Kangxi was the longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history, ascending the throne at the age of 8 and not abdicating until he was 69 years old, reigning for 61 years.
In the context of the feudal dynasty whose average age was only fifty or sixty years old, Kangxi was really a "long-lived old man".
Historical evaluations of Kangxi are also very high, and many people refer to it as "one emperor through the ages".
However, even if you are a good person, you can't avoid making mistakes, and Kangxi, as an emperor, is naturally not a perfect person.
During his reign, one of the biggest mistakes he made was to exile a weapon cattle man, if it were not for his wrong decision, perhaps the qing Dynasty's science and technology would have advanced for more than two hundred years, and this person was Dai Zi.
Officials are good at weapons
Dai Zi was born in a family of officials, which also gave him more time and energy from an early age to study what he liked.
During the Qing Dynasty, the foreign affairs movement also allowed foreign cultures to enter China, especially some advanced weapons of foreign countries, which also made the Qing Dynasty gradually realize its backwardness.
If a country wants to stand tall in the world, it must first be supported by advanced weapons.
Since he was a child, Dai Zi has been accustomed to seeing the right and wrong of the officialdom, and he has always been dismissive of the set of readers, but he is quite interested in the advanced culture and advanced weapons of foreign countries.
Every time he saw some "foreign stuff", he always immersed himself in research, but in a few days, he could imitate a similar weapon.
This also made him gradually like mechanical manufacturing, in the context of feudal dynasties, firearms are a kind of instrument that people often use on the battlefield.
Dai Zi once developed a variety of firearms by himself, some of which had a particularly long range, which gradually made him a "celebrity" during the Kangxi period.
Later, Wu Sangui rebelled, kangxi sent people to recruit rebels, and Dai Zi became one of them, which also made him start from studying weapons to starting to join the army.
Because of his considerable study of weapons, on the battlefield, he was always able to quickly find out the position of the rebels, and used the existing weapons in the hands of the Qing army to beat Wu Sangui and others to a gradual defeat.
In addition, Dai Zi also has his own set of theories in leading soldiers to fight, and such a brave and resourceful talent will naturally be reused.
Kangxi was also very satisfied with Dai Zi's performance, which also allowed Dai Zi to find self-worth in it, and slowly he became more and more valued during the Kangxi years.
The ability to imitate weapons is outstanding
In order to demonstrate to the Qing Dynasty, every time the Western powers sent foreign emissaries to visit the Qing Dynasty, they always carried a variety of firearms.
In this way, they showed their strength and "warned" the Qing government in this way that if they really launched a war, their weapons could easily destroy the Qing Dynasty.
At first, the Qing Dynasty did not care about this, but by the Kangxi period, foreign envoys visited more and more frequently, which also made the Qing government feel great pressure.
At that time, Dai Zi was already famous for his expertise in mechanical manufacturing, so Kangxi called him and asked him to make a new one modeled on the firearms brought by Western emissaries.
After Receiving this task, Dai Zi immediately began to research and manufacture non-stop, and he himself had a lot of research on firearms, and it took only a week or so to successfully develop them.
This also made everyone look at him with astonishment, and when the Western emissaries learned of this, they thought that Dai Zi was just lucky and happened to be copied.
In order to test his true strength, he took out the artillery again, thinking of using the artillery to embarrass Dai Zi, but also let the Qing government retreat from the difficulty, and by the way, give them a dismount.
But what they did not expect was that after Dai Zi saw the artillery, after 8 days of research, he once again easily created a "cupola cannon", and since then, Dai Zi has been called a "great weapon maker".
Later, Dai Zi successively manufactured a variety of weapons, which greatly promoted the scientific and technological progress of the Qing Dynasty, and also made the Western powers try to suppress the "beautiful dream" of the Qing Dynasty through weapons completely shattered.
If it were not for the Kangxi Emperor's obedience to the rumors of villains and the exile of Dai Zi, perhaps the technology of the Qing Dynasty would have advanced by more than two hundred years.
Framed and exiled by villains
Dai Zi's ability in firearms manufacturing was admired by everyone, and the Kangxi Emperor began to envy him as he paid more and more attention to it.
For the emperor, what they were most worried about was the phenomenon of "high merit and mastery", and Dai Zi's strength was well known to everyone, even if he wanted to keep a low profile, it was really difficult to hide his brilliance.
Kangxi thought about letting Dai Zi develop more and more advanced weapons, so that the Qing government would no longer be afraid of any foreign aggression, but on the one hand, he was worried that Dai Zi's ability was so outstanding, in case one day, he did something to betray himself, how good it would be.
At the same time that Kangxi had this idea, a priest who came to China to propagate, Nan Huairen, provided him with an excellent opportunity to let Kangxi successfully "get rid" of Dai Zi.
Nan Huairen was originally a person with a small belly and chicken intestines, and he was very jealous in his heart when he watched Dai Zi make a splash in front of everyone.
Therefore, Nan Huairen ran to Kangxi's side and said that the reason why Dai Zi was able to develop such an advanced weapon was because he was secretly colluding with foreigners.
With the guidance of foreigners around him, Dai Zi was able to manufacture so many weapons repeatedly, and the Kangxi Emperor, who had a "jealous" heart for Dai Zi, quickly had an idea in his heart after hearing Nan Huairen's complaint.
Although Kangxi knew that Nan Huairen's move was likely to deliberately frame Dai Zi, he really did not want to study the twists and turns in it, but only wanted to quickly "get rid of" Dai Zi, so that he could once and for all and the throne be more solid.
Therefore, Kangxi ordered that Dai Zi be exiled for 35 years.
In this way, a weapon maker with super high talent was framed by others and his future was ruined.
After Dai Zi was exiled, the Qing Dynasty never had such a good person who could help the Qing government develop advanced weapons against the Western powers.
This is also an important reason for the eventual demise of the Qing Dynasty.
epilogue
Kangxi's approach, from the current point of view, is completely based on the heart of a villain.
Dai Zi never had the idea of rebellion, the only thing he liked was to make weapons, he thought that this hobby could greatly help the Qing government, but he did not want to be framed by villains because his ability was too prominent, and eventually ruined his life.
If the Kangxi Emperor had not listened to the rumors of the villains and had not exiled Dai Zi, perhaps the technology of the Qing Dynasty would have been pushed forward by another 200 years.
But it was precisely such a wrong decision that made the qing dynasty science and technology stagnate, which also warned future generations that if we want to develop and progress, we must first pay attention to the development of science and technology.