In the twenty-eighth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1689), Yue Le, the Prince of An, died. As a rule, the Kangxi Emperor should have quit the dynasty for three days and given high-standard treatment, but Kangxi only gave him a "peace" and did not express anything else, which seemed a little unreasonable.
Who is Yue Le? He was the grandson of Taizu Nurhaci, the son of Prince Abate, and was the cousin of the Kangxi Emperor. In terms of merit, Yue Le was an important minister of the Shunzhi Dynasty, and he was also a great general in the Pacification of the Three Domains, and he made great merits. Kangxi had always had the name of Kuan Ren, so why couldn't he tolerate Yue Le, and after his death, he was also stripped of his princely title and demoted to the rank of king of the county?
In the later years of Shunzhi, Nurhaci's sons and nephews, Daishan, Dolgun, Dodo, Azig, Zilharan, Abatai, etc., died successively, and the second generation of people who could fight in battles such as Boluo, Leke dehun, Luo Luohun, Wakda, Doni, and Mandahai were no longer in the human world. Among the younger generation of princes, only Yue Le could be the greatest official.
In his early twenties, Yue Le accompanied his cousin Hauge the Prince of Su to attack Zhang Xianzhong, who was occupying Sichuan, and he fought bravely and strategically, leading his troops to behead Zhang Xianzhong. Since then, he has accompanied his uncle Prince Azig on expeditions many times, and returned with great victories. In the sixth year of Shunzhi, Yue Le was made the Prince of Dorobelle, the King of Doro County in the eighth year, and the Prince of Jin and Shuo'an in the fourteenth year.
In the ninth year of Shunzhi, the Shunzhi Emperor, who had already been pro-government, ordered his cousin Yue Le to take charge of the affairs of the Ministry of Works and join the Council of Ministers. Yue Le was a representative figure of the imperial reform faction in the early Qing Dynasty, fully supporting the series of reforms of the Shunzhi Emperor, boldly using the Han people, alleviating the contradictions of the Han landlord class; stopping the land enclosure so that the people could normally engage in productive activities.
In the last years of Shunzhi, Yue Le presided over the council of ministers of the King of Parliament, decided on the major policies of the military state, and was one of the core figures of the supreme ruling group of the Qing Dynasty. After the death of the Shunzhi Emperor, he and Jieshu the Prince of Kang led the princes and princes belle to succeed him. It is not difficult to find that Yue Le was a heavy vassal left by the Shunzhi Emperor to Kangxi, and his title "An" contained the meaning of assisting the Saint Emperor and stabilizing the world.
In the eighth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor overthrew Aobai, and Yue Le, Jie Shu and other wang ministers listed thirty major sins for Aobai and were ordered to purge the Aobai Yu Party.
In December of the twelfth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, Wu Sangui rebelled, and the Kangxi Emperor sent a number of large armies. Yue Le, who was in his fifties, was made a general of Dingyuan Pingkou and led his division in a crusade against Wu Sangui. After several years of conquest, Yue Le pacified Hunan and captured Changsha, and the Kangxi Emperor issued an edict praising Yue Le for his hardships and tireless deeds:
"Over the years, Wang has personally experienced hundreds of battles, experienced summers and colds, and competed for the glory of the tiger. In all parts of the lake and Xiang, we have seen the peace; the atmosphere of the Dianqian and Qianqian is all sitting in difficulty; and it is even more contemplative of the heart of poverty and desolation, and it is widely shown to show mercy and deeply compensated. Where the king has arrived, he has returned. The success has been repeatedly announced, and it has been celebrated at home and abroad. ”
Kangxi pacified San Francisco, with Yue Leshi as the first force, and he also captured the former Ming prince Zhu Cican. With the great victory imminent, the Kangxi Emperor sent people to welcome Yue Le back to Beijing and temporarily handed over the army to others. When Yue Le returned to Beijing, it was In March of the nineteenth year of Kangxi, but for more than a year after that, Kangxi did not grant him a real post, and it is estimated that the Kangxi Emperor took such a move to prevent Yue Legong from highly shocking the lord.
Yue Le made great contributions to Kangxi, but he was not entrusted with heavy responsibilities, neither among the ministers of the King of Parliament, nor in charge of the affairs of the six ministries. In July of the 27th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Mongol Dzungar chief Kaldan rebelled, and Yue Le and Yabu, the Prince of Jian, were ordered to lead 500 soldiers each to garrison the border on the saiwai plateau until it was cold in October, when they were ordered to withdraw from the steppe to return the Beijing division. At this time, Yue Le was already nearly 65 years old. The following year, Yue Le died of illness.
In any way, Yue Le should be respected by Kangxi, and it is not too much to be crowned a king of iron hats. However, Yue Le did not receive a single favor from Kangxi during his lifetime, but instead was stripped of his title and demoted to the rank of Prince of The County, the year after his death.
The course of events is as follows: The year after Yue Le's death, Prince Li's great-grandson Daishan, Belle Noni, accused Yue Le of being in charge of the Zongren Mansion in the fourth year of Kangxi's reign, and convicted Noni of filial piety to death, and was imprisoned and later released.
Twenty-five years after the incident, Yue Le's death was not proven, and according to the Noni family, the Kangxi Emperor actually decided that Yue Le "framed the innocent and should sit back", demoted him to the position of county king, and took the throne, and his sons Jing Xi and Wu Erzhan were stripped of the county king and Bei Zi respectively, and demoted to the duke of Zhenguo.
Kangxi was so ruthless to Yue Le, there should be a reason. Unfortunately, the historical records are very secretive about this, and there is not much record. But Mishi also found some clues. It turned out that before the Shunzhi Emperor died, he remembered the young age of the princes and wanted to choose one of his older brothers to inherit the throne.
Regardless of Yue Le's age, character and talent, the Shunzhi Emperor was interested in Yue Le. However, under the opposition of Xiaozhuang and his courtiers, the Shunzhi Emperor chose the emperor's third son, Xuan Ye, as his successor. Obviously, for the Kangxi Emperor, Yue Le was always a threat to himself. After all, the imperial power cannot be coveted or shared, and the Kangxi Emperor is even more lenient and benevolent, and he is not at ease with Yue Le after all, which also dooms Yue Le's end to be a tragedy.
However, the decline of Yue Le's lineage did not end there, and after Yongzheng succeeded to the throne, he issued another edict in the first year of Yongzheng:
"The King of Anjun, Yue Le, was attached to the auxiliary chancellor, and every time he touched the imperial examination, Meng En was always lenient... The Prince of Anjun was not allowed to inherit. ”
Yongzheng's reasoning was obviously untenable, and its essence was because Yue Le's granddaughter was Yin Yu's concubine Fujin, who strongly favored Yin Yu's struggle for the throne in the later years of the Kangxi Dynasty when the princes were vying for the throne. After Yongzheng ascended the throne, he took revenge on Yin Yu and harmed Yue Le's family. Fortunately, in the forty-third year of Qianlong, the Qianlong Emperor still objectively evaluated Yue Le's life's merits and made his descendants hereditary auxiliary dukes.