有关吴棠对慈禧太后微时有恩的传说不可信

The Incredibility in the Legend of Wu Tang's Favor on Ci Xi as a Young Girl

吴棠作为晚清时期的显宦,其真实的生平事迹却并不为一般人所知。然而,关于他因所谓误致慈禧赙仪而屡得升迁的传说,则由于野史稗乘的反复转载及演义小说的大力渲染,反倒大为流行,在苏北、皖东一带几乎是家喻户晓。这些传说见诸文字记录的以恽毓鼎的《崇陵传信录》和沃丘仲子《近代名人小传.吴棠》最具代表性。但所述各情节都经不起史实的检验。这些传说的成因比较复杂,但不外乎当时人的玄想猜测、误读曲解甚至因派系倾轧而故造流言,以及后人的加工润饰。

As a high official in the late Qing Dynasty, Wu Tang has been strange to average people. However, his legend of unintentional favor on Ci Xi as a young girl is so popular that it is almost a household story in North Jiangsu and East Anhui. The representative works recording such stories are Records of Cong Ling by Yun Yu Ding and Biography of the Celebrities of Modern Times by Woqiu Zhongzi. Nevertheless, these records cannot stand the test of historical research. Mthough complicated, the causes of the spreading of those legends are none other than the assumption of the then people, misreading, rumors, and the coining of the later people.