Although the literal prison has existed in ancient times, during the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong periods of the early Manchu Qing Dynasty, the number of literary prison cases and the scale of the literary prison can be said to be unprecedented in history. At that time, the Manchu rulers often rebuked people for "speaking with resentment", "mourning and sneering", fabricating various crimes, and vigorously promoting the prison of writing.
Those who report and expose such cases are meritorious, and those who conceal or fail to report or handle them ineffectively are guilty. For a while, the wind of whistle-blowing and framing was great. Some people are far-fetched, taking the meaning out of context, and asking for credit; some people are framed and fabricated out of thin air to repay their personal grievances. The literary network is dense, unjust prisons are repeated, and the literati are all in danger, lest they accidentally fall into the net, or be connected by the strain, and disasters will fall from heaven.
As the poet Gong Zizhen said in a poem in "History of Yong": "Avoiding the prison of words and fearing words, writing books is a rice sorghum plot." The qing dynasty's literal prison was an important reason for the political situation of "Ten Thousand Horses and Qijiao", and it can be said that the poison has not disappeared to this day.
What is even more evil and shameless is that the Qing government took advantage of the opportunity of compiling books to ban a large number of books and destroy books that were not conducive to qing rule. During the compilation of the Siku Quanshu, anything that was unfavorable to the Qing Dynasty or violated their taboos had to be deleted and tampered with, or destroyed in large quantities, and even those written in the Song Dynasty to resist the Jin Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty to the Anti-Yuan were also subjected to the same misfortune. In Zhejiang Province alone, from the 29th to the 47th year of Qianlong, twenty-four large-scale inspections and destructions were carried out. There are more than 2,400 kinds of bibliographies listed in the whole country, more than 400 kinds of bibliographies that have been destroyed nationwide, and the total number of destroyed books is about 100,000.
The qing dynasty's literary prison became more and more intense in the three dynasties of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. In the past one hundred years, there have been no less than 100 large and small cases that can be investigated. In these cases, more than 200 people have been sentenced to death, and even more numerous have been sentenced to various punishments. The "criminals" of the literal prison are both government officials and intellectuals and civilians from all walks of life. From the members of the imperial court, down to the general students, the fools and confucians, as well as the jianghu warlocks, caravans, boatmen, and so on.
In the early qing dynasty, in general, with the evolution of the political situation, the ethnic contradictions between Han and Manchu gradually declined, and the targets of the literal prison also changed. During the Kangxi and Yongzheng dynasties, the main attack was on han elites and government officials. The purpose was to suppress the anti-Qing forces and eliminate dissident forces within the government. During the Qianlong period, it mainly attacked lower-class intellectuals and ordinary people. At the same time, it is also connected to officials at all levels. In order to further suppress the resistance forces and strengthen the feudal autocratic rule, the Qianlong Emperor intensified the construction of the literal prison. At the time of compiling the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book" and trumpeting the rule of literature, the prison of writing also reached a climax. In the ten years from the 39th to the 48th year of Qianlong, nearly fifty cases of literal imprisonment occurred.
The largest early cases of literary prison were the Zhuang Ming Shi Shi Case and the Dai Ming Shi Nanshan Collection Case, both of which were caused by the preparation of contemporary history. It can be seen as a conscious overkill, the purpose of which is to give a violent threat to Han intellectuals with anti-Qing ideas. The prisons of Lü Liuliang and Zeng Jingzhi in the Yongzheng period are the only cases of rebellion in the Qing Dynasty literary prisons, which have both theories and actions. Of course, the strength of this resistance is very weak.
It was not until the fifty-third year of Qianlong (1788) that the climax of the literal prison had passed, and the so-called "Du Guo Policy" case occurred. He Shisheng, a sixty-nine-year-old veteran of Weiyang County, Hunan Province, failed to pass the imperial examination many times. He often wrote the words for others, and then he pieced together a "writing" such as hearsay rumors and idioms, entitled "Du Guo Ce", and prepared to go to the capital to donate in the future, in order to obtain an official and a half-job. Because this book contains opinions criticizing the system of donating officials, this becomes a "vain discussion of the government and government", and as a rule, it should be executed late, and all descendants should be beheaded. However, at that time, the handling of the wen prison case had been gradually relaxed, and the Qianlong Emperor believed that He was dissatisfied because of the failure of the examination, and that writing those articles was only a complaint, not a wanton rebellion, so "leniency" was changed to a beheading, and his descendants were exonerated.
If you look through the books of the Qing Dynasty, you will find that most of them have the words "King Ding" and "Imperial System", which were approved by the emperor or written by himself, and it represents the official ideology. For example, in the early Qing Dynasty, cheng Zhu Lixue was vigorously promoted, so that a kind of atmosphere was formed, "non-Zhuzi's transmission of righteousness does not dare to speak, and non-Zhuzi family etiquette does not dare to do." That is to say, we must guide all words and deeds with Zhu Xi's thoughts. Whoever opposes this official idea of domination is severely punished. As a result, the prison of words has become a means of ideological control.
The laws of the Qing Dynasty had an unprecedented evil stipulation: they were not allowed to make any suggestions on major state affairs, otherwise they would be considered "violating the system." Not only are they disqualified, but they are also punished. However, it is inevitable that all the students who offer advice and advice will have to discuss the policies of the imperial court, criticize the behavior of the officials, and make certain suggestions, which will inevitably violate this stipulation. Therefore, the light ones are dismissed, the heavy ones are beheaded, or "killed under the rod.".
The official ideas of "kingdom" and "imperial system" are not allowed to be criticized. Even if the pure academic opinion is different, it will be added to various crimes.
The Kangxi Dictionary, printed in the fifty-fifth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1716), was not only compiled by will, but also named after the Kangxi era name, which shows that the government attaches great importance to it. However, there was a scholar Wang Xihou who dared to criticize the Kangxi Dictionary, saying that it contained too many words and was difficult to penetrate. He himself compiled a copy of the "Zi Guan", which means that the book can use the meaning of the characters to run through the scattered characters, which just makes up for the shortcomings of the Kangxi Dictionary. As soon as this case occurred, even the governor of Liangjiang was demoted. The envoys and envoys in Jiangxi Province were also dismissed from their posts and punished.
In fact, Wang Xihou wrote "Character Continuity" to contribute his own insights, and he could not imagine that he would end up like this.