The Qing Dynasty had nine viceroys, and the Viceroy of Liangguang was one of them.
The predecessor of the Viceroy of Liangguang can be traced back to the Governor of Guangdong established in the first year of Shunzhi. The Governor of Guangdong was initially stationed in Guangzhou and also administered Guangxi. In the twelfth year of Shunzhi, the governor of Guangdong moved from Guangzhou to Wuzhou. In the second year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing court established the Governor of Guangxi, and the Governor of Guangdong was moved to Lianzhou. In the third year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the viceroy of Guangxi was abolished. The Viceroy of Guangdong once again administered Guangxi. In the first year of Yongzheng, the Qing court established the governor of Guangxi for the second time, but it was abolished again the following year. In the seventh year of Yongzheng, the Qing court once gave the viceroy of Yungui jurisdiction over the affairs of Guangxi.
In the twelfth year of Yongzheng, the Qing court stipulated that the governor of Guangdong would still be in charge of Guangxi affairs, and the governor of Guangdong was renamed the viceroy of Liangguang. After that, the name of the viceroy of Liangguang was fixed until the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
In the Qing Dynasty, the official title of the Viceroy of Liangguang was "Viceroy of Liangguang and other localities to supervise military affairs, grain and salary and inspectorate", in charge of the military and civilian affairs of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, with great power, as the Yongzheng Emperor said, "Since the ancient emperors ruled the world, there must be Yue Mu's ministers, to divide the rule of Zuo, and then the four sides of the Ning Dynasty, gong Zhen Shangli, this feudal minister, with the governor as the most important", belongs to the veritable feudal officials.
How high is the rank of governor of Liangguang?
According to the regulations of the Qing court, the official rank of the viceroy of Liangguang was Zhengerpin, which was equivalent to the left and right attendants of the various ministries in the Jingguan sequence, and lower than the Shangshu of the various ministries. However, fourteen years after Qianlong, the Viceroy of Liangguang routinely conferred the Imperial History of the Right Capital of the Imperial Household, and after forty-eight years of Qianlong, the Viceroy of Liangguang routinely conferred the Shangshu of the Military Department, and the official rank was promoted from Yipin, which was on an equal footing with the Shangshu of the various ministries and courtyards.
What territories does the Governor of Liangguang have jurisdiction over?
As mentioned earlier, the Viceroy of Liangguang had jurisdiction over Guangdong (including present-day Hainan) and Guangxi, and the scope of jurisdiction was very large. Today, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan have a total area of about 400,000 square kilometers and a population of about 180 million people.
We know that although the eight viceroys of the Qing Dynasty were all feudal officials, their positions in the imperial court were different. The Viceroy of Liangjiang, who was in charge of the Jiangnan region, the richest fiscal and tax powerhouse in China at that time, was known as the "money bag" of the imperial court, and was second only to the Viceroy of Zhili. Guangzhou, which was under the jurisdiction of the Viceroy of Liangguang, was for a long time a place of "one mouth of trade", and Sino-foreign trade was very developed, so the Viceroy of Liangguang was also an enviable "fat shortage", and its status in the imperial court was second only to that of the Viceroy of Zhili and the Viceroy of Liangjiang.
Since the establishment of the Governor of Liangguang, what celebrities have come out?
The first governor of Liangguang in the Qing Dynasty was named Tong Yangjia. Tong Yangjia was a native of Fushun, Liaodong Province, and belonged to the Zhenglan Banner of the Han Army. In the first year of Shunzhi, after Tong Yangjia entered the customs with the Qing army, he went south to conquer Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and other places, and led his troops to pacify Guangdong, so he was appointed as the governor of Liangguang. In April of the fifth leap year of Shunzhi, Li Chengdong, the viceroy of Liangguang, rebelled against the Qing Dynasty and returned to The Ming Dynasty, attached himself to Zhu Youluo, kidnapped Tong Yangjia and killed him.
Among the successive governors of Liangguang, the most famous should of course be Lin Zexu.
In fact, when Lin Zexu went to Guangdong in 1838 to ban opium, he was in the capacity of the minister of Chincha, not the governor of Liangguang. At that time, the governor of Liangguang was Deng Tingzhen. At the beginning of 1840, Deng Tingzhen stepped down as the governor of Liangjiang, and the Qing court appointed Lin Zexu as the governor of Liangguang. Unfortunately, Lin Zexu only served as the governor of Liangguang for more than half a year, and was dismissed from his post by the Qing court as a "scapegoat" of the First Opium War.
During the Second Opium War, the governor of Liangguang was another man with a lot of stories, Ye Mingchen.
Ye Mingchen was a native of Hanyang, Hubei Province, and in 1852 he became the governor of Liangguang. In 1856, Ye Mingchen was promoted to the rank of a scholar of Tirenge University, an official who was also the governor of Liangguang. In the Second Opium War, Ye Mingchen put up some resistance to the British army, not the rumors of "no war" and "no defense". However, the British army defeated the Qing army and captured Guangzhou, and Ye Mingchen did not escape and became a prisoner of the British army.
Subsequently, the British army took Ye Mingchen to Kolkata, India. After Ye Mingchen learned that there was no hope of seeing the British king, he died of hunger strike and was known as "Su Wu on the Sea".
In the late Qing Dynasty, Lao Chongguang, Liu Changyou, Wu Tang, Liu Kunyi, Zeng Guoquan, Zhang Zhidong, Zhang Shusheng, Li Hanzhang, Li Hongzhang, Cen Chunxuan and other well-known figures in modern history all served as governors of Liangguang. Here I will talk more about Li Hongzhang.
Li Hongzhang started with the Huai Army and successively served as the Governor of Jiangsu, the Governor of Liangjiang, the Governor of Huguang, and the Governor of Zhili. He was the governor of direct subordination for the longest time, but was removed from his position as viceroy due to the defeat in the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War. In May 1900, Li Hongzhang, who had been "hidden in the snow" for many years, was reinstated and appointed as the governor of Liangguang. However, more than two months later, Li Hongzhang was transferred back to the capital by Empress Dowager Cixi as a directly subordinate governor and negotiated with the 11 countries.
Although he only served as the governor of Liangguang for more than two months, Li Hongzhang severely cracked down on "bandits" in Guangdong and executed a large number of "bandits." As Liang Qichao said: "(Li Hongzhang) acts with fierceness and forbearance, killing is not counted, and the gentleman is sick." However, the group of thieves intimidated their prestige, or died or fled, and the place also depended on Xiao An. ”
That is to say, under Li Hongzhang's "heavy blows," Public order in Guangdong has actually improved to a certain extent.