The Qianlong Emperor, whose name was Hongli, was the fourth son of the Yongzheng Emperor, who took the throne at the age of 25 and died at the age of 89, serving as emperor for 60 years. The Qianlong Emperor went to Jiangnan six times in his lifetime, and the history of the wilderness says that Qianlong went down to Jiangnan in order to find his own Han mother, because Qianlong was born to Yongzheng and a Han woman, because at that time the Qing government enforced that Manchus could not intermarry, so when Qianlong was born, Qianlong was taken back to the palace to raise, and his birth mother was left behind, so Qianlong went down to Jiangnan six times to find his birth mother! This is, of course, nonsense. The main reason for Qianlong's descent into Jiangnan is that jiangnan has beautiful scenery and Suzhou and Hangzhou are unique in the world. Of course, the Qianlong Emperor's lower Jiangnan had the meaning of enjoying the beautiful mountains and rivers of Jiangnan, but in fact, there were the following reasons:
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First, inspect water conservancy. Among the six southern tours, Qianlong inspected the Yellow River control project five times and the Haitang project in Zhejiang four times. At that time, the key projects to solve the flooding of the Yellow River were in Qingkou, Jiangsu, and Gaojiayan in Hongze Lake, so every time Qianlong toured the south, he had to go to these two places to have a look.
Second, compare with your grandfather. The Qianlong Emperor was so happy that he called himself the "Ten Perfection Old Man", and wenzhi martial arts all followed the example of his ancestor Kangxi. Kangxi made six southern tours, and the Qianlong Emperor also wanted to compete with Naizu on the Jiangnan tour.
Third, find beautiful women. Some people say that Su Hang is more beautiful. Folklore has it that Qianlong likes Jiangnan beauties, and every time he travels south, he can't help but look for flowers and ask for willows. Therefore, the empress quarreled with him every day, and Qianlong, in a fit of anger, sent the empress back to Beijing. During Qianlong's fourth southern tour, it was true that the empress was sent back to Beijing, which was recorded in Qianlong's thirty-year "Spring File". Isn't Xia Yuhe in Qiong Yao's novel "Huan Zhu Ge Ge" a Jiangnan beauty?
Fourth, the Qianlong Emperor regarded himself as a poet all his life and wrote more than 40,000 poems in his lifetime. Naturally, these poems cannot be written in the Summer Palace. Qianlong wants to go out for a walk, naturally choose the beautiful mountains and rivers of Jiangnan, anyway, the car travel expenses are reimbursed. If you have beautiful women to accompany you, you can also generate inspiration, why not enjoy it?
Fifth, the military parade. The Manchus have always attached importance to riding archery and advocated bravery, and successive emperors have also mastered archery on horseback. Qianlong has held grand military parades in Hangzhou, Nanjing, and other places on successive southern tours. Qianlong originally wanted to reverse the decadence through military parades and train soldiers, and show the strength of the Qing Dynasty to the people of Jiangnan.
Sixth, win people's hearts. First of all, everywhere he passed, taxes were reduced to varying degrees. Secondly, the officials who carry out the driving and errands are rewarded and rewarded, and the officials are promoted to knights; Some of the officials who had previously been disciplined were reinstated to their original posts. Especially for the old courtiers who came to pick up the driver, he asked for warmth, rewarded ginseng, mink and other items, and also rewarded his descendants with meritorious names. On the way to the south again, Qianlong performed rituals at the Confucius Temples in various places, and he personally proposed the examination for the literati who came to meet him.
Many of the examination questions he produced got rid of the bad habits of the imperial examination and paid attention to practical application. Due to the gathering of talents in jiangnan and the large number of people who took the exam, Qianlong ordered an increase in the number of places for the governments of Jiangsu, Anhui and Zhejiang provinces. After the completion of the Siku Quanshu, he personally paid for three copies of the wenhui pavilion in Yangzhou, the Wenzong pavilion in Zhenjiang, and the Wenlan pavilion in Hangzhou, and ordered the local officials to allow the students to take it out and copy it. These measures have played a role in promoting cultural undertakings in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. In the end, when the Qing soldiers entered the customs, the killing and plundering in Jiangnan was too heavy, and the "Ten Days of Jiading" and "Three Massacres of Yangzhou" had a very bad impact, and Kangxi, Qianlong, and others all took the efforts to win the hearts and minds of the local scholars and people as important events, such as the reconstruction of the Shi Kefa Temple.
Generally speaking, Qianlong's six tours of jiangnan were more and more pompous and costly than ever, and even caused the depletion of the national treasury and brought deep disasters to the people. Qianlong did not fully realize the mistakes of the Southern Tour until his later years, and according to the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, The Biography of Wu Xiongguang", Qianlong said: I have been emperor for sixty years, and I think that I have not made any major mistakes. Only six times he made a tour of the south, labored the people and hurt their money, and turned good things into bad things. Yes, when later generations interpreted the novel, they also regarded Qianlong's lower Jiangnan as going to find beautiful women, which seemed to be really a bit unjust.