Speaking of the Kangxi Emperor, he can be said to be a rare Ming Emperor in the history of the Qing Dynasty, and even more the founder of the peak period of the Kangqian Dynasty, who worked hard all his life to create the most brilliant era of the Qing Dynasty, and because of this, there will always be some strange stories happening in him.
For example, when the Kangxi Emperor ate a fruit, he mispronounced the name of this fruit because of a slip of the tongue, and the people of later generations called it wrong for 300 years because they did not understand the situation, or did not dare to disobey the current saints, and even today, they still have not corrected this mistake, so what is this fruit that has been wrongly named? What kind of interesting story is this?
The Xinjiang domain, which paid tribute to the court for many years
Before we talk about this story, let's first talk about the Xinjiang domain that paid tribute to the court for many years during the Kangxi Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor quelled the rebellion of the Three Domains during his reign, and he also personally drove the conquest, the Three Dzungars, after years of conquest, coupled with his extremely strong military ability, the Qing Dynasty's Jiangshan was gradually stabilized, and there were few rebellions in the border areas, and for the powerful dynasty of the Central Plains, many small countries or tribes around the area chose to rely on and submit to the Qing Dynasty to seek the protection of the Qing Dynasty.
At that time, the Xinjiang region was a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, and since it was a vassal state of the Central Plains Dynasty, it was natural to often fulfill the provisions of tribute, in short, each small country took out its own national treasures or special specialties to pay tribute to the Qing dynasty royal family at that time, in order to express their loyalty to submission, such a rule has existed since ancient times to the Qing Dynasty, and it has also been inherited.
Although the Xinjiang region at that time was rich in land, but in the end because of the backwardness of productivity and the stagnation of science and technology, there was indeed nothing too good to please the Kangxi Emperor at that time, but later, the leaders of some small countries found that their own countries had fruits that had never been found in the Central Plains Dynasty, because the environment and geographical location of This region of Xinjiang was very different from the Central Plains, so it was suitable for the growth of many special varieties of fruits.
So these vassal states have been paying tribute to the Qing Dynasty royal family with their own unique fruits for many years, and the Kangxi Emperor and many princes and nobles have rarely left the capital and naturally have not seen these fruits, and they are also very fond of these rare specialties, and over time, these small countries in Xinjiang have become customary for the fruits of the imperial family.
The wrong one
That goes back to the truth, let's talk about what is the fruit that kangxi called wrong, this fruit was originally called Shanshan melon, is a unique fruit in Xinjiang Hami, although it is a local unique variety of fruit, but it has not paid tribute to the Qing Dynasty royal family, the reason is very simple, that is, this fruit storage time is relatively short, at most more than a week more than 5 to 7 days have basically deteriorated and rotted, and Xinjiang is far from the capital, and there is no such efficient means of transport as now, so the road in the middle is as long as half a year.
This is why this fruit is unique but has not paid tribute, but then one day the king of the Hami Kingdom insisted on letting the people of the Central Plains Dynasty taste the fruits unique to their country, but faced a problem, that is, how to ensure that the melon was transported to the Central Plains in good condition?
Thinking of going to Hami, the king decided to plant on the carriage of transportation, from the time of departure to find a relatively large wooden barrel, filled with soil and sprinkled with seeds, until the carriage of transportation arrived in the capital, the melon was almost ripe, and instructed the coachman to hurry at night and rest during the day, the purpose of this is to let the melon get enough light during the day, so that it tastes better, so it is shaky, and the carriage that pays tribute to the fruit arrives in the capital after nearly half a year.
But even if this is done, the number of tribute melons is extremely rare, one is that the leaves of the melon are relatively large, a large wooden barrel can accommodate two plants at most, coupled with the bumps in the road, there will always be some melon seedlings withering, and some melons will be damaged for other reasons, and the last carriage can provide nothing more than a few melons.
Therefore, at that time, the melon was limited to the princes and nobles and the emperor, and even those officials who had one pint and two products rarely had the opportunity to taste it, and when this fruit was presented to Kangxi, he could not help but be curious, so he asked the messenger which country was the fruit from, and the messenger replied that it was the Hami country, and when the messenger left, Kangxi had forgotten what the original name of this melon was, only which country it came from, so he casually called the wrong name and called it cantaloupe.
The minister next to him naturally knew that Kangxi was wrong, but the name of a fruit was just a name, who would bother with such a small matter? Besides, there is no need for these ministers to correct the emperor's mistakes for a name, is this not to give the emperor face in public? Then in the future, I can still have a good life, so since then, Shan Shan Gua has been given a new name, and many uninformed people have also called it wrong, and this mistake has lasted for more than three hundred years, and to this day people still have not corrected it, anyway, it is just a fruit name. There's nothing too much wrong with right or wrong.
Problems caused by tribute
From the above story, we can understand that in the process of paying tribute to some small countries to spend a lot of manpower, material and financial resources, and this is definitely not a small amount, as everyone knows, in addition to these vassal countries to pay tribute, local officials also regularly pay tribute to the emperor some local specialties, such as the southern region is rich in lychees, citrus and other fruits, and these fruits are exactly what the north does not have, and the tribute has become a matter of responsibility.
However, have you ever thought about a problem, the cost of local officials paying tribute to local specialties for the emperor is borne by individuals, and this cost is also a huge expense, for example, some larger county officials of about five pins are only eighty-two silver a year, but only a carriage required for tribute is 20 silver, the important thing is that there is more than one carriage required, plus hired personnel plus food, drink, accommodation and tolls, Combined, it is as high as nearly two hundred taels of silver, which is still relatively economical.
In order to solve this problem, these officials naturally have to start from the people in the area under their jurisdiction, and they will increase taxes in various names, so as to collect more silver and silver, so as to support the cost of many aspects, and over time, it will also cause corruption in the bureaucratic political system of the Qing Dynasty and cause a series of social problems.
epilogue
Therefore, in order to satisfy their own selfish desires, some upper-level rulers in ancient times will always exert pressure on the officials under them, and these pressures will eventually become the reasons for their oppression and exploitation of the people, and because of this, we can see that the ancient feudal dynasties often had local uprisings and riots, and the change of dynasties was also a common thing, which also warned the people that the rulers of the world must serve the country and the people, and absolutely cannot bring heavy disasters to the people because of their greed for pleasure, and only the people can live and work in peace and contentment , will also achieve real long-term peace and stability.
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