In the impression of #Fancy History Jun, Li Lianying has always been a red person around Empress Dowager Cixi, accompanied Empress Dowager Cixi for decades, and is deeply trusted and favored.
It can be said that to a certain extent, Li Lianying is an extension of Empress Dowager Cixi's personal will, and as long as she can pass the pass of Li Lianying, basically there will be no problems with Empress Dowager Cixi.
Therefore, many people want to get benefits from Empress Dowager Cixi, so they must first find Li Lianying, the eunuch chief, to dredge up.
Then, when Li Lianying had something going on in her own home, how did he get Empress Dowager Cixi to give her a great gift? In the early winter of 1907, Li Lianying's mother died, and from his funeral ceremony, we may be able to find the beginning of it.
First, Li Lianying's mother died, and Cixi said that she did not have enough money to ask Yuan Shikai
When the news of her mother's death reached Li Lianying, Li Lianying immediately went to Empress Dowager Cixi to return to her hometown to arrange her mother's funeral.
When Cixi and Li Lianying were separated, they said this sentence: "(I) read that you are a filial son, and I will reward you with a pennant (480,000 taels of silver) for funeral treatment, and if it is not enough, I will find Yuan Shikai, the governor of Zhili, to ask for it." ”
Li Lianying did not want Empress Dowager Cixi's 480,000 taels of silver, but needed empress dowager Cixi's permission to be able to leave the palace, to be able to leave empress dowager Cixi, and to be able to use a large amount of money to hold a funeral for her mother without being criticized from up and down.
Based on this alone, Li Lianying is a very outstanding subordinate, knowing that even if it is his own family affairs, he must ask his master to show good instructions and carry out the next step of action at the master's behest, which is worth learning from many people.
After Li Lianying left the palace, she immediately arranged for her fourth and fifth brothers to return to their hometown of Dacheng County, Shuntian Province, and began to prepare for her mother's funeral with great fanfare.
At this time, the Li family in Dacheng County was already the leading large household, and the big and small masters and children in the villages in the county town gathered in the Li family mansion, especially the uncles and brothers of Li Lianying's family, who were even more enthusiastic, hoping to send away the mother of the red man in front of the empress dowager in the highest standard.
Second, how big the funeral pomp is, Yuan Shikai does not dare to care
Li Lianying was the second eldest in the Li family, and his fourth and fifth brothers returned to their hometown with 400,000 or 500,000 pieces of silver, and immediately arranged for his mother's funeral.
Ayutthaya County has also hosted luxurious funerals before, but it is really a bit difficult to spend so much silver to hold a funeral at one time, how to spend this silver, but also to make Li Lianying herself feel very satisfied, rather than being slaughtered as a wronged boss, which is very important.
To this end, the Li family brothers gathered the most cultured group of people in the county, found content related to funerals from various ancient books, and then sorted out a set of more detailed funeral procedures and sent them to Li Lianying, who was still in Beijing.
When Li Lianying saw it, she was very satisfied, so she decided to hold a funeral for her mother according to this method, and said: "As long as you make things a little more pompous and decent, don't be afraid to spend silver, the money is not enough, and it is a big deal to add 500,000 taels." ”
However, the shrewd Li Lianying still did not forget to explain: "According to the identity of our family, the highest title of ordinary people can be used, and we must not exceed the etiquette system!" ”
It can be seen from this that despite his high position and authority, Li Lianying was still relatively sober, unlike the great eunuchs Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian in the Ming Dynasty, who erected ancestral shrines for themselves all over the country when they were still alive.
After months of preparation, everything was done, and it was the spring of the following year after his mother's death.
In order to let her mother bury as soon as possible, Li Lianying decided to hold a funeral for her mother in the spring of 1908.
Because the funeral process was extremely cumbersome, the whole process lasted for 35 days, during which anyone in Ayutthaya County, whether officials, people, slaves or beggars, or even passing merchants, could eat for free.
After eating the banquet, not only do you not want money, but also send money to the people who go to eat the table, such a strange thing in Ayutthaya Is simply a rare occurrence in a hundred years.
However, in the first few days, there were not many people who went to eat the table, Li Lianying was very puzzled, looking for someone to inquire, it turned out that Yuan Shikai sent hundreds of Qing soldiers to garrison, so that the people did not dare to come close.
When Li Lianying heard this, she was very angry, and immediately found Yuan Shikai and asked this group of Qing soldiers not to appear during the day, but only to come out at night to patrol and protect the safety of the Li family's mansion.
After the Qing soldiers withdrew, there was an endless stream of people who came to eat the table, and from morning to night, people came to patronize, and after giving Li Lianying's mother incense, they were arranged to eat wine at the table.
Although the northerners' banquets are not as delicate as those of the southerners, they are expensive enough to be full and can be cleaned up.
Li Lianying's mother's funeral three meals a day, there is no difference between morning, middle and evening, the meals are chicken, duck, fish and other delicious dishes.
When the ceremony was only halfway through, the pigs in the entire Ayutthaya County were bought out, and the price of pork in the surrounding counties rose several times.
In addition to pork, some other ingredients have also risen sharply during this period, far exceeding the affordability of ordinary people.
Fortunately, there is a free place to eat at the Li family mansion, otherwise I don't know how many people would starve to death at that time.
Therefore, after many people come to eat and drink, not only eat and drink in vain, but also use various containers to take home and store them for the whole family to eat when they are not receiving.
Third, Li Lianying's mother's funeral cost 550,000 silver, far exceeding the Guangxu Emperor's 500,000
After 35 days of eating and drinking in vain, Li Lianying's mother was finally going to be buried.
On the day of the burial, Li Lianying invited more than twenty young and strong young men to carry her mother's sarcophagus up the mountain and place them in the tomb that had been built long ago.
As the saying goes, eating people's mouths is short, taking people's hands softly, on the day of Li Lianying's mother's burial, men, women and children in Dacheng County, as long as they can get off the ground and run, come to see off his mother.
The funeral route was crowded with people, stretching for tens of kilometers, and the grandeur, the battle, was not at all lost to any imperial family.
The people of Dacheng County, who were favored by Li Lianying, spent the spring and summer of 1908 when they were short of food and clothing, with the help of the food collected during their mother's funeral, which became a beautiful memory that many people will never forget in their lives.
When the whole ceremony was completed, the Li family mansion suddenly became quiet, Li Lianying and several brothers sat together to calculate the account, not to know, a calculation frightened, the entire funeral cost 550,000 taels of silver, more than the original five hundred thousand taels of silver.
However, in Li Lianying's eyes, for the sake of her mother, all this money is a small matter, and it is her greatest filial piety to let her mother enter the ground safely.
In the winter of the same year, Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu died one after another, and the funeral of Empress Dowager Cixi naturally needless to say, it was as beautiful as it was, and the total cost was 1.25 million to 1.5 million taels of silver, equivalent to about 200 million yuan now.
The funeral of the Guangxu Emperor was much simpler, costing only about one-third of Cixi's funeral, that is, 500,000 taels of silver, and even could not catch up with the funeral cost of Li Lianying's mother, and it had to be the Guangxu Emperor as the emperor of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was really a great sorrow.