Five Han people in the Qing Dynasty were named dukes, and only one was hereditary
In July of the third year of Tongzhi, the Hunan army led by Zeng Guofan successfully conquered Tianjing, ending the 14-year Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement. This good news shocked the government and the opposition in the capital, and the Empress Dowager Cixi immediately issued a decree to confer Zeng Guofan as the crown prince and the hereditary replacement of the first-class marquis, and rewarded him with dazzling feathers as a reward.
Zeng Guofan's suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was a feat for the Qing Dynasty"Bring the dead back to life", even if it is a county king, it is well deserved, and Emperor Xianfeng made a promise when he was alive"Those who capture Jinling are crowned kings"。
However, the imperial court did not fulfill its promise, not only did it not confer the title of king, but also did not grant it a duke. This is not difficult to understand, because the Han people have been crowned kings for a long time, and even after the Qianlong Dynasty, they have not been given to Han dukes.
Moreover, judging from the situation in the Qing Dynasty, there was only one person who was awarded the title of duke and could keep the title and pass it on to his descendants.
How many Han Chinese were made dukes in the Qing Dynasty? How did they end? The number of people with different surnames in the Qing Dynasty who were made dukes was not large, adding up to no more than a hundred, and even fewer Han Chinese who received this honor.
From the early years of the Qing Dynasty to the Qianlong period, a total of five Han Chinese were made dukes, in chronological order: Huang Wu, Duke of Haicheng, Bai Wenxuan, Duke of Chengen, Chen Fu, Duke of Haicheng, Zheng Keshuang, Duke of Haicheng, and Yue Zhongqi, Duke of Weixin, and Sun Shiyi, Duke of Mouyong, First Class.
Huang Wu, a native of Zhangzhou, Fujian, was a subordinate of Zheng Chenggong and guarded Haicheng. In the thirteenth year of Shunzhi, he led the people to surrender to the Qing court, and the Shunzhi Emperor ordered him to be named the Duke of Haicheng because of his merits, and still let him lead his troops to garrison Haicheng County.
In the Shunzhi and Kangxi dynasties, Huang Wu made a lot of military exploits, and he also persuaded many of Zheng Chenggong's old subordinates, making great contributions to the unification of the Central Plains by the Qing court.
In the seventeenth year of Shunzhi, Huang Wu was promoted to the crown prince.
In the sixth year of Kangxi, the emperor was in power, and the generals of the former Ming Dynasty received many rewards, and many Han people were awarded high-level titles such as marquis and earl, and some people were even able to inherit these titles.
Huang Wu was dissatisfied with this, because when Emperor Shunzhi gave him the Duke of Haicheng, he did not explain the rank of this duke, nor did he stipulate that he could be hereditary. As a result, Huang Wu submitted a note to the imperial court, requesting a clear statement.
In the end, Emperor Kangxi issued an order to promote the Duke of Huang Wu to the first class and allowed hereditary 12 times, which can be regarded as hereditary. However, Huang Wu's son Huang Fangdu was killed by Zheng Jing's subordinates shortly after serving as a first-class duke, and the whole family was spared.
Emperor Kangxi posthumously bestowed Huang Fangdu with the title of county king, and passed the position of first-class Duke of Haicheng to Huang Fangshi, the son of Huang Wu's brother. From then on, this dukedom remained in place until the end of the Qing Dynasty.
Bai Wenxuan and Chen Fu: Brave Anti-Qing Generals and Converts to the Qing Court Bai Wenxuan and Chen Fu, two Shaanxi generals, left a deep imprint on the historical stage of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
Bai Wenxuan followed Zhang Xianzhong, Li Dingguo, and Sun Kewang to resist the Qing Dynasty in his early years, and was known as the "lame general", and even Hao Ge and Wu Sangui praised him. However, in the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, Bai Wenxuan led the people to surrender to the Qing court and became an important general of the Qing court.
Chen Fu was born in the former Ming Dynasty, and during the Shunzhi Dynasty, he suppressed the remnants of the peasant army with the Qing army in Shaanxi and Sichuan, and gradually rose from the general of the grassroots level to the governor of Shaanxi.
However, the fates of Bai Wenxuan and Chen Fu were very different. After Bai Wenxuan's death, his son was demoted to inherit the marquis, and although Chen Fu's status rose, after his son, the marquis was also suspended.
The stories of Bai Wenxuan and Chen Fu tell us that although people's choices and fates may be different in different historical periods, their courage and loyalty are worthy of our admiration.
During the Kangxi period, Chen Fu bravely resisted the enemy in order to quell the rebellion of the three feudatories, but the lack of military pay caused the morale of the army to waver, and Chen Fu was killed. In recognition of his merits, Emperor Kangxi gave him the title of third-class duke, and stipulated that his descendants could inherit it nine times.
Emperor Qianlong ordered that if the descendants of Chen Fu inherited the third-class son expired, he would be given a hereditary replacement of the knights. Zheng Keshuang became famous, he was the successor to King Yanping, but his power was actually in the hands of Feng Xifan.
In the Battle of Penghu, Shi Lang defeated Liu Guoxuan and others, and soon Shi Lang entered Taiwan and surrendered, Zheng Keshuang, Feng Xifan, Liu Guoxuan and others all surrendered to the Qing court. After the surrender, Zheng Keshuang was sent to Beijing, where he was subordinate to the Han Army Zhenghongqi and was awarded the title of Duke of Haicheng.
Although the Qing court's treatment of him was not harsh, he was a duke in name only, only a man with no real power, and lived under the surveillance of the Qing court all his life.
After his death, the Duke of Haicheng was stripped of his title.
Yue Zhongqi, the twenty-first grandson of the famous general Yue Fei, has been in the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong dynasties, and was named the third-class prestige prince and the crown prince. He followed the general Wang Yinyu to quell the rebellion of Dzungar Tselu Alabutan, and followed the general Nian Qianyao of Fuyuan to quell the rebellion of Luobzang Danjin in Qinghai.
After Nian Qianyao was liquidated, Yue Zhongqi took over as the governor of Sichuan and Shaanxi, holding heavy troops. However, six years after Yongzheng, he was suspicious of the emperor, coupled with the calculation of the Minister of Military Aircraft Ortai, the official positions of the third-class duke and the crown prince were reduced to a third-class marquis.
Later, Yue Zhongqi was sentenced to be beheaded and demoted to a concubine, until the thirteenth year of Qianlong, when the imperial court countered the rebellion of Dajinchuan and suffered a setback, he remembered this veteran who had lived idle for many years. Since then, Yue Zhongqi has participated in many battles and made many achievements.
In the Qianlong Dynasty, ministers with both civil and military skills emerged one after another. Among them, Yue Zhongqi, as a "giant warrior of the Three Dynasties", made great achievements in the campaign to conquer the cult Chen Kun, and was praised as a "heroic man" by Emperor Qianlong, and was given a blessing of diligence.
However, in terms of knighthood, he did not receive any substantial honors. And Sun Shiyi, as a native of Renhe, Zhejiang, is not only a civilian official, but also has served as a governor many times abroad, and has profound attainments in military affairs.
In several important battles of the Qianlong Dynasty, he played a key role, such as Taiwan's Lin Shuangwen uprising, as the governor of Liangguang, he assisted Fukangan in the campaign, and after the war, he was crowned the crown prince and Taibao for his military merits, and was also rewarded with the rank of first-class light car lieutenant.
During the Qianlong period, Sun Shiyi once again made great achievements in the war between Annam and Gurkha, and the imperial court decreed that the image of his hero be painted in the Ziguang Pavilion and promoted to the scholar of Wenyuan Pavilion.
Sixty years later, he was again honored for his praise of the Miao Rebellion, and was promoted to the rank of baron. In the first year of Jiaqing, the White Lotus Rebellion broke out, and in June of the same year, Sun Shiyi died in the army.
He made outstanding achievements in his life, and after his death, Emperor Qianlong posthumously awarded him as a first-class brave man. During his lifetime, Sun Shiyi asked to join the banner, and Qianlong agreed to his request and let him join the Han army.
However, Sun Shiyi had a close relationship with He Shen, so when Jiaqing was liquidating He Shen, Sun Shiyi was also implicated, his duke was taken away, and his descendants were forced to raise the flag and return to their hometown.
In the Qing Dynasty, it was quite difficult for the Han people to be crowned dukes, and the imperial court was the strictest in guarding against the Han people. Although they were made dukes, it did not necessarily mean a good thing, as they could suffer disasters as a result.
Among the Han people of the Qing Dynasty, only Yue Zhongqi and Sun Shiyi were actually named dukes for their military exploits, and except for Huang Wu, the honor of the other four people who were named dukes was not passed on to future generations.
Finally, it should be emphasized that although the Kong family in Qufu, Shandong Province has inherited the title of Yanshenggong for generations, the title of Yanshenggong has existed in the Song Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty only followed the old system.
Therefore, this example is beyond the scope of our discussion.