In 1904, the Qing Dynasty celebrated the seventieth birthday of Lafayette Cixi, although at that time Japan and Russia fought happily in order to compete for northeast China and Korea, and under the cordial care of friendly countries such as Britain and the United States, daqing said that I am in charge of your territory - please feel free! Is the location of the Russo-Japanese War in China both ridiculous and pathetic? However, the Great Qing "measured the material strength of China and the joy of the country." "This kind of faceless words can be said, and it is not surprising that the words are spoken."
Although the Qing Dynasty was "the treasury is empty, how can there be no rice for cooking", but compared with the lafayette birthday, which has never been seen in ancient times, what is the big event? Therefore, the Qing court still ignored public opinion and spent huge sums of money to organize a longevity celebration for the 70th birthday of the old empress.
Some people will say, a birthday can't cost a huge amount of money, right?
Then you are wrong, there are many people in our history who will earn money, but when it comes to spending money, Empress Dowager Cixi must be able to enter the Presidential Mountain! Every birthday, this old demon woman almost caused turmoil in the national treasury, hurt the people and money, and made the cost of the celebration reach an "appalling" level.
When the old empress was sixty years old, it was the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese Naval Battle. But these are nothing compared to Lafayette's birthday. The Qing court carefully prepared for the birthday banquet, and the three major manufacturing bureaus in Jiangnan, Hangzhou and Suzhou spent more than 200,000 taels of silver to manufacture hundreds of embroidered satin dragon robes; in order to make the atmosphere of the birthday more festive, Lafayette ordered the establishment of more than sixty buildings, archways and opera stages on both sides of the road from the Forbidden City to the Summer Palace. More than two million taels of silver (one battleship is gone)!
You think that's the end of it? It's still early! The old lady was riding on a special birthday car, and only spent seventy thousand taels of silver, cheap! Coupled with the emperor and empress's chaotic vehicle fees as much as 180,000 taels of silver, coupled with the repairs inside and outside the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Body and the Hall, the Taiji Hall, the Yangxin Hall, etc., were painted with new ones, and the more than 400,000 taels of silver were again adrift.
In addition to the birthday feast, all kinds of jewelry utensils, various ministers' pilgrimage feasts, organize activities to worship the Buddha and seek blessings, and reward hundreds of officials. Speaking of rewarding hundreds of officials, I will list a data: during the celebration of the birthday, Lafayette rewarded the princes and ministers and the civil and military officials, including 100 jade ruyi, 500 fine porcelain bottles, 840 hanging beads, and 1,000 bronze hand stoves! This is not counting gold and silver and other python forging silk and other rewards, how much silver did the imperial court spend on this big birthday celebration? Conservative estimate is not less than 10 million two silver! This silver is enough to form two Beiyang fleets, right?
Of course, as the most honorable person in the Qing Dynasty, it is understandable that you want to live a little extravagantly (after all, the old ancestor Qianlong Emperor was also a figure who spent a lot of money like flowing water, and the lower Jiangnan spent the silver that Old Father Yongzheng had worked hard to save), but after all, people still belong to the "Kangqian prosperous world", and the country is still stable, but you Cixi also look at the big environment a little, right?
During the outbreak of the Sino-French War during Lafayette's 50th birthday, when the two sides fought each other, the Qing court advocated the so-called victory and collection of troops, and the new Sino-French treaty signed not only gave up the right to protect Vietnam (instead protected by France), but also opened a treaty port for France, reduced the import and export tax rate of the border, and promised to build a railway to give priority to French commercial offices.
The Battle of Lafayette's Sixty Shoufeng Island broke out, the Sino-Japanese War began, China was defeated, and the Beiyang Marine Division was completely destroyed! In addition to paying 200 million taels of silver, the treaty of Maguan was signed, and it had to cede the Liaodong Peninsula, the Penghu Archipelago, open treaty ports, and lose power and humiliate the country!
On The seventieth birthday of Lafayette, Japan and Russia fought happily in our country, the dead and injured were the Chinese people, and what was ceded was China's land, and as a result, the Qing government did not dare to put one on the wall.
But all Chinese with conscience and integrity must take the case, and one person has poured out all this indignation, he is the famous journalist Lin Baishui in the Republic of China period.
Lao Lin is not a fuel-saving lamp, according to the republic of China press, Lao Lin is "the executioner of the press", why do you say so? Because Lin Baishui's article is flawed in the needle, it is to the point, and the ironic body of those ugly politicians and warlords is almost exhausted and almost wants to vomit blood.
Lin Baishui can scold people, scold the dignified, scold the unforgettable heart, scold you cold sweat straight up, so some people also comment that Lin Baishui is like a madman who scolded Cao Cao naked at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty (but to say a word of conscience, You Heng scolded Cao Cao more likely to be Bo concerned, Lin Baishui scolded more than he was righteous), he scolded Zhang Zongchang, scolded those parliamentarians who did not do practical things (calling the parliamentarians piglets), scolded Zhang Zuolin, It can be said that in those turbulent years, Lin Baishui poured out his hatred for the Manchu Qing court and warlords and his love for the country with his pen.
For Lafayette's birthday feast, Lin Baishui naturally wanted to "celebrate" well, and this elder brother published a congratulatory message to Lafayette in the newspaper on the birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, which was a couplet: "Today's Happy Summer Palace, tomorrow's Lucky South China Sea, when will it be lucky to be lucky to the Yuanmingyuan again?" Hundreds of millions of people anointed withered blood, only for one person to sing and celebrate; fifty toes, sixty cut Taiwan, and now cut the three eastern provinces, forty thousand miles of sealing the sun, happy to wish for a long life to wish xinjiang nothing. ”
This couplet can be described as spicy in characters, directly depicting the shameless shape of the Qing court's slaves in the past few decades, kneeling down as a slave to the outside, and squeezing the people to celebrate the birthday of only one person internally.
It is said that this is the key period when the Qing government whitewashed Taiping and sang the praises of the old empress's birthday, just like the emperor's new clothes, Lin Baishui can be said to have completely torn off the fig leaf of the Manchu Qing, and even more the face of Empress Dowager Cixi was fanned like a pig's head, we can't help but pinch a cold sweat for Lin Baishui, he is too addicted, but what can the Qing government do when it comes to pursuing responsibility? Empress Dowager Cixi would certainly not let him go!
However, unexpectedly, Lin Baishui was safe and sound, and nothing happened.
That's really weird too! When did Empress Dowager Cixi become so lenient and generous? In the previous year (that is, in 1903), the journalist Shen Xing exposed the relevant information about the Sino-Russian treaty in the newspaper, which triggered strong indignation and protest among the people at home, while Shen Xing was arrested and sentenced to a beheading by the Qing government, who was embarrassed and angry, and Lafayette felt that he was not addicted, and changed the decision to "under the stick of death"! It is said that Shen Xing died a very tragic death, "after more than two hundred blows, the flesh and blood flew apart, the bones were like powder, and they were not dead." After the last resort, he began to tie his neck tightly with a rope and strangle him to death", Shen Xing's whole body was beaten up and down with blurred flesh and blood, his bones were broken, and finally he was strangled alive by the executioners! And Lin Baishui insulted Lafayette like this, why can he still be safe and sound?
Quite simply, first of all, this couplet was not presented to Cixi at all, after all, these people are not fools, on such a big day to touch lafayette's moldy head, Bao Qi himself was the first to be used by Lafayette as a punching bag, so even if Lin Baishui's couplet was spread throughout the country, in front of Lafayette, he must also do good news and not worry, Lin Baishui's little broken thing can not even be mentioned!
But even if Lafayette was kept in the dark, the qing court officials were so good-tempered? Can Lin Baishui bear such ridicule? Lin Baishui couldn't bear it, even if he scolded the imperial court for a dog blood sprinkler, these court officials couldn't do anything with him, because people were in the Shanghai Concession...
Do we know who is the biggest in this concession? foreigner! If the foreigners did not agree, even if Lin Baishui committed the great crime of the Nine Tribes, he could not punish him, you should not be angry, why did you want to fight for yourself why did you make such a statement as a concession? In the end, I still deserve it!
So there was such an absurd scene: Lin Baishui ridiculed the Qing government and Cixi in the newspapers, while the Manchu Officials gritted their teeth and could not do anything, and the people looked at the pungent and sarcastic criticism articles and cried out in pain!
Author: Hu Yu