<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="32" > Cixi and Shen Xing: Why was this person hammered to death by Cixi's order and beaten for four hours, and who was he? </h1>
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="33" > how Shen Xing offended Cixi, was beaten for four hours without dying, and his flesh and blood were blurred until he was strangled</h1>
In August 1903, the news came from Beijing that Shen Xing had been killed by the order of Empress Dowager Cixi, and for a time there was a great uproar in public opinion, the whole country was angry, and the long-accumulated dissatisfaction with the Qing government quickly broke out, and all walks of life violently attacked the Qing government. Who is Shen Xing? Why was he ordered to die with a staff by Empress Dowager Xi? Why did Shen Xing's death cause a strong shock to the government and the public?
Shen Xing (1872-1903), also known as Yuxi, also known as Yuxi, was originally named Kecheng, a native of Shanhua (present-day Changsha), Hunan. During the Penghu Reformation, Shen Xing interacted with Tan Sitong, Tang Caichang and others. After the failure of the reform, Shen Xing and Tang Caichang crossed to Japan in the winter of 1899, returned to Shanghai in the spring of 1900, and initiated the establishment of the Zhengyi Association, which was later renamed the Self-Reliance Association. Shen Xing served as an officer and presided over the liaison work. In July, Tang Caichang and others summoned the reformers to hold a "national assembly" in Shanghai, and after the meeting, they used the meeting to organize seven armies of the Self-Reliant Army, which was scheduled to be launched on August 9 in Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei at the same time. Due to waiting for Kang Youwei to send money, the uprising was repeatedly postponed. On August 21, Zhang Zhidong broke the general office of the Hankou Self-Reliant Army, hunted down and killed Tang Caichang and more than 200 other people, the Self-Reliance Army failed, Shen Xing was not arrested because of Xindi, he ventured back to Wuchang alone, and then sneaked to Shanghai.
Around the end of September to the beginning of October, Shen Xing continued his activities despite the danger that Zhang Zhidong was still wanted, and went deep into Beijing, the heart of the Qing government.
Initially, Shen Xing's activities were secret, and even the Reform party in Beijing mostly did not know him. Over time, Shen Xing had more contacts with people, and often appeared to speak and propagate his doctrine. Shen Xing lobbied mostly for the children of high-ranking officials and nobles, and from this he heard a lot of secrets. However, he was a repeat offender of the imperial court, straightforward in temperament, sharp in speech; he interacted with people, was informal, and was finally denounced.
The betrayers of Shen Xing were led by Qingkuan and Wu Shizhao. Gyeongkuan was originally a Han Chinese, and later entered the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and was impeached by Goshi in 1894. After the Penghu reform, he accompanied Liu Xuexuan to overseas to capture Kang Youwei, but was not caught. Qingkuan always wanted to restore his official position, and after getting to know Shen Xing, he thought that strange goods could be lived in, so he treated Shen Xing kindly. Shen Xing has a habit of golden stones, and Qingkuan uses this to cater to him. Shen Xing also wanted to use Qingkuan to buy off the eunuch Li Lianying and then assassinate Empress Xi, but he was later betrayed by him. Wu Shizhao was also a person who had lost his official position, and he also wanted to use the merits of Shen Xing to regain an official and a half-post. In addition, Wu Shizhao always had typos in his articles, and he was once ridiculed by Shen Xing in public, and Wu Shizhao hated it to the bone, and he even had the intention of framing Shen Xing. There are also some nameless rats, out of various selfish desires, who act as eyes and ears and dog legs in the conspiracy to betray Shen Xing.
During Shen Xing's three years in Beijing, the Qing government compromised and surrendered to the outside world, increasingly becoming a "foreigner's court". On April 18, 1903, the Tsarist government made seven unreasonable demands to the Qing government in a vain attempt to monopolize the three northeastern provinces. Not long after, the newspapers in Tokyo, Japan, published all the contents of the seven demands, which immediately aroused the indignation of the Chinese people, and patriots from all walks of life protested against the crime of aggression committed by Tsarist Russia and demanded that the Qing government reject the unreasonable demands. The students studying in Japan were particularly excited, and they organized the "Anti-Russian Volunteer Brigade" to demand that troops be sent to resist Russia. The Qing government panicked and confused, and when they came and went, they all said that the secret was disclosed to the newspaper after Detective Shen Xing came out, because Shen Xing was a visitor to a Japanese newspaper at that time.
Qingkuan and Wu Shizhao heard all this, and they knew that the Qing government was jealous of Shen Xing and would want to kill him quickly, but they were still afraid that there was no charge and could not cover the eyes and ears of the people of the world, so they colluded with those vulgar rogues and plotted to report to the imperial court that Shen Xing had participated in the 1900 Self-Reliant Army Uprising. In the archives of the Forbidden City, there is a secret post by an anonymous person on a certain day in the twenty-ninth year of Guangxu (1903), secretly informing the Western Empress that Shen Kecheng, the leader of the Self-Reliance Association who had been wanted by Zhang Zhidong, had infiltrated Beijing and often had secret information with the "bandit party" and the fellow villagers of the university hall in the interior of the country. Miti suggests trying to get it right so that accidents don't happen. The secret post finally demanded: "Please do not reveal it for the time being, visit the traces, and then arrest and take the ministry." Otherwise, it is not enough to show caution. If you catch Kang against the method in the past, you will fight the grass and frighten the snake, and let it slip through the net. The slave is careful to show the method, and waits for the holy judgment. ”
After Miti passed Li Lianying to Empress Dowager Daxi, Cixi immediately ordered the infantry commander Shanqi to send Qingkuan to capture Shen Xing. Because he did not see the official document, he did not agree. Qingkuan ran to Li Lianying again, got the edict from empress dowager Xi, and handed it to Shanqi, who allocated twenty cavalrymen to Qingkuan. On July 19 (leap May 25), Qingkuan, in coordination with the Industrial Patrol Bureau, arrested Shen Xing in three hutongs in the city.
After Shen Xing was arrested, he was interrogated by the Ministry of Punishment. Because there was no physical evidence, Shen Xing claimed to be from Jiangsu, not Shen Kecheng. Although Wu Shizhao and others were summoned to testify, they had never participated in the Battle of Gengzi, and their testimony was insufficient to file a case. Some officials suspected that Shen Xing had been framed by him because of Qingkuan's personality. Therefore, on July 28 (the fifth day of the first month of June), Zhang Zhidong, a member of the Cabinet University, sent a telegram to Duan Fang, who was also the governor of Huguang at the time, asking him to secretly inquire about the people who knew Shen Mo in Hubei and quickly dispatch him to Beijing to identify the serious fakes.
The next day (the sixth day of the first month of June), Duan Fang called back zhang Zhidong, saying that he had found out that Shen Xing's original origin was in Jiangsu, that is, Shen Kecheng, the leader of the self-reliance association who was previously wanted, and that he had "selected the lord Bo Pengqingrui and garrisoned Ma Tingxiang on the same day to take a steamship north and go to the Punishment Department to identify him." From the photo studio, he found two copies of the prisoner's portrait, one for the Punishment Department and one for his honor. ”
After the trial of the case was completed, it was reported to Empress Xi, and Cixi remembered that the day of her birthday was approaching, and for fear of sabotaging her celebration, she was unwilling to execute her in public, so she ordered Shen Xing to be beaten to death in prison with a staff. When the edict reached the Punishment Department, even the officials of the Punishment Department had a face full of faces, but no one dared to disobey, so they dragged Shen Xing out, tortured him with a large bamboo stick, beat him for four hours, and beat him to the point where the flesh and blood were so terrible that he could not bear to see; seeing that he was not dead, he finally strangled Shen Xing's neck with a rope before strangling him to death. The day is July 31 (the eighth day of the first month of June).
Shen Xing's death fully exposed the murderous features of the Qing government, and various newspapers and periodicals reported one after another, and the criticism of revolutionary newspapers and periodicals became even more fierce. The article "On the Tragic Death of Shen Xing" published in "Zhejiang Chao" pointed out that the Qing government "killed a Shen Xing with a staff today, but tried his new arsenic sharp ear." Flesh and blood flew everywhere, and the mourning was like turning under the mallet, and the Manchu Qing government treated our Han people, and the future of my compatriots was also written. The article shouted: "Compatriots! compatriot! There is no question of the tragic killing of Shen Xing, and there is no solidarity with the whole of our nation... The eyebrows are imminent, and the compatriots are still excited! ”
In Shanghai's Yuyuan Garden, the revolutionaries held a memorial service for Shen Xing, attended by hundreds of people. At the meeting, a eulogy was read, telling about Shen Xing's purpose and his tragic death, and the listeners all wept. Zhang Taiyan was imprisoned in Shanghai because of the "Su Bao" case, and when he learned of Shen Xing's death, he was extremely sad and indignant, so he wrote a poem "In Prison, He Heard Shen Xingxi See killing":
"I don't see Shen Shengjiu, and the rivers and lakes know that they are hidden." Xiao Xiao is a tragic warrior, now in Yijingmen. Charm and shame, articles are always broken. The bardo should treat me, and there are several new graves in the north and south. ”
This poem not only expresses the mourning for Shen Xing, but also expresses Zhang Taiyan's own determination to prepare for sacrifice.