01. Liu Guangdi, a poor Beijing official
Among the six gentlemen of Wushu, Liu Guangdi's encounter hurt me the most. Every time I read about Liu Guangdi's deeds, I couldn't help but sigh. If I meet him one day, I must ask him, "Why are you going to be that broken official?" "If calculated according to personal interests, his official is really not worth it, and he is very embarrassed." Why? The official position was humble, and there was not a single promotion in ten years; the salary was so meager that even the family's life could not be guaranteed, let alone a decent life. Let's see how much he has when he becomes a Beijing official.
First of all, he was humble in office
Liu Guangdi was born into a poor family in Sichuan, and the history books say that he was "poor and read diligently." Because of his hard study, in the ninth year of Guangxu (1883), he was admitted to the rank of Emperor Weike, and ranked eighty-eighth in the second division of the temple examination. He was appointed alternate chief of the Punishment Department by the Imperial Court. This was originally a happy event, but it was not necessarily true for Liu Guangdi. After he returned to his hometown, he did not have the money to go to Beijing to take up his post. In addition, his old mother died of illness during this period, which made his life even worse. Five years after Zhongjinshi, in the fourteenth year of Guangxu (1888), he went to Beijing to take up his post with the financial support of a clan uncle and friends. From 1888 to 1898, there was not a single promotion in ten years, and this "alternate principal" waited for ten years. This is also too long for a young man.
It was not until August 1898 that Chen Baozhen, the governor of Hunan, recommended him to the Guangxu Emperor, saying that he was "wise and ambitious, honest and promising" and could take on great responsibilities. The Guangxu Emperor was anxious to change the law and needed talents, and soon after receiving the recommendation, he summoned Liu Guangdi. Liu Guangdi actively changed the law, saying that "the country's situation is difficult and dangerous, and it has accumulated shortcomings at home and abroad, and it is not easy to correct the excesses, and there is no way to govern it", which was appreciated by the Guangxu Emperor. The day after the reception, Guangxu issued an edict granting Liu Guang the title of fourth secretary of the military plane, and was appointed as the military aircraft Zhang Jing, and together with Tan Sitong, Yang Rui, and Lin Xu, he was called the "fourth secretary of the military aircraft".
This was the culmination of his Liu Guangdi eunuch career. In fact, this position does not have any real power, the only advantage is to gain the emperor's trust and the opportunity to be close to the emperor. It was such a four-pin official, Liu Guangdi's ass was not hot, he was arrested. As a young official personally appointed by the Guangxu Emperor, he naturally became the primary target of Cixi's purges. As a result, none of the "four secretaries of the military plane" were spared and were all killed.
Second, the income is low and the life is poor
Some people describe Liu Guangdi's life as "poor and boneless", which is not false at all. His wife and children lived with him in the capital, and the family counted on his salary. The salaries of Qing Dynasty officials were very low, and it was impossible to ensure their livelihood. We looked at their family's food, clothing, and housing to see how poor his life was.
The first is to eat. In the late Qing Dynasty, the country was very poor, and the Lu rice issued to middle- and lower-ranking Beijing officials was inferior rice, and even moldy and deteriorated. Ordinary Beijing officials do not eat this kind of rice, and they generally sell it at a low price. Only Liu Guang's first family ate it himself. In a letter to a friend, he said that fortunately, the family was not picky eaters, and the old rice could still make ends meet.
The second is to wear. Liu Guang's first family dressed very plainly. One of his robes had not been changed in ten years. Except for a dress, he usually "has no trace of it around him" on weekdays. His wife was dressed very plainly, not at all like an official's wife. His sons and daughters "are dressed in rags, if they are beggars."
The second is to live and travel. Liu Guangdi was an official in the capital, and the imperial court did not afford his housing, and the house had to be rented by himself. In order to save money, he rented an abandoned yard outside the city, with several huts, and the family could barely shelter from the wind and rain. In this way, Liu Guangdi has to walk a long way to work every day, he himself once said: "From the apartment to the office, turn around twenty miles", he has no money to take the car, usually on foot, only when the road is bad on rainy days.
Because he was poor, he rarely participated in various gatherings of the Beijing officials, and he rarely participated in other people's banquets. Go home after work. Occasionally, a close friend visits, "then sell liquor, cook taro wheat to feed customers." His hospitality is to cook some points and drink a pot of wine with taro, which shows how appropriate the four words of "poor bones" are.
02、 Why is he so poor? It stems from his high degree of self-discipline
The poor life of the officials in the late Qing Dynasty was notorious. But it will not be like Liu Guangdi's "bone"! Why is Liu Guangdi so poor? In addition to the fact that his original family was already very poor and unable to be funded, it was also because his high degree of self-discipline made him not "in the same stream" as other Beijing officials.
Speaking of his original family, as mentioned earlier, he came from a poor family, and his mother died before he entered Beijing as an official. After he entered Beijing, it was impossible for his family to sponsor him. Regarding the original family, we can compare him with other Beijing officials. Tan Sitong, who was also the sixth gentleman of Wushu, had a very wealthy family, his father was the governor of Hubei, he was an official in Beijing, and he did not care about the amount of income. Yang Rui is not short of money to spend, he is a close confidant of Zhang Zhidong, and he was Zhang Zhidong's aide before entering Beijing. After entering Beijing, he was responsible for collecting various types of information on the capital for Zhang Zhidong in Beijing, and Zhang Zhidong would send him silver every month to fund his life and friends. Liu Guangdi's predecessor, Zeng Guofan, also served as an official in Beijing for a long time. He is also highly self-disciplined, much like Liu Guangdi. But Zeng Guofan's hometown had to send him money or food every once in a while to make him an official in Beijing. Even so, he didn't have enough money and often asked friends to borrow money.
Compared with them, Liu Guangdi was much more miserable.
In the case of low wages, Liu Guangdi has neither the support of his family, but also his own character is high, eliminating the vast majority of gray income, and there is no corruption and bribery. Of course, his life was very poor.
03, Liu Guangdi's dying question
Among the Six Gentlemen of Wushu, Liu Guangdi's fame is not as good as Tan Sitong's, because of those two well-known poems: "I smile at the sky with my horizontal knife, and I go to keep the liver and gallbladder for two Kunlun." "Catchy and heroic, heroic indeed. Before his death, Tan Sitong also wrote a desperate poem:
Have the heart to kill thieves, powerless to return to heaven
Die where you want, hurry up!
The sadness and sloppiness revealed in the poem are also very touching.
Compared with Tan Sitong's arrogance and arrogance, Liu Guangdi had more reason before his death.
On September 21, 1898, the 23rd year of Guangxu (1898), Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the Guangxu Emperor to be placed under house arrest and the "Kang Dang" arrested. Liu Guangdi was a "new person" newly promoted by the Guangxu Emperor, advocating the change of the law, and he was naturally on the list of arrests. Three days later, Liu Guangdi was arrested in his own office at the Military Aircraft Department.
Liu Guangdi is a native of Fushun County, Zigong City, Sichuan Province. After the news of his arrest came out, the Sichuan officials in Beijing were shocked and quickly organized personnel to rescue him. Yang Rui is also a native of Sichuan, and he is also a member of Zhang Zhidong and is closely related to Zhang Zhidong. These Sichuan officials jointly signed "Gu Shu" and demanded the release of Liu Guangdi, Yang Rui, and others. Even Zhang Zhidong urgently sent a telegram to the capital, asking his friends to try to rescue him. However, neither the efforts of the Sichuan Jingguan nor Zhang Zhidong were able to save Liu Guangdi and Yang Rui. On September 28, without any interrogation or review, Cixi ordered the beheading of Liu Guangdi, Yang Rui, and six others. After learning the news, Liu Guangdi did not be as generous and righteous as Tan Sitong. Instead, he protested strongly, shouting: "Cursed before the news, what is it?" "
None of the officials at the scene dared to answer him.
On the way to the execution ground, he sighed and said, "I am dead, and I am exhausted!" "What do you mean?" The state kills innocents indiscriminately, there is no law to speak of, in such a country, where is there any righteousness? When he was about to be sentenced, he once again raised a question: "Although the robbers of the ancestral system are about to be tortured and called for injustice, they should be re-interrogated." My generation is not enough to pity, such as the national system? What is the ancestral system? The beheader was speechless.
Liu Guangdi's dying sigh, I personally feel more shocking than Tan Sitong's "die as you want, fast and fast". Because he linked his own death to the fate of the country. "What is the system of the country? What is the ancestral system? "If Cixi kills the six gentlemen, then the Great Qing has no national system to speak of, no ancestral system to speak of." Although the six gentlemen died, the death of the Great Qing was also in sight.
The polite Liu Guangdi appeared unusually tenacious and determined at the last moment of his life. The executioner pressed him to his knees; he stood still, "as calm as usual." After the torture, the head was cut off and the body was still "erect." The crowd of onlookers was thrilled, and some even took out incense wax paper candles to summon his soul.
04, poetry and books can not be a choice
For Liu Guangdi, the cultivation of poetry books can not be a choice. "The state has the Tao, and the country has no Way to hide" (quote from the "History of Fan Sui Cai ZeLie": "Advance and retreat, change with the times, the common way of the saints." Therefore, 'the state has a way, and the country has no way to hide'." Liu Guangdi was still very young when he entered junior high school, and it was right to forge ahead. However, after a few years in the capital, he had a clear understanding of the country's accumulated shortcomings, otherwise he would not have been appreciated by Chen Baozhen and the Guangxu Emperor. Since you have an understanding, you can't change it on your own, and you don't want to go along with it, why don't you leave? "If the country has no way, it is hidden", he returned to his hometown in Sichuan with his family and lived a life of cultivation and study. Although it is the same as living in poverty, at least you can report your own safety and keep your family safe!
History cannot be assumed, "poetry and reading" is only my personal selfish and narrow view, Liu Guangdi, as a person with responsibility, is willing to sacrifice his personal life for the country, this is a personal choice, and it is a noble choice, the times need such a person, history will always remember him.