As the saying goes: "The art industry has a specialty", if a person has worked hard in a certain profession and has a specialty, he may become a layman in other industries, and if he does not know how to do it, and then interlace command or decision-making matters, it is inevitable that there will be problems and even make big mistakes.
As I will introduce to you today, Weng Tonggong, a famous politician of the late Qing Dynasty, made the above mistakes. Although he was the emperor of the two dynasties and his political achievements were also very outstanding, he was deposed due to decision-making mistakes in military affairs that he was not specialized in, and eventually withdrew from the stage of history.
Statue of Weng Tonggong
Let's talk about the extraordinary experience of Weng Tonggong's life, what are the inspirations for us?
1. Emperor Of the Two Dynasties
Weng Tonggong was able to become the emperor of the two dynasties and achieved outstanding political achievements, which were inseparable from his birth as a family of official eunuchs and his own hard work. Weng Tonggong was born on April 27, 1830 (May 19, 1830) in the 10th year of the Qing Dynasty, in the Luohuan Hutong apartment of Shituma Street in Beijing.
Weng Tonggong's father, Weng Xincun, was a scholar in the second year of the Qing Dynasty (1822), and also served as a teacher of the Tongzhi Emperor. Weng Tonggong was influenced by his family since he was a child, he loved to learn, he had read through the Four Books and Five Classics, and he had excellent grades when he studied at the Changshu County Xueyou Literary Academy.
After Weng Tonggong won the first place in the temple examination in the sixth year of Xianfeng (1856) after winning the examination in the academy examination and the yingshun Tianxiang examination with excellent results, he was admitted to the army as an enviable champion.
Image of The Old Man
Due to his outstanding work during the Xianfeng Dynasty as an examiner of the Shaanxi Imperial Examination and the Head of The Education Department (equivalent to the current Head of Education), by October 14, 1865, the two empresses of Ci'an and Cixi, who were "bowing to the government", ordered Weng Tonggong to work with Shangshu Wuren of the Ministry of Works, Li Hongzao, editor of the Hanlin Academy, and Xu Tong, assistant to the Shiluguan, to jointly educate the Tongzhi Emperor, who was only 10 years old at the time.
Being able to follow in the footsteps of his father (Weng Xincun was also a teacher of the Tongzhi Emperor) and become a divine teacher fully demonstrated the importance and trust of the imperial court for Weng Tonggong. After Weng Tonggong made a statement to the two empresses that he would do his best to do this work well, he began to devote himself wholeheartedly to the role of emperor.
In view of the characteristics of the emperor's young age, when Weng Tonggong told the "Emperor Jian Tu Shu" (written by Zhang Juzheng, a famous minister of the Ming Dynasty), the pictures and texts were rich and simple, which made Emperor Xiao Tongzhi listen with relish, thus deeply admiring Weng Tonggong's high level of learning, and praised Weng Tonggong's teaching level to the two empresses.
Weng Tonggong calligraphy
At this time, even the two officials and empresses were also interested in Weng Tonggong's lectures, so they invited Weng Tonggong to the Yangxin Hall to give them a lecture on the book "Zhiping Baojian". In order to make full preparations, Weng Tonggong prepared lessons all night, and the next day, when Weng Tonggong selected the lectures, he repeatedly expounded the relationship between the monarch's humble heart and advice, the courtesy corporal and the interests of the state, and he not only spoke in a generous manner, but also had clear thinking, fluent language, accurate and appropriate analysis, so that the empress dowager of the two palaces and the princes and ministers present were all satisfied.
With this successful experience, and the lecture has a good effect. Later, in April of the second year of Guangxu (1876), when the Xiao Guangxu Emperor was going to study at Yuqing Palace, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered Weng Tonggong and Xia Tongshan to become teachers of the Guangxu Emperor. Thus fulfilling the dream of the emperors of the two dynasties of Weng Tonggong.
Second, he is an upright official and has made outstanding achievements in government
Weng Tonggong was not only the emperor of the two dynasties, he was an upright and honest official all his life, and his political achievements were outstanding. He was the leader of the Post-Qing school, which was dominated by officials and celebrities at that time. Like the former Qingliu, they advocated "vigorously using the wind and discipline" to oppose corrupt officials and corrupt officials; they dared to expose bad government, and sometimes even directly accused Empress Dowager Cixi.
Weng Tonggong film and television drama image
During his tenure as the Right Attendant of the Punishment Department, Weng Tonggong handled many cases. One of the most influential was the Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage case, which was sensational throughout the country at that time and was well known for more than a hundred years. After careful study, interrogating prisoners, investigating witnesses, and re-examining the bones, he finally found out whether Ge Pinlian died of illness rather than poisoning. At this point, Yang Naiwu and Xiao Cabbage's unjust case was rehabilitated. The officials and officials who had previously handled the case, as well as witnesses who had committed perjury, were all punished.
The successful rehabilitation of this case can be said to be a typical example of China's prison litigation and self-improvement of the rule of law system in the late Qing Dynasty. And Weng Tonggong's professional spirit of being loyal to his duties and rehabilitating civilians also fully demonstrated the demeanor that his generation of imperial teachers should have.
Third, interlaced decision-making, mistakes are repeated
In October of the eighth year of Guangxu (1882), because of Weng Tonggong's good political performance, the imperial court appointed him as the Minister of Military Aircraft according to the needs of the situation in the country at that time. This is actually a very wrong appointment. It made Weng Tonggong, a brilliant civilian official, make a series of mistakes in military posts that he did not know how to do.
Stills of Weng Tonggong
In the tenth year of Guangxu (1884), when Weng Tonggong participated in the Sino-French-Vietnamese negotiations, he advocated entering the army on the one hand and negotiating peace on the other, and said that Liu Yongfu was not terrible, and it was necessary to increase the number of troops to get out of the customs. As a result, good opportunities for negotiation and the loss of suitable fighters are lost. He was immediately dismissed from his post by the imperial court.
Another example is that in the sixteenth year of Guangxu (1890), when Weng Tonggong was serving as the Shangshu of the Hubu Department, he once went to the stage, on the grounds that the size of the navy was already large and the country's expenditure was difficult, he requested a suspension of the navy's purchase of arms from abroad, resulting in the development of the Beiyang Navy stagnating and lagging behind the world.
What is even more tragic is that due to the personal grudge between Weng Tonggong and Li Hongzhang, which directly led to the defeat of the Beiyang Fleet in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War in the future, the British suggested to China: "We must purchase two more fast ships to prepare for Japan's victory." Who expected that Weng Tonggong's continuous delay caused two fast ships to be purchased by Japan, resulting in the new Japanese ships in the Sino-Japanese War, which were faster and had more guns than The Chinese warships, and one of the Japanese ships, the Yoshino, became the ship that sank the Chinese fleet the most in this war.
The Guangxu Emperor
Later, Weng Tonggong first recommended to the Guangxu Emperor, and then became the leader of the Restoration Movement, Kang Youwei and others, and then opposed the Penghu Reform Law, and his attitude toward the change of the law was reversed, and finally offended the Guangxu Emperor, who was deposed, and was never hired, and has since withdrawn from the stage of history.
Fourth, the author commented:
The famous politician Weng Tonggong of the late Qing Dynasty, although he was an imperial master of the two dynasties and his political achievements were also very outstanding, was deposed due to decision-making mistakes in military affairs that he was not specialized in, and eventually withdrew from the stage of history.
Weng Tonggong's experience inspires us: if a person wants to succeed in his career, he should achieve great things in the field he is good at, and he must not make random decisions and make decisions without permission in his unskilled profession. Otherwise, it will bring disasters to the country and the people, and at the same time, it will also make yourself discredited.
Former residence of Changshu Weng Tonggong
This article is original by "Such as Day Zhongtian 54", welcome to pay attention, learn together, and improve together!