Chapter 70 be kind to others

In order to maintain her position of monopolizing power, Cixi once wanted to imitate Empress Lu of the Han Dynasty and Wu Zetian of the Tang Dynasty, and conspired to abolish Emperor Guangxu; emperor.So they each recruited some princes, courtiers and people in the field, and secretly competed.During the Guangxu period, the open and secret struggle between the Empress Dowager Cixi's group and the Guangxu imperial party has never stopped. After the "Treaty of Shimonoseki" was signed, the whole country was shocked by it, accusing the imperial court of corruption and incompetence.Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao wrote the Wanyan Letter of the Shang Emperor, and put forward proposals for refusing peace, moving the capital, and reforms, which caused great repercussions for a while, and it is known as the Gongche Letter in history.

Later, Kang Youwei contacted a group of imperial party officials and established the Strong Society. Liang Qichao, Yuan Shikai, Xu Shichang, Yang Rui, Zhang Quan (the son of Zhang Zhidong) and others were also members, as well as senior imperial party officials Weng Tonghe, Sun Jianai, Li Hongzao, and Wang Wenshao , Liu Kunyi, Zhang Zhidong and other political figures have come forward to sponsor the Strong Society. Li Hongzhang has always advocated political reform. Since the Westernization Movement, he has personally practiced political reform, but his original ideas were not as thorough and bold as those of Kang and Liang.So Li Hongzhang really wanted to get acquainted with this group of people with more radical ideas. When the Qiang Society was first established, he asked someone to tell Kang Youwei that he was willing to pay 3,000 taels of silver to join the society. It was supported by the imperial party, so his request was mercilessly rejected.

Two years later, the Caozhou religious incident occurred in Shandong, and Germany took the opportunity to invade and occupy Jiaozhou Bay, followed by Russia occupying Lushun and Dalian, France occupying Guangzhou Bay, Britain occupying Shandong Weihai, and requesting the expansion of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories.A series of naked intrusions by bandits ruthlessly sounded the alarm to the Qing Dynasty again.For a time, people from all walks of life across the country, including the reformers, demanded that the Qing government implement reforms and self-improvement. Empress Dowager Cixi had no choice but to agree to Emperor Guangxu's reform of the government.

At the beginning of the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898), the imperial court sent Li Hongzhang, Rong Lu, Weng Tongjian and other important officials to summon Kang Youwei to inquire about the reform.After several months of deliberation, Emperor Guangxu promulgated the "Decree on Ding Guo Shi", expressing his determination to change the system, and the Hundred Days Reform began. However, the ultimate goal of the reformers is to implement a constitutional monarchy, which is actually a redistribution of power. Naturally, this reform will be resisted by conservatives from the very beginning.Ronglu, the minister of Beiyang and the governor of Zhili, was the leader of the conservative faction, while the Empress Dowager Cixi was the backstage of the conservative faction.

In order to obtain real imperial power through reforms, Emperor Guangxu summoned Yuan Shikai, who was in command of the new Beiyang army, in the Summer Palace, and then sent Tan Sitong to secretly order him to prepare troops to serve the king, kill Rong Lu, and surround the Summer Palace where Empress Dowager Cixi lived.Unexpectedly, Yuan Shikai reported this secret decree to Ronglu. When the Empress Dowager Cixi learned about it, she was very angry, and immediately ordered Emperor Guangxu to be imprisoned, abolished the New Deal, announced a new political training, and arrested the reformers.The reform movement, which lasted for 103 days, died in this way, and Tan Sitong and the six gentlemen of 1898 were killed.

Although the reformers looked down on Li Hongzhang, after the 1898 coup, Cixi hunted and killed the reformers and attacked the imperial party group, but Li Hongzhang sympathized with these failed people and tried his best to protect and rescue them. After Emperor Guangxu was imprisoned, Zhang Yuanji, who was then the prime minister's yamen Zhang Jing, went to see Li Hongzhang and said: "Master Zhongtang, you are an important minister of the country. Today, the queen mother and the emperor are at odds. You should stand up and mediate."Li Hongzhang saw that the young man spoke very innocently, so he politely replied: You child, you don't know the danger, you should make plans early.Zhang Yuanji was a Jinshi in the eighteenth year of Guangxu (1892). He was summoned by Emperor Guangxu during the Reform Movement of 1898, so he was suspected of the imperial party, and he was dismissed after the coup.

After Zhang Yuanji was dismissed, Li Hongzhang sent his assistant Yu Shimei to comfort the young man.After Yu Shimei found Zhang Yuanji, he asked, "Li Zhongtang asked me to ask about your situation. What are your plans for the future?"Zhang Yuanji told him that he wanted to go to Shanghai to make a living.A few days later, Yu Shimei went to Zhang Yuanji again and said: Li Zhongtang has made arrangements for you. You can find Sheng Xuanhuai when you go to Shanghai. Someone will welcome you when you arrive. After Zhang Yuanji arrived in Shanghai, he really got help from Sheng Xuanhuai. Later, he presided over the Commercial Press and became a major publisher in modern China.

After the reform reform failed, although Kang Youwei and others fled to Japan, the Empress Dowager Cixi still tried every means to hunt down and kill the remnants of the Reform Party.Li Hongzhang defended Kang and Liang in front of Cixi many times. After talking with Japanese Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito, he felt that the reform reform that Kang Youwei and his group wanted to implement was exactly what he wanted to do but could not do. After arriving in Guangdong, the Empress Dowager Cixi urged Li Hongzhang to try to assassinate Kang and Liang, but Li Hongzhang refused to do so.For this, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao were very grateful. They also wrote to Li Hongzhang, calling him the comrade of the reform.