Forty years of Qianlong, 1774 AD.
This year, Emperor Qianlong was in a good mood.
After seven years of fighting, the Battle of Jinchuan has already won a decisive victory, and the day of final pacification is not far off. Although there are only tens of thousands of people in Jinchuan, they are extremely powerful, with the help of terrain and strong watchtowers, the Qing army has lost several times on the front line, the battle situation can not be opened, and Wen Fu and other generals died. Emperor Qianlong killed Zhang Guangsi, Neqin, Altai and other generals in a fit of rage. The embarrassed Qianlong Emperor had to change the front-line commander several times, and invested 600,000 troops before and after, killing more than 30,000 people before finally quelling the rebellion. And this time the cost of the war was particularly heavy, costing as much as 70 million taels, about two years of the country's income.
Later, when Qianlong evaluated his ten perfect martial arts, he listed the battle of Jinchuan as the second.
The military exploits are only one aspect, on the other side, the Qing Kingdom at this time is peaceful.
Agriculture, handicrafts and commerce have developed by a large margin in all regions of the country. The area of cultivated land expanded, and in the 31st year of Qianlong (1766), the land that had been reclaimed in the country reached 7800 million mu, at that time, this was the highest value in history; The population surged, and the national population was about 1 in the early years of Qianlong400 million people, by the 40th year of Qianlong, the population has exceeded 200 million, just the increase has exceeded the national population in the heyday of the Ming Dynasty; The treasury is full, and the silver of the store is kept for a long time.
Between 60 and 70 million taels, it is almost twice the total annual tax revenue of the country, and the financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty at the beginning did not show any signs in the 40 years of Qianlong.
In terms of arable land, population, and fiscal surplus, they are all at the highest value in history, and Emperor Qianlong does have proud capital. But all this is not without hidden worries, for example, the year before, that is, on August 28, the 39th year of Qianlong (1774), Wang Lun, a party shopkeeper in Shouzhang County, Shandong, used the White Lotus Sect to mobilize the people and hold an armed uprising.
This Wang Lun is a fine fist, good at medical skills, he is thoughtful, heroic, and never charges a penny for treatment, and gradually gained a certain prestige, and gradually gathered a group of people. Wang Lun gave his subordinates talisman spells in an attempt to rebel against Qing rule. In the 39th year of Qianlong, Shouzhang County and other places had a poor harvest, and the magistrates imposed additional levies, and the people were dissatisfied, and Wang Lun took the opportunity to gather the followers to rise up. After the uprising broke out, the Qing army was taken by surprise, and the rebels quickly occupied several county towns and blocked the Grand Canal. Qianlong killed two general soldiers and sent a large army to exterminate them, but the rebel army was quickly defeated.
Emperor Qianlong didn't understand that these people were not hungry people, so why did they rebel?
It seems that there are still many people who are unhappy in their hearts and want to oppose the Qing Dynasty.
The writing of the Qing Dynasty went through four dynasties, but the most serious period was the beginning of the 39th year of Qianlong, until the 53rd year of Qianlong, and in this 14 years, the whole country was in panic. Not only are the poems such as "Qingfeng is illiterate, why do you flip through the books randomly" and "Seek thieves for me" have been dealt with, but even some illiterate farmers will incur great disasters because of an irrelevant book handed down by their ancestors.
But this tense atmosphere is not allowed to be recorded. At that time, because many words were dangerous, readers did not dare to use them at all, such as "Hu", "Yu", "Yi", "Di", etc., which were often blank spaces in all kinds of books. After Qianlong found out, he was very angry, you scholars, doing this, it is clear that I, the emperor, are engaged in high-pressure ZC, so he ordered again:
The people of this dynasty published and wrote books, and the words Hu Lu Yi Di and other words were often blank, and some of them were changed to Yi and Lu to Lu, and there were many such situations. The original intention is nothing more than a taboo for the sake of the dynasty, in order to show the author's respect, but in fact, I don't know that this practice itself is quite disrespectful. The Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties were constantly in flames, often referring to countries that could not be surrendered. I originally lived in Manchuria on the shores of the East China Sea, and it would be a big mistake to say that the people of Dongyi were omnipotent, and it would be a big mistake to say that they were captives. Now that the whole world is full of subjects of the Qing Dynasty, and even the poor and remote people can't bear to regard them as captives, how can they add the word captives to the Manchurians? In short, the Qing Dynasty inherited the mandate of heaven, unified the country, China and foreign countries, and the upper and lower were one, and all ethnic groups within the territory were not allowed to discriminate against each other. From now on, all writing and engraving books must not be arbitrarily avoided and changed in space as before, otherwise they will be punished with great disrespect.
After reading this passage said by Qianlong, I realized that in Qianlong's place, this is not the text Y, it is a Chinese and foreign family, and the upper and lower levels are one, and they are equal.
The atmosphere at that time is difficult for us to know today, because Qianlong is also erasing all traces, and today we can only feel the tension of that day in some diaries and notes left by private individuals.
The scholars of the Ming Dynasty, if anyone suffered the emperor's court staff, then the status of the civil officials will rise sharply, if anyone is killed because of disobedience and disagreement, it will immediately become a star-studded figure, such as: Yang Jisheng, Yang Lian, etc.
Therefore, Fang Zhiyuan, an expert in Ming history, said: The more the scholars of the Ming Dynasty were punished by the imperial court, the more they were praised, so they were more high-spirited; In addition to *** and corruption and perversion of the law, the scholars of the Qing Dynasty were less punished, but not the mercy of the supreme ruler, but the "death" of the scholars. The backbone of Chinese intellectuals was actually broken in the Qing Dynasty. From the perspective of maintaining social stability, the Qing Dynasty has reference significance; However, from the perspective of advocating freedom, openness and social development, it seems that the Ming Dynasty was more open-minded.
The expert said this very politely.
In the Qing Dynasty, the scholars did not fight, not because they did not fight, but because the Qing Dynasty really killed, one by one.
In the forty years of Qianlong, that is, in 1774 AD, on the other side of the world, gunshots rang out in Lexington, and the American Revolutionary War officially began.
It was also in this year that Rousseau published his ** "On the Basis and Origin of Human Inequality", in which he wrote: People have become accustomed to a life of dependence, comfort, and comfort, and can no longer break the shackles on their bodies, and in order to maintain their own peace, they prefer to wear heavier shackles.