Qing Hui Ling is the mausoleum of the Tongzhi Emperor, located in Shuangshanyu, three kilometers southeast of Jingling, who had never built a mausoleum during his lifetime, and after his death, in February of the first year of Guangxu, the Qing court chose Shuangshanyu as the auspicious land of ten thousand years, and on February 23, the name of the mausoleum was determined to be Huiling. The wood used in the mausoleum is all nan oak wood, the wood is hard, commonly known as "copper beam iron pillar", therefore, the large wooden frame is still well preserved.
The Tongzhi Emperor, the eldest son of the Xianfeng Emperor and the tenth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, succeeded to the throne in 1861 at the age of five. In mid-September of the eleventh year of Tongzhi, the Tongzhi Emperor got married. Five days later, the empress dowager of the two palaces issued a decree to the outside world that a golden auspicious day would be chosen in the first month of the following year and the emperor's pro-government ceremony would be held. This meant that the Tongzhi Emperor, who had reigned for twelve years, could finally take power and dictatorship.
On the 26th day of the first month of the twelfth year of Tongzhi, the two empresses who had been hanging on to the curtain removed the curtain, and the Tongzhi Emperor officially took over the government. However, the Tongzhi Emperor reigned for thirteen years and had no power for twelve years, so counting, there was only one year of pro-government, and such a short period of time doomed him to be difficult to exert his ambitions. During his pro-government year, the Tongzhi Emperor seemed to have done only two things: one was to repair the Yuanmingyuan, and the other was to tour.
The purpose of the Tongzhi Emperor's cultivation of the garden was simple, that is, to provide an excellent place for the empress dowager of the two palaces to cultivate, and to dilute her mother's fascination with power.
As we all know, in the early days of the Tongzhi Emperor's succession, due to his young age, the affairs of the court and China were handled by the two empresses Cixi and Ci'an. Empress Dowager Cixi, the biological mother of the Tongzhi Emperor, was extremely obsessed with power, and successively set up two emperors, both of whom controlled the imperial power by bowing to the government. In order to prevent the imperial power from being seized, the Tongzhi Emperor could only please the Second Empress by repairing the Yuanmingyuan, which can be described as painstaking.
Another thing, that is, Yeyou, when it comes to this, it must start from the Tongzhi Emperor Nafei. When Emperor Tongzhi was more than ten years old, Empress Dowager Cixi was on the verge of choosing a concubine for her son Tongzhi, and when choosing a concubine, Empress Dowager Cixi acted arbitrarily and arbitrarily, and without consulting Emperor Tongzhi, she made a marriage match without authorization. The Tongzhi Emperor has always treated the selected concubines fairly, and his daily favor is also "rain and dew", and he will never favor one person.
However, Empress Dowager Cixi favored Concubine Hui, and repeatedly and twice ridiculed Emperor Tongzhi, allowing her to often "take care of" Concubine Hui. For this request, the Tongzhi Emperor was naturally unwilling to obey. From the time he became emperor, everything in the court needed to be arranged by Empress Dowager Cixi, and the Tongzhi Emperor never refused this. However, now he did not even have the right to spoil the concubine, and he had to do everything according to his mother's request.
At this time, the Tongzhi Emperor could no longer bear it, was completely angry, and simply did not spoil any concubines in the future, and stayed in the Qianqing Palace all day, resting assured to be a king with no desires and no needs. However, after all, he is a normal man, and he is in the stage of vigorous energy, and it is inevitable that he will not be able to hold on to it sometimes. In addition, the money of the garden was deceived by corrupt officials, and the empress dowager of the two palaces constantly blamed, and the recent troubles all came to mind.
Emperor Tongzhi couldn't help but have a headache and was very inferior. For many days, he had been talking about himself in the temple, and his heart was extremely dull. After learning of Emperor Tongzhi's sorrow, emperor Xiaoxiao slandered and instigated emperor Tongzhi to go out of the palace to have fun, and successively wandered in tea garden liquor stores, brothels in Qinglou, and lyndled and lascivious...
At the end of the thirteenth year of Tongzhi, after inspecting the Three Seas Project, the Tongzhi Emperor took off and drove back to the palace. On the way back, he felt unwell, so he returned to the palace and asked the doctor to diagnose and treat him, and later learned that he had a fever. The Tongzhi Emperor thought that it was caused by many days of fatigue, but did not pay attention to it, but only ordered the Tai Doctor to take a few medicines.
However, for three consecutive days, the high fever still did not recede, so the imperial court urgently summoned a group of doctors to diagnose and treat the disease. On the fourth day of fever, a large number of papules appeared on the body of The Tongzhi Emperor, which were in a terrible shape. Zhuang Shouhe and Li Deli, the leaders of the Tai Hospital, saw this symptom and were shocked. A little later, the two sighed and wrote two big words on the pulse case - "acne".
"Pox disease", that is, the smallpox that the ancients talked about, in ancient times when the medical level was backward, getting smallpox was equivalent to declaring the death penalty, almost incurable. This kind of high-intensity infectious disease has a fast transmission speed and strong infectivity, and once a large-scale epidemic occurs, the consequences are unimaginable. The first emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the Shunzhi Emperor, died of smallpox at the age of twenty-four.
Who would have thought that two hundred years later, another emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the Shunzhi Emperor, would also die of smallpox.
In order to cure her son, Empress Dowager Cixi specially issued a decree to order the palace to open the lights and color to respond to the pox gods, and the people forbade fried beans to eat beans, and it was forbidden to splash water along the streets... During the period when Emperor Tongzhi was seriously ill, the empress dowager of the two palaces resumed obedience to the government. When Emperor Tongzhi learned of this, he felt very sad in his heart, and in the face of power and affection, his mother, Empress Dowager Cixi, finally chose power, forgetting that she was fighting against the disease.
Thinking of this, Emperor Tongzhi's heart became more and more desolate.
A few days later, Tongzhidi's condition improved, and the acne on his body came out of pus, which showed that the most dangerous period of acne had passed, and when the acne poison came out and there was no infection, the body could recover and heal.
While the people in the palace were rejoicing, the condition took a sharp turn for the worse on November 19, and Emperor Tongzhi's whole body was "wet and poisonous, red and swollen and broken at the waist, and pus flowed", and the joints of his limbs and joints were swollen and painful. After six days, the Pus wounds on The Tongzhi Emperor's waist and hips ulcerated and drilled holes, and pus often spilled from the body, reaching the amount of one tea bowl per day. On the fifth day of the first month of December, the Tongzhi Emperor died at the age of nineteen.
From the aggravation of the disease to the death, only half a month, people were caught off guard.
There is also a legend in the society that tongzhi's disease has been carefully treated by his great-grandfather and has improved. In the afternoon of the fourth day of the first month of December, the Empress of the Arut clan, that is, the empress of Tongzhi, came to Dongnuan Pavilion to see the disease, and Zaichun was sober at that time... The empress cried that she was suffering from her mother's hardships, that is, Cixi's hardships, and the emperor also felt it personally, advising her to be patient for the time being, and after the illness was cured, there would always be a day to come out.
Unexpectedly, Cixi, who was eavesdropping outside the window, heard that this place was being stabbed, and she was furious, and immediately pushed the curtain into the curtain, grabbed the queen's hair and dragged it hard, a large handful of hair and scalp were pulled down, and then slapped the face, and the queen's blood flowed all over her face. Zai Chun was horrified and fainted suddenly. The empress dowager hurriedly passed on her great-grandfather to enter the cabinet to ask for a pulse, but her teeth were closed tightly, the drip medicine could not enter, and she died the next night.
This statement has not been recorded in the archives, and it is not a comment on whether there is any way to do anything about it.
The death of the Tongzhi Emperor is regrettable, and if he can be given enough life and pro-government time, perhaps the fate of the Qing Dynasty will be rewritten. During the one-year period when the Tongzhi Emperor was pro-government, although he did not make great achievements, he actively implemented the new policy, set up the prime minister's yamen, set up the TongwenGuan, set up factories and mines, sent people to stay in the West, and implemented measures to study Western modernization, and his political achievements are still worthy of recognition.
It can be said that under the impetus of the Tongzhi Emperor, modern China has gradually moved towards openness and progress. Empress Dowager Cixi only lamented that she had misled the country and served two emperors successively, causing the Qing Empire, which was already in turmoil, to be destroyed. Moreover, when emperor Tongzhi had a child in the belly of Empress Jiashun, he was killed by Cixi, so they all said that he was childless, and later some people posthumously honored this child as the last brother.
Regarding the death of the Tongzhi Emperor, there are folk legends that he did not die of smallpox, but syphilis. This statement is mainly based on the early years of the Tongzhi Emperor's yeyou, and it is very likely that he will get sick. According to the "Great View of the Wild History of the Qing Dynasty", "The Tongzhi Emperor often felt bored in the palace, and often sneaked out privately to the brothels in the outer city to find famous prostitutes and indulge in pleasure. ”
Moreover, after being infected, the Tai Doctor noticed that it was syphilis, but no one dared to publicize it to Empress Dowager Cixi. Later, Empress Dowager Cixi considered the disease to be smallpox, and the doctors took the opportunity to treat it according to smallpox. Such a medicine is not right, and it is naturally difficult to make the Tongzhi Emperor heal. A few days later, the lower part of the Tongzhi Emperor was festering, the rot was incomparable, and his life was already in danger.
The doctors were afraid that things would be big, so they hurried to Empress Dowager Cixi and said that the emperor's illness was syphilis. Empress Dowager Cixi was furious and refuted it, insisting that the disease was smallpox, and ordered the doctors not to spread rumors, but only to diagnose and treat it according to smallpox. Under these circumstances, the Tongzhi Emperor had no reason to die. Of course, the above circulation is only a record of wild history, and there is no correct historical basis, and the authenticity is unknown.
However, according to the records left by the Qing Dynasty, the Tongzhi Emperor did get smallpox, and he also had the experience of traveling out of the palace. Prince Shuo once said that the time when the Tongzhi Emperor went out privately happened to be close to the time when the emperor fell ill, which showed that the emperor's illness was related to Yeyou and indulgence to a certain extent.
In the history of Zhengshi, Emperor Tongzhi's condition improved during treatment, and then his body suddenly deteriorated, so repeatedly, it is very likely that he had syphilis and smallpox outbreaks in his body, two stubborn diseases in his body, and the results can be imagined.
Poor Tongzhi Emperor had great ambitions since childhood, but he lost his life because of a momentary gamble, which made people feel sorry for him.
Resources:
Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Vol. 21, Benji 21, The Great View of the History of the Qing Dynasty, Anecdotes of the Four Dynasties, Emperor Tongzhi died of "late syphilis" instead of "smallpox"?.