emperor's body, and found that the closer to the bones of the stomach, the higher the arsenic content. Despite the cleansing, the Guangxu Emperor's sternum, abdomen and even clothing were detected with arsenic levels as high as 210 milligrams, which is still a hundred years later.
Experts concluded that since there was also a large amount of arsenic residue on the clothing, it indicated that in the process of corpse decay, the corpse water was wrapped in toxins and scattered, and it was possible that it was soaked into the hair, or that after Guangxu took yogurt before his death, vomit stained his hair. In short, all the evidence indicates that the Guangxu Emperor died unnaturally, and the culprit was Cixi.
Perhaps Cixi was worried that after his death, Guangxu, who was at odds with him, would succeed in seizing power, and his own conviction and family would be rectified by Guangxu, especially his reputation for the present and future generations would be erased by the Guangxu Emperor; Or maybe it was Cixi who was ruthless all her life, so that she did not allow her political enemies to live in the world.
Therefore, Cixi used the most vicious way to let the Guangxu Emperor walk ahead of him, so as not to have unfavorable records in the history books in the future.
Cixi succeeded, but she also failed. Although the Guangxu Emperor died, the mouths of the world's leisurely people were not so easily blocked. In particular, the Great Qing Dynasty was already crumbling, and Cixi's actions would surely be criticized by future generations. It is a pity that the Guangxu Emperor had the ambition of Zhongxing but failed to show it, which really made the poet regret and sigh.
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