Ai Xin Jue Luo Yi Xuan was emperor Wenzong of the Qing Dynasty, whose era name was Xianfeng. As the ninth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, he was also the last emperor in the history of the Qing Dynasty and China to have actual ruling power. The Xianfeng Emperor was only thirty-one years old when he died, but during his eleven years in power, the country changed dramatically, and he had to make many decisions that seemed absurd to the people at the time, but even so, he failed to change the rule of the Qing Dynasty, which was in decline.
If you want to understand the absurd decisions of the Xianfeng Emperor, or do you want to combine them with the background of the times during his reign, what kind of decisions did this diligent Qing Emperor make in the context of the great changes in history, and how did these decisions affect future generations?
In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), the Ministry of Internal Affairs submitted to the emperor a copy entitled "The Ministry of Internal Affairs Played to Find out the Amount of Golden Bells in Stock and the Conversion of The Value of The Silver Without Passbook", and this list contained a Golden Bell from the Qianlong Period, which the Xianfeng Emperor intended to melt. Melting and refining gold from the "family property" left by the ancestors for a luxurious life? Of course not, the Xianfeng Emperor was using his "family property" to help the Qing dynasty's army.
At this time, the Qing army was facing many powerful enemies, in addition to the European army that was eyeing the tiger, the domestic war was even more tense, the strength of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was growing step by step, and the front line was tight but there was no food, which was really embarrassing. As early as the thirtieth year of Daoguang (1850), the Qing Dynasty treasury was left with 1.87 million taels, and due to the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion and disaster relief in a few years, by the third year of Xianfeng (1853), there were only 227,000 taels of silver left in the household, and even two months of military salaries could not be paid. Does this keep the king of a country in no hurry?
In addition to the golden bell mentioned above, the copper ware accumulated in the palace was also "sold" to repay the money, and even the copper roof on the flagpole, the copper nails on the doors, and the copper nets on the eaves were taken away to be cast into copper coins; and by the fifth year of Xianfeng (1855), the financial departments in various places were affected by the Taiping Rebellion or other reasons, and the financial situation in many places was more and more depressed, and the financial departments in many places could not operate normally, and the weaving bureaus, taxes, salt works and other departments were seriously implicated and could not work normally.
It can be said that the Xianfeng Emperor demolished his own backyard in exchange for money, but he still could not meet the gap in the finances of the household department. Open source throttling, open source to the Xianfeng Emperor in order to maintain the use of the palace, the palace gold book, the golden treasure handed over, the purpose and the above mentioned the role of the golden bell is the same, but most of the gold book gold treasure is the crown princess, the empress dowager or the queen of the voucher, which is equivalent to the bottom of the pressure box to take out the things.
Open source is not enough, throttling to make up. The Xianfeng Emperor could not curb the sharp deterioration of the finances when he saw that his family had come out, so he started from the source of expenditure and reduced expenditure. The Xianfeng Emperor was not only cruel to his eight banner disciples, but also to his elders: he stopped issuing measures such as the "red event reward silver" and reduced the "white event reward silver" of the Eight Banner Soldiers, which also reduced the welfare of the grass-roots groups; and reduced the cost of the daily maintenance of the ancestral tombs of the Qing Dongling, while the QingXi Mausoleum, where his father Daoguang Emperor was buried, was halved compared with the Qing Dongling.
It is said that the Twelve Emperors of the Qing Dynasty (revised picture text) ¥48.8 purchase
The Xianfeng Emperor, who took over the great task in such an environment, was also very frugal with himself. The door pivot was broken and reluctant to replace it, and it would be made up for and continued to be used; the trousers were burned with a large hole in the watercress, and the eunuch advised him to throw it away, but he said: "Material resources are difficult, it is a pity to abandon it, try to make up for it."
In the evaluation of the Xianfeng Emperor in later generations, the four bad hobbies of the Xianfeng Emperor were summarized: greed for beauty, greed for silk and bamboo, greed for wine, and greed for opium. Later generations, when speculating about the cause of his death, are always inseparable from the influence of these bad hobbies. The Xianfeng Emperor in the early period of the government can be described as a bloody blood, and the intensity of reform exceeded that of the two emperors of Jiaqing and Daoguang; and just such an emperor, in the Xianfeng Decade (1860), when the Anglo-French coalition invaded China for the second time and attacked Beijing, the Xianfeng Emperor fled to Rehe in the name of "Mulan Qiu fox", and ordered Prince Gong Yi to stay in Beijing and Negotiate.
The Xianfeng Emperor at the Rehe Palace got a long-lost leisure and relaxation, and compared with the daily hard work and great pressure in Beijing, he played with beautiful women here and indulged in drama. However, this life did not last long, on July 15, 1861, the Xianfeng Emperor was seriously ill in the Rehe Palace; on the sixteenth day, he made the crown prince Zaichun, and arranged for his son to assist the ministers (known as the "Eight Ministers of Gu Ming", namely: Zaiyuan, Duanhua, Jingshou, Sushun, Muyin, Kuangyuan, Duhan, and Jiao Youying); in the early morning of the seventeenth, the Xianfeng Emperor died of illness in Rehe.
Throughout the short and busy life of the Xianfeng Emperor, it is difficult to define him as a dimwitted monarch. From the beginning of his reign, he was working hard to change the situation of the Qing Dynasty, resisting the pressure of the Eight Banners and the patriarchal system to cut expenditures, and also giving the Han people more opportunities to change the National Policy of "Re-Filling and Suppressing the Han" that the Qing Dynasty had implemented for more than two hundred years; the Taiping Rebellion that broke out in the first year of Xianfeng (1851) and the Second Opium War in the Xianfeng Decade (1860) all occurred during the Xianfeng administration, although it was not caused by him, but he wanted him to do his best to make up for the consequences of these problems.
He "sold his ancestral property", cut the welfare of the Eight Banners, loved beautiful opera, and even smoked opium, some of the later decisions laid a huge hidden danger for the development of the Qing Dynasty, but he also had to affirm his achievements in the early days of his reign, he and his father Daoguang Emperor, very industrious and frugal, but the governance ability is average, follow the ancestral family law, want to be a shoucheng king, Xianfeng is just not a good time, so Xianfeng, who has experienced great changes in the country, will make those seemingly absurd decisions.