Chapter 109 Unrepentant Guangxu

November 1908 was a very unfortunate season for the Qing Dynasty. On November 14, Emperor Guangxu, who was "born great and lived a miserable life", passed away at the age of 38 in the Dragon Palace of Hanyuan Hall in Yingtai. During his thirty-four years in office, he experienced too many humiliating failures: the mighty Beiyang navy was annihilated; the Eight-Power Allied Forces captured Beijing; The "Treaty of Shimonoseki" and "Treaty of Xin Chou", which humiliated the country and humiliated the power, were all signed during his tenure. The saddest thing is that his death was not a natural death.

On November 2, 2008, after five years of forensic research, the National Qing History Compilation Committee held a work report on the cause of death of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty in Beijing, and officially announced that he died of acute arsenic poisoning.The mystery of the cause of Guangxu's death, which has been entangled for a hundred years, is thus solved. In people's imagination, Guangxu must have been poisoned to death by Cixi.In fact, this matter was not necessarily done by Cixi. To use an analogy, Emperor Guangxu is like a tiger in a cage, and Cixi is the iron cage. You always humiliate the tiger through the cage, and the tiger can do nothing to you.Now that you know that the iron cage is about to fall apart, will you sit and wait for the tiger to rush out of the iron cage and bite you to death?Therefore, the dose of poison was prepared for the tiger many years ago, and the time was calculated so accurately that the tiger could be killed less than 24 hours before the iron cage fell apart, without anyone noticing.

In other words, during the days when Guangxu was under house arrest, some eunuchs and court ladies who had been respectful to him in the past began to bully him who had lost power.He didn't give him a good face, irritated him with cold words, and the cost of food and clothing was the worst, and even some of the food he ate was moldy. Think about it, if you were Guangxu, if you had a chance to make a comeback, how would you deal with those who bullied you?Of course I won't let it go easily.As for why Guangxu had a chance to recover, it was because Cixi seemed to be dying soon.Therefore, Guangxu must be poisoned to death first. If he does not die, he will definitely continue to be emperor.

Of course, this is only one of many possibilities. But modern science and technology can only prove that Emperor Guangxu was unlucky, that he was destined to never get out of the shadow of Empress Dowager Cixi for the rest of his life. Poor Emperor Guangxu still couldn't forget the reform before he died.Judging from the books he read at the last moment of his life, such as "An Examination of the Political Similarities and Differences of Various Countries", "Montesquieu's Legal Ideas", "Preparation for a Constitution in Japan", and "Comparison of National Power of Nations", it can be seen that he did not give up his ambition.

Guangxu is really a good and hardworking monarch, but he is not as lucky as his ancestor Kangxi, and he has a woman like the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang to support him.If Cixi was willing to play the role of Xiaozhuang, everything would be different. But history cannot assume that everything is over.