In November of the second year of Yongzheng, the Yongzheng Emperor, who had already decided to "fall to the bottom of the year", considered the legality of arresting the meritorious men, and sent Nian Qianyao to "release the tiger and return to the mountains" to return him to the base camp of Sichuan and Shaanxi, which had been in operation for more than ten years, and still held the position of general of Fuyuan and the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi. However, it was also from this time that the Yongzheng Emperor began to take the camp step by step, planning and arranging the "Reverse Year Movement". The "inverted movement" is divided into four stages according to time.
The first stage is from November of the second year of Yongzheng to the beginning of the third year of Yongzheng, which can be called the stage of secret wind release.
During this period of time, all the publicly released edicts and documents did not reveal the slightest negative information related to Nian Qianyao, but in the secret fold of one-on-one exchange of information between the emperor and the feudal lords, the Yongzheng Emperor had begun to express his dissatisfaction with Nian Qianyao within a small scope, and made it clear:
The relevant ministers should take sides in time, and it is best to expose their big and small crimes as far as they know.
The objects of secret wind release mainly include two types of people, one is that they are very valued by the Yongzheng Emperor, and they have little contact with Nian Qianyao, and even have contradictions and festivals.
In the previous two years or so, Nian Qianyao had been "characterized" as a great meritorious servant who was loyal to the country, unrepresentful, prudent and selfless, and even a benefactor of the emperor, and at this time, the emperor suddenly made a one hundred and eighty degree turn, but instead asked the minister what kind of person Nian Qianyao was, whether he could be called a "pure minister". Apparently there was a high degree of skepticism about his "purity". Yang Zongren was an old official in the official field, and Yan Neng did not know his intentions.
Compared with them, the second type of wind objects are not so detached. Most of these people were relatives and friends of Nian Qianyao, or ministers of culture and military affairs who were promoted and recommended by Nian Qianyao, but their people were either talented or related to the emperor, and there was a need for differentiation and disintegration and protection.
Letting go of the wind in advance is a temptation for such people. If they can make a clear statement, or even strike a blow against Nian Qianyao, they can naturally be saved; If the void and the snake are even discovered to be communicating with Nian Tangyao, they will naturally completely sit down as the "Nian Party" and only wait for the autumn to settle the account.
For example, the viceroy Li Wei was a heavy minister recommended by Nian Qianyao, and after the Yongzheng Emperor decided to "fall the year", the first one gave him a wind:
"In recent years, Nian Yao played a role in the incident, and he was very suspicious of its impurity, and some of them had tricked the situation of seizing power. Qing Qing knew, when farther away, there is no need to make sense, gradually farther away is better. ”
While the Yongzheng Emperor released the "fallen year" to the ministers, he often told them:
Only Prince Yi in the DPRK is the most worthy of my trust, you want to move closer to Prince Yi, and if there is any inconvenience directly played to me, you can reflect to Prince Yi, he is my spokesman.
The Yongzheng Emperor was most afraid of ministers engaging in "gangs and gangs", especially befriending princes and powerful ministers, but he also understood that "there are people in the court who are good officials" is a deep-rooted concept in the official field, the emperor is on high, although he has promoted the one-on-one system of one-on-one contact with the ministers, but it is also very difficult to truly achieve flat management. In this case, officials who are truly self-sustaining and do not depend on the powerful are almost non-existent, and even if they exist, it is difficult to govern.
Instead of letting them each find a way to rely on their relatives and friends in the same year, it is better to personally designate a "Taishan Reliance" for them as a contact person.
The second stage is from the beginning of the third year of Yongzheng to April and May of that year, which is the stage of public opening up and collecting evidence.
During this stage, the Yongzheng Emperor began to criticize Nian Tangyao in public edicts and documents in great detail. For example, the famous Kim Nam Young incident.
In the first month of the third year of Yongzheng, the general Nian Da, who had always been praised only, was publicly named and criticized by the emperor and handed over to the officials for discussion, on the grounds that he had instructed his close associate, Hu Qiheng, the governor of Shaanxi, to impeach a subordinate official, Jin Nanying of Shaanxi Yidao. The supervision of subordinate officials is originally within the right, and unless there are special and sufficient reasons to prove that the governor has abused his arrogance, the emperor generally will not reject it, let alone rebuke the governor.
However, for this unknown Jin Nanying, the Yongzheng Emperor vigorously defended it, accusing Nian Qianyao and Hu Qiheng of being "vain ginseng", for only one reason:
Jin Nanying was once an official of the Huikao Government that Prince Yi Baoju had served, and how could prince Yi Baoju be incompetent? It must be that you reject the virtuous and appoint private individuals.
In addition, in the second stage, some of the ministers who had been secretly implicated in the previous stage began to impeach Nian Tangyao either secretly or openly, exposing him in various crimes. The Yongzheng Emperor successfully found the grip on the legitimacy of the "inverted year" and began to send people to various places to implement human and physical evidence on the content of these impeachments.
These two phases were crucial in the "Inverted Year" movement, when the Yongzheng Emperor had not yet taken any substantial punitive measures against Nian Qianyao, but only made a pen warning. In fact, since Yongzheng left Beijing at the end of the second year, Nian Qianyao began to face the Yongzheng Emperor directly.
According to the custom, as soon as he returned to the governor of Xi'an, Yamen, he submitted a thank you letter to Beijing, on the one hand, reporting that the emperor himself had returned to office, on the other hand, thanking the emperor for the generous treatment he had given during his time in Beijing, admitting that he had made many mistakes in the past, and thanking the emperor for his tolerance and understanding. After this recital, the Yongzheng Emperor approved a long paragraph, which had a very deep meaning. He said:
It is easy for people to make meritorious achievements, it is difficult to succeed, it is difficult to keep meritorious deeds, and it is difficult to make final achievements.
Nian Qianyao received this Zhu Approval, naturally confused, busy saying that he was mediocre and foolish, made many mistakes, the emperor could not bear to add to the crime, but also educated him in this way, he was very grateful, must be self-assured to atone for his sins.
At this time, Nian Qianyao was still in Xi'an, holding military power, and once he was seriously psychologically stimulated, it was not impossible to cause a mutiny or even trigger an all-out war.
However, the Yongzheng Emperor, who had a deep sense of power and confidence, did not care about this set, and the most important reason why he was so relieved was that he had been able to unite the anti-Nian faction in these two time periods, especially to let the "key minority" stand on his side, draw a clear line with Nian Qianyao, and complete the layout of important positions according to the situation.
For example, Shi Yizhi, who we mentioned, was a servant of the bureaucracy at that time. He and Nian Tangyao are the same list of people, the same list of jinshi, and was recommended by the New Year Tangyao, can be called the same year old. The Yongzheng Emperor cherished Shi Yizhi's talents, but he also had some doubts, so he talked to Shi Yizhi and asked directly:
"You're the one recommended by Nian Qianyao, right?"
Shi Yizhi immediately replied:
"It is Nian Qianyao who recommends the subject, but it is the emperor who reuses the subject!"
After hearing this, the Yongzheng Emperor was very happy, turned his doubts to Shi Yizhi, and sent him to serve as a Qin messenger, and went to Nian Qianyao's money bag, Shanxi Hedong Salt Works, to investigate the evidence of Nian Qianyao's crime of indiscriminately issuing salt and selling illegal salt, and the results were very remarkable.
After some elaborate arrangements, a fierce political struggle began.