Zhang Zhidong (張之洞), courtesy name Xiaoda (孝達), was then the governor of The Prefecture and was called "Shuai", so everyone called him "Zhang Xiangshuai", one of the representative figures of the Qing Dynasty's Western affairs school, whose ancestral home was directly subordinate to Nanpi (present-day Nanpi, Hebei). In the second year of Xianfeng (1852), at the age of sixteen, Xie Yuan of Zhongshun Tianfu, twenty-seven years old in the second year of Tongzhi (1863), the third rank of Zhongjin Shi Tanhua, was taught the Editor of Hanlin Academy, and successively served as a teacher, a waiter, a waiter, a cabinet scholar, a shanxi inspector, a governor of Liangguang, a governor of Huguang, a governor of Liangjiang (acting many times, never actually awarded), a minister of military aircraft, and other positions, and an official to a member of Tirenge University.
Zhang Zhidong's works include the Complete Works of Zhang Wenxiang and put forward the famous view that "middle school is the body, and Western learning is used".
Zhang Zhidong was not only rated as "one of the four famous ministers of the late Qing Dynasty", but also a Han official who was the leader of the late Qing Dynasty, and his official fortune was prosperous throughout his life.
With his excellent knowledge and the way of being an official, he was awarded many high-ranking official positions by the Qing court. Here, when it comes to the death of Zhang Zhidong, he died of illness and died in 1909 at the age of seventy-two. It can be said that Zhang Zhidong attached great importance to the education of his children before his death, and he founded the first kindergarten in China, as well as some other educational institutions.
Not only that, he also advocated vigorously building railways and developing steelmaking, textiles, metallurgy and other industries, so Zhang Zhidong played a positive role in the development of China's modern industry. By the late Qing Dynasty, the bourgeois revolutionary forces were becoming more and more powerful. By 1905, after a year of returning from a visit to various countries, the five ministers had announced a "preparatory constitution." However, in Zhang Zhidong's view, this is an extremely unreliable behavior.
Because he hoped that the Qing court could achieve the purpose of maintaining imperial power by reforming the system, thereby weakening the enemy's power. Therefore, since Puyi succeeded to the throne in 1908, Prince Shuo was made regent and began the "Manchu centralized power" system, which led to the exclusion of Han officials everywhere, and Yuan Shikai was one of the targets of exclusion, and even the Qing court was ready to secretly execute Yuan Shikai.
However, the Qing court's move was opposed by Zhang Zhidong.
In 1909, the Qing court used Yuan Shikai's poor health as an excuse to let him go to Henan to recuperate. In June of the same year, Zhang Zhidong fell ill and was still concerned about the people until his death. Therefore, he asked the regent and others to discuss state affairs before the collapse, and he repeatedly told the regent and others that the foundation of the country was the people. When the regent told him that I "don't need to be afraid of the Great Qing, I have the protection of the Eight Banner Soldiers", Zhang Zhidong was completely disappointed.
Since then, he has never mentioned anything related to people's livelihood, and Zhang Zhidong died of illness at the age of seventy-two. In fact, before his death, Zhang Zhidong already knew the reality that the Fortune of the Great Qing Dynasty was about to die, and although he was seriously ill, he still cared about the Great Qing. However, Daqing still disappointed him so much that he lamented that "the country is going to die, and his luck is exhausted", so it is not so much that Zhang Zhidong died of illness as that he died of depression.
Thirty-five years after Guangxu, Zhang Zhidong died, and his courtesy name was Wenxiang. On December 15, 1910, the second year of Xuan reunification, after more than a year of preparation, Zhang Zhidong was buried in The Ancestral Tomb of Zhang in Shuangmiao Village, Nanpi County, Hebei Province. Buried with him were three ladies who had died many years earlier. In the lush and lush garden, "white flowers are like snow, and the connection is like a forest". Many relatives, friends, protégés, and princes and ministers came from the capital to send funerals.
Perhaps it is highly recognized by the people, or perhaps Zhang Zhidong is a famous Qing official, in the chaotic world of the late Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People," Zhang Zhidong's tomb has always been unharmed.
Even, during the Northern Expedition, a unit of the Nationalist Army passed through Shuangmiao Village, and one of the company commanders from Hubei Actually led all the soldiers of the company to bow in front of Zhang Zhidong's tomb to pay tribute. According to local research data, bandits and robbers have visited Zhang's cemetery many times, tied the Gao Yutang family who guarded the tomb to a tree, and forced him to hand over his treasure, and some graves in the Zhangjia cemetery have been stolen many times, but no one has been disturbed by zhang zhidong's burial place.
It is said that Chinese's consistent idea is to "go into the ground for safety", and people should exist underground for a long time after death to be peaceful, but Zhang Zhidong was treated badly. During the Great Unrest, his grave was dug up. Because his descendants became officials of the Japanese puppet government and were traitors, there was a grave digging. According to the person concerned, when he was discovered, Zhang Zhidong's grave had been dug out of shape, and the body had been insulted.
It can be said that from 1861 AD, the foreign affairs movement was the main theme of the Qing court regime at that time.
However, not everyone holds high the banner of the foreign affairs movement, and many officials who oppose the foreign affairs movement spread rumors to suppress their supporters. They believe: "In the final analysis, this was the Qing court's act of betraying the interests of the Chinese people with the help of the Han landlord bureaucracy and foreign invaders, which seemed to be a change of a powerful military force, but in fact it was bloodily suppressing the people's uprising at that time to protect the rule of the Qing Dynasty." There is no doubt that the original intention of the foreign affairs movement was a reactionary, traitorous, military-centered movement. ”
As the overall evaluation of the western affairs movement declined, the ministers who supported the movement were also criticized, and even Zhang Zhidong was not spared. This minister who supported the foreign affairs movement in the late Qing Dynasty was eventually crowned with ugly words such as "traitor" and "lackey". From the end of 1950 to the end of 1970, there have been dozens of papers involving the criticism of Zhang Zhidong in the past few decades, and most of them have come from the gray and dark times of that decade, from the theoretical groups of factory workers, and the workers, peasants, and soldiers of colleges and universities.
Because the image of Zhang Zhidong is getting worse and worse, so his cemetery does not appear as a person who hangs, but on the contrary, it is some people who have a plot against the treasures of his cemetery.
With the passage of time, Zhang Zhidong's cemetery was destroyed little by little, until later, his cemetery was completely opened.
According to legend, after Zhang Zhidong's grave was dug up, he was also patronized by tomb robbers many times, and the tomb robbers were surprised to find that he looked like a living person, and even a few whiskers were scattered on his chest, only to see him wearing a pipe hat, shouting a large bead in his mouth, and covering his body with several layers of quilts. There are also more than forty burial items, which are basically the "things" of the literati, such as: snuff bottles, calligraphy and paintings, gold and silver, etc.
Some people say that it is because of the crazy actions of the tomb robbers that Zhang Zhidong's body was pulled to the ground, and no one dared to collect the body for him, so Zhang Zhidong's body suffered from the encounter of dog chewing. There is also a saying that the bodies of Zhang Zhidong and his wife were carried out by the guards, and after dozens of days of exposure to the east side of the grave, the bones were gone. It turned out that it was because he met well-meaning people and secretly buried their bodies.
Wang Yuliang, vice president of the Nanpi Zhangzhidong Research Association, recalled: "When he picked the grave, he was not at the scene, and he was still a farmer at the time and ran to see it after receiving the news, 'Only to see that the bones of Zhang Zhidong were half lying on the north wall of the tomb, and there were still pieces of yellow rags around the grave. As the light entered the new century, the return of traditional culture once again became a social boom, and it was not until 2007 that his bones were arranged to be reburied.
Although their bodies have now been found, that humiliating time is still real.
In less than a hundred years, Zhang Zhidong's body was affected by the Great Era and experienced four exhumations and burials. Until the fourth burial ceremony, Zhang Zhidong's granddaughter said: "Although the tomb can be built again and again, we must not forget the history of the past, and we must not forget the history that is called humiliation." ”
Resources:
["Qing History Manuscript Zhang Zhidong Biography", "Zhang Zhidong Tomb", "Nanpi County Chronicle" Eighth "Culture"]