Chapter 26 Everything will be empty

When people get old, it is easy to recall the past, and Li Lianying misses the days with the Empress Dowager Cixi, reminiscing about the glory of the year.However, for Li Lianying, who has been in power all her life, the general situation is over after all.When he often thinks of the scene where he accompanied the Empress Dowager Cixi to show power and do whatever he wants, why doesn't he have mixed feelings and thoughts?Sometimes he frowns and is restless; sometimes he is listless, exhausted, and lifeless.In addition, there were rumors in the society that Li Lianying personally organized the death of Guangxu, and Li Lianying became very frightened and uneasy when these things spread to Li Lianying's ears.

Several heirs of Li Lianying saw this scene and knew that his death was approaching, so they immediately built a tomb for him.According to one of his fellow eunuchs surnamed Wang, Li Lianying bought more than two acres of land outside Deshengmen to build a tomb for himself.It took one year to build the tomb and cost five to sixty thousand taels of silver.However, Li Lianying did not dare to be buried in this cemetery after his death. In the first month of the third year of Xuantong (1911), Li Lianying, who was terminally ill, felt that it was difficult to cure her, and she was afraid that she would die soon.So, he summoned his heirs and brothers to the bedside, with a sad expression, and counted his life again, how he made a fortune during the period, how he made a fortune, and how he was promoted to the chief executive, and counted them one by one.He also repeatedly told them to manage their household carefully to prevent their financial resources from drying up.Not only that, but he kept his family on the lookout for turbulent times so they could adapt.Because once the revolutionaries launch a riot, discipline will be completely lost, so we must be fully prepared.

In the end, he also made arrangements for the major events behind him: do not park the coffin for a long time, do not act rashly in matters such as funerals, and everything must follow the arrangement of the court. Please allow the Empress Dowager Longyu to make a decision. I can not imagine.In addition, he also made a list of the deposits in each bank and gold store and the inventory at home, and immediately distributed them to everyone for their own storage.According to the descendants of the Li family, except for Li Lianying's four heirs who each received 400,000 taels of silver, each of the other houses received at least 200,000 taels of silver, and a total of 3.4 million taels of silver was distributed.

Li Lianying herself said before her death that there are more than three million taels of silver and two boxes of jewels in the palace. This money should not be taken anymore, as it does not belong to the Li family, otherwise it will be burned.Sure enough, after Li Lianying's death, several eunuchs who knew about it in the palace attempted to privately divide Li Lianying's property, and the chief eunuch Xiao De Zhang secretly reported it to Queen Mother Longyu.Empress Dowager Longyu took the property as her own and killed all the eunuchs involved. On the fourth day of February in the third year of Xuantong (1911), Li Lianying finally died amidst the ravings of Empress Dowager Cixi.After Li Lianying's death, his brothers and heirs complied with his will and wrote a memorial to the palace after his eldest son Li Chengwu convened the brothers for discussion, requesting the Empress Dowager Longyu to decree the funeral.On the sixth day of February, the Empress Dowager Longyu issued a decree, according to the family law of the ancestors, all eunuchs of high grade were given tombs to be buried in the grand duke of Enji Village in the western suburbs, and an altar and one thousand taels of funeral silver were given.

After receiving the decree, the Li family immediately arranged the funeral date and funeral, and then invited the Empress Dowager Longyu, and the funeral was treated as a national hero.In this way, the standard of the funeral was immediately raised.Although the national treasury is tight, it is impossible to send money to the Li family.But in fact, what the Li family wants is this reputation, and they are not short of money.Because of the will of Empress Dowager Longyu, the Li family dared to extravagant.The funeral news was distributed to various places inside and outside the capital, and ministers who were friendly during his lifetime and ministers of the DPRK and China all came to express their condolences.The filial sons and grandsons of the Li family, dressed in linen and filial piety, fell before the spirit.Yuan Shikai, who retired to Zhangde Mansion (Anyang), also ordered his eldest son Yuan Keding to come to Beijing Fuling to express his condolences in the name of his nephew.The funeral was grand and cost tens of thousands. It was not until the fourth day of March that Li Lianying's coffin was sent to the Grand Duke of Enjizhuang for burial.

In order to ensure the firmness of the cemetery, the top of Li Lianying's tomb was grouted with sand, lime, loess, protein and glutinous rice soup.It is said that in those days, all the eggs in the villages within a ten-mile radius of this place were bought up, which was not enough for use, while the egg yolks were thrown everywhere. The entire project of Li Lianying's cemetery includes building stone bridges in the tomb, erecting archways, repairing stele pavilions, erecting tombstones, building ancestral halls, and building courtyard walls. It took more than a year and cost more than 20,000 taels of silver.During this period, Li Chengwu also mobilized hundreds of imperial guards, fully armed, to guard day and night.After the project was completed, a poor local farmer named Sun Baoxiang was hired for a long time to guard Li Lianying's tomb.

In 1931, after Li Lianying's brother and sister-in-law died of illness, the family built a fake tomb for Li Lianying in the ancestral grave.Inside the tomb is a specially made silver figure of about one foot, which can be regarded as Li Lianying's stand-in, and is put into the coffin.Counting back and forth, Li Lianying has three cemeteries, namely the real tomb (Enjizhuang), the suspected tomb (outside Deshengmen) and the false tomb (hometown). Li Rui, a descendant of Li Lianying, described that the entire Enjizhuang tomb is surrounded by tall stone walls, and there is a tall gate tower to the south. Most of the eunuchs with more than one leader have epitaphs, but the scale is not large. Coupled with the age, many of them have already been overgrown with thorns and are very desolate.Li Lianying's tomb is intact and magnificent.There is also Li Lianying's ancestral hall on the east side of Guandi Temple, which is also very large.Among them, there are five rooms in the north and three rooms in the east and west rooms.There is a portrait of Li Lianying hanging in the ancestral hall, and everything is normal.

In October of that year after Li Lianying's death, the Wuchang Uprising broke out, ending the Qing Dynasty's more than 200 years of rule, and establishing the Republic of China. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Li Lianying's descendants could not continue to enjoy generous salaries, and most of the descendants carried cages to walk birds, doing nothing, and their family fortune gradually declined.Life in the hometown manor has plummeted even more.But after all, a lean camel is bigger than a horse, and around the tenth year of the Republic of China (1921), it was still able to maintain the style of a powerful family.However, in the end, due to excessive profligacy, it is difficult to maintain life.During the Zhifeng War in 1922, the whole family had to flee to Tianjin.At that time, they couldn't bear to live in poverty, and they had no source of income to maintain their former rich life, so they had to pawn the rare items at home in exchange for money.The first is to sell clothes, furniture, cloth, and satin.Later, even complete sets of tables, chairs, benches, screens, etc. were sold.It is said that some furniture was given by the Empress Dowager Cixi as a dowry to Li Lianying's sister, which is quite precious.After the money from the sale was used up, they sold the land. Before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, the Li family's land and property had been sold out.

Around 1940, most of the mansions in Beijing that Li Lianying painstakingly built had been sold or pawned off.In 1940 alone, old properties such as Hougongkuzhaiyuan, Xinyuan Bathhouse and Tangzi Hutong Cobbler Shop outside Xizhimen were sold.By the eve of the liberation of Beijing, the four so-called Li families in Beijing that had flourished for a while had completely disappeared in name only.