Chapter 99 Section 98

Zhang Zhidong finally passed away.On this day, it was past nine o'clock in the evening on August 21st of the first year of Xuantong.His last words were: "In my whole life, I have done only four or five out of ten in terms of academics and therapeutic skills; my mental skills are all upright." That night, from Beifu to Zhang Zhidong, fellow officials in Beijing and old disciples, all received funeral notices.The telegraph office was very busy, and there were a lot of clear-coded telegrams sent to Hubei, most of which reported the sad news. In addition, there were also many encrypted telegrams sent to Shanghai.At two o'clock in the middle of the night, Prince Qing's mansion sent a coded telegram. It was unclear whether it was King Qing Yikuang or Beizi Zaizhen who sent the telegram, but it was clear that it was Yuan Shikai in Zhangde who received the telegram.

At dawn, when the military plane came to see him, the first thing to do was to talk about Zhang Zhidong's death. While weeping, Lu Chuanlin told how Zhang Zhidong was in charge of state affairs a few days before his death.The regent sighed for a while, and began to talk about the topic. The first thing to decide is that since the implementation of the new official system, the minister of military aircraft is no longer an official, but a full-time job.Now that there is a vacancy, who should fill it? "Who did Zhang Zhongtang recommend?" "Sponsored." Yikuang replied, "One is Dai Shaohuai, and the other is Lu Fengshi."

Although the minister of military aircraft has been changed to a full-time job, the regulations have not been changed. Since the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty in Tongzhi, he has always been in charge of relatives and nobles.Zhang Zhidong’s recommendation was of course a minister of the Han Dynasty, and he was originally from the south, reverting to the old rule of the two Han military forces, one from the south and one from the north. "Lu Fengshi, I have another place to borrow from him." The regent said, "Why don't you use Dai Shaohuai! Prince Qing, what do you think?"

Yikuang knew that the regent had selected Lu Runxiang as the emperor's enlightenment teacher, and he agreed: "I also mean the same thing, and Dai Shaohuai understands foreign language, so it will be easier to handle the negotiation." Next, let's talk about the shirt code.The regent said automatically that he should be more generous, because he had also heard a little bit about Zhang Zhidong's illness, which was caused by his two nails, so he used this to make up for it.At that time, it was explained that the Dharani Sutra was rewarded, an altar was given as a sacrifice, and it was promoted to the Taibao. The county king Bei Le Zaitao was sent to lead ten guards to drink wine, to worship in Xianliang Temple, and to reward three thousand taels of silver for funerals. official position.These can be decided immediately, only the posthumous posthumous law, which has to be submitted to the cabinet for discussion.

Apart from Zhang Zhidong and Sun Jianai, among the four great scholars in the cabinet, he was already dying of illness. Na Tong and Shixu didn't care about it at all, so Rong Qing and Lu Chuanlin, the co-organizers, discussed it.Lu Chuanlin said frankly that the relatives of the Zhang family hoped to posthumously posthumously Wenxiang. "Is Shi Wenzhong not good?" Rong Qing asked in surprise. Both Li Hongzhang and Rong Lu had posthumous posthumous titles of Wenzhong, but Zhang Zhidong didn't admire these two, especially Li Hongzhang, who changed his name to the same name, which Zhang Zhidong didn't like.But in the eyes of others, "Zhang Wenzhong" is naturally inferior to Li Wenzhong in terms of merit and reputation. Among Zhang Zhidong's disciples, those who understand this truth naturally do not want their teacher's reputation to be inferior by comparison.Asking to use Wenxiang is like Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang, each with its own merits.

Naturally, it was inconvenient for Lu Chuanlin to break his original intention, so he just replied: "Wen Zhong is good, but Wen Xiang is rare." "If you have martial arts, you can use Xiang characters..." "Kan Ping is in chaos." Lu Chuanlin hurriedly said, "Xiang Tao is in Guangdong and Guangxi, doesn't he also have martial arts? Besides, he beat the French." If this is martial arts, then there is no governor without martial arts.Because of Zhang Zhidong's vacancy, Rong Qing was promoted to a bachelor's degree, considering the origin of this point, he stopped arguing.

As soon as the news of Zhang Zhidong's death reached Wuchang, many important officials and celebrities in Hubei, such as Gao Lingxiao, the envoy of education, Gao Songru, the head of the Bureau of Government and Money, Qi Yaoshan, the Jianghan Guandao, and Huang Yilin, the magistrate of Jiangxia County, had long been cultivated and sheltered by Zhang Zhidong. All are deeply saddened.As for Zhang Biao, the commander of the Eighth Township, when he received a telegram from Zhang's mansion in Beijing, he broke down in grief, poured ginger soup, pinched the Chinese and woke up. Zhang Biao's affection for Zhang Zhidong cannot be summed up in four words: the grace of knowledge and encounter.This man was from a humble family background in Taiyuan Prefecture. It is said that he was Zhang Zhidong's sedan chair when he was the governor of Shanxi. Because he was good-looking, articulate, and loyal, Zhang Zhidong gave him his name in the patrol camp. One step further promoted him to be a sentry officer, named him "Tiger Minister", and sent him as a close-fitting horse, and he did not shy away from going in and out of the upper house.

Zhang Zhidong married three times, and the third wife was the younger sister of Wang Yirong, Fushan, Hanlin, who died in the fifth year of Guangxu. There are many wives, and they often steal girls.Among them was a maidservant who was awe-inspiring, as the saying goes, "It's better not to steal than to steal." Zhang Zhidong looked at it differently and ordered his old concubine to recognize him as a righteous daughter and marry Zhang Biao, so that he became a "uncle" Elegant name. Zhang Zhidong's official career was smooth sailing, and Zhang Biao also rose with the tide, and he became the "Nanpi Love General" together with Wu Yuankai.But when the two officials came back to Luan to carry out the New Deal, they sent the honored officials and their sons to Japan to study the army. In the 29th year of Guangxu, they also sent Tieliang, Fengshan, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, Zhang Biao, Li Yuanhong and others Going to Japan to visit the big exercise, this made Wu Yuankai inferior in comparison, and the military power in Hubei gradually came under the control of Zhang Biao.

Such a close relationship, so Zhang Biao's "superior court" asked Chen Kuilong for leave to go to Beijing to attend the funeral.Chen Kuilong didn't allow him, he was old and withered because he was in power, people's hearts could not help being shaken, if there was a disturbance, who would command the new army?Zhang Biao had no choice but to find another way to fulfill his filial piety. The first major task was to find a good coffin for Zhang Zhidong.After inquiring around, I learned that there was a coffin of agarwood in Xitaichang Tea House. Zhang Biao bought it for 12,000 taels of silver. Transported overnight to Beijing.Of course, the coffin price is filial piety by Zhang Biao.

When the posthumous posthumous decree of Wenxiang was promulgated, the political, academic, gentry, and business circles in Hubei set up a mourning hall in Aulue Building, and Zhang Biao set up a separate mourning hall in the unfinished Baobing Hall. He worshiped three times a day and took care of himself. When monks come to do Buddhist work, they wear hemp and filial piety, weep and salute.Some government offices, such as the Hanyang Iron Works, hold separate sacrifices, and Zhang Biao will also rush to greet the mourners, and he will answer the ceremony on behalf of his family members, just like a lonely son.

On August 27th, the Baobing hall was extremely lively, cigarettes were lingering, cymbals were blaring, and monks, monks, and nuns recited scriptures in three places. It was Zhang Biao who performed the first seven for Zhang Zhidong.When it was near noon, seven or eight large sedan chairs and a series of small sedan chairs came. In the small sedan chairs were servants in green clothes. They helped the ladies out of the big sedan chairs and knelt down before the coffin, crying loudly.The tourists were all surprised. After careful inquiry, they found out that it was Zhang Biao's wife who invited the family members of the Taoist mansion who had been known by "Zhang Wenxiang" to come and cry for a funeral.This is also a new style in the officialdom, and it is really jealous of Yang Shixiang who "doesn't know Qi Luoxiang until death"! Since the news that Hirobumi Ito was assassinated in Harbin for the Korean patriot An Jung-geun took up a lot of space in the newspaper, the scene of the funeral in Zhang's mansion seemed inferior. On the day of hanging, from the regent Zaifeng down, the princes and ministers who can be named all came to offer sacrifices in person. After kowtowing and eating plain noodles, those who don’t want to leave can chat with acquaintances or enjoy elegiac couplets, which is very admirable I don’t know how many of them are there, but what attracts people’s attention is Rongqing’s expression: “Birth comes naturally, and death comes after death; if the gentleness is not lost, my way is lonely.” "In my opinion, two words need to be changed in the last sentence." Someone said: "The Han people are lonely." "How do you know that?" someone else asked. "Look, those who wear red hats and run state affairs are all bannermen." Sure enough, among the twelve ministries, the Han people had only four ministers, and the clan mansion, the cabinet, the military advisory office, and the navy office were all dominated by bannermen. "Brothers," a third person interjected, "It's not the Yigu of the Han people, it's the Yigu of the Bannerman!"