Before he died, Li Hongzhang gave a memorial to Empress Dowager Cixi, which wrote: "As long as you work hard, you will know that you are dead. For 300 years, I have injured my country and hanged my people 8 thousand miles away. Autumn wind sword tears lonely minister, the setting sun flag general altar. The dusty atmosphere overseas is still there and it is not appropriate to wait and see. " Empress Dowager Cixi burst into tears when she saw it, and bluntly said, "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 worked hard all his life to revitalize the Qing Dynasty, and also made various efforts to save the precarious Qing Dynasty. No matter how many things Li Hongzhang did in his life that were not good for the country and the people, he was indeed a loyal and patriotic courtier to the rulers of the Qing Dynasty at that time. Unfortunately, he was born in troubled times in the late Qing Dynasty. At that time, the Great Qing Dynasty was corrupt from the inside out, and the western powers were eyeing it. The Qing dynasty, which made a living in the cracks, was in jeopardy.

Without the support of Li Hongzhang, an important official in the late Qing Dynasty who wanted to save the country, the building that was about to collapse in the Qing Dynasty might have died long ago. When Li Hongzhang died, Empress Dowager Cixi also understood that although there were no thieves from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom around her and some western powers lived in peace, no one in the Qing Dynasty helped her carry the building that was about to collapse.

It is not known whether Cixi was worried that the Qing Dynasty would die in her own hands, but the death of Li Hongzhang was indeed a major blow to Cixi. At that time, Cixi really had no one available, so she cried after seeing this poem in Li Hongzhang's throne before she died.