The Qing Dynasty was the last feudal dynasty in Chinese history, and it was also the closest feudal dynasty to our modern people, and it was only more than 110 years since its demise in 1912. And ancestor worship is a very important thing for us Chinese, so we have the Qingming Festival holiday to worship our ancestors, but what makes people wonder is that modern people rarely see the descendants of the Qing Dynasty royal family Aisin Gioro family to worship their ancestors' mausoleums Qingdong Mausoleum and Qingxi Mausoleum, is this because the Aisin Gioro family has no descendants?
In fact, of course, it is not that the Aixin Jueluo family has no descendants, although the three emperors of the late Qing Dynasty, the Tongzhi Emperor, the Guangxu Emperor, and Puyi did not have children, which caused a feeling that the population of the Aixin Jueluo family was not prosperous, as if the children were cut off, but in fact, the population of the Aixin Jueluo family is very large, and it is a surname family with a very large proportion of the Manchus today.
But then again, in the mid-to-late sixteenth century, the Aixin Jueluo family was indeed not prosperous, and it was a relatively small clan among the Jurchen tribes, and the entire Aixin Jueluo family was only twenty or thirty people at that time.
It was not until the Qing Taizu Nurhachi established the Houjin regime that the Aixin Jueluo family began to gradually prosper, and the population of the Aixin Jueluo family has reached more than 100 people during the period of Emperor Taiji's son Emperor Taiji of the Qing Dynasty, and with the entry of Emperor Taiji's son Qing Shizu Shunzhi Emperor, the Aixin Jueluo family officially began to rule the whole of China and grabbed more resources, so the population of the Aixin Jueluo family has also increased significantly.
After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, due to the small population of Manchuria, the Qing Dynasty ruled the Han people with a minority population several times their own, which was naturally not easy, so the Qing Dynasty required the Manchus to have more children and reproduce the population.
In the Qing Dynasty, the emperor's son was usually named a prince if he was more favored, and other ordinary sons were also named county kings or bailes.
Looking at the annual income of these three levels of knighthood, the annual income of the prince of the Qing Dynasty was 10,000 taels of silver and 10,000 Hulu rice per year, which was about 5 million yuan according to modern prices, 5,000 taels of silver and 5,000 Hulu rice per year for the prince of the county, which was about 2.5 million yuan according to modern prices, and 2,500 taels of silver and 2,500 hulu rice per year for Baylor. According to modern prices, it is equivalent to more than 1.2 million yuan.
The royal titles of the Qing Dynasty also have the titles of Beizi, Zhenguo Gong, Auxiliary Guogong, Zhenguo General, Auxiliary General, Fengguo General, and Feng'en General under the title of Baylor, and it can be said that these titles have a lot of income.
Although the Qing Dynasty's knighthood rule was hereditary descending, that is, each generation was demoted to inherit the title, for example, if the father was a prince, the son could only be the county king when the son inherited the title in the future, and the grandson could only inherit the title of Baylor. However, the hereditary descending rules of the Qing Dynasty have an upper limit of downgrading, up to four levels, that is to say, the descendants of the prince can not be reduced to the duke of Zhenguo at the minimum, and the descendants of the prince of the county can not be demoted to the dukedom of the auxiliary state at the minimum, and so on.
Therefore, even the income of the Zhenguo Gong and the Auxiliary Guogong is very considerable, and if the royal family members of the Qing Dynasty perform particularly well, such as making major military merits or great contributions, they will also receive the hereditary iron hat king treatment, that is, the children and grandchildren will never be demoted, and they will always maintain the inheritance of the prince. In this way, the enthusiasm of the Qing Dynasty royal family for fertility was stimulated.
And the Qing Dynasty emperors themselves also played an exemplary role, like Emperor Shunzhi, although he only lived to be 24 years old, he gave birth to 14 children, and Shunzhi's son Emperor Kangxi was even more fertile, giving birth to 55 children. In fact, during the Kangxi period, the number of Aixin Jueluo family had reached nearly 500 people, and by the time of Kangxi's son Emperor Yongzheng, the number of Aixin Jueluo family had reached more than 1,000 people, and then during the period of Emperor Jiaqing, the grandson of Yongzheng, the number of Aixin Jueluo family had reached more than 5,000 people.
Even if the members of the royal family of the Qing Dynasty did not receive knighthoods, after the Qianlong period, it was stipulated that they did not need to engage in any work every year, and the close relatives of the royal family could get an annual income of 36 taels of silver and 42 Hulu rice, which is about 200,000 yuan in modern times, while distant relatives of the royal family could get 24 taels of silver and 21 Hulu rice every year, which is about more than 100,000 yuan in modern times.
Look at these idle royals who don't work every day and walk birds and go shopping every day, they all earn more than the workers of modern 996, so of course they can only walk birds during the day and "walk birds" at night, so they will not contribute to the population of the Aixin Jueluo family.
By 1912, the Empress Dowager Longyu signed an abdication edict on behalf of the young Puyi, the Qing Emperor abdicated, and the Qing Dynasty officially collapsed, at that time there were about 100,000 people in the Aixin Jueluo family. By the 30s of the 20th century, the population of the Aixin Jueluo family had reached about 140,000.
According to the population reproduction speed of the Aixin Jueluo family, and after so many years of reproduction, it is estimated that the Aixin Jueluo family now has at least 300,000 to 400,000 people.
Although when the Qing Dynasty fell, the Qing Dynasty and the government of the Republic of China signed the "Regulations on the Preferential Treatment of the Qing Family", and the Qing Dynasty royal family will enjoy preferential policies, but many members of the royal family are still worried that the government of the Republic of China will turn their faces and refuse to admit their accounts, or they will be turned over in the future, so they have changed their names and surnames.
After the Aixin Jueluo family changed their surnames, they mainly took the surname Jin and Zhao, and some changed their surnames to Wang, Sun, Luo, E and other surnames, but most of the direct descendants of the Qing Dynasty emperors changed their surnames to Jin and Zhao, and the surname Jin was changed because "Aixin" means gold in Manchu, and the surname Zhao was changed because of "Jueluo" In Manchu, it means far away, and at the same time, the surname Zhao of the Han people is also pronounced by Jueluo when translated into Manchu, so many people still think that the Aixin Jueluo family is likely to be the descendants of Zhao Ji of Song Huizong after being taken away by the Jin people, and they are actually the descendants of the Zhao family of the Han people.
Therefore, because many people in the Aixin Jueluo family have changed their names and surnames, it has also led to the fact that it is difficult to count the exact population of the Aixin Jueluo family. Of course, there are some people who have taken the initiative to restore the surname of Aixin Jueluo for various purposes, such as the famous female painter Ms. Aixin Jueluo Ziwei, she is the fourth generation descendant of the fifth son of Emperor Daoguang, Prince Yi Cheng, her father has already changed her surname to Jin, she was originally named Jin Yu, Yu is the character ranking of her generation, but later she heard that the calligraphy and painting industry recognized the name of Aixin Jueluo for the sake of painting, so she restored the surname of Aixin Jueluo. There are also some showbiz stars such as Aixin Jueluo Qixing and Aixin Jueluo Tus, etc., who have also restored the surname Aixin Jueluo for various purposes.
At the beginning, according to the "Preferential Conditions of the Qing Dynasty", the late Qing Emperor Puyi continued to live in the Forbidden City and retained the imperial title, so many members of the imperial family still lived under Puyi in Beijing. But in 1924, Pu Yi was driven out of the Forbidden City by Feng Yuxiang, Pu Yi first went to Prince Alcohol's Mansion to join his biological father Zaifeng, and later went to Tianjin to live for a short time, and finally went to the Northeast to establish a puppet Manchukuo regime under the influence of the Japanese.
After Pu Yi went to the Northeast to serve as the puppet emperor of the Japanese puppet emperor of Manchukuo, many royal relatives followed him to the Northeast, so many members of the Aixin Jueluo family went to live in the Northeast again.
For example, the current Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County, Fushun City, Liaoning Province, there are many Qing Dynasty royal family members who moved from Beijing here, and there is a reason why these people choose to settle in Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County, because Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County is the city of Hetuala, the land of Nurha's Chilongxing, where the ancestors of Nurhachi's ancestors are buried, so these royal family members moved to Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County to guard the tomb for their ancestors.
There are also some members of the royal family who are reluctant to leave Beijing, where they have lived for generations, so they have stayed in Beijing, such as Pu Yi's biological father Zaifeng, Pu Yi asked Zaifeng to go to the Northeast to enjoy happiness with him many times, but Zaifeng refused, Zaifeng saw through the ambitions of the Japanese, so he would rather stay in Beijing to guard the ancestral property than to be a puppet for the Japanese.
After the founding of New China, Zaifeng would rather sell his ancestral property than be a Japanese lackey, and his integrity was recognized and praised by New China, so Zaifeng and his children were treated favorably by the New Chinese government.
Of course, there were also members of the Qing royal family scattered throughout China as well as overseas.
But not counting those royal family members scattered all over the country and overseas, just like the royal family members living in Beijing and the northeast, they are not far from the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling, and it is not difficult to worship their ancestors.
That is, after the founding of New China, such as the Forbidden City, the Qing Dongling Tomb and the Qing Xiling Tomb are listed as key cultural relics protection units, and are 5A-level tourist attractions open to the outside world. I think that at the beginning, after Pu Yi was pardoned, he had to buy a ticket if he wanted to go back to the Forbidden City, and the last emperor of the family had to buy a ticket if he wanted to go home to see it, and other royal family members wanted to enter the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling, can they not buy tickets?
In fact, according to the regulations, the operating institutions of the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling do hold a huge sacrificial performance every year, but this is an open activity to promote the scenic spot to attract tourists, but individuals or groups hold sacrificial performances privately, which is a violation of the law and must be stopped by the scenic spot management agency.
Therefore, even if some members of the royal family want to pay homage to their ancestors, they cannot go with great fanfare, and can only buy a ticket as a tourist and simply kowtow, bow, offer flowers, and offer incense.
However, it is true that there is a royal descendant Aixin Jueluo Hengshao who has publicly held a grand sacrifice, he is the seventh grandson of Emperor Qianlong, and holds the genealogy of Aixin Jueluo, and he has always been proud of the surname Aixin Jueluo. However, the sacrificial activities he held were not in the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling, but in the Qing Yongling in Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County, in the sacrificial activities, he played the role of the emperor, and led a group of people wearing palace maids, eunuchs, and ministers to hold ancestor worship ceremonies.
However, Aixin Jueluo Hengshao's grand ancestor worship ceremony was criticized by the news media at the time, and many people ridiculed and abused him on the Internet, everyone thought that he was not worshipping his ancestors, he hoped that the Qing Dynasty would be resurrected.
After all, the Qing Dynasty, as the last feudal country in Chinese history, although it did have the scenery and glory of the "prosperous Kangqian era" in its more than 200 years of rule in China, but in the middle and late stages of the Qing Dynasty's rule, the imperial court was corrupt and incompetent, pushing China into a backward and beaten situation, making China suffer from imperialist aggression and bullying, loss of power and humiliation of the country, and the people were oppressed.
Although the Qing Dynasty has ended, the wounds it left on the Chinese people have not been completely healed. That's why many people in the Aixin Jueluo family have changed their surnames, and even many Manchurian nobles have changed their surnames.
In fact, during the Republic of China, there were still some descendants of the Aixin Jueluo family to worship the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling, but after the founding of New China, especially in the turbulent 10 years, the descendants of the Aixin Jueluo family have broken off the idea of going to the Qing Dongling and Qingxi Tombs to worship.
Although after the reform and opening up, the social atmosphere gradually turned to openness and inclusiveness, but there are few descendants of the Aixin Jueluo family to worship the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling, this is because after all, the Qing Dynasty has been extinct for many years, and the Aixin Jueluo family has also bred a lot of new generations of young people, and now the members of the Aixin Jueluo family are very far away from the ancestors buried in the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling, they have undergone modern education, and the family's sense of identity has been weakened, so they will no longer think about worshiping the Qing Dongling and Qing Xiling。
Times are changing, the feudal dynasty has long been wiped out, and after the passage of time, most of the former Qing Dynasty royals have corrected their mentality, and they are all living a low-key and ordinary life.
Only those with ulterior motives will boast about themselves as royalty, but in fact, those who talk about royalty all day long may not be descendants of the royal family, but the vast majority of them are descendants of distant branches of the royal family. Most of the real descendants of the royal family live a low-key life like the famous calligrapher Mr. Qigong, and never put the surname Aixin Jueluo on their lips, and only those with ulterior motives will claim to be descendants of the former Qing royal family all day long.
Text/Kojima Chifu
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