On November 13, 1722, the 61st year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor died of illness in Changchun Garden on the outskirts of Beijing, and Long Keduo announced that Kangxi had a will during his lifetime, which was passed down to the fourth son of the emperor, Ai Xinjueluo Yinchen.
Subsequently, Yin Chan ascended to the throne, becoming the fifth emperor of the Qing Dynasty and the third emperor after the capital was Beijing. As soon as the news came out, there were endless doubts inside and outside the palace, and everyone questioned the legitimacy of Yin Chan's ascension to the throne.
The reasons for questioning, though modest, are abundant.
Reason one is that no one was present when the testament was taken.
Kangxi died in Changchun Garden, but the edict of succession was in the Qianqing Palace (Forbidden City), 17 kilometers apart, and the big man Zhang Tingyu and the princes (except the fourteen sons) were at Kangxi's side at that time.
If it is fair, it should be Zhang Tingyu, Long Keduo and other important ministers, together with the princes, to go to the Qianqing Palace to collect the will and notarize it on the spot.
However, in fact, only Long Keduo went to the Qianqing Palace alone, got his hands and sent them to Changchun Garden. During the whole process, no prince was present, nor was a member of the imperial court present.
This shows that Yongzheng's ascension to the throne is an opaque black-box operation, and it is not excluded that the will and testament will be forged in advance, and there is a possibility of usurpation of power.
Question two, Roncodo is reused.
After Yongzheng ascended the throne, Long Keduo, as a key figure, immediately rose to the top. Yongzheng appointed him and the university Scholar Sima Qi to take charge of the imperial government, attacked the first class duke, and conferred the official Shangshu, which was the same for a while. Yongzheng saw that Longkeduo did not call out his name, only his uncle, which was unique in the history of the Qing Dynasty.
In the first year of Yongzheng's ascension to the throne (1723), Yongzheng also made Longkeduo and the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi Nian Tangyao the title of Taibao. Nian Qianyao was recognized as a loyal cadre of Yongzheng, and also made great contributions to Yongzheng's seizure of power.
After Yongzheng ascended the throne, his powerful rivals Fuyuan General and FourteenTh Brother Yunyu were recalled to Beijing, and Nian Qianyao took over military power and stabilized the overall situation.
It can be seen that Long Keduo played a key role in Yongzheng's ascension to the throne, and the authenticity of Kangxi's will became more and more suspicious.
Question three, Yongzheng sent people to intercept the important documents of the Fourteen Elder Brothers.
The day after Kangxi's death, Yongzheng stripped the Fourteen Brothers of their military powers. Not only that, Yongzheng also asked the rebellious general Yan xin to rush to Ganzhou as soon as possible, "collecting and sealing all the folds of the Great General Wang, all the edicts of Zhu Approval, and all the letters of the Yi family." ”
In other words, it was to let Yanxin seal all the letters exchanged between the old fourteen and Kangxi and bring them to Beijing to hand them over to Yongzheng personally, "to the capital before the secret music."
"If you don't hand them all over, you will be very angry."
Yongzheng was so anxious to confiscate the fourteen brothers YinYu and Kangxi's recitals, the intention was very obvious, that is, he was worried that Yin Yu would bring those recitals to Beijing, because those recitals, edicts, and documents may contain evidence that the Kangxi tradition was located in Yinyu.
Not only that, Yongzheng also sent his cronies to lead people and horses to search and intercept the two routes that Yin Yu's family might pass, in case they brought important documents back to Beijing.
Question four, fourteen brothers overreacted.
After the old fourteen Yin Yu arrived in Beijing, he was angry at his fourth brother, who had already become emperor.
When he was paying homage to the Coffin of Kangxi at the Jingshan Shou Imperial Palace, when he saw Yongzheng, he refused to kneel, and the bodyguard Laxi saw this stalemate and rushed forward to pull him, and Yin Yu was furious.
Old Fourteen and Yongzheng were born of the same mother, and even though the two had fought fiercely for the throne, the battle for the throne had been settled, and Old Fourteen had lost his military power. Common sense, he shouldn't be so angry.
Besides, the father Emperor Kangxi was the only one who had the right to appoint a successor, and since Kangxi had a testament passed down from the fourth elder, he should be willing to gamble and lose. However, under this circumstance, Old Fourteen was still furious, scolding the guards and not kneeling for Yongzheng, which was indeed abnormal.
Old Fourteen did so, with only two explanations.
One is that he is a reckless man, a cannon barrel, and has no brains. But this argument does not hold water. When the fourteenth elder sent troops to Tibet, his position was that of a great general, and he had a thousand heavy burdens on his shoulders. How could Kangxi have entrusted such an important post to a "mangy Zhangfei" who not only made military decisions and commanded, dispatched the army, arranged for the appointment of generals, and ensured the supply of military supplies and intelligence gathering, but also was responsible for calming the morale of the army, stimulating morale, mediating internal and external contradictions, and uniting the Dalai Lama, the Qinghai ministries, and other ethnic minorities?
In fact, Kangxi had great trust in the fourteenth son, and he once sent a decree to the Mongol prince of Qinghai: "The Great General Wang is my crown prince, and he is indeed a good general, leading a large army, and he knows that he has the ability to lead the troops, so he orders the palm to kill the heavy responsibility." Or military affairs, or matters of great importance, should be in accordance with the instructions of the Great General King, and if they can work hard in good faith, it is no different from my face-to-face instructions. They should be harmonious, physically and mentally united, and strive to do their best. "
This means that the fourteen brothers represent me, and whatever he says, you must obey unconditionally.
It can be seen that Yin Yu's status in the mind of the Kangxi Emperor was still very high. That being the case, Old Fourteen was by no means a straight-forward cannon, but a brave and resourceful man, otherwise he would not have become a strong contender for the throne.
Such a person with a city government, in the case of a fait accompli, should accept the "cruel" reality, consider the overall situation, and recognize the fourth brother as the emperor. But in fact, old fourteen was furious, and it was in front of his father's coffin.
There was only one explanation, that is, the old fourteen knew that the emperor had designated himself as the successor, and it was the fourth elder who had done something disgraceful and used the next three indiscriminate means to tamper with the edict of the succession. This made the old fourteen disregard the occasion, filled with righteous indignation, and opened fire on the fourth brother.
The subtext is: You are too despicable in your work, and what testament is passed on, it is all a lie.
Question five, Yongzheng killed Kangxi's horse boy.
After Yongzheng ascended the throne, he immediately killed Zhao Chang, the most favored eunuch on Kangxi's side.
Zhao Chang is three years younger than Kangxi and is Kangxi's haha bead. The so-called haha beads are Manchu, translated, which means Ah Ge's attendant boy.
In the Qing Dynasty, the emperor would choose a small eunuch of similar age for his son to take care of the life of the prince.
Zhao Chang grew up with Kangxi from an early age and established a deep relationship with each other. After Kangxi ascended the throne, he would definitely reuse Zhao Chang.
At the time of Kangxi's death, Zhao Chang was the eunuch chief of the Yangxin Temple.
Kangxi lived to be 68 years old, and Zhao Chang was also a man of about seventy, a lot of age. People have served Kangxi for decades, and after Yongzheng ascends the throne, even if he does not use old Zhao, he must let the family live in peace in their old age. Even if he is at fault, he must deal with it after the big deal has been dealt with.
Because Yongzheng, who had just ascended the throne, had too many things to deal with at hand. However, Yongzheng put this person to death on the second day of his ascension to the throne, which made people puzzled.
The only explanation was that the hapless eunuch most likely knew who Kangxi's successor was, and even the content of the edict, and that Kangxi's successor was most likely the Fourteenth Brother, not the Fourth Brother Yongzheng.
Therefore, Yongzheng couldn't wait to get rid of Zhao Chang and kill people.
The above is only a speculation about Yongzheng's tampering with the will, and it is not enough to be used as a basis.
For a long time, there is also a saying, which is conclusive and has been adopted by many film and television drama novels, that is, Yongzheng added a horizontal bar to the "ten" character of the "fourteen sons of the succession" and added a hook to the right side of the bottom. In this way, the "fourteen sons who passed on the throne" became "the fourteen sons who passed on the throne", and Yongzheng could legitimately inherit the throne.
At first glance, this statement really makes sense. As a result, there are many people who believe, and conspiracy theories have been rife for a long time.
Is there any truth to this statement?
There is a counter-argument that "Yu" is a simplified character, "Yu" is a traditional character, and Chinese characters were formally simplified in the 1950s after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it is impossible to use the simplified character "Yu" at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.
In the testament, it is "yu" not "yu", the original text is "passing on the position to the four brothers", not "passing on the fourteen brothers".
In fact, this kind of statement does not understand the history of Chinese characters and cannot withstand scrutiny.
"Yu" is not a simplified word, it appears in the Shang Dynasty oracle bones, "yu" and "yu" are common in most cases, in modern vernacular, "yu" is merged into "yu", but it should be noted that "yu" and "yu" do not belong to the relationship between simplified and traditional characters, and "yu" is not a simplified word of "yu".
In the "General List of Simplified Characters" and the "List of General Specification Chinese Characters", there is no provision for "yu" to be simplified to "yu". In other words, the "Yu" and "Yu" in ancient texts are more common, and it is not excluded that the word "Yu" is sometimes used in Qing Dynasty edicts.
If the words "yu" and "yu" are common, or if it is assumed that there was no such word for "yu" at that time, does that prove that Yongzheng may have tampered with the edict?
Nor can it.
Because the prince in the Holy Will must write the name of the person later, for example, if it is passed on to the Fourteenth Brother, it will be written in the Holy Will that "the transmission is located in the Fourteenth Brother Yinyu"; If it is transmitted to the Four Brothers, the words "Passed on to the Four Brothers" will appear in the Holy Will.
In other words, "ten" is changed to "yu" to change, but "禵" is changed to "Zen", you give me a try, it is not an easy task.
Will there be such a possibility, when Kangxi made the will, he was old and tired, and in order to save trouble, he did not write the name of Brother Ah, which is not impossible.
Even in this case, Yongzheng could not be counterfeited, because during the Qing Dynasty, Chinese characters were not the only official script, and two other scripts existed, namely Mongolian and Manchu.
This is because the Manchus were the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, and the Mongols were the right-hand men in establishing the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, in the Qing Dynasty, any kind of official document was written in Chinese, Manchu, and Mongolian languages.
Since the document was written in the manchu, Mongolian and Chinese languages, the Qing Dynasty's holy will was naturally also three scripts, and it was impossible to have only Chinese characters, even if the Chinese characters were changed, Mongolian and Manchu were not easy to change.
All of the above are reasonable speculations, whether there is tampering, we can only look at the original text of the testament.
After three hundred years of vicissitudes, is Kangxi's will and testament still there?
Before that, most of the historical materials of our country were not made public, but after the reform and opening up, the Kangxi Testament was publicly exhibited in the First Historical Archives of China and the Liaoning Provincial Archives.
The appearance of the testament unveiled the mystery of the authenticity of the will.
The Kangxi Testament, also known as the Kangxi Emperor's Testament, is in triplicate and is housed in the Forbidden City in Taiwan, the First Historical Archive of China, and the Liaoning Provincial Archives.
The entire edict is 1.5 meters long and 0.8 meters wide, and there are more than 1,700 Chinese characters in the whole text of the edict, except for the successor in the last sentence, the others are the Kangxi Emperor himself singing praises and praises to himself.
If we want to find out the truth about the transmission, we don't have to read the whole text, just look at the key parts.
The key part reads: "The fourth son of The Prince of Yong, Yin Chan, is of high moral character, deeply humbled, and will be able to inherit the throne, and succeed to the throne and succeed to the emperor's throne...". There is simply no such thing as the fabled "Chuan is located in the Fourth Son".
However, the edict not only wrote the name of the fourth son of the emperor, but also the title of prince of Yong.
If it is located in the fourteenth brother, the will should read "The transmission is located in the fourteenth son of the Gushan Beizi Emperor Yinyu". Fourteen Brothers are not even the prince, you may not believe it when you say it, but it is indeed a fact, not that he is not favored, but "rules".
In the forty-eighth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1709), Yin Chan, the fourth son of the Emperor who was the same mother as Yin Yu (Defei Wuya), was given the title of Prince of Heshuo Yong.
According to the rules of the Qing court, no matter how many princes a concubine has, only one king can be crowned. This meant that the other sons born to Princess Uya could not be made princes, counties, or even Belle.
Therefore, even though Yin Yu made great military achievements in the northwest and was very much loved by Kangxi, his title was still Gushan Beizi in the end, and he did not receive a higher title.
In summary, there is no problem of being tampered with by Yongzheng in the succession will, and only from the perspective of the will, Yongzheng's succession is legal and natural.
Why did the four brothers who won in the end, not the fourteen brothers?
Kangxi was the most accomplished emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and Wenzhi was very skilled in martial arts, and was familiar with subduing Aobai, quelling the Rebellion of the Three Domains, recovering Taiwan, and conquest of Gardan.
But no matter how cattle people are, they will have old age, and people in their later years will be confused, and cattle people who do not make mistakes do not exist. The biggest mistake made by the Kangxi Emperor was to choose his successor to rebel and "three abolishes and three stands".
Successive Chinese emperors have had many princes, but in the struggle for the throne, no one has the Kangxi Dynasty, which is simply a mess of porridge.
The reason is not how good the princes are, but mainly because Kangxi is wavering and not resolute, releasing a wrong signal and letting other princes have non-divided thoughts.
After the Kangxi Emperor made his first crown prince and eldest son, Yin Rong, he should unswervingly cultivate him. This is not to say that the prince cannot be abolished, but to be cautious, indeed incompetent, must be abolished.
Kangxi's several abolitions show that Yin Rong was only framed and did not commit major negligence.
Without Kangxi's repeated abolitions, the princes would not have thought differently, nor would they have formed parties for personal gain, making the palace a miasma.
Besides, if there are more princes, after the establishment of the prince, there will definitely be princelings and non-princelings in the palace.
The prince became the target of everyone, and many princes spared no effort to bring him down.
As an emperor, you need to do two things: the first is that you should strictly discipline, and the second is to unswervingly maintain the authority of the prince.
In this way, the opposition also stopped and felt that all small actions were in vain.
Kangxi, on the other hand, would not strictly discipline, and second, his ears were soft, and listening to the wind was rain, so that the princes could play together.
On this point, Kangxi himself admitted.
After the old eight faces were exposed, he also said bluntly: "It is said that the old age is old, the years are not much, and it is not secret that Yi was once protected by people, who dares to argue?" So he claimed to be safe. "
Kangxi acknowledged that Yin Rong's abolition and restoration was a helpless move, an out-and-out trick.
Kangxi listened to rumors, and after deposing the prince for the second time, Kangxi did not appoint a prince for a long time, which released a clear signal to the princes: everyone came to fight, each showed his magic, you played well, and the position of prince was yours.
In this way, the battle of the "Nine Sons and Concubines" began.
There are several major camps in the Battle of the Nine Sons:
The Great Chitose Party headed by the Grand Prince Yin Zhen, the Eight Brothers Party headed by the Eight Brothers Yin Yu, the Three Brothers who fought alone, and the Four Masters Party headed by the Four Brothers Yin Chan who came later.
The three brothers had no supporters and were quickly out.
The grand prince Yin Zhen was not a concubine, there was no drama, and later he could not hold his breath, cursed the prince Yin Rong, plotted to seize the throne, was imprisoned by the knight, and withdrew from the competition.
The whole battle was equal between the Eight Masters And the Four Masters.
The Eight Masters Party has the strongest lineup, with old eight Yin Yu, old nine Yin Yu, old ten Yin Yu, and old fourteen Yin Yu respectively.
However, Lao Ba's move was careless, and he gave Kangxi a dead eagle, and the gutter overturned the ship, and all disasters were not recovered. Although the old fourteenth was not too involved, he was defeated by the fourth elder in a disadvantageous position in the war of conquest.
The fourth brother was very clever, he had been recuperating, and he did not go to the front desk, because he understood the truth of the tree's big wind. Moreover, the fourth brother was very disciplined at first, and did not show the intention of coveting the throne.
As mentioned earlier, it is precisely because of Kangxi's vacillation that the prince is abolished and erected, which arouses the fighting spirit of the fourth elder and makes him feel that the prince's position can be contested. That's why he rubbed his fists and competed for the prince.
Despite this, Yin Chan was very sophisticated, calm and ready to go.
He was not as aggressive, sharp, and determined as the Eight Masters. The strategy adopted is to taoguang and cultivate obscurity, calm and calm, step by step, and quietly layout in the periphery.
Yin Chan was familiar with history, understood the principle of military power, and allied with Long Keduo and Nian Qianyao to firmly grasp the military power in the capital and the outskirts.
The lessons of history prove that whoever holds the military power can win victory. In addition, any trick played is in vain, and there is no exception in ancient and modern China and abroad.
Even without Kangxi's will and support from Long Keduo, who held the military power of the Beijing Division, he would have won the great victory effortlessly.
In any case, Yongzheng, who played a role in carrying on the upper and lower levels in the "prosperous era of Kangqian", his historical positioning is not that of a dimwitted monarch, and as for the authenticity of the will, it seems that it is not very important.