Indeed, the twelve emperors of the Qing Dynasty did not have a traditional understanding of the bad king.

The twelve emperors of the Qing Dynasty made great achievements, and the mediocre Daoguang became Guangxu, a puppet. ......

Just no bad king.

Even Daoguang, who signed the unequal treaty "treaty of nanking" that humiliated the country and humiliated the country, said that he was mediocre and incompetent, but you said that he lost his head, which is really something to say.

As far as personal conduct is concerned, Daoguang was by no means a bad king among emperors in Qing Dynasty and even in China, let alone a greedy, violent and dissolute king. On the contrary, his "frugality" has been praised by historians, and he is one of the most frugal emperors of all ages. He is also diligent in governing court officials. If Daoguang is measured according to the traditional moral standards of feudal society, he is probably a king of virtue.

Later, Emperor Guangxu was completely overhead by Empress Dowager Cixi from the moment he ascended the throne and became a puppet emperor.

But he never gave up his self-improvement, thinking about how to revive the Qing Dynasty every day, instead of indulging in debauchery, learning the way of governing the country on time every day, and marking all the dispensable memorials (all the important memorials were given to Cixi for marking).

Immediately after the pro-government, Guangxu began to use the reformists and began a vigorous one-hundred-day reform. Puppet emperors can do this in Guangxu, never giving up self-improvement for decades, and performing the duties of emperors day by day for decades, which is rare in the world.

Many people will wonder why there were no bad emperors in the Qing Dynasty.

Looking at the daily work arrangements of the Qing emperors, we can actually know why there were no bad emperors in the twelve emperors of the Qing Dynasty.

The life of the Qing emperor continued the Manchu habit before entering the customs, going to bed early and getting up early, doing things at sunrise and resting at sunset.

The Qing emperor would get up from the warm bed at 3 o'clock at the earliest and dress up under the service of maids and eunuchs. According to the activities to be attended in the future, wear different crown clothes, such as formal clothes, royal clothes, regular clothes, rain clothes or traveling clothes, wear different clothes, such as formal clothes for sacrifice and royal clothes for the meeting, and then braid your hair.

It is worth mentioning that in many Qing dynasty dramas, there are many young ladies waiting beside the emperor, which is actually inconsistent with historical facts.

Emperors in the Qing Dynasty mostly used maids of 40-50 years old instead of young maids. Most of these maids have the following characteristics: older, childless and widowed.

The reason why the Qing emperor didn't use young maids was to prevent the emperor from being confused by beauty and wasting state affairs. So he used those spinsters. History has proved that this ancestral system is really effective, and there were lecherous emperors in North Korea in the Qing Dynasty.

In addition, before Yongzheng, the Qing emperor lived in Gan Qing Palace. After Yongzheng, because Yongzheng lived in hall of mental cultivation for a long time, it became a custom for his later Qing emperors to choose to live in hall of mental cultivation.

Why did Yongzheng choose to live in hall of mental cultivation instead of Gan Qing Palace?

First, Yongzheng was afraid of seeing things and thinking about people. When Kangxi was alive, he lived in Gan Qing Palace most of the time. Yongzheng lived here and was afraid of feeling sorry for himself.

Second, the bodies of Emperor Shunzhi and Emperor Kangxi were parked in Gan Qing Palace. Yongzheng was an emperor deeply influenced by China culture. Living in the room where the body is parked, he has some bad feelings in his heart.

Third, living in hall of mental cultivation is much more convenient than living in Gan Qing Palace.

Hall of mental cultivation is located on the west side of the southern edge of Neiting District, with Liu Xi Palace (the residence of the emperor's wives and concubines, including Yongshou Palace, Yikun Palace, Palace of Gathered Elegance Palace, Xianfu Palace, Changchun Palace Palace and Qixiang Palace) in the north, the royal kitchen and warehouse in the south, and Yuehuamen across the street from Gan Qing Palace in the east. It is closely connected with the three halls (Taihe Hall, Zhonghe Hall and Baohe Hall) and Cining Palace.

After Yongzheng, the Ministry of War, as the power center of the Qing Dynasty, was also located outside the right door on the south side of hall of mental cultivation, close at hand.

It can be said that it is much more convenient for the Qing emperor to live in hall of mental cultivation, both in life and politics, than in Gan Qing Palace.

After waking up from Gan Qing Palace or hall of mental cultivation, under the service of ladies-in-waiting and eunuchs, the Qing emperor dressed neatly and greeted them with breakfast.

Before Kangxi, because the earliest time to go to the early court was 5 o'clock, the emperors before Kangxi did not eat breakfast in the morning and went directly to the early court. If they are hungry, drink a bowl of soup to fill their stomachs temporarily.

After Kangxi, the time of the early court was changed to 7: 00 to 8: 00, so that the emperor had time to have breakfast and then went to court.

Unlike we have three meals a day now, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty had two meals a day, breakfast at 6 am and dinner at 2 pm. If they are hungry at noon, they ask someone to prepare some tea and snacks.

In addition, before going to bed at night, if you are hungry, you can also have some refreshments.

Similarly, there are some mistakes in today's Qing palace drama about the Qing emperor's eating. The most obvious mistake is that when the emperor eats, there are always concubines or the emperor's daughters at the dinner table. In fact, the Qing emperors always ate at the dinner table alone.

In the ancestral system of the Qing Dynasty, whether it was early or late, the Qing emperor brought a total of 48 kinds of staple foods for each meal, half for eating and half for himself.

Looking at food means looking at it but not eating it. For example, the "sacrificial meat" used for sacrifice is to kill two pigs and cut a plate of meat every day. This dish is mostly just for eating, not eating. Just let the emperor know that it is difficult for ancestors to start a business there.

The emperor ate mostly nourishing meat and seasonal dishes. All the dishes are no different from those used outside the palace. The only difference is that they are more delicate, but they may not taste as good as those outside the palace.

At the same time, the emperors of the Qing Dynasty seldom ate seafood, including fish. Because the emperors of the Qing Dynasty were all Manchu, although they were sinicized after entering the customs, they still retained strong customs and characteristics in their diet, and they liked to eat game, such as venison, roe deer, pheasant and wild duck.

The meat of livestock is mostly mutton, followed by beef and little pork. Ducks are the most common poultry, followed by geese and then chickens.

Of course, in terms of diet, there is one exception of the Qing emperor, that is Daoguang.

As a rare thrifty emperor in feudal times, Daoguang ignored the precedent of his ancestors during his reign and ordered that each meal should not exceed four courses, and sometimes even needed a bowl of tofu to burn pork liver.

Although the emperor of the Qing Dynasty was the God of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, he also had many rules on diet. Because of the ancestral system, they dare not resist and can only listen honestly.

Every time I eat, there will be eunuchs around the Qing emperor. In addition to helping the emperor with food, these eunuchs also had a task, that is, once the emperor took food twice, he immediately removed it and never allowed the emperor to be greedy.

One of the reasons why the Qing emperor established such a system was that he was afraid of being poisoned by the emperor. After all, it is very dangerous for the emperor to know that he especially likes to eat a dish, and if it is tampered with by people with ulterior motives.

The second is to prevent the emperor from overeating. Eating too much is easy to hurt his health. The health of the emperor is related to the country.

Because the patriarchal clan system of the Qing Dynasty strictly controlled the emperor's dinner, young emperors often didn't have enough to eat.

Puyi said in "My First Half Life": I was hungry and grabbed something to eat in the eunuch's room. I grabbed an elbow and stuffed it into my mouth desperately.

In addition, the recipes of the Qing emperors were basically fixed and passed down from generation to generation, basically unchanged, except for 47 kinds of staple food, 47 kinds of hot pot, 59 kinds of hot dishes and 26 kinds of soup, and the cooking methods were basically the same.

In this way, if the emperor is tired of eating, he can only order it himself.

As the saying goes, "the king rules the world and eats the world." In many people's minds, the emperor must be omnipotent. He can do whatever he wants and eat whatever he wants. Not as long as he can get everything in the world.

Daoguang wanted to order a dish called "noodle soup", but he didn't eat it.

Daoguang told the Ministry of Internal Affairs the idea of ordering noodle soup, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs replied that Daoguang had to build a special noodle soup stove in the imperial chef first, which required 62,000 yuan, and then invited the chef who specialized in noodle soup to wait 1.5 million, and collected at least 82,000 yuan.

Daoguang, as one of the most stingy emperors, said it was so expensive that you didn't have to go to the restaurant outside the front door to spend 40 pence on a big bowl. Unexpectedly, the eunuch refused to buy it, saying that the restaurant selling noodle soup was closed.

I don't know if I can close the door, but Daoguang must have no noodles to eat. If he wants to eat, he can only ask the master to cook it in the royal kitchen at a high price. But for Daoguang, he is really distressed to spend this money, so Daoguang is doomed to eat it.

Daoguang has no temper about this, so he can only sigh: "I have never wasted public funds for my appetite, but I am the son of heaven, and I can't drink a mouthful of soup even if I think about it."

Nowadays, when talking about the Qing Dynasty, the emperor sits in the hall of Gan Qing Palace and then discusses state affairs with important officials of North Korea.

However, in fact, the interpretation in film and television dramas is wrong, which is just a joke. The Qing emperor went to the early dynasty not to dry the Qing palace, but to another place.

In the early Qing dynasty, the emperor had a technical term-listening to politics at the imperial gate.

The original site of "Imperial Gate Listening to Politics" in Qing Dynasty was Taihe Gate (the largest palace gate in the Forbidden City and the main entrance of the Forbidden City).

However, because Taihe Gate was far away from Gan Qing Palace where several emperors lived in the early Qing Dynasty, it was really inconvenient to travel, so Kangxi changed it to Gan Qing Gate (the main palace gate of the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden City, and later the living quarters of the Empress Dowager, concubines, princes and princesses), which became a custom.

Therefore, the imperial gate listens to politics, also known as "dry and clear the door to listen to politics."

At first, Huangmen began to listen to politics in Shi Mao, that is, from 5 am to 7 am.

For ministers, it takes more than two hours to get home from the Forbidden City, or riding a horse, sitting in a sedan chair, or walking, waiting for the announcement outside the noon gate, and then walking to Ganqing Gate. It is normal for them to stay away from the Forbidden City for at least three hours.

In other words, if officials want to arrive at Ganqingmen on time, they must get up at 3 o'clock at the latest, otherwise they will never arrive at Ganqingmen in the early hours of the morning. In feudal times, being late in the morning was a felony.

Get up at two or three o'clock. If summer is fine, winter will be very painful. Getting up at two or three o'clock in cold weather is a torment for young officials, not to mention elderly officials.

In this way, it is quite considerate of Kangxi, a courtier. He couldn't bear to involve his courtiers so much, so he made a very humanized law:

"I arrived at the court too early, and all the officials were rushing to the court meeting in April and May, which was exhausting. From then on, I listened to the government every day, the beginning of spring and summer, the beginning of autumn and winter. "

It means that starting from today, the court time in spring and summer will be delayed by one hour and changed to 7 o'clock. It will be launched in two hours in autumn and winter, and will be launched at 8 o'clock instead. Since then, Yumen's time to listen to politics has been set at 7: 00 to 8: 00.

Of course, although the time has been delayed, it is still a "hard job" to listen to politics in Ganqingmen. Listening to politics with an open doorway is easier said than done in summer. It's a little hotter at most, and it's hard to endure it in winter.

In winter, water drops turned into ice, and the emperor sat in the cave and was chilled by the cold wind. Although there will be a curtain behind the throne to resist the cold wind and two charcoal fire boxes in front, whether it is cold or not, the charcoal fire boxes and the curtain are useless at all.

At that time, in order to prevent the emperor from approving ink to freeze, the Ministry of Internal Affairs specially made a warm inkstone for the emperor. Below the inkstone is a cloisonne iron box. Boiling water is injected to heat the inkstone to prevent the ink from freezing and the pen from opening.

With these things in court, many people will have such questions:

When the Qing emperor went to the early dynasty, did he speak Manchu or Chinese?

As we all know, the Qing Dynasty was a country founded by ethnic minorities. The emperor of the Qing Dynasty was Manchu, and the ministers of the Qing Dynasty were mostly Manchu and Han.

In the early Qing dynasty, most of the court officials who were qualified to go to court were Manchu, so in the early days, the Qing emperor spoke Manchu in court, and a few Han officials who were qualified to go to court also had to learn to speak Manchu.

After Shunzhi entered the customs, with the Han officials gradually occupying the majority in the court, and the Qing dynasty had to actively integrate into the Chinese culture if it wanted to rule the majority with the minority, Chinese gradually became the special language of the Qing emperor in the court.

By the Yongzheng dynasty, most of the Qing Dynasty spoke Chinese in the imperial court. Only when summoned in private will the emperor serve food to people. When you need to speak Manchu, you must speak Chinese, mainly depending on the identity of the official and the content of the broadcast.

Because of the need of rule, every emperor in the Qing Dynasty had to master Manchu and Chinese at the same time from Shunzhi's entry into the customs. Every prince in the Qing dynasty received two kinds of education, including Manchu and Han.

Manchu masters mainly teach Manchu and martial arts riding and shooting, while Han masters teach Chinese and culture.

By the way, the education of emperors in Qing Dynasty was the strictest in China's feudal era. The educational system of the Qing emperor has the following remarkable characteristics:

First, the school age is early, and the prince will enter the Shangshu room (study room) at the age of six;

Second, the class time is early, and the prince will appear in the study on time every day (3-5 o'clock) and start reading early;

Third, there are many learning contents, besides Confucian classics, we should also learn Chinese, Mongolian, Manchu, riding and shooting, chess, calligraphy and painting, etc.

Fourth, strict requirements, the Qing emperor will raid the prince's study at any time. Once he fails, he will be reprimanded or punished.

As A Qing Zhao Yi said, "The strictness of the family law in this dynasty, that is, the fact that the prince is studying, has never been seen before."

The reason why the Qing emperors couldn't get rid of the bad king was because they were strictly educated since childhood.

Although strict education can't completely guarantee that every generation of Qing emperors have strong abilities, it can basically guarantee the lower limit of emperors' abilities, that is, at least not to faint, to handle state affairs normally and to be a king who controls himself.

After the imperial gate listened to politics, the next thing to meet the Qing emperor was learning.

The emperor of the Qing dynasty can be said to be the most diligent emperor in feudal times.

Before he became an emperor, as a prince, he had to get up early every day and study in the dark. When you become an emperor, you still can't relax, but you have to continue studying. This is the so-called "speaking at a banquet"

Since Kangxi, the Qing emperor has chosen his inner minister to advance, telling Chinese studies and Confucian classics every day, and holding a grand exchange ceremony every few months.

Even when he became emperor, he took time out to study every day. No wonder the Qing emperor didn't have a bad king who ran amok and ignored political affairs.

Greeting the elders is the daily task of the Qing emperor, sometimes twice a day.

In terms of ability, there may be many emperors in the Qing dynasty who can't compare with other dynasties, but in terms of filial piety, few emperors in previous dynasties can compare with the emperors in the Qing dynasty.

For example, whenever Emperor Kangxi accompanied his grandmother, Empress Xiao Zhuang, to go out, whether by car or sedan chair, whether it was sunny or rainy, as long as the mountain road was rugged or the road was muddy, Kangxi would come down and personally hold the axle or sedan chair pole of Xiao Zhuang's axle.

At the same time, Kangxi took great care of his first mother, Empress Xiaohui, covering everything from personal life to people carrying sedan chairs.

Another example is Gan Long, who kept his promise to his mother, Empress Dowager Chongqing. Once, Chongqing inadvertently mentioned to people around it that an abandoned temple in the east of Shuntianfu was to be rebuilt. When Qianlong learned of this incident, he immediately sent money to repair the cover, and warned the eunuchs around the Queen Mother that they should see clearly in advance and not be assigned by the Queen Mother.

In addition, Qianlong traveled four times to the south, four times to the east, three times to Wutai, two times to Shengjing, one time to Zhongzhou, a trip to Dongling, and Mulan hunting, all of which were accompanied by the Queen Mother of Chongqing, always inseparable and filial. Every year, on the birthday of the Queen Mother of Chongqing, Gan Long will personally lead his ministers to salute and celebrate, and the celebration of the 60th, 70th and 80s will be more grand every time.

Dinner and breakfast are roughly the same, there is not much difference. The only difference may be that the food on the table is different from breakfast.

It is worth mentioning that the emperors of the Qing Dynasty also had the tradition of eating New Year's Eve, that is, there would be different New Year's Eve dinners. Because of the preparation of the New Year's Eve dinner, the official opening time of the New Year's Eve dinner will be postponed (16).

The Qing Dynasty's New Year's Eve dinner was held in Baohe Hall or Gan Qing Palace. The emperor has a table for one person, and a long pole is placed between the table and the emperor's throne. On the table, there is the emperor's royal meal. When the emperor was eating, the waiter eunuch took the food to the long bar for the emperor to eat.

Most of the food on the New Year's Eve dinner in Qing Dynasty is traditional Manchu food, and the ingredients used are mostly produced in the northeast of the ancestral land of Qing Dynasty, such as Kanto goose, wild pork, deer tail, venison and pheasant.

In addition to the emperor's dining table, there will be the Empress Dowager, concubines and granddaughters to accompany the emperor for dinner.

Compared with the 63 hot and cold dishes on the emperor's table, these people have fewer tables. For example, there were only 24 hot and cold dishes in the Qianlong dynasty, and at other times, although there were additions and subtractions, they were all similar, that is, more than 20 dishes.

After the banquet begins, the eunuch will first serve soup and rice to the emperor in a box. The emperor has two pairs of boxes, one on the left contains bird's nest, red and white duck kidney soup and japonica rice dry rice, and the other on the right contains bird's nest, duck kidney soup and duck bean curd soup.

Then, the eunuchs will send soup and meals to the concubines according to their grades. The concubines used a pair of boxes to contain japonica rice and goat egg powder soup. After the banquet, there is another banquet, that is, drinking while watching the performance. A table of wine and food of the Qing emperor was divided into five courses, totaling 40 courses, and the wine and food of concubines were reduced to 15 courses per table.

There will be fruit tea after the banquet, and then the New Year's Eve dinner will be over.

The next time after dinner was arranged by the emperor himself, and he could watch the memorial, read books and entertain himself.

Because of different hobbies, the Qing emperors did different things at this point.

For example, Kangxi likes reading at this point: "When I am listening to politics, I like reading classics in the palace." Kangxi once said to the people around him, you only know that I am knowledgeable, but you don't know how much effort I have made behind me. After the dynasty, I spent almost all my spare time studying.

For example, Yongzheng, a famous diligent emperor in history, is comparable to Zhu Yuanzhang, a famous workaholic. After the next dynasty, Yongzheng spent most of his time working and reviewing the memorial except paying homage and eating.

During the Yongzheng period, in order to strengthen the imperial power, Yongzheng expanded the number of people allowed to do secret folding in the Kangxi Dynasty from 130 to 1000. As a result, he has to read as few as 23 memorials and as many as 50 or 60 memorials every day. For these hidden folds, Yongzheng never pretended to others, but did it himself.

What is even more admirable is that Yongzheng did not just look at the secret fold, but only indicated a few words. He looked at it word for word, and sometimes his comment on writing was even more than the secret fold itself, sometimes as many as hundreds or thousands of words.

Another example is ganlong. After the prosperous foundation laid by Kangxi and Yongzheng, Qianlong, who was full of treasury, paid more attention to entertainment in his spare time, writing, painting, being a Buddha, watching movies, fishing, hunting and raising dogs, and his life was extremely comfortable, much more comfortable than Kangxi and Yongzheng.

The emperors of the Qing Dynasty liked to go to bed early and get up early, so it was almost bedtime at 20 o'clock. Of course, workaholics like Yongzheng often read the throne all night, but most emperors of the Qing Dynasty slept at this time.

Traditionally, after the Qing emperor finished his dinner, the eunuchs in the worship room sent trays with many names of concubines for the emperor to choose from.

If the emperor is interested, he can choose a concubine to accompany him to Wushan before going to bed. If not, he will refuse to flop directly and then sleep in Yangxintang around 20 o'clock.

After the emperor chooses a concubine, around 20 o'clock, the eunuch in the imperial palace will send the concubine to the emperor's bedroom as a bedroom.

These are the days of the Qing emperor. It can be seen that it is not unreasonable that there was no bad king in the Qing Dynasty. After all, a dynasty that attached so much importance to the education of the prince and filial piety could not have produced a better emperor.