Ancient China has always paid attention to "feng shui", whether it is to build a house and repair a tomb, please ask Mr. Feng Shui to take a good look, and those eunuchs pay more attention to it. According to modern views, feng shui says that there are elements of feudal superstition, but it is also part of traditional Chinese culture. However, during the Qing Dynasty, the officialdom was extremely fond of feng shui, believing that this was related to their future prospects and career paths.
The place where officials spend the most time on weekdays is Yamen, so for the construction of official yamen, it is necessary to look at feng shui first. In fact, at the beginning of the construction of any dynasty, the officials of any dynasty must ask kan public opinion to "xiangdi", and after choosing the auspicious land, they must also choose the auspicious day to start the construction. Once the official building is completed, the successive officials often do not change the original building structure without authorization, believing that this is a violation of the "feng shui" taboo.
However, there is also a case of exception, that is, if several officials have a bad career or other ominous things, they will find reasons in the feng shui of the official, either demolished and rebuilt, or made major changes. In a word, the feng shui of the official must be good.
Of the eighteen provinces of the Qing Dynasty, some of which were rich and some of which were barren, such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Guangdong, and other provinces, were all rich provinces, and officials wanted to go to these provinces with their heads squeezed. During the Jiaqing period, a strange thing happened in Guangdong.
Guangdong Xuezheng is the highest official in charge of education in a province, and the position of Xuezheng is not competent for the post of non-jinshi, and because it is the root of the national talent, the candidates for the study and administration of each province are often approved by the emperor, some are Hanlin yuan officials, some are six shilangs, and so on. As a rule, the xuezheng service is three years, and after the township examination is over, there is another appointment to return to Beijing.
From the twenty-fourth year of Jiaqing (1819), the three scholars sent by the imperial court to Guangdong had accidents, the first Fu Tang saw that his term was expiring but died of illness, the second Gu Yuanxi also died before his term of office, and the third Zhu Jieji died less than half a year after taking office. As a result, the guangdong xuezheng yamen said that it was "unlucky" and went away, and everyone was in danger of themselves, afraid of sharing this unfortunate errand.
In the fourth year of Daoguang (1824), Zhu Jieji's xuezheng was replaced by Wu Changhua, who although he did not die of unprovoked illness in office as in previous terms, but within a month, he was demoted and transferred to Guangxi Youjiang Province. Four consecutive Guangdong Xuezheng are either dead or descending, is it really a violation of the taboo of feng shui?
Later, the Inspector of Guangdong personally went out on horseback and found a kan public opinion master to go to the xuezheng yamen to see what was going on, and finally found the reason. Originally, the Yunsi Yamen (the organization that manages the salt affairs) that was connected to the Xuezheng Yamen had never been smooth, and later a Taoist priest was invited to "Xiang Ya", and the Daoist priest erected a "sky lantern pole" near the Yunsi in the middle of the two Yamen, and from then on, the officials of the Yunsi Yamen had a smooth career, and the Xuezheng Yamen was repeatedly attacked. Of course, there is no definite evidence for this statement, and it is contained in the notes of the Qing people.
In the Qing Dynasty, it was not only Guangdong Xuezheng whose feng shui was bad, but also the Hubei Inspector Yamen. During the Xianfeng period, the Governor of Hubei was not allowed to die well for more than ten consecutive terms. For example, Gong Yu and Chonglun were dismissed from their posts, Qinglin was killed for fleeing, Tao Enpei was killed in battle, and Hu Linyi died of illness. Although the inspectors of Hubei were all for a reason, people at that time thought that this was a problem with feng shui.
Later, when Zeng Guoquan was appointed as the inspector of Hubei, Zeng Guofan wrote to him that the original inspector Yamen must not be able to live and should find a new place to work. In fact, Zeng Guoquan was a warrior and did not believe these at all, but in the end he could not resist Zeng Guofan and temporarily moved the inspector Yamen to the Gongyuan, and sure enough, Zeng Guoquan was quite smooth in his post as inspector of Hubei.
There is also a story about feng shui related to Zeng Guofan and also to Qimen, a small county town in Anhui. The Huizhou area was a cultural flourishing place in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and achieved remarkable results in the imperial examinations, and although the population of Qimen was not large, it has always been a continuous succession of scholars and people. However, during the Qianlong period, a county commander from Jiangxi rebuilt the county seat at the foot of the mountain, and since then, Qimen County has not won a single person for more than a hundred years.
When Zeng Guofan garrisoned Qimen, he found that there was a problem with the feng shui of the county town, so he wanted to demolish the city wall, and the local gentry had long felt that the feng shui of the county town was not good, but they were suffering from the fact that the official government did not come forward. At the initiative of Zeng Guofan, the county seat of Qimen County was changed again. After the completion, Zeng Guofan also wrote a poem: "Demolish the northwest city, and become famous for the years." Leave a section in the southeast, and the rich water will not rest. "It is really strange that after that, Qi Men actually passed the three examinations in the next township examination (1864), and the road to the imperial examination was smooth again.
People have the nature of seeking evil and avoiding luck, seeking advantages and avoiding harm, in the Qing Dynasty, when science and technology were not yet developed, many things could not be reasonably explained, so they boiled down to some mysterious force, and feng shui was one of them. But we can't completely define feng shui as superstition, and sometimes there is scientific rationality in it, perhaps this is a manifestation of the profundity of Chinese culture.