Since the Western Han Dynasty, rulers of successive dynasties have followed the ancient system of standing up for the throne when choosing the heir to the throne. The reason is also very simple, because the establishment of the concubine can avoid the prince's struggle for the crown to a certain extent, until the Ming Dynasty, this system has been inherited unchanged.
The Qing Dynasty was a regime established by ethnic minorities, and because of their inherent ideology and culture, they had their own unique views on the establishment of reserves, and the emperors of the Qing Dynasty before Yongzheng did not practice the establishment of concubines and the establishment of a long, nor did they form a system.
As we all know, taizu Nurhaci left the system of eight kings to discuss state affairs on his death after the failure of his eldest son Chu Ying and his second son DaiShan; emperor Taiji did not come to establish a will and testament due to his violent death, which caused a fierce competition for the position of crown prince; in the Shunzhi and Kangxi periods, the emperor basically clarified the basic principle of establishing a virtuous person and not a concubine.
It should be said that establishing a virtuous person without establishing a concubine is a kind of progress, because there is a fatal flaw in the system of establishing a concubine, that is, there are many unqualified kings who have been established, far from it, not to mention, take the Ming Dynasty as an example, among which there are many emperors and princes, and those who are truly talented are excluded by the ancient system of establishing a concubine.
Although the Qing Dynasty's lixian system could prevent those unqualified princes from being made crown princes, the selected princes were the best among the princes in terms of morality and talent. Of course, everything has two sides, and the meritocracy also has a fatal flaw, that is, it is easy to cause a dispute over the foundation of the country and the disaster of the sudden Xiao Wall.
One of the most typical examples is the nine sons of Kangxi in his later years, the Kangxi Emperor I, the name of the Kangxi Emperor, Wenzhi Martial Arts did not lose to any successive Ming Emperors, but it was the dispute over the crown prince in his later years that smeared him, it can be said that since the first abolition of the crown prince, Kangxi has been scorched by the problem of the selection of the crown prince, and to a certain extent, it has affected the governance of the country.
The Yongzheng Emperor was chosen by Kangxi from among many brothers, and in order to sit on this throne, Yongzheng did spend a lot of thought, and even left a curse. As for the fratricidal persecution of the clan after he ascended the throne, it was also the inheritance of the Kangxi Emperor's struggle for the crown prince in his later years.
Yongzheng was a pragmatic emperor who had experienced the lessons of blood and tears in the establishment of reserves, so he took the throne and opened the secret reserve system. The so-called secret reserve system is not to disclose the candidate for the crown prince, but to draw up two wills, one to carry with you, and one to put on the Zhengda Guangming Plaque in the Qianqing Palace, and wait until the emperor dies and the ministers will start to read out the successor candidates.
From the lixian system to the secret reserve system, the qing dynasty's storage succession system developed step by step. Objectively speaking, the secret reserve system has solved many drawbacks of establishing a concubine and openly establishing a prince. However, this system invented by Yongzheng was only implemented twice, one was Yongzheng Li Qianlong, and the other was Daoguang Li Xianfeng. Although Jiaqing is also a secret reserve of Qianlong, it is a Zen system. The emperors after Daoguang were all single seedlings or heirless, so the secret reserve system was useless.
Although the secret reserve system is more scientific, it also has some negative effects, and its contradictions are mainly concentrated in three aspects:
First, the transition to the throne suddenly caught the new monarch by surprise
Before the Qing Dynasty, due to the establishment of the crown prince and the establishment of the bureaucracy supporting the Eastern Palace, which was the emperor's way of allowing the prince to contact the state as soon as possible, and the prince supervised the country during the emperor's tour or expedition, so he could accumulate experience in governance.
For example, during the reign of Ming Chengzu, many expeditions to the north of the desert were very long, and the crown prince Zhu Gaozi he appointed supervised the country several times, so after Zhu Di's death, Zhu Gaozi smoothly took over the military and state affairs, and this transition was very natural.
The situation was different in the Qing Dynasty, taking the Qianlong Emperor as an example, we know that Qianlong was an extremely talented and talented emperor who was 25 years old when he succeeded to the throne. However, when Qianlong first succeeded to the throne, he did not know how to become this emperor, and he was completely cloudy about the country's administrative affairs.
Therefore, in the early qianlong period, the specific affairs of the DPRK and China were handled by the military ministers Zhang Tingyu and Ortai, which also led to the excessive power of Zhang and E, which led to the formation of a factional dispute, and it was not until ten years after Qianlong that Qianlong really monopolized power.
Second, it is not conducive to the positive progress of the crown prince
Because it was a secret reserve, the princes naturally knew that the name of the prince had been determined, but they did not know who it was. However, on the issue of Daoguang, there were many princes in the previous emperors, but there was only one throne, so many princes thought that they did not have this blessing, so they did not try to advance, but only wanted to be a rich prince.
Taking the Qianlong Dynasty as an example, Qianlong had more than a dozen sons, and except for those who died early, the remaining few basically did not have much experience ability, at least compared with the kangxi princes. This is because they do not know who will become the emperor in the future, so they do not dare to make a mistake, for fear of being scolded by the father and emperor for doing the wrong thing, if a prince only seeks his duty, then he must be lacking in the ability to deal with things.
Third, it is not conducive to public assessment
There was no choice but to advise the emperor to educate the prince and regulate future emperors with Confucian ethics. The Qing Dynasty's system of establishing a sage is different, because the standard is sage, so the courtiers have a great right to speak, and the secret reserve system is assessed by the emperor alone, which is obviously not objective and practical enough, full of too much personal emotion.
From the perspective of Daoguang Lichu, if he is not a secret lichu, then Xianfeng will most likely not be able to become emperor, but will be inherited by prince Gong, the sixth son of the emperor who is more prominent, and the facts have proved that Prince Gong is indeed more suitable for emperor than Xianfeng, which is the consequence of the lack of courtier supervision.
Fortunately, the emperor of the Qing Dynasty was both diligent and not faint, and he always had the ancestral society and the world in his heart, so no matter what method the successor was elected, most of them could be qualified for the role of emperor.