Preface
I remember a few years ago, I don't know if it was because of the influence of Qing court dramas, there are still many so-called Zhenghuangqi aunts in Beijing, showing off that they have the so-called astronomy!
Yes, Zhenghuangqi is an iron rod that belongs to the emperor, if it is in the Qing Dynasty, it is really proud.
But do you know that the so-called banner people are not as beautiful as you think, and even in Kangxi, they have become a headache for even the emperor?
1. Kangxi wants the money back
Speaking of Kangxi, we all know very well that in various Qing court dramas, Kangxi is really praised as a Qing Shengzu.
Yes, Kangxi's ability and exploits, even among Chinese emperors, can be called outstanding, but do you know that this emperor who is decisive in killing and has outstanding achievements is also facing the trouble of bad debts.
You may be curious, Kangxi, as the Ninth Five-Year Emperor, does anyone dare to owe him money and not pay it back?
The answer is that there really is, that is, the children of the Eight Banners, to be precise, the children of the Eight Banners in Beijing!
In the thirty-fifth year of Kangxi, that is, in 1696 AD, in this year, Kangxi launched the battle of "Three Expeditions to Galdan" and won a complete victory, completely consolidating the rule of the Qing Dynasty in the south and north of the desert!
After returning to the dynasty after the victory, Kangxi was very happy, and according to the custom, the soldiers who made meritorious contributions were rewarded, especially the children of the Eight Banners, who were taken care of exceptionally according to the convention.
Seeing that the emperor was in a good mood, some bold Eight Banner courtiers cried out to Kangxi, the master, for suffering.
These ministers cried to Kangxi and said that there are now many children of the Eight Banners in Beijing, who are living in poverty, have no food and clothing, and have to borrow money to survive, hoping that the emperor can be merciful and allocate funds for relief.
Kangxi was a good-faced benevolent gentleman, and when he heard this, he allocated nearly 6 million taels of silver from the treasury to help the children of the Eight Banners pay off their debts.
Moreover, in the spirit of being a good person to the end, Kangxi also began to regularly issue interest-free loans for up to three years to the children of the Eight Banners, hoping that the children of the Eight Banners could compete for some luck.
But it backfired.
When the time came to 1709, the minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to avenge Kangxi's grievances.
It turned out that in the past 13 years, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued interest-free loans of about 6.55 million taels to the children of the Eight Banners in Beijing, but only 2.59 million taels could be recovered.
And the Internal Affairs Office sincerely told Kangxi that the remaining more than 4 million taels of arrears, if nothing else, will not be repaid!
Although Your Majesty's inner treasury is full, it can't withstand such a toss! After getting this bill, Kangxi was also quite helpless.
How could he never have imagined that he, an extremely smart and well-worded emperor, would one day face the risk of being owed a debt and not being repaid?
So then again, do those Eight Banners children think that Kangxi is a good person, so they deliberately owe money and don't pay it back?
The answer is really no.
In fact, at that time, many of the children of the Eight Banners in Beijing were so mixed that they had to stay on the streets.
In the 45th year of Kangxi, in order to solve the housing problem of those homeless people in Beijing, he also deliberately paid out of his own pocket to build more than 7,000 residential houses to house those children of the Eight Banners.
That's all good, after all, Kangxi is still willing to hemorrhage to subsidize these Eight Banners!
The emperors of the Qing Dynasty after Kangxi either slammed the door, or because they really had no money, or because they did not subsidize the children of the Eight Banners on such a large scale for other reasons, so that there are many records of the children of the Eight Banners starving to death in the history books!
So then again, who are the children of the Eight Banners? Why did it come to this point?
2. What is Eight Flags?
First of all, I want to clarify that the so-called Eight Banners does not refer only to the Manchus, in fact, the Eight Banners is a military and political alliance organization.
At that time, when the Manchu Qing was still only a regional power in the northeast, in order to expand its ruling base and win more allies.
As a result, Huang Taiji, on the premise of the Manchurian Eight Banners, once again set up the Mongolian Eight Banners and the Han Eight Banners.
In this way, the children of the Eight Banners enjoy many privileges.
For example, only the women of the Eight Banners were able to enter the palace draft.
For example, the children of the Eight Banners not only have a special free official school, but if they want to participate in the imperial examination, they have a special banner person imperial examination, and they do not need to compete with Han scholars.
Even, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty also set up a pen-post exam for these children of the Eight Banners, as long as you can master the translation of Manchu and Mongolian, you can successfully become an official!
As for the gap between the officials of the Eight Banners and the officials of the Han people, it is even greater, before the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, local bigwigs such as governors and governors had to be from the Eight Banners!
The Nian Qianyao we are familiar with, although he is a Han Chinese, he is also a child of the Eight Banners!
It can be said that the children of the Eight Banners are the largest privileged class in Chinese history!
But then again, although the children of the Eight Banners enjoy all kinds of privileges, they also have to eat, so where is their main source of income?
The first is the, which is also known as the hardcore crop.
The identity of the flag man is inherited from generation to generation, so as long as you have a father who is a soldier in the Eight Banners, then you can continue to eat food as a soldier as a result of your father's job.
An ordinary soldier of the Eight Banners, a year's salary is about 35 taels of silver, plus ten loads of grain, this treatment is quite friendly.
The second is land.
Although in many TV series, those Eight Banners children seem to be walking birds in cages and don't have to work, but in fact, the real Eight Banners also have to farm.
According to historical records, in the early years of the Qing Dynasty, the rulers turned a large amount of land into the exclusive land of the Eight Banners by violently enclosing land in Hebei, Henan, Shandong and other places.
At that time, even an ordinary soldier of the Eight Banners could even have about 30 acres of land!
With a salary, land, and no need to bear taxes and servitude, the treatment of the children of the Eight Banners should be quite good.
So then again, since the treatment is so good, why did the debt crisis of the children of the Eight Banners make it impossible for the emperor to end up in Kangxi?
3. How did the Eight Banners economy collapse?
There are many reasons why the children of the Eight Banners have changed from the pillars of the country to old beggars, and even starved to death in large numbers.
The first is multiplication.
In the fifth year of Shunzhi, the number of Eight Banners living in Beijing was about 40,000, but in the late Qianlong period, this number had exceeded 200,000! That's it, it's because Qianlong turned the children of the Eight Banners of the Han Army into civilians many times!
In an agrarian society, it is reasonable to have more people, but if there are too many people, food becomes a problem.
Think about it, you are a soldier of the Eight Banners, with an iron rice bowl job and more than 30 acres of ancestral land, but you have three sons, and only one can inherit your iron rice bowl.
In this case, those more than 30 acres of land are really not enough!
As for the expansion of the establishment, I'm sorry, because the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banners has been greatly reduced since the late Kangxi period, so the emperors prefer to use the high-quality and inexpensive Han Army Green Battalion.
The establishment of the Eight Banners Army has only been less than doubled, which is really not enough compared to the new population.
The second is the issue of corruption.
Although it is said that the Eight Banners are the privileged class of the Qing Dynasty, even in the privileged class, there are big and small kings.
Ordinary Eight Banners are naturally just small shrimps in the privileged class, belonging to the exploited kind.
So, what kind of exploitation will ordinary Eight Banners suffer?
Common methods are as follows:
The first is to make a fuss about food, and the black-hearted quartermasters will do some processing of the food that is distributed to ordinary soldiers, such as soaking it in water.
As a result, the grain must be processed immediately, otherwise it will become moldy and rotten.
At this point, the merchants who are in charge of processing grain can sit on the ground and buy grain at a low price.
The second is to make a fuss about military salaries, although in the Qing Dynasty, silver was already legal tender, but the soldiers of the Eight Banners may not be able to receive silver when receiving salaries, but are likely to receive copper coins.
Although in the official regulations 1,000 copper coins are equal to one tael of silver, but due to the continuous decline in China's copper production at that time, the imperial court has been continuously reducing the copper content in copper coins since the middle and late Kangxi period.
By the time of the Yongzheng period, the copper content in a copper coin was only forty percent!
This makes it possible to exchange one or two taels of silver in the market for 1,200 copper plates, or even more!
But when it comes to paying salaries, don't ask, the quartermaster will only pay 1,000 copper plates according to one tael of silver!
What is even more immoral is that these quartermasters often pick out the good copper coins in their hands and go to the merchants, exchange them for inferior copper coins, and then give them to the soldiers.
According to some documents, six Shunzhi Tongbao can probably be exchanged for ten Yongzheng Tongbao!
As a result, the actual wages of those Eight Banners children may be less than half of the standard!
In consideration of the inseparable human feelings, for example, your chief wife has a birthday, and Mr. Qian has taken a concubine, as a subordinate, you don't mean it, which is another big expense!
More importantly, in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, due to the corruption of Caoyun, the grain sent to Beijing from the south became less and less, so the emperor always had to suffer from the Eight Banners and deduct some of the Eight Banners.
epilogue
Now, do you understand why in Mr. Lao She's memories, it is always said that their family is eating grain, right?
Of course, don't blame the emperors of the Qing Dynasty, the more they paid less attention to the treatment of the children of the Eight Banners, because these Eight Banners had lost their due combat effectiveness in peace and prosperity as early as the Kangxi period.
The contribution is not proportional to the treatment, and if you can still enjoy this treatment, you should burn high incense!