The Qianlong Emperor is arguably the most well-known Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.
Qianlong admired his grandfather Kangxi so much that he felt that he should not be emperor for a longer period of time than his grandfather. When Kangxi died, he was emperor for 61 years. Therefore, after 60 years of work, Qianlong "retired" himself, gave way to Jiaqing, and became the emperor of Taishang.
In his lifetime, Kangxi went down to Jiangnan six times. Therefore, Qianlong also has a kind of learning, six under the Jiangnan.
However, Kangxi's lower Jiangnan is light and simple, so there is also the story of "Kangxi Micro Service Private Visit".
But Qianlong, on the other hand, made the pomp and circumstance big.
In the year he ascended the throne, Qianlong had the idea of going down to Jiangnan. According to the "Chronicle of the Qing Dynasty", Qianlong heard that "there is heaven on the top and Suzhou and Hangzhou on the bottom", and he was very eager to go to the picturesque Suzhou and Hangzhou to see. He first sent his college bachelor, a man named Ne Qin, to explore the way.
Ne Qin did not want the Qianlong Emperor to go down to Jiangnan, so he deliberately belittled the scenery of Jiangnan in the secret fold, saying that the so-called beautiful scenery of Suzhou and Hangzhou was nothing more than a boast of the corrupt Confucians. It is even said that the river in Suzhou is narrow, and the feces and boats are mixed together, and when it reaches noon, it will stink, there is no beautiful scenery at all, and it is not worth playing.
Seeing Ne Qin's recital, Qianlong was greatly disappointed and temporarily dismissed the idea of going down to Jiangnan.
In the fourteenth year of Qianlong, in order to curry favor with Qianlong, the local officials in Jiangnan once again went up to the fold and asked the Qianlong Emperor to tour Zhejiang in the south. At this time, Qianlong was moved again, and announced on the fifth day of October that he would tour the south two years later.
Unlike his father, the Yongzheng Emperor, who had always been frugal and elegant, Qianlong was a person who particularly liked pomp and pageantry.
The aesthetic gap between Yong and Qian
When his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, toured the south, he only brought 300 retinues, and the total cost was about 20,000 taels of silver. When Qianlong went down to Jiangnan, it took two full years of preparation.
What are you going to do in these two years?
First of all, officials were sent to investigate the route, which attractions were good, and the emperor might like them, so as to choose them in advance. Then, in order to welcome the emperor's car, the bridge was built to pave the way. Building bridges and paving roads was originally a good thing. However, officials at all levels took advantage of this opportunity to move their hands up and down.
For example, some magistrates took the opportunity to embezzle the property of the common people, and in the name of building roads for the emperor, demolished people's houses, planed graves, and then occupied the land for themselves. Not only that, but in the name of "raising funds for road construction," they cleverly set up a name and set up harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes to exploit the people on a large scale. When they dare to resist, they will describe others as bandits and send people to prison and kill their heads.
It is true that "there is no courage to suppress bandits, but the courage to amass wealth in the name of suppressing bandits is a big drop."
When Qianlong went down to Jiangnan, he did not come to investigate the people's feelings, but also came to play in the mountains and rivers. In addition to the princes and ministers, the attendants of the guards, the empresses, the empresses, the concubines, the crown princesses, and so on, even the family members have to be 2,000 smaller.
If you add the officials and children accompanying the locality, the number is even more incredible. It is said that when Qianlong went down to Jiangnan, his fleet had more than 1,000 large ships, and even specially widened the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal for this purpose. The boats he himself took were called "An Fu Bao" and "Feng Xiang Boat", and there were five of them. It's exquisitely crafted. In daylight, pearlescent sparkle and shine.
Qianlong South Patrol Car "An Fu Bao"
The overland convoy under the South of the Qianlong River was even more outrageous, with a total of more than 6,000 horses, more than 400 horse-drawn carriages, 800 camels, and tens of thousands of people recruited. The Qianlong Emperor also built more than 30 palaces along the way between Beijing and Hangzhou, each of which was extremely beautiful and "furnished, antiques and applied things, utensils and flower pots".
Every time you go down to Jiangnan, it takes about four or five months before and after. Qianlong went to Jiangnan six times and directly spent more than 20 million taels of silver in the household. The reparations are 6 million taels more than the Sino-British Treaty of Nanking! This is not a matter of local expenses.
Qianlong toured the south and found a grandiose reason, saying that he was learning from his grandfather, the Kangxi Emperor, who "petitioned the people and ruled the officials." But in fact, it is to go sightseeing. Everywhere you go, you must visit the famous mountains and rivers. Moreover, he was self-consciously talented, writing poetry inscriptions everywhere he went, and most of the scenic spots in the south left the "graffiti" of the Qianlong Emperor.
He wrote more than 40,000 poems in his lifetime, but only one could be memorized by posterity...
According to legend, the last sentence of Qianlong's poem, "Flying into the reeds and flowers are not seen", was added by Ji Xiaolan.
In order to curry favor with the Qianlong Emperor, local officials and wealthy merchants can really be said to be full of tricks.
For example, when Qianlong and others arrived in Zhenjiang, they found that there seemed to be a peach several kilometers away. So Qianlong asked his entourage what was going on. The entourage is also unclear. As their boat drove closer and closer, it became clearer and clearer that the pink and tender peach was really an extremely large peach. Wait until the emperor rides in front of Peach. Suddenly, brilliant fireworks burst out in mid-air, and a group of actors jumped out of the giant peach and began to sing.
For another example, when the Qianlong Emperor visited Yangzhou and watched the Slender West Lake, he said that the scenery here is very good, and it is very similar to the "Qiongdao Chunyin" of the Forbidden City, that is, there is one less lama tower. When the officials of Yangzhou heard about it, they actually managed to get a pattern of the Lama Pagoda and "transformed" a Lama Pagoda before Qianlong left Yangzhou. When Qianlong saw this, he not only did not rebuke them for wasting, but on the contrary, he praised these "capable ministers" with joy.
Beijing Lama Tower (left) vs Slender West Lake Lama Tower (right)
The salt merchants of the two Huai provinces donated huge sums of money to the emperor to enjoy during the southern tour of Qianlong, and the emperor not only did not refuse, but also praised these salt merchants and gave them the reward of "official body", the reward of official body without official body, and the knighthood of those with official body. This is already clearly "selling officials and lords".
When Qianlong took over the Qing Dynasty from Yongzheng, the imperial court was generally clean and efficient. From the yongzheng throne to the middle of the Qianlong period, the "GDP" of the Qing Dynasty grew rapidly, once accounting for more than 1/3 of the world, and the national treasury had 70 million silver reserves, which was quite rich.
However, in the middle and late Qianlong period, there were six southern tours, and each time they were more and more luxurious. Qianlong's money under jiangnan is enough to rebuild a Beiyang Navy!
Qianlong himself was like this, and officials at all levels naturally worked upwards and downwards, making a big profit, and soon the country was hollowed out. It is not an exaggeration to say that the people do not talk about life. Moreover, Qianlong himself also acted as a protective umbrella for corrupt officials, and qianlong not only did not investigate, but also slandered officials for "making false accusations." This is because the Qianlong Emperor himself was the most corrupt official.
By the time Qianlong abdicated, due to the serious corruption of the imperial courts at all levels, the Qing Dynasty's finances were already extremely tight. However, the officials at all levels were full of fat brains, only one and one, and the family property was as much as 800 million taels of silver.
But the world is hugely greedy, is there more than one hezhen? The so-called "three years of Qing Prefect, 100,000 snowflake silver", sincerely!
Therefore, even though the three emperors of Jia Daoxian themselves were very frugal, Daoguang's dragon robes were patched. But the Qianlong Dynasty's already completely corrupt imperial court could never return to the incorruptible appearance of the Yongzheng Era.
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Resources:
1. Records of History. China Yanshi Publishing House
2. Draft History of the Qing Dynasty
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