Li Lianying was born in Zhili Province in the Qing Dynasty, which is now Hejian Prefecture in Hebei Province. Others clearly stated that he was from Lijia Village, Zangtun Township, Dacheng County, Hebei Province today. According to the record on the epitaph, he was born in the 28th year of Daoguang (1848 AD) and entered the palace at the age of 9. Qing palace files also prove that he was indeed sent to the palace as an eunuch by Prince Zheng Duanhua in the seventh year of Xianfeng, but he was not 9 years old, but 13 years old.
His prudence and tact won Cixi's favor
Li Lianying's name was Li Jinxi after he entered the palace. It was about ten years after Tongzhi, that is, 14 years after he entered the palace, that he was named Li Jinxi by the Empress Dowager Cixi. Britain. He worked successively as an errand in the Memorial Office and Jingren Palace on the East Road. It was not until he was 16 years old in the third year of Tongzhi that he was transferred to the Empress Dowager Cixi in Changchun Palace.
At this time, the eunuch An Dehai was favored by the Empress Dowager Cixi and became extremely red. Although the two of them entered the palace at the same time, their status and influence were very different. Later, Andehai became overly arrogant due to his youthful success, and was finally captured and beheaded by Shandong Governor Ding Baozhen in the eighth year of Tongzhi on the charge of "violating the ancestral system and leaving the capital without authorization."
This incident taught Li Lianying a profound lesson. He was a very smart and well-behaved man, and he quickly understood how to straighten the relationship between master and slave. Li Lianying not only learned to figure out his master's temperament and hobbies, and tried every means to please his master, but he also learned to be cautious at all times. This can be regarded as the secret of Li Lianying's success.
In the 13th year of Tongzhi (1874 AD), Li Lianying, who was only 26 years old, began to serve as the chief eunuch of Chuxiu Palace. This position generally requires 30 years of service in the palace to qualify for it, but Li Lianying had just served in the palace for 17 years at this time.
In the fifth year of Guangxu (1879 AD), Li Lianying served as the fourth-rank Hualing manager of Chuxiu Palace. At the same time, as his master, the Empress Dowager Cixi, became more and more powerful, his reputation and status became more prominent day by day. When Li Lianying was 31 years old, he was already on an equal footing with the chief steward of the Jingshifang, the chief eunuch of the Qing palace.
In the 20th year of Guangxu's reign, 46-year-old Li Lianying was awarded the second-grade crown with flower feathers, which set an unprecedented precedent among eunuchs. Because as early as the Yongzheng period, Emperor Yongzheng stipulated that the grade of eunuchs was limited to the fourth grade and could not be higher than this grade. When Empress Dowager Cixi arrived, she used her own power to break the rules handed down from her ancestors for Li Lianying.
"Interference" in political affairs caused dissatisfaction between the government and the opposition
The master-servant relationship and affection formed over decades between Empress Dowager Cixi and Li Lianying are extraordinary. In "Information on Life in the Court of the Late Qing Dynasty", Liu Xingqiao, a palace eunuch in the late Qing Dynasty, described the relationship between Li Lianying and the Empress Dowager Cixi like this: "As far as we know, they had three meals a day, morning and evening, and they would send eunuchs to each other or face each other in person. Greetings: "How are you getting in?" "Do you enjoy the food?" When she was living in Xiyuan and the Summer Palace, Empress Dowager Cixi often came to Li Lianying and said, "Lianying! Let's go for a walk!" Li Lianying came out to play with her. They walked in front, and the others followed from a distance. Empress Dowager Cixi sometimes called Li Lianying to her palace to talk about Huang Lao's immortality skills. The two often talked late into the night."
Empress Dowager Cixi's favor for Li Lianying increased day by day, causing discussion and uneasiness in both the government and the public.
In April of the twelfth year of Guangxu (AD 1886), Li Hongzhang, the then Governor-General of Zhili and Minister of Beiyang, reported that the Beiyang Navy had been trained into an army and asked the imperial court to send ministers to review it. The Empress Dowager Cixi sent Prime Minister and Navy Minister Prince Chun Yixuan to inspect various seaports in Beiyang. Since Yixuan was the biological father of Emperor Guangxu Zaitan at that time and had a noble status, additional eunuchs and imperial doctors were sent to accompany him. Prince Chun Yixuan was a very sophisticated and cautious man. When Empress Dowager Cixi summoned him, he took the initiative to send Li Lianying, the most favored person around the Empress Dowager, to accompany him in order to reduce the Empress Dowager's suspicion of him. Prince Chun's idea suited the Empress Dowager Cixi's wishes and was immediately approved.
At this time, there was already a voice of dissatisfaction in the court. The supervisory censor Zhu Yixin reported to Emperor Guangxu that he criticized Li Lianying for sending him to inspect the navy with Prince Chun. They were actually opposing the eunuchs to supervise the army. They also said that Li Lianying was arrogant, befriended local officials, and accepted bribes, and should be investigated and punished. What is the actual situation? Wang Zhao (also known as Xiaohang), a literati in the Qing Dynasty and a famous reformer, had another opinion.
Wang Zhao said that after Prince Chun left the capital, he asked Li Lianying to accompany him every time he met with civil and military officials.
His original intention was to avoid the suspicion that he wanted to seize power. If there were any discussions in the future, Li Lianying could testify for him. Li Lianying always remembered Andehai's lesson, dressed plainly every day, held a dry cigarette bag for the prince, and filled and passed cigarettes to him at any time. When I returned to my residence, I closed the door and saw no one visiting. (Wang Xiaohang's "Twenty Miscellaneous Odes and Narratives of Fang Jiayuan" is quoted from Gao Yang's "The Legend of Li Lianying")
At that time, some local officials in Zhili and Shandong really wanted to curry favor with this man. The famous people around the Queen Mother were all disappointed. Judging from Li Lianying's always cautious performance, Wang Zhao's statement is more credible.
After Cixi asked Prince Chun about the situation, he approved Zhu Yixin's memorial and ordered Zhu Yixin to be demoted one level, from censor to principal.
In the 20th year of Guangxu (1894 AD), during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894, the Beiyang Navy of the Qing Dynasty suffered a major defeat, and public opinion was in an uproar. However, people did not dare to criticize Empress Dowager Cixi directly, so they pointed the finger at Li Hongzhang, Minister of Beiyang and Governor of Zhili, and also criticized Li Lianying.
Enpu, the censor of the Shaanxi Province, An Weijun, the censor of the Fujian Province, and others all complained, accusing the Beiyang naval generals of delaying military flights and secretly communicating with the chief eunuch Li Lianying to protect each other. Among them, An Weijun's memorial contains the sentence "The peace agreement came from the Empress Dowager, and Li Lianying actually influenced it." It said that the decision on Japan seemed to be decided by the Empress Dowager, but in fact it was influenced by Li Lianying. This sentence became a major evidence for people to criticize Li Lianying for interfering in government affairs.
In fact, this is a misunderstanding of An Weijun's original intention. An Weijun's original intention was to ask the Empress Dowager Cixi to stop obstructing the emperor in everything, and to severely punish Li Hongzhang. Although Li Lianying was involved in the memorial, it was only used as a foreshadowing.
Empress Dowager Cixi was extremely angry after reading this excerpt, but it was not because she accused Li Lianying. In an edict issued in the name of the emperor, she said: "On important matters concerning the military and state, I must obey Yi's teachings and follow the universal understanding of the world." That is to say, we must listen to the Empress Dowager on matters in the world. As a result, An Weijun was dismissed from his post and sent to the army for "distancing" the empress dowager and the emperor.
Although there is insufficient evidence to say that Li Lianying interfered in political affairs, it is absolutely true to say that Li Lianying is greedy for money. There may not be any eunuchs in the Qing Dynasty who do not love money. Li Lianying and others tried every means to blackmail the officials in the court.
On the third day of August in the twelfth year of Guangxu (AD 1886), Lai Yu, a staff member of Jiangning Weaving Co., Ltd. in Beijing wrote a letter to Jiangning Weaving Co., Ltd. Guanghou. The letter said: "Yesterday, General Manager Li Lianying called me in again. Ouchi said to me in the hall of Ningshou Palace: You always have to sort out the drawings when you come to get them. How are you going to do it this time? I immediately replied that I would write a letter and have it delivered. Just send me 120 taels of silver! After saying that, I turned around and went in. If we were elsewhere, we could discuss this matter slowly and use good words to deal with it, but this manager Li is not easy to deal with."
She was charming and courteous in both ways to please the Empress Dowager and the Emperor
According to common sense, Empress Dowager Cixi was already old, and Emperor Guangxu was still young after all, although he was sick. If no unexpected circumstances occurred, Empress Dowager Cixi would have died before Emperor Guangxu. Inevitable. How could Li Lianying, who was so shrewd and cunning, be so confused that he couldn't see clearly such a situation? For him, the approach of trying to please both sides and being smart on all sides is a strategy to remain invincible and to preserve himself.
It is well known that the Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu had political disagreements. So what attitude did Li Lianying adopt between Cixi and Guangxu?
Wang Zhao, a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty who participated in the reform and reform, once wrote this poem: "The world is in a state of extreme heat. I despise the Lord and only know the Queen Mother. On the night of Bing, I hung up my clothes and waited respectfully, and I sobbed on my knees. Huangmen." The poem tells a story: In the year of Gengzi, Cixi led Guangxu and all the civil and military officials to escape, and prepared to return to Beijing the next year. They walked to Baoding and stayed. The place where the Queen Mother slept was very luxurious with bedding and bedding. Li Lianying's place was a little worse, but it was also very good. The place where Emperor Guangxu slept was miserable. Li Lianying waited on the Empress Dowager Cixi and came to visit after she fell asleep. She saw Guangxu sitting in front of the lamp, and no eunuch was on duty in the palace. When he asked, he found out that he had no bed and cover. It was the middle of winter and he couldn't sleep at all. Seeing this, Li Lianying knelt down and hugged Guangxu's legs, crying bitterly: "The slaves deserve death!" and brought her own bedding over for Guangxu to use.
After Guangxu returned to Beijing, recalling the pain of fleeing westward, he once said: "Without Li Shuda, I would not be alive today." (Shuida means old friend or master.)
It is said that after the Reform Movement of 1898, Li Lianying was cautious in his words and did not clearly express his support for Cixi. Although Cixi did not doubt his loyalty, he became somewhat emotionally distant from then on. Therefore, Li Lianying's tombstone reads: After returning to Beijing after fleeing westward, Li Lianying "thought that he could be acquitted and had retreated."
Leaving the Palace and her posthumous affairs
On October 22, the 34th year of Guangxu's reign (AD 1908), Cixi died in Yiluan Hall in Xiyuan, Beijing. After Li Lianying handled the funeral of the Queen Mother, she left the palace where she had lived for 51 years on the second day of February in the first year of Xuantong.
There are many legends in society surrounding Li Lianying's departure from the palace and his death. Some people say that he saw Emperor Guangxu's younger brother, Prince Chun Zaifeng, supervising the regency of the country, and feared retaliation, so he retreated outside the palace to save his head; others said that Li Lianying offended many people during his lifetime and lived in seclusion after leaving the palace. , fearing revenge, but in the end he was assassinated near Houhai and ended up with his head missing.
Although similar legends are very popular, judging from the arrangements made by the Qing Palace for Li Lianying's leaving the palace and after his death, these legends are unbelievable.
As a eunuch, Li Lianying's status is the same as that of thousands of eunuchs, which is extremely humble. The difference is that due to the appreciation and favor of his master, the Empress Dowager Cixi, he enjoyed unprecedented power and status in the palace, and money and wealth also rolled in. But precisely because of his special relationship with the Empress Dowager Cixi, he became one of the most notorious figures in modern Chinese history.
When Li Lianying died, he received 1,000 taels of silver from the Qing court and built a luxurious tomb in the eunuch cemetery in Enji Village, Beijing. Li Lianying's tomb was destroyed 30 years ago, and only the rubbings of the epitaph remain.
Li Lianying died in the third year of Xuantong (1911 AD) at the age of 64. At this time, the Qing Dynasty, which had lasted for more than two hundred years, was already in turmoil, and its demise was only a matter of seconds.