Cixi's birthday was the 10th day of the 10th lunar month, and she paid great attention to her birthday during the nearly 50 years she was in charge of the Manchu regime. On the 10th day of October 1908, Cixi did not realize that this birthday would be the last birthday of her life.
From the tenth day of October of that year, Cixi celebrated her birthday for six days, and everything went well, and on the sixth day, she also played Guanyin. She was sure that she would live a long life, even though she was already old and 73 years old.
Cixi pretended to be Guanyin
And they said, "Seventy-three, eighty-four, the king of Hades does not invite himself to go." But of course, Cixi had never heard such unlucky words, and she insisted on believing that she would live a long life. She was optimistic that she could be like the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and after Guangxu's death, she would listen to the government for her grandson.
During the six days that Cixi celebrated her birthday, Guangxu's condition deteriorated dramatically. The long-term house arrest period has made him mentally stressed more and more, and he has been unable to contact the outside world for a long time, which has made his temper short-tempered. The fire could not be relieved, his mood was depressed, and he inevitably suffered from illness, he had tuberculosis.
After getting sick, Guangxu's face was pale all day long, his breathing was not smooth, his sleep was not better, and his cardiopulmonary function was getting lower and lower day by day. On the morning of the sixth day of Cixi's birthday, Guangxu felt extremely bad, and the doctor who treated him shook his head, and even the doctor wanted to give up the treatment.
Guangxu
It was on this day that Cixi suddenly began to feel unwell, and she felt at first that it must be because she was celebrating her birthday for days, as long as she took a short rest, she would be fine.
Beginning on the 16th, Cixi's condition worsened, and she had to suspend her government affairs and stay in bed. At this time, Cixi was still optimistic, and both she and the doctor believed that as long as she rested for a few days, she would be able to recover and handle official business.
After Cixi fell ill, Guangxu's condition deteriorated further, and he didn't even have the strength to speak, and he was completely dying. Cixi on the hospital bed had a premonition that Guangxu's time was short, and in the name of Guangxu, she named the grandson of Prince Yiyi, Puyi, who was only three years old, as the crown prince.
Cixi can obviously establish Puyi's father Zaifeng as the emperor's heir, why should she establish Puyi? The answer is very simple: when the emperor was established, Cixi was still sure of her illness, and felt that after Guangxu's death, like the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, she would be able to listen to the government of her grandson.
The night of October 20 was the day before Cixi's death. On the same day, she ordered someone to bring the future little emperor Pu Yi to her. Regarding this paragraph, Pu Yi once had a specific account in his memoir "The First Half of My Life", he said:
"I can vaguely remember a little bit of this meeting with Cixi. It was an impression caused by a strong stimulus. I remember that I was suddenly in the midst of many strangers, and in front of me there was a gloomy tent with a skinny face that was terribly ugly—this was Cixi.
It is said that when I saw Cixi, I immediately cried and trembled. Cixi asked someone to bring me a rock sugar gourd, but I threw him to the ground, crying and shouting: 'I want to be a concubine!' I want to be a sister-in-law! This made Cixi very unhappy, and said: 'This child is really awkward, let's take it somewhere to play!' ’”
Obviously, on the day Pu Yi was summoned, Cixi's mood was not much better. But what is certain is that since she can say things like "this kid is awkward", she was conscious at the time.
People who are sick tend to have a big temper, and at this time Cixi's temper is still not small, and her attention is not completely focused on the illness, that is: she does not feel that she is about to die.
On October 21, the day before Cixi's death (5 to 7 p.m.), Cixi received the bad news of Emperor Guangxu's death. Almost immediately after receiving the bad news, Cixi's condition changed abruptly.
According to the records of the imperial physicians who participated in the diagnosis and treatment at the time, the reason for the sudden change in Cixi's condition that day was that she developed hypertensive heart failure after receiving the bad news. When this happens, it often means that the patient is very emotional. In other words, the day before Cixi's death, her condition changed suddenly due to emotional agitation. And this is a direct cause of her death.
So the question is, why did Guangxu's death make Cixi emotional? There are two possibilities, the first is: although Cixi and Guangxu are not biological mother and son, Guangxu is the son of his own sister after all, and his father is still Xianfeng's younger brother, he is not only his nephew, but also his nephew. Therefore, his death made Cixi feel grief.
However, this possibility is extremely faint, because everyone knows: when Cixi's own son Emperor Tongzhi died, she did not shed a single tear. For a woman like Cixi, power is the favorite, and everything else is fake.
Analyzing this, there is only the second reason why Guangxu's death made Cixi emotional: Guangxu's death made her feel at ease and even a little excited.
According to the results of the examination of Emperor Guangxu's hair in 2008, Guangxu's hair was detected with arsenic. Arsenic is highly toxic and can be fatal if exposed to chemicals containing arsenic for a long time.
Judging from this result, Guangxu was actually poisoned, not from tuberculosis. As for who poisoned Guangxu, judging from Cixi's later reaction, it has a lot to do with her. Of course, before there is definite evidence, there is still a question mark to draw who Guangxu was poisoned to.
Guangxu's death made Cixi feel fluctuating, but also made her even busier. She not only has to preside over government affairs, but also has to deal with Guangxu's funeral, and she also has to issue Guangxu's edict and the edict of the new emperor's accession to the throne.
For a 73-year-old and 74-year-old man, such busyness is obviously not a good thing, especially since this old man is still sick. But when it came to the end, she had to be busy, and Cixi could only hold on to her sick body to deal with all this.
Because Cixi's thoughts were very clear when she dealt with all this, the people around her, including the great eunuch Li Lianying, who had served her for half her life, did not realize that Cixi's life had entered the countdown.
October 22, the day Cixi died. At three o'clock in the morning, Cixi got up, and the palace maids brought hot water for her to clean her hands.
Immediately afterwards, the palace ladies began to carefully carry out the daily routine of washing and skin care for Cixi. On the day of her death, Cixi was as particular as usual, and there should be a lot of processes, and she needed the palace maid to use a hot compress to open her pores first, and then do basic maintenance. Cixi insisted that warm compresses reduce the growth of wrinkles.
After the basic maintenance was done, Cixi began to ask the palace maids to put on makeup for her. Every day, she spends a lot of time on makeup. On the day of her death, she wore makeup for an hour or two, because she wanted to cover up her illness with makeup.
After the makeup was done, a palace maid came forward to comb her hair. Combing Cixi's hair is a big job, and the reason why it is said to be big is because anyone who does this work can lose his head at any time.
If you comb Cixi's hair, if you lose it, you will definitely be punished, and if you wield the comb in the wrong way, you will also be punished. If she didn't go well that day, and there were omissions in combing her hair, and even hurt her, then the person who combed her hair would be at risk of being pulled out and cut off.
Cixi's hair volume is small, especially the hair volume on the top of her head, and she also dislikes her white hair. If a combber reveals a single gray hair after the combing is completed, needless to say, he will definitely be punished. If the amount of hair on the top of the head looks small after combing, you will also be punished.
The palace maid who can serve Cixi to comb her hair, in addition to her superb skills, must also have a flexible brain, and it is best to have outstanding eloquence, which can comb her hair while coaxing Cixi to be happy.
The palace maid who served Cixi to comb her hair that day was very clever, she successfully covered Cixi's white hair, and at the same time used skill to make Cixi's forehead hair fuller. After combing, Cixi took the mirror and looked left and right, nodding with satisfaction.
Empress
After everything was cleaned up, it was time for Cixi to go out of the palace for a walk. Every time she finished dressing up, she had to walk for a short time. This is a habit she has kept over the years, and it is considered by her to be a clever way to prolong her life.
After returning from the walk, Cixi's face was tired, and the palace maids brought up a special nutritious morning tea in a timely manner. Cixi ate a few bites and smoked a few more shisha from the south.
After this operation, it was 7 o'clock in the morning, and it was time for breakfast. On that day, the imperial dining room prepared all kinds of exquisite meals, but Cixi had no appetite, and only tasted a few bites before letting them be withdrawn.
Cixi has been thinking about the funeral of Emperor Guangxu at this time, and she still has a big thing to do today: the edict to entitle Puyi's father Zaifeng as the regent of the country.
By the time Cixi finished the matter at hand, it was already noon. Cixi finally stopped, and the palace people at this time found that her face was very wrong. Sure enough, just after a while, Cixi was not well: she had more than abdominal pain, her spirit was not good, she began to have frequent diarrhea, and from time to time she discharged pus and blood.
Cixi's stomach has not been very good since the birthday banquet, and at the critical moment, Li Lianying recommended a home remedies: a bowl of Wang Ba soup every day to regulate the spleen and stomach. Li Lianying recommended such a recipe, of course Cixi gladly accepted it, Cixi has always wanted to live a long life, Wang Ba has the longest life, drinking Wang Ba soup, the psychological hint is very good.
I don't know if it's a psychological effect, or if Wang Batang does have a miraculous effect. After drinking Wang Ba soup, Cixi's stomach miraculously improved. But on the day she died, her gastrointestinal problems suddenly worsened.
Seeing that Cixi's condition was abnormal, the attending physician turned pale with fright, and he hurriedly grabbed the prescription for Cixi to take, but unfortunately, whether it was Wang Batang or medicine, it was no longer effective.
Cixi's feelings grew worse and worse, and she had to quickly issue two edicts. First, women should not forehear about state affairs, and second, eunuchs are strictly forbidden to be in power. The specific content is:
"After that, women are not allowed to hear about the affairs of the country. This is contrary to the family law of this dynasty and must be strictly restricted. In particular, it is necessary to take strict precautions and not allow eunuchs to abuse their powers. The events of the end of the Ming Dynasty can be used as a lesson! ”
Cixi herself was a woman, but she was in charge of the Qing Dynasty for nearly 50 years, but before she died, she issued an edict that "prohibits women from hearing about state affairs", which is really ironic.
It is not difficult to see from this that when she established Puyi as the new emperor, she made a wrong estimate of her lifespan. If she knew that her time was near, she would not pass on the throne of emperor to a three-year-old child. But now that everything is a foregone conclusion, she has nothing to do.
The important ministers of the court had already knelt outside the palace, but Cixi didn't want to see them anymore, no, she didn't have the strength to meet them anymore. The ones who should have been explained have already been explained, and there is no need for her to see them again. She only gave one decree to the important ministers: in the future, the affairs of the country will be handed over to the regent, and if there is any major matter, it can be discussed with the Empress Dowager Longyu.
Empress Dowager Longyu is Cixi's own niece and the daughter of her younger brother. She originally expected that the Empress Dowager Longyu and Guangxu would give birth to a son, but this niece was not angry and was not favored by Guangxu at all.
After explaining the state affairs, Cixi began to review her life.
When she was young, she was recruited into the harem by Emperor Xianfeng, and later became pregnant and gave birth to the only imperial heir, assisting the new emperor to ascend the throne in troubled times, and then took sole power, in order to protect the ancestral inheritance......
Over the years, she has credited herself with a lot of credit: recovering Xinjiang, recovering Ili, defending Taiwan, aiding Vietnam to resist France, and so on. She has experienced a lot of hardships in her life, such as the palace fight when she was young, the struggle with the ministers, the battle with the two emperors' sons, and the Boxer Rebellion, the Eight-Nation Alliance, and the westward escape......
She recalled many deceased ministers, Li Hongzhang, Rong Lu and so on. For Rong Lu, this person has the closest relationship with her, and the new emperor Pu Yi is even Rong Lu's own grandson......
After reminiscing, Cixi was so tired that her face was like ashes, she thought that she had done her best for the Qing Dynasty, and she would definitely not feel ashamed to see her ancestors.
It was all over, Cixi swallowed and slowly closed her eyes, but her mouth did not close. Li Lianying, who had been waiting on the side, couldn't cry anymore when she saw this, and he put a night pearl in her mouth with a trembling hand.
Originally, after a person died, China had the custom of putting jade and gems in the mouth, which was to show the dignity of the deceased's identity, commonly known as "depressing" or "rice containment".
Cixi died, and passed away with the incomparably noble night pearl in her mouth. It's a pity that in the end, she didn't even take this night pearl away, and it was never heard from after Sun Dianying's tomb robbery.
After Cixi's death, the main person in charge of the funeral was the great eunuch Li Lianying. He had prepared a large number of funerary goods for his noble master, and her coffin was decorated with such a magnificent appearance: her body was surrounded by all kinds of treasures; Even her head was installed with a jade lotus leaf weighing more than twenty-two taels, and a large tourmaline lotus weighing more than thirty taels was placed on her feet.
In the cracks in the coffin, 4 liters of pearls and 2,200 red, blue and emerald gems were poured in.
The underground palace of Cixi's mausoleum is also full of gold, silver and jewelry, and Cixi has put treasures into the underground palace six times before her death. Her underground palace has become a treasure trove.
Who would have thought that these funeral goods were stolen by Sun Dianying and others 20 years later. And she was finally devastated by these rare treasures: her body was insulted, the night pearl in her mouth was pried away, and even the dragon robe was plundered......
If Cixi knew that her grave would be robbed because of those priceless gold, silver and jewelry, and the corpse was violently corpsed for more than 40 days, causing the body to grow spots and white hair, would she still insist on letting Li Lianying bury herself?
It is a pity that after Cixi's death, she went through three burials, her second burial was handled by the old and young relics of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and the third burial was handled by the staff of the Qing Dongling Cultural Relics Protection Management Office.
Fortunately, she was buried three times, all in the same coffin. Cixi, who was buried for the last time, had her face and upper body wrapped in yellow silk, and her lower body was wearing pants embroidered with the word "Shou", and one foot was wearing socks......
People say that "if you don't bring it in life, you won't bring it with you in death", and this saying has been fully verified by Cixi.