Before his death, Li Hongzhang wrote a memorial to the Empress Dowager Cixi, in which he wrote, "The horses and carriages have not left the saddle, and they only know that they are about to die. In the past three hundred years, the country has been hurt, and it has traveled eight thousand miles." The people are hanging outside. The swords in the autumn wind make the ministers weep, and the sun sets on the altar of generals. The dusty atmosphere overseas has not yet ceased, so please do not wait and see." When the Empress Dowager Cixi saw this, she burst into tears and said bluntly, "Once Li Hongzhang is gone, who can help me in troubled times?"
Li Hongzhang was an important military and political minister in the late Qing Dynasty. He spent his whole life fighting for the revitalization of the Qing Dynasty. He also made various efforts to save the Qing Dynasty which was in danger at that time. No matter how many things Li Hongzhang did in his life that were not good for the country or the people, he was indeed a loyal and patriotic minister to the rulers of the Qing Dynasty at that time. It is a pity that he was born in the troubled times of the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, the Qing Dynasty was already extremely corrupt from the inside out, and there were also Western powers eyeing it. The Qing Dynasty, which was trying to make a living in the cracks, was in danger.
The Qing Dynasty, a edifice that was about to collapse, might have perished earlier if it had not been for the support of Li Hongzhang, an important minister of the late Qing Dynasty who was determined to save the country. When Li Hongzhang passed away, Empress Dowager Cixi also understood that although there were no Taiping rebels around her and she had some peace with the Western powers, there was no one in the Qing Dynasty at that time who could help her carry up the Qing Dynasty. A building about to collapse.
It is unknown whether Cixi was also worried about the demise of the Qing Dynasty at her hands at that time, but the death of Li Hongzhang was indeed a major blow to Cixi. There was indeed no one available for Cixi at that time, so she burst into tears after seeing the verses in Li Hongzhang's memorial before her death.