Although the ancient emperors held a lot of power, their life expectancy was generally relatively low, and few emperors could live to the age of 60. During the Qing Dynasty, in order to celebrate his 60th birthday, the Kangxi Emperor held a special banquet for thousands of people, inviting elderly people from all over the country to come and wish for his birthday. The banquet scene was very grand, and it left a very deep impression on the young Qianlong.
In fact, this is a pro-Han policy of Kangxi, generally from the Kangxi period, Kangxi in order to envelop all ethnic groups, attaches great importance to increasing relations with the common people through various festivals. So Kangxi invented the "Feast of a Thousand Sorrows", through a huge palace banquet, inviting thousands of elderly people to the palace to eat, in order to deepen the relationship with the people of all ethnic groups, and the scale of this banquet, even now, is very rare.
The Qianlong Emperor admired his grandfather Kangxi very much, and after becoming emperor, he tried his best to align himself with his grandfather and did many similar things. For example, the Kangxi Emperor made several southern tours, and the Qianlong Emperor followed suit several times. The difference is that the Kangxi Emperor's southern tour is for national events, while Qianlong is only for fun. In 1785, Qianlong, who had already entered old age, remembered the Banquet of the Thousand Sorrows held by Kangxi that year, so he also held a feast. At that time, the national strength of the Qing Dynasty was still very strong, and merchants and people from all over the country rushed to the capital to participate in this banquet in order to curry favor with the emperor.
From the royal family to the common people, Han, Manchu, Mongolian and other people gathered together, there were about 3,000 people from all walks of life, including scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, and the banquet was as high as 800 tables, presumably more solemn than in the Kangxi period. However, after the feast of the Thousand Sorrows, many of the elderly people who participated in the feast died not long after, which inevitably made people wonder what really happened at the feast?
From the perspective of food, the things provided by the Qianlong Emperor to the elderly did not have any toxic substances, all of them were some luxurious mountain treasures and seafood. The Qianlong Emperor originally wanted to show the national strength of the Qing Dynasty in this way, so that the world would admire his Wenzhi martial arts even more. These old people who came to the capital to attend the feast of the Thousand Sorrows usually did not have the opportunity to enjoy these things at all. In order to show their joy at the banquet, they all opened their stomachs and ate a lot of things, and as a result, because of indigestion, it seriously affected their health, and under this overeating, coupled with medical conditions that did not allow, it was natural that the elderly would die.
Judging from the results, the Qianlong Emperor's banquet of thousands of people spent a lot of gold and silver jewelry, and indirectly killed some elderly people, which was simply thankless. Many people believe that this feast of a thousand monks can even be used as a sign of the decline of the Qing Dynasty.