Me and Empress Dowager Cixi

Chapter 14: A King Is Like a Tiger (1)
In the palace, the empress dowager always has a lot of ostentation, in comparison, this trip to Fengtian is very frugal.It's not that she has any ideas, but she has to do it because this imperial train is different from the Forbidden City after all.Let’s take the personal officials and maids who serve her as an example. There are only a dozen or so people accompanying her, including our eight female officials and more than a dozen court ladies.

Having said that, I just want to introduce the origins of those of us.The female officials are different from the court ladies. The female officials are almost all the daughters of high-ranking Manchu officials, while the court ladies come from the families of Manchurian soldiers, and their appearance is the most important thing.Compared with court ladies, female officials seem to have a higher status, but what's the use of this?From the point of view of benefits, those court ladies are much more comfortable than us.Those of us female officials who work in the palace not only have no salary, but also pay money from time to time.

To be honest, in order for us two sisters to stay in the palace, my father did not know how much money he sent.Calculated in a month, the reward for the two of us to the cook would be 100 taels, and the Queen Mother often rewarded us, and the money we spent was even more out of bounds.Don't be surprised, although it is a good thing for the queen mother to reward us, but the things that are rewarded to us are delivered one by one by the eunuchs, and they have to be given errand money.These eunuchs are very economical. No matter how many things the Queen Mother rewards us at a time, they will take one and give them one after another. In this way, we will spend more rewards.

If those rewards were delivered all at once, the reward we would give would only be 30 taels of silver.If it is sent over several times, at least ten taels will be given at one time, and it will add up to tens of taels, or even hundreds of taels.Although we knew in our hearts that the eunuchs were playing tricks, we could only eat Coptis chinensis dumbly, because asking for reward money has become an unwritten rule or habit in the palace. Even if I told the queen mother, she would not will say anything.This time when I went to Fengtian, there was a eunuch who took care of my daily life, so the rewards along the way would not be small.

What a pain for our father!As a rough estimate, we spend an average of at least 20 taels a day in the palace or the Summer Palace, which is almost equivalent to the current thirty silver coins.If there are unexpected expenses that pop up, it will be even more money.My sister and I are not very calculating people, so I only know that my father spent a lot of money to keep us in the palace, but I can't say exactly how much.Rewards are still second, and the most important expense is to honor the Queen Mother.Of course, ordinary things are not dared to present to the Queen Mother, so the value can be imagined.

My sister Rongling and I are both female officials, we were born in a family of high-ranking Manchu officials, and our father is Duke Yugeng.Back then, the imperial court sent my father to various countries as envoys, so my sister and I received Western education since childhood.Speaking of boasting, it can be said that women at that time could speak foreign languages ​​like us.For this reason, the Queen Mother attaches great importance to us two sisters, which also arouses the envy of others.At that time, we could be called the leaders of all the female officers.

As for the other female officials, two are the daughters of Prince Qing, and one is Fujin of Prince Shun.At that time, Prince Qing was the Minister of Military Aircraft, so his status was of course extremely prominent.And that Fujin's origin is even more unusual, she is the sister of Empress Longyu and the niece of the Empress Dowager, which is why she was selected as a female official in the palace.However, this does not mean that the empress dowager takes good care of her relatives.For reasons I cannot fathom, perhaps because of some queer psychology, she hated her relatives.

Although the Empress Dowager is in control and dispatching officials is easy, few of her own relatives have been high-ranking and powerful officials who can make money easily, and most of them are very poor.In addition, Pu Yi, who later served as the "puppet" emperor for the Japanese in the three eastern provinces, and their family made the queen mother very jealous. As long as she mentioned it, she would be unhappy.

The Queen Mother's close relatives are very poor, which is probably difficult for many people to understand.This is not only a fact, but the instigator is the Queen Mother herself.She always likes to send someone to give something to her relatives every now and then, usually something that is not very practical but beautifully framed, put in a very large box or box, and carried to the relative's house in a serious manner.After the relatives saw it, although they were unhappy in their hearts, they could not show it, and had to pretend to be happy to express their gratitude.

In fact, how can they be happy? What is the difference between this and seeing debt collectors?The same as our experience mentioned above, whenever the queen mother or the emperor bestows things on the ministers, the rewardees must reward the eunuchs who gave the things.This kind of reward is different from our general rewards. The money is not given according to the value of the gift, but according to the status level of the eunuch running errands.A third-class or fourth-class eunuch will be rewarded with 20 taels of silver; for those with lower status, one person will be rewarded with [-] taels of silver.If there are a few from each level, it will be hundreds of taels of silver.In fact, as long as the Queen Mother rewards things, the eunuchs who have nothing to do will go together like a booing. Of course, no one will be less rewarded.In this way, it will be hard for the people who are rewarded, and they have to pay a huge sum of money every time to make the Queen Mother happy.

The Queen Mother doesn't care about this, as long as she is happy, she will keep rewarding some insignificant things to her relatives.Later, because she gave rewards too frequently, some relatives almost gave their entire family property to those eunuchs, and it was difficult to guarantee their basic life.

This is not an exaggeration at all.The eunuchs had to get the money every time before they would leave.When those relatives had no choice, they would first send someone to serve tea to keep them, and then send another person to find some more valuable clothes or utensils from their boxes, and secretly go to the pawnshop through the back door to pawn back dozens of taels of silver, honoring those relatives. eunuch.The eunuchs knew this well, and they would never leave in a hurry. They sat down happily and chatted while waiting.

Sometimes, these relatives really don't have any valuable things, so they will take the things that the Queen Mother rewarded them as some temporary money.The result of this is that the more often the queen mother rewards, the faster the relatives will become poor.

Doesn't the Queen Mother know these things?I have observed carefully, she is actually very clear.She has so much eyeliner that someone will report to her whenever there is a disturbance, not to mention that if more than one relative has such a situation, the Queen Mother will know soon if there is any change in them.So, why did she go out of her way to harm her relatives?No one can guess the reason, probably only she can explain it clearly.

If I hadn't introduced these, many people might not have imagined that the empress dowager's relatives would be so downcast.

For this, I can give other examples.At that time, as long as they were relatives of the emperor or the queen mother, they must have a title, and this title was not so easy to get.In order to maintain the nobleman's style, he must pay attention to food, clothing, housing and transportation, and should not be too casual.However, how can we do without money to support this scene?The Queen Mother must not offend, so they can only try their best to live frugally and save money to survive.The scenery outside and the pain inside are only known to them.

In fact, the queen mother is fully capable of helping her relatives, not counting the treasury, her own private money alone has several million.If she wants to help her relatives, she doesn't need to use public funds at all, she just needs to take out a little bit of her own private money, and no one can say "no".But she didn't intend to do this at all, instead she gloated at other people's jokes. Such a lack of compassion really made me very dissatisfied.

There is also Grandma Yuan Da who is a female officer with us. "Yuan" is not her surname, but her nickname. Her father is Qingshan, Minister of Internal Affairs.Speaking of which, she can be considered to have a prominent background, but her fate is very tragic.When she was very young, her parents betrothed her to the son of the empress dowager's brother as his wife.Unexpectedly, when the wedding was about to be held, the fiancé died suddenly.According to the old Chinese tradition, although they have never been husband and wife, since they are betrothed to each other, they are their family members.Therefore, not only was she still married in the past, but she also had to remain a widow for the dead person, and she would never want to marry again.

In this way, a naive and lively girl who was only eighteen years old at that time became Grandma Yuan-a little widow who was struggling to stay widowed!This is also the cruelty of old Chinese customs.

(End of this chapter)