Liu E, a generalist in the late Qing Dynasty, built the Yellow River regardless of fame and fortune, but was called a "traitor" by the people?

Travel Notes of Laocan, one of the four condemnation novels in the late Qing Dynasty, describes the travel of a quack and Laocan, profoundly reveals social contradictions, and especially dares to denounce honest officials for harming the country and the people, pointing out that honest officials are sometimes no better than corrupt officials in fatuity. Liu E, the author of this book, was born in a bureaucratic family in Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province. His father, Liu Chengzhong, and Li Hongzhang were scholars in the same year. Later, he served as a Beijing censor, Henan magistrate and Daotai. He inherited his family studies, but he didn't like the words in the examination room. He devoted himself to practical knowledge such as mathematics, medicine, water conservancy, music and arithmetic, and investigated hundreds of schools. He likes to collect calligraphy and painting inscriptions and inscriptions. Oracle Bone Inscriptions was first published to the world by his book "Hidden Tortoise in Iron Clouds".

/kloc-in the autumn of 0/876 (the second year of Guangxu), Liu E went to Nanjing to take the exam, and then returned to Huai 'an.

Liu E, who fell out of the list, started to go into business, but lost one family after another. He refused to admit defeat and lost again and again until he was thirty-one.

At that time, the Kaifeng and Zhengzhou sections of the Yellow River burst, and the river officials were at a loss. Qing * * * gave the important task to Wu Dacheng, the governor of Guangdong. Because Wu had an old friendship with Liu E's father, Liu Chengzhong, Liu E, who liked water conservancy, closed the printing factory in Shanghai and defected to Wu Dacheng as the dispatch officer of the River Supervision Bureau. Liu E fought tirelessly in the front line, and his strategy of "attacking sand with water" was a great success.

After the success of harnessing the Yellow River, Wu Dayou hired Liu E as the "Yellow River Map of Henan, Jiangsu and Shandong Provinces" to coordinate the unified harnessing of the lower reaches of the Yellow River, with remarkable results. The following year, recommended by Fu Run twice, Liu E finally entered the Prime Minister's yamen.

1900 After Eight-Nation Alliance captured Beijing, there was a shortage of food supply in Beijing and Tianjin due to the war. Liu E bought Taicang millet from the allied forces and set up a square meter bureau to relieve Beijing's hunger. Unexpectedly, this became a major crime of "selling official rice in Taicang" in Liu E.

Later, Liu E foresaw that Pukou "will be full of commercial land in the future", so he raised funds with his relatives to buy land in Pukou. After the completion of the Jin-Pu Railway, Pukou is suitable as the end of the railway. As Liu E expected, Pukou land price soared. Seeing that it was profitable, a bureaucrat in Pukou wanted to buy the land purchased by Liu E, but Liu E refused.

Liu E, who got rich first, set up his own shopping mall and textile factory in Shanghai, but all failed. Later, he simply cooperated with the Japanese, opened a salt field in the northeast, smuggled it into salt-deficient North Korea in violation of national policies, and made huge profits, which also helped the Japanese colonial authorities in North Korea. He also visited Japanese envoys privately and went to Japan many times, and was called "traitor" by the people.

1908, Yuan Shikai, who was in power in the military department, was arrested and exiled to Xinjiang by the Governor of Liangjiang on trumped-up charges such as "spreading millet in Taicang" and "setting up fields in Pukou" in Liu E.

Liu E and Yuan Shikai used to work under Shandong Governor Zhang Yao. Yuan was not reused for a long time, so he asked Liu for promotion and appointment. However, Zhang thinks that Yuan is "cute and uncertain, but his knowledge is not pure" and disagrees with Yuan's request. Therefore, Yuan Shikai thinks that Liu E refused to contribute to him and has always held a grudge. This time, this is an opportunity for revenge.

Only one year in exile in Xinjiang (1August 23rd, 909), Liu E died of a stroke at the age of 53. Three years later, Qing also suffered an emergency "death".