What was the real reason why Emperor Yongzheng built the Qingxi Mausoleum?
At the beginning of Yongzheng's accession to the throne, due to his unstable foothold, he was able to resist murderous intentions against several hostile princes at first. As he adopted a series of overt or covert means to gradually weaken the power of the princes and nobles and strengthen his personal dictatorial power, his insidiousness and viciousness were unstoppably exposed. After Yongzheng ascended the throne, he never forgot the serious threat posed to him by the emperor's fourteenth son Yun, who had a large number of soldiers. He managed to recall Yun from the northwest army to the capital, first detained him, and then sent him to Changrui Mountain to guard Xiaoling and Jingling. Yun's post of General Fuyuan was changed to Nian Gengyao. Yun, who openly expressed great hatred for Yongzheng in Changchun Garden, was arrested because he and Yun continued to spread the rumors that the fourth elder brother had collaborated with Longkodo to murder his father Kangxi and usurp the throne. Yongzheng himself was the second one. They were renamed Aqina and Seth Hei (meaning pig and dog in Manchu) respectively, and were sent to the border areas. In the end, both of them died unexpectedly. When the hostile princes were killed, exiled, or sent to garrison, and thus lost the ability to resist, Yongzheng began to point his sword at Longkoduo and Nian Gengyao. The fundamental reason for this is of course that the two of them know too many secrets. Now that the era of these two people as the mainstay has passed, allowing them to continue to hold power or survive will become a huge danger and potential threat. As a result, Longkodo was quickly sentenced to 41 major crimes and permanently imprisoned, and Nian Gengyao was sentenced to 92 major crimes and arrested.
Although Yongzheng carried out a series of actions of killing brothers and slaughtering brothers and cooking rabbits to death and dogs after he came to the throne, rumors from the opposition about his conspiracy still kept coming and going and never stopped. Among the many legends about his conspiracy to usurp the throne, the most famous one is that Kangxi left a posthumous edict to pass on the throne to the fourteenth son during his lifetime, but Yongzheng changed ten to Yu, thus turning it into the fourth son. As these legends spread, an undercurrent of opposition to the Qing Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty was mysteriously set off among the people. Yongzheng was naturally very annoyed and uneasy when he heard these rumors. Later, he used the anti-Qing case of Lu Liuliang, a folk scholar, to create a literary inquisition to attack the rumor makers and anti-Qing forces. Yongzheng himself also wrote the book "Dayi Jue Mi Lu" to cover up and defend his conspiracy, words and deeds, and tampered with and smeared historical facts in many aspects.
On the night of August 23rd, the 13th year of Yongzheng's reign (1735), Yongzheng, who had gone through all the troubles and risks to steal the throne, had just been emperor for 13 years
He died in the Old Summer Palace and was later buried in the Tailing Underground Palace in Yizhou.
As for the cause of Yongzheng's death, there is no record in the history books and it is kept secret, so it inevitably arouses doubts and there are many rumors. There are rumors from the people that Lu Siniang assassinated him and cut off Yongzheng's head and took him away. When the officials buried him, they cast a gold head and placed it on Yongzheng's body, so that the body was buried. . One was that he died of poisoning. In the afternoon of that day, Yongzheng was discussing matters with his officials in the Old Summer Palace. In the evening, he suddenly fell ill and died.
The Yongzheng Dynasty established a secret heirloom system.
The emperor kept the chosen heir apparent secretly during his lifetime, and hid the edict of succession in the brocade box behind the large and bright plaque in the Qianqing Palace. . After Yongzheng's death, the eunuch in charge went to the Qianqing Palace to take down the secret box and read it immediately. It was that the fourth son of the emperor, Hongli, was the crown prince and succeeded me as the emperor. At this time, the fourth son of the emperor, Hongli, and others had heard the news and rushed to the palace. They immediately followed the imperial edict and ordered Prince Zhuang Yunlu, Prince Guo Yunli, scholar Ertai, and Zhang Tingyu to be the four assistant ministers. It was agreed that the reign of Emperor Qianlong would be changed next year. After Emperor Qianlong ascended the throne, he did not inquire into the cause of Yongzheng's violent death. Later dynasties kept this secret secret and could not examine it in detail. Since there are no precise records in Qing history, various opinions can only be regarded as rumors or family opinions. As for completely solving this unsolved case or seeing with your own eyes whether Yongzheng was buried with his whole body covered with gold heads, the truth can only be revealed by opening the Tailing Tomb of Yongzheng himself. The origin of Tailing itself is another historical mystery.
Regarding this mystery, folk rumors are that Yongzheng changed the imperial edict from Changchun Garden to seize his direct descendants, conspired to usurp the throne, and then killed his brothers and brothers. He could not help but feel guilty and was afraid of being punished by the late Emperor Kangxi after his death. The crime and punishment were reduced, so he decided to choose another mausoleum site, but ignored the ancestral system and went to Yizhou to build a mausoleum. Kangxi, who was hundreds of miles away, had nothing to do with him.
In fact, since the Qing Dynasty entered the customs and the emperors and concubines of the Shunzhi and Kangxi dynasties built mausoleums at the foot of Changrui Mountain east of the capital, they created the Zhaomu tradition of burying sons with their fathers and inheriting from their ancestors. system. Zhaomu is an ancient patriarchal system, with the order of ancestral temples. The ancestor lives in the temple. The following father and son are called Zhaomu, the one on the left is Zhao, and the one on the right is Mu. If the father is Zhao, the son will be Mu; if the father is Mu, the son will be Zhao. This method is also used for the left and right order of burial places in cemeteries. As early as the ancient book "Zhou Li", there was a normative description of the burial of the ancestors in the middle, with Zhaomu as the left and right.
After Yongzheng ascended the throne, as the political power continued to stabilize, he began to think of building a mausoleum. In the fourth year of Yongzheng (1726), Yunxiang, Zhang Tingyu and officials from the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were ordered to handle the mausoleum affairs. Yunxiang and other officials led the magicians to first choose an auspicious place at the foot of Changrui Mountain in Malanyu, but they did not choose a suitable place. Later, Jiufeng Chaoyang Mountain was selected, which is not far from Xiaoling and Jingling. It has good Feng Shui and got Yongzheng's approval. However, later, the ministers and warlocks who were proficient in surveying repeatedly considered it and believed that although Jiufeng Chaoyang Mountain was large in scale, its shape was not complete, and the soil in the cave was filled with sand and gravel, so it was not usable. Therefore, Yongzheng abandoned the mausoleum site and asked his officials to investigate again. However, for some unknown reason, this group of officials could not find a good point for a long time, and for some unknown reason, Yongzheng began to order Prince Yi Yunxiang and Han minister Gao Qizhuo to abandon the east of the capital and go to the mountains southwest of the capital. Divination. After Yunxiang and others were ordered to do so, they went to Taiping Valley in Yizhou and discovered an auspicious place for ten thousand years in the Xinglongzhuang area after many surveys. They returned to the palace and tried their best to recommend it to Yongzheng. According to Yunxiang and others, this place is bordered by Yiyun Mountain to the west, Taining Mountain to the north, hilly land to the east, and Yishui River to the south. It can be called: an area where heaven and earth gather together, a place where the rising sun meets, and a dragon cave sand. Stone, there is nothing beautiful about it. The situation is in order and everything is well prepared. After Yongzheng read the memorial, he also believed that this place is a mountain water method with detailed structure and is a good land. However, choosing the site for the mausoleum here would obviously violate the system of a son being buried with his father. He could not express his opinion immediately. He only said that although the place was beautiful, it was hundreds of miles away from his father's Jingling Mausoleum and his grandfather's Xiaoling Mausoleum. Can't bear it. But privately, it is hinting that the officials are looking for evidence and excuses for themselves. The ministers understood it and quickly cited scriptures and found a lot of evidence that seemed reasonable. Yunxiang and other academicians reported that although the tombs of the Han and Tang dynasties were all built in Shaanxi, the tombs of Emperor Gaozu of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, Emperor Jing and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty were distributed in Xianyang, Chang'an, Gaoling, and Xingping counties. The tombs of Gaozong and Xuanzong are scattered in Sanyuan, Liquan, Qianxian, Pucheng and other places. According to this code, building a mausoleum in Yizhou is not inconsistent with ancient rituals. Moreover, both Zunhua and Yizhou belong to Jifu, not far from the capital, so they can definitely build mausoleums. The ministers lived up to their high expectations and cited scriptures to successfully implement Yongzheng's intention. In the eighth year of Yongzheng's reign (1730), the construction of the Tailing Mausoleum in Yizhou began. It was completed in the second year of Qianlong's reign (1737). On March 2 of the same year, Emperor Yongzheng's Zi Palace was buried in the Tailing Underground Palace. At this point, the funeral norms of the Zhaomu system followed by the Qing Dynasty after entering the customs were easily broken by Yongzheng, and history took a silent turn here. After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the emperor's tombs began to be divided into two major mausoleum areas based on the capital. Those are the Eastern Tombs of the Qing Dynasty located near Malanyu in Zunhua County, east of Beijing, and the Western Tombs of the Qing Dynasty, located in Yi County, west of Beijing.