The Qing Dynasty, as a foreign nationality, entered the Central Plains and exercised strict control in order to maintain its rule, and the literal prison was one of the manifestations of its harsh rule. In terms of scale and cruelty, the Qing Dynasty's literary prison was the most serious in all dynasties.
According to relevant statistics, in the Qing Dynasty, the Shunzhi Emperor practiced 7 literary prisons, more than 20 times in the Kangxi Dynasty, more than 20 times for the Yongzheng Emperor, and more than 130 times for the Qianlong Emperor! Moreover, Qianlong developed the prison of writing to the point of no return, resulting in intellectuals walking on thin ice, and the literati were different in their hearts and kept silent.
The "History of Chinese Literary Disasters" said: "The long duration of the Qing Dynasty literary prison, the secrecy of the literary network, the number of cases, the wide range of blows, the viciousness of the fabricated charges, and the fierceness of the means are all beyond the previous generation." ”
To give a few examples of the cruelty of the Qing Dynasty's literal prison.
There was a man named Liu Sanyuan, who was a madman, and one day he lost his mouth and said to someone: I am a descendant of the Han Dynasty, and I want the support of all the officials. As a result, the madman was convicted and killed.
During the Kangxi Dynasty, because the published "History of Ming" was suspected of insulting the Manchu Qing, the Qing army would edit the "History of Ming", including writing prefaces, proofreading, and even killing those who sold books, bought books, engraved and printed, and local officials, in addition to which hundreds of people were implicated and sent to the army.
During the Yongzheng period, a man named Cha Siting came up with a german essay title of "Wei Min Zhi", and as a result, Yong Zheng felt that the word "Wei Zhi" was the word "Yong Zheng". As a result, Cha Si Ting was tortured and unjustly died in prison, his son also died tragically in prison, and the whole clan was exiled.
It can be seen from this that the word prison is indeed afraid, as long as it is detained in the text prison, there is basically no possibility of survival, but there are still people with exceptions, this person is Kong Shangren.
Kong Shangren is a member of the Kong family. At that time, the Qing army had just entered the customs, needed to stabilize the people's hearts, and needed to be represented, so the Kong family was pushed out. Kong Shangren, as a member of the Kong family, also entered the Guozi Prison. Guozijian was the highest institution of learning in the Qing Dynasty.
After Kong Shangren became the Guozijian, he was not promoted, and his official position remained unchanged for many years, and he was not promoted. So he was full of complaints in his heart, thinking that he was pregnant with talent, so he wrote his resentment and dissatisfaction into his "Peach Blossom Fan".
"Peach Blossom Fan" is based on the love story of the famous scholar Hou Fangyu and the famous prostitute Li Xiangjun of Qinhuai, and runs through the beginning and end of the rise and fall of the Southern Ming regime. The play incorporates a large number of scenes of the struggle for the rise and fall of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and uses the same drama and real techniques to show the death of Chongzhen, the ascension of the Fu King, the dictatorship of the castration party, the rebellion of Zuo Ningnan, the killing of the four towns in Jiangbei, the anti-Qing and restoration activities of the Donglin Fushe, and the heroic martyrdom of Shi Kefa, which can be described as magnificent.
The last thing Kong Shangren wanted to express was the fate of destruction brought about by decay and luxury, and he mercilessly ridiculed and flogged the Emperor and his courtiers. On the surface, it is written about the decline of the late Ming Dynasty, but in fact it has anti-Qing implications. One article reveals the loyalty of the ming remnants to the Ming dynasty; the second article also exposes the bloody repression and murderous features of the Qing rulers from the side; and the third is his era name in the book.
All kinds of signs, either explicitly or implicitly, show kong Shangren's borrowing from the past to satire, not to mention the Qing rulers who were sensitive to the text prison, so after the Kangxi Emperor heard this, he was greatly displeased and angry, believing that this was a mockery of the Qing Dynasty, a word prison, not only to depose Kong Shangren's officials, but also to kill Kong Shangren's nine tribes.
But Kangxi did not dare to give this order, why? Because of Kong Shangren's surname and origin, his surname is Kong, and he is the sixty-fourth grandson of Confucius. If the Nine Clans of Kong Shangren were killed, it would mean that the Kong Clan would be completely annihilated. Of course, Kangxi was more concerned that Confucian culture was the ruling ideology of ancient times.
Ever since Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty established Confucianism as the official ideology, this theory has not changed no matter how the dynasties change. Confucius, the founder of this set of ideas, naturally rose in the waters.
How high was the status of Confucius in ancient times? Zhu Xi said: "Heaven does not give birth to Zhongni, and eternity is like a long night." This means that if the heavens do not give birth to Kong Zhongni, we will live in the vast night. This evaluation is very high, without Confucius there would be no light, Confucius brought us light.
With the elevation of the status of Confucianism and Confucius, the status of the Kong family is naturally incomparable. In the Qing Dynasty, the status of the Kong family ushered in its heyday.
After the Qing army entered the customs, it fully recognized all the privileges of the Kong family in the Ming Dynasty, and named Confucius's sixty-fifth grandson Kong Yinzhi as the Duke of Yansheng. The Yan Sheng Gong stipulated that only the people of the Kong family could serve, and the hereditary resignation was not only above the cabinet ministers, but also allowed to ride horses in the Forbidden City and walk on the royal roads of the palace.
It can be seen from this how high the status of the Kong family is. The Kong family can be said to be all-round from economic preferential treatment to political preferential treatment. Several generations of emperors of the Qing Dynasty visited Qufu many times to worship Confucius, and the descendants of the Kong clan were also selected by grace to send fifteen accompanying students to study in guozijian.
This is why Kangxi did not dare to come down and kill the Nine Clans of Kong Shangren, even if Kong Shangren really borrowed the ancient irony and committed the taboo of the Manchu Qing, Kangxi did not dare to impose a literal prison on the Kong family. This is most likely a matter of digging one's own grave. From the side, we can also see the influence of Confucian culture and the Kong family on China. This invisible force makes the rulers jealous of three points.
In the end, although Kong Shangren committed the "literal prison", he was only reduced to a commoner and did not encounter an accident. This may be the only exception to the Manchu Prison.
Friends, welcome to pay attention!