01
In 1895, in the ninth month of the lunar calendar, Sun Yat-sen, Yang Quyun, Lu Haodong, Chen Shaobai, Xie Zhantai, Zheng Shiliang, and others launched an armed uprising in Guangzhou, which was the first rebellion of revolutionaries against Manchu Qing rule in modern Chinese history. This matter needed to be directly faced by Li Zhengyong, who was then the zhi county of Nanhai County. Because Nanhai County was the first county in Guangdong at that time (similar to today's provincial capital), it had jurisdiction over more than half of the area of Guangzhou, and its county was located in today's Yuexiu District. Therefore, Tan Zhonglin, the governor of Liangguang, entrusted the arrest and interrogation of the "bandits" to this "Seven Pin Sesame Officer".
The uprising failed as soon as it was launched, and the general course of the uprising was as follows:
After the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War, China's national crisis intensified unprecedentedly. Sun Yat-sen founded the Xingzhong Association in Honolulu that year, with the mission of overthrowing Manchu rule. In early 1895, Sun Yat-sen sneaked into Guangzhou from Hong Kong, befriended important people from both political and business circles as a doctor, and secretly developed members of the Xingzhong Association. As a cover, Sun Yat-sen and others specially organized the "Agricultural Society" and claimed to study the "Law of Nongsang", but in fact they were secretly planning an uprising. After repeated deliberations, it was decided to take advantage of the Chongyang Festival (9th day of the ninth lunar month, October 26 of the Gregorian calendar) to sweep the tombs and worship the ancestors in large numbers of people, and take the opportunity to launch an uprising in Guangzhou to occupy the city of Guangdong Province, and look forward to triggering a chain reaction against the imperial court throughout the country. At that time, the agreed division of labor was for Sun Yat-sen to lead military operations in Guangzhou, Yang Quyun to raise funds for guns and recruit heroes at the rear headquarters in Hong Kong, Xie Zhantai to contact foreigners in Hong Kong, and Zheng Shiliang, who had a triad background, to contact the party.
Sun Yat-sen set up his headquarters at the Yungang Villa of the Wang Family Ancestral Hall in Shuangmendi, Guangzhou, which was not exposed until a few days before the uprising. Because Sun was proficient in medicine, the dignitaries and nobles were known for their "academic superiority and salty instruments", even if he "talked about current affairs and politics, was unscrupulous, although his words were full of words, and the hearers only looked crazy and did not think anything of it", and even he raised funds for the establishment of the "Agricultural Society", an organization for the uprising, and those "political leaders did not know the background, and they were also listed as sponsors."
Before the Chongyang Festival, Guangzhou can say that everything is ready. All the rebel teams assembled as agreed, and only waited for the Hong Kong side to gather the members and horses and a large number of firearms to arrive together, and the two sides could raise a big deal after meeting. However, on the eighth day of September, Yang Quyun suddenly telegraphed Sun Yat-sen that the preparations for Hong Kong had not yet been completed and that the uprising plan needed to be postponed for two days. This completely disrupted the deployment of the entire operation. At the same time, plans for the uprising leaked. Zhu Xiang, the brother of the revolutionary Zhu Qi, in order to protect himself, accused Sun Yat-sen of plotting rebellion in the name of Zhu Qi's self-surrender to Li Jiazhuo, a member of the Guangdong Arrest Committee. However, Tan Zhonglin, the governor of Liangguang, was dismissive of this information and said with a smile: "Sun Wen is a mad student, can An rebel?" This allowed Sun Yat-sen, who had been monitored, to escape from danger and evade arrest. However, on the evening of the tenth day of September, Tan Zhonglin received a report from his secret agent in Hong Kong, Wei Baoshan, saying that Yang Quyun had summoned hundreds of party members to Guangdong to participate in the rebellion instigated by Sun Yat-sen, and that they had boarded the "security wheel" along with more than 600 short guns and would arrive in Guangzhou tomorrow morning. At this time, Tan Fang woke up and urgently ordered Li Jiazhuo to go to the bottom of the double door to arrest people. However, Sun Yat-sen, sensing that the situation had changed, temporarily decided to cancel the action plan, disband the insurrectionary forces and evacuate the personnel for a while. So when Li Jiazhuo arrived, it was already empty. Only Lu Haodong, who had already evacuated, suddenly remembered that he wanted to burn the list of members of the Xingzhong Association, and hurriedly returned to the Yungang Villa, but unfortunately was arrested in the villa.
At this point, although the uprising has been canceled, more than 400 rebel troops sent from Hong Kong have boarded the "security wheel" and cannot be returned. Tan Zhonglin ordered Li Jiazhuo and Li Zhengyong of Nanhai Zhi County to lead troops to the docks to intercept them. When the ship docked, because the guns loaded on the same ship were crushed under other cargo and could not be removed, the rebels had to land empty-handed. And because they are marked with red belts, they are extremely recognizable, and more than 60 people have been tied up as soon as they landed, including two leaders, Zhu Guiquan and Qiu Si. When the rest of the people saw this, they quickly untied the red belt and fortunately avoided arrest.
Next, Li Zhengyong and Panyu Zhixian interrogated the arrestees one by one. Various historical records record that Lu Haodong, as the leader of the "chaotic party," was tortured to extract a confession, but he was still unyielding, leaving behind a righteous and stern "Confession", in which he indignantly condemned the corrupt dictatorship of the Manchu Qing government and the corruption and cowardice of the officials, and bluntly stated that he would work with Sun Jun (Zhongshan) to "advocate the fullness of the line", "warn the yellow soul", and "restore the Han nationality". At the end of the Confession, he said with great righteousness:
"If we want to, today's non-abolition of the Manchu Qing dynasty will not be enough to restore the Han nationality; it is not enough to abolish the Manchu Qing dynasty without exterminating the Traitors, so we especially want to punish one or two dog officials, thinking that our Han people will be the first blow!" Although this is not the case, this is very comforting. But I can kill, but those who start from me cannot kill. The ram is dead, the ninth is wronged, the stranger is returned, and I say self-test. All I said! Please execute as soon as possible. ”
After the interrogation, Li Zhengyong presented the "Confession" to Tan Zhonglin, who ordered that "the camp affairs office signed the three people to be killed at the school site", and the Guangdong Water Division led Cheng Kuiguang to death in prison by 600 military sticks, and more than 60 other people were released.
02
Lu Haodong's death was very tragic and tragic, and it deeply hurt the revolutionaries. He was a close friend of Sun Yat-sen and the designer of the Kuomintang party flag, and was called "the first person in China's history to sacrifice for the republican revolution."
Various historical sources describe the situation of the Guangzhou Uprising in Guangzhou, which is more or less controversial, and may be regarded as a history of faith. However, as for the details of Li Zhengyong's interrogation of Lu Haodong, the rules of the various schools of thought vary greatly. The Attitude of the Nanhai ZhiXian in handling this case and the evaluation of the academic community have attracted my attention. In the past, I saw some articles (including literary works) describing the interrogation process, saying that Li Zhengyong forced Lu Haodong to confess to his party, and used up torture with his teeth and nails, while Lu Was heroic and unyielding. Writing this person as a cruel and ruthless cool official in this way does not match the Li Zhengyong I have always remembered. Because in other historical sources, Li Zhengyong is an open-minded, righteous, and compassionate official. Therefore, I can only explain this contradictory phenomenon by the limitations of history and the duality of character.
Tomb of Lu Haodong
Recently, I read Gao Yang's historical novel "Stone Breaking the Sky", which describes the psychological activities of Li Zhengyong after seeing Lu Haodong's "Confession" of "thinking that I am a blow to the Han People", and it is as follows:
"Although Li Zhengyong was scolded by Lu Haodong as a 'dog official'; he was really touched in his heart. Looking at his boldness, his literary style, and his arrogance in seeing death as a homecoming, Li Zhengyong could not help but ask himself: Why did a person like this not go crazy and rebel? Of course, there is his reason; the Han people helped the Manchu Qing dynasty to quell the chaos, bringing the so-called 'Tongguang Zhongxing'; who knew that it was a flash in the pan, 'cunning rabbit death, lackey cooking', and now the DPRK and China are using things to do with the nobles, in addition to flattering Empress Dowager Cixi, vigorously looting, and decorating her with 'heavenly wealth', is to recruit power and bribes. Reviving the great Han Tiansheng will surely be cheered up by the Han people themselves; he sincerely admits that Lu Haodong's 'blow to the head for the Han people' has been well played! ”
According to Gao Yang's description, Li Zhengyong was shocked and moved by Lu Haodong's spirit, and even had the idea of rescuing Lu Haodong at this time. However, others were too soft to speak and could not change the attitude of Governor Tan Zhonglin in punishing the chaotic party, so they could only retreat to the second place and try their best to "prevent the situation from expanding" and avoid widespread killing.
Novels, of course, are not well founded. But these literary descriptions aroused my interest in examining historical facts.
There are many accounts of the Guangzhou Uprising, the most convincing of which is the revolutionaries' recounting of the events and the parties' own recollections.
Feng Freedon, the youngest member of the Xingzhong Association and known as the "Revolutionary Boy", later wrote the "History of the Revolution Before the Founding of the Republic of China", of which the third chapter, "The Prime Minister's First Uprising", is to record the process of the uprising. He said that before the execution of Lu Haodong by the Camp Affairs Office, "Li Ling (Zheng Yong) respected Lu as a person and specially dressed people with long clothes." The information revealed by this move seems to indicate that Li Zhengyong has no lack of sympathy for Lu Haodong.
There are also more authoritative historical sources, from the "Biography of martyr Lu Haodong" drafted by Deng Muhan, a member of the early league, which has the following record:
"In September, Mr. Zhongshan and others plotted in Guangzhou. When the martyr was arrested, Tan Zhonglin, the governor of Liangguang, ordered Li Zhengyong to interrogate Nanhai County, and the envoy knelt down, and the martyr did not succumb, confessed in anger, gave paper and pencil to the official, and the martyr wrote a straight letter and said thousands of words. Li Lingben was kind and kind, born with love, saw the martyr's extraordinary spirit, the words were smooth, and wept for several lines. The martyr said: 'Ru does not pity himself, but I pity you very much.' The martyr said: "China is vast and rich, and the people are all over the world." The Manchu Qing government was autocratic and diplomatically failed, bringing poverty and weakness to the extreme. Our intention in doing things today is to subvert the Manchu Qing government and establish a new republican government. Whoever is effective in the Manchu Qing government, such as the Ru dynasty, etc., we intend to kill one or two people to police the rest, and now that the plot is leaked and I cannot kill Ru, then Ru can kill me now, what is there to be sorry for? 'When Li Ling saw that his words were fierce and he refused to confess to the Party, he turned his kindness against his cruelty and severely tortured him..."
Here it is mentioned that Li Zhengyong is kind by nature, and his heavy punishment for Lu Haodong is an abnormal act. And he would actually weep several lines of tears for pity for Lu, which may show his true disposition. In the same article, before Lu Haodong died in the camp, there was also such a sentence: "Li Lingyu wore a long robe and cut it off with tears." "Again, Li weilu's tears show that Li is by no means ruthless.
This "Biography of the Martyr Lu Haodong" was published in the revolutionary party organ newspaper at that time, and the source of the author Deng Muhan's material was Lu Haodong's brother Lu Huaxian and Chen Shaobai, one of the organizers of the Guangzhou uprising, so the detailed statements in the text should be more reliable than other records.
As for Gao Yang's statement in "Stone Breaking Heaven", Li Zhengyong's attempt to "prevent the expansion of the situation" after the Uprising in Guangzhou is probably not a figment of thin air.
In the novel, it is described that Tan Zhonglin, in order to whitewash Taiping, did not want this matter to alarm the imperial court. So he sent his own staff Yu mou and Li Zhengyong to discuss, how can we avoid "playing"? Li Zhengyong naturally understood that if the revolutionary party subverted the uprising of the imperial court, if he reported to the governor truthfully, the governor would not dare to conceal it under any circumstances, and must go to the imperial court, so that tan Zhonglin would have to kill him. However, Tan did not want to "play", not necessarily because he did not want to kill more people, and he probably did not want the imperial court to understand the truth of the local chaos in Guangdong, so as not to bear the responsibility for the incompetence of the Jing bandits. However, if Li Zhengyong had concealed the truth in the text at Tan's request and made a revolutionary riot small, for the imperial court, he would have committed the crime of deceiving the king. However, the result of this may be to avoid the guillotine of a group of those involved in the uprising.
03
Tan Zhonglin is scheming, and he weighs the stakes clearly.
After he received Wei Baoshan's secret report, he confirmed that Sun Yat-sen was a chaotic party that created a rebellion against the imperial court, and of course he would never confuse the revolutionary party of the Xingzhong Association with ordinary criminals. And his attitude toward the chaotic party has always been that he will never forgive and strive to kill it all. At this time, he had only been the governor of Liangguang for half a year, and had already captured and killed more than 200 rebels. Nor did he "play" all such incidents. Not long ago, he had a recital to ask for merit for the bandits in Guangdong, and one of the bandit leaders mentioned in the inner circle, Pang Peizheng (Pang Peizheng), was the leader of the anti-Qing uprising in Gaozhou. There are two reasons for taking the initiative to "play", one is the Gaozhou uprising incident, the former governor Li Hanzhang has reported to the imperial court, there is nothing to hide, and the second is that after he took office, he caught the "bandit leader" Pang Leper and executed him, and he could show his merits.
This time, except for Lu Haodong, the organizers of the Guangzhou uprising were All sun yat-sen, Yang Quyun, Chen Shaobai, Xie Zhantai, and Zheng Shiliang. If it is "played", Tan Zhonglin not only has no merit to show, but in vain increases the pressure and responsibility of pursuing fugitives. So he hoped to press the table, but the crime of "cheating the king", he was absolutely unwilling to bear, so he pushed the problem to Li Zhengyong.
The result of the matter, whether it was because of the acceptance of Tan Zhonglin's will, or because Li Zhengyong himself deliberately "prevented the situation from expanding" (in my judgment, these two reasons are probably real, especially the former), in the end, this revolutionary riot must have been solved differently, stemming from the fact that the confession of the whole case was secretly changed.
To this day, we cannot find the document containing false confessions that Li Zhengyong presented to Tan Zhonglin at that time, but after Tan Zhonglin read the text, he really did not "play" for this extraordinary Guangzhou uprising, which is certain. After examining the "Tan Wenqin Gonggong Manuscript", we can only see that Tan Zhonglin "overplayed" the military plane to inquire about the recital of the Guangzhou uprising, and it can be seen that there is a letter first. The gist of the letter was: Someone reported to the imperial court that in September the Hong Kong "security wheel" arrived in Guangzhou, and there were chaotic parties plotting against each other, gathering a large number of 40,000 or 50,000 people, wanting to sneak into the provincial capital, and making an appointment to start an incident, and the imperial court was worried, fearing that it would cause a huge disaster. Therefore, the Military Aircraft Department went to Guangdong to inquire.
It is not known who played this matter, but Tan Zhonglin saw this and knew that he could not hide it anymore, and in order to avoid pursuing responsibility, he rushed to defend it in the "repetition". He seized on the military plane's letter saying that the bandits had gathered a crowd of 40,000 or 50,000 people, and said loudly that "Cantonese customs and good rumors, for small reasons, turn to each other and attach themselves to each other, open their mouths, in order to shake people's hearts." This phenomenon is "he has never seen it in his province", stressing that if there are really 40,000 or 50,000 people, where to go to eat and drink, where to go to stay? It's impossible. In fact, in the final analysis, it is still to continue to cover up the nature of the matter. In this "overtone", involving the entire cause of the incident, Tan Zhonglin must give an explanation, and he relies on the confessions of Lu Haodong and others:
"According to Lu Haodong, a native of Xiangshan County. Qiu Si and Zhu Guiquan offered, and they were all Qingyuan people. He is knowledgeable with Sun Wen and often interacts with each other. Sun Wen, that is, Sun Yat-sen, a native of Xiangshan, a professional doctor, befriended Yang Quyun, a Fujianese who was engaged in miscellaneous work in the Hong Kong foreign firm, because the Wen Min surname factory in the provincial city of Xiguan collected martial arts in the provincial city of Xiguan to test the surname fee of millions of dollars, the place was a district where Yin Fu lived, and wanted to rob and rob, so Yang Quyun recruited five hundred people in Hong Kong to come to the province by ferry. Sun Wen lived in Lu Haodong and other things in three places in the city, and the manager gave red belts, foreign guns and other things. The foreign axe purchased, because of the strong fence of Xiguan, was used to split the fence, that is, to send people to guard both ends of the street entrance and refuse to be brave. Yun hired a merchant ship to wait by the river, grabbed the foreign silver, and got on the ship to sail to Hong Kong. Originally started in the ninth year of the first year, due to the lack of recruitment, it was changed to twelve. Unexpectedly, on the tenth day of the first day, Sun Wen had absconded and mentioned that more than 40 of them had been intercepted and interrogated separately. According to the report, all domestic workers in Hong Kong live by, and Yang Quyunyan has recruited brave people in the provincial city and pays ten yuan per month. First give the disk fee to the province, each give a red belt as a number, unintentionally landed on the ground is intercepted, it is actually for the courage to come, and do not know anything else. Repeatedly prevaricate, each offering as before. ”
Of course, this recital was drafted by Tan Zhonglin, but there is no doubt that the confessions of Lu Haodong and others quoted by Tan must have come from the courtesy submitted by Li Zhengyong after he interrogated Lu Haodong. Here, to say that the first Guangzhou uprising organized by the revolutionary party was a robbery case in which the lawless bandits saw the intention of getting rich and premeditated to rob millions of yuan and gambled huge sums of money, which can really be described as concealing the sky and crossing the sea, risking the world's great disobedience! Therefore, Gao Yang said that as a result, the "sesame official" Li Zhengyong "took the charge of possible annihilation", which is not false and cannot be regarded as a novelist. Tan Zhonglin's original recital is proof of this. It must be known that once the sin of deception is revealed, it is necessary to condemn the Nine Tribes.
So, would Li Zhengyong have done such a risky thing unintentionally or in a daze? Of course not. Not to mention that the "Confession" of Lu Haodong that he saw had already clearly stated the intention of the uprising, and that just a few days after the Guangzhou uprising, the nanhai and Panyu counties offered a reward for the arrest of Sun Yat-sen and Yang Quyun, and the opening paragraph clearly stated:
"The existing bandit leader, known as Sun Wen, has a bandit party, Yang Quyun, revolts and rebellions, and disturbs the provincial capital..."
Directly pointing out that Sun and Yang were "uprising and rebellion" rather than gathering crowds to rob money shows that Li Zhengyong did not "hide" after he knew about it, but only "deceived". This was all done on purpose.
It is precisely because Li Zhengyong shoulders the responsibility that this case can be dropped from light.
Just as various historical records record, in addition to Lu Haodong and a few other first-time criminals, "the remaining 60 or so people who were arrested were all accused of being fooled and were given one yuan of Sichuan capital and dismissed separately."
In this way, it is not too much to believe that Li Zhengyong dared to save a group of Yiwei Guangzhou uprising personnel. Although he is not entirely proactive, it undoubtedly requires extraordinary courage.
Logically speaking, Li Zhengyong did Tan Zhonglin a great favor in this matter, so that Tan avoided being held accountable for the escape of the leader of the chaotic party. Tan Zhonglin should thank him. Unexpectedly, however, just about half a year later, Li Zhengyong was removed by Tan from his post as Nanhai Zhi County. Although Li Yuan did not care about this "sesame official" and had long had the intention of leaving, which was even right for him, after all, things were strange and puzzling.
The cause of the incident was that Yushi Li Nianci participated in Li Zhengyong's corruption, bribery, etc., and the imperial court ordered Tan Zhonglin to send someone to review it. Tan asked the envoys of Guangdong Province to jointly investigate, and the result was that none of the sections were involved in this matter, and the imperial history was nothing more than hearsay. In this way, the case could have been closed, but Tan Zhonglin suddenly wanted to take this opportunity to punish Li Zhengyong, and he said in the transcription of the imperial court after the investigation: Li Zhengyong of Zhixian County, Nanhai County, in the winter of the previous year, there was a case of daytime robbery outside the city.
As a result, the actual post of this Seven Pinzhi County was removed. However, because Li Zhengyong had already donated an alternate Daoist (four pins) for himself beforehand, Tan Zhonglin demoted him to an alternate judge (six pins), and the imperial court approved it.
This incident confused Li Zhengyong. He himself never figured out what was going on? He could not recall any cases of daydreaming that had been delayed by his passivity. He believes that he has always been diligent in his administration, and there is absolutely no situation in which he ignores it three times in his handling of cases. His son Li Zhun, in the Ren'an Self-Chronicle (i.e., the Li Zhun Chronicle), only says that "the first doctor took Tan Yunxiao (Zhong Lin) Shangshu, participated in the song to make up for the general judgment, and the wish to open the vacancy was fulfilled." He did not elaborate on the specific details of "disobedience" Tan Zhonglin, and perhaps he did not hear the details.
04
Since Tan Zhonglin's reason for removing Li Zhengyong from his post is spurious, there will inevitably be various discussions in society about his resignation. Some people said that he was affected because he had protected a corrupt official, and some people said that he was trapped in a literal prison: the third selection show of the Nanhai County Children's Examination that year was written by Li Zhengyong, and Li Zhengyong proposed the first title: "I can make a covenant with the king and the country, fight with the country, and now the so-called good minister", seeking interpretation. This phrase comes from Mencius's "Confession of the Sons, The Soldiers of the Nation and the Way of Righteousness", the next few sentences of which are: "The so-called people's thieves of the ancients are also." The king does not seek the Tao, does not aspire to benevolence, but seeks to fight for it, and is an auxiliary. "In connection with the explanation, Mencius said that if the monarch is not kind, even if the courtier can ally with other countries, or win the war, it is nothing more than aiding and abusing. Therefore, such a question was written by people, and it was considered to be involved in ridicule, and it was suspected of committing a crime, so that it angered the current dynasty. However, this claim is only speculation and has no basis.
In addition, I myself have a speculation that I suspected that Li Zhengyong was in trouble for dealing with the Yiwei Guangzhou Uprising. As mentioned earlier, after the incident, Tan Zhonglin did not want to "play", so he successfully used Li Zhengyong to achieve his goal through hints. However, after the incident, Tan Zhonglin found that in addition to his own staff Yu Mou, for his "deception" attempt, Li Zhengyong was probably the only one who knew about his attempt to "deceive the king". This may be an important reason why Tan tried to drive Li out of the Canton officialdom. If this is the case, then the official arena at that time was very sinister.
However, although Li Zhengyong was degraded, he still did things as usual.
In the 1897 Huanghuai flood, Li Zhengyong and Li Zhun father and son offered an edict to raise 500,000 taels of silver and handed it over to Li Hongzhang, the minister of river engineering in Shandong, for backup. Because it was completed on schedule, it was commended by the imperial court. Shortly thereafter, Zhang Zhidong reinstated him as an alternate Daoist.
The scene of the death of the six gentlemen
At the beginning of 1898, Yang Rui and Liu Guangdi, one of the six gentlemen of Wushu, founded the Shu Academy in Beijing, and Li Zhengyong thought that he had started with a family property of 20,000 silver dollars, and was again commended by the imperial court for "seeing righteousness and courage, deeply praised by the imperial court", and rewarded the head to wear.
In 1899, because "Li Zhengyong was born in Sichuan, was highly regarded by the townspeople, had previously served eunuchs in eastern Guangdong, had an outstanding political reputation, and had the deepest experience in foreign mining affairs for a long time in Shanghai, and indeed had experience", on the sponsorship of Luo Chengjun and others, he was given the title of Secretary of Sanpinqing as the minister of mining and commerce in Sichuan, and was allowed to perform special work.
From this point of view, Li Zhengyong's career has not been affected by Tan Zhonglin's punishment, which naturally benefits from his ability and connections, but also from his character.
Speaking of character, there is one great thing that cannot be left unnoticed, and this is his performance in the court where the six gentlemen of Wu shu were killed.
The Penghu Reformation failed, and Tan Si and the other six gentlemen were killed. On the day of the decapitation, it was dark and windy. There were hundreds of people watching, but they were all people waiting to eat people's blood steamed buns, and there were no officials among them, because those who were officials avoided them. At this time, Li Zhengyong, an official of the imperial court, resolutely appeared at the scene of the execution. When he saw Tan Sitong's round eyes and was blind, he leaned forward and comforted him: "Resurrection, there are heavenly ears on his head." "Make it serene.
He rushed back from Tianjin to collect the bodies of his Sichuan compatriots Yang Rui and Liu Guangdi. Li Zhun recorded this in the article "The Strategy of Liu Yang's Second Jun's Coup d'état":
When the first doctor heard the letter to Kyoya, relatives and friends advised him not to throw himself into the net. The first doctor said: 'Friends have difficulties, stand by and watch, I will not do anything.' And when they came to the vegetable market, the six gentlemen had been killed, and the first doctor cried on the side of the corpse. The person concerned inquired about the name and left, and the person was in danger for the first doctor, and the first doctor ignored it, but still lost his manager. Except for Liu and Yang who collected the corpses that day, none of the other four gentlemen dared to come to visit, and after two or three days, some people began to restrain themselves. ”
Afterwards, he sent the coffins of Liu and Yang back to Sichuan for burial. Because he was "not afraid of the party disaster to take care of the aftermath", Yang Rui's son specially represented his mother to "thank Dade". Li Zhengyong said: "Quickly return to the servant mother, do not be sad, will also be when there is Zhao Xue." ”
Li Zhengyong's feat shows the sense of morality and right and wrong of a decent official, which is quite praised by the world.
I think that Li Zhengyong's ability to collect the bodies of Liu and Yang's gentlemen without fear of danger after the coup d'état in Wushu and his ability to shed tears for Lu Haodong after the first Guangzhou uprising and "take on the charge of possible annihilation" to "prevent the expansion of the situation" are quite similar in one point. If these two events are linked, we can see the consistency of his thoughts and emotional contexts, and his personality is not so contradictory.
Source: Magazine of All Walks of Life, Issue 8, 2021
Author: Li Xin