We often say that the peak of the Qing Dynasty's national strength was during the reign of the Kangxi Qianlong Emperor, and it is precisely because they cultivated the country and developed the people's livelihood that they created a glorious period when the Qing Dynasty will last for a hundred years, in fact, the merits of the Yongzheng Emperor cannot be ignored. Yongzheng ascended the throne in 1722, although he sat on the throne for only 13 years before he died of illness.
However, in this short period of ten years, Yongzheng became the lubricant of Kangxi and the Qianlong Dynasty, and Kangxi was somewhat unable to control the imperial court in his later years, so the trend of corruption and corruption began to prevail in various places, and after Yongzheng took the throne, he immediately rectified and purged the government and severely punished corruption.
Tang Wenyao, the governor of Liangjiang, if you have seen "Li Wei as an Official", you will know that he is a big corrupt official, but Yongzheng heard that he is very clean, and this brother often refuses to eat meat for three meals a day, and only eats boiled cabbage at every meal. Yong Zheng thought to himself, although I advocate thrift and thrift, but the officials are poor and have not yet reached this position, right?
Yongzheng, who gradually became suspicious of Tang Wenyao, immediately sent Li Wei to investigate, and Li Wei found through secret visits that Tang Wenyao had to eat cabbage every day, but brought back a large amount of ginseng from outside.
Yongzheng was furious, immediately copied Tang Wenyao's home, seized thousands of pounds of ginseng from Tang Wenyao's home, Tang Wenyao honestly confessed, he really only ate cabbage, but what he ate was the innermost cabbage heart, and the outside was directly thrown away, because Tang Wenyao especially hated the earthy taste inside the cabbage, so there were subordinates who suggested that when Tang Wenyao was cooking cabbage, he put some ginseng inside to cook, which could eliminate this taste, Tang Wenyao foolishly tried to do it, did not expect to really eliminate the earthy taste, he immediately imported a large number of ginseng, As a result, yongzheng was caught squarely.
Yongzheng is also furious, how can this be true! Tang Wenyao was soon dismissed from his post and imprisoned, and the whole family was detained, it was said that this old brother was unlucky enough, just because he was arrested for the sake of oral happiness, but the next thing completely led him to extinction.
Li Wei copied a very good jade in Tang Wenyao's house, neither like a kettle nor a jar, the jade material was superior, and there were a lot of jewels around it, which was very gorgeous and beautiful, and Li Wei immediately handed this treasure to Yongzheng.
Yongzheng also liked it very much, but he couldn't figure out what kind of utensils this was, he thought it was a teapot, and then used this four not to brew tea several times, not to mention, the taste of tea was really good, Yongzheng immediately became curious, wanted to see what kind of utensils this was, he asked the craftsman who made the tea set, the craftsman looked at it but looked strange, even said that he was clumsy, did not know this thing, Yongzheng's suspicion was even greater, he immediately summoned the servants in Tang Wenyao's mansion to inquire, Unexpectedly, the servant gave an answer that made Yongzheng almost faint: "This is the night pot of our family master." ”
Yongzheng, who was relieved, immediately ordered that Tang Wenyao's family be directly exterminated and cut off the door. Poor Tang Wenyao didn't know what had happened, so he died in a daze. However, these stories of Tang Wenyao appear in the folk tales of the Qing Dynasty, and there is no official historical record, so it can be speculated that this story was fabricated by the ancients.
Tang Wenyao's reference to the predecessor should be Fan Shixuan, who served as the governor of Liangjiang in the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726), who was pardoned by Yongzheng for corruption and demoted to a commoner, which was much better than Tang Wenyao.