He was repeatedly attacked by Cixi, but his loyalty to the emperor and the Qing court never changed.
Text/Liu Jianghua
Founded in 1762 during the Qianlong Dynasty, General Ili was the highest representative of the Qing court in Xinjiang until Xinjiang was established in 1844, overseeing all military and political affairs throughout Xinjiang. There were 41 Ili generals in the Qing Dynasty, and Zhirui, who was killed by the revolutionary party during the Xinhai Revolution, was the last.
Unlike other Ili generals, Zhirui was also known as a poet of the late Qing Dynasty. In the "Complete Compilation of Chinese Bamboo Branch Words" compiled by the present generation, there are 100 bamboo branch words written by him. In addition, Zhirui also has a more interesting identity for history lovers - the cousin of Guangxu's favorite concubine Zhenfei.
<h1>With Princess Zhen in the youth of the General Office in Guangzhou</h1>
Zhi Rui was a Manchurian red flag bearer, his grandfather Yutai successively served as the governor of Hunan, the governor of Huguang, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, etc. Xianfeng was transferred to the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu in the first year, but he died of illness before taking office. Perhaps it was providence in the darkness, Zhi Rui's life was also closely related to the northwest frontier, and he was an official in the northwest for more than 20 years.
The "Map of all Nations" depicts the scene of tribute envoys from various countries gathering in the Forbidden City in 1761, and the person holding the blue flag is the Ili tribute envoy. The following year, the Qing court set up a general in Xinjiang.
Zhi Rui's father, Chang Jing, served as the prefect of Suiding in Sichuan. In 1853, ZhiRui was born in Suiding, and his youth coincided with the rise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Twist Army. Chang Jing organized a squad of 100 people to practice day and night to protect himself, and Zhi Rui also followed suit to learn martial arts. The "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" commented that "galloping horses and guns, firing will be hit, and people think it is strange."
In addition to being proficient in martial arts, the talented Zhirui is also interested in the art of winning the name of keju. But perhaps God deliberately tested, in 1872, when ZhiRui was 19 years old, his father died of illness in Sichuan.
Chang Jing was a clean and honest official, and his family had no surplus wealth, and as soon as he died, The Zhirui family immediately fell into difficulty. Fortunately, at this time, his uncle Changshan, who was the general of Guangzhou, extended a helping hand and brought him and his brother Zhijun, as well as later the famous Concubine Zhen and Concubine Jin to Guangzhou.
Speaking of Zhenfei and Concubine Jin, many records say that they are Zhirui's younger sisters. But in fact, Princess Zhen and Concubine Jin's father Chang Shu, Zhi Rui and Zhi Jun's father Chang Jing, and Chang Shan are brothers- all are yu tai's sons. Therefore, Zhenfei, Concubine Jin and Zhirui are only cousins.
The general of Guangzhou was from Yipin, changshan from 1868 to this position. Although his official position was long, his heirs were difficult. He was also very fond of children, so he welcomed Zhirui and their arrival very much, and specially opened a literary club in the kettle garden of his general office, and invited local famous teachers to supervise their homework. In 1875, because of his grandfather's official shadow, the 22-year-old Zhirui was awarded the title of Wailang(外郎), roughly equivalent to Congwu pin (五品).
He did not take up a job in the ministry, but continued to stay in Guangzhou to study. "Tongxiang Qiushengguan Map" was popular for a while in the late Qing Dynasty, and the painting is about the two brothers who worked hard to study. Chen Baochen, Liang Dingfen and other celebrities, as well as the late Qing Dynasty printing giant Huang Mufu, etc., once inscribed and left a mark on it. In The inscription of Liang Dingfen, he praised the Zhirui brothers for "having two wonderful and invincible words". The brothers ZhiRui and Zhijun did not live up to the expectations of the public, and entered hanlin in 1880 and 1882 respectively. Brothers and sisters, for a while it was a good story.
<h1>A bumpy career has led to the achievement of a poet of the frontier</h1>
Zhi Rui's 1888 belonged to a year of joy and sorrow. His uncle, Changshan, died in the same year; on November 8 of the same year, two cousins were elected to the palace at the same time. And because of her lively nature, coupled with living in Guangzhou, her thinking is more open, and Zhenfei soon became Guangxu's favorite concubine.
Although he was from a family of eunuchs and his cousin was deeply loved by Guangxu, what was in front of Zhirui was not the road of "flowers and flowers, fire cooking oil", but a bumpy career path. From the middle of 1880 to the spring of 1892, when he was conferred the title of Attendant of the Ministry of Ceremonies and the Second Pin of the Official Residence, Zhirui spent 12 years. The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty commented on this, "Manchuria's stagnation is not as good as the public."
Is this really the case? He can be compared to Zeng Guofan, who had the same experience: Zeng Shi was a junior scholar in 1838, and after he was dissolved in 1840 (equivalent to graduating from Hanlin Academy), he was awarded the lowest grade review of Hanlin Academy, and in 1849 he was promoted to the rank of Attendant of the Ministry of Ceremonies, which lasted 11 years, at the age of 37. In contrast, Zhi Rui, a mid-level jinshi in 1880, was awarded a higher rank of editor after the closure of the museum in 1883, and was 39 years old when he became a rebbe attendant in 1892. That is to say, the starting point of Zhirui's career is higher than zeng guofan, but it takes 1 year longer to reach the level of rebbe attendants who are equal to Zeng; considering Zhirui's Manchu ancestry and official eunuch family origin, it should be said that his promotion is indeed relatively slow.
The reason for this is that many historical sources believe that Zhi Rui has repeatedly neglected his words, and because of his bluntness, he has offended the powerful people in the DPRK and China.
It is not known which magnate he offended, but ZhiRui's performance in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War in 1894 allowed posterity to see his outspoken personality characteristics. On November 4, he sent tens of thousands of words to the Guangxu Emperor, strongly advocating war against Japan, impeaching Sun Yuwen, a university scholar of Lord He, and asking him to go to Rehe to raise a courageous regiment to train to defend Beijing, echoing the Wen Ting-style main battle.
ZhiRui met Wen Tingshi during his time in Guangzhou, and later recommended Wen Tingshi to be the tutor of the Zhenfei sisters. In 1890, Wen Tingshi participated in the examination to explore flowers, according to the "Diary of Weng Tonggong", Guangxu learned of it and exclaimed: "This person is famous and has done a good job." Four years later, in the Great Examination of the Hanlin Academy, Guangxu Special Decree promoted The Wenting Style to the first place of the 1st class. The Wen Ting-style performance not only opposed the negotiation of peace, but also neglected to cancel the "celebration" of Cixi's sixtieth birthday, recall Prince Gong Yi bi to preside over the government, and participate in the impeachment of Li Hongzhang for "fainting and arrogance, losing his heart and misunderstanding the country". Coupled with his later support for the Penghu Reform Law, it is expected that he was included in another book by Cixi. As a foreign relative, Zhi Rui did not hide his sharp edge and proposed the main battle, and was naturally regarded as an "imperial party".
Soon, Li Hongzhang instructed his confidant, Yushi Yang Chongyi, to oppose "Wen Tingshi's attempt to support Concubine Zhen and replace Empress Longyu; to oppose Cixi's obedience to the government and support the Guangxu Emperor's independent imperial program." Cixi took the opportunity to issue a decree that Wen Tingshi would be dismissed from his post and never hired on the charge of "communicating with the palace and disturbing the imperial program." Princess Zhen was punished for being entrusted by the Court of The Wen Dynasty to speak to Guangxu for the main battle, and both Princess Jin and Concubine Jin were demoted from noble concubines to nobles. Zhi Rui's act of setting up a township regiment in Rehe was also denounced by Cixi as an "absurd move", and he was demoted from a rebbe to a counsellor of Ulyasutai (in Mongolia, 1800 miles west of Ulaanbaatar), and transferred him out of Beijing to seize his military power.
From Rehe to Ulyasutai via Zhangjiakou, passing through 64 stations (post stations), Zhirui, who was born in Hanlin, wrote 100 poems of "Kuxuan Bamboo Branches" about the natural landscapes, social groups, and customs he saw along the way. In the process of writing, although in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, he repeatedly emphasized that it was only an objective description, but poems such as "a few more worries and indignations for a while" and "clarifying the heart has violated" all revealed ZhiRui's feelings of worry and thinking of the country. Today, these bamboo branch words have also become an important reference for studying the landforms of the mountains and rivers along the way, as well as the customs and religions of the Mongolian people.
<h1>From Sino-Russian border inquisitor to general Hangzhou</h1>
From 1894, he served as counselor and minister of Ulya Sutai to 13 years in 1907, when he was transferred to the deputy capital of Ningxia, which was the most colorful part of Zhirui's eunuch career. During this period, he was twice ordered to go to Siyazi to meet with Russian officials to try the backlog of disputes between Chinese and Russian border residents, fully demonstrating his talents.
Si Yazi is the Russian transliteration of "arbitration meeting" or "trial court". In the late Qing Dynasty, China and Russia regularly tried the backlog of mutual control cases between the border people on both sides, which was called "Si Yazi Hui litigation".
ZhiRui was first appointed by the Ili general Chang Geng, who "closed hundreds of cases in half a year, and Chinese and foreign people praised him." In May 1904, on the recommendation of the Ili general Ma Liang, Zhirui, who was then the leader of the Ili Solun battalion, once again took the order to clean up the backlog of Sino-Russian cases in Xinjiang in less than half a year.
Some scholars commented that at a time when the Qing Dynasty was worried about internal and external troubles, it was not easy for Zhirui to try the backlog of mutual control cases of Sino-Russian border people disputes and get "chinese and foreign people to praise him." Later facts also show that Zhirui is quite respected by the Russian side. On January 8, 1912, D'Ori was killed by the Ili rebels, and the Russian Consulate in Ili, on behalf of the Tsarist government, sent a funeral service of 147 rubles and 80 kopecks to the Zhirui family.
Despite his meritorious service in handling the case, Zhirui was not promoted, but was demoted two consecutive ranks, and in October 1899, he was demoted from counselor minister of Ulyasutai to minister of leadership of Ili Soren. According to the Qing system, General Ili had the posts of capital commander, counselor minister, affairs minister, and leading minister, and the leading minister only took charge of leading the troops, could not take care of local government affairs, and did not have the right to go up to the fold alone. It seems that although it is far away from the center of the imperial court, Cixi has not forgotten Zhirui, the backbone of the imperial party. In August 1900, shortly after Zhi Rui was degraded, his cousin Zhenfei was ordered into the well by Cixi before fleeing west.
Cixi died of illness in 1908. At the end of the following year, the regent Zaifeng ordered ZhiRui, who was the deputy governor of Ningxia, to enter the capital. In December 1909, Zhirui, who had been away from the Beijing Division for 18 years, arrived in Beijing, and it was not until August 1910 that he was appointed general of Hangzhou, and he was idle for 8 months. The reason for this, the "Qing Dynasty Ili General Wen Zhen GongXing" pointed out that at that time, Zaixun and Zaitao were in power, and secretly sent people to guan to let Zhirui throw himself under his door, but Zhirui was not moved and was retaliated against.
Serving as a general from Yipin meant that Zhirui completed the transformation from a civilian Hanlin to the highest military position.
When he was appointed as the counselor of Uria Sutai, Zhirui went to the top many times and did not change his outspoken nature. For example, he pointed out in the compromise of the Manchu-Han fusion that of the 11 divisions of the Beijing Division, the Manchu Shangshu had accounted for 9 people; the 7 governors of the provinces, and the flag people accounted for 5 seats. In the long run, I am afraid that it will cause dissatisfaction in the hearts of the Han people, "not the luck of the imperial court, nor the blessing of the Manchus." Obviously, in the Qing court, which was ruled by Manchu nobles, this was something that people kept secret. Therefore, "neglect is left in the middle" and is shelved by Cixi.
After becoming the general of Hangzhou, Zhirui still did not change his true colors. As a rule, generals in various localities were mainly in charge of flag troops and military affairs, but according to the "Xuantong Zhengji", during the appointment of generals in Hangzhou, ZhiRui was absent, which obviously exceeded this scope. At that time, Japan bought a large number of Chinese money and smelted it into copper blocks, and then shipped it to China for sale, and even blatantly violated Chinese laws and privately minted copper coins in concessions such as Tianjin and Shanghai. To this end, in October 1910, Zhi Rui, who had been the general of Hangzhou for only two months, asked for a ban on the folding, and suggested that a copper circle should only be worth four or five copper coins, so that the sale of copper coins would be unprofitable, thereby reducing and eliminating private minting.
In the 1910s, Xinjiang civilian armed forces.
In addition, he also criticized the New Military Policy in Hangzhou, arguing that in addition to the considerable school, other patrol police stations and craft factories are difficult to become a climate. It is worth mentioning that Zhirui, who came from a family of officials and eunuchs, still adhered to traditional concepts and held an opposing attitude toward the New Deal: when he was the leading minister of the Solun Battalion, he reported that the Xinjiang New Deal had many clues and was not worthy of the name; shortly after being transferred to general Ili in February 1911, he immediately went to the "Force Chen New Deal to pay more money and ask the province to strike."
<h1>The last general Ili was killed in the border city</h1>
Although it is the same as Congyipin, transferring from Hangzhou, which is known as "paradise on earth", to the bitter and desolate Ili is not a beautiful difference in any case. Perhaps in order to comfort Zhirui, shortly after the appointment was issued, the Qing court gave Zhirui the forbidden city of riding a horse and appreciating the title of Shangshu.
Fortunately, Zhirui did not think that he was bitter, and when he was demoted to the post of leader minister, whenever he had spare time, he immersed himself in studying the local public opinion map, and took the opportunity of hunting to investigate the Ili mountains and rivers, fortresses, and so on. Transferred to Yili, in his opinion, he finally had the opportunity to guard the border herdsmen and repay the Qing court. However, although the Qing Dynasty, which was about to withdraw from the stage of history, agreed to Zhirui's request to give General Ili the power to restrain the civil and military officials near Ili, it could not fully meet his request to increase salaries and train troops, and eventually Zhirui "went out of the capital" and embarked on the road of no return.
The imperial court's salary to Ili was more than 500,000 taels per year. According to Zhirui's statistics, Ili military training and office expenses need 800,000 or 900,000 taels per year. As a result, the annual deficit reaches more than 400,000 taels. Successive Ili Generals had to borrow money from the local official money bureau, and ZhiRui already owed more than 1.6 million taels when he took office. To this end, ZhiRui asked the imperial court to allocate 2 million taels to clear the previous arrears, and on the other hand, he asked for the Ili co-salary to be increased to 1 million taels per year. In the end, the household department only promised to give 200,000 taels, and it could not be disbursed immediately; the request for increased salary was in the sea. He asked for new recruits to be recruited for retraining, and the imperial court did not fully agree, but asked him to consult with Yuan Dahua, the governor of Xinjiang.
From the Beijing Division to the general of Ili, the time given by the imperial court was 8 months. Zhirui went on the road in April, and according to the Qing Palace archives, he arrived in Urumqi in October and arrived in Ili in November. This suggests that he arrived at least two months earlier than the time set by the imperial court.
At the same time that Zhirui was marching westward, the domestic situation was undergoing drastic changes. The Sichuan Road Preservation Movement, which began in April and May, intensified; on October 10, the Wuchang Uprising erupted; and Xinjiang was on the eve of a revolutionary volcanic eruption.
The revolution in Xinjiang is quite related to the predecessor of the Ili general Chang Geng: in 1907, Chang Geng dispatched nearly 900 members of the New Army from the North and South Oceans to Ili as the backbone of the local training of the new army; by 1909, it was formed into the First Army Association, and Yang Yixu, a member of the League, served as the co-commander (equivalent to a brigade commander). At the same time, the revolutionaries Feng Temin, Feng Dashu, Li Fuhuang, and others came to Ili with their troops, established the Ili League, a revolutionary organizational organ, and founded the revolutionary organ newspaper Ili Vernacular Newspaper, calling for the overthrow of the Qing court.
In view of the fact that most of the people who responded to the revolution in various places were newly formed armies, in order to curb the revolution, in November, zhirui first took the opportunity of the soldiers of the new army to fight with the students of the Ili Wubei Academy, confiscated the ammunition of the new army, and abolished the Wubei Academy; subsequently, he forced the assistant commander Yang Miaoxu to resign, so as to avoid conflict as an excuse to abolish the Ili Army's mixed cooperative structure and dismiss its soldiers and officials; he also ordered the seizure of the "Ili Vernacular Newspaper" on the charge of "ridiculing the facts", in an attempt to control public opinion and suppress the people.
But while dismissing the soldiers, Zhirui made a number of mistakes in succession.
The first is that they did not treat the assistant commander Yang Miaoxu and the demobilized officers and men kindly. One day, after Yang Yixu met with Yang Zhixu and learned that Yang Zhi's brother Yang Kaijia was the deputy director of the General Staff Department of the Hubei Military Government, Zhirui heard the change of color and screamed "sending a guest", and never saw Yang Miaoxu again. When the new Ili army was dismissed and dismissed, Zhirui asked the soldiers to return all the leather clothes and pants they were wearing to the warehouse. At this time, xinjiang was already in winter, and fearing that the soldiers would freeze on the way, Yang had pleaded with the prospective soldiers to wear leather clothes and pants to the pasture land and then hand them into storage. However, ZhiRui secretly sent a team to block the soldiers' passage through various key roads, and forcibly peeled off the soldiers' leather clothes and pants, causing these soldiers to freeze and walk.
Secondly, the demobilized officers and men have not been paid travel expenses. Due to the discord with Zhirui, Yang Yixu resolutely resigned and took care of the return to the east, but the three thousand taels of silver owed to the officers and soldiers could not be paid for a long time, so they were not allowed to leave. Eventually, the forcible dismissal of the New Army, the stripping of leather clothes and trousers, and the arrears of wages became the fuse that ignited the Ili Revolution.
Not only that, Zhirui also misjudged the situation of the Ili revolution, too much trust and negligence. Before the uprising broke out, Chongxingming, a teacher at the Ili Wubei Academy, had informed Zhirui. However, Zhirui believed that the troops loyal to the Qing court and his Manchu and Mongolian armies inside and outside the city were no less than tens of thousands, and Yang Yixu only had one group of men and horses and was short of guns and ammunition, not only would he not pose a threat to himself, but he could take the opportunity to completely annihilate them, so he did not take strict precautions.
On the night of January 7, 1912, the Ili Revolution broke out, and Zhirui was killed the next day. According to the report of Guangfu, the new Hangzhou general who remained in Ili, the cause of the mutiny was that "the Ili army had not paid Zhirui for a long time after his arrival, and then it was dismantled one after another, and the border land was cold and cold, and there was no way out"; the result of the mutiny was that "thirty people were wounded and killed on both sides, Zhirui was killed, and the seal letter was lost."
Based on the recollections of those who have experienced it, when the rebel army attacked the Ili General's Office, Zhirui found that the troops under his command were scattered and stationed, and it was not easy to mobilize, and some of the officers and soldiers were mostly Elder Brothers and sympathetic to the revolution, and the mobilization was delayed. In a hurry, ZhiRui escaped from the back door of the General's Office and hid in the yamen of the right wing of the LaoMan camp, Urgchun, and was found early on the 8th.
At first, the House of Representatives elected him as the governor of the capital, but Zhirui only wanted to die quickly on the grounds that he could not "betray the imperial court and insult his ancestors". So the crowd escorted him to a business meeting to prepare for a public execution. Walking to the door of the official money bureau next to the Drum Tower, ZhiRui pretended to be dead and refused to leave, and the revolutionary Feng Temin, worried about the long night and dreaming, pulled out a gun and killed him in the street. Witnesses at the scene recalled, "Lying on the ground was a man with his head facing south, about fifty years away, wearing a sky blue silk cotton coat, the soles of his white cloth socks without shoes were stained with mud and snow, two knife wounds on his face, and his bare head was motionless." People pointed at him and said, "This is General Zhi."
<h1>Talent and character</h1>
Zhi Rui is an all-rounder in literature and martial arts, who is both a point of Hanlin and a martial artist. He worked in poetry, and was a clean official, calling himself the "Poor Lord"; although he was repeatedly attacked by Cixi, his loyalty to the emperor and the Qing court never changed. The "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" records that Zhirui "arrived in Xinjiang, heard about the changes in Wuchang, or persuaded shao to stay", but he did not agree and went to his post in anger. In the letter to a friend, there are sentences such as "Promise the country with your body, and do not think of entering the jade gate with your life".
There is also a theory that on his way to the west, Zhirui conspired with chang geng, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, Yuan Dahua, the governor of Xinjiang, and Zailan, the duke of The GefuGuo, to plan to move westward to meet the Xuantong Emperor, build a capital in Kulun (present-day Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) or Altay, unite with the feudal princes of the Mongolian, Gansu, and new ethnic groups, and divide the northwest, and wait for the changes. The declassified Qing Palace archives show that from November 25, 1911 to the beginning of January 1912, in order to pay the soldiers with 30,000 taels of silver, Zhirui, who was the official residence from Yipin, did not hesitate to put down his body and compete with the two Erpin officials, Erlehun, counselor of Tarbahatai, and Zhongrui, minister of office of Kobdo. But in the end, the overstretched Qing court failed to allocate even 30,000 taels of silver, resulting in Zhirui being killed.
Zhirui keeps his promise. A 17-year-old concubine of her father Changjing went on a hunger strike and was martyred after Changjing's death. Zhi Rui was moved, and at that time, he wanted to transport his coffin back to the capital and bury it in the ancestral tomb. However, the road from Sichuan to Beijing is far away, and the cost of transporting coffins is about 1,000 taels. Zhirui, who had no money at that time, had to give up. 20 years later, Zhirui official to the ceremonial department waiter, finally fulfilled his promise that year, and took advantage of the convenience of taking office in the ceremonial department, for the concubine to fold the table, but also personally wrote an article to record the matter.
Wang Shuangshou and Zhirui's family were family friends, and in the early years of Xuan reunification, Wang Shuangshou led his father from Hubei to Beijing to surrender. Wang's father even grew old in Zhirui Province, when Zhirui, who was then a master of the Imperial Household, personally took care of the aftermath for him. After the Outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, Zhirui, who was far away in the northwest, also sent several telegrams to inquire about Wang Shuangshou's situation, and was ready to send money to help. The "Qing Dynasty Yili General Wen Zhen GongXing" therefore evaluates, "It is loyal to the old and many categories of this".
11 years after Zhenfei was sunk in the well, Zhirui was killed. In addition to the assassinated Guangzhou general Fu Qi, ZhiRui, Fuzhou general Park Shou, and Xi'an general Wen Rui were three generals martyred during the Xinhai Revolution. The death of Zhirui, who was 59 years old at the time, also marked the end of more than 100 years of Qing rule in the Ili Military Palace.