(Image of Yiwei)
Before the story begins, we must first mention a person who has a very weak sense of existence in the history of the Qing Dynasty.
Love Shin Kyora Yiwei.
As the brother of the Xianfeng Emperor, the protagonist of this article, his life is very interesting.
The Daoguang Emperor (Xianfeng's father) disliked Yiwei very much.
Why don't you like it? It is related to the origin of Comrade Yiwei.
Yi Wei's mother was called Hefei. When the Daoguang Emperor was still the Crown Prince, she was just a maid serving tea at Daoguang's side.
Because of a chance, he and Daoguang had a dewy love affair, which gave birth to Yiwei.
It is reasonable to say that the relationship between the prince and the palace daughter is not a major event, and in the Ming and Qing dynasties, many princes and emperors have had the behavior of visiting the palace women.
Moreover, this cannot be fully counted as a dew love affair, because after all, the cause and effect of the seed have children.
But when Daoguang first became a father, he couldn't be happy at all.
Because Daoguang usually set up a person for himself in the palace is a rule-abiding, polite, humble and modest, and with the palace women are not clear, there are male and female relations and children, it is obvious that it is not in line with the image of Wei Guangzheng he has established, so Daoguang has always been very angry about this matter.
After becoming emperor, when he thought of these old things, his heart was even more unhappy, so his attitude towards Yiwei was not very good.
Over the years, other princes have been crowned princes, and Yiwei's position is only a Baylor.
This has been going on for about two decades.
In the past twenty years, Comrade Yiwei has been snubbed by the emperor, and it can be said that he has not received any fatherly love.
But this changed in the ninth year of Daoguang, that is, in 1829 AD.
At this time, the protagonist of this article, Ai Xinjue Luo Yixuan (also the fourth son of Daoguang, later the Xianfeng Emperor) has not yet appeared, but the emperor's second and third sons have all died.
Counting the emperor's eldest son Yiwei, the emperor had a total of two sons, and the two died, and Yiwei suddenly became a single seedling.
Dumiao's meaning is that Yiwei became the sole heir to the throne, and if Yiwei also died, the Qing Dynasty would fall into a situation where no one took over.
The emperor came to a big change of face, and the once snubbed emperor suddenly became the emperor's fragrant feast.
The Daoguang Emperor planned to do his best to cultivate Yi Wei and make him an excellent heir of the empire in the years to come.
The Emperor began meticulous care and greetings, which of course included strict supervision.
For Yi Wei, the emperor's sudden concern was not good news.
More than twenty years of free and loose, unrestrained life has cultivated his own stubborn, uninhibited character, and the emperor's care and love have become a disguised burden.
Yi Wei was very resistant to his father's sudden love.
The emperor once hired a minister who was rich and learned to tutor Yi Wei in his homework, but Yi Wei was six gods and no master in the study every day, and his mind was completely absent from studying.
As soon as the chancellor saw that the prince was not serious about studying, he told Yiwei that you must study hard, and all I teach you now is the way of the king, and I will use it sooner or later.
The meaning of the minister's words is very clear, your father asked me to guide you, hoping that you would study hard and inherit his position in the future.
Unexpectedly, Yi Wei not only did not listen to the advice, but said this sentence to the minister viciously:
If I become emperor, I'll kill you first.
The minister heard that he had turned against you, this dynasty has always respected the teacher, I am a member of the imperial court, it is your father who is good at talking about evil, I only condescended to come to you as a teacher, you are not polite to me, even if you dare to threaten me!?
The minister didn't say a word and went directly to the Daoguang Emperor to complain.
When the emperor heard this, he was furious.
(Image of Emperor Doko)
He was desperately waiting for his son to become a talent, but he did not expect that YiWei was stubborn to this point.
If you were made emperor, wouldn't you be able to go to heaven?
The emperor immediately summoned Yi Wei, and just by severely reprimanding him, he could not vent his anger, and the Daoguang Emperor rolled up his arms and sleeves, and beat Yi Wei up.
It is said that the father taught his son that if he had to use a spanking, he would be able to beat his ass with a board, but the Daoguang Emperor did not have a light hand or a heavy hand, and specially greeted him three ways down, and actually directly beat Yi Wei and was seriously injured, and died within two days.
This time it was over, and the emperor personally strangled the last single seedling, the Qing imperial family, and the family was extinct.
Of course, it is actually a bit too pessimistic to say that there is no household.
At this time, the Daoguang Emperor's surviving son was indeed gone, but in the belly of his two concubines in the harem, he was still pregnant with two heirs.
Our comrade Daoguang had a very good life, the two children were born, both boys, the emperor was overjoyed, sent away the old son, ushered in a new son, the Qing seems to have hope again.
As for these two children, one is the fourth son of the emperor, Yixuan, and the other is the sixth son of the emperor, Yixuan.
Between the fourth and sixth sons, the emperor was particularly fond of the sixth son Yixuan.
Looking through the historical materials, we will find that Crown Prince Yixuan is really a very good person.
Extensive books, brilliant intelligence, and a leveraged cultural level.
Not only that, Yi Xian rode a horse to shoot arrows, everything was exquisite, and his martial arts attainments were also very good.
On the other hand, the fourth son, Yixuan, has mediocre qualifications, writes articles is commonplace, and horseback archery is more general, and on the whole, he belongs to a very ordinary mediocre person.
Therefore, from the comprehensive level, Yixuan pk off Yixuan is a matter of certainty.
Yi Yi (left) Yi Yi (right)
But fortunately, Yi Xuan had a good teacher, and this teacher's name was Du Shoutian.
Du Shoutian (杜尚田), the left attendant of the Rebbe, was also the editor of the Hanlin Academy, and also served as the teacher of the fourth son, Yixuan.
The master keenly found that his student was incomparable with another crown prince, Yi Chen, and if he wanted to stand out in the competition for the throne, he had to find another way of thinking.
In the last year of Daoguang, the emperor fell ill and prepared to summon the two princes Yixuan and Yixuan into the palace, obviously talking between father and son, and secretly exploring the details of the two princes.
Yi Xian was clever, and when he arrived in front of the Daoguang Emperor, he said that he talked about the strategy of governing the country, and even got carried away with it, patting his chest and saying that he would become emperor in the future, and he would definitely revitalize the Great Qing, lead the Great Qing financing and listing, and walk up to the highest peak.
The sixth prince can speak eloquently, if Yi Xi adopts the same routine as the sixth prince and talks about it, then the judgment will certainly not be as good as the sixth prince, so it must not be the opponent of the sixth prince.
Our old comrade Du thought of a rut, let Yi Xuan enter the palace without a word, hugged the emperor and began to cry, as long as he spoke, he said that he cared about the emperor's body, he could not swallow, he could not sleep at night, avoided verbal conversation, played the emotional card, and only showed his benevolence and filial piety.
(Image of Mori-Takeda)
Unexpectedly, this trick was very effective, and when the Daoguang Emperor looked at it, this Yixuan was much stronger than the son Yixuan who had just talked about a god blow.
The emperor was greatly moved, and finally decided to pass the throne to Yi Xuan.
But from a macro perspective, this is really a strange thing.
The sixth prince Yixuan, both literary and martial, intelligent, extremely good at scheming, no matter how you look at it, he should be the only choice to inherit the throne.
On the other hand, Yi Xuan, who spoke stupidly and was not outstanding in martial arts, was said to have ridden a horse when he was young, and he once fell off his horse and fell down, and as a result, he fell into a lame problem.
However, the Daoguang Emperor still chose Yixuan without hesitation.
If the author is allowed to analyze, I think things are simple, because the Daoguang Emperor deeply understands a truth, that is, the Chinese emperor, the supreme ruler of the world, holds the power of life and death, no one can balance, when the emperor Wen Tao Wuluo is very important, but having a benevolent heart, is equally important.
In contrast, the kind YiXuan of Renxiao naturally stood out.
In 1850, Emperor Xuanzong Daoguang died, and in the same year, Ai Xin Jueluo Yixuan ascended the throne with the era name Xianfeng.
The young Xianfeng Emperor ascended the throne.
20 years old, it is the age of the wind and the flesh.
At this golden age of life, if the emperor wants to, he can use his own enthusiasm to bring unexpected changes to the empire.
Moreover, although the emperor was benevolent and filial, he was not pedantic, so after he ascended the throne, he immediately began to reform.
Imperial reforms were usually carried out in two steps, both internally and externally, and the Xianfeng Emperor was no exception.
Internally, the reform of the bureaucracy and the dismissal of officials in large numbers.
We know that the officials of the Daoguang Dynasty had a very interesting characteristic, that is, when officials practiced "prostrating their heads more and talking less."
The vast majority of officials, especially represented by the senior members of the imperial court, went to work every day, they neither worked nor were they motivated, the emperor asked questions, they did not know three questions, the emperor asked them to do things, and they could do it for three years.
Anyway, you can mix a day is a day, mix until retirement.
Of course, the young Xianfeng Emperor could not tolerate the ministers messing around, so he quickly swept down all the ministers who occupied official positions and did not do anything, and replaced them with a group of officials who were as enterprising as the emperor.
The atmosphere of laziness and idleness in the court was swept away, and the government was restored.
The internal worries were solved, and the Xianfeng Emperor began to deal with external troubles again.
The so-called external troubles mainly have two aspects.
On the one hand, the peasant uprisings that occurred frequently in the country, in his father's time, the peasant uprisings were just small fights, most of which were led by some religious organizations, such as Tianli Sect, White Lotus Sect, Bagua Sect, and so on.
By the time of the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, the Qing Dynasty broke out the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the largest, longest-consuming, and most extensive peasant uprising in Chinese history.
(Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement)
The peasant revolt had already made the emperor miserable, and the result was not only a disaster, but on the other hand, the British and French allies came in from the sea.
Of course, the Qing Dynasty was not afraid of foreigners' foreign guns and artillery, but when it fought with the British and French allies, it actually fell behind, and the emperor suddenly became very panicked when he saw the defeat in the war.
In the past, in the five thousand years of History of China, there were about 400 emperors, and these emperors may have suffered threats to their own regimes from the outside world during their reign, but without exception, they were all things that belonged to the Central Plains, in other words, they were all their own family affairs.
However, the Xianfeng Emperor faced a situation that no emperor in China had encountered for thousands of years.
During the Daoguang years, the Opium War sounded a cannon, and China opened the curtain on modern history.
By the time the Xianfeng Emperor ascended the throne, Western forces had begun to fully impact the feudal and isolated dynasty.
In the face of the invasion of foreign forces, the emperor had no front car to learn from, and no one could give him guidance, so the emperor was panicked, and he did not know what to do.
If you can't attack, you can only retreat, the British and French allies (in fact, not only Britain and France, but also some other foreign forces) are arrogant, and the emperor has no choice but to learn from his own Lao Tzu Daoguang, sign a treaty to calm things down.
These treaties of humiliation and humiliation include the Sino-British Tianjin Treaty, the Sino-US Tianjin Treaty, the Sino-French Tianjin Treaty, and the Sino-Russian Tianjin Treaty.
Unexpectedly, the foreigners were not satisfied after signing the treaty, and they were going to rush to the city of Beijing with foreign guns and artillery, and the emperor was in a hurry, afraid, and really couldn't think of any way, so he could only pack his bags and slip away first.
Before leaving, the emperor arranged for Yi Chen, who had once been a rival, who had now become a prince, to stay in Beijing and continue peace talks with foreigners.
As a result, it was still the same as before, and a bunch of treaties were signed, including the Sino-British Beijing Treaty, the Sino-French Beijing Treaty, and the Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty.
After signing the treaty, the British and French allies deceived people even more, and committed a vicious act that shocked China and foreign countries - burning the Yuanmingyuan.
(Anglo-French coalition army burning the Yuanmingyuan)
Don't forget the national disaster, how difficult it is to rejuvenate the country.
Chinese will never forget these years of humiliation and sorrow, and Chinese will never forget these treaties that have lost power and humiliated the country.
It always reminds us of a simple and simple truth: if you fall behind, you will be beaten.
The Xianfeng Emperor escaped all the way to the summer resort in Chengde, Hebei Province, where he was devastated until his death.
In the emperor's last years, the two things he did most often were smoking cigarettes and eating cold powder.
The former was a vice that the emperor had developed, and the latter was a hobby that the emperor had always loved.
In essence, the Xianfeng Emperor was an optimistic idealist at first, but because his personal business ability was not enough to support the operation of the huge empire, he was quickly defeated after suffering successive wars.
Of course, we also need to understand Xianfeng, because those years were the torrent of history and the period of change in history.
When the Qing Dynasty came to that moment, it was already doomed to perish, and there was no possibility of revival.
Therefore, regardless of whether the emperor at that time was Xianfeng or not, the result may be the same.
No one can fight against history, but someone can change history, and it is clear that the Xianfeng Emperor is not the one who changed history.
He ended his life in the summer resort, but also left an Easter egg for the Qing Empire.
This Easter egg is his wife, Empress Dowager Cixi.
(Empress Dowager Cixi)
At the end of the article, let us recall a story of the Xianfeng Emperor when he was young.
When he was still the crown prince, he had accompanied the Daoguang Emperor to go hunting with the sixth son of the emperor, and on the ability to ride and shoot, Xian Feng was certainly not Yi Xun's opponent, so after a day of fighting, Yi Xun's arrows were piled up into a hill, but Xian Feng did not even fight a bird.
The Daoguang Emperor's face was a little hanging, so he asked Xian Feng, what are you doing? Our sons and grandchildren who love Shin Kyora are all brave and good at war, and you can't even beat a bird.
Xian Feng's face was as usual, and he said this softly:
"When the time comes, birds and beasts breed, and they can't bear to be hurt, so as to dry the heavens and the peace."
He told the emperor that it was spring, everything was multiplying, and life was beginning to appear, and he was not unable to hunt, but he just pitied all things and could not bear to shoot.
In this way, it is not impossible to say that XianFeng is a benevolent king.
It's just that the years are long, and these details of history have long been scattered in the red dust.