Review
As we all know, since Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms more than two thousand years ago and began the imperial system, "emperor" has become synonymous with the highest power in China, who enjoys all the property in the country according to law and holds almost unlimited power.
However, there is an old saying that goes, "A companion is like a companion of a tiger." "Dealing with such a person who can cover the sky with one hand may lose his life if he is not careful, because the emperor's thinking is not something that ordinary people can understand." The famous Qianlong Emperor once praised a melon farmer, but then secretly ordered "Kill him." "What the hell is going on here?
Qianlong's imperial history
Qianlong is an emperor we are more familiar with, Qianlong's real name is Ai Xinjue Luo Hongli. After Yongzheng's death, the 24-year-old Qianlong became the supreme ruler of the Qing Dynasty.
The situation that Qianlong faced when he first became emperor was rather complicated: from the Kangxi period, there were new moths at the border passes that had not been stable since the Kangxi period, and the Qianlong Emperor was determined to pacify the border passes, and under the efforts of nearly several decades, the separatist forces in Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang, Yunnan, and other places were eliminated, and there were no more border areas in the Qing Dynasty that were "troubled."
Martial arts and wenzhi were inseparable, and the Qianlong Emperor did not forget to promote the cultural development of the Qing Dynasty while pacifying the frontier: during his reign, he personally led a group of literati to compile the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book". It took thirteen years to compile this set of books, and it is the largest series of books in ancient China, with 800 million words!
Covering basically all fields, it is a set of books with extremely high historical significance and literary value, and its influence on future generations is also extremely far-reaching, it can be said that without Qianlong, there would be no Siku Quanshu.
In terms of economic construction, Qianlong also made sufficient efforts: Qianlong introduced a lot of high-yield crops, which greatly increased the income of peasants and liberated a lot of labor, so the development of handicraft industry and industry and commerce in the entire Qing Dynasty reached its peak during the Qianlong period.
With so many achievements, Qianlong Ding was very proud and thought that he had done his best in all aspects, so he gave himself the nickname of "Ten Perfect Old Man".
The slackness of the "perfect old man"
It is said that after Qianlong appointed himself as a perfect old man, the motivation for struggle was much worse than before, and pride and complacency were enough to make a person change his appearance. Therefore, Qianlong no longer worked for state affairs every day, but began to enjoy life in the position of emperor, and he began to imitate the Kangxi Emperor's six trips to Jiangnan, but the pomp was greater and more demanding.
It is said that at that time, in order to welcome Qianlong in such a place as Yangzhou, four palaces were built, and there were 5,000 pavilions and pavilions. Such a measure of laboring the people and hurting the wealth is in stark contrast to the simple travel of the Kangxi Emperor.
Kangxi's six trips to Jiangnan were to investigate the people's feelings and build water conservancy. However, the purpose of Qianlong's six trips to Jiangnan seems to be tourism, and under such a luxurious wind, the officials of the Great Qing Dynasty were infected with the vices of corruption, and it was during this period that the corrupt officials and Yan yan officially entered the stage of history.
Qianlong not only squandered, but also pretended to be self-contained, refusing to communicate with the world, believing that the Qing Dynasty was rich and wealthy, and did not have to rely on other countries, and the emissaries of the West were also white-skinned barbarians in his eyes.
In this way, the Qing Dynasty implemented a policy of closing the country and cutting itself off from the world.
It should be known that it was the era of the industrial revolution, the whole world was strengthening the productive forces and production tools through machinery, and Qianlong's approach also directly left China behind the world, which had never happened before.
Since then, the decline of the Qing Dynasty and the backwardness of science and technology in the future cannot be inextricably linked to Qianlong's policy of "closing the country to the outside world."
Why did Qianlong kill the melon farmers?
In his later years, Qianlong had not experienced a long journey to the Jiangnan region with great fanfare, and during this period he preferred to take his confidants to private visits and hang out around the capital, thinking that this would better sympathize with the people's feelings.
On this day, as usual, Qianlong led his cronies to wander around the outskirts of the capital, coinciding with the bright sunshine of the three-volt day, the heat was unbearable, and Qianlong was taken care of by the attendants left and right, but he was still irritable. Suddenly, the crowd found that there was a green watermelon field in front of them, and the owner of the melon field was an old man holding a fan, who was sitting quietly under the melon shed to recuperate.
Qianlong and his party walked up to the old man, woke him up, picked a few good melons and began to eat them vigorously. When Qianlong ate the melon, he chatted with the old melon farmer without a word.
This is not to talk about not knowing, a chat is startled, this simple dressed old man actually has a lot of learning, and it is not a problem to communicate with people like Qianlong, and in the opinions of many issues, even surpassing the literati and inkers in the DPRK, Qianlong is naturally alarmed, busy admiring this melon farmer not only sells a good melon, but also has a good knowledge.
After the people had finished eating the melon, they were going to fight their way back to the house, but on the way, Qianlong ordered his guards to sneak back and kill the melon farmer. The people accompanying him wondered why they suddenly wanted to kill this old man. Qianlong explained, "The melon farmer's conversation is not like that of ordinary people, and if such a person cannot be used by me and serve the imperial court, it is better to kill him directly, so as to avoid future troubles." ”
After listening to it, the crowd also secretly pinched a cold sweat, and did not expect Qianlong to be so fierce and ruthless. At this time, the guards returned to report to Qianlong that the melon farmer had abandoned the field and fled, and disappeared without a trace.
epilogue
Qianlong's extravagant life in his later years led to the final demise of the Qing Dynasty to a certain extent, and sadly he was wise and half-lifelong, and he did not realize this until the end. When Qianlong saw the learned people in the opposition, he thought about killing his mouth, but he never thought about why people with such skills were unwilling to become officials in the imperial court.
Qianlong lost too much in his later years because of pride and complacency, and if he could always work hard as he did when he was young, perhaps the world pattern would change because of him.