A century-old mystery solved： Guangxu died of arsenic poisoning

　　The mystery of Guangxu’s death with different opinions finally came to a scientific conclusion on the occasion of the centenary anniversary of the poor emperor’s death-Guangxu died of arsenic poisoning. Tomorrow morning, the National Compilation Committee of Qing History Project will hold a "Report on the Death of Emperor Guangxu of Qing Dynasty" in Beijing, and publish a 10,000-word report detected by modern criminal investigation and high-tech means. The 20 episodes of large-scale TV documentaries, which fully record the process of solving this century-old mystery, have also entered post-production in CCTV.

　　The dead emperor was only 37 years old.

　　On the evening of November 14th, 1908, Emperor Guangxu died. The next afternoon, Empress Dowager Cixi also died. Guangxu, 37, died in front of Cixi, 74, and only one day later, causing many speculations. Some people think that Cixi did not want Guangxu to regain power after her death, and sent someone to poison Guangxu. Some people say that Yuan Shikai betrayed Guangxu during the Reform Movement of 1898, fearing that Cixi would be retaliated by Guangxu after her death, so he bribed eunuchs and poisoned them. Li Lianying, the eunuch, was also said to have poisoned him, because he learned in Guangxu’s diary that after the death of Cixi, Yuan Shikai and he would be punished. However, some people think that Guangxu died of physical weakness.

　　The cause of death is inconclusive for a hundred years.

　　In the past 100 years, there have been numerous papers on Guangxu’s death, but no academic conclusion has been reached. In 2003, Zhong Liman, the director of CCTV documentary, occasionally learned that in 1980, the cultural relics management office of Qing Xiling had cleaned and re-closed the coffins of Guangxu and Longyu (stolen in the late 1930s), and their hair was moved outside the coffins and kept in the warehouse of Qing Xiling. So Zhong Liman began the process of testing research and filming TV documentaries for five years.

　　Criminal investigation high-tech detection

　　The "Report on the Death of Guangxu", which will be released completely for the first time tomorrow, will also be signed by the Cultural Relics Management Office of Qing Xiling, the Research and Design Institute of Reactor Engineering of China Institute of Atomic Energy and the Forensic Identification Center of Beijing Public Security Bureau. They successively extracted two strands of Guangxu’s hair, which were 26 cm and 65 cm long respectively, washed them, dried them, cut them into 1 cm long sections, numbered them one by one, weighed them and packaged them, and then detected the element content in Guangxu’s hair by nuclear analysis method.

　　The results showed that Guangxu’s hair contained high concentrations of elemental arsenic, and the contents of different sections were very different. The peak value of arsenic in the first hair appeared in the 10th section (2404 μ g/g), and the peak value of arsenic in the second hair appeared in the 26th section (362.7 μ g/g) and 45th section (202.1 μ g/g). At the same time, the arsenic content in hair tested by comparison is 0.14 to 0.59 μ g/g for contemporary people, 9.20 μ g/g for the Queen Longyu who was buried with Guangxu at the same time, and 18.2 μ g/g for the hair of a forage official in the late Qing Dynasty.

　　The poisoning forensic doctor has a conclusion

　　Later, according to the standard requirements and methods of forensic examination, they took samples of Guangxu’s remains and clothes for testing. As a result, the arsenic content in the scapula, spine and the stomach area, frenum and collar and shoulder of each piece of clothing was very high. The arsenic content of inner clothing is much higher than that of outer clothing. Then, the comparative experiments were carried out on the objects in Guangxu’s coffin and tomb and the soil and water in the mausoleum. The results showed that the high concentration of arsenic in Guangxu’s hair did not come from environmental pollution. Finally, they came to the conclusion that the high content of arsenic in Guangxu’s hair was not produced by natural metabolism of chronic poisoning, but from external contamination; A large number of arsenic compounds once remained in the stomach and abdomen of Guangxu’s corpse, and the decay process of the corpse was redistributed, eroding the remains, hair and clothes. And arsenic compounds are also highly toxic arsenic.

　　After scientific calculation, the total amount of arsenic ingested by Guangxu was obviously greater than the lethal dose.

　　The murderer has yet to be studied.

　　While testing, Zhong Li searched the archives of the late Qing Dynasty, medical records of Guangxu, personal memoirs of imperial doctors who participated in the diagnosis and treatment before Guangxu’s death, diaries of military ministers and Juzhu officials, sorted out the situation 10 days before Guangxu’s death, and combined with the discussion of arsenic poisoning by modern forensic doctors, discussed the types of arsenic poisoning in Guangxu, as well as the lower and upper limits of poisoning time.

　　This project, which was completed by non-Qing scholars, has been attached great importance to by the National Qing History Compilation Project, and has been included in the "Special Project on Major Academic Issues" of this project. Perhaps, the 20-episode documentary "The Death of Guangxu" will also be included in China’s official history "The History of Qing Dynasty". The research group also wrote a monograph on the research and test of Guangxu’s death, which will be published soon.

　　But who poisoned Guangxu? This remains to be further studied or discovered by historians.

　　Reporter Yang Liqiong in Beijing (Beijing, Today)

Editor: Tang Liang