The Jiaqing Emperor was emperor of the Qing Dynasty, emperor Aixin Jueluo (13 November 1760 – 2 September 1820), originally known as Yongyan, was the seventh emperor of the Qing Dynasty, the fifteenth son of the Qianlong Emperor, and his biological mother Empress Xiaoyichun of the Wei Jia clan.
(Portrait of the Jiaqing Emperor)
The Jiaqing Emperor ascended the throne at the age of 36, and the Qianlong Emperor began to grasp the actual power in the first month of the fourth year of Jiaqing (1799). In February of the same year, he killed the powerful minister and the emperor, deposed and imprisoned the die-hards. He asked for outspokenness, opened up the way of speech, dispelled evil and supported righteousness, praised the officials who had been convicted of words in the Qianlong Dynasty, and deposed them for their contributions, and deposed them from extravagance and frugality.
But the Jiaqing Emperor was, after all, a mediocre son of heaven, who had neither political boldness nor a spirit of innovation compared to his father and ancestors. "Mediocrity" is the main character trait of the Jiaqing Emperor, and the Jiaqing Dynasty is also the era when the Qing Dynasty turned from prosperity to decline.
So, was the accumulation of the "Prosperous Kangqian Dynasty" defeated at the hands of the Jiaqing Emperor? What did the Jiaqing Emperor do during his 25-year reign?
(Qing Dynasty court painter Xu Yang's "Prosperous Breeding Chart")
First of all, let's first look at what the "Prosperous Age of Kangqian" was like during the Jiaqing Emperor. The empire entered the Central Plains, and through the pioneering and enterprising efforts of the three generations of emperors of the Kangxi Emperor, Yongzheng and Qianlong Emperor, they suppressed rebellion at home and resisted aggression externally, safeguarding the unity and territorial integrity of the motherland, and the territory also reached its peak during this period, with a total of more than 13 million square kilometers. At the same time, the Qing Emperor paid special attention to the development of agriculture and the promotion of high-yield crops, and the grain that entered the market every year was about 3.6 million stones, which was three times that of the Ming Dynasty. By the middle of the Qianlong Period, the total number of reclaimed land reached more than 7.41 million hectares, and the annual income of tianfu reached 48.87 million taels, which was also double that of the Kangxi period. The national treasury silver, from 34.53 million taels at the beginning of Qianlong's reign, increased to 73.9 million taels in the 39th year of Qianlong. It can be said that the economic strength of the Qing government during this period was quite strong.
(Territory of the Qing Empire in 1820)
However, in the late Qianlong period, the fiscal deficit was serious, and the policies of making money during the Yongzheng period were also destroyed by Qianlong in order to win the support of the landlord class. Coupled with the fact that the officialdom of the Qing Dynasty was in a state of corruption and incompetence under Qianlong's "efforts", the "hezhen phenomenon" became a social phenomenon, and people who greeted him abounded, which can be said that Qianlong's grandfather left his son as a complete mess.
(Film and TELEVISION drama and Kan)
Secondly, after the Jiaqing Emperor dealt with the Hezhen Incident, he faced a series of social crises: such as the Southern White Lotus Sect, the Tianli Sect in Gyeonggi, the riots in the southeast sea, the ban on mining, the deficit of money and grain, the livelihood of the Eight Banners, and the influx of opium.
(Picture of the Situation of the White Lotus Sect Uprising)
As a "benevolent prince" Jiaqing Emperor is qualified. During his tenure, he ended the prison of writing in terms of culture, and tried to perfect and consolidate his rule with respect and feudal etiquette; Economically, it is necessary to save money and grain from disaster-stricken areas and attach importance to agricultural development; In society, it attaches importance to river governance, resolving contradictions between man and land, and rectifying flag affairs; Diplomatically, the entry of opium was suppressed and national sovereignty was safeguarded, but the closed-door policy lost an opportunity to integrate into the world.
(Opium-smoking Qing Dynasty)
Finally, we must talk about the mediocrity of the Jiaqing Emperor, in the face of the crisis of the empire, all kinds of incidents, the Jiaqing Emperor treated the above problems as individual cases, and did not systematically think about how to solve them from the system. Compared with his father and ancestors, the Jiaqing Emperor was a mediocre son who had neither political courage nor the spirit of innovation, neither the ability to manage the government nor the courage to be a character, and more than twenty years of rule passed in this day of complaining, confusion, pain, and embarrassment.