Me and Empress Dowager Cixi

Chapter 33 The Death Day of Emperor Tongzhi (1)
For this trip, Fengtian was not the original destination, and the Queen Mother only intended to use Fengtian as a transit point.In this way, Fengtian is not a place where you must stay, but because the Beijing-Fengtian Railway only goes to Fengtian, so you stay in Fengtian Palace for these days.After staying in Fengtian for a few days, the Queen Mother wanted to abandon the train and use other means of transportation to continue eastward. The destination was between Changbai Mountain and the Songhua River, where the original birthplace of our Manchurians was.There is a Chinese saying: "Plans can't keep up with changes." After we arrived in Fengtian, the Queen Mother never mentioned continuing eastward, as if Fengtian had some special magic power, which dragged us all down.In fact, there are many obstacles that prevent us from moving forward, and the Queen Mother's excessive superstition is one of them.Every time we travel far, the Empress Dowager has to order someone to choose a good day in order to avoid bad luck, but after we arrived in Fengtian, the person in charge of the calendar couldn't find a good day.

When setting off from Beijing, the Empress Dowager ordered people to choose a day before getting up.After arriving in Fengtian, we played for several days in a row and saw all the places we planned to visit.At this time, the queen mother was anxious to go east, but at the same time she couldn't let go of her idea of ​​choosing a better day.According to the royal practice, choosing a good day to travel has always been the responsibility of the officials of the Qin Tianjian. This time, although the person in charge of the Qin Tianjian was not able to accompany him for some reason, there were two Qin Tianjian scholars who accompanied him; Not only that, in China in the late Qing Dynasty, most scholars knew some astrology.These two Qin Tianjian bachelors were assigned under Qingshan and Xunling respectively, and they were called out when they had anything to do.One morning, the Empress Dowager asked Li Lianying to find the two men and ordered them to calculate in person the most auspicious day to leave.After receiving the Queen Mother's order, the two immediately opened the almanac, pen and inkstone that they carried with them, and calculated very solemnly. I was standing behind the Queen Mother holding the pen and ink, and felt that such a large group of people wasted their time on such things. It's really weird and funny.When I was in the palace on weekdays, I often heard the Queen Mother mention all kinds of beautiful legends about the origin of the Manchurians. They wanted to be as far away from the imperial palace as possible. When they heard that they had the opportunity to visit Changbai Mountain, they were so excited that they couldn't sleep.Thinking of this, I suddenly realized that this incident is not funny at all. If these two people can't figure out a suitable date, wouldn't our dreams all be in vain?I couldn't help but get nervous, lest there be any bad results.If I can go to Changbai Mountain, I will definitely explore the beautiful legends handed down from the past.Among the many legends, my favorite is the story about the origin of the Manchurians. The story says:

Long, long ago, beside a small river at the foot of Changbai Mountain, there lived some families.This small river is crystal clear, and when the wind blows, it will ripple in layers. Under the sunlight, it glistens like the scales on fish.At noon in a summer, the weather was very hot. A beautiful girl came to take a bath by the stream. The hot summer made her feel an indescribable closeness to the cold river water.She swam forward while playing in the water.I don't know how long it took, a beautiful red cherry floated from the upstream, the girl looked at it for fun, picked it up and swallowed it without thinking much.This was a very common thing, so the girl naturally didn't think about it, and went home after taking a shower.Unexpectedly, not long after, the girl's belly grew bigger.Others made fun of this girl, saying that she had no sense of shame, no self-respect.As the saying goes, knowing a daughter is better than a mother. Parents know the girl's usual behavior and know that she will definitely not do anything against morality, so they didn't question their daughter too much until she gave birth.Conceived in October, the girl gave birth to a very strong little boy, who was the ancestor of all Manchurians.

No one has ever studied the authenticity of this story, but everyone is willing to believe it.According to common sense, such a thing is absurd enough to be unbelievable at all, but between the white mountains and the black waters, people's respect for supernatural phenomena has far surpassed the scope of reason.It was this strange story that attracted me, which made me no longer yearn for that magical land, and eagerly look forward to visiting it.

Based on the above reasons, I am very concerned about the every move of these two people, Qin Tianjian, lest they say something that will spoil the scenery.While watching their calculations, my heart was so nervous that it almost jumped out of my chest.The final result made me very disappointed. Their reply to the queen mother was that it was not good to travel eastward. I knew that my wish to go to Changbai Mountain was doomed to fail.They reported like this at the time: "Queen Mother, we have just calculated, and found that the travel day for good luck is [-] days later. The reason why we came to this conclusion is that we calculated it based on the date of the Queen Mother's Longevity Day. At the same time, we also took into account the astrology in the sky and the direction of the gods. We are very sure that the best day for the Empress Dowager to travel is sixteen days later, if the Empress Dowager can wait until then to set off, no matter what she does, she will succeed immediately." Listen After finishing their report, the queen mother frowned, and said after a few minutes: "In this way, we will not be able to get there in time anyway." The result was dissatisfied, and she expected to go to Changbai Mountain very much herself.Even so, she had absolutely no intention of breaking her superstitious habits.The Empress Dowager could not wait for the sixteen days.At that time, I fantasized that perhaps for some special reason, the queen mother would go east regardless of everything, but the next morning I knew that this idea was absolutely impossible to realize, because within a few days, Emperor Guangxu It is necessary to return to Beijing to preside over the ceremony of offering sacrifices to the Taimiao.

The Empress Dowager was obviously dissatisfied with Qin Tianjian's reply, but Emperor Guangxu, who was standing aside at the time, didn't think so. I could clearly see that after hearing this reply, his shoulders shook involuntarily, as if he was very willing to hear it. Similar words.According to my understanding of Emperor Guangxu, he absolutely didn't like those various sacrifices and rituals, and he would definitely escape all the rituals that he could escape when he was in the capital.In the aristocratic circle at that time, there were not many people who thought like him.The Empress Dowager made many hidden criticisms of his behavior, but Emperor Guangxu turned a deaf ear to it.

That night, Emperor Guangxu found a time to say to me: "As the emperor who manages a country, I should care about the country's major affairs and strive to make my Qing Dynasty prosperous and strong as soon as possible. How can I waste so much time on various sacrifices?" What? If I have the time, I would prefer to build a strong navy and army. I remember that when we went to the Fox Immortal Pagoda together a few days ago, the queen mother scolded you for your question. Now I want to ask you Yes, are you really willing to believe what the Empress Dowager said?" After listening to Emperor Guangxu's question, I didn't answer directly.He mentioned what happened in the Fox Immortal Pagoda a few days ago. At that time, because of my head getting hot, I almost fell into disaster. This incident has been deeply imprinted in my mind. How could I forget it?Even though I thought so, I couldn't easily express my dissatisfaction with the queen mother, so I replied lightly: "You mean that thing, the queen mother just made me kowtow a few times, if you don't say it, I'm afraid I'm already dead I forgot." Actually, I agree with Emperor Guangxu on breaking superstition, but I don't want anything bad to happen to me, so I can only answer him with such vague words.At the same time, I also asked him his opinion on these superstitious incidents. "Gods, gods, and ghosts don't exist, so of course it's unbelievable." I didn't expect Emperor Guangxu to express his opinion directly without being reserved at all.

The reason why Emperor Guangxu expressed his inner thoughts so frankly in front of me was because he knew that in this palace, apart from me, there was almost no one he could trust, not even his wife, Empress Longyu.In the past few years, Empress Longyu betrayed Emperor Guangxu many times.In this palace where everyone is in danger and no one can trust anyone, Emperor Guangxu clearly knew that I was the only one who would not betray him.It is for this reason that Emperor Guangxu was willing to have a heart-to-heart talk with me, and from him I also learned many secret events that happened to him.The story I will describe below was told to me by Emperor Guangxu himself. He said:

"Not many people know about this incident. I remember that it happened at the sacrifice ceremony of Taimiao last year. That day, because I heard some special things, I was very excited, so after visiting according to the inherent etiquette, I didn’t step down directly from the altar, but imitated Western etiquette and saluted my ancestors. I guarantee that I didn’t intend to blaspheme the ancestors at all, but I just wanted to let them see this new etiquette. At that time While saluting, I also said to show them this interesting ceremony. Except for a few eunuchs, no one else saw my action. I think, even if they saw it, there was nothing to worry about. , so I didn’t take this matter to heart.”

"After the Taimiao sacrifice, I returned to the bedroom, but an accident happened that night. Maybe the candles used during the day were not burned out. In the middle of the night, the curtains of the Taimiao caught fire. Fortunately, there were a large number of eunuchs present. The rescue did not cause a catastrophe. Although the fire was extinguished, the matter did not end there. From the next day, those superstitious little eunuchs spread the things I did that day. In their opinion, the reason why the Taimiao caught fire , It was because I respected that Western-style ceremony. This incident was widely circulated in the palace, and finally someone told Li Lianying. Naturally, Li Lianying, a slave, would not give up this golden opportunity, and soon told the queen mother about it. The queen mother immediately ordered someone to call me over and scolded me severely, saying that I should not have blasphemed my ancestors. Listening to her tone, it seems that I should be completely responsible for the fire, which is really ridiculous."

I have not been in the palace for a short time, but this is the first time I heard about it, but at that time I did not react too much, I could only use a smile as a step to let myself get off the stage smoothly.

Generally speaking, the Empress Dowager is a rather eccentric and gloomy person. No matter what she does, she always has too many worries and concerns. As a result, she will inevitably regret it in the end.The same is true for asking the people from Qin Tianjian to calculate the itinerary this time. For the Queen Mother, there are not many opportunities to go out of the palace to Baishan Heishui. If you miss this time, maybe you will never have the opportunity again in this life.

If we don't ask these two people from Qin Tianjian to calculate, maybe we will leave the next day, then she is already in the beautiful scenery of white mountains and black waters.However, the facts cannot be changed. The queen mother has already approached the people from the Qin Tianjian, and the people from the Qin Tianjian have already said those words. Even if the queen mother really wanted to go, she would not take such a big risk.

In the past two days, the Empress Dowager has been trapped in such regrets, and her troubles have had a chain reaction again, making the entire Fengtian Palace dull, and everyone is enveloped in a melancholy atmosphere.I privately suspect that the happy times won't come until we return to Beijing.In fact, there is another very important reason why the queen mother has been particularly depressed these two days, that is, today is the death day of Emperor Tongzhi.After the death of the Queen Mother's beloved son, Emperor Tongzhi, all the things he used during his lifetime were transported to Fengtian Palace. Now that the Queen Mother is in such an environment, how can she be happy?According to the practice of the Qing Dynasty royal family, sacrificial activities can only be used to worship ancestors, and Emperor Tongzhi died prematurely, before the Queen Mother, so he cannot be counted as the ancestors of the Qing Dynasty royal family. Held.Although the Queen Mother is in full power now, she doesn't want to break the rules of her ancestors.

(End of this chapter)