Comrade Guevara
On November 7, 1901, in Xianliang Temple, Beijing, Li Hongzhang, the "pillar of the Qing Dynasty", died suddenly at the age of 79.
In his later years, Li Hongzhang was reprimanded by the Chinese people as a "traitor" and "traitor" because he was responsible for signing the "Xinchou Treaty". Eight days before his death, in the Tsarist Russian embassy, Li Hongzhang was constantly coerced to sign the "Temporary Charter of Fengtian and Earth" to sell the rights and interests of Northeast China, which made Lao Zhongtang's condition worsen to the point of "vomiting blood". However, just a few hours before his death, the Russian envoy was still urging Li Hongzhang to sign in front of his sickbed, which was really cold-blooded and shameless.
Li Hongzhang in his later years
When he was dying, Li Hongzhang's thin body curled up on the sickbed, and the impressions of his life in the past few decades drifted through his mind like a cloud of smoke, from near to far, most of them gradually dispersed, and only the experience of the last two years made him unforgettable, especially the outbreak of the "Gengzi Boxing Rebellion" and its devastating impact on the country. As soon as he thought of this, this old Zhongtang, who had worked hard for the Qing Dynasty for decades, scolded the perpetrator Yuxian, reprimanded him for misleading the country and the people, and wanted to eat meat and sleep on him.
So, what kind of hateful character is Yuxian, who was scolded by Li Hongzhang?
Yuxian, Yan Zhashi, the Han Army of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was born as a prisoner, in the fifth year of Guangxu (1879), he was sent to Shandong as an official. Yuxian's career was quite difficult, and after 10 years of hard work, he was able to become the acting governor of Caozhou, at the age of 48. Yu Xianju is incompetent, the only thing worthy of praise is incorruptibility, and he has never embezzled a penny of money in various places for decades, and this has become his proud capital. However, Qing officials are generally ruthless and self-serving, leaving no room for work, and the same is true of Yuxian.
In the late Qing Dynasty, the people's livelihood in Caozhou withered, and the people had no way to make a living, so many people became bandits. In order to eliminate the bandits, Yuxian wantonly arrested and killed people suspected of being "thieves" as soon as he took office, and in just three months, he actually executed more than 2,000 people, most of whom were innocent civilians, thus earning him the title of "Tu Bo". After a large-scale slaughter, the "thieves" in Caozhou were almost extinct, and Yuxian also won the favor of his superiors.
Yuxian is capable of killing, known as "Tu Bo"
With his "excellent political achievements" in Caozhou, Yuxian began to embark on the "fast lane" of career promotion. In 1895, Yuxian was promoted to Cao Jidao in Yanyi, Shandong, and in the following year, he was appointed as an envoy in Shandong, and was ordered to suppress the uprising of the Dadaohui in Cao County and Shanxian County. In 1898, Yuxian was promoted to the post of political envoy of Shandong Province (commonly known as "Fantai"), in charge of the civil affairs and finances of the province, and became a senior minister. In August of the same year, Yuxian was transferred to Hunan as political envoy, and three months later he was transferred to acting General Jiang Ning.
During Yuxian's tenure in the south, because Britain and Germany competed to seize "leased land" in Shandong, build railways, plunder resources, and shield and condone Chinese believers to do evil, and the government favored believers in the conflict between the church and the people because they were afraid of foreigners, it aroused strong xenophobic sentiment among the people. For this reason, the two governors of Shandong, Li Bingheng and Zhang Rumei, were dismissed due to ineffective ammunition and suppression, and Yuxian took over.
In April of the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899), Yuxian officially took office as the governor of Shandong, and at this time, the Boxer movement in the land of Qilu had gradually become a prairie fire from a spark. Among them, only Yuxian had "flattened" Caozhou alone, there are more than 100,000 congregations, Guanxian Boxing Association organization is known as the "Eighteen Regiments", there are more than 860 villages under the rule of Chiping County, and there are more than 800 boxers who practice boxing, and its "grand occasion" can be seen. For such a large-scale non-governmental movement, whether it is to be appeased or suppressed, it is an extremely headache for the officials in Shandong Province.
Boxer
At the beginning of Yuxian's tenure, he resolutely adopted a policy of strong suppression, and ordered eight times not to allow non-governmental and private organizations such as the Dadao Society and the Red Boxing Society, and sent heavy troops to kill the Yihequan. However, these civil society organizations have spread across the province, numbering in the hundreds of millions, and if they were to be tackled by killing alone, they would only provoke a stronger backlash. At the same time, Yuxian realized that the church forces were doing evil in the local area and preying on the common people, and the magistrates were often courting foreigners when handling the teaching plans, and he was very unhappy in his heart.
What's more, like most Manchu aristocrats, Yuxian was an ultra-conservative and full of hatred for both foreigners and the "Westernists" in his country. It was under the influence of this kind of thinking that Yuxian's policy towards boxers quickly changed from "suppression" to "appeasement". In July of that year, under the three principles of "the people can be used, the regiment should be appeased, and the bandits must be suppressed", Yu Xiantong ordered the Boxers and Dadaohui in various places to merge and reorganize into the "Boxer Rebellion", and allowed the Zhu Honglan Institute to build banners, all of which were signed with the word "Yu".
It was precisely under Yuxian's encouragement that the Boxers launched a large-scale campaign in Shandong to "help the Qing Dynasty and exterminate foreigners", burning churches and killing priests, and Yuxian always pretended to be deaf and dumb in response to the missionaries' applications for personal protection. In response, the great powers threatened war and demanded that the Qing court remove Yuxian. Under pressure, the Qing court announced the dismissal of Yuxian at the end of 1899, and Yuan Shikai was immediately appointed governor of Shandong. As soon as Yuan Shikai arrived, he immediately ordered the Boxers to be wiped out, forcing the boxers to collectively transfer to the lax Zhili.
Boxer Rebellion and the Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of China
After Yuxian returned to Beijing after his dismissal, he became acquainted with Manchu magnates such as Prince Duan Zaiyi, Prince Zhuang Zaixun, and scholar Gangyi through various connections, and told them that the Boxer Rebellion "can be used by the people", not only should it not be eliminated, but they should be used by the imperial court. Later, when Yuxian met with the Empress Dowager Cixi, he talked about the "loyalty" of the Boxers to the Qing Dynasty, and boasted that they all had the miraculous skill of "invulnerability", and that the foreign guns and cannons of Western countries could not hurt them in the slightest, and if they could be used, they would definitely be able to drive the foreigners out of China.
At this time, the Empress Dowager Cixi was forced to give up due to the opposition of the foreign powers due to the plot to depose the Guangxu Emperor, and her hatred for foreigners was very strong. Therefore, after some instigation by Yuxian, the Empress Dowager Cixi was really moved and decided to use the "magic skills" of the Boxers to start a war with the foreign powers. It was under this kind of thinking that the Boxers began to enter the Beijing-Tianjin area in large numbers, besieged the embassies, and wantonly hunted down foreigners and Chinese parishioners, which finally triggered the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance, and almost pushed China into the abyss of national extinction.
In order to reward Yuxian's "public loyalty to the country", the Empress Dowager Cixi appointed him as the governor of Shanxi in early 1900 and instructed him to continue to engage in the cause of "exterminating foreigners". Yuxian lived up to the expectations of the Empress Dowager, and as soon as he took office, he instigated the Boxers to burn churches and massacre the parishioners. In less than one year, Yuxian killed 191 missionaries and more than 10,000 Chinese parishioners and their families and children in Shanxi, burned down 225 churches and hospitals, demolished more than 20,000 houses, and even killed several missionaries and young children with his own hands in front of the governor's yamen.
慈禧太后
After the Eight-Nation Coalition captured Beijing, they listed Yuxian as the "chief crime" of xenophobia and hatred of religion, and demanded severe punishment from the Qing court. In September 1900, Yuxian was dismissed from his post and sent to Xinjiang, and in February of the following year, he was ordered by the Qing court to be beheaded in Lanzhou, thus ending his life of disaster to the country and the people. On the occasion of his death, Yuxian, who prides himself on being loyal to the monarch and patriotic, made a couplet for himself: "The ministers should be punished, the ministers have no other will, and the life and death of the boy are bright, not like the three-character prison of injustice; ”
The hateful "patriotic thief" Yuxian did not realize his mistake until his death; he did not know that his extreme political ideas and frenzied massacres had made the already acute national contradictions irreconcilable; he did not know that he had single-handedly turned the righteous anti-aggression movement into blind and extreme xenophobia and indiscriminate killing of innocent people; and he did not know that his "feat of massacre" would bring this dying dynasty that was dying and its edifice was about to collapse closer to the abyss of destruction. He opened with the blood of his enemies and ended with his own blood.
If there was no Yuxian, perhaps the "Gengzi National Disaster" would not have happened
Although the catastrophe brought about by the "Gengzi National Disaster" has become a fact and still makes the Chinese people extremely painful, when reviewing history, we will inevitably make the assumption that if it were not for Yuxian's bottomless connivance at the Boxers, and if it were not for his fanatical encouragement of the blind xenophobia led by the Empress Dowager Cixi, the "Gengzi National Disaster" might not have happened, and China would probably have avoided a catastrophe that almost destroyed the country. Therefore, it is natural that Li Hongzhang scolded Yuxian for misleading the country before his death.
The late Qing novelist Liu He once commented in "The Travels of the Old Remnant": "Corrupt officials are hateful, and everyone knows it; The officials who cover up the stolen goods know that they are sick and do not dare to openly do wrong; the officials of the Qing Dynasty think that I don't want money, so why not, they are stubborn and self-serving, and if they are small, they will kill people, and if they are big, they will mislead the country." Looking at Yuxian, who prides himself on being honest and diligent, loyal and patriotic, this comment can be described as hitting the nail on the head.
"Patriotic thieves" have always brought disaster to the country and the people, and they have never been extremely heavy, and they deserve the vigilance of the people of the world.
bibliography
1. [Qing/Minguo] 赵尔巽: 《Qing History Manuscript》, 中华书局, 1998 edition.
2. Ming and Qing Archives of the National Archives Administration: Historical Materials of the Boxer Archives, Zhonghua Book Company, 1959 edition.
3. Department of Modern Chinese History, Department of History, Peking University: The First Series of Historical Materials of the Boxer Rebellion, Zhonghua Book Company, 1964.