Qianlong commented on the ancient emperors: when Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, "state affairs are no longer possible"

The Imperial Temple of the Ming and Qing dynasties was built in the tenth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1531). In the temple of Jingdechong, there are 188 tablets of ancient emperors, starting from the three emperors and five emperors, down to Chongzhen at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Qianlong has an indissoluble bond with the imperial temples of the past dynasties, he has personally sacrificed to the imperial temple six times, and rebuilt the temple, leaving four stone tablets in the temple. These inscriptions record Qianlong's evaluation of the enshrined emperor, and also reflect his mental journey in governing the country.

　　In the third year of Qianlong (1738), the 28-year-old Hongli went to the imperial temple for the first time to worship. According to the "Qing Historical Manuscript", floods, wind disasters, droughts, hail disasters, and locust plagues occurred frequently in this year. In November, a major earthquake struck Ningxia and Gansu, causing fires and river embankment bursts. Qianlong urgently allocated 200,000 taels of silver from the Lanzhou treasury and sent commissioners to provide relief, and the following year he also exempted all the taxes in the disaster area. After worshipping the emperor's temple, Qianlong composed a poem "Eight Rhymes of the Ritual Chronicle". The poem reads: "Zhi Zeng Xi Shunyu, the heart is a gentleman. It can be seen from this that Qianlong had great ambitions, but he was still a little nervous about how to control this huge country.

　　In the ninth year of Qianlong (1744), the 34-year-old Qianlong personally sacrificed to the emperor's temple for the second time, and this sacrifice did not leave any testimonials. In order to repair the imperial temple, Qianlong began to replace the roof tiles of the Jingdechong Temple with yellow glazed tiles, and replaced the façade of the main building with golden dragons and seal paintings, thus improving the specifications of the main hall. After the completion, Qianlong came to pay tribute to the third time in 1764, and wrote the "Poems of the Imperial Temples of the Past Dynasties" and "Rebuilding the Inscriptions of the Imperial Temples of the Past Dynasties", which were engraved on the stone tablet and stood in the southwest stele pavilion of the Imperial Temple.

　　This year is a year of special historical significance. In 1644, in the year of Jiashen, the Ming Dynasty fell, and the Qing army entered the customs, beginning the rule of the Qing Dynasty. Coincidentally, this year is also the year of Jiashen, but 120 years have passed, exactly two Jiazi. Qianlong was 54 years old, and this period was also the peak of his reign: he put down the Dzungar rebellion, the Great and the Great and Zhuo, and set up the Ili general in Xinjiang. At this time, social stability, economic development, population growth, and a vast territory made Qianlong himself full of ambition and quite complacent.

　　At the beginning of "Poems on the Temple of the Emperors of the Past Dynasties", it says: "The three emperors and the five emperors are worshipped, and the kings of the past dynasties are in the building." Although it is to remove the world, it is not a conscientious work for heaven. The meaning is that the merits of the three emperors and the five emperors are noble and great, and the other kings have also worked hard to build their careers. Although the growth and decline of the world has caused the change of dynasties, there are no emperors who are not conscientious and conscientious. This poem is not only a praise of the ancient emperors, but also an affirmation of oneself.

　　In the "Rebuilding the Inscriptions of the Emperor's Temples of the Past Dynasties", Qianlong emphasized the need to "view virtue". The word "Guande" comes from the "Xianyi Yide" chapter in the pseudo-ancient text "Shangshu": "The temple of the seventh generation can be Guande." The head of ten thousand people can observe the government". Qianlong believes that "contemplating virtue" is not simply singing praises of virtue, but observing and taking it as a warning. For example, he said: The Zhou people were once supervised by the Shang Dynasty, and once the Zhou destroyed the Shang, they called themselves orthodox, and called the Shang a "victorious country," that is, a country that was destroyed. "The existence of the view of the law is the place of knowing the precepts", this is Qianlong's "meaning of the view of virtue".

　　In the second lunar month of the 40th year of Qianlong (1775), the 65-year-old Qianlong came to the imperial temple for the fourth time to worship, and wrote "The Ritual of the Imperial Temple of the Past Dynasties". As he grew older and more experienced, he gained a new understanding of ancient emperors. He wrote in the poem: "The holy only I am the law and my precepts, and the Dharma is really rare and there are many precepts. This means that I will imitate the kings of the sages and the kings of the mediocre. However, looking at these emperors enshrined in the temple, there are too few worthy of emulation, and there are too many to take as a warning. Compared with the "simultaneous promotion of law and precepts" proposed by the last sacrifice, Qianlong emphasized more on "precepts" this time.

　　In the third lunar month of the 48th year (1783), Qianlong came to the imperial temple for the fifth time to worship. At this time, Qianlong was over the age of 73 years old, and he wrote "The Narrative of the Temple Rites of the Emperors of the Past Dynasties". The poem says: "I put out offerings for the emperors to use, and the change of dynasties recorded in the history books made me afraid." After the festival was completed, I drove back to the palace, and I looked back frequently, with a lot of thoughts. At this time, Qianlong had secretly made up his mind to reform the Imperial Temple.

　　When Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, first built the imperial temple in Nanjing, he only enshrined 16 emperors and 37 courtiers. Before his death, Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty proposed: "All those who have reigned, except for the lord of the country who has been killed without a way, should be put into the temple to worship." Yongzheng adhered to Kangxi's last wish and increased the number of enshriners to 164 emperors and 79 courtiers. Qianlong believes that Kangxi and Yongzheng's approach is "the greatest and the most public". In fact, as early as the first year of Qianlong (1736), Qianlong added one person to the enshrinement, and he was Emperor Jianwen of the Ming Dynasty. Qianlong posthumously called Emperor Jianwen "Emperor Gong Min Hui" in his edict, and placed his tablet next to Ming Taizu's tablet.

　　In the forty-ninth year of Qianlong (1784), Qianlong issued a long edict to make great changes to the increase or decrease of the emperor's temple to worship the emperor. Qianlong first affirmed Emperor Chongzhen. He believes that the reason why the Ming Dynasty died was because the Wanli and Tianqi Emperors ignored the government and caused the law to be abolished. When Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, "state affairs can no longer be done", although he worked hard for 17 years, he still could not "remedy the danger", and finally died in the country. Therefore, Qianlong added Chongzhen's tablet to it, and did not enshrine Wanli, Taichang, and Tianqi, in Qianlong's view, it is really "the conclusion of the eternal duke".

　　For similar considerations, Qianlong added Tang Xianzong and Jin Aizong. He believes that during the time of Tang Xianzong, the feudal towns of the feudal towns made the troops self-respecting, and Xianzong conscripted the envoys of the temperance, so that the feudal towns were successively returned to the imperial court and maintained the unity of the country, and he was "still a British king in the Tang generation." Xianzong was killed by eunuchs in his later years, not without virtue, so he should be enshrined. As for Jin Aizong, Qianlong believes that Jin Aizong was born at the wrong time, and he also carried out reforms after he succeeded to the throne, but due to the previous King Hailing's abuse and immorality, the general trend of the Jin Kingdom has gone. Later, the Mongolian iron hoof went south, and Jin Aizong was unable to return to heaven and "hanged himself". He had a similar fate to Emperor Chongzhen, so he should be enshrined in the Imperial Temple. Qianlong did not blindly increase, he removed the tablets of the Eastern Han Dynasty Huan and the Second Emperor Ling. Emperor Huan advocated Buddhism and indulged in women's sex, which led to the eunuchs taking power, causing the "first party disaster". Later, Emperor Ling became even more deaf, the eunuch dictatorship reached its peak, and a large number of scholars and doctors were executed, imprisoned or exiled, which is known as the "Second Disaster of the Party". Qianlong believes that the death of the Eastern Han Dynasty was at the hands of Huan and Ling, not Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling, the two "Dark Monarchs", indiscriminately talked about temple food, and now they must be cleared out.

　　In the edict, Qianlong officially proposed that "the unification of China is as endless as a line". He said that the reason why there are so many missing links in the Chinese unification is because the minister of etiquette has the prejudice of the difference between the north and the south, and the distinction between high and low. Therefore, Qianlong issued an order to increase the number of emperors of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Southern Dynasties, the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, plus Tang Xianzong and Jin Aizong, totaling 25 emperors, so that the number of people enshrined in the imperial temple increased to 188. In order to show the importance of this increase, in the mid-spring of the 50th year (1785), Qianlong came to the imperial temple for the sixth and last time to worship. The three stele pavilions that now stand in the imperial temples of the past dynasties are all related to the sixth personal sacrifice of Qianlong.

　　The southeast tablet pavilion was built in the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty. The stele erected in the pavilion, the stele Yang is written in the eleventh year of Yongzheng (1733), and the stele Yin is the fifty years of Qianlong (1785) to write the "Mid-spring Sacrifice of the Emperors of the Past Dynasties Temple Ceremony". The reason why Qianlong chose to engrave on the back of the monument erected by his father was because the father and son told the same thing, that is, why the number of people enshrined in the emperor was increased. Qianlong felt that he was still unsatisfied, so in the autumn of the same year, he sent ministers and Kun and others to supervise the construction of the east stele pavilion and the west stele pavilion, which started construction in 51 years and was completed in 52 years.

　　The year 1785 was extremely unusual for Qianlong, as he was 75 years old in power. Looking back on the past, Qianlong must have felt a lot of emotion in his heart. Therefore, in the inscription of the stele pavilion in the east, Qianlong wrote his evaluation of the emperor and his experience in governance.

　　In the stele pavilion in the east, there is the "Tribute to the Imperial Temple of the Past Dynasties" written in the 50th year of Qianlong (1785). The inscription points out: "Those who are in the world are also the people of the world, and they are not the private income of the north, the south, China and foreign countries", so the emperor should not have ethnic and regional differences. Qianlong added 25 emperors, thus connecting the lineage of Chinese emperors from the three emperors and five emperors to the end of the Ming Dynasty. As he grew older, Qianlong became more and more wary of taking charge of state affairs. In this inscription, he reiterated the "Dharma precepts", that is, to imitate the good emperor, and to take the precepts to the faint monarch: "Who can be the law, who can be the precept, after ten thousand years, those who enter the temple and worship, who do not think about it, are afraid of it!"

　　The stele pavilion in the west and the stele pavilion in the east were both built in the 52nd year of Qianlong. Contrary to the inscription sprinkled in the stele pavilion in the east, the stele pavilion in the west only stands a wordless stele, and there is not a word on the front and back of the stele.

　　Qianlong ascended the throne at the age of 26 and actually ruled for 63 years. He vigorously pursued the policy of emphasizing agriculture and exempted money, grain, and taxes on many occasions to alleviate social contradictions; he resolutely dispatched troops to quell rebellions and consolidate the feudal power of unifying many nationalities; and he ordered people to compile the "Siku Quanshu," thus contributing to the protection and dissemination of Chinese culture. This period, with political stability, vast territory, population growth, and social and economic development, was the peak of the Qing Dynasty. However, he was also very happy in his achievements, using troops for many years and depleting the savings of the state treasury; he made six southern tours, extravagantly and luxuriously, and worked the people and lost money; in his later years, he favored and trusted the corrupt officials, and corrupt officials were corrupt, and corrupt officials were prevalent; he set up literary prisons, destroyed folk books, and imprisoned the development of ideology and culture. At that time, the West had already sounded the clarion call of the industrial revolution, but China was still moving slowly in feudal land. In fact, the Qing Dynasty came to Qianlong and flourished, leaving Jiaqing with a mess. Qianlong should have a certain understanding of his own merits and demerits, and he can only leave it to future generations to comment, so he will leave a wordless monument.

Well, today's article ends here, thank you for having such a good temperament and come to see Xiao Jia's article, friends who like history and real estate knowledge, you can pay attention to Xiao Jia, and good articles ^_^ will be updated every day