Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Gaochi were typical representatives, while the emperors of Qing Dynasty were relatively thin. For example, Qianlong in history was famous for being tall and thin. Why? Let people laugh and cry after knowing the reason. Before the establishment of Daming, Zhu Yuanzhang, because of his poor family, once distributed cattle to landlords, worked as a beggar in the street and even worked as a monk in Huang Jue Temple. His life is very poor, basically a little wild vegetables is a meal.
So after he proclaimed himself emperor on 1638, he recalled his painful experience and ordered people to open up a vegetable field in the palace and grow it himself. However, he suffered so much when he was young, and he hoped his children could live a good life. So, he ordered the royal chef in the palace to snare delicious food from all over the world, let eunuchs supervise the work, and sent eunuchs who were famous for their mouths.
Under this high-quality royal diet, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were quite plump, and Zhu Gaochi, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, also suffered from many diseases because of obesity. 1425 died at the age of 47. Also in the Qing Dynasty, we all know that Empress Dowager Cixi was the most enjoyable person for the royal family in the Qing Dynasty. She once set a record for a meal 108, which was also very extravagant.
Arguably, it is also imperial food. Even if it is not as luxurious as Cixi, it will not be so shabby that people will starve. But why did the emperors of the Qing Dynasty lose weight one by one? There is a reason for this, which is related to a strange mechanism in the Qing Dynasty.
There were twelve emperors in the Qing Dynasty, and the most thrifty one was Emperor Kangxi, but no matter how thrifty he was, there were as many as forty or fifty meals for an emperor. However, during the Yongzheng period, it was a rule that the emperor should never eat more than three mouthfuls of a dish. Even if he likes it again, he should stop using chopsticks.
In fact, this is related to the bloody scene of Kangxi's nine sons coming to power in his later years. Therefore, in 1722, Yongzheng made such a rule after he was still in the upper position, because it could prevent the following people from guessing that the emperor loved to eat again, so as not to fall in love with him, and there would be a situation of competition for favor and repeat the same mistakes.
Imagine that a dish can only be sandwiched three times at most, and there are nearly a dozen side dishes and desserts in fifty dishes. If you remove a few flavors that every emperor doesn't like, how can you eat enough? This indirectly led to the weakness of the Qing emperor. Hearing this reason, everyone will express their distress.