Li Lianying had been on an errand in the palace for decades, and he had long been aware of the hooks and minds between the empresses, between the empresses and his courtiers, and between his courtiers and his courtiers. As a big red man in front of Cixi, Li Lianying was the object of the princes' relatives and the feudal officials, but in terms of receiving gifts, Li Lianying was still very measured.
Li Lianying grew up in the palace, and she was very familiar with it, and she knew that most of the eunuchs who had money in the palace made friends with foreign officials and accepted bribes unscrupulously. For example, Su De, the leader of the capital, Liu Chengyin, the second governor of Chuxiu Palace, and others gathered a large amount of money through various means; after they left the palace, they bought land to build a manor, and Li Lianying looked not only red-eyed, but also followed in the footsteps, and even adopted more than enough means to wantonly seek extra money.
In addition to the money and grain he deserved for the lunar eclipse and the silver that he was rewarded with, Li Lianying exchanged 100,000 taels of silver from the Ministry of Internal Affairs every year. Since he was the favored governor of Empress Dowager Cixi, whether a foreign official or an internal official, the number of people who asked him to intercede in front of Empress Dowager Cixi was innumerable, and none of them could give him a batch of heavy financial gifts.
However, Li Lianying also has her own precepts for accepting bribes and will never act rashly. Most of those foreign officials who have no contact or are unaware of them are turned away, mainly for fear that they will not be strict in their words and leak the wind, so he himself often says that he will never make friends with foreign officials.
As for those who had heads and faces and were quite famous, not only were there ministers of the inner court, but also governors from other provinces, and even if Li Lianying accepted bribes from them, she never or rarely interceded for others in front of Cixi, because he was afraid that Cixi would have doubts about his friendship with foreign officials, which would also be detrimental to himself.
If in the future, when someone asks how things are going, he will use the words that Lafayette does not allow him to ask for, and for those who have a deep friendship and have received major financial gifts on weekdays, they must wait for the opportunity to ask Empress Dowager Cixi to mention something and then open her mouth by the way.
Of course, the days are long, Li Lianying can not always take such a method, afraid of falling into a reputation of only collecting money and not doing things, but also have to change the method, today to collect you a thousand, tomorrow to return eight hundred gifts, so that neither offend people, but also two feelings offset, they do not suffer losses, in general, it is still more to receive, pay less, really calculated to the home.
Li Lianying's acceptance of gifts and not doing things or not sincerely doing things for people is also known to both the government and the public, but this gift had to be sent. For those who refuse to buy him and beat him up, they are very jealous. One example is very typical.
During the Guangxu period, Zhang Yinhuan, a servant of the household department, was sent to England to participate in the Queen's 60th birthday celebration, and when he returned to China, he passed through Paris, France, and bought two gemstones, one ruby for the Guangxu Emperor and one emerald for Empress Dowager Cixi.
In terms of value, emeralds are much more expensive than rubies, but because he did not send anything to Li Lianying, he was very red-eyed, and Li Lianying, who has always taken advantage, hated Zhang Yinhuan. Just as Cixi was enjoying this gem and couldn't let go, Li Lianying, who had penetrated Empress Dowager Cixi's thoughts, thought that the opportunity had come for Zhang Yinhuan to fall into the well, and he stood aside and interjected coldly: "Can't we use red on our side?" ”。
Although the words were simple, they touched the heart of Empress Dowager Cixi. According to Qing Dynasty customs, the difference in clothing between wives and concubines was extremely strict, and only the right wife could use red clothing, while concubines could only use green clothing. Because Cixi was originally a "Western Palace" and was not brought in from the Great Qing Gate, Cixi was grumpy, and the mustard was very deep, stimulated by Li Lianying's words, the mood suddenly changed, and immediately let people return the emerald gem to Zhang Yinhuan.
Zhang Yinhuan did not know the details, so he was worried and worried about planting the root cause, but Cixi could not use this as a condition for punishing Zhang Yinhuan, so he held a grudge, and later Zhang Yinhuan was really punished, first, because of the shortage of money and grain in the household department; second, he supported the Guangxu Emperor's change of law, and was sent to Xinjiang to charge the army.
At that time, the British envoy to China also intervened, saying that Zhang Yinhuan was a friendly envoy to Britain, and that doing so would be unfriendly to Britain and would affect Sino-British relations. Empress Dowager Cixi ignored this. After the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China in the year of Gengzi, the Qing army was defeated, and Empress Dowager Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor fled to Xi'an, under the pretext that Zhang Yinhuan was in collusion with foreigners, ordered Zhang Yinhuan to be executed in Xinjiang.
Just because he did not beat Li Lianying, Zhang Yinhuan not only ruined his great future, but also lost his life. However, Li Lianying did too much in this matter, so that the shock inside and outside the government and the public was very great, and the negative impact on Li Lianying was also very deep, and although Li Lianying slightly relented since then, her nature has never changed.