At the end of the last episode of "Yongzheng Dynasty", it is said that when Qianlong succeeded to the throne, the state treasury had more than 50 million taels of silver, and thirteen years ago, when the Yongzheng Emperor took the throne, the national treasury was less than 7 million taels. Although the data in film and television works is not convincing, many historical sources also record that the national treasury was only 8 million taels in the 61st year of the Kangxi Dynasty. So, is this statement reliable?
To understand this problem, we must first clarify where the Kangxi sixty-one year national treasury silver eight million two one comes from. The first is that Wei Yuan, a famous historian of the Qing Dynasty, recorded in his "Shengwu Ji, Wu Shi Yu Ji, And Bing System Soldier Salary": "In the sixty-first year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the household inventory was more than eight million."
The second is the forty-sixth year of Qianlong (1781), Ah Gui said in "On the Increase of Troops and Raising Salaries": "During the ten years of Qianlong's tenure in Yinkulang, the subjects had carefully checked that each year the provinces entered the land, customs duties, salt classes, and Cao xiang silver, about 30 million yuan, and the disaster relief was slow, not counting here, and the income and income of this year were roughly the same. Sixty-one years after the Kangxi Dynasty, more than eight million taels were stored in the ministry treasury. ”
Ah Gui was a major minister of the Qianlong Dynasty, and successively served as the chief minister, the member of the foreign lang, the langzhong, the military aircraft Zhang Jing, the gongbu waiter, the Hubu Shangshu, the official Shangshu, the university scholar, the foreman of the military aircraft minister, and the first rank of the duke. He has been in politics and leading the army for more than fifty years, and he has both literary and military skills, especially he has been a Hubu Shangshu for three years, and he naturally knows the state's finances very well, and the opinions expressed are naturally more authoritative.
Therefore, since then, the amount of silver deposited in the state in the last years of the Kangxi Dynasty has been referred to by Ah Gui as "more than eight million taels stored in the ministry treasury". Wei Yuan's record also roughly follows Ah Guizhi's theory.
However, according to Hubu's records, Ah Gui's statement is obviously untenable. After the forty years of Qianlong's military aircraft ministers were ordered to find out the amount of silver in the household treasury from Kangxi and Yongzheng to Qianlong in the thirty-ninth years, they made a list. Records:
From the thirty-third year of the Kangxi Dynasty to the fifty-eighth year, except for the forty-two years of 38.36 million taels, forty-three years of 39.98 million taels, the remaining forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-seven, fifty-eight, the national treasury silver is more than 40 million taels. Among them, there were 44.31 million taels of silver in the fifty-seventh year, 47.36 million taels in the fifty-eighth year, 39.31 million taels of silver in the fifty-ninth year, and 32.62 million taels in the sixty years.
This raises the question of why, after only one year, the deposit of silver has dropped sharply to more than eight million taels? The Kangxi Emperor once said in forty-eight years that the three conditions for the treasury to store 450 million taels of silver were that there was no major conquest, no civil engineering, and internal use was extremely economical. In this way, then in the last years of the Kangxi Dynasty, the only thing that could make the national treasury plummet was the use of foreign troops.
In the 57th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Dzungar Khan sent troops to invade Tibet, and the Kangxi Emperor sent an army to march, and defeated the 2000 army and entered Lhasa. However, until the sixth year of Yongzheng, the two sides were in the stage of confrontation, there was no major military action, and the border situation eased.
Although the northwest spent a lot of military expenditure on the use of troops, it is obviously unreasonable that only four years of preparation and six months of engagements of tens of thousands of troops have turned the "Kangxi Prosperous World," which claims to have a full treasury, into a situation of only more than eight million and a serious financial crisis. Otherwise, this prosperous world is also empty, and the national strength is too fragile, what qualifications are there to be called prosperous?
So how much silver did the Northwest soldiers spend? This can be clearly seen from the bills of the household department that due to the use of troops, military expenditure is enormous, and the use of silver is extremely large, resulting in a decline in the national inventory of silver. In the 58th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the silver deposit was 47.36 million taels, which was reduced to 39.31 million taels in the 59th year, and 32.62 million taels in the 60th year. The first year of Yongzheng was 23.71 million taels, and since the second year of Yongzheng, due to the stability of the situation, the silver deposit has increased to 31.62 million taels, and the three and four years are more than 40 million taels. Judging from the increase or decrease of silver deposited in households from the fifty-eighth year of Kangxi to the fourth year of Yongzheng, the decrease in silver deposit is indeed related to the use of troops in the northwest.
There is also a very convincing evidence, that is, on April 14, 2002, the Governor of Hubu Sanku and Prince Yunxiang of Shuoyi recounted the situation of the inventory of the Household Department's silver treasury: "It was found that the sixty-one year song book was really gold 2,5425 yuan and 2 cents, and the internal deficit was 49825 cents... The real silver is 2,719,286,27 cents, and the internal deficit silver is 2,592,957,26 cents. ”
Prince Yi is now in the National Historical Archives, and Prince Yi is the party responsible for the inventory of the household department after Yongzheng succeeded to the throne, so naturally there is no mistake. Then it can only be Ah Gui who is mistaken, because he did not check the sixty-one years of Kangxi's music and sales album, nor did he see Yun Xiang's recital, nor did he see the accounts of the "Yongzheng Dynasty Living Notes" and the "Records of Emperor Qing Shizong", and out of thin air came up a statement that "Kangxi sixty-one years, the ministry has more than eight million taels", which not only wronged Kangxi but also misled the world.
The actual silver contained in the album is more than 27 million taels, which is less than 5 million taels from the 32.62 million taels in the 60th year of kangxi in the previous year, which looks more realistic. Only when the household deposit is more than 20 million taels, can it really support the use of military conscription, without this premise, where does Yongzheng have the confidence?