In 1705 (the forty-fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty), the 63-year-old Fujian minister Li Guangdi officially "worshiped the chancellor" and served as a scholar of Wenyuange University. Li Guangdi was a famous Han courtier of the Kangxi Dynasty, he was honest and diligent in government, and in the process of Kangxi Ping San Fan, taiwan acquisition, and conquest of Gardan, Li Guangdi played a different role to varying degrees. In his later years, Kangxi once commented that Li Guangdi was "the most true in his knowledge", which shows that Li Guangdi was actually Kangxi's favorite in his later years.
Although Li Guangdi was a famous courtier of the Qing Dynasty, his character was not recognized by most people, for example, the Qing Dynasty historian Quan Zuwang once commented in the "Collection of Qiting":
"In his early years, Li Guangdi sold his friends, in his middle age he won love, and in his twilight years, he actually returned from his wife's son."
This sentence is very informative, almost making Li Guangdi useless, especially Li Guangdi's "selling friends and seeking glory", which almost discredited Li Guangdi. This incident is actually a historical public case, starting from the thirty-seventh year of the Kangxi Dynasty.
In the thirty-seventh year of The Kangxi Dynasty (1698), Kangxi led the princes and ministers to rehe to hunt, and then went to Shengjing. In Shengjing, a prisoner who was exiled to Shengjing presented a poem to Kangxi, and the level of this poem was extremely high, and Kangxi Longyan was very happy, and he wanted to see this prisoner immediately.
Kangxi asked carefully to learn that this person's name was Chen Menglei, who was 50 years old this year, and Chen Menglei was a soldier of Kangxi's ninth year, who was summoned as an aide by Geng Jingzhong, the king of Jingnan, during the San Francisco Rebellion, so he was convicted and exiled to Shengjing. Kangxi saw that Chen Menglei was as thin as wood, but he was very talented, because he was just a literati, Kangxi showed great compassion, took Chen Menglei back to Beijing, and asked him to assist the third prince Yin Zhi to compile the book.
Li Guangdi, Zi Jinqing, a native of Quanzhou, Fujian, was a Kangxi ninth-year jinshi;
Chen Menglei, Zi Zezhen, a native of Minxian County, Fujian Province, was a Kangxi nine-year soldier.
That is to say, Li Guangdi and Chen Menglei are not only the same branch of the jinshi, but also Fujian compatriots, it is conceivable that when the two were titled on the gold list, they may still sit at a table and congratulate each other! Later, Chen Menglei and Li Guangdi worked together as editors and editors at the Hanlin Academy, and they were still colleagues. Since there is such a relationship, what exactly is the vendetta between Chen Menglei and Li Guangdi?
According to Chen Menglei, at the end of the twelfth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1673), Li Guangdi's father was seriously ill, Li Guangdi took leave to return to his hometown to visit, and Chen Menglei also returned to his hometown to visit his relatives. (Author's note: At that time, Wu Sangui had already raised an army in Yunnan, but the news was blocked by Wu Sangui, and Kangxi was still unaware.) In March of the following year, when the two were planning to return to Beijing, Geng Jingzhong, the king of Jingnan in Fujian, suddenly raised an army in response to Wu Sangui, and there was chaos in Fujian, and Geng Jingzhong blocked the road into Beijing while capturing imperial officials to serve himself. Chen Menglei and Li Guangdi hid in the temple in order to avoid the rebellion, but Geng Jingzhong then captured Chen Menglei's father and threatened him, Chen Menglei had to return to Fuzhou to see Geng Jingzhong in order to save his father, and was left behind by Geng Jingzhong.
Before Chen Menglei returned to Fuzhou, he made a secret appointment with Li Guangdi in the suburbs, and Chen Menglei entered the city to inquire about the deployment of the rebel troops, and then tried to find a way to bring the news out, and then Li Guangdi went along the path to the capital to report the news. Then, Chen Menglei pretended to defect to Geng Jingzhong, and after receiving the information, he immediately wrote the information and put it into a wax pill, and quietly left the city to hand it over to Li Guangdi. Li Guangdi cut his thighs, stuffed them into wax pills, escaped from Fujian along the mountain road, and rushed to the capital to inform Kangxi. After Li Guangdi arrived in the capital, Kangxi learned that Geng Jingzhong had rebelled, and based on the information brought back by Li Guangdi, he sent Jieshu the Prince of Kang to attack Geng Jingzhong in a targeted manner. This point is recorded in the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty and the Biography of Li Guangdi":
(Kangxi) fourteen years, dense. In the middle of the wax pill, he sent the envoy to the Kyoshi, because the cabinet scholar Fu Hongji went up. The upper part was unmoved, Jia Qizhong, and the lower military department was recruited to pay the leading minister.
The reason why Li Guangdi was later reused by Kangxi had a lot to do with this time risking death to report the letter. However, the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" only mentions Li Guangdi alone, and there is nothing about Chen Menglei, which is also the key to the incident.
Chen Menglei did not expect Li Guangdi to take the credit alone, and later the San Francisco Rebellion was settled, Chen Menglei was exiled to Shengjing as a "Geng Jing loyal aide", while Li Guangdi was on a flat footing. Chen Menglei was indignant and wrote the "Letter of Renunciation" to Li Guangdi. By the thirty-seventh year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Li Guangdi was already the governor of Zhizhi, and Chen Menglei was still a prisoner.
Moreover, after Chen Menglei was brought back to Beijing by Kangxi, he not only confessed his merits to Kangxi that year, but also made the matter public. For a time, Li Guangdi's reputation was discredited, and his colleagues cast contemptuous glances at Li Guangdi one after another, and even scolded Li Guangdi for selling friends and seeking glory. Li Guangdi was forced into a desperate situation, and Shang Shu said:
"The Book of Wax Pills is his final draft, and there is really no such thing."
Li Guangdi's meaning was: The wax pill information I presented that year was collected by myself, and it had nothing to do with Chen Menglei. Chen Menglei was jealous of me, so he framed me, I am not a villain. Li Guangdi also said that when he left Fujian at that time, he sent someone to Fuzhou to find Chen Menglei to go with him, but Chen Menglei "did not see a word of answer." This means that Chen Menglei would rather rebel with Geng Jingzhong than return to the capital.
Because only Li Guangdi and Chen Menglei knew about the "wax pill incident", now the two people have their own opinions, and no one has evidence, so this matter has become a "historical public case".
However, as the ruler of the Qing Dynasty, Kangxi's eventual approach was also subtle. Obviously, Kangxi did not believe Chen Menglei, because after Li Guangdi went through this incident, he still rose all the way up and finally became a scholar of Wenyuange University. However, Kangxi did not seem to believe Li Guangdi, because if what Li Guangdi said was true, then Chen Menglei undoubtedly took the initiative to participate in the rebellion and would definitely be questioned, but Chen Menglei lived well in the next few years.
Regarding the historical cases of Chen and Li, the Qing history manuscript clearly supports Li Guangdi, but many wild histories, including local chronicles in Fuzhou, support Chen Menglei's claims. Liang Qichao, a famous historian in modern times, also believes that Li Guangdi's selling friends for glory is indeed a matter. In the Complete Works of Liang Qichao, he commented on Li Guangdi as follows:
Li Zhi forgot to kiss and betray, his position was adulterous, Tang Zhi's femininity was flattering, and he deceived the vulgar...
It can be seen that because of Chen Menglei's case, Li Guangdi's reputation is difficult to be recovered.
The author believes that in the case of Li Guangdi and Chen Menglei, what Chen Menglei said should be generally true. After all, it was not easy for Chen Menglei to return to Beijing as a criminal minister. There was no need for him to take the initiative to offend the governor, which would not do him any good. Moreover, Chen Menglei wrote the "Letter of Renunciation" with Li Guangdi, and his words were earnest, which could better see the grievances and resentment in his heart.
However, as a Kangxi, no matter what happened between Li Guangdi and Chen Menglei, he had already received wax pill information at that time, and Li Guangdi was loyal to Kangxi, so why should he demean a favored courtier for a small person? Therefore, Li Guangdi did not fall in the court, while Chen Menglei could only be trapped in front of the book case for the rest of his life. Postscript: After Yongzheng ascended the throne, Chen Menglei was implicated again because of the crime of Yin Zhi (允祉), and he was relegated to Heilongjiang, where he died at the age of 72. And Li Guangdi? Yongzheng entered the Ancestral Hall of The Virtuous, and there is still a difference between the two of them.