In 1723, in March of the first year of the reign of Yongzheng, the Yongzheng Emperor posthumously crowned Confucius's ancestors as kings. This posthumous title is the fifth ancestor of Confucius, who was crowned king, with the titles of "Zhaosheng", "Yusheng", "Yaosheng", "Changsheng" and "Qisheng" Wang. The Yongzheng Emperor's grandfather, the Shunzhi Emperor, honored Confucius as the "Most Holy Ancestor of Dacheng", and the honorific title was beyond repetition, but Yongzheng surpassed his grandfather and changed them from the previous dukes to princes, which shows that the Yongzheng Emperor respected Confucius far better than his father. From "deposing a hundred families and respecting Confucianism alone" to Yongzheng posthumously crowning Confucius the fifth ancestor, Confucius, the originator of Confucianism, was elevated to another unprecedented height. And this time away
Manchu
It was only a few decades after entering the Central Plains and establishing the Qing Dynasty.
Marx pointed out:
"Backward nations conquer advanced nations and are eventually conquered by the advanced culture of advanced nations." The Manchu Qing Dynasty was able to establish an ideological system of respecting Kong and Respecting Confucianism in such a short period of time, which is the historical fruit of this assertion. For the descendants of the Jurchens who rose from primitive tribes, the Manchu rulers were far smarter than the rulers of the Yuan Dynasty, and they stepped off their horses, trying to absorb the essence of Han culture, trying to put on a gorgeous Han coat for themselves. Was the Yongzheng Emperor' act of honoring Kong as a promising emperor really just because of a kind of obedience to Confucian culture?
I. The Yongzheng Emperor's "Worship of the Crown" in the Performance of The Honorific Hole
The Yongzheng Emperor's respect for Confucius can be said to have reached the point of worship. Although the Manchu Emperor would put on a show and win over Han scholars and bureaucrats, such as the Shunzhi Emperor, who honored Confucius as the "Most Holy Ancestor of Dacheng", but the performance of Yongzheng Zunkong is difficult to explain as a show, let's take a look at his measures to honor Confucius.
The first is to avoid the name of Confucius.
In ancient times, only the name of the monarch needed to be avoided, but Yongzheng asked for the avoidance of Confucius's name. In the third year of Yongzheng, Yongzheng issued an order to avoid the name of Confucius, and all place names and names should be changed. Confucius's name "Qiu", all those named "Qiu", must be added to the side as "Qiu", so the later surname "Qiu" is actually the same as "Qiu"; and as for the place name, there are people with the same "Qiu" changed to the ancient style "Qiu" character, sometimes there is the Temple of Heaven "Circular Hill", because it is a place of royal sacrifice, the ceremonial department please do not shy away from it, Yongzheng agreed. So what if there is a "hill" in the text scriptures? The pronunciation of the ancient word "丠" is still not avoided, Yongzheng said that "丠" can also be pronounced as the "period" character sound, in the future, in addition to the Four Books and Five Classics, the common "Qiu" character, but read "period" sound.
The second is to change "fortunate learning" to "yixue".
In ancient times, the emperor's behavior such as going out on tours and playing was called "lucky", and going to the school to inspect and supervise was called "lucky learning". In the second year of Yongzheng, before the ceremony of Linyong Liberation was held, he issued an edict to the Ministry of Rites, because "
My heart was uneasy
Later, whenever he went to Taixue, he changed the "xingzi to a yi character to honor the gods" (Records of the Qing Dynasty, vol. 16, February of the second year of the Xin Youjiao), and a note should be played.
The third is to kneel and pray.
In the fourth year of Yongzheng, he wrote the plaque of "Living People" for the schools of the world, and also wrote the couplet of "Deguan Shengmin, Daolong Qunsheng" for the Confucius Temple in Qufu, and also wrote a preface to the "Image of sacred relics" for the Dacheng Hall, and personally went to pay tribute to Confucius. Previous emperors never knelt down to perform the ritual when they offered sacrifices to Confucius, but the Yongzheng Emperor performed a kneeling salute to Confucius without even thinking about it, and afterwards he told the officials of the Ministry of Rites and the Taichang Temple that he did so because "if he made a sacrifice before the previous master, he was uneasy in his heart" (Qing Dynasty General Code, vol. 48, "Etiquette").
The fourth is to improve the specifications for commemorating Confucius Christmas.
Every year, August 27 is Confucius Christmas Day, Yongzheng five years, Yongzheng ordered that the ceremony specifications of Confucius Christmas in that year are the same as those of the Kangxi Emperor, on this day it is forbidden to slaughter livestock, and the world will be pious and fasting. Previously, Confucius's birth ceremony was "Zhongqi", and since Yongzheng, it has been changed to "Great Ceremony". Not only that, in the eighth year of Yongzheng, the Yongzheng Emperor also set up two deacons of three pins and four four pins on the grounds that the deacons of the Confucius Temple did not have the rank of knight, and these deacons were selected among the descendants of Confucius and reported to the Ministry of Rites for the record. Not to mention the construction of the Confucius Temple, in the eighth year of Yongzheng, the Yongzheng Emperor took out 1.15 million taels of silver from the inner palace to build the Dacheng Hall of the Confucius Temple in Qufu.
It is not difficult to understand that the Shunzhi Emperor has appointed Confucius as the "Most Holy Ancestor of Dacheng" is also an example, but the Yongzheng Emperor not only crowned Confucius the Fifth Emperor as king, but from the above four points alone, it has surpassed the emperors of the Han Dynasty, so it is simply believed that Yongzheng is putting on a show, I am afraid that it is inappropriate. For example, he performed a kneeling salute to Confucius, the emperor could kneel at will, the Han tianzi could not do it, he was a Manchu emperor, which can only show that Yongzheng really regarded Confucius as his teacher, not only that, he also wanted everyone in the world to honor Confucius, to be a student of Confucius, is the charm of Confucian culture is too great, but also Confucianism for the rulers, is a more advanced ideology.
II. The Yongzheng Emperor's Confucian Use of "Painting the Earth as a Prison"
The above is only the "outline" of the Yongzheng Emperor's respect for Kong Zunru, and the specific application of Confucianism is the purpose of the Yongzheng Emperor. The Yongzheng Emperor grasped the source control and strengthened Confucian missions in the fields of education and imperial examinations. However, the Yongzheng Emperor was particularly "painting the earth as a prison" in his use of Confucianism.
First, let's talk about his understanding of "courtesy, righteousness, and shame." There is a typical thesis of the examination in the fifth year of Yongzheng, which is enough to show that the Yongzheng Emperor's understanding of Confucianism's "courtesy, righteousness, and shame" exceeded that of ordinary people. The exam question was "Scholars should be courteous, righteous, and shameful", and after reading the candidates' examination papers, the Yongzheng Emperor expressed his unique understanding of "courtesy, righteousness, honesty and shame".
He believes that the Scope of Confucianism's "courtesy, righteousness, honesty, and shame" is very broad, and the so-called "etiquette" is a small gift, "turning the people into customs, establishing a religion, and making the people of the world know loyalty to their subjects and filial piety for their children." This is a big gift, the original intention of the courtesy; the so-called "righteousness", stressing credit, not deceiving others, being careful in words and deeds, this is small righteousness, openness and honesty, uprightness, so that the people of the world are unbiased and unbiased, and they are willing to help each other; the so-called "honesty", the official who does not eat, drink, or take the things of the common people is small and honest, good at financial management. The so-called "shame" should be divided into different people to make different demands, and as a monarch, one should be ashamed of one's husband and wife (making everyone rich, and no adult man is not in the position he should be in the position he should be), and as a human subject, one should be ashamed of his king's non-existence (assisting the monarch to become a person like Yao Shun), and as a commoner, he should not lose his words to others, and not lose his color to people, which is the most basic "shame."
An emperor who has such a profound view of Confucianism's "courtesy, righteousness, and shame" shows that the Yongzheng Emperor thought deeply, which is particularly rare.
Let's look at how he infiltrated Confucianism in the fields of education and imperial examinations.
The first is to delineate the scope of the examination questions.
The Yongzheng Emperor's previous imperial examinations, such as the township examination and the examination questions, were all derived from the "Four Books" and "Five Classics", and the "Four Books" and "Five Classics" were the main carriers of Confucianism, but the Yongzheng Emperor put forward new requirements for the imperial examination, and he required the students who participated in the imperial examination not only to pay attention to the "Four Books" text, but also to achieve "Yazheng Halal", in which the word "True" is to explain the truth and conform to the original meaning of the Confucian sages. In the tenth year of Yongzheng, the Yongzheng Emperor issued an edict to the Ministry of Rites: "The system of science is based on the 'Four Books' literature to take the scholars, so the disciples are practical and learn, and the sound of the country is also prosperous." Obviously, by further delineating the scope of the imperial examination, the Yongzheng Emperor deepened the eight-strand imperial examination centered on Confucianism.
The second is to formulate standards for standardizing the content of education.
On the basis of delineating the scope of the examination, the Yongzheng Emperor also constantly restricted the style of writing by standardizing the content standards of the imperial examination. For example, when examining the "Four Books" text in the imperial examination, the "Four Books and Chapters and Sentences Collection" made by Zhu Xi was completely used as the standard, and the disciples were required to express their opinions according to Zhu Xi's annotations. Later, Yongzheng's son, the Qianlong Emperor, also specially ordered someone to edit the "Four Books of King Ding" to further standardize the content of the imperial examination, and if the scholars were not proficient in the "Four Books" text, they would not be recognized as learned.
The third is to crack down on the ideological behavior of opposing Confucianism.
The above two points mean constraints and restrictions on both scholarship and thought, and it seems that Confucianism is a more in-depth study, but in fact, it can only suffocate talents and cultivate the slaves of the foolish emperor. In this way, there will inevitably be antagonistic ideologies, hoping to get rid of the cage of Yongzheng ideology. In the fourth year of Yongzheng, Xie Jishi, who participated in the impeachment of Tian Wenjing and was punished to serve in the Altai army, was described by those in power as "slandering Cheng Zhu" in order to comment that the "University" was described by those in power, and the Yongzheng Emperor did not allow him to attack Cheng Zhu, believing that he had bad intentions, ridiculed the government, and further punished him for being a coolie in the military camp to atone for his sins.
It can be seen from this that although the Yongzheng Emperor himself had a very profound view of Confucianism, his use of Confucianism was limited to the "Four Books", "Five Classics", and "Painting the Earth as a Prison", and he used Confucianism as a tool for enslaving education, restricting, restricting and standardizing from the field of imperial education, which was the main limitation of his respect.
3. Summary
The Yongzheng Emperor's performance in honoring Confucius can be described as "worshipping the top", sealing Confucius the fifth emperor as king, avoiding fame, changing the study of knowledge, changing the great ceremony, and doing everything to the extreme, and in the specific application of Confucian thought, he "painted the ground as a prison", specialized in the "four books" text, specialized in Zhu Xi's annotations, and attacked other ideas.
There is a passage in the Hadith of the Qing Dynasty, Book IV, Sacred Studies, in which Yongzheng says:
The Most Holy Prophet Confucius enlightened the hearts of all the worlds with benevolence and morality, and the Three Principles were righteous, the Five Luns were enlightened, and those who succeeded the Heavenly Emperor Yu and the Emperor's Master had an effect, and established the religion with the government, reaching the three generations of Tang Yu. The way of the saints is also very pu for the blessing of the crowd, and it is also very grand for the benefit of the emperor, and it is advisable to respect the scriptures and the heavens and the earth
。 In volume 59 of the Records of Emperor Shizong of the Qing Dynasty, he said again:
If there is no teaching of Confucius, then people will ignore the scriptures of heaven and rank, and the principles of the people's Yi things, and they will inevitably increase with small, with less than the long, with the lowly, with the inferiority, with the inferiority, the inferiority, the inferiority, the inferiority, the higher and the lower, the more the name is divided, the more etiquette is contrary to righteousness, the so-called king is not a king, the subject is not a subject, the father is not a father, the son is not a son, although there is millet, I have to eat everything? It is a harm to the hearts of the people of the world! ......”
The Words of the Yongzheng Emperor spoke very frankly about the benefits brought by Confucius Confucianism to him as the emperor's ruler, which made the Three Principles and Five Constants have a lun order, which is more profound than the previous understanding of only the general customs. Yong is the top prince who won the "Nine Sons and Concubines", ascended the throne at the age of forty-five, and has an innate sensitivity and maturity for the guidance of ideological and academic consciousness, and he naturally has a deeper understanding than many imperial rulers in the relationship between Confucius's Confucianism and the maintenance of monarchical rule. The Yongzheng Emperor himself also had a very profound insight into the essence of Confucianism, which showed that he was truly impressed by Confucian culture, otherwise he would not have been able to worship Confucius like he did.
On the other hand, he is after all the representative of the great unified imperial dynasty, and he must grasp the dominance of ideology and let Confucianism serve the interests of the ruling class to the greatest extent. Even the most unique and profound explanation of "courtesy, righteousness, and shame" is only based on the needs of the emperor, making Confucianism more beneficial to the needs of the rulers. Through the education of the imperial examination, he "painted the ground as a prison," restricted the content and style of writing, and cracked down on the emergence of antagonistic ideas, the purpose of which was to cultivate a group of foolish and loyal slaves, fool the people into their hands, and safeguard the so-called "long live" country.