What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
Cao Xueqin is a well-known figure today, a book of "Dream of the Red Chamber", which has exhausted the fate of many clans and people, and also said that the emotional obsession between children and daughters has been exhausted. According to expert research, "Dream of the Red Chamber" has a total of one hundred and twenty times, of which the first eighty times were written by Cao Xueqin, and the last forty times were written by his friend Gao Hu.
Some people think that Cao Xueqin died before he finished writing, and some people think that Cao Xueqin actually wrote this book, but when he died, his family was too poor, people could not find paper money, and they burned his manuscript as paper money. But we all know that the Cao family was not poor in its early years, not only not poor, but also very rich, so why did Cao Xueqin fall into this step in her later years?
The Cao family has three generations and four people, who served as Jiangning weavers for 58 years, during which time the Cao family can be described as unparalleled in glory. Cao Xueqin's great-grandmother was the wet nurse of the Kangxi Emperor, and his grandfather Cao Yin, who served as the Kangxi Emperor's companion and imperial bodyguard, later went to Jiangning (present-day Nanjing) to work as a Weaver in Jiangning.
Because of this relationship, the Kangxi Emperor always took good care of the Cao family. Jiangning weaving is a fat difference, not controlled by the local government, the average person will fish some silver money from it, so in the early years, the Cao family in Jiangning position is prominent, powerful, is a veritable famous family, the Kangxi Emperor in his lifetime 6 times of the southern tour, 4 times are living in the Cao family.
Receiving the emperor four times, you can imagine what a scene of honor and wealth it was. However, 4 times of reception, Cao Xueqin has not yet been born, so she has never seen this scene in person, and can only hear from the old population that In "Dream of the Red Chamber", Jia Lian's wet nurse Grandma Zhao once depicted that kind of luxurious and rich scene, saying that the silver was used as a clay messenger.
Cao Xueqin's father, Cao Yan, was the third generation of Jiangning weaving in the Cao family, so when Cao Xueqin was young, she lived a life of flowers and brocade in "Dream of the Red Chamber". But then the Kangxi Emperor died, the Yongzheng Emperor ascended the throne to dominate the world, at that time, although the Qing Dynasty was superficially prosperous, in fact, the national treasury was in a bad deficit, the Yongzheng Emperor had a clear goal, the means were very spicy, and took the lead in advocating frugality.
When the Yongzheng Emperor was still the crown prince, he had some understanding of the deficit of Jiangning weaving, and he did not understand how such a large fat gap could be such a big deficit, so the Cao family became the target of his rectification. After a thorough investigation by the Yongzheng Emperor, he found that the number of deficits in the Cao family was too large, so he asked Cao Xueqin's father and ordered him to fill these deficits as soon as possible.
However, Cao Xueqin's father, Cao Yan, was not capable, not only could not manage the weaving factory well, but even the silk that paid tribute to the royal family could have problems. After he knew that Yongzheng was dissatisfied with him, he began to find someone to give Yongzheng gifts, all of which were very gorgeous things, but Yongzheng refused. Yongzheng was advocating frugality, and he directly sent rare treasures, not just bumping into the muzzle of Yongzheng's gun.
Later, Cao Xueqin's father, Cao Yan, was arrested, and the Cao family was anxious to dump the valuables in the seller and wanted to use the money to rescue Cao Yan, but was sued by someone with a heart to transfer the property privately. In the sixth year of Yongzheng, Cao Xueqin was fourteen years old, and the Cao family was raided for the crime of weaving deficits and transferring property, and Cao Xueqin had to follow her family back to the old mansion in Beijing, and the days became more and more desolate.
And Sui Hede's new Jiangning Weaving, in the report he submitted," "Jiangning Weaving Lang Zhongsui Hede Playing the Cao Family's Property Folding", it can be seen that the Cao family really had nothing left at that time, and all the remaining silver was only 32,000 taels, and even Yongzheng was shocked. In fact, in addition to the inevitable factors of the times, I am afraid that there are also the results of the incompetence of Cao Yan's descendants.