The Qianlong Emperor had a unique personality and was considerate of the people, and when he dealt with daily state affairs, he would often go south to see how the common people were doing under his rule. In addition, he liked the feeling of a group of people eating together, and the banquet became a big hobby of the Qianlong Emperor.
But strangely, the old people who came to the capital to participate in the banquet died one after another after eating, why is this? Did Qianlong order people to move their hands and feet in the meal? Or did someone frame these old people on the road? Or maybe there's something else. Next, let's take a look at this "Qianlong Thousand Words Banquet".
1. Special Qianlong
To find out why Qianlong wants to hold a thousand banquets, you must first understand Qianlong as a person. The Qianlong Emperor's name was Aixin Jue Luo Hongli, and unlike his father and grandfather, his predecessors liked politics, and his descendants liked Wenzhi calligraphy and painting, and especially liked to put on banquets.
He has a funny life, composed more than 42,000 poems, like a great literati swimming in the ocean of poetry, enjoying it, poetry is like his blood, day by day, birthday and birthday flow in his body, and he also likes the southern tour, six times in his life, you must know that ancient transportation is inconvenient, the southern tour is more than a year to go back and forth.
Repeated southern tours opened his eyes to more things that he had heard of before but had never seen before, which also added a few inks to his belly, supporting him to write his first euphemistic poem with true feelings.
The southern tour also allowed him to see the real living conditions of the common people in the south, and the emperor's southern tour also brought a developing economy to the south while consolidating the rule of the dynasty.
2. The bizarre banquet
As mentioned earlier, he loved to put on a banquet, for a reason, the Kangxi Emperor held the second Qianlong banquet in the Qianqing Palace in 1722, his princes and grandchildren all participated in this banquet, the magnificent scene of the banquet, thousands of people drinking together left a deep impression on Qianlong, who was only twelve years old at the time, so Qianlong's hobby has a origin.
Therefore, he held the third Qianlong banquet in 1785, the fiftieth year of Qianlong. The purpose of this banquet was to celebrate his own seventy-fourth birthday, and he specially put on a banquet of a thousand people.
Why do you say that? Because the ancient emperors had a lot of work and worried about the country and the people, the general life expectancy was very short, and basically the average person was about forty-three years old.
And Qianlong lived to be seventy-four years old is true, and this is not the first time the palace has a thousand banquets, his grandfather Kangxi Emperor as early as the 52nd year of Kangxi put up a thousand banquets to celebrate his sixtieth birthday, you must know that Kangxi is busy with work related to political affairs and the people can live to sixty years old has a long life, so he specially invited the elderly over sixty-five years old to participate in the banquet.
The grandeur of the banquet is amazing, the table seats are as high as 800 tables, the colorful flags and red cloth corridor are endless, all the way from Xizhimen to Changchun Garden, the spectacle of the scene has opened the eyes of hundreds of people, let alone the people, even the ministers in the palace have never seen this scene. Nearly 2,000 elderly people came to attend the banquet, and there were several elderly people over 90 years old.
One time is not enough to come twice, and Kangxi held a banquet for the second time in the sixty-first month of the Kangxi Dynasty. This time was seen by Qianlong, so when he was seventy-four years old, he also came to a "thousand banquets" according to the gourd, compared to the scale of Kangxi, Qianlong's is not at all behind, even comparable to Kangxi.
He ordered the ministers to prepare food and banquet supplies, and the table must not be less, and the common people must be greeted, and then he released the news of the palace's "Thousand Words Banquet", so that all the old people over sixty-five years old in the country could enter the city to participate in the banquet.
The common people were excited when they heard that! You must know that in ancient times, many people could not see the emperor's dragon face once in their lives because they were far away from the palace, and if they had the opportunity to see the emperor once in this life, wouldn't it be the infinite glory of the ancestors. Therefore, many people said that they would enter the city and rushed to Beijing overnight, and even some old people from the south also left for the capital.
Qianlong was also a Ming Jun, he had long considered that many ordinary people had a long way to enter Beijing, it was not good to sleep in the wind, food, and sleeping, and the cost of a round trip to Beijing was also high, so he ordered that everyone who entered Beijing in accordance with the regulations should pay for the road fee.
The palace has also prepared tables for a long time, from the hall to the corridor, from the pawnshop to the outside of the pawnshop, a total of 800 tables have been set up before and after, the banquet is lively, and the sound of drinking is continuous. According to statistics, the number of follow-up participants was as high as 3,900, including many centenarians.
Qianlong was also a person who respected the old and loved the young, and he specially invited the elderly over the age of ninety to come to the court to toast them one by one, and he also cultivated the virtue of respecting the old in his descendants, and asked them to toast the old people one by one, and the descendants would do the same.
One of the old men was as old as one hundred and forty-one! Qianlong was shocked to hear this, and he had not heard of such a long-lived person in the palace capital! Hurriedly went to visit the old man, and at the same time he also specially changed a seat for the old man, and he and Ji Xiaolan inscribed a couplet for him: the flower armor was reopened, plus three or seven years, ancient and rare double celebrations, and one more spring and autumn inside.
This is the supreme honor, you must know that the people at that time did not even have the opportunity to see the emperor, let alone get the emperor's gift or something, and this couplet was handed down to him by the emperor face to face, which was undoubtedly infinite at that time, enough for him to brag to the next life.
And when it comes to the serving link is the focus of this Thousand Words Banquet, a variety of mountain and sea delicacies prepared in advance are all present, chicken, duck and goose and other common are naturally not lacking, hot pot, spicy soup, barbecue, venison, abalone, prawns and other foods, many people have never seen these foods in their lives, let alone taste.
Because there are more rules in the palace, everyone can not do these delicacies as soon as they come up, and when they enter the palace to see the emperor, they must bow down and shout "Long live the emperor", and then wait for the emperor to move the chopsticks before opening the meal. So when the start was announced, everyone was already hungry and started to eat.
And there are all kinds of fine wine on the banquet, and when you are happy, you will have a glass with a friend or stranger next door, a sip of wine and a bite of meat, these old people have not eaten so happily for a long time. Maybe it's too hungry, or maybe it's because the dishes are too delicious, many people are full, their stomachs are round and they have to continue to stuff, and they have to continue to drink when they can't drink, and everyone is drunk.
This picture of the emperor on top, the people below, its happy scene made Qianlong very happy, very satisfied with this "Thousand Banquet", it is obvious that this kind of face project is successful, it actually reflects the stability of the country's security, social prosperity, the people's heart, the emperor's rule is good, this success also laid the groundwork for Qianlong's second Thousand Banquet.
But when the banquet of the thousand is over, many old people have just arrived home or have not yet arrived home and quietly died on the way, why is this?
Third, civil speculation
When many elderly people died, the people became suspicious and speculated about the cause of their deaths. To sum up, there are roughly the following four points:
1. Qianlong ordered people to poison
This kind of speculation is the earliest guess, but it is also the least likely one, after all, Qianlong's achievements and glorious image are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and he has devoted his life to serving the people for the benefit of the people, so why should he harm the people in turn? This is also inconsistent with his own sense of responsibility for respecting the elders. At the same time, these old men have no grievances with him, and there is no need to kill them.
2. The dishes are cool
We all know that there are many rules in ancient times, such as the emperor also moves chopsticks is well known, but when waiting for the meal to open, the old people are also motionless, even in the face of mosquito bites, they can not move, when the ministers shout "kneel" they also have to kneel together to show respect and respect for the emperor.
So when the meal is officially opened, the meal will inevitably be cold, and the old people eating these cold dishes are more or less burdensome to the stomach, but how can ordinary people who have not seen such delicious food refuse? Even if it is cold, they will think that it is a delicacy on earth.
3. The journey is long and tired
This statement is to have a certain basis, because the traffic at that time was very inconvenient, most people were traveling by horse-drawn carriage, close to the river can also choose to take the waterway, generally speaking, from the south to take a horse-drawn carriage into Beijing at the fastest to arrive, if you add travel accommodation or something basically takes almost three months to get to the capital.
The people who came to the banquet were all old people over the age of sixty-five, and they had to bump in the car for more than two months, and they might not be able to stand it if they were young people, not to mention that some old people were in their nineties. Long-term car riding is also prone to other diseases, and it takes four months to come and go.
4. Overeating is difficult to digest
We found that many people because they had not seen these mountain and sea delicacies and fine wine, they let go of eating in the palace, mouthful of meat and wine, eating until they couldn't eat it and stuffing vegetables into their mouths, they knew that they would not have such opportunities in the future, so they had to eat more, but this was precisely the key to their death.
The elderly are not suitable to eat too full, which will increase the burden on the stomach, if you consume excessive protein or fat in a meal, it will bring severe challenges to the digestive system, when these foods stay in the stomach and intestines for a long time it is easy to induce gastrointestinal diseases, and these foods are also easy to produce carcinogens.
In addition, eating too full is also easy to cause cerebral arteriosclerosis, which is also a severe challenge for the blood supply to the brain, in short, eating too much and traveling far may be the root cause of the death of these old people.
IV. Conclusion
There is no doubt that in ancient times, the emperor was the highest ruler, he was the role above ten thousand people, and the people had extremely high respect for the emperor, so it was necessary to go to the opportunity to enter the palace to see the emperor, not to mention that this emperor was the Qianlong Emperor, one of the prosperous times of Kang Qian.
And the common people will naturally not be ambiguous when they have received the gift of the emperor, this is the supreme honor, no one will refuse. So this has formed a kind of implicit "blind worship", they think that everything given by the emperor must be the best, of course, the material is indeed optimal, but whether it is suitable for everyone is uncertain.
For example, the participants of this Qiancao banquet are all old people, and the long distance and cold meals are all challenges for them, but in the face of the emperor's sense of worship, they will not refuse, but feel very grateful, grateful that the emperor can give themselves the opportunity to eat this time. However, they also ignore the dangers and challenges that these factors will bring to themselves.
So before we do a thing, we have to weigh the pros and cons to determine what the consequences will be if we do this thing, is the pros outweigh the disadvantages or the disadvantages outweigh the benefits? Just as the so-called think twice, we must make sure that things are favorable before we do it, otherwise it is easy to appear like those old people.
Well, the above is just the author's personal views and opinions, so what are everyone's different views on the personal image and achievements of the Qianlong Emperor? Do you think his "Banquet of a Thousand Words" is good? Should we hold a "banquet of a thousand words"? Welcome to discuss together!