Zhang Tingyu, an important minister of the Qing Dynasty, went through three dynasties and made outstanding contributions, but in his later years, he was tragically raided by Qianlong, and he was deprived of his qualifications to enjoy the Taimiao, and he was not allowed to retire at the age of eighty. This matter has a lot to do with Yongzheng.
01 The darling of Yongzheng Dynasty
Zhang Tingyu was born in the capital, with a prominent family background, and his father Zhang Ying is a university scholar and editor of the Hanlin Academy.
In the thirty-ninth year of Kangxi (1700), at the age of 28, he was selected as a scholar of the Hanlin Academy, and in the forty-second year of Kangxi, he was awarded a review, majoring in the official position of national history.
A year later, he entered the South Study, and was promoted several times to Zuo Chuanlang of the Criminal Department, and then transferred to the Ministry of Officials.
After Yongzheng ascended the throne, he was appreciated by Yongzheng, and in the first year of Yongzheng (1723), he was appointed as the prince's master, promoted to the Ministry of Rites, and in the same year, he was awarded the master of the Hanlin Academy and the head of the household department, and at the same time, he was also responsible for the work of editing the "History of the Ming Dynasty" from time to time.
Yongzheng was an acting university scholar for three years, and the following year he was conferred a position he held until his retirement.
Zhang Tingyu's golden life is of course in the Yongzheng Dynasty, and there is a reason why Yongzheng values him so much.
First of all, most of the edicts and regulations during the Yongzheng period came from him, he was respectful and cautious, extremely capable of doing things, and could accurately comprehend and fully implement the emperor's intentions.
Usually, whenever the emperor wants to issue an edict, he summons Zhang Tingyu into the palace, and only needs to dictate the holy will, and Zhang Tingyu can write the edict at the moment and present it to the emperor for inspection, and then it can be issued. With such an efficient work, when Yongzheng is not in good health, there are no less than dozens of times a day.
Secondly, he is very dedicated to his work. During Yongzheng's use of troops in the northwest, Zhang Tingyu accompanied the emperor during the day, giving advice to Yongzheng, and when he returned to the dormitory at night, he had to hold candles to deal with the affairs that had not been completed that day, and also to make arrangements for the next day's work.
Even on weekdays, he is busy until late before resting, and if he thinks of something in the middle of the night and feels incomplete, he will get up and turn on the lamp again.
Yongzheng admires Zhang Tingyu's work attitude very much, after all, he himself is the same, Junchen has a similar style in this regard, they are all workaholics.
Yongzheng once praised Zhang Tingyu, saying that what he did in one day could not be done by others in ten days, and praised him as the most powerful person among the ministers.
Moreover, Zhang Tingyu's greatest contribution in the Yongzheng Dynasty lies in two things: one is to improve the Qing Dynasty's folding system and fix the way of dense folding; The second is to formulate the work procedures of the Military Aircraft Department.
The Yongzheng Dynasty set up a special institution called the Military Aircraft Department because of the use of troops in the northwest, which was dedicated to dealing with various military affairs, and Zhang Tingyu was the first batch of ministers to join the company, and served until the 14th year of Qianlong, which lasted for 20 years.
Yongzheng's praise for Zhang Tingyu is not only on the lips, but also substantial, and the reward for him is also extremely rich.
In the first year of Yongzheng, Yongzheng gave Zhang Tingyu a mansion; In the third year of Yongzheng, he was given an old garden in the south of the Old Summer Palace, so that the emperor could be summoned when he moved to the summer palace. In the seventh year of Yongzheng, Zhang Tingyu was given a larger mansion.
Zhang Tingyu likes to taste tea, so Yongzheng selects tea leaves from all over the world and rewards him several times a month, sometimes with tea sets.
In addition, Yongzheng also rewarded Zhang Tingyu with silver taels from time to time, and once even rewarded him with a pawn shop worth 35,000 taels of silver.
In his official position, he also received the title of Shaobao, as well as the hereditary position of First Class Light Lieutenant, which was inherited by his son Zhang Ruowei.
What was even more unexpected to him was that before Yongzheng died, he still did not forget to settle Zhang Tingyu's aftermath, and left a will to let Zhang Tingyu enjoy the Taimiao, which was the highest honor that a minister could enjoy at that time.
And Zhang Tingyu, as Hanchen, is also the first person to receive this honor. But after Yongzheng's death, there were repeated twists and turns in this matter, and Zhang Tingyu in his later years had a very bad life.
02 Qianlong's thorn in the eye
When Yongzheng died, Qianlong was already twenty-four or five years old and could handle government affairs independently, but Yongzheng assigned him four ministers, namely Prince Zhuang Yunlu, Prince Guo Yunli, University Scholar Ertai and Zhang Tingyu.
These four ministers are all people that Yongzheng trusts very much, but when they come to Qianlong, it will change their taste.
As the saying goes, once a son of heaven and a courtier, how could the adult Qianlong live in the days of being coerced by the ministers of Gu Ming and be indifferent?
Therefore, these four ministers were tortured by Qianlong, but this can't be blamed entirely on Qianlong, after all, flies don't bite seamless eggs.
Yunlu is the sixteenth brother of Yongzheng, the hereditary iron hat king, and he is double-paid. In the fourth year of Qianlong, there was a Honghui rebellion case, Yunlu was suspended and dismissed from his official position because of his "secret" dealings with Prince Li Honghui, the son of the abolished prince Yunren, and was fined for five years in the same year.
When Qianlong recovered power, he appointed him as the Minister of Parliament, and even gave a poem on Yunlu's 70th birthday: There are no equals in the line, and there are several sages in the guards.
However, there was no danger, and Yunlu still spent his old age safely, and died at the age of seventy-three.
Yunli is Yongzheng's seventeenth brother, that is, the famous "King of Guojun" in "The Legend of Zhen Huan". In the last years of Yongzheng, he handled government affairs with Hongli, who was still Prince Bao at the time.
After Qianlong ascended the throne, he was also good to this imperial uncle, and like Yunlu, he was also a double salary, and he also had the gift of not bowing. But later, for unknown reasons, Qianlong changed his face and issued an order to stop the money in Prince Guo's mansion and remove him from the post of prime minister and minister.
Yunli was devastated, and after that, he was depressed and died in the third year of Qianlong at the age of 42.
The problems of the university scholars Ortai and Zhang Tingyu are still relatively serious, because they have touched the emperor's bottom line and engaged in partisan disputes, which is not only intolerable to Qianlong, but also unbearable to Yongzheng.
Ortai, Manchuria inlaid with the blue flag, grandfather official to the household Langzhong, father for the son of the country to supervise the wine, although the background is mediocre, but Ortai studious, 17 years old in the show, 20 years old in the lift, and then into the career.
During the Kangxi period, he did a lot of petty officials, but there was no big promotion. After Yongzheng took the throne, his life took a major change, and he was promoted to the political envoy of Jiangsu overnight, and became a local magistrate in one fell swoop.
Later, he was promoted to the governor of Guangxi, reappointed as the governor of Yunnan, and acted as the governor.
So, why did Yongzheng suddenly promote Ortai? This reason is not recorded in the official history, but in the history of the opposition.
According to the Qing Dynasty notebook "Xiaoting Miscellaneous Records", during the Kangxi period, when Ortai was a member of the internal affairs office, he had dealings with Yongzheng, who was then the prince.
Yongzheng wanted to ask him to do something, but was sternly rejected by Ortai, and said that "the prince should cultivate himself and govern morality, Taoguang and obscurity, and it is not suitable to make friends with foreign ministers."
Although Yongzheng hit a wall, he was not angry, but praised Ortai, praising him for his firm law enforcement and integrity.
According to the "Ogura Sanfang Anthology", a prince once forced him to do things, but Ortai did not agree, and as a result, he was given a cane, so he did not give in, shouting "Soldiers can be killed, not humiliated", and asked the prince to make amends to him.
It can be seen that Ortai is taking a righteous route, which is just right for Yongzheng's appetite.
Ortai has indeed done a lot of great things, such as changing the land and returning it to the river, abolishing the dark Tusi system, and developing the economy and culture of ethnic minorities in the southwest region.
For another example, when he was the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou and the governor of Guangxi, he reformed the administrative system, focused on the development of production, abolished stereotypes and bad habits, cultivated Taoism, established schools, and so on, so that the people in the southwest region benefited a lot, so he established his prestige.
When Yongzheng was ten years old, he was recalled to Beijing and served as the first assistant of the cabinet and a scholar of Baohedian, almost replacing Zhang Tingyu and becoming another favorite of Yongzheng.
Moreover, the relationship between the monarch and the minister is very harmonious, and he is a confidant, and Yongzheng naturally treats him very favorably.
When Yongzheng celebrated his fiftieth birthday, Ortaiyuan served in Yunnan and was unable to attend. Yongzheng also ordered someone to send four plates of fruit cakes to Yunnan, and said: "I gave the food I personally tasted to Aiqing, just like the two monarchs and ministers eating together face to face." ”
The reward for him is also every month, in addition to the property, the addition of officials into the knight has not fallen, Yongzheng specially gave Ortai a "blessing" word, posthumously crowned its three generations.
Not to mention the praise, what "the first good minister", "the first good minister now", "can be a teacher", and so on.
Ortai was also grateful for the emperor's favor, and wrote in the recital: "Since meeting the emperor, although he is a monarch and a minister in righteousness, he is really like a father and son in kindness. In fact, the two of them are of the same age and have the same confidant, but how dare Ortai make a mistake and deliberately compare the relationship between father and son.
Similarly, when Yongzheng died, he did not forget Ortai, and appointed him and Zhang Tingyu as ministers of care, worthy of enjoying the Taimiao.
But the problem also comes, Zhang Tingyu and Ortai are both celebrities in front of Yongzheng, but these two important ministers are at odds with each other.
Zhang Tingyu has old qualifications and high fame, and he is very unimpressed with Ortai's airborne promotion; And it just so happens that Ortai is a tough temper, hard-boned, arrogant, and flamboyant, and he is also a little disrespectful to Zhang Tingyu.
The two have worked together for more than ten years, and the number of times they meet and talk is limited, and whenever Ortai makes mistakes, Zhang Tingyu ridicules them, which makes Ortai embarrassed.
By the time Yongzheng was in his later years, the contradiction between Zhang Tingyu and Ortai had become public, and the two camps of Zhang and Ortai had seen the prototype. Although neither of them deliberately formed a party, the alliance of in-laws developed by the two of them, the confrontation between protégés and disciples, and especially the division between the Manchu and Han ministers of the DPRK and China, have become a common practice.
In the thirteenth year of Yongzheng, due to the rebellion of Guizhou to change the land and return to the stream, Ortai was cut off from the earl due to improper handling, which triggered the party dispute, Zhang Tingyu seized the opportunity to try to frame Ortai, but Yongzheng died at this time.
After Qianlong came to power, the two parties did not relent, but continued to fight. In the matter of pacifying Miaojiang, Zhang Zhao of Zhang Tingyu and his party angered Qianlong for falsely preaching the holy decree and was severely punished.
Seeing this, the Ortai party wanted to fall into the well and wanted to treat Zhang Zhao to death, but Qianlong had already seen the clues, and he pardoned Zhang Zhao in line with the balanced strategy of "neither making one a defeat nor making both defeats".
In the sixth year of Qianlong (1741), Ortai's protégé and left deputy capital, Shi Zhongyongtan, exposed Zhang Tingyu's henchmen accepting bribes, and also alluded to the fact that the secret music was leaked at the behest of Zhang Tingyu, which caused Qianlong to be furious.
As a result, Zhong Yongtan was imprisoned to death, and Ortai was also given a stern warning. Since then, Qianlong has continued to suppress Ortai and "strictly carried out early punishment" several times.
Under the suppression of Qianlong, Ortai's reputation was damaged, and he was physically and mentally exhausted, and died of illness in the tenth year of Qianlong (1745) at the age of 66.
After Ortai's death, Qianlong reused the young Neqin as the minister of military aircraft, ranking ahead of Zhang Tingyu, and Zhang Tingyu became another target for Qianlong to rectify.
So, how did Qianlong treat Zhang Tingyu?
03 Zhang Tingyu who was tortured
In the first year of Qianlong (1736), Zhang Tingyu was promoted to a third-class viscount, and two years later, he was first awarded the hereditary third-class earl, and the following year he was added to the Taibao.
But then gradually fell out of favor, it was in the sixth year of Qianlong, Liu Tongxun joined him in Qianlong.
Zhang Tingyu is a native of Tongcheng, Anhui Province, Liu Tongxun said that he formed a party, and Zhang Tingyu's relatives and friends in Tongcheng were many officials, so Zhang Tingyu was also warned by the imperial court several times.
Qianlong naturally did not forget to purge Zhang Tingyu's forces in an all-round way, such as his protégés Wang Youdun, Zhu Quanyan, Yan Ruilong and others, or removed them from their posts or raided their homes or punished them, and by the 36th year of Qianlong, except for one son, Zhang Tingyu was listed as a member of the family, and none of the other members of the family was in the official career.
In addition, Qianlong also reformed the military crew, reused the Manchus, took the Manchus as the chief military aircraft minister, and used close ministers to enter the military aircraft department. Qianlong's move seems to be to limit party strife and rein in imperial power, but there is no lack of flavor of light Han ministers and heavy people.
In the eighth year of Qianlong, Zhang Tingyu was removed from the hereditary earldom; Zhang Tingyu is old, and it is normal to beg for a break, but he has repeatedly begged for a break, but Qianlong said, since you are worthy of enjoying the Taimiao, you should do your best in office, and then die, and you will not approve it whether you live or die.
It wasn't until the fifteenth year of Qianlong that Qianlong finally approved it and ordered him to leave Beijing in the spring of the following year. Zhang Tingyu is very old, and he attaches great importance to the honor behind him, and he hopes to get a letter of edict from Qianlong for the matter of enjoying the Taimiao, which is actually to ask Qianlong to write a letter of guarantee.
Qianlong also did so, it stands to reason that the emperor wrote you a letter of guarantee, which is a big face, and he did not go to thank the lord Longen in person, but due to the cold weather, he suffered from foot disease, so he let his son go.
The next day, Zhang Tingyu took the initiative to ask for guilt, but Qianlong was even more dissatisfied, blaming someone for giving a tip-off message, and deeply felt that he was a hypocrisy.
A few days later, Qianlong stripped Zhang Tingyu of his newly promoted title of Earl of Qinxuan, and said that he was not actually worthy of the Taimiao, but he still allowed him to invite.
Later, when Zhang Tingyu asked to leave Beijing, it coincided with the funeral of Emperor Qianlong's eldest son, and Qianlong reprimanded him for not being in accordance with etiquette, and in a fit of anger, he withdrew his life.
Therefore, Zhang Tingyu returned to his hometown with the title of university scholar, but his troubles were not over.
Sichuan Xuezheng Zhu Quan and Zhang Tingyu are in-laws, Zhu Quan was involved in the Lu Liuliang case, Qianlong took Zhang Tingyu to make trouble, saying that he colluded with villains and bent the law for bribes, so he confiscated all Zhang Tingyu's property, which was later changed from a lenient to a fine, and asked him to hand over all the imperial gifts he had obtained in the past 50 years as an official.
I have to say that Qianlong's move is really a bit embarrassing.
On March 20, the 20th year of Qianlong (1755), Zhang Tingyu died at home at the age of 84.
He didn't get what he wanted during his lifetime, and after his death, Qianlong still gave him the treatment of Taimiao, but to a large extent, Qianlong also looked at Yongzheng's face.