In the fifth year of Yongzheng (1727 AD), Cao Xueqin's uncle Cao Fu was dismissed and imprisoned by Emperor Yongzheng for weaving deficits and transferring property.
Since then, the Dahong family, which was once in the Kangxi era, has gradually declined after this raid.
However, after raiding the house, Emperor Yongzheng found out that the raid was "lonely", and the Cao family did not have much money, but a lot of foreign debts.
So, why did the once glorious Cao family end up being confiscated? How was the huge amount of property lost? All this has to start with Cao Xueqin's great-grandfather Cao Xi and grandfather Cao Yin.
The glory of the Cao family was due to Cao Xueqin's great-grandfather Cao Xi.
According to historical records, the ancestor of the Cao family was originally a clothed servant in Dolgon's mansion, and after Dolgon's death and the Shunzhi Emperor's pro-government, his whole family was transferred to the interior affairs office.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Cao Xi became a second-class guard in the inner court of the imperial palace, responsible for protecting the personal safety of Emperor Shunzhi.
Soon, Emperor Kangxi was born, according to the rules of the palace, he needed to find a nursing mother to feed, and the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang picked and chosen, and finally picked Cao Xi's wife Sun, who had just given birth to a child.
As a result, the young Kangxi and Cao Yin, the son of Cao Xi, who had just been born, became brothers of "one milk compatriot".
Because the Sun family had the grace of nurturing Kangxi, therefore, after Kangxi succeeded to the throne, he took great care of the Cao family and appointed Cao Xi as Jiangning Weaving, who was responsible for the silk industry in the entire Jiangnan region, and at the same time served as the eyes and ears, responsible for monitoring the Jiangnan officials and people for Kangxi.
Relying on this opportunity, the Cao family began to move towards glory, and it was Cao Xi's son Cao Yin who really pushed the glory of the Cao family to the extreme.
Cao Yin was a child, because of his mother Sun, he often read and played with Kangxi, and the two established a deep relationship at that time.
In the twenty-third year of Kangxi, Cao Xi, who worked hard in the weaving post in Jiangning, died of illness, in this regard, Emperor Kangxi was very sad, in line with the principle of continuing to take care of his wet nurse's family, Kangxi began to quickly promote the "milk brother" Cao Yin.
First, in the 29th year of Kangxi, Cao Yin was promoted to Suzhou Weaving, and after two or three years, Cao Yin was directly asked to "inherit his father's business" and serve as Jiangning Weaving.
In the thirty-second year of Kangxi, Cao Yin came to Jiangnan with his son Cao Hao, and since then the Cao family has been glorious for forty years.
So, how did the Cao family make their fortune?
The Cao family was able to make a fortune, mainly thanks to two points, the first is the official position of Jiangning weaving, the so-called Jiangning weaving, to put it bluntly, is the imperial business, its main responsibility is to supply materials to the royal family, including silk and some other items.
It is precisely because it is a supplier of royal materials, therefore, there is a lot of oil and water in it, according to research, at that time, Jiangning Weaving Bureau, only one year of flow, reached more than 12 million taels of silver.
And among them, it is conceivable how much the Cao family, as the supreme governor, can benefit.
In addition to serving as Jiangning weaving, Emperor Kangxi also specially appointed Cao Yin as a member of the Guangchu Division, what does this position do? In short, it can do business in the name of the emperor.
For example, around the 40th year of Kangxi, Cao Yin noticed that copper selling was quite profitable at that time, so he handed Kangxi a fold and applied to borrow money from Da Nei to sell copper, but Emperor Kangxi directly approved it without saying a word.
In this way, the Cao family could not only earn money from the traditional silk industry, but also borrow money from the Kangxi Emperor to do business, so the Cao family's wealth was quickly accumulated.
In addition, Cao Yin was brilliant in literature at that time and was a leading figure in the literary scene in the Jiangnan region, which made the Cao family have a high reputation in the local area.
The family has a high reputation, and the business is getting bigger and bigger, and the Cao family naturally reached the top.
And Emperor Kangxi's five southern tours, four times lived in the Cao family, which made the Cao family's prestige reach an extreme.
It can be said that when Cao Yin was alive, the Cao family was the most glorious era, but behind the scenery, there were also hidden crises, and these crises were quickly exposed after Cao Yin's death.
In the fifty-first year of Kangxi, Cao Yin suffered from malaria, and his condition was getting worse day by day, Kangxi was anxious about this, personally dispensed medicine, and attached detailed instructions, and arranged for the post guards to rush to Jiangnan.
After dealing with Cao Yin's funeral, Cao Yin's eldest brother Li Xu wrote a memo to Kangxi, in which he mentioned that after accounting, the Jiangning Weaving Bureau has now lost as much as 230,000 taels of silver.
As mentioned earlier, the Jiangning Weaving Bureau has a huge amount of oil and water, so why is it still in deficit? Speaking of which, this has a lot to do with Kangxi.
The Cao family is rich, but they can't stand Kangxi's four southern tours to live in his house, you must know that the emperor's travel is different from ordinary people, its specifications are the highest, and the emperor does not travel alone, but with many concubines and accompanying officials, as well as a large group of eunuchs and palace maids.
And all the eating, drinking, and Lazar of these people are all responsible for the Cao family.
Moreover, Kangxi stayed in the Cao family not once or twice, but as many as four times before and after, and the cost of each time was astronomical, and after four times, he had already emptied the Cao family's savings.
What should I do if I don't have money to receive it? Then I can only embezzle public funds, and if I can't pay them off when I run out, it will naturally cause a deficit.
In addition to the deficit caused by the reception of Kangxi, the Cao family's extravagant life style is also famous, such as Cao Fu is famous for "loving to put on a wide shelf, paying attention to eating and drinking, and paying attention to the scene".
In the long run, even the gold and silver mountains can't withstand such a toss, even if they have no money, they have to borrow money to squander, so it is reasonable to owe a large amount of money.
Long before Cao Yin's death, because of the huge deficit, someone had reported it to Emperor Kangxi, but because Kangxi favored the Cao family, he did not punish Cao Yin in any way, but only told Cao Yin privately and asked him to find a way to make up for the shortfall.
In the end, it was Cao Yin and his eldest brother Li Xu who sold their private property to make up for most of it, but they still left a deficit of hundreds of thousands of taels.
Now, although Cao Yin is dead, but the deficit is still there, in order to make up for the deficit, and also to take care of the Cao family, Emperor Kangxi arranged for Cao Yin's son Cao Yin to take over the post of Jiangning weaving.
However, Cao Xue was a short-lived ghost, and died of illness within a few years of taking office, and when he died, Cao Xueqin was not yet born, which means that no one inherited the Cao family's inheritance.
For this reason, in order not to produce bad debts, Kangxi made the decision and passed Cao Yin's nephew Cao Fu to Cao Yin as his son, and he served as Jiangning Weaving.
However, Kangxi said very clearly at the time, and he directly told Cao Fu that the reason why he was appointed as Jiangning Weaving was for Cao Yin's face.
"Nian'er's father has been contributing for a long time, so Teen is here," --- Emperor Kangxi
In other words, Kangxi's feelings for the Cao family are far from being as deep as when Cao Yin was alive, and instead of being alienated and cold.
With this emotion, Kangxi also changed his attitude towards the Cao family's deficit, and not long after Cao Fu took office, it was found that the Cao family had a deficit of 370,000 taels.
This time, Kangxi did not exonerate the Cao family in secret, but ordered Cao Fu to pay off the deficit before the end of the year, otherwise he would be severely punished.
Coupled with the deficit that was not repaid before, the total deficit of the Cao family at that time was as high as 830,000 taels, and this money was not made up by Cao Fu and his uncle Li Xu until the fifty-third year of Kangxi.
It was also this year that Cao Xueqin was born.
However, it is said that it has made up for the shortfall, but in fact, it is almost the same as not making up for it, the Cao family's money is obtained by relying on the salt tax, in other words, these are still the emperor's money, but the Cao family has taken it from one pocket to another.
Therefore, until Kangxi died, he failed to see the Cao family make up for the shortfall, and he couldn't even pay the more than 9,000 taels of silver that helped Kangxi sell ginseng.
After Yongzheng came to power, the good life of the Cao family was over, and Yongzheng began to carry out reforms in a big way, and the first to bear the brunt was the Cao family, which was once prominent.
The reason why Yongzheng attacked the Cao family first was not without reason.
In Kangxi's later years, seeing that Emperor Kangxi's time was running out, the Cao family, as a big family, began to look for a new backer, looking for it, and the Cao family found the eighth son of the emperor Yinxi, who was in the limelight at that time.
originally thought that Yinzhen had the chance to win, but he never thought that the fourth son of the emperor Yinzhen had the last laugh, so there was a major mistake in the Cao family's bet.
After Yongzheng came to power, while liquidating the Eight Masters Party, he did not forget these families who had been attached to Yinxi, so the Cao family, who often had financial support for Yinxi, became the target of attack.
At that time, the Li family, which was closely related to the Cao family, that is, Cao Yin's brother-in-law Li Xu's family, was also the first to be attacked by Yongzheng for the above reasons, Li Xu himself was imprisoned, and his family was raided.
The fall of the Li family made the Cao family lose its allies, but when Yongzheng asked the Cao family to make up for the deficit, Cao Fu, the head of the Cao family, actually said unashamedly that he would make up the deficit within three years, and this blind military order accelerated the decline of the Cao family.
In the fifth year of Yongzheng, when the three-year period was approaching, Cao Fu knew that he could not fulfill his promise, so he had no choice but to secretly organize people to transfer his family property to relatives.
As a result, before he could transfer much, he was sued in front of Emperor Yongzheng.
In this regard, Emperor Yongzheng was furious, he himself had a great opinion on Cao Fu, before because of the Jiangning Weaving Bureau's silk and satin many problems, Yongzheng had warned Cao Fu, and now Cao Fu actually dared to secretly transfer the family property, it can really be said that he does not know whether he is alive or dead.
In the end, Emperor Yongzheng rebuked Cao Fu for "violating the holy grace and being very hateful" and decided to settle his new and old accounts.
In December of the fifth year of Yongzheng, an edict was transmitted from the palace to the Cao family, Cao Fu was dismissed and imprisoned, and at the beginning of the first month of the following year, Yongzheng issued an edict again to raid the Cao family.
The whole process of raiding the house lasted for two months, and finally on the second day of March of that year, a complete list of the Cao family's property was presented to Yongzheng.
And after Yongzheng read the list, he almost turned his back on his back angrily.
According to the list, a total of 483 houses of the Cao family were confiscated, with 19 acres and 67 acres of land, and a total of 184 people.
At first glance, the Cao family is still quite rich, and there are hundreds of houses alone, so are there any properties such as cash silver or silver tickets?
The answer is no, not only no, according to the accounting of the department responsible for the investigation at that time, the Cao family still owed a total of 580,000 taels of various foreign debts and deficits as of that time.
Someone asked Cao Fu if he had not repaid more than 30,000 taels of silver, but Cao Fu still owed the household department a loan, which was also more than 30,000 taels.
As for the Cao family's house land, after the officials calculated and sold all of these, it was basically equivalent to the amount of the Cao family's debt to the imperial court.
In other words, Yongzheng took great pains to raid the Cao family, but in the end he didn't get anything, and the whole raid was a lonely copy.
In this regard, Yongzheng is angry and happy, but the matter has come to this point, it is in vain to say anything else, and in the end it can only be in accordance with the rules, the relevant people of the Cao family, etc., who are sent to prison, and those who are escorted back to Beijing are escorted back to Beijing.
However, after the Cao family was escorted back to Beijing, Yongzheng treated them very well, strictly speaking.
However, after the Cao family arrived in Beijing, Emperor Yongzheng was particularly gracious and arranged for the Cao family to live in the old house at the mouth of the garlic market outside the Chongwen Gate, and allocated 17 houses here and three pairs of domestic servants for the Cao family to send.
You must know that Yongzheng has always been known for his harsh punishments, but it can really be said that he is extrajudicial to the Cao family, and even the "main offender" Cao Fu, the biggest punishment he received is also the "flail", and only a year later, the "flail" was removed by Yongzheng's order, and Cao Fu regained his free body.
At this time, Cao Xueqin was already a teenager, he witnessed and experienced the changes of the Cao family, and at the end of his book "Dream of Red Mansions", the tragic ending of the Jia family was used to imply that the Cao family was also miserable, but the real situation in the historical materials was far less bleak than he said.
At least, the personal freedom of the Cao family is still guaranteed, and there is still a certain industry, at least there is no problem with eating.
And the Cao family can get Yongzheng's grace, on the one hand, Yongzheng is an old minister of the first dynasty, and he has contributed a lot, so he will show mercy to his subordinates, on the other hand, it has a lot to do with Yongzheng's favorite brother, Prince Yi Yinxiang.
At that time, Yinxiang came to the Cao family four times, and it was his attitude that prompted Yongzheng not to kill the Cao family.
Of course, although Yongzheng's extrajudicial kindness allowed the Cao family to barely survive, the money that the Cao family owed to the imperial court should still have to be repaid, so until Yongzheng's death, the Cao family had been selling property intermittently to repay the deficit they once owed.
It wasn't until the year of Qianlong's accession to the throne that Emperor Qianlong waved his pen and completely exempted the Cao family's arrears, which allowed the Cao family to struggle out of the quagmire, and, with Qianlong's grace, Cao Xueqin was also able to serve as the pen of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
But Rao is so, the scenery of the past has finally disappeared, as the so-called seeing him rise a tall building, seeing him feast guests, seeing his building collapse, is talking about the Cao family's journey from scenery to decline, and decades later, Cao Xueqin, who had witnessed all this, also died in poverty and illness, "born in prosperity, and finally fell", which is the truest portrayal of Cao Xueqin's life.