Late Qing Dynasty Records (42): There is a rod scale between heaven and earth.
In the history of the late Qing Dynasty, there were actually many famous ministers, but the four famous ministers like Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong and Zuo Zongtang were too high-profile, so that some of the horns were covered, and Ding Baozhen was one of them. This person is not only quite famous, but also very strange, and his people and things are very different, becoming a unique landscape in the sunset of the late Qing Dynasty. Ding Baozhen is first and foremost a foodie, very particular about eating, and very insightful. To say that everyone knows a dish, it is "Gongbao Chicken Ding", and the inventor is Ding Baozhen. In the second year of Guangxu, Ding Baozhen served as the governor of Sichuan, studied cooking, liked to eat chicken and peanut rice, and especially liked spicy taste. During his tenure as governor of Sichuan, he fried diced chicken, red pepper and peanut rice into a delicious dish, which was "Kung Pao Chicken Cube".
Because after Ding Baozhen's death, the Qing court posthumously gave him the title of "Prince Taibao", and "Prince Taibao" is one of the "Palace Guarantees", so the dish he invented was also named after it. However, Ding Baozhen did one thing during his tenure as inspector of Shandong, and even more famous, that is, he dared to call Cixi. An Dehai was a red man in front of Cixi, thinking that the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty was doing dragon clothes, passing by his jurisdiction. This person said one thing and the other, and usually flew high, and the people who stalked him were also endless. On this tour, many people lined up to give gifts in the land they passed, hoping that he could say a few kind words to Empress Dowager Cixi. However, Ding Baozhen did not do this, and in the territory of Shandong, he immediately ordered the arrest of fifteen people in An Dehai's party and beheaded for disposal. When Cixi found out, she couldn't understand why Ding Baozhen did this, and Ding Baozhen replied on the grounds that "ancestral eunuchs are not allowed to leave beijing without permission."
Since even Cixi dared to pick up the tiger's whiskers, the boss was even more important in Ding Baozhen's eyes. When he was serving as an envoy in Shandong, he needed to meet his superior, the monk Prince Gelinqin, who was very powerful, and when the Qing Dynasty officials saw him, either he did not see him, or let people wait outside, waiting for a few hours, even if he waited, the consequence was that he forgot and did not see him. After Ding Baozhen went there, he did not pay any attention to etiquette, and when he entered the door, he shouted, "Stay for the seat, leave if you don't give the seat, and please don't come later." "Prince Gelinqin was drinking tea, and when he heard that this man was too cattle, he quickly asked the servant to give him a seat, and after Ding Baozhen sat down unceremoniously, he began to count the monks and Princes Grinqin, saying that he had no way to manage, black and white, making the smoke miasma here, and the method of dealing with the Taiping Army was not right.
Because the investigation was not clear, so that many good people were wronged, Prince Gelinqin was calmed by Ding Baozhen's aura, and quickly got up and said that he was not right, and he must correct it, and after seeing Ding Baozhen, he was afraid. It can be said that Ding Baozhen's eunuch sea cultivation seems to be out of place, but in fact, it is also a stick of his own, and in the quagmire of desire, Ding Baozhen is a completely different person. At the time of his death, this famous courtier of the late Qing Dynasty, who had once been the governor of Sichuan, did not even have the money to buy the coffin, and it was his subordinates who pooled money to buy it for him, which shows to what extent this person was poor, "one year of the Qing prefect, 100,000 snowflakes of silver" In the late Qing Dynasty Eunuch Sea, such an alternative person, becoming a rarity, is not only a kind of lonely sadness, but also a kind of sadness of the late Qing Eunuch Sea.
References: "Ding Baozhen, the Alternative among the Famous Ministers of the Late Qing Dynasty", "Celebrity Anecdotes"