Me and Empress Dowager Cixi

Chapter 45 Rare Treasures (1)
According to the memories of the older eunuchs in the palace, the Empress Dowager was very beautiful when she was young. Although she is very old now, she still has a different kind of demeanor, which makes many people envious.When dressing on weekdays, the queen mother is very concerned about the decorations on her body, and she always has to choose them repeatedly, trying to make them match the clothes on her body.Since it is an ornament worn by the Queen Mother, it is naturally a rare treasure, not to mention the beautiful style, and the value is something we dare not speculate on.

Every morning, after the Queen Mother finished her grooming, four or five eunuchs brought several large boxes and put them in front of the Queen Mother, letting her choose the jewelry she liked.At the queen mother's age and position, such decorations are completely unnecessary. Even if she doesn't have any decorations on her body, no one can deny her authority and glory, but the queen mother doesn't think so, she seems to have a natural instinct for these things Hobby.I don't know how to describe the Empress Dowager's hobby, perhaps the best word is "flashy".The empress dowager's advocacy of pomp was naturally not inherited from her ancestors. The ancestors of our Manchurians never advocated luxury, but would persuade people to be frugal.Because of the empress dowager's pompous style, the silver in the inner palace was often run out, which caused many unnecessary troubles.After the morning morning, because there was nothing to do, the queen mother sat in the hall to rest, while I stood behind her and talked with her.Not long after, Li Lianying broke in almost running, knelt on the ground and said out of breath: "To the Empress Dowager, Zhang Zhidong, the governor of the two lakes, has just sent a memorial, along with a batch of As a tribute, this servant is here to ask the Queen Mother what to do." Hearing this news, the Queen Mother's face showed a layer of joy.I didn't mean to be sarcastic to the Empress Dowager, it was indeed because the expression of joy on her face was too obvious.Regardless of who the officials are, as long as someone offers a tribute, the Queen Mother will always be happy, which is very similar to the performance of a child.People who are officials in the imperial court are good at trying to figure out other people's minds, how could they not know about this hobby of the Queen Mother?In order to win the Empress Dowager's favor, these people presented a batch of tributes from time to time, of which rare jewelry was the main item, and sometimes very rare Western utensils were presented.The Empress Dowager received tributes almost every day. As time went on, even she herself might not know how many jewels and emeralds were stored in her private treasury, let alone other people.Generally speaking, those subordinate officials donated tributes regardless of the cost. In order to win the Queen Mother's favor, they also had the meaning of fighting for wealth among themselves.Seeing such a situation, I couldn't help sighing secretly: With such a group of officials, how could the Qing Dynasty's Guozuo last long?The queen mother's treasury is full of tributes from generals, governors, ministers and other officials, but not all of them are high-quality goods, and not all of them can win the favor of the queen mother. After looking at it, it was never mentioned again, and it was just dusty in the vault.The Empress Dowager has a very strong desire for jewellery, and she spends the most money on them. She will get whatever jewellery, no matter how much it costs or how many difficulties she needs to experience.If the required jewels are not in the capital, the Queen Mother will send people to search for them in various provinces until they are found. In this way, more silver taels will be spent, even to the point of immeasurable.

I think Zhang Zhidong is no stranger to everyone.At that time, he was the governor of the two lakes, an important official position, and he was a very popular figure. In addition, this person was very talented, and he was quite appreciated by Lafayette.Zhang Zhidong did many great things, for which everyone praised him, and later facts proved that he was worthy of being a first-class politician in China at that time.In fact, there is still a little relationship between Zhang Zhidong and I.When I was a child, he had not yet become the governor, but only Futai of Hubei Province.At that time, my father was appointed by the emperor to serve as the governor of Hubei Province. In addition, my hometown is in Shashi, Hubei, which is very close to Wuchang, so there were many exchanges between the two families.There are several girls in Zhang Zhidong's family who are about the same age as our two sisters. For this reason, my sister and I went there more often, almost once every two or three days.In the process of coming and going, I got to know this outstanding politician by chance, and knew that he had the habit of collecting all kinds of antique calligraphy and paintings.There are a lot of uncut jades in his family collection, these uncut jades are quite special, there are few traces of being processed, most of them are just excavated from the mountains.After Zhang Zhidong found them, he was not in a hurry to make utensils, but waited for his own leisure time to ponder slowly, and he seemed to enjoy the process very much.Although Zhang Zhidong has wives, aunts, and misses in his family, he never gave them these things. In his opinion, these things are his own treasures and should not be given away lightly.On weekdays, he polishes the large and long strips of uncut jade, and then stores them for appreciation in his spare time.

Since I had such an impression of Zhang Zhidong before, I guessed that the tribute he sent must be a few pieces of jade.In Zhang Zhidong's view, the most precious thing in the world is nothing more than jade. Gold and silver utensils are contaminated with the vulgarity of the world, and cannot be compared with clean and flawless jade.Zhang Zhidong not only likes to collect all kinds of uncut jade, but also supports several jade craftsmen in his home all the year round. If he wants to carve a piece of rough jade into a certain utensil someday, these jade craftsmen can help him easily .It takes a lot of energy and money to buy jade, and then process and polish them. It is difficult for ordinary people to afford such consumption, but for a high-ranking figure like Zhang Zhidong, it is simply a trivial matter , as long as he is willing, he can completely arrange it.

I still remember the incident when I was a child. At that time, people often sold uncut jade that had just been mined to Zhang Zhidong. After careful identification, if he liked it, he would spend money to buy it, and then took it into the jade room and handed it to the jade workers. Check it out.I was still a child at the time, so I didn't have to worry so much, and I could often walk around in his study and even the jade room.It is for this reason that I was able to see the jade polishing process.I often see a piece of rough jade about seven inches in length and width. After repeated pondering by jade workers, only a small square of two or three inches in square is left, and then only about one inch is left. This is what they call Refined jade, as for the other parts, are just waste materials, which are of no use at all.Don't underestimate that little piece, it could be worth a fortune.The jade that can be collected by Zhang Zhidong is often even in color, without even a spot, which really corresponds to the old saying "beautiful jade is flawless".

Although it was not the first time that Zhang Zhidong made a tribute to the Empress Dowager, but because the tributes he made in the past were different, the Empress Dowager couldn't figure out what he was offering this time.For this reason, the Empress Dowager immediately ordered Li Lianying: "Hurry up and bring the tribute he presented." Zhang Zhidong sent over a petty official who was not qualified to meet the Empress Dowager and could only wait outside the palace gate. He went out and brought in the brocade box in his hand, and respectfully placed it on the table in front of the Empress Dowager.The Empress Dowager's eyes were already quite hungry.What Li Lianying sent over was a small glass box, luxuriously decorated with brocade. Although small in size, it was exquisitely carved. Inside were three small glass boxes, the design and color of which were similar to those of the large glass box outside. Apparently made of the same glass.Just looking at the glass box outside, I already guessed that there must be valuables inside.

After all, the queen mother is very old and can't see clearly through the glass box, so she ordered me to open the outer glass box and show her the small glass boxes inside one by one.Inside the first small box was a pair of jade earrings, which basically matched my original guess.This pair of earrings is obviously carved from the finest jadeite, green as a perfect linden leaf, and the jade color is very even and smooth.Seeing such earrings, I dislike all the jades I owned before. They are too far behind this one to be compared at all.Not only the jade wares in my collection, but also the jade wares owned by the Empress Dowager before, absolutely none of them can compare with this one.On weekdays, the Queen Mother and I go to the treasury. Although we can see many jade wares, we have never seen anything better than this one, and there are even few jade wares similar to this one.Looking at the pair of earrings, the expression on the Empress Dowager's face became excited.The pair of earrings were about an inch wide. The queen mother carefully pinched them up to see the sunlight. The more she saw the merrier, she couldn't help but turned to me and said, "Look, this piece of emerald is so beautiful. I have never seen it before." I’ve seen better jadeite than this one. Surely you haven’t seen it before? No matter how hard you look, you can’t find a spot on it. It’s really rare.”

The queen mother is right, this piece of jade is the best.The first thing Chinese people look at when appreciating jade is purity. Only those jades with high purity and no blemishes can be called good jade.If a piece of jade is too deep here and too shallow there, it will inevitably make people feel uncomfortable.Therefore, when jade craftsmen carve jade, they usually use very delicate means to cover up those unsightly spots.People who are good at identifying jade always pursue nature. This pair of earrings is carved into a crescent shape, and there is indeed no more natural shape than it.The queen mother couldn't stop admiring.Honestly, I love these earrings too and would love to wear them myself, but it's definitely delusional.If the Empress Dowager doesn't like this, she might give it to me, but now that she likes this pair of earrings so much, how can she give it to me? "Queen Mother, since you like these earrings so much, why don't you wear them to see the effect?" I suggested to Queen Mother.The queen mother is already very excited at this time, and others will definitely find it funny when they see her expression.She followed my advice and ordered Li Lianying to fetch the full-length mirror.

(End of this chapter)