According to historians' statistics, the average life expectancy of more than 400 emperors in mainland history is less than 40 years old.
In our current opinion, the emperors eat so well one by one, why is their life still so short?
In fact, for the emperors, eating well is not the most important factor affecting life expectancy, the reason lies in the other three aspects, no matter which of us sits on it, we may not live long, is it really so terrible to be an emperor?
People are beautiful but hurtful
The era we live in today can be said to be a real prosperous era, even the common people at the bottom can eat enough at every meal every day, which has never been done before.
No matter which feudal dynasty, including the later Republic of China, they have never been able to solve the problem of food and clothing for the people at the bottom.
After so many years of hard work, our party has succeeded in doing what our ancestors have not done for thousands of years.
It is precisely because the problem of food and clothing for the common people in the feudal dynasty has not been solved, so the overall life expectancy of the ancients is very low, it is said that the average is about 30 years old.
Although those high-ranking emperors said that they did not have to worry about eating and drinking, their average life expectancy is said to be 39 years old, which is not high in feudal dynasties.
Generally speaking, it was good to live to be in your 50s at that time, so 39 years old was considered decent.
Of course, if you go into detail, some dynasties are lower than the figure of 39.
If you want to say that the dynasty with the lowest average age, it is the two Han Dynasty, and it is said that their average life expectancy is less than 34 years.
However, there was a birthday star in the Western Han Dynasty, that is, Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, who lived to be 69 years old, just like the first emperor Kangxi through the ages.
If you want to say the dynasty with the highest lifespan, it is the Qing Dynasty, and their average lifespan is more than 50 years.
The most important data for the Qing Dynasty is Kangxi and Qianlong, one of whom has been in power for the longest time and the other has lived the longest.
As for other great unified feudal dynasties, the two Jin Dynasty were 35 years old, and the Yuan Dynasty was 38 years old.
Then the Tang Dynasty, the Two Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, all of which had an average life expectancy of more than 40 years old, so if you look at it this way, the average life expectancy of all emperors is less than 40 years old, which is too normal.
Although the conditions in all aspects were much better than before, the lifespan of the emperors of the Yuan and Ming dynasties did not improve significantly.
So what is the reason for the fact that the average life expectancy of the emperor, whom we envy so much, is so short?
First of all, the first point must have a lot to do with their private lives.
The reason why we modern people envy the emperor is nothing more than coveting the so-called "three thousand beauties in the harem", all of them are not satisfied, and they all want to be accompanied by thousands of bosom friends and sisters.
But the more this is the case, the sooner you may die.
Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, you have to control that degree, if you go too far, it will definitely hurt your body.
Like those emperors who don't do their business all day long, they know that they drink and have fun with their concubines, how many have you seen who have lived a long time? Most of them don't even live to be 40 years old, and then they play themselves to death.
To give a few examples, like the emperors of those small dynasties, let's not talk about them, let's talk about those who are more arranged.
There was an emperor named Liu Biao in the Western Han Dynasty of the Great Unification, this brother Tai liked to drink and play with beauties since he was a child, and because of this, his father Emperor Han Yuan scolded him a lot, and even wanted to abolish his position as prince.
Even so, Liu Biao still does not change his nature.
Under the persuasion of the ministers, Liu Biao retained the position of crown prince and successfully became emperor.
After succeeding to the throne, there was no obstruction, Liu Biao became more indulgent, and one of the two famous beauties around him was Zhao Feiyan and Zhao Hede, these two are still quite famous in history.
However, this Liu Biao's body is still quite strong, although he died violently in the end, he survived until he was 45 years old.
The next one is Zhao Yu of the Southern Song Dynasty, in fact, the Southern Song Dynasty is not a great unified dynasty, after all, the north has been lost.
This Zhao Yu is much more powerful than Liu Yu above, and he is accompanied by more than 30 beauties at a time.
The reason why Liu Biao lived a little longer at that time was because he sometimes did something else.
And this Zhao Yu, after ascending the throne, didn't even bother to go to the court.
In this way, Zhao Yu died of illness after 10 years of reign, and he was only 35 years old when he died.
The last representative was Emperor Xianfeng from the Qing Dynasty, when Xianfeng first came to the throne, he wanted to make every effort to change all this, but he really didn't have the ability of Kang Yongqian, so he was forced to Chengde by the British and French forces.
During the days when he took refuge in Chengde, Xianfeng learned that the Old Summer Palace and other royal gardens had been burned, and he completely collapsed.
From then on, he no longer thought about the country, but gradually became like the above two, indulging in fine wine and beautiful women all day long, and finally he was only 31 years old when he died, which is really deserved.
The emperor who is frightened every day
So if a person who can't resist the temptation of a beautiful woman becomes an emperor, then the lifespan will not be too long, because it hurts the body too much.
One thing to say, although Emperor Kangxi was like this back then, he at least knew how to control himself, and he knew what he should do, so even if he had many children, he did not delay his life because of beautiful women.
And then one of the big reasons that affected the life span of the emperors was that their mentality was greatly affected.
According to the research of modern medical scientists, people who tend to have a more peaceful mind generally have a longer lifespan, but few emperors can do this. Because they are basically terrified every day, they have to guard against others usurping the throne, and they have to prevent others from assassinating themselves.
Let's just say that no matter what the emperor does every day, he may be assassinated.
For example, it is not uncommon for emperors to travel or something, and they are assassinated by assassins, because someone will definitely be dissatisfied with his rule, so it is not surprising that someone wants to assassinate him in this situation.
If it were ordinary people, then people would go wherever they wanted, and they would not worry at all that someone would assassinate them.
And ordinary people don't worry about others stealing anything from their house, because everyone is poor and has nothing to steal.
Therefore, when you are an emperor, personal safety is very important.
For example, when Emperor Jiaqing came back from hunting, someone actually surrounded them at the gate of the city to assassinate Jiaqing.
This is also thanks to the fact that he brought a lot of bodyguards at the time, otherwise Jiaqing might have confessed there.
Even if the emperors have been hiding in the palace and not going out, they are not worried about their personal safety, they will also worry about their imperial power.
For example, if the emperor has a minister who is very powerful, then he will think, "Will this minister rebel and beat me?" ”
It's like if you are the owner of a company, and you definitely want your son to inherit your father's business after retirement, rather than letting your company have someone else's surname, from ancient times to the present, in fact, the truth and essence are the same.
The emperor who is tired and tired every day
Whether it is those ministers who are not related by blood, or the imperial relatives of their own families, they are the objects of suspicion of the emperors.
No matter who you are, as long as you have a lot of power, the emperor will start to wonder if you want to usurp the throne.
Worrying about this and that every day is too draining of spirit, and it will also affect the emperor's lifespan.
If a person is frightened all day long, he is destined to not live long, perhaps this is the reason why some emperors indulge in fine wine and beautiful women, because it can temporarily get him out of the state of fear.
But the more this happens, the less he lives long, because the combination of the two disadvantages torments him, and that will only lead to a faster death.
In the end, the reason for the emperor's lifespan is related to their daily fatigue.
Although the emperors are high, they are also very hard every day, of course, this is from the perspective of those Ming monarchs.
However, in general, there were not too many emperors who died of overwork in ancient times.
Although it is not much, it will also affect their lifespan more or less, after all, overwork can also hurt the body.
As far as today's situation is concerned, it is generally accepted that one of the emperors who died of exhaustion was Yongzheng from the Qing Dynasty.
Let's just say that Yongzheng spends at least 95% of the time at work every year, and he doesn't have any holidays.
If you want to say that Yongzheng's fixed rest time every year, it is his birthday, and he basically works at other times, even during the Spring Festival.
Every day, in addition to going to court and eating, Yongzheng spends most of his time in his hut, where he either reads books or deals with government affairs, in short, there is no idle time.
And Yongzheng never went out, he never went out hunting after he succeeded to the throne, and he never went to Chengde to escape the heat when it was hot in summer.
Yongzheng's daily rest time is about 4 hours, and most of the rest of the time is to deal with government affairs, which is the daily life after Yongzheng succeeded to the throne.
It is no exaggeration to say that the donkeys of the production team are not as industrious as Yongzheng.
However, Yongzheng actually died of taking pills in the end, not from exhaustion.
Yongzheng liked alchemy when he was young, and after he succeeded to the throne, he wanted to pursue immortality, so he took a lot of pills in his later years, and finally died. Maybe for him, this can be regarded as a relief, maybe God can't stand it.
It is said that the reason why Yongzheng took the pill was because he felt that he was dying.
Therefore, even if Yongzheng doesn't take pills, it is estimated that he will not live for a few years, after all, he is so diligent. No matter how strong your body is, you can't stand such a high-intensity work every day.
In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang is second only to Yongzheng in terms of diligence, but he has lived a long time.
Zhu Yuanzhang was 71 years old when he died of illness, and Yongzheng was 58 years old when he died.
Although Yongzheng said that he left early, his age was okay at that time, but if he wasn't so tired every day, it was estimated that he would be able to live to about 70 years old.
It is not difficult to see from the life expectancy of these two people that the fatigue of work does not seem to have much effect.
In fact, this is mainly different from person to person, but after all, the emperors eat well, and they sometimes relax themselves, so the negative impact of work fatigue is not too great.
Of course, there are also emperors who died early due to overwork, but there are not too many, almost rare.
These are the three reasons that affect the life expectancy of the emperor, if we sit on the throne with a long life expectancy in modern times, the estimated life expectancy will also be greatly reduced.
So there is no need to envy the ancient emperors, our modern life is good enough!