Chapter 1 My Family The life of a prince In 1906 AD, that is, the fourteenth day of the first lunar month in the thirty-second year of the Guangxu reign of the Qing Dynasty, I was born in Chunwang Mansion in Beijing.My grandfather, Yixuan, was the seventh son of Emperor Daoguang. He was named Prince of Junxian at the beginning, and later Prince of Jin Dynasty.My father, Zaifeng, was the fifth son of my grandfather. Because the first, third, and fourth sons died early, and the second son, Zaitian, was taken into the palace by his aunt, Empress Dowager Cixi, and became emperor (that is, Emperor Guangxu), so my grandfather After his death, his father took over the prince.I am the eldest son of the second generation Alcohol King.On October 20th of the lunar calendar when I was three years old, the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu were dying of illness. Cixi suddenly decided to make me the heir emperor and inherit Tongzhi (Zaichun, Cixi's biological son, Zaitian's cousin), and concurrently Guangxu.Within two days after I entered the palace, Guangxu and Cixi passed away one after another.On the ninth day of November, I became emperor, the tenth and last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, named Xuantong.In less than three years, the Revolution of 1911 broke out, and I abdicated.

My memory begins when I abdicated.But to describe the first half of my life, if I start with my grandfather and my hometown, Chunwangfu, things will be clearer. Chun Wangfu once occupied three places in Beijing.In the tenth year of Xianfeng, the 19-year-old Chunjun Wang Yixuan was ordered to marry the younger sister of Yigui Concubine Yehenala, and he was given a residence in the east bank of Taiping Lake in Xuanwumen, which is now The seat of the Central Conservatory of Music.This is the first Palace of Alcohol.Later, Zaitian became the emperor. According to the Yongzheng Dynasty, the birthplace of the emperor (also known as Qianlong Mansion) must be upgraded to a palace, or it must be free, or it should be upgraded to Lama Temple in imitation of Yongwang Mansion (the place where Emperor Yongzheng lived before he came to the throne). The way to change it into a temple to worship Bodhisattvas.In order to vacate this Qianlong mansion, the Empress Dowager Cixi rewarded her grandfather with a beizi mansion [1] in Shichahouhai, and allocated 160,000 taels of silver for further repairs.This is the second Prince Chun's Mansion, which is also known as the North Mansion by some people.After I became emperor, my father became the regent of the country, which added another reason to move than before, so Empress Dowager Longyu (the empress of Guangxu, the niece of Empress Dowager Cixi and my grandmother) decided to build a brand new one for my father. Wangfu, the address of the third residence was selected in the area of ​​Ziguang Pavilion, Sanhai Jilingyuan, Xiyuan.At the time of building construction, the Wuchang Uprising set off a revolutionary storm, so the family history of Prince Chun's mansion of three repairs, Qianlong twice, and regent of one dynasty came to an end along with the history of the Qing Dynasty.

In the last and darkest years of the Qing Dynasty, the Chunwang family served as loyal servants to the Empress Dowager Cixi for half a century.My grandfather gave her his life's devotion even more. My grandfather was born in the 22nd year of Daoguang and died in the 16th year of Guangxu.Looking at the imperial family tree, it can be seen that during the eleven years of his elder brother Emperor Xianfeng's reign, Yizhen, the Prince of Chunxian, did not receive any kindness, except that he was granted the title of King of Chun County when he was ten years old because of Xianfeng's ascension to the throne. However, in the six months after Emperor Xianfeng's death, that is, in the few months when the title of Empress Dowager Cixi first appeared, he suddenly won a lot of titles one after another: Zhenghuang Banner Hanjun Commander, Zhenghuang Banner Leader of the Guards Ministers, imperial ministers, and rear ministers manage Shanpu camp affairs, act as Fengchenyuan affairs, manage Zhenghuang Banner new and old barracks affairs, manage musketeer camp affairs, and manage Shenji camp affairs.This year, he was only twenty-one years old.For a twenty-one-year-old young man to gain such a big limelight, of course it is because his wife's sister became the empress dowager.But that's not quite the case either.I heard such a story when I was very young.One day when the palace was performing in the last scene of the murder case, the young sixth uncle Zaixun saw Chen Shimei being bloodied by Bao Longtu, and was so frightened that he sat on the ground crying. My grandfather immediately shouted in public with a stern voice: "It's too shameful." !I think I took Sushun with my own hands when I was 21 years old. Like you, can you still take on the important affairs of the country in the future?It turned out that the matter of Na Sushun was the real starting point for his success.

This happened in 1861.The second Opium War ended with a humiliating peace agreement. Before his death, Emperor Xianfeng, who fled to Rehe, summoned three imperial ministers and five military ministers who had fled with him, and established his six-year-old son Zai Chun. As the crown prince, and appointed these eight ministers as ministers of state affairs.The next day, Emperor Xianfeng died, and the eight ministers of King Gu Ming, according to his will, supported Zaichun to take the throne, named him Qixiang, and held the government in their hands at the same time. The eight ministers of King Gu Ming are Zaiyuan, Prince Yi, Duanhua, Prince Zheng, Sushun, Shangshu Sushun, the co-organizer of the university, and Jingshou, Mu Yin, Kuangyuan, Duhan, and Jiao Youying, ministers of military aircraft. Among them, the two hold real power. The prince and a co-organizer, and Sushun is the master of it.Sushun was highly regarded in the Xianfeng Dynasty. It is said that he was good at recruiting talents. Later, Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang, the Han landlords who helped the Qing court suppress the Taiping Revolution, were recommended and promoted by him.Because he reused the Han people, the nobles were extremely jealous of him.Some people say that when the Taiping Army was at its most powerful, even bribery and extortion were only targeted at bannermen [2].He also said that he was vicious and cruel, domineering and domineering, and treated dissidents viciously, so that internal and external grievances and internal and external grievances were planted.In fact, the most fundamental reason for Sushun's murder was that his group was incompatible with the newly formed faction at that time. In other words, they did not understand Prince Gong who was making connections with foreigners in Beijing. , At this time there is already some strength.

Prince Gong Yixin [3] was not a proud figure in the Xianfeng Dynasty.Xianfeng left Yixin in Beijing to negotiate a peace, but this hard work gave Yixin luck. Yixin held a peace negotiation with the British and French forces on behalf of the Qing government, and accepted the unprecedented Beijing treaty that humiliated the country and was appreciated by foreigners. .This uncle, who was supported by foreigners, was naturally unwilling to be under Sushun and his group, coupled with the instigation of princes and ministers who had always hated Sushun, Prince Gong was eager to try.At this moment, someone suddenly secretly brought the decrees of the two empress dowagers from the Rehe Palace.

One of the two empress dowagers was Niu Hulu, the empress of Xianfeng, who was later called Ci'an, also known as the Eastern Empress Dowager, and the other was Cixi, also known as the Western Empress Dowager.The Empress Dowager West was originally a court lady, but she was promoted to a noble concubine because of her pregnancy. Her son Zaichun was Xianfeng's only son, and later became an emperor.I don't know how it was arranged, when she just became the empress dowager, a censor asked the two empress dowagers to listen to the government behind the curtain.This idea was vehemently refuted by Sushun and others, saying that there was no precedent in this dynasty.To the Empress Dowager Ci'an, who had no ambitions, this incident didn't matter, but Cixi had a deep hatred in her heart.First of all, she convinced the Empress Dowager Ci'an that those ministers who had ulterior motives were plotting against the law, and then she obtained Ci'an's consent to secretly send a letter to Prince Gong, summoning him to the Rehe Li Palace to discuss countermeasures.At that time, in order to consolidate the vested forces, Sushun and others tried various methods to guard against Prince Gong in Beijing and the Queen Mother in Li Palace.There are various legends about how the queen mothers avoided the eyes and ears of Sushun and others to get in touch with Prince Gong.Some people say that the Empress Dowager’s Yizhi was secretly brought to Beijing by a cook, while others said that Cixi publicly beat up her confidant eunuch An Dehai first, and then ordered him to be sent to Beijing’s inner court for processing. Yizhi was called An Dehai in this way Arrived in Beijing.In short, the decree was in the hands of Prince Gong.After Prince Gong received the letter, he immediately sent a memorial and asked to see the emperor.Sushun and the others blocked him with an edict of heavy responsibility to stay behind, but failed to stop him.Sushun tried to prevent him from meeting the empress dowagers with the unreasonable etiquette of uncles and sisters-in-law, but it still failed.Regarding the meeting between Prince Gong and the Queen Mother, there were many legends later on. Some said that Prince Gong went in disguised as a shaman [4], and some said that Prince Gong directly sent Sushun to the army, saying that it was inappropriate for uncles and sisters-in-law to meet.I just ask you to be present and monitor. Sushun couldn't help but stop blocking him.There is another theory that when Prince Gong paid homage to Xianfeng's spiritual throne, Empress Dowager Cixi asked An Dehai to give Prince Gong a bowl of noodles to eat. Under the bowl was hidden a decree written by Cixi to Yixin.In short, no matter which legend is reliable, anyway, Prince Gong and the Queen Mothers have discussed everything.As a result, the empress dowagers returned to Beijing, Feng Yixin was appointed as the king of politics, all eight ministers of King Gu Ming were arrested, two princes committed suicide, Sushun beheaded, and the rest were exiled and imprisoned.Zaichun's year name was also changed to Tongzhi, which means that the two empress dowagers governed together.From then on, the history of the Empress Dowager listening to politics behind a curtain in the forty-seven years of the two generations of Tongguang began.My grandfather's meritorious service in this coup was to arrest Sushun who escorted Zigong [5] back to Beijing in Banbidian for Cixi.My grandfather thus acquired the aforementioned string of titles.

After that, in the third year of Tongzhi, Yizhen was awarded the honor of adding the title of prince, and in the eleventh year of Tongzhi, he was officially promoted to the title of prince.In the thirteenth year of Tongzhi, Emperor Tongzhi passed away, and Emperor Guangxu came to the throne. He was also granted the title of hereditary prince, which means that the descendants inherit the king's title from generation to generation, and do not have to descend as usual.In the Guangxu Dynasty, Prince Gong fell out of favor several times, but the grace received by Prince Chun has never ceased to be the most prominent in the world.

I have seen a lot of family mottos written by my grandfather in Chunwang's mansion, including couplets and banners, which are hung in the rooms of various children and grandchildren.There is a pair of couplets: Fu Lu increases Fu Lu repeatedly, and the blessings are received from generation to generation.At the time it seemed to me that my grandfather seemed content.But now I have a different opinion, and I even think that the act of watching a play and admonishing the son mentioned earlier has other motives for my grandfather. If the 21-year-old Prince Chun lacks experience, then Prince Chun, who has experienced the Tongzhi Dynasty for 13 years, should have enough insight.Especially regarding the death of Emperor Tongzhi, Prince Chun, as a member of the clan, knew more details and had a deeper feeling than outsiders.

In the unofficial history and the Romance, Tongzhi died of the disease of willow, and as far as I heard, Tongzhi died of smallpox (also recorded in Weng Tonghe's diary).It stands to reason that smallpox is not a fatal disease, but Tongzhi was stimulated during the illness, so he developed acne lesions, and died without rescue.It is said that the story goes like this: One day the queen of Tongzhi went to the Hall of Mental Cultivation to visit her sick, and she talked about what her mother-in-law scolded her for in front of Tongzhi's bed, and wept uncontrollably.Tongzhi persuaded her to endure, saying that there will be a bright future in the future.Cixi didn't like this daughter-in-law in the first place, and set up surveillance eyes and ears for her son and daughter-in-law.That day, she heard that the Queen was visiting Tongzhi, so she went to the East Nuan Pavilion of the Hall of Mental Cultivation and eavesdropped on the conversation between her son and his wife.The young couple never expected that a few private words would lead to catastrophe. Cixi rushed in angrily, grabbed the queen by the hair, beat her hard, and asked the inner court to prepare a staff to serve her.Tongzhi fainted from fright, so Cixi did not torture the queen.When Tongzhi died, Cixi put all the responsibility on the empress's head and ordered to restrict the empress's diet.Two months later, the queen was tortured to death.After the queen's death, Cixi's anger still persisted, and she removed the queen's father, Chongqi, from the position of servant.In the second year, there was an eventful imperial censor who made a memorial, saying that there were many legends outside, some said that the empress died of excessive grief, some said that she died of sheer millet, in short, Jie Lie was like this, and should be commended and bestowed with a beautiful posthumous title and so on.As a result, the queen's posthumous title was not won, and the censor lost his official position.

Before Tongzhi's death, it was an open secret that Cixi Tongzhi's mother and son were at odds.When I was in the Forbidden City, I heard the old eunuch say that Tongzhi greeted the Empress Dowager Dong, and stayed to talk for a while, but he couldn't even say a word when he was with his biological mother.When Tongzhi was in power, Cixi's cronies in the court had already formed, and the Eastern Empress Dowager never asked questions; if the emperor did not ask the Western Empress Dowager first, it would not work at all.This is the real reason for the discord between mother and child.Cixi is a person with a strong desire for power, and she is never willing to give up any power she has.For her, the so-called three cardinal guides and five constant rules and the ancestral legal system can only be used to adapt to herself, and she must not be bound by it.In order to maintain one's own authority and dignity, all close relatives, relatives, and internal officials will prosper if they follow me, and those who oppose me will perish.The death of Empress Tongzhi can be said to be a further exposure of Cixi's face.If my grandfather hadn't seen it very clearly, he would never have been scared out of his wits when he heard that his son was being asked to be emperor.Weng Tonghe, who participated in the imperial meeting, wrote in his diary that as soon as Cixi announced that Zaitian was the heir, my grandfather kowtowed and cried, fell unconscious and couldn't get up.

According to the ancestral system, if the emperor has no heirs, he should choose the crown prince from the juniors in the immediate branch.After Zai Chun's death, it is natural to choose a Pu family, but in that case, Cixi will become the empress dowager, and it will be impossible to listen to politics behind the curtain.Therefore, she did not give her son an heir, but took her nephew to be her son.At that time, there was a censor named Wu Kedu, who admonished Tongzhi to fight for heir with the corpse, but it didn't change her mind.She just made a wish, saying that when the new emperor had a son, he would adopt him to Tongzhi.A descendant who attended a bachelor’s degree and was also a family friend of my family relayed to me the situation of the imperial meeting, saying that the Eastern Empress Dowager was not present that day, only the Western Empress Dowager was there. She said to the kneeling princes and ministers: My sister and I have already negotiated to choose an older one, but we are also unwilling.Even the Empress Dowager, who was the only one who could control her a little, didn't come out to express her opinion. Others naturally understood that it was useless to remonstrate with her corpse or to cry in a coma. Since then, there have been interesting accounts of my grandfather's experience.On the one hand, Empress Dowager Cixi bestowed favors and honors on the one hand, and on the other hand, it was the grandfather who thanked him many times.The year Guangxu entered the palace, he resigned from all official positions.The grace of the prince's hereditary replacement was accepted only when he could not speak clearly.For the next few years, his only job was to take care of the emperor's studies.He worked hard and fearfully, so Cixi rewarded him with a prince's double salary and a four-person sedan chair in the Forbidden City.Later, Prince Gong fell out of favor and dismissed the ministers who discussed politics, and the Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the military ministers to discuss with Prince Jiu first for any important government affairs, which was equivalent to giving him a higher position.By convention, a man is considered an adult when he marries.If Guangxu got married, the queen mother should return to power.This was something Cixi was extremely reluctant to do, so before Guangxu's marriage, Yizhen took the lead in kowtowing to the Queen Mother to continue her political training.The Qing Dynasty established a new type of navy, and Yizhen accepted this important task. After the navy was initially completed, he had to inspect it on behalf of the Queen Mother, but he had to take an eunuch with him, because Li Lianying, the chief executive, was Cixi's confidant.Cixi gave him and his wife an apricot-yellow sedan chair, but he didn't dare to sit in it once.This kind of sincerity and fear is not only manifested in all his words and deeds, but also has traces on the furnishings of his home.He named the principal room where he lived as Siqian Hall, and the study as Retirement House.On the table in the study, there is an interlocking utensil [6], engraved with the motto of full detriment, humility and benefit.In the children's room, family mottos are hung everywhere, and there is such a passage in it: wealth is also great, birth is also great, and later children and grandchildren will suffer great disasters. What is the reason for this?The children and grandchildren are brave enough to have more money, and they are not afraid of major events in the world.In fact, the problem is not money, but fear of causing disaster.The most interesting thing is that he wrote a memorial in the second year of Guangxu, accusing a defendant who had no specific target, saying that in the future, because of his status, some people might want to cite certain examples from the Ming Dynasty and want to add some respect to him; If there is such a thing, the proponent should be regarded as a villain.He also asked to keep this memorial in the palace, so as to deal with the villain in the future.After more than ten years, what he expected happened.In the fifteenth year of Guangxu, Wu Dacheng, governor of Hedao, asked to respect the emperor's own father as the title.Empress Dowager Cixi was furious when she saw this, and Wu Dachen was so frightened that she hurriedly used the excuse of her mother's funeral to stay at home for three years and did not dare to come out. Undoubtedly, since Guangxu entered the palace, my grandfather must have known more about the character of his sister-in-law.During the Guangxu period, her temper became more moody.A eunuch played chess with her, and said that the servant killed the ancestor's horse, and she immediately said angrily: "I will kill your family!"So they asked someone to drag the eunuch out and beat him to death.Cixi cherished her hair very much. Once a certain eunuch who combed her hair found a hair on the comb, she couldn't help but panicked and wanted to hide the hair quietly, but Cixi saw it in the mirror, and the eunuch was beaten for it. A board.The eunuchs who served Cixi all said that, except for Li Lianying, anyone who took turns standing in front of Cixi would be in fear.Cixi is getting old and has facial muscle twitching, which is the last thing she wants others to see.One of the eunuchs probably took an extra look, and she immediately asked: What are you looking at?The eunuch did not answer, and received dozens of slaps.The other eunuchs knew about it, and they didn't dare to raise their heads when they were on duty, so she got angry again: What are you doing with your head down?The eunuch couldn't answer, so he also suffered dozens of punishments.Another time, when Cixi asked an eunuch what the weather was like, the eunuch, whose accent had not changed, said, "The weather is very cold today."Cixi didn't like this coldness, so she also asked someone to beat the eunuch.In addition to eunuchs, court ladies were often beaten. It is not uncommon for a servant to be beaten or even killed with a stick, in the palace of the Beijing Palace, perhaps this kind of thing is not enough to irritate Prince Jin.If this is not counted, then the sudden death of the Eastern Empress Dowager in the seventh year of Guangxu cannot be an ordinary event for Prince Jin.It is said that before Xianfeng's death, he was worried that Concubine Yigui would be domineering if her mother became empress dowager because of her son, and the empress would not be her opponent at that time, so she specially left a Zhu Yu to authorize the empress to punish her when necessary.Ci'an, who was born in Houmen and had no social experience, once inadvertently leaked this matter to Cixi.From then on, Cixi tried her best to please Ci'an, but Ci'an was coaxed by her to finally burn Xianfeng's will in front of her.Not long after, the Eastern Empress Dowager died suddenly in the palace.Some said they ate dim sum sent by Cixi, and some said they drank some soup that Cixi made for Ci'an.This incident was undoubtedly a great stimulus to Prince Jin, because it turned out to be the same: he was more cautious and conscientious, and regarded winning the trust of Cixi as his only duty.When he was in charge of building the navy (Li Hongzhang was the minister who would do it), in order to give the queen mother a place to play, he allocated a large part of the navy's funds to build the Summer Palace.The most tense stage of the construction of the Summer Palace coincided with the severe floods in Zhili Province and the capital. Yushi Wu Zhaotai suggested temporarily suspending work because he was afraid of stirring up trouble among the victims.However, Prince Chun did not say a word, and dedicated himself to completing the construction task.When the Summer Palace was completed in 1890, he passed away.Four years later, the so-called navy he created was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War.Of the ships built with tens of millions of taels of silver, there is probably nothing left except for the stone boat in the Summer Palace. [1] Clan titles are divided into Prince, County King, Baylor, Beizi, Duke, and General.Beizi Mansion is Beizi's mansion.author [2] The ruling system implemented by the Manchu ruling class over the Manchu people was the Eight Banners system integrating military, administration and production.This system was developed from Niu Recording (Chinese translation is Weiling, which is an early Manchu organization that combines production and military). Banners, in the forty-fourth year of Wanli (1615), the bordered yellow, bordered white, bordered red, and bordered blue flags were added, making a total of eight banners.All Manchu members were incorporated into the banner, called Bannermen, who went out to fight in peacetime and wartime.During the reign of Emperor Taiji, the Mongolian Eight Banners and the Han Army Eight Banners were established. [3] Yixin (1832｜1898) was the sixth son of Daoguang, who was named Prince Gong for 30 years.Because of the opportunity of negotiating with the British and French allied forces this time, he won the trust and support of the imperialists and successfully carried out the coup.After that, he opened the modern military industry and the Tongwen Museum, carried out Westernization activities, and became the leader of the Westernization School.But later, because of his ambition, Empress Dowager Cixi had conflicts with him, and the imperialists also found a better eagle dog, that is, they abandoned him, and the position of leader of the Westernization Group was replaced by Li Hongzhang and others. [4] It is said that the Manchus had a primitive religion in the early days, called Shamanism.Take heaven as the upper realm, where gods live, the ground as the middle realm, where humans live, and hell as the lower realm, where demons live.The wizard is called Shaman, and the witch is called Wu Dayou.When they cure diseases and exorcise evil spirits, they chant mantras, dance with hands and feet, and pretend to be possessed by spirits and ghosts.After the Manchus entered the customs, this religion was still preserved, but only witches (called shaman wives) often entered the palace. [5] The emperor's coffin is made of catalpa wood, and the emperor lived in a palace when he was alive, so the coffin where he lies after death is also called catalpa palace. [6] The ware is also called the ware. Xunzi's "You Zuo Pian" says: Confucius saw the temple of Duke Huan of Lu, and there was a ware. Confucius asked the temple guards: What kind of ware is this?Temple Keeper's Day: This cover is a device for sitting. (You and the right are the same, and the speaker can place it on the right side of the seat as a warning, or say that you and you are the same, that is, persuasion.) Confucius said: I heard that the utensils of you sit, if empty, it will be good, if it is medium, it will be upright, and if it is full, it will cover.Confucius Gu said to his disciples, "Water pouring water."The disciple pours water and pours it, the center is right, the full is full, the empty is full.Confucius sighed and said, "Huh!There are evils that are full but not overthrown!