One day in early September in 1763 (the twenty-eighth year of Qianlong), Qianlong's two younger brothers, Hongzhi and Hongyao, went to ask the empress dowager for peace. This was originally a very common thing, but these two princes were severely punished by Qianlong for this request for peace.
It turned out that when Hongzhi and Hongyao were asking the empress dowager for peace, the place where they knelt happened to be the place where Qianlong usually knelt.
When Qianlong learned of this, he rebuked his two younger brothers for "borrowing from yijie" and gave them very severe punishments: Hongyao was demoted from the king of the county to Beyler, removed all officials, fined 10,000 taels of silver, and destroyed a prince's golden treasure.
Compared with Hongzhan, Hongzhi's punishment was lighter: the punishment of Wang Feng was three years.
One was that all the official positions and the title of county king were gone, and the other was only deducting three years' salary, why was Qianlong so different from his two brothers?
Inui Takashi Images
Speaking of which, it was Still Hongyao's accumulated mistakes that made Qianlong have to exercise strict control over him.
1. Brother Yuanmingyuan
Hongyao was the youngest son of Yongzheng, born in the Yuanmingyuan in 1733 (the eleventh year of Yongzheng). When Yongzheng died in 1735 and Qianlong ascended the throne, Hongyao was just two years old.
The age difference between Qianlong and Hongyao was 22 years, and qianlong did not have many brothers, and at that time, only Hongzhi and Hongyao were left, so Qianlong treated both of them very kindly. After giving his father prince's palace to Hongzhi, Qianlong ordered that Hongyao continue to be raised in the Yuanmingyuan.
Because he was born in the Yuanmingyuan and grew up in the Yuanmingyuan, Hongyao is also known as the "Yuanmingyuan Brother".
In 1738, Qianlong's seventeenth uncle, Prince Heshuoguo, Yun Lixue. Yunli was loyal in nature, and both Yongzheng and Qianlong trusted and appreciated him, because he had no children under his knees, and Qianlong ordered that Hongyao be passed on to Yunli as a son and inherit the title of Prince of Heshuoguo.
This year, Hongyao was just five years old.
Yun Li studied with Shen Deqian since childhood, he was intelligent and heavy,bleak in temperament, and in his early years, when the battle between the nine sons and concubines was very fierce, he never participated in it, so he was deeply appreciated and valued by Yongzheng.
After Hongyao was a little older, Qianlong continued to let Shen Deqian be Hongyao's teacher.
Hongyao's film and television image, network diagram
Obviously, Qianlong hoped that under the guidance of Shen Deqian, Hongyao would grow into a person who was as intelligent and heavy as his uncle Yunli, able to take on great responsibilities, but had no intention of imperial power.
Shen Deqian's best is poetry creation, under his teaching, Hongyao quickly learned and became a disciple of "poetry returning to the right tone, not for ordinary sounds".
However, in addition to the title and poetry creation inheriting the mantle of Prince Yunli of Guo, Hongyao's temperament and deeds were very different from those of Yunli.
Second, seek wealth everywhere
When Prince Guo Yunli was alive, he enjoyed the prince's double salary, so he was very rich among all the princes, and now Hongyao inherited his title and family property, and his wealth was naturally very rich.
However, this did not satisfy the young Prince Of Guo.
The prince, who grew up in the royal family and enjoyed the title of knighthood and fenglu at the age of five, showed an extraordinary love for wealth after he was a little older: he often used his status as a prince and a royal brother to seek wealth everywhere, and even asked the ministers to sell ginseng for him, purchase embroidery at low prices, python robes, etc.; what annoyed Qianlong even more was that Hongyao completely forgot his instructions that he "must not interfere in the affairs of the dynasty" and directly went to the military minister Arigun and asked him to find officials for his own people.
Arigun was both an imperial prince and a heavy courtier, who had been in the official arena for many years and knew the rules of the imperial court, how could he obey the unreasonable demands of such a young prince as Hongyao? Therefore, he directly refused Hongyao's request.
Portrait of Emperor Huixian's noble concubine
If one thing is revealed, everything will be revealed, but what Qianlong did not expect was that when these cases were interrogated, one of the officials involved was Gao Heng, the envoy of the two Huaiyans, who was the younger brother of Qianlong's Huixian Emperor Guifei, who was both an imperial relative and a high-ranking official, but when this dignitary was first interrogated, he actually had iron teeth and did not want to reveal that these cases had anything to do with Hongyao at all. It wasn't until the end that he couldn't really hide it, and he told the whole thing as it was.
As the king of a country, the most feared thing is that the prince and the ministers collude together. Ministers who understood things, like Arigun, also knew how to refuse the unreasonable demands of the prince, but a confused official like Gao Heng only wanted to maintain personal relations with the prince, regardless of personal duties and royal interests!
Qianlong speculated again: Gao Heng had a close relationship with himself, and he was still like this, and I really didn't know how many officials in the imperial court maintained such relations with Hongyao!
Thinking of this made Qianlong shudder.
Hongyao is no longer a child, he should take responsibility, have the appearance of a prince. Realizing this, Qianlong wanted to properly knock and beat Hongyao.
Some say it's Hongzhi, some say it's Hongyao
He soon found an opportunity to seize the mistake of Hongyao and Hongzhi when they asked the empress dowager for peace, demoted Hongyao from king of the county to Baylor, and removed him from all official positions.
Of course, he was punished with hongzhi, who was fined for three years.
3. The unbearable weight
If we only consider the fact that Hongyao and Hongzhi asked to sit in the wrong position, Qianlong's punishment for the two people would inevitably be a little harsher, but if we combined the things that Hongyao had done before to collude with officials and sell officials for wealth, Hongyao's punishment was really not heavy, and there was even some meaning that Qianlong wanted to turn a blind eye to him in the national law and only deal with him according to the family law.
Although Hongzhi was punished with his accompaniment, Qianlong soon replenished him with silver elsewhere.
imperial palace
If Hongyao could understand this truth, and from this punishment, he realized qianlong's hard heart for him, and it was only a matter of time before his title and wealth returned, he would still have a great future.
It's a pity that he didn't carry this hurdle.
After being demoted and dismissed from his post, Hongyao closed the door and soon became depressed and fell ill.
At this time, Hongyao was only in his early 30s, and after Qianlong heard the news of Hongyao's illness, he only thought that the young man was angry at first, and after a while he figured it out. But what I didn't expect was that Hongyao's illness had been delayed for a long time, and even the news of his illness was critical.
When he heard the news that Hongyao was critically ill, Qianlong was on his way to the south, and he hurriedly ordered Hongyao to be made the king of the county, and instructed Hongyao to take good care of his body.
However, Jin Feng's title of county king did not make Hongyao's illness better, and in the eighth day of March 1765, Hongyao died of illness at the age of 33.
After hearing the news of Hongyao's death, Qianlong was very sad, and he specially wrote a sincere poem, which was engraved on the stone stele of Hongyao Garden, expressing his hope that Hongyao would correct his mistakes through punishment.
Unfortunately, no matter whether it was affectionate or bitter hearted, Hongyao could not be allowed to return to Qianlong's side. He was like the scene when he saw Qianlong in the Yuanmingyuan when he was a child: Qianlong summoned him to come and want to play with him, but this childish little man was afraid of the majestic emperor's brother and timidly slipped away with a cigarette.