Why did Kangxi and Qianlong live so long? They never touched a "hobby", but the other emperors were very enthusiastic (Part 2)
The "difference" of the two emperors
"Things must be reversed", this truth is understood by many people, but it is difficult to really put it into practice. In order to extend their life indefinitely, many emperors began to look for various methods of "prolonging life" that no longer existed.
In his later years, Li Shimin wanted to pursue immortality, blindly taking various Dan medicines by mouth, and in the end, instead of achieving his goal, he was injured by Dan Medicine and died of a violent illness. Yongzheng worked hard and obtained the fortune of prosperity and national fortune, but in his later years, he repeated the same mistakes and took a large number of dan medicines, which even contained toxicity, resulting in Yongzheng poisoning and death.
There are many more such incidents, and they originally wanted to seek eternal life through this, but in the end they "pit" themselves, contrary to their own wishes. In order to prolong their life, they do not hesitate to work hard and hurt the people, only to seek their own interests. The result of this is not so much a "punishment" as it is that they do not have a clearer understanding of the elixir.
In fact, although items such as elixirs have long appeared, they are just things that give people a beautiful vision. It does not have the effect of prolonging life, on the contrary, such food, in order to ensure its immortality, will add chemicals in it, the human body takes too much, it will be harmful and no benefit. In today's parlance, this so-called elixir of immortality is just an "IQ tax."
Although the origin of dan medicine has been a long time, in that era when medical technology was not yet developed, people's control of metal substances could not be as precise as it is today. Even if you want to use the substances in it to achieve certain effects, it is inevitable that it will be "self-defeating". In addition, the emperor did not know much about this, and only regarded these as "more the merrier", so he took too much, resulting in serious damage to himself.
The Qianlong Emperor, who was yongzheng's son, did not use this method to prolong his life. What he does is more to pursue health, in terms of daily diet, he will nourish the body through the way of "food supplements" and maintain good living habits. Therefore, his life expectancy has also reached a level that was difficult for ancient people to reach - 89 years old, in addition to his own factors, these good practices are also worth emulating.
The Kangxi Emperor was the father of the Yongzheng Emperor, and he also had his own wisdom in this regard. Even if the two emperors, Kangxi and Qianlong, did not lose the same work to other emperors, and even worked longer than others, they reigned for 61 and 60 years respectively. But they were not affected at all, but became "big birthday stars".
Kangxi also had his own set of "maintenance techniques". He is good at riding and shooting, and in his spare time he will go to the field to exercise, and can stick to it for a long time. Until the age of sixty, he was still able to keep the sport in mind, regardless of his old gray hair, and took time to ride and shoot.
In fact, the Qianlong Emperor was the same, he liked to hunt, and every year he could see him hunting in the paddock.
Why did Kangxi and Qianlong live so long? They never touched the same "hobby", that is, indulging in alchemy and blindly pursuing immortality. On the basis of "going with the flow", they changed some bad habits, which were things that other emperors were very keen on.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia: Average life expectancy of ancients
