Why do people praise her?
Empress Dowager Longyu, Yehenala clan, Manchuria inlaid with yellow flags, named Jingfen, nicknamed Xizi, the daughter of Yehenala Guixiang, the deputy capital of Cheng'en of the first class, is the cousin of Emperor Guangxu. In the fourteenth year of Guangxu (1888 AD), he was appointed by the Empress Dowager Cixi to marry, and the following year he became the empress, and after the wedding period, he lived in Zhongcui Palace, one of the six palaces in the east.
On the 17th day of the first month of the second year of the Republic of China (1913) (February 22), the Empress Dowager Longyu died of illness in Changchun Palace, one of the six palaces in the west, at the age of 46. The government of the Republic of China handled the funeral with the national funeral specifications, and was buried with the Guangxu Emperor Chongling (Qingxi Mausoleum, Yixian County, Hebei).
In the fourteenth year of Guangxu (1888 AD), the Empress Dowager Cixi decided that the wedding celebration of Guangxu would be held on the 27th day of the first month (February 26) of the fifteenth year of Guangxu (1889 AD). Just when the harem was busy with the emperor's wedding, an unexpected thing happened. On December 15 of the 14th year of Guangxu (1889 AD), in the middle of a snowy winter night, a sudden fire broke out in the Forbidden City, burning down the Taihe Gate in front of the Taihe Palace.
After the fire, Taihemen was reduced to rubble. The Empress Dowager Cixi made a categorical decision: the wedding was held as scheduled, and the empress had to pass through the Taihe Gate and then enter the harem. How to solve the problem of the queen's entry into the second court, the Empress Dowager Cixi once again made a decision that surprised everyone: she actually ordered the craftsmen of Zha Cai to work day and night to build the Taihe Gate color shed in the fire field! In the end, she also built a Taihe Gate that could be faked and real, so that people who had been walking in the inner court for a long time could not distinguish the authenticity at once.
The twenty-seventh day of the first month of the fifteenth year of Guangxu is the auspicious day for the queen selected by Qin Tianjian to enter the palace. At three o'clock in the afternoon, it is the auspicious day to welcome the queen, the Guangxu Emperor wears a bead crown, wears a dragon robe, ascends to sit in the Taihe Palace, the civil and military officials kneel three times and knock nine times, and the officials of the Ministry of Rites read out the edict of canonizing the queen. After Emperor Guangxu returned to the palace, the envoy and the deputy envoy led the ministers to the back residence to welcome the queen into the palace. At the same time, the two concubines Jin and Zhen were also welcomed into the harem by Shenwumen.
After the wedding, Longyu lived in Zhongcui Palace, one of the six eastern palaces. But Emperor Guangxu only favored Concubine Zhen, and the relationship between him and Longyu was very bad. The reason why the Empress Dowager Cixi chose Longyu as the empress of Guangxu was also because she hoped that her niece would monitor Emperor Guangxu's every move, so Emperor Guangxu was wary of Longyu. Longyu's appearance is not outstanding, and his personality is soft and cowardly, as the queen is not favored, and he is not favored by the Empress Dowager Cixi in the palace, and he is not very authoritative when he meets the princess and princess on weekdays.
In the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (1900 AD), due to the invasion of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance, on the eve of the Forbidden City, Empress Longyu fled to Xi'an with the Empress Dowager Cixi, Emperor Guangxu and the rest of the palace dependents. In the twenty-seventh year of Guangxu (1901 AD), the group returned to the Forbidden City again. Although Concubine Zhen had been given death by the Empress Dowager Cixi before fleeing, Empress Longyu was still not favored.
In the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (1908 AD), Emperor Guangxu died in the Hanyuan Hall of Yingtai in the South China Sea, and according to the order of the Empress Dowager Cixi, Emperor Xuantong ascended the throne. According to the order of Emperor Xuantong, the queen was honored as the empress dowager of Longyu, known as the "Empress Dowager", with the emblem of "Longyu", and was known as the Empress Dowager of Longyu in history. Emperor Xuantong was only three years old when he ascended the throne, so he was raised by the Empress Dowager Longyu. At the same time, the Empress Dowager Longyu also implemented the curtain to listen to the government, and the regent Zaifeng (the biological father of Emperor Xuantong and the younger brother of Emperor Guangxu) jointly presided over the stormy Qing Dynasty.
Longyu is not good at stammering people, so there are not many cronies, since he became the queen mother, and sometimes has to uphold the great politics of the country, she knows that in order to keep the throne of the queen mother, it is necessary to keep Puyi's throne, which must establish its own power, especially with those relatives and ministers who hold real power. Therefore, when Zaifeng established his authority and prepared to build a ruling team, the Empress Dowager Longyu also had to find ways to entrap some ministers to prevent Zaifeng from having too much power and endangering her position. The Empress Dowager Longyu is the object of the Prince of Qing, Yixuan because of the grace of the Empress Dowager Cixi, the last iron-hatted prince of the Qing Dynasty, has a lot of power in the court, and Yuan Shikai, who started from military training, helped each other, and decided to carry out a limited boycott of Zaifeng, once, Zaifeng planned to nominate Natong as the Minister of Military Aircraft, and asked the Empress Dowager Longyu, who did not want the Empress Dowager Longyu to recommend Yuan Shikai's brother Xu Shichang as the Minister of Military Aircraft. This time, Zaifeng was provoked, although he also promised to let the two of them be the ministers of military aircraft at the same time, but he reminded the Empress Dowager Longyu without warning that only major events in the imperial court can be discussed by the Empress Dowager, and these specific government affairs do not have to be troubled. Although Zaifeng didn't say it explicitly, the Empress Dowager Longyu knew that she was asking her not to be offside. After this experience, the Empress Dowager Longyu, who had no real power, rarely directly interfered with Zaifeng since then, and she could only fulfill her mother's responsibilities to the young emperor, and she was powerless for this country.
In the third year of Xuantong (1911 AD), the Xinhai Revolution broke out. On December 6, Zaifeng resigned from the post of regent of the prison state by the decree of the Empress Dowager Longyu, and the Empress Dowager Longyu, who listened to the government, became the de facto supreme ruler and ultimate responsible person of the soon-to-be-ended Qing Dynasty.
On December 7, Xu Baoxing, then secretary of the Prime Minister's Office, recorded in his diary the hour-long conversation between the Empress Dowager Longyu and Prime Minister Yuan Shikai in the Yangxin Palace. The Empress Dowager Longyu said: "I can't know everything else, and I will be appointed to Yuer in the future." He also appointed Yuan Shikai as Minister Plenipotentiary for Peace and entrusted Tang Shaoyi as a representative of Peace and was responsible for conducting peace negotiations with the southern provinces.
On December 28, the call for the abdication of the Qing Emperor became higher and higher throughout the country, and the Empress Dowager Longyu summoned Prince Qing Yixuan, Yuan Shikai and other princes and nobles and ministers of state to discuss the state affairs. She finally said: "Seeing King Qing and others, they all said that they had no idea, and they wanted to ask you, I will leave it all to you, and if you do it well, I am naturally grateful, even if it is not done well, I will not complain to you." The emperor is young now, and when he is older in the future, he will not complain about you, it is all my idea. Speaking of this, she cried loudly, and Yuan Shikai and other princes and ministers also cried together. After crying, the Empress Dowager Longyu further said: "I'm not talking about my family's affairs, as long as the world is safe." "The general policy of the abdication of the Qing Emperor has been preliminarily determined.
Ten days after the promulgation of the edict of abdication, Shanghai's "declaration" on February 22, the third year of Xuantong (AD 1912), with the title of "The sad words of the edict of the Qing Dynasty when the edict was issued to abdicate the throne", reported that on February 12, the "Edict of the Qing Emperor's Abdication" was presented to the Empress Dowager Longyu by Yuan Shikai in the palace of Yangxin. At this time, Prince Pu Wei, who opposed the abdication of the republic, asked to summon himself, and the Empress Dowager Longyu said: "His relatives and nobles have handled state affairs so corruptly, and they still want to obstruct the edict of the republic, and they will put my mother and son somewhere!" At this time, no matter what nobles they were, they were not allowed to enter, so they used the imperial treasure to display the Huang case. "Qing Hou is still crying. When the Qing Emperor was in the arms of the Qing Emperor, he also cried when he saw this, and Yuan Shikaijun and the ministers of various countries also cried in unison."
After the Empress Dowager Longyu issued an edict to abdicate the throne, after all, she was unrelieved and depressed, and finally contracted the disease. In 1913 A.D., on the "Long Birthday Day" (birthday) of the Empress Dowager Longyu, when receiving congratulations in the palace, she saw Liang Shiyi, the special envoy of Yuan Shikai, the president of the Republic of China, and congratulated him with the etiquette of foreign envoys; He died in Changchun Palace on February 22 of the same year at the age of 46. Pu Yi was called "Filial Piety, Longyu, Kuanhui, Shen Zhexie, Tianbao Shengjing Empress".
Yuan Shikai, who was the president of the Republic of China at the time, immediately ordered that the flag of the whole country be lowered at half-mast for three days of mourning, and civil and military officials wore filial piety for 27 days. The Senate adjourned for one day on 26 February, except for flags flying at half-mast. February 28 is the time to celebrate. Not only that, Yuan Shikai also personally wore a black veil on his arm and held a mourning sacrifice. At that time, military and political dignitaries called the nominal surviving Qing room one after another to express their condolences for the death of the Empress Dowager Longyu.
Subsequently, at the initiative of the President of the House of Councillors, Wu Jinglian, the General Chamber of Commerce was used as the organizer of the mourning service. All parts of the country responded to this call, and Changchun, Liaoyang, Fenghuang, Tieling, Yingkou and other places held meetings to mourn the Empress Dowager Longyu, and sent representatives to Beijing to attend the memorial service. On the 18th and 19th, a national mourning meeting was held in the square in front of the Yamato Gate, and as many as 50,000 people attended. The government of the Republic of China held a national mourning meeting in the Taihe Hall on March 19. A white banner of "Yao Shun in the Female Middle School" is hung above the mourning hall, and a statue of Longyu is placed in the center of the mourning hall, and all exposed beams and pillars are wrapped in white cloth. The hall is full of couplets and wreaths. Honor guards dressed in Qing-style mourning clothes and modern military uniforms stand left and right in front of the mourning hall. The mourning assembly also decided to erect a bronze statue of the Queen Mother in recognition of her exploits. According to the major newspapers of that year, after the death of the Empress Dowager Longyu, the public opinion circle was quite regretful.
The ministers of various countries in Beijing also expressed regret over the death of the Empress Dowager Longyu, and in addition to going to the Taihe Hall to pay tribute, during the mourning service, all embassies lowered their flags at half-mast to mourn.
Because Emperor Guangxu's "Chongling" has not yet been completed, the Empress Dowager Longyu's Zigong can only "worship temporary". When the Feng was moved, the honor guard of the Republic of China government, the military band was introduced, and the traditional Manchu deacons: the door line, the qulu, the shadow pavilion, the bright sedan chair, the crank yellow umbrella, the eagle, the dog, the camel, the executioner, the tent, etc. followed. It is the "imperial bar" of 96 people's "landing full of yellow" (that is, the yellow bar, the yellow cover, the yellow bar rope, and the green lotus leaf hat worn by the barman is inserted with a yellow pheasant feather, holding a yellow and white light flag, and the words "Respectful Temporary An" are written), and it has been carried to the Qianmen Railway Station (West Station) with the special train used by the Empress Dowager Cixi to be transported to the Lianggezhuang Palace in Yizhou, Hebei Province for temporary peace, waiting for the completion of the Chongling Mausoleum, and entering the mausoleum with Emperor Guangxu.
After the funeral of the Empress Dowager Longyu, in March of the second year of the Republic of China (1912 AD), a special issue of the "National Mourning Chronicle" was published. In front of the book is a picture of the Empress Dowager Longyu, with her edict announcing the abdication of the Qing Emperor. This was followed by 12 photographs of the mourning meeting inside and outside the Taihe Palace. There are also condolence telegrams, elegiac couplets, memorial rituals, memorial texts, mourning lyrics, royal answers, lists of foreign guests, staff lists, and so on.
After the death of the Empress Dowager Longyu, the reason why she was mourned and praised by all walks of life is not just a false statement. It is because in the whole process of the peace talks between the north and the south of the country, although the Empress Dowager Longyu also had some illusions, she insisted on not dealing with the revolutionary party by bloody means, nor did she play any political tricks or conspire to prevent the abdication of the Qing court, she was only worried about the future survival of the imperial family and the life and safety of the little emperor Xuantong.
You can attribute this to her weak personality, not causing trouble, not causing trouble, and accepting everything that happens. However, it is precisely because of her natural kindness that when dealing with the situation at that time, she was just peaceful and calm, and would rather shed tears until dawn than add chaos to the world. This is not something that ordinary people can do, although it may be futile to try.
Regime change has been bloody, whether it was the Glorious Revolution in England or the French Revolution, which left many people homeless and headed, and even more so in China, with the exception of Zhao Song's Chen Qiao's yellow robe. The resolute self-determination of the Qing government is a great progress in Chinese history.
The edict signed by the Empress Dowager Longyu proclaimed the republic of the five ethnic groups, which not only avoided the separatism of the country that might have been caused by the fierce stance of the revolutionaries, but also gave the soon-to-be-born Republic of China the status of a righteous legal system, preventing other violent advocates from giving a position of truth to the top, and maintaining the overall stability. These two points alone have made China's territory intact, and the Chinese nation has always stood tall in the east of the world, and the Empress Dowager Longyu has made great contributions. Because of this, she was respected by Sun Yat-sen, Huang Xing and others as "Female Zhongyao Shun".
At that time, a famous person praised the Empress Dowager Longyu: with the heart of Yao Shun Chan, praised the beauty of the republic of Zhou Zhao, and opened the foundation of democracy in East Asia at the end of China's imperial fortune. Shun Tian responds to people, beyond the present and the ancient. In the case of the independence of the United States, those who suffered from the scourge of war may suffer for seven or eight years, and the French Revolution will be a tragedy for decades. The former Empress Dowager of the Qing Dynasty, silently examined the trend, deeply appreciated the general trend, saw the opportunity early, and made no doubts. The edict turned the conflict into an altar, united the five clans into one family, the avenue for the public, and resolved the dispute. Gai Ning can dominate the world, and he can't bear to live in misery for the people, and the so-called can give up the country with private interests.
(End of this article)