Late Qing Dynasty chancellor Chen Kuilong.
Sleepy and bored, even turning to the bookshelf, actually found a 1983 edition of the "Dream Banana Pavilion Miscellaneous", remembered a few days ago Ma Zhongwen brother said that this book he often read on the desk, a look at the desk, it was fascinated. When this book was bought, it is not remembered, the impression seems to have bought a different version of another publishing house, 1983 is still the embryonic era of all kinds of waste, this small book written by the qing dynasty has been reprinted, which shows the importance attached to it by the intellectual circles at that time.
The author Chen Kuilong (1857-1948), also spelled Xiaoshi (小石), was a native of Guiyang, Guizhou, and was the last deceased feudal governor of the late Qing Dynasty. He died of illness in Shanghai in 1948, and after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he was the only widow of the late Qing Dynasty official Zhi Yipin, and even Chiang Kai-shek respected him. The widows called him Yong'an Shangshu (庸庵尚書), Koishi Gongbao (小石宫保). I remember that Master Gao Shi Xiong also told me that when he got married in 1946, Yong'an Shangshu was the chief guest of honor, which was a great honor at that time.
The first edition of "Miscellaneous Notes on The Dream Banana Pavilion" was engraved in 1925, and I had this photocopy of the book in my hand, because of the savings in labor at that time, more than thirty years ago, readers nibbled on books without punctuation, which was also more popular, and later punctuation typesets were published. Yong'an was born in the late Qing Dynasty, he relied on his own efforts to obtain a meritorious name, won the jinshi, and the writing was still quite good. The book describes many important occasions, such as many drafts between Gengzi Xin and Ugly, which were drafted by him, which was the basic skill he practiced by the grass-roots bureaucrats.
Most of the records in the book are the historical events of the late Qing Dynasty, and among them, the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance in the year of Gengzi and the Xin Ugly Discussion and Peace are the most detailed. When the present people examine the Battle of Gengzi, this book is often cited as a history of letters because it is more detailed and credible. The preface to this book was written by Feng Xu (Jin Tanren, Guangxu Dynasty Tanhua), saying that in the book, "the number of the rise and fall of the Two Dynasties of Guangxuan and the Dynasty zhangguo and its chaos, the words are detailed", just in the past two Gengzi, re-examining the fiasco of the war that year, it is particularly interesting.
At the beginning of the boxing rebellion, Chen shi served as the acting governor of Shuntianfu Yin, that is, the highest administrator of Beijing, he was quite familiar with the affairs of the capital inside and outside, Gengzi (1900) on May 18, the boxers in the capital wantonly burned foreign goods stores, and set fire to it, after the Qianmen Dashilar looted and burned a foreign shop and set fire, the fire broke out of control, lit the nearby GuangdeLou Tea Garden, and then spread to the east of the Jewelry City, and the flames also flew into the Zhengyangmen City Tower, that is, the Daqianmen Arrow Tower, which was familiar to the Chinese, and burned the gate tower to ashes. Jewelry City was the financial center of Beijing at that time, and there were four money houses named after the word "Heng" opened by Ningbo people, and at the same time announced the closure of business. Guangxu Gengzi was the era when modern industry and commerce were just emerging, the four largest silver trumpets were closed, and suddenly the property and livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people in Beijing were greatly affected, and the entire social and financial circulation became a problem. Of course, Cixi did not expect that the boxers' misdeeds would actually reach such a point, and they did not fear the foreigners but first messed up their own finances. At a time of turmoil inside and outside the capital, Chen came up with a way to lend official funds to Si Heng to solve the turnover problem, and the two palaces immediately allowed it, but at that time, there was already chaos inside the capital, and even the household department that managed the money was occupied by Dong Fuxiang's army, the clerks were scattered, and the treasury was unlocked. Fortunately, Chen Kuilong had a subordinate who was familiar with hubu affairs, and xian ji said that on the east side of the back door of the cabinet inside the palace, when the Xianfeng Emperor fled from Rehe, he extracted one million taels of hubu silver and put it there, so why not bring it up to save the emergency now? So this money was put into the household department of the Great Interior, which saved the urgent need.
The cause of the Battle of Gengzi, which today's historical circles have basically identified as provoked by the boxers and wrongly supported by the imperial court, is, in the words of the book, "provoking". At that time, the knowledgeable Manchu ministers realized that besieging the embassy and killing the parishioners was extremely dangerous, and Chen had a vivid description of the situation at this time, after the burning of the Zhengyang Gate, at the end of May, the two palaces of Cixi Guangxu repeatedly called Daqi (the language used in the palace, which means to summon the wang ministers to enter), twice a day, in the Xiyuan Yiluan Hall, because the palace was not as lenient as the palace, before the imperial case, the ministers knelt around and knelt outside the door, and the nobles and princes of the near branch knelt in the front row. On that day, Xu Jingcheng (a diplomat who had sent envoys to many European countries, then the prime minister Yamen Minister, who opposed the attack on the embassy) had no place outside when he arrived because of his late entry, so he had to kneel on the side of the Guangxu Emperor's imperial case. Chen writes:
Wang Wenshao, minister of military aircraft, first said that foreign provocations are impossible, and the embassy should especially protect it. Duan Di (i.e., Duan Prince Zaiyi, who advocated attacking the most powerful) rebuked him in person, and Wen Shao sweated profusely and did not dare to say anything more. The emperor clasped Jing Cheng's hand and said: Er has been a foreign envoy for many years, and now he is on an errand in the General Administration, and there will be a good way to deal with it. Jing Cheng was as Wen Shao said. The princes and princes of the near branch rebuked each other, and the people talked too much and did not retreat from the point.
Judging from the scenes of the day's play, the Guangxu Emperor and the enlightened Xu Jingcheng and Wang Wenshao obviously saw that the nonsense of the boxers would inevitably lead to strong foreign interference, but the palace nobles who knelt in front of the imperial case unanimously rebuked them in person. On the afternoon of the same day, yuan chang, the secretary of the Taichang Temple, who was resolutely opposed to the war, was waiting to enter the temple, and pulled The DuanWang's brother Zailian and said:
Besieging the embassy is a barbaric method, the envoys have been killed, if each envoy is harmed again, the countries will not be willing to rest, and the disaster will be terrible, that is, at present, please tell Duan DiChe that you must not menglang. Tears fell from the words, and the degree of abnormality was sudden. Lian Gong said to Duan Wang, I can't take care of this matter, Erke said to King Duan. Before the two palaces called out, the ministers were intimidated by the heavenly power and did not dare to speak, but they just waited for the superior to punish them.
Understand that people see that something big is going to happen, and the head also sees that something is going to happen, but the phrase "wait for the superior to punish" has become the best footnote to the curse of Gengzi, and poor Xu Jingcheng and Yuan Chang have since become the thorns in the eyes of King Duan, and in June, after announcing the war with various countries, the two were beheaded at Caishikou together with the other three ministers, and later respected as the five ministers martyred by Gengzi.
In many books, the boxers, most of whom are displaced people around Gyeonggi, blindly oppose all foreign affairs, but even in Chen Kuilong's pen, these boxers show their loyal side, which is really rare. One day, Chen and Shangshu Liao Shouheng were talking at home, and the family reported that a "master brother" had come, which was the title of the people in the capital at that time called the boxers, and they were wondering, and the master brother had already entered, holding the business card of the university scholar Gang Yi, saying that now because the number of boxers he belonged to was too large, there was not enough food to eat, stationed nearby, and came here to talk to Lord Chen about borrowing twenty stones of rice, and later prepared to pay back the money and rice, that is, to return it. Liao Shangshu heard this, so he said, this class is also the Son of Heaven Li Min, just give it to him. Chen Ji wrote a post and handed it over to his subordinates for handling, when the sky was suddenly cloudy and it was going to rain, and the master brother looked at the sky and suddenly looked up at the sky and sighed:
If it rains half a month in the morning, and the four wild feet are already clothed and worn, they are already engaged in hard work, and whoever has the time to come to Beijing will do this work.
The countrymen are diligent and loyal, and in this number of words, it is insightful that the so-called boxers and religious people were originally loyal people who worked hard, and when the storm of the times came, they were blown with the wind and crushed to pieces.
Miscellaneous Notes on the Dream Banana Pavilion.
When the coalition army entered Beijing, the two palaces fled west in a hurry, leaving behind the mess in the capital, at that time Yong'an had resigned from the post of Yin of Shuntianfu, but stayed in the capital, and it was difficult to wait for two ministers who presided over the peace, the Manchu Prince Qing and the Han minister Li Hongzhang, but the two ministers were jealous of each other, poured out on each other, and even secretly played to Xi'an, beating each other's small reports, these details are all in Yong'an's pen.
In order to support the fall of the empire, Li Hongzhang exhausted his last bit of strength, and after negotiating the terms with various countries, he sent a telegram to Xi'an, but because the price offered by the great powers was still far higher than the bottom line in Cixi's mind, "Cixi said that the two powers were full, but he knew that the blame was difficult for the emperor, and refused to argue with the envoys, I did not care, the emperor did not care, it was up to you to take care of it." After saying harsh words, he also threw the folding to the ground, frightening Rong Lu, who was present at the time, and prostrating his head like pounding garlic. Li Hongzhang vomited a bowl of blood and soon died.
What happened later, everyone is not unfamiliar, the "Xinugu Treaty" was signed without suspense, the most humiliating clause in Chinese history was added to the heads of the Chinese people, and Cixi after the return to Luang gradually opened up to the outside world, and gradually resumed the measures taken at the time of the Penghu Reform Law.
Looking at Cixi in the book, Yong'an does not have a very good description of her, not the loving old lady in the "Records of the Imperial Fragrance", and even less the Buddha in the Qing Palace drama, she kills the minister without blinking. This is also the harsh result of the implementation of enslavement education in the Qing Dynasty, just as mentioned above, the details of the minister's ring kneeling, the author remembers a gossip with Mr. Yang Zhishui, she said that the Tang and Song people did not kneel when they saw the king, and cited the Song people's "Yingluan Tu Scroll" as an example, saying that even the commoners around the Tang Emperor did not kneel, although the painting was a Tang story, but it reflected the rules of the Song people. Looking at the "Southern Tour Picture Scroll" left by the Qing Dynasty, the citizens of Jiangnan fell to their knees under black pressure before the imperial public opinion.
The Qing Dynasty not only made the imperial power unique in form, but even in the treatment of ministers, it was extremely harsh. There are two examples in the Biography of Song Shi and The Tale of the Traitorous Ministers, which are just an interesting contrast to this book, one of which is that Zhang Huan (a major minister of the Song Shenzong to the Zhezong Dynasty) wants to kill Sima Guang's old troops in front of Zhezong, and Zhezong only says:
He obeyed the legacy of his ancestors, and did not try to kill the minister, and his release was not ruled.
Cixi's killing ministers, on the other hand, were commonplace, and two years before Gengzi, because they hated Kang Liang's change of law, they beheaded the six gentlemen, and among the six people, Yong'an also believed that "the six people in the same case, the situation is also different, Wen Yang Rui and Liu Guangdi are all learned people, their character is also good, Luo Weaving a court, it is not fair, it must be handled separately", Kang Guangren, in addition to being Kang Youwei's younger brother, is even more incompatible, but the empress dowager is angry, and these six are the heads of the people. The five ministers who were killed by Gengzi were also immediately beheaded without trial. Cixi's last killing of the chancellor was after Xin Ugly, and because the great powers demanded that the culprit be punished, she gave death to Yuxian and Zhao Shuqiao. If these two were deserved, she ordered someone to let Zhang Yinhuan die in Xinjiang, becoming the victim of the last killing in her political career. After the Return to Luang, one of the measures of the New Deal was the establishment of the Ministry of Law to replace the Ministry of Punishment, and the random killing of ministers became history.
After the death of Emperor Zhezong of Song, the empress dowager ordered her ministers to discuss the candidates for succession, and Zhang Yiyi betrayed the old man, and said sharply in the court, "Speaking of etiquette, King Jian should stand!" Zeng Bu, the Privy Council member of the same dynasty, couldn't help but scold him, saying, "Zhang Huan, listen to the empress dowager's punishment!" It can be seen from this that during the Northern Song Dynasty, the relationship between kings and subjects was comparable to that of the masters and slaves of the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Palace drama has been watched a lot, but the Chinese people have written down the paper drunken gold fans in the palace, the wisdom and arbitrariness of the emperor, and the cruel and cruel behind the stage, which cannot be seen on the screen.
Liang Jiyong