<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > everything but official, often one step to the sky. </h1>
Take the feathers on the ass of the male peacock, its function is to attract the opposite sex, but once it is removed from the nationality and enters the official hat sequence, it becomes the supreme and precious thing, and it is not allowed by the emperor to be approved, and the noble relatives and courtiers are not allowed to use it. Ordinary people don't even think about it, otherwise their heads will have to move.
The hat arrangement was originally just a trick to love The New Jue Roche to "pass the family". According to the "Qing History Manuscript and Youfu Zhi", the shell can wear three-eyed peacock plumes, and the Zhenguo Gong and the Auxiliary Guogong can wear two-eyed flower plumes. In addition, the son-in-law of the Gulun Donkey, the Empress, can wear the Three-Eyed Flower Plume, and the Son-in-law of the Concubine of Heshuo Ishuo Can Wear the Two-Eyed Flower Plume. The Qing Dynasty clan was divided into different ranks such as prince, county king, belle, beizi, Zhenguo gong, auxiliary guogong, Zhenguo general, auxiliary general, etc., and most of the beizi were the descendants of the emperor. That is to say, as long as there is a good father or a good grandfather, or a good mother-in-law, Hua Ling can jump on the end of the hat, which is the most convenient. In addition, more than five products of the interior ministers, forwards, escort commanders, staff leaders, can wear a single eye dazzling. Although these hardcore cronies are not the blood of the emperor, their relationship is like family.
Children of the royal family who have not yet been knighted, when they are 12 years old, can dance knives and guns, bend bows and shoot arrows, and can also enjoy flowers. In August of the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong (1791), Emperor Gaozong went out hunting, and his 9-year-old grandson actually shot a deer, "Emperor Gaozong was very happy, and gave yellow coats and flower plumes." This grandson was named Min Ning, and later became emperor, with the era name Daoguang. Unfortunately, the Daoguang Emperor was skilled in bowing and horse, but in the Opium War, he was beaten by the foreigners' foreign guns and cannons, so he had to cut the land and pay compensation.
Hua Ling's transition from "passing the family" to the official scene seems to be somewhat accidental. In August of the 22nd year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1683), Shi Lang, the admiral of the Fujian Admiralty, led an army to pacify Taiwan, and Shengzu was pleased to hear of the unification of The Jiangshan And established Shi Lang as the hereditary Marquis of Jinghai. This "hereditary replacement" was worth a lot, and from then on, Shi Lang's descendants could inherit the title and take silver. Who knows, this Shi Lang did not want silver to face, and proposed to exchange the title for a flower to wear, and the result was that the ministers refuted it. The emperor's family plays with things, you an outsider blindly mixed and what? In the end, it was Kangxi who made the plan, Jinghai Hou, and Shi Lang continued to wear another flower plume, "to open up the frontier overseas, to cut the usurpation of the founders, to reward the Ling, to extend the future generations." To pacify Taiwan is to make the peacocks in the world become bald-tailed quails, which is also worth it.
Kangxi was a wise man in the end, and seeing that his courtiers valued this feather so much, he decided to take advantage of the situation and simply practiced two more times on the peacock's buttocks to reward the hero. As a result, Hua Ling has the distinction between example wearing and giving wearing. Although there is no good father, as long as they work hard for the imperial court, the top of their heads can also be beautiful, and the ministers are grateful for such an opportunity. Liu Tongxun, the chancellor of Qianlong, wrote a thank you fold after being given a flower plume, in which the 8 characters of "Gu Ying is ashamed of himself, raise his head and be generous" were recited for a while because they expressed the common feelings of the recipients. Let a feather carry the mighty imperial grace, like an electric rabbit running a dog field, hook the ministers desperately forward, Saint Zu's move is really high.
Shi Ling is also divided into three, six, nine grades, one eye, two eyes and three eyes. The eyes are the colored feathers on the back of the peacock's tail feathers. Most of the ministers who were given hualing were ministers who had to make great contributions to the imperial court, especially in battle, so their proportion was not high. Like Lin Zexu, who had been an official for decades, he was given a one-eyed flower, and it had nothing to do with the prohibition of opium, because he later quelled the turmoil on the frontier when he was the governor of Yungui. As for the two eyes and the three eyes, the recipients are even fewer. According to the qing people's notes, in the Qing dynasty, only about 20 people were given two-eyed plumes, and Nian Qianyao, Long Keduo, Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Rong Lu, and others who often appear in TV dramas are among them; only 7 people have obtained three-eyed plumes, including Li Hongzhang. In addition, the foreigners who participated in the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, Hua'er, Bai Qiwen and Gordon, who had successively served as the commanders of the "Changsheng Army", were also rewarded by the emperor with yellow coats and peacock feathers. These foreigners' foreign guns and cannons are aimed at the rioters this time, the great enemy of the imperial court, and naturally they should be greatly praised, and there is no need to talk about the defense of Huayi.
Flowers are at the head, and not everything is over. If the civilian generals were ineffective or suffered defeat, the emperor could take them back at any time, correct the mistakes or make new meritorious deeds before returning them. In the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty", records of the reward, seizure, and restoration of the chancellor Hua Ling abound. Even Li Hongzhang's three-eyed flower plume has been robbed, telling you to lose face and go to fight for jumps. The number of flowers is limited and not a lifetime system, which makes everyone find ways to get it. In the forty-sixth year of Qianlong (1781), the emperor was passing by Baoding, and when Yin Jiaquan, the former secretary of the Dali Temple who was recuperating at home, suddenly asked for a gift of Flowers, saying that he had boasted to his little wife about Haikou before going out, and if the emperor did not reward it, it would affect family relations. Such absurd reasons made Qianlong furious and ordered that the person be handed over to the ministry for deliberation and sentenced to death. In the end, it was the emperor who was kind and kind, and only reprimanded him and spared him the death penalty.
Yin Jiaquan was born at the wrong time, if you want to wear a flower plume in the evening for decades, you don't have to talk about the little wife. After Daoguang, due to the increasing expenditure of the imperial court and financial difficulties, the idea of Hua Ling was started. First of all, Guangzhou foreign merchants Wu Chongyao and Pan Shicheng were given flowers and plumes for serving the imperial court for more than 100,000 taels of silver, which was a temporary glory; Xianfeng 9th year (1859) even set up a charter for donating plumes, 7,000 taels of silver can be exchanged for a peacock tail hair, clearly worth the real price, never discounted. As soon as this wind opened, the value of the flowers and plumes natural rivers and rivers fell until the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
Once a system becomes a business, no matter how good the original intention is, it must be smashed.
Excerpt from | Leadership Digest, August 2021
Source of the manuscript | "The Great Righteousness of Food and Clothing"
The author of this article | Wang Lang
Responsible Editor | Xiao Yuan
WeChat Editor | Late note