Emperor Guangxu and his teacher Weng Tonghe were both militants. However, in 1888, Weng Tonghe petitioned that in order to save money, he would no longer allocate funds to the Beiyang Navy. In fact, it was not because there was no money, but because there was more need. A place for money.
In 1889, Emperor Guangxu got married. The preparations for the ceremony started as early as a year ago. The wedding ceremony, rituals, and etiquette were extremely grand and complicated, including the nacai ceremony (that is, the man sent a matchmaker to the woman's house to propose marriage). The large gathering ceremony, the registration ceremony, the welcome ceremony, the celebration ceremony, the banquet, etc., the large number of people, the scene was huge, which revealed the luxury and extravagance of Emperor Guangxu's wedding.
This luxurious and extravagant wedding cost a total of 5.5 million taels of silver. Who said that the Qing Dynasty had no money, but all the money was spent like this.
At that time, a Dingyuan-class iron-clad battleship only cost 1.5 million taels. In other words, four main battleships were burned in a wedding, and after signing countless treaties that were humiliating and humiliating the country, at this time The Japanese are tightening their belts and trying every means to expand their navy.
In fact, in a sense, the Empress Dowager Cixi did not misappropriate the navy's military expenditures, but she had an indirect relationship with her, because there were two very important people among them, one was Emperor Guangxu, and the other was his biological father, Chun Prince Xian.
Prince Chunxian was the Minister of the Prime Minister's Naval Affairs Office, but the navy's military expenditures were misappropriated, but the person who embezzled it was Prince Chunxian, not Cixi.
In 1887, Emperor Guangxu came into power, and Empress Dowager Cixi retired in name only, but in fact she did not return the government to Emperor Guangxu. Later, Cixi repeatedly hinted that she wanted to build a garden to spend her retirement years in peace, although building a garden would require a large amount of money. Funding, but this also means that the Empress Dowager Cixi will stay away from the Forbidden City and the center of power, and Emperor Guangxu can be independent. This is a good opportunity for Prince Chunxian, who is in charge of the Navy Premier Yamen, but how can such a sum of money be raised? Woolen cloth?
Prince Chunxian finally focused on the navy's military expenditures, but it was a bit inappropriate to use the excuse of building a garden for the Empress Dowager Cixi, so he used another excuse. In the end, he used the name of the navy to raise funds in various provinces, and Governor Zeng Guoquan agreed to raise funds. 700,000 taels, Governor Zhang Zhidong pledged 1 million taels, Governor Yulu 400,000 taels, Governors Liu Bingzhang, Li Hongzhang, etc., a total of 2.6 million taels of silver.
During the construction of the Summer Palace, there was a large stone ship. This was where Cixi held a military parade. However, he was not reviewing the Beiyang Navy, but his own navy in the Forbidden City.
Since most people believed that the Beiyang Fleet belonged to Li Hongzhang personally, in 1887, the Qing government was established, and the Naval Academy trained troops at Kunming Lake. Cixi began to train his own naval officers for the Manchus to ensure that they could firmly control them. This is also a plan to kill two birds with one stone, and it also provides the best excuse for repairing the Summer Palace.
From 1886 to 1894, the Summer Palace was constantly being renovated, and a total of about 20 million to 30 million taels of silver was spent. How much of this was spent on naval military expenditures? In fact, it is impossible to know, because the wily Cixi She also knew that at that time, it was inappropriate to rebuild the Summer Palace, and she was afraid that others would find out, so she did not need to register the various miscellaneous expenses of the navy in those years. What should she do? That was to destroy them all, not even a word of it. Don't stay.
Although Cixi did not misappropriate the navy's military expenditures, one thing is certain. The money spent on rebuilding the Summer Palace was enough to purchase a dozen to twenty Dingyuan-class main iron-armored battleships. However, there was another main reason for the destruction of the Beiyang Fleet. , was an order issued by the Ministry of Revenue during the construction of the Summer Palace, which prohibited the navy from purchasing foreign arms, guns, etc., and that person was Weng Tonghe.
At this time, the entire court seemed extremely solemn, but then Li Ningyu only found Li Hongzhang, Weng Tonghe and Prince Chunxian among the ministers. Then he was not in a hurry to do anything, and then he just took out a bottle from his arms. Then he pointed at one of the three people while speaking and saying: "Prince Chunxian, you must not know how many fields and houses your family has!".
Li Ningyu's question was too straightforward, but the biological father of Emperor Guangxu did not know, but Li Ningyu knew that he then said regardless of others: "Your family owns at least 30,000 hectares of fertile land, which is 450,000 acres." , there are 52 buildings and houses, and even if I consider the minimum value of each place as 200,000 taels of silver, it is about 10.4 million taels of silver, which is 7 Dingyuan-class ironclads!"
Just as Li Ningyu finished speaking, Prince Chunxian's face turned pale, and then he fell to the ground, his body still shaking. At this time, Li Ningyu kept pointing at Weng Tonghe, and then said a series of numbers. , although this old man who claims to be from the Qing Dynasty is not as rich and has as many properties as Prince Chunxian, but he is not bad at all in some aspects because he has more land.
In fact, the white paper in Li Ningyu's hand was the property list of major officials that the Far East Intelligence Team had discovered over the years. Li Ningyu did not recognize some of the people present, so he did not read them out one by one, and then just read the white paper. He handed it to his father-in-law, Prince Gong, and then said to Emperor Guangxu and Cixi, whose faces were pale and sweating coldly: "Li Ningyu spoke so loudly just now, please forgive me! I will take my leave today so that I can prepare for the wedding!".
Then, without waiting for Emperor Guangxu and Cixi to speak, he walked out of the Jinluan Palace. After walking out of the Palace of Supreme Harmony, Li Ningyu suddenly felt a lot more relaxed. At least he felt that he had told them, and what was left to do was up to him. Regarding the matter, saying that the thing is in the hands of Prince Gong can be regarded as helping him a little, because almost no official in this era is clean.
However, Li Ningyu didn't know that his sudden move directly led to the short-term cooperation between Cixi and Emperor Guangxu, and then established a new Beiyang Fleet again. However, Li Ningyu no longer had the time to do these things, because he These days I have been preparing to marry Duan Tong Gege.
Although Li Ningyu opposed spreading waste, he knew that there would be many people coming to his wedding to Prince Gong’s beloved daughter, so he had been worrying about the venue. However, on the third day, he received a piece of good news. That was a partial courtyard owned by Prince Gong that was for sale. When he heard it, Li Ningyu didn't know what it meant, so he asked Zhang Jun to negotiate the price. He knew that for only 666 taels of silver, Li Ningyu got it. Built a villa covering an area of 30 acres.
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