In June 1900, Cixi suddenly ordered his confidante Rong Lu to command the Qing army and the Boxers to attack the foreign embassy in Dongjiaomin Lane.
After receiving the holy will, Rong Lu pretended to be sick and asked for leave, and took the initiative to surrender his military power. However, Empress Dowager Cixi did not allow Rong Lu to take a leave of absence to surrender the military, and Rong Lu had to do it hard, and pretended to be very hard, ordering Dong Fuxiang's Gan army to attack desperately.
Since June 20, for four consecutive days, Dong Fuxiang's Gan Army cannons have fired more than 300 shells a day, and then stopped fighting for more than 50 days, but the foreign embassies located in Dongjiaomin Lane are still standing, and the Gan army and the Boxers have killed and wounded more than a thousand people.
No, Rong Lu turned out to be an old fox, which was exactly what he had secretly planned, and it was also the result he wanted.
Rong Lu knew deeply that attacking the foreigner's embassy would be a big thing that stabbed the heavens, and Lafayette's face was changing when it was said, and if he broke into a catastrophe and was investigated, Cixi would first take him as a scapegoat, which was going to lose his head. Therefore, after receiving the Holy Will, he pretended to be ill, in order not to want to wade into this muddy water.
Why did Rong Lu send Dong Fuxiang's Gan army to attack foreign embassies? Because the Gan army is a bandit army, its combat effectiveness is very weak, and it uses some earthen cannons with no technical content. However, no matter how weak the Gan Army is, it is an army after all, and no matter how strong the embassy is, most of them are non-combatants. Why did the Gan army attack for two months, while the foreign embassies remained unmoved?
The secret was that from the day of the attack, Rong Lu secretly communicated with foreign embassies, and finally sent people to pretend to be thieves to deliver guns and ammunition to the embassy, and they sent advanced weapons made in Germany. This is why the embassy is "impregnable".
At this time, Rong Lu also had in his hands a 27-battalion unit of the Wuwei Central Army, of which the artillery was equipped with advanced German "flowering cannons" (warhead explosion cannons).
At that time, Duan Wang Zaiyi, a major member of the Qing court, was a tough main warrior faction, and he ordered Zhang Huaizhi to lead an artillery team to join the battle against Dongjiaomin Lane. Zhang Huaizhi made great contributions, and quickly commanded the artillery team to find the commanding heights, occupy the position, and complete the preparation for shooting at the foreign embassies, and once the heavy artillery salvo fired, the foreign embassies would soon be razed to the ground.
However, just as the shooting was about to be fired, Zhang Huaizhi told the gunners to stop all actions. He also knew that "this matter is big", so he had a long heart and secretly warned himself that he could not be a "pot bearer", so he ran directly to Rong Lu's official residence, met his boss, and asked Rong Lu to write a warrant for firing cannonballs.
Zhang Huaizhi's sudden appearance was difficult to damage Rong Zhongtang. He didn't dare to write, but he didn't dare not write. And Zhang Huaizhi? If you don't write, I won't go, I'll live in your house. In desperation, Rong Lu said vaguely to Zhang Huaizhi: "As soon as the sound of the horizontal and vertical cannons sounded, the palace could hear them."
Zhang Huaizhi was not a fool, and quickly understood, and when he returned, he aimed more than a dozen cannons at a clearing behind the embassy and shot them for a day and night, until the superior instructed him to stop. Foreign embassies were stunned, but they were unharmed.
Rong Lu to foreign embassies, why open and covert protection? Mainly for himself. If he led the army to attack with real swords and guns, he would definitely be able to capture the embassy, but the consequences could not be contained. At that time, there was a folk song: "The people are afraid of officials, officials are afraid of foreigners, foreigners are afraid of the people" If the Qing army blows up the embassy, it will surely usher in the crazy retaliation of foreigners. Then, when the two sides "negotiate peace" later, the first thing the foreigners want must be Ronglu's head, and Cixi will also send Ronglu's head to nine times out of ten.
This is enough to illustrate this point in the Gengzi rebellion, such as Prince Zhuang Zaixun and Shanxi Governor Yuxian, who strongly advocated the killing of foreigners, and later executed by Cixi.
And the old fox Ronglu not only saved his head, but also preserved his glory and wealth. Of course, there is another important reason, Rong Lu is Cixi's favorite, he can read Cixi's heart through.
Cixi later recalled: "If I really let them indulge in trouble, wouldn't an embassy have a reason to be able to fight down?" Therefore, Rong Lu dared to "act arbitrarily" like this? Compared with the stupid and mediocre Princes Zhuang, Rong Lu was really extremely clever.
So, how to evaluate Rong Lu's intelligence? In fact, his cleverness is not for the country, nor for the people, nor for the truth, but for the typical feudal politicians, so it has no value to speak of, even negative value.
Think about it carefully, at that time, the Qing Dynasty, the government was a chicken feather, Cixi told the world, declared war on the 11 countries, but she herself was not responsible for the war, when there was a problem, it was a big deal to find a scapegoat, anyway, "sheep" some are.
Rong Lu was the commander of the foreign embassy attacking Dongjiaomin Lane, but he was a foreigner and engaged in traitorous activities. Zhang Huaizhi, as a senior general of the Qing Army, commanded artillery battles, but where there was an enemy, he did not fight, and where there was no enemy, he fought fiercely.
After that, Zhang Huaizhi was appreciated and reused, Rong Lu was still powerful, and the qing court's politics, military and rewards and punishments were so humble and hulai, almost isolated from the world's political civilization, can you say that this dynasty can not die?