Me and Empress Dowager Cixi

Chapter 19 On the Journey (2)
I peeked at the queen mother, she was smiling at the female officer.I couldn't help laughing too.In the eyes of the Empress Dowager, this mistake was nothing, and of course there was no need to punish her, it was just a smile to let her wake up.The lady officer soon understood that she was very grateful to the Queen Mother, but angry at me.From her point of view, I was doing something wrong when I laughed like that.She was very angry, and although she didn't show it at the time, she took the opportunity to make fun of me the next day.

She said to me: "Yeah, no one is smarter than you! However, don't be too contemptuous of people! Do you think it's fun to play tricks on others? Isn't it funny to watch people make fools of themselves? You Have you ever thought about other people's feelings? You don't care about this, right? Don't forget that other people have been in the palace longer than you, and they are older than you in terms of qualifications!"

Facing her scolding and scolding, I didn't say anything.Since this is a misunderstanding, I don't bother to explain anything.I just smiled at her and walked away.

The train stopped at Fengtai Station, and we started our first dinner.The significance of this dinner is unusual. First of all, it is the first meal after boarding the car. The second point is that dinner is a "big meal" of the day, and a whole hundred bowls of main dishes are served.

The dishes started to be served, and all one hundred bowls of main dishes were delivered to the Empress Dowager in the same large wooden box.These food boxes are so wide that if it were an ordinary train, the doors would not be able to get in.As mentioned earlier, all the imperial trains have been remodeled, and so are the doors, which are almost twice as large as the original ones.When the food was served, dozens of eunuchs stood in a long line on the platform outside, from the two carriages temporarily used as the imperial dining room to the carriage of the Queen Mother.Those food boxes containing delicacies were passed continuously from the hands of these eunuchs, like a game played by elementary school students, from the first eunuch to the eunuch at the queen mother's table.In most cases, the last eunuch was Zhang De, who slowly took the dishes out of the box and placed them on the table in front of the Empress Dowager.

The scene of serving the food can be said to be full of brilliance!Think about it, those boxes are all gorgeous golden yellow, which looks dazzling, and the bowls inside are also exquisite porcelain, and the eunuchs who pass the boxes are dressed in colorful clothes... It's a pity that I can see this moving scene Only those disgusting stupid officials, ordinary people can never see.

Finally, the first dinner was over.The eunuch gave the order to go down, and the train moved on.Qing Shan originally planned to let the Queen Mother go to Tianjin to go to bed, but just halfway through the car, the Queen Mother said that she was going to rest.Of course, Qingshan didn't have the guts to express any opinions on this matter, so he ordered the car to stop immediately.In fact, this place is not the metropolis that Qingshan imagined at all, not even a small village or town, but a desolate wilderness.But the queen mother didn't pay attention to these at all, she kept urging the eunuchs and maids to prepare something for her to go to bed, and then went to sleep quietly.

At that time, of all new ideas or inventions, the electric lamp was the one that interested Her Majesty the most.Therefore, whether it is in the palace or in the Summer Palace, generators are installed to facilitate the use of electric lights by the queen mother, which has become a necessity in her life.Fortunately, our Queen's train was also equipped with electric lights, which Her Majesty was very satisfied with.

As soon as our train stopped, the escorting military vehicles behind knew that the Queen Mother had rested, so they also slowly stopped at a place about twenty or thirty feet away from us. Hundreds of armored and fully armed imperial guards He got out of the car quietly and shouldered the responsibility of guarding.For a moment, the surrounding area of ​​the yellow imperial train was filled with shadows coming and going and flickering lights of knives.

The most heavily guarded carriage was the carriage where Guangxu was resting. In name, it was for protection, but in fact it was more like guarding against him.

Guangxu's situation is really difficult, because I can't stand it, so I mentioned him again and again.The Royal Forest Army looks majestic, but in fact they always act with trepidation.Protection, inspection, and vigilance are the tasks they must complete. In addition, there are many places that need special attention, such as not making loud noises, and walking as lightly as possible. These are small things, but if Failure to do so risks decapitation.Therefore, as soon as the Queen Mother began to rest, all sounds stopped.

Looking out of the car window, the lights of the rural houses in the distance danced faintly and silently, as if all the sounds were frozen in the air.In this chilling and stern atmosphere, the Queen Mother slept peacefully all night.

The queen mother got up early in the morning.She gets up very early on weekdays, but this time she fell asleep on the train, probably because of excitement, she actually got up earlier than usual.She washed up hastily first, and then ordered to drive quickly.The golden imperial train set off again in the morning light.

The car didn't drive for a long time, and the sky began to drizzle.This kind of rain is thin and continuous, even if you don't use an umbrella, your clothes will not be soaked.It always rains like this in spring, sometimes several times a day, probably because the season is here.

There is a poem that says it well-"It rains a lot during the Qingming Festival".Indeed, it is the "Qingming Festival" at this time.There is a custom in all parts of China, which is to sweep the graves of ancestors on Qingming Festival.The descendants bring some food, wine and paper money, and respectfully offer them to their graves.

When the imperial train passed through the wilderness, we did not know how many people worshiped their ancestral graves in the rain.Of course, those people were very far from the railroad.Even if there are ancestral graves near the railway, they dare not come to visit the graves at this time.Although the grave sweepers were far away from us, we could still see those people clearly, but they all turned their backs, and none of them dared to look towards us.This is again due to the local officials, who must have issued extremely strict warning orders.

However, as far as I can see, these people did not strictly abide by the prohibition.Everyone has curiosity, and of course ordinary people do too.On weekdays, they just heard people say how sacred the emperor and the empress dowager are, and they have never seen it. Now is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The empress dowager and the emperor are sitting in the train passing in front of them. Of course, they must seize this opportunity.Therefore, many of them took the opportunity of bowing to their ancestors, lowered their heads, opened their eyes wide, and peeked at us vigorously.However, the most they could see was the yellow train and the swaying figures on it. As for what the empress dowager and the emperor looked like, it was impossible to see.

At that time, the Empress Dowager and I had an interesting discussion on the custom of sweeping graves during the Qingming Festival, and our views on this issue were quite consistent.

There are so many graves in the section where the train passes, so grave sweepers come and go.The queen mother looked at those people outside through the car window, her expression was very solemn, and her brows were also wrinkled together.She must have been lost in thought, every time like this, she looks so sad, no matter what can not arouse her interest, can not make her happy.However, it's not okay to let her go on like this!If she gets stuck in her heart and has to burst out and take it out on those she serves, we're out of luck.

Therefore, as soon as we noticed that the Queen Mother started to think, we quickly found some interesting topics to attract her, in fact, to disturb her thoughts.This job is not easy. No one else has the confidence to complete it, and they always push me forward.In my opinion, it's nothing to ask her to think about it, maybe there will be unexpected gains, so I didn't bother her this time.

Sure enough, after a long time, she said to me in a very low and slow tone: "Look, what a pity!" When she said that, she pointed out the window, where there were some deserted graves that no one paid homage to or worshiped.

"The people who sleep in these barren tombs lived a life of poverty, suffered in pain, and left nothing for their descendants after death, so that they also lived a life of poverty, and they didn't even have the ability to sweep graves. What a pity! But, think about it, can people still feel after death? Alas! Isn’t it all the same? When you close your eyes, you don’t know anything. Look at us now, so rich and luxurious, but when we close our eyes On that day, it will all be over! When it is buried in the soil and gradually decays, who will know whether the remains are us or ordinary people?"... As far as I know, many graves of the poor are made of Some benevolent people donated money to help build it, otherwise, his family would not be able to repair even this small earthen bun!In this way, even if these barren tombs were destroyed due to years of disrepair, their descendants could only cry silently, waiting for more kind people to help.Therefore, their descendants cannot come to worship, and life must be extremely embarrassing.If the dead knew something underground, how sad they would be!In fact, the deserted graves mentioned by the Queen Mother are free tombs, not like the charitable deeds completed by a certain person as she said, but run by local charitable organizations.

Speaking of tomb-sweeping, I have to insert some topics.People have the same original intention for sweeping tombs, but due to the wide range of personal economic capabilities, the forms are different.First of all, let’s talk about the rich and noble families. The first thing they have to do is to prepare rich food and wine, carry them by the servants, place them respectfully in front of the ancestral tomb, and then burn paper money and kowtow to salute.After serving for a few ten minutes, the food and wine were taken home and eaten by the family members.

Next, let’s talk about middle-level people. Such people still have the ability to buy food and drinks, but they can keep it simple, just bring some paper ingots to incinerate and it’s over.Since ancient times, people have believed that the dead can really get silver after burning the paper ingots. Therefore, this paper money must not be saved.Fortunately, paper ingots don’t need a lot of money, and you can buy a lot of them with very little money, so middle-level people are very generous in buying paper ingots. If you let them burn real money tickets, silver tickets, and foreign money to the dead, Definitely not so generous.

There is also a family below the middle level, whose economic situation can be said to be stretched.There is not much money in the first place, and the living people do not have enough money to buy the rice that needs to be cooked every day. How can they have the energy to prepare wine and food for the dead and buy paper ingots?Therefore, every Ching Ming Festival, they will never prepare wine, vegetables and paper ingots, but they will still sweep the tomb.When they went, they took soil digging tools, dug some soil from the side of the grave, piled it on the grave with their own hands, and then folded some willow branches by the roadside and inserted it on it.The reason why we choose willow is that it is the first to grow leaves in spring, and people attach great importance to it; in addition, we use it as decoration, which is not just for the sake of beauty, but to show the ancestors that despite the They were so poor that they couldn't even afford paper ingots, but they didn't forget their ancestors in their hearts.

Although their ancestors could not eat food and drink, and could not use paper ingots, they could get a kind of comfort for their souls.In this way, no matter what method is used, the descendants will comfort the spirit of the ancestors in heaven after all, so it cannot be said to be unfilial.

The last category of people cannot be prepared by soil or new willows.Although these are free to buy, for various reasons, they still cannot go to the tomb of their ancestors to perform their filial piety.Either the journey is too far, or the money is not packed together, or the work is too busy, in order to support the living people, I have to wrong my ancestors.

At this time, the empress dowager's heart is desolate, it is these funeral tombs that no one comes to worship.The sad and desolate scene deeply touched the Queen Mother's heart, and all the previous excitement was forgotten by her for a while.

(End of this chapter)