The indirect consequence of Cixi's rebuilding of the Summer Palace in the late Qing Dynasty was that the Beiyang Navy was wiped out in the Sino-Japanese War.

1894165438+1October 7th, in order to celebrate the 60th birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, the Summer Palace was decorated with lights and colorful decorations, and all the officials of Cixi were singing and dancing, while at this time, the battle report in front was put in the corner. Five months later, beiyang fleet was completely annihilated, and 60,000 troops of the Qing army fled across the east bank of Liaohe River. 1894- 1895 During the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War of 1895, this episode of Cixi celebrating her birthday in the Summer Palace was ridiculed by later generations as "one person celebrates, Xinjiang has no life".

It has been said that Cixi lost her home and forgot her country. The biggest crime is not that she has neglected state affairs these days, but that she spent the naval military expenditure of Beiyang Navy on building the Summer Palace for fun, leaving Beiyang Navy with no money to buy equipment. But don't forget, Cixi is not a fool. With her shrewdness, she will not settle accounts. Which is more important, birthday or destroying her country? This kind of self-destruction of the Great Wall should not happen. On the other hand, the Beiyang Navy could not have been established without the strong support of Cixi. Moreover, during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Cixi also took out 3 million taels of silver from private money to pay the navy. With this, misappropriation, it is very likely that someone deliberately planted it, and the biggest beneficiary of this conclusion is Kang Youwei, the core figure of the Imperial Party. There is a simple reason. Only by discrediting the foundation of empress dowager cixi, the imperial party can turn over.

In some TV dramas, Cixi is usually described as a spendthrift. The main evidence of this view is that she spent a lot of money on the birthday party. At that time, the Qing dynasty was devastated and had no national strength at all, so in the face of such a source of funds, many people would associate it with the military expenditure of Beiyang Navy. So did Cixi misappropriate naval funds? What were the main reasons for Beiyang Navy's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War? Don't worry, please read on.

Let's talk about whether Cixi embezzled naval funds. I remember that there was a eunuch named Wang Shi who served Emperor Guangxu. He once said it, but it was vague. He said that at first, people who worked in the Forbidden City made a lot of money because of the construction of the Forbidden City, and later they built other projects, and people from other departments also made a lot of money. At this time, the people in the naval yamen were jealous, so they came up with the idea of simply building a garden to make a fortune and put it into action, and this garden is the Summer Palace. It is difficult to verify the credibility of this eunuch's words today.

Looking back at history, we can easily find that Cixi is a very domineering person. It is estimated that many people will remember her famous saying, "Whoever makes my birthday uncomfortable, I will make him uncomfortable for life!" It can be seen that the birthday of that year was very important to Cixi, and her desire to build the Summer Palace was indeed very strong.