There are many famous eunuchs in history, but in the Qing Dynasty, if you want to say which eunuch is the most famous, then Li Lianying ranks second, absolutely no one dares to rank first.
The reason why he is the most famous is that in addition to the fact that he was once a big celebrity in front of the Empress Dowager Cixi, but also because his position has been as stable as a rock in his decades of eunuch career, and he has always been deeply favored by the Empress Dowager Cixi.
So, how much is Li Lianying favored by the Empress Dowager Cixi? In a simple sentence, it is to transcend the relationship between master and servant.
According to the record of "Late Qing Court Life and Experience", the Empress Dowager Cixi and Li Lianying, the two are usually almost inseparable, and wherever the Empress Dowager Cixi goes, Li Lianying must also be there.
Even when the two are separated and do not see each other, they will send eunuchs or palace maids to each other to greet each other.
Not only that, but in daily life, the two are not like a relationship between superiors and subordinates, usually when the Empress Dowager Cixi talks to Li Lianying, her tone is quite easy-going, for example, Cixi wants to walk around, she will say to Li Lianying, "Lianying, let's go for a walk." ”
This tone, where there is the stiffness and command between master and servant, is clearly like a companion who relies on each other.
This is just some small things in daily life, and the Empress Dowager Cixi's favor for Li Lianying has even reached the level of violating the ancestral system.
For him, the Empress Dowager Cixi did not hesitate to break the ancestral system and promoted him to the only eunuch in the history of the Qing Dynasty who had a second-rank crown.
You must know that after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, it learned the lesson of the eunuch dictatorship of the Ming Dynasty, and its attitude towards eunuchs can be said to be very different from that of the Ming Dynasty.
For example, Emperor Kangxi once said that eunuchs belong to those who "seem to be cautious on the outside but are suspicious", and they are the best at "having no reason to gain power".
Under the guidance of this concept, the Qing Dynasty formulated many regulations to restrain eunuchs, and when Emperor Shunzhi was in power, it issued a ban on strictly prohibiting eunuchs from interfering in politics, and also made iron plates, which were set up in the Jiaotai Palace, the Internal Affairs Office and the Criminal Punishment Division.
In addition, in the management of eunuchs, the Qing Dynasty can be described as "no matter how big or small", from eating and sleeping to daily behavior, almost everything has an extremely strict system.
Among them, there is a very special rule, that is, the grade of the eunuch is required, and the maximum level cannot exceed four grades.
That is to say, no matter how favored this eunuch is, but his grade is said to be heaven-breaking, and he cannot exceed the fourth grade, which is the ancestral training set down after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, and for a long time, even the chief manager among the eunuchs has not broken through the ceiling of the fourth grade.
But when the Empress Dowager Cixi was in power, she broke this ancestral precept because of Li Lianying.
In the fifth year of Guangxu (1879 AD), the Empress Dowager Cixi ordered that Li Lianying be promoted to the head of the four flower feathers, and Li Lianying this year had just turned 31 years old.
When Li Lianying was thirty-seven years old, that is, in the eleventh year of Guangxu, the Empress Dowager Cixi issued an edict again to reward Li Lianying with three products and a flower feather.
This is not the end, what is even more jaw-dropping is that in the twentieth year of Guangxu (1894 AD), the 46-year-old Li Lianying was rewarded again, this time, he was rewarded with a second grade and a flower feather.
Although it is said that Li Lianying's second-grade top is not as powerful as the ministers of the DPRK and China, but more of a symbol of honor, this is something that has not happened since the Qing Dynasty entered the customs.
As for whether it violated the ancestral system, the Empress Dowager Cixi never considered this issue at all.
A eunuch, especially a eunuch in the Qing Dynasty, can be said to be unprecedented in being able to do Li Lianying's job, so the question is, what special ability does Li Lianying have to please the Empress Dowager Cixi so much?
In the community, there is such a saying that when Li Lianying entered the palace, the cleansing operation was not dealt with, and as a result, after the wound healed naturally, he still had such a part of his ability.
And the Empress Dowager Cixi, who has been widowed since she was 26 years old, can be described as a treasure after she met Li Lianying, a "unique" eunuch.
Relying on this, Li Lianying will be extremely favored, and because of this, he has been able to rise to the top.
Even, it is rumored that the death of the Empress Dowager Ci'an was because she accidentally bumped into the "good deeds" of Cixi and Li Lianying one day, and in order to prevent the scandal from being exposed, Ci'an was killed.
How true is this statement? Could it be that the Empress Dowager Cixi really favored Li Lianying because of that?
What is certain is that this statement is pure nonsense, not to mention anything else, just saying that Li Lianying is not clean will not happen in the Qing Dynasty.
The Qing Dynasty had quite standard and strict systems and procedures for selecting eunuchs, especially in the aspect of eunuchs entering the palace and performing cleansing operations, which were even more strict.
The people in charge of purification in the Qing Dynasty were called "eunuchs" at that time, also known as "knife craftsmen", these people are the craftsmanship handed down from their ancestors, and the knife technique when naturally purifying the body is also quite accurate, and there will be no such thing as cutting is not clean.
Moreover, these eunuchs themselves eat the emperor's food, and every cleansing operation they perform will be recorded, such as cleansing someone in a certain year and month, etc., if the cleansing is not complete, once they are investigated in the future, it is a capital crime.
In addition, after the cleansing surgery, the palace will also send someone to check to ensure that there are no problems.
Also, in the Qing Dynasty, the palace would regularly "stubble" the eunuchs who had entered the palace, that is, re-checked, and if it was found that there were those who did not meet the requirements, they would perform a second operation until they reached the standard.
In this case, if you want to enter the palace without being cleaned, and hide from the world in the palace, it is undoubtedly a fool's dream, and it is impossible to do it.
Therefore, Li Lianying's favor with the Empress Dowager Cixi must not be due to not being completely purified, but for another reason.
First of all, Li Lianying is very smart, especially very discerning.
When Li Lianying was young, he went to private school for a few days, but unlike other children who only knew how to shake their heads and read books, Li Lianying would especially serve the teacher.
For example, if the teacher wants to drink tea, Li Lianying will hand it over immediately, and the teacher wants to smoke, and a cigarette bag full of tobacco will be delivered to the teacher by him, and even the teacher will drink tea and spill it, without waiting, Li Lianying will take a rag and start wiping the table.
This vision was present when he was young, and after he entered the palace, it was even more incisive.
When she first entered the palace, Li Lianying was just a boy, that is, a little eunuch who poured the toilet and cleaned the toilet, but with this cleverness and cleverness, she was promoted all the way, and in only seventeen years, she sat in the position of the chief eunuch of Chuxiu Palace.
And when he was serving the Empress Dowager Cixi, he observed what he said and what he shouldn't say, and he was extremely accurate.
In the palace of the Qing Dynasty, there is a custom of receiving the God of Wealth on the second day of the Lunar New Year, according to this custom, dumplings must be eaten in the palace that day, and when eating, there is an interesting little link.
What is the link? It is in the dumplings, wrap a small gold ingot the size of a soybean, make four such dumplings, mix them in a pot and boil, after cooking, send them to the Empress Dowager Cixi and the concubines of the harem to eat, whoever eats the gold ingots, who will be blessed.
In order to let Cixi eat it every time, Li Lianying took great pains, he always went to make dumplings in person, and specially marked the four dumplings with gold ingots, so that Cixi could eat them and make Cixi happy.
But once, Cixi finished eating all the bowls of dumplings, and only ate three, and the other was eaten by Longyu.
Thanks to Longyu's carefulness, he didn't dare to make a noise, quietly spit it out and hid it in his hand, and hurriedly gave Li Lianying a look, and Li Lianying knew what was going on at a glance, and quietly walked around behind Longyu, took the small gold ingot, took it to the back kitchen, wrapped another plate, and served it to the Empress Dowager Cixi, saying Lafayette, you eat something hot.
In the end, these four small gold ingots were still eaten by the Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Empress Dowager Cixi was also very happy.
Although this matter is a trivial matter, it can be found through this incident that Li Lianying's astuteness and eyesight are one of the reasons why he has always been favored by Cixi.
Also, Li Lianying was extremely loyal to Cixi.
Li Lianying's loyalty to Cixi, saying a bad word, is really much more loyal to his master than a dog, and his mind is completely on Cixi
At the beginning, when the Eight-Nation Alliance came, Cixi fled in a hurry with Emperor Guangxu and other people, and she was displaced along the way, naturally not as good as the palace in terms of food and clothing, and Cixi suffered a lot because of this.
But along the way, Li Lianying saddled up the horse, thinking about how to serve the good Lafayette everywhere, and only when Cixi rested every day did Li Lianying dare to squint for a while.
Once, in the middle, the weather suddenly changed, and the group of people just walked into a barren mountain range, due to the slippery road in the rainy day, and the vision was not good, the carriage that Cixi was riding was empty, and it seemed that it was about to turn into a ravine.
At the critical moment, Li Lianying got out of the car, ran to Cixi's carriage with a rolling belt, jumped down, supported her body with the roots of the tree in the ravine, and carried the wheels of Cixi's carriage with her shoulders.
In the end, Cixi was safe and sound, but Li Lianying fell down because she couldn't support it, and suffered a lot of injuries.
And, after he was rescued by the guards, the first thing he did was to ask Lafayette how he was and if he was hurt, completely ignoring his own injuries.
How could Li Lianying, who was so loyal to the Lord, not move Cixi? How could she not let Cixi be very pampered by her?
In addition, Li Lianying is skillful and knows what to say when and when.
Cixi likes to listen to Peking Opera, so there are often folk artists in the palace to perform, once, there was a Yang Xiaolou who played a martial artist, after the performance, because of the wonderful performance, so that Cixi listened very happily.
Under this happiness, Cixi was ready to reward Yang Xiaolou with something, and when she looked back, the table was full of snacks, and she said that she would reward Yang Xiaolou with this snack.
And what about this Yang Xiaolou? It is also a chicken thief, he thought to himself, what do you want this table of dim sum? Finally, I entered the palace to see the Empress Dowager Cixi, so it is better to let her reward her with some ink treasures, and her face will shine after she goes back.
So he fell to his knees and begged Cixi to give him a painting.
Thanks to Cixi's happiness at the time, Yang Xiaolou's request was granted, and after brushing a little bit, a big "Fu" word was presented in front of everyone.
However, when Yang Xiaolou took it and took a look, he was immediately dumbfounded.
Why? It turns out that the radical of the word "Fu" was written by the Empress Dowager Cixi a little more, and to put it bluntly, the Empress Dowager Cixi wrote a typo.
At this time, not only Yang Xiaolou found out, but also the people around him, and the key is that the Empress Dowager Cixi herself also found out.
But the problem is, it can't be said that the Empress Dowager Cixi made a typo, right? If she said it, wouldn't it be a slap in the face to Cixi? Therefore, for a while, the atmosphere was quite awkward.
At the critical moment, it was Li Lianying who said something to solve this thorny problem.
Li Lianying said, Yang Xiaolou, don't you dare to receive the blessing word of the Queen Mother Lafayette, why do you want it? Because this blessing word is not ordinary, it is a little more than others, it is a great blessing, and you can't bear it.
As soon as he said this, Yang Xiaolou was blessed to the heart, and immediately knelt down and said, Lafayette's blessing is a blessing to the sky, how dare the villain bear it?
A crisis was eliminated by Li Lianying in this way, there is such a smart and talkative subordinate, not to mention Cixi, anyone likes it very much.
It can be said that Li Lianying in the palace, whether it is her loyalty, his eyesight, or his intelligence and ability to speak, all meet Cixi's psychological needs, and at the same time, it also allows Cixi, who has been in the palace for a long time, to have a companion who can resonate with her emotionally, so Li Lianying is favored by Cixi, and it is also a matter of course.