It is said that one day in the early autumn more than two hundred years ago, a major event that shocked the world occurred in a royal compound in Chengde in the north of China. What's the big deal? According to the rumors of the gossip students at that time, it was actually the emperor's old son Jiaqing who was chopped to death by Lei. It is said that this emperor is called the Son of Heaven, that is, the son of God, how could this God take thunder to split his own son? Could it be that this Jiaqing Emperor was very unscrupulous and caused dissatisfaction from heaven? But looking at the historical facts, this Jiaqing Emperor was actually an honest man, and he had not made any major mistakes that caused the world, so what was going on?
Let's start with the Jiaqing Emperor.
Jiaqing, the fifteenth son of the Qianlong Emperor, was an honest man who was not very conspicuous among his many brothers. At first, Qianlong did not train him as a successor. Qianlong's initial successor was Yonglian, the eldest son of Concubine, but unfortunately this Yonglian did not have the imperial order, and the edict passed to him was placed a few days after the Zhengda Guangming Plaque, and he died prematurely. After that, Qianlong later wanted to make the seventh son of the empress, Yong Chun, the crown prince, and who knew that soon after this edict was placed on the Zhengda Guangming Plaque, Yong Chun, who had just turned two years old, also left the human world. It seems that it is a person of natural choice, so twice, the Qianlong Emperor no longer dares to put the edict of succession behind the Zhengda Guangming Plaque. After several decades of this, Qianlong is already an ancient and rare year, and if we do not consider the issue of succession, the world will be in chaos. Qianlong considered going, some of his princes were already very old and overwhelmed by heavy responsibilities, some had already gone before him, and some had no intention of becoming emperors. In contrast, Jiaqing, an honest prince, turned out to be the best candidate for the crown prince. In this way, after the qianlong emperor reigned for sixty years, in order not to exceed the reign of his grandfather Kangxi, he passed the throne to Emperor Yan, and he became the emperor of Taishang himself. Jiaqing also counted as the destiny of heaven, and became the emperor as if picking up a leak. But he did not have real power at the beginning of his reign as an emperor, and everything had to be listened to by Lao Tzu.
It was not until the fourth year of Jiaqing (1799), after qianlong's death, that Jiaqing was truly pro-government. The first major thing he did after he pro-government was to take care of the world's largest corrupt official and Kun since Qianlong. He copied out more than 32,000 taels of gold from his family, more than 2 million taels of silver in the cellar, 1,266 hectares of leased land, 1,001 and a half rented houses, silver numbers in pawnshops everywhere, and various jewelry and clothing, etc., totaling more than 800 million taels of silver, almost more than ten times his total annual income. After Jiaqing died and was given, he did not collect this wealth into his own pocket, but allocated it to the national treasury to fill the financial deficit.
Although the Jiaqing Emperor did not have any talent, he studied hard from an early age, was proficient in the Four Books and Five Classics, and after succeeding to the throne, he was also considered diligent. However, the strength of one person is always difficult to turn the tide. The complexity of the government, the corruption of officials, the struggle within the court, and all kinds of troubles made the Jiaqing Emperor anxious and tired of coping. Especially after the death of his half-brother Prince Qing, the Jiaqing Emperor became even more melancholy.
In order to distract himself, on July 18, 2005, the Jiaqing Emperor drove from the Yuanmingyuan to the Mulan paddock outside the Chengde Summer Resort to hunt, at this time Jiaqing was already a sixty-one-year-old man. In order to ensure the safety of the emperor, the emperor's second son Min Ning, the fourth son of the emperor, as well as university scholars, military aircraft ministers, imperial ministers, and ministers of the interior ministry were personally escorted. The group set off from the Yuanmingyuan and walked for seven days to reach the Chengde Mountain Resort.
It was July, the weather was hot, and the jiaqing emperor fell ill the day after arriving in Chengde. On the morning of the 25th, Jiaqing suddenly felt a surge of phlegm, difficulty speaking, and swelling of the head. The prince beside him hurried to ask the imperial doctor and summoned the ministers Sai Chong A and Tojin into the room. Who knows before long, the Jiaqing Emperor will not speak. The doctors had never seen such a strange disease, and they all felt helpless. At eight or nine o'clock in the evening, there was a sudden surge of thunder and lightning in the sky, and lightning struck the Jiaqing Emperor's smoke wave to the Shuang Hall. After a burst of lightning and thunder, the Jiaqing Emperor was found dead on the dragon bed.
After the death of the Jiaqing Emperor, the Rehe Palace immediately blocked the news, and the gate of the summer resort was closed tightly, restricting the entry and exit of personnel. The Jiaqing Emperor died so suddenly that even the coffin was not prepared, and the accompanying princes and ministers had to have the Shou Palace prepared in the Beijing Palace transported to Chengde overnight. The Jiaqing Emperor could not speak before his death, nor did he arrange the aftermath, and after his death, people did not find a small gold box containing the edict of succession behind the Zhengda Guangming Plaque. The box that Jiaqing carried with him did not know where to put it. In desperation, with the support of xi en, the minister in charge of the interior, and the empress dowager, it had to be announced that the second son of the emperor, Min Ning, would inherit the throne. Due to these changes, the Daoguang Emperor did not publicly release the news of Jiaqing's death until the second day of the first month of August. The Jiaqing Emperor was fine when he left Beijing, so suddenly died, and after his death, it was so long before the news was announced to the public. People began to talk about the cause of the jiaqing emperor's death, is there really an ulterior motive in this?
According to some entourage rumors, the Jiaqing Emperor may have been struck by lightning and died. It is said that after the Jiaqing Emperor and his party arrived at the summer resort, they took a short rest and led the ministers and guards to the Mulan paddock to hunt. As a result, on the way back, I encountered heavy rain and was trapped in the wilderness, and for a time the thunder and lightning were mixed, and the earth was shaken. Suddenly, after a light, the Jiaqing Emperor was shot down by lightning and killed on the spot. Some people also say that the Jiaqing Emperor did not die in the wild, but was struck by lightning inside the summer resort and electrocuted. This statement even mentions a small eunuch favored by the Jiaqing Emperor, saying that the two often meet in the "Yunshan Resort", one day, the two were looking for fun here, suddenly there was a heavy thunderstorm, a time of lightning, a lightning hit the small building, Jiaqing was immediately electrocuted and killed. Jiaqing was burned by lightning beyond recognition and could no longer be buried in the coffin. In order to maintain the royal face, the second son of the emperor, Min Ning, decided to temporarily block the news. He also secretly hanged a eunuch who was similar to the appearance of the Jiaqing Emperor, pretended to be Jiaqing to collect the coffin, and collected the emperor's skeleton at the bottom of the coffin to hide his eyes and ears. Of course, these claims are just some legends. There is no relevant record in the history of the court, but even if the Jiaqing Emperor was really struck by lightning and died, the official records do not dare to mention this matter. Because the emperor was struck by lightning and died, it was equivalent to a great rebellion and was condemned by heaven. Anyone who writes such a thing will be guilty of a big taboo. As for the cause of death of the Jiaqing Emperor, the official records say that he died of illness. Later generations speculated according to the temporary situation of the Jiaqing Emperor that the Jiaqing Emperor may have been overly worried and tired under the condition of being old and fat, and died of sudden cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases coupled with the hot weather.
However, regardless of whether the Jiaqing Emperor died normally or not, because he died violently in the Xi'an Pavilion of the Summer Resort, the Summer Resort began to be idle after that, and the Daoguang Emperor, who personally experienced his father's violent death, never came once since. It was not until August 16, 1860, that another emperor stumbled here with his wife and children, but unfortunately he did not return alive.