Chapter 62 The fourth personal life anecdote

Chapter One To enjoy a wide range of luxury homes Li Lianying has been favored by the Empress Dowager Cixi all his life, and he also used this to sell officials and nobles, embezzle and accept bribes, and the proceeds are incalculable.The Empress Dowager Cixi also often asked him to take charge of some oily and watery projects.As the director of the construction of the Summer Palace alone, he embezzled materials from it to build a three-entry courtyard house for himself in Caihefang, Haidian, and he also made hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.At the same time, as long as he is a high-ranking official from other provinces who comes to Beijing, he must be given generous gifts, otherwise let alone doing business, I am afraid that even Cixi will not be able to see her face.Except for Yikuang, Prince of Qing, the amount of his property is unmatched by the princes and ministers of Beijing and China.

Li Lianying usually has many ways to earn money, and his accountant only knows the floating wealth on the books, and the number of jewels and company stocks that are more valuable than gold and silver cannot be counted.Lin Bingchen once worked as a clerk for Li Lianying's family, and his main task was to drive the carriage.Not the usual manned, but specially responsible for pulling money.He has been in Li's residence for more than 20 years, and he has never done any work. He just pulls money every day, which is really surprising. This shows the speed at which Li Lianying accumulated wealth.

No matter how big Li Lianying's house is, every house cannot be filled with boxes full of gold and silver.So he used the gold and silver to build two houses, one in Beijing and one in Lijia Village, Dacheng County.After Li Lianying's parents moved to Beijing, they first bought a house in the Wine and Vinegar Bureau, but later found it too small, so they bought another house and built a new one.In addition, there are many places.In 1901, Li Lianying returned to Beijing with the Empress Dowager Cixi after finishing her stay in Xi'an, and bought a prince's mansion in Gongxian Hutong.Since it used to be the residence of the prince, it is the largest here. In addition to the hall and bedroom, there is also a garden.The descendants of the Li family once said that the main reason why the prince was eager to sell this place was that the prince who lived here threw two carts of gold into the well in the garden before fleeing westward with Cixi in 1900. Inside, after returning, they immediately sent people to salvage, but nothing was found.From then on, the prince became more suspicious, thinking that gold would run away by itself only when a person was about to lose his fortune.In fact, the gold was stolen when the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing.But the prince still felt that it was not suitable to live here anymore, so he decided to sell the palace to Li Lianying.After Li Lianying moved in, she also wanted to look for it, but unfortunately there was still no result, which shows Li Lianying's greed for money.

Li Lianying's residences in Beijing are often large in scale and quite luxurious.Since Li Lianying considered the long-term, she had already made two-handed preparations.Once Cixi passed away and she fell out of favor, she also had a way out.Therefore, in addition to so many houses in Beijing, a manor was built in his hometown in Lijia Village, Dacheng County.The manor in Li Lianying's hometown was very magnificent at that time.Later, it was destroyed one after another in the War of Resistance Against Japan and the War of Liberation. There are more than 230 houses in this manor. All the buildings are centered on the middle road, with two roads on the east side and two roads on the west side.At the same time, there are special houses for servants and long-term workers, and the front row of the middle road is the account room.The entire building adopts a courtyard layout, all of which are blue brick and tile houses, and the bricks are ground to the joints, and the bricks are polished very carefully.Moreover, all the mud openings are glued with glutinous rice paste and lime, and all underground stones are used as foundations.

The entire building is very tall, with a porch in the front and a mansion in the back, bright pillars standing on top, and the doors and windows are all in a festive red color.The courtyard is decorated with exotic flowers and plants, which is very beautiful.Even the gates to the east and west are specially designed according to the directions of the gossip.Several gates are connected together in a symmetrical layout. In such a big house, every time night falls, the gate is bolted, and the courtyard is always brightly lit.It does not necessarily have to be lit, but it is necessary to put on this gesture to show the dignity and uniqueness of the owner.The personnel who guard the nursing home at night can go to the roof and look around.Outside the entire courtyard, there is an earth fence around it. On each corner, there is a gun tower with an earth cannon inside, which further shows that the identity of the owner is different.The young and old of the Li family went up and down, either busy or leisurely to spend the day, and then fell asleep peacefully under the protection of these nursing staff.

In addition, in order to maintain a close connection with the capital, the manor specially raised dozens of famous horses and mules, all of them fat and strong.The saddle and bridle sets are also different, with gorgeous colors, yellow and orange stirrups, and bright red mattress covers, which are dazzling and dazzling, showing the noble status of the owner everywhere.In order to facilitate the travel of the female family members, there are seven or eight small cars in stock, with single, yarn, sleeve, cotton and leather wraps in four seasons, which are replaced in time as the weather changes.

For such a large house to maintain its operation, at least a large number of manual laborers must be employed.Among them, there are servants, servants, maids, cooks, tailors, etc., and daily attendants, plus long-term workers, eagle-feeding handles, flower-growing masters, and purchasers, etc., a total of sixty or seventy people.In addition, the big manager manages housework, the accountant manages the money in and out, and the porter is in charge of guarding the door and welcoming guests.The master and young master in the manor went to Beijing to go to Wei (referring to Tianjin), like a shuttle.

Li Lianying devoted a lot of effort to this house, mainly to solve her worries.Before the 23rd year of Guangxu (1897), the owner of the estate was Li Lianying's fourth brother Li Shengtai.After Li Shengtai's death, his son Li Fusi (nicknamed "Three Belly") came to take care of him. Because Li Lianying is powerful and powerful in the capital, those housekeepers and nurses also use their power to bully their neighbors at will.Among them, Li Shuren, the grandson of Li Lianying, is even more famous. People gave him the nickname "Bad Bag".From the name, you can hear his image in the eyes of the neighbors.

The members of the manor, large and small, have an average of three to four people to serve them.All day delicacies from mountains and seas, grand banquets, and even the three treasures of Dacheng County that people often say, such as shochu and mule meat, are extremely ordinary things in the eyes of the Li family, which shows the luxury and corruption of their lives. . Li Lianying bought a total of 210 hectares of land in his hometown, and Li Lianying asked his own people to take care of these tenants for him.The people of the tribe also rely on Li Lianying's land for food. These people live on Zhuangzi and mainly rely on tenants to support them.Therefore, the tenants have to give half of the grain they earn from their hard work and sweat for a year to the Li family.Every year in summer and autumn, the tenants line up in a long line to deliver things to the Li family, which is an unprecedented event.

They also often eat the interest of the tenants. In every disaster year, the harvest drops sharply, and the tenants cannot pay the rent, so they have to borrow money from the Li family. "Li's Family Tree" records that at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Li Lianying's family was already a big family of sixty or seventy people with several generations of grandparents.Li Lianying's heirs are full of children and grandchildren. They often live in the manor of their hometown for a period of time, and occasionally go to Tianjin to play.In short, from Beijing to Dacheng, from Dacheng to Beijing and Tianjin, most of the imposing marching teams are from the Li family.Within a few hundred miles from Tianjin to the big city, it has become the Li family's world. Don't say that some ordinary people are intimidated, even the small and medium-sized bureaucratic landlords and local squires will be courteous when they see it.

The people in the manor are all so-called golden branches and jade leaves, famous families and nobles, and when choosing a marriage spouse, one must choose some well-matched families.Because of Li Lianying's big signboard and big backing, the famous big families around are all in-laws of the Li family. The sons and young masters of the Li family are also idlers, with no strength to restrain a chicken, and no motivation to study. They are mostly sons and brothers who carry cages and walk birds. After Li Lianying was fifty years old, she often asked Empress Dowager Cixi for leave and returned to the manor to live for a while.It's not that the palace is inconvenient, but it's to let the world understand his position in front of the Empress Dowager Cixi.Every time I go home there is a lot of ostentation, and I often change the means of transportation, just to let different people see Li Lianying's ostentation.Every trip is surrounded by front and back, majestic and majestic, full of atmosphere.Later, Jinpu Road was opened to traffic, and Li Lianying took the train back home. Once, Li Lianying's team got off the train at Machang, changed to a car, and when they walked to Caizhuang to cross the canal, the officers and soldiers deliberately cleared the field to make way for Li Lianying to cross the river.After Li Lianying knew the truth of the matter, she specially paid for the construction of a big boat, which could carry more people across the river at one time. Every time Li Lianying went back to her hometown's manor, she always made a lot of small silver boxes in Beijing in advance.Whenever he took a walk in the village, he asked a few young eunuchs to carry money on their backs and put some small silver locks on them so that they could be distributed to the villagers at any time.When Li Lianying walked down the street, no matter men, women or children, as long as he took the initiative to say hello to him and called him Second Lord, Li Lianying ordered the little eunuch to reward him with a Yin Kaizi as soon as Li Lianying was happy.Not only that, as long as the villagers came to Li's mansion to visit him, they would all host a banquet and return the money before leaving. Li Lianying's encouragement measures created a prosperous scene where many acquaintances came to visit every time he went home. Although most of them were there to join in the fun and seek money, at least it ensured that Li Lianying's family was prosperous and Li Lianying's face was guaranteed. At home, Li Lianying doesn't have to worry as much as she did in Beijing. She often bluntly says that she is a person under one person and above ten thousand people.He also said that he would treat the villagers with generosity and kindness, and hoped that his descendants would not forget him. The manor of Li Lianying's hometown changed with the honor and disgrace of Li Lianying alone.After the death of Li Lianying in February of the third year of Xuantong (1911), the huge Li family manor immediately lost its source of income. Since then, it has gone from bad to worse. The lively scene of the past has disappeared, and the family has also begun to tighten their pockets. Finally, in New China It completely collapsed before its establishment.