The life of Aixinjueluo Shanqi

In the fifth year of Tongzhi (1866), Shanqi was born. He was the tenth-generation grandson of Prince Su Hauge, the eldest son of Huang Taiji, Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty. His grandfather was Huafeng, who was posthumously named Ke; his father, Longqin, was an official to the rank of internal minister. Shanqi has been practicing martial arts since he was a child, and he is extremely brave. There are rumors that he once seized the pistol of a foreign gangster with his bare hands.

In the 13th year of Guangxu's reign (1887), he was awarded the title of Second-class General of the State. In the twenty-fifth year of Guangxu (1899), he attacked Prince Su. In the twenty-sixth year of Guangxu (1900), the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing. Emperor Guangxu and Empress Dowager Cixi fled from Beijing in a hurry. When they arrived in Datong, Cixi ordered Shanqi to return to Beijing and handle the aftermath together with Prince Qing Yikuang and bachelor Li Hongzhang. Not long after Shanqi returned to Beijing, he met Kawashima Naniwa, who served as a translator in the Japanese army. The two met late and later became brothers. With the support of Naniwa Kawashima and others, Shanqi formed a patrol team based on the Japanese Police Law and the current situation of Beijing City (this was the origin of the Beijing Police in the future).

During the Gengzi Rebellion, Prince Su's Mansion was completely burned down by the Eight-Power Allied Forces. In order to compensate for the loss of Prince Su's palace, the imperial court gave the good job of supervising Chongwenmen to Shanqi as compensation. The Superintendent of Chongwenmen was the tax director of the capital in the Qing Dynasty. He was in charge of the Chongwen State Administration of Taxation and its 23 branches. He was responsible for collecting various taxes on goods entering and leaving the capital. He was a coveted job. Because of the intention of compensation, the court stipulated that the tax payment should be reduced from 300,000 taels in previous years to 120,000 taels, and the remaining amount could be collected into Shanqi's personal pocket. But Shan Qi didn't appreciate this. At the beginning of taking office, he took drastic measures to rectify the officials and strictly prohibited corruption and bribery. In less than a year, the taxes collected by Chongwenmen, after deducting expenses, reached more than 600,000 taels. Shanqi did not keep a single tael himself, and turned the entire amount over to the state treasury. In the past, foreigners did not pay taxes when bringing goods into Beijing, but he changed it to pay taxes as one. In the past, when merchants and people entered the customs, economic agents collected taxes and took a cut of the tax. Instead, he changed it to officials directly inspecting the goods and collecting taxes, eliminating the need for intermediary exploitation. Shanqi's move inadvertently pushed him to the opposite side of some powerful people. Before long, he was impeached by Prince Qing Yikuang and was dismissed. In April of the twenty-eighth year of Guangxu (1902), Shanqi once again served as the Minister of Management Affairs of the General Administration of Industry and Inspection. The high-spirited Shanqi made great innovations during his one year and eight months in office, leaving behind many commendable achievements. Record achievements in history. One of them is the renovation of Wangfujing Street. Before the Gengzi Year, the roads in the Wangfujing area were very narrow and uneven. They were often covered in gray on sunny days and muddy on rainy days. There were very few shops on both sides of the street. After the signing of the "Xinchou Treaty", Dongjiaomin Lane at the south entrance of Wangfujing became the embassy area. In view of the increasing number of foreigners coming and going from this place, Shanqi quickly realized the potential huge commercial value of this place. After his request, in February of the 29th year of Guangxu (1903), the "Dongan Market" was built on the east side of Wangfujing Street. Subsequently, many large and small shops appeared one after another, and the streets were expanded and renovated. At that time, the capital showed a new atmosphere. Shanqi also ordered the opening of a theater called the "Civilized Tea House" in Xizhu City, with seats for women upstairs and seats for men downstairs. The ban on women not being allowed to enter the theater to watch plays was lifted. In Beijing, the most beautiful district, for a while, Boom pass.

When Shanqi was in charge of the Industrial Inspection Bureau, he issued a notice written in vernacular Chinese prohibiting the setting off of firecrackers. The notice included the words "It is the end of the year and the weather is dry. Citizens must be careful when setting off firecrackers." The wording in our notices today is arguably no different. This incident attracted the attention of Beijing's "Jinghua Daily", which believed that Shanqi's move undoubtedly promoted the promotion of vernacular writing. In addition to the General Administration of Industry and Inspection, Shanqi established three branches in the east and west, and established a new police organization. After Shanqi became the Minister of Civil Affairs, he promoted the construction of police administration, household registration, health, municipal administration and other aspects across the country. Xu Shiying, who served as the Chief of Internal Affairs of the Beiyang Government and the Governor of Anhui Province, was once in charge of the security of the capital under Shanqi. Once, the kindhearted Fujin did not obey the traffic rules, and Xu Shiying ordered him to pay a fine of ten yuan. However, Xu Shiying's move was not only not blamed, but also praised by Shanqi.

However, Shanqi’s reformist practices were not recognized at the time. Finally, when he proposed to abolish the Infantry Commanding Yamen, he encountered resistance and opposition from the stubborn conservatives. He instigated more than 20,000 officers and soldiers of the Infantry Commanding Yamen to complain to Prince Qing, and Shanqi was dismissed again. In the second year of Xuantong (1910), Wang Jingwei secretly sneaked to Beijing and attempted to assassinate Puyi's father and the regent of the Qing Dynasty, Zaifeng. Wang Jingwei failed in the assassination and was arrested, and the court assigned Shanqi to be responsible for hearing the case. During the trial, after Shanqi saw Wang Jingwei's manuscripts "Revolutionary Trends", "Revolutionary Determination", and "Farewell Comrade Letter", he was deeply moved and decided not to kill. In addition, Shanqi had already had a premonition that the rule of the Qing Dynasty was in danger, and believed that killing a few revolutionaries would not help at this time, so it was better to deal with them with gentle means. Under his urging, Wang Jingwei was given a lighter sentence and was sentenced to permanent imprisonment for "misunderstanding the court's policy." Soon, he was released again.

While Wang Jingwei was in prison, Shanqi visited him many times in prison and wanted to take the opportunity to do Wang's ideological work, hoping it could be used for his own benefit. But the result is that every conversation between the two is like a debate. They are evenly matched and no one can convince the other. Shan Qi said to others in private, half jokingly and half seriously: "If I had not been born into the royal family, I would have joined the revolutionary party and rebelled against the court." Wang Jingwei saw that Shan Qi was elegant in conversation and far-sighted, and was not an ordinary dull and incompetent official. Even the dirty officials can compare with him, but he also has a feeling of admiration.

Later, when people asked Wang Jingwei about his impression of Shanqi, Wang Jingwei only commented: "A great politician."

In October of the third year of Xuantong (1911), Zhang Shaozeng and Lan Tianwei launched a "military remonstrance" in Luanzhou. The Qing government was forced to issue an imperial edict, announcing the lifting of party bans and amnesty for state prisoners. Taking this opportunity, Shanqi suggested that the Qing government release Wang Jingwei. In the third year of Xuantong (1911), the Wuchang Uprising broke out, and the rule of the Qing Dynasty fell into disintegration. On January 12, the first year of the Republic of China (1912), Shanqi, Liangbi, Puwei, Tieliang and others organized the "Constitutional Monarchy Maintenance Committee" (commonly known as the "Zongshe Party") to oppose the peace talks between the north and the south and the abdication of the Qing emperor; January On the 19th, the Clan Socialist Party issued a declaration advocating deposing Yuan Shikai and forming a "wartime royal cabinet" with Tieliang as commander-in-chief to organize troops loyal to the Qing Dynasty to fight the revolutionary army. On January 17, the Qing court held an imperial meeting to discuss Puyi's abdication. Pu Wei, the royal family member, strongly opposed it. On January 26, Liangbi was injured by the revolutionary Peng Jiazhen and died two days later. The Clan Socialist Party was frightened and the princes and nobles fled one after another.

In February of the same year, Puyi abdicated and the Qing Dynasty fell. Instigated by Kawashima Naniwa, Shanqi fled to Lushun with his family on February 6, and continued to work hard to restore the Qing Dynasty. After arriving in Lushun, Shanqi threw himself into the arms of the Japanese and advocated "China-Japan cooperation." In July, when the Japanese Emperor Meiji passed away and held a grand funeral, he actually wore mourning clothes and fasted vegetarian food for three days as a nobleman of the Qing Dynasty.

On New Year's Day in the third year of the Republic of China (1914), Emperor Taisho of Japan ascended the throne. He braved the biting cold wind to climb the Baiyu Mountain in Lushun to pay homage to the souls of the Japanese soldiers who invaded China. In order to close the relationship with Kawashima Naniwa, he also gave his youngest daughter, the fourteenth daughter Jinbihui (ie Kawashima Yoshiko), who was only six years old, to Kawashima as his adopted daughter. Whenever Kawashima came to visit, he would lead the whole family to wait in line at the door of his house, go up to greet him with a hug, and even let his youngest concubine accompany Kawashima to drink Naniwa. Starting in June of the first year of the Republic of China (1912), Shanqi made every effort to organize the "Qinwang Army" to cooperate with the "Manchuria-Mongolia Independence Movement" instigated by the Japanese government. For the first time, Shanqi prepared to start an uprising on September 20, the first year of the Republic of China (1912). He disguised the large quantities of arms he purchased as farm tools and transported them to Inner Mongolia via Gongzhuling. But when this batch of arms arrived near Zhengjiatun, it was intercepted by Wu Junsheng's army, and all 47 carts were confiscated. The first "Manchuria-Mongolia Independence Movement" was stillborn. In the fourth year of the Republic of China (1915), Yuan Shikai proclaimed himself emperor. Shanqi believed that the time was ripe for restoration, so he began to carry out activities in full swing. His plan was to mobilize troops from Qianshan in Liaoning to attack Yuan Fenghuo, join forces with Babu Zabu's Mongolian army to capture Beijing, and establish a large kingdom "including Inner and Outer Mongolia, the three provinces of Manchuria and North China", and then invite Puyi ascended the throne. In order to succeed in the plan, Shanqi used all his family wealth, mortgaged all his farmland, forests, gold mines, pastures, and coal mines, and borrowed 1 million yuan from the Japanese chaebol Okura Kihachiro. He used this funds to recruit a large number of Bandits, conducting military training, sharpening their swords, and are full of ambition. Just when Shanqi thought that restoration was just around the corner, Yuan Shikai died suddenly, and the slogan of "supporting the Qing Dynasty and defeating Yuan Dynasty" had lost its meaning. In order to avoid arousing the resentment of the Chinese, the Japanese began to suppress the good people and prevent them from acting rashly. The Manchu-Mongolian movement failed again.

This failure not only severely damaged Shanqi’s spirit, but also caused him to become bankrupt and lose the financial resources to make a comeback. After that, Shanqi felt deeply that there was no hope of restoration, so he placed his hope on his children. He did not allow his children to be officials in China, nor were they allowed to be citizens of China. After arriving in Lushun, he sent all his 38 children (21 boys and 17 girls) abroad one after another. Except for three sons who went to England, Germany, and Belgium respectively, the rest all went to Japanese schools. When one of his daughters got married in Japan, he specially added a Japanese kimono to the dowry, warning her not to forget Japan's kindness and to remember her future ties with Japan.

On February 27, the eleventh year of the Republic of China (1922), Shanqi became ill due to depression and died in Lushun at the age of 56. The body was transported back to Beijing for burial in Prince Su Cemetery. The deposed emperor Puyi commended the good man for his loyalty and gave him the posthumous title of "Zhong", with the full title of Prince Su Zhong.