Kangxi left 8 million, Yongzheng left 60 million, how much qianlong left? Jiaqing: Can't help but cry
The reign of the three emperors Of Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong was the heyday of the Qing Dynasty, and the reign of Qianlong was the culmination of the entire Qing Dynasty. When the Kangxi Emperor died, there were still 8 million taels of silver in the treasury; When the Yongzheng Emperor died, the treasury had 60 million taels of silver. So when the Qianlong Emperor died, how much silver was still in the Treasury of the Qing Dynasty?
The Kangxi Emperor did have great merits and was also the founder of the legendary "Kangqian Prosperous Era", but many people do not know that Kangxi's administration in his later years was too loose, resulting in lax official discipline, greed for corruption, laziness in government, and extravagance and waste. During The reign of Kangxi, the tax burden of the common people was not reduced, but the money ran into the pockets of officials, which inevitably led to the impact of the state's fiscal revenue, and it is said that when Kangxi died, the national treasury was only 8 million silver, leaving a mess for Yongzheng.
At the beginning of Yongzheng's reign, he vigorously advocated reform, and the spearhead was aimed at the problems of party formation, corruption, and emptiness in the later period of Kangxi's reign, and within a month of Yongzheng's ascension to the throne, he issued an order to the governors of various provinces through the Ministry of Households to comprehensively check the deficits, indicating that the government treasury silver of Kangxi for sixty-one years may be just a blank check. In June of the first year of Yongzheng, Jiazhang, the prefect of Luzhou in Shanxi, denounced Su Keji, the former governor of Shanxi, for extorting 4.5 million taels of silver from various prefectures and counties during his tenure of office, and after this amount was verified, the Yongzheng Emperor ordered that "there is no family wealth to pay for the deficit", which shows that the deficit in the government treasury is far more than 4.5 million taels.
In addition to wandering and hunting in the lower Jiangnan, Qianlong also spent huge sums of money to build a prosperous imperial garden "Yuanmingyuan" in the western suburbs of Beijing. The East Zhaolin Palace, the West Zengfu Hall, the South Building Chongtai, the North Building Jie Pavilion, the endless majestic and rich. And the scholar of letters, the skillful craftsman, spent a lot of effort here to chisel the pond, there stacked stones, here planted forests, the other place of the flowers, flourishing, embellished scenery, no matter the spring, autumn, winter and summer, they all feel suitable. By the time Jiaqing ascended the throne, the national treasury was basically empty, which led to rumors that Hezhen had fallen and Jiaqing had eaten enough.