There were many things going on in Emperor Qianlong's dynasty, even more than those in Kangxi's dynasty. The borderlands could be described as "chaos, you just finish singing and I will appear on stage."
We all know that Qianlong favored Heshen in his later years, but we will leave the content of Heshen to be discussed separately later. In the later years of Qianlong, various measures were unsatisfactory, and this dissatisfaction even outweighed the evaluation of the measures before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's "Luntai Sin Ji Zhao".
But it has to be said that in the early days of the Qianlong Dynasty, he was actually very energetic, and he was superior to Yongzheng in hiring and controlling people.
He took many measures to make up for his father's sins (in fact, it may be that Yongzheng specially left it to Qianlong to win over people's hearts). First, he released Yue Zhongqi and also the fourteenth son of the emperor, Yinqi. He also severely punished Wang Shijun, who had been wrongly appointed by Yongzheng for amassing money, and also explicitly reprimanded Tian Wenjing, a cruel official who had passed away long ago, saying that Tian Wenjing, as governor, was "harsh in search, and the competition between officials was exploitative, and the people of Henan suffered greatly from it."
Shi Yizhi, who had always opposed Tian Wenjing's harsh rule before, was directly promoted to the governor of Huguang by Hongli. Later, he was transferred to the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Punishment, the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Personnel, and the Governor of Zhili. In the ninth year of Qianlong, he was further promoted. Appointed as Bachelor of Wenyuan Pavilion.
In fact, in Yongzheng's court, there were not many people who dared to speak or could speak. Qianlong specially recalled the original Ministry of Justice who had been demoted to "Bank Manager of the Ministry of Finance" and "Agent for the Salt Administration of Hedong" because of being too outspoken. With Sun Jiagan, the Minister of the Ministry of Finance, he was allowed to remain the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel and concurrently serve as the censor of Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate.
Sun Jiagan was not a mediocre person. He was a famous official in the Qing Dynasty. He was a distinguished and rare talent. He once left an immortal memorial, which we mentioned earlier when discussing Kangxi's employment of personnel. It said in it how a king can be wary of villains and get close to gentlemen. "When a villain advances and a gentleman retreats, there is no one else. He uses talents instead of virtue, so that's why. Virtue is unique to a gentleman, but talent is shared by both gentlemen and villains, and the villain is better. The language is correct, and the gentleman is calm and calm. If a villain acts recklessly, he will fall into the same trap as (the ruler’s) eyesight.…”
Logically speaking, a monarch like Qianlong should be furious when he saw such a memorial, thinking that it was ridiculing himself. But as we said before, Hongli was actually quite energetic at this time. Not only was he not angry, but he declared it Inside and outside. After that, Sun Jiagan was directly transferred to the post of governor of Zhili, and was also in charge of rivers. He was also transferred to the governor of Huguang. Although he was demoted to the governor of Jiangxi in the eighth year of Qianlong's reign, only one year later, he was promoted to Zuo Fudu Censor, Minister of War, and Minister of Industry. He is the Minister of the Ministry of Finance, the Master of the Hanlin Academy, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, and the "Co-organizer of the Bachelor".
Sun Jiagan's reputation is very famous among the people, and he is quite outspoken. To what extent? In the fourth year of Qianlong's reign, someone used his name to write a memorial to impeach Ertai and Zhang Tingyu. In the sixteenth year of Qianlong's reign, someone used his name again. In terms of his reputation, it was written that Qianlong had "five unexplainable mistakes and ten major faults", but Qianlong would not blame Sun Jiagan.
Xie Jishi, who had angered Yongzheng because of his opposition to Cheng and Zhu Neo-Confucianism, was imprisoned. After Qianlong came to the throne, he recalled him from the place where he was exiled and still made him a censor. Later, he was appointed as the "Hunan Post Supervisor". In the eighth year of Qianlong's reign, someone published a book saying that he was a deviant. Qianlong said, "I will not sin with my words."
Qianlong could indeed be regarded as a sage at that time. Compared with those monarchs in the middle and late Ming Dynasty (Xianzong, Wuzong, Shizong, Shenzong, etc.), he could be said to be crushed.
Officials, especially censors, have always had the right to "hear things", that is, they do not need real evidence to impeach others. They believe that collecting evidence is the responsibility of the judicial agency, not the supervisory agency. Responsibility, which is called "inference of guilt" in current legal terms, is absolutely not allowed because it is too easy to have an unjust, false or wrong case.
At that time, Zhao Guolin, a bachelor, was annoyed by the censor's impeachment. He was furious and complained to Qianlong: Such a censor should be punished! As a result, Qianlong not only did not punish him, but also promoted him to the rank of censor.
From this point of view, in the early days of the Qianlong Dynasty, the state machinery and governance capabilities were relatively good, but then it was time to deal with border issues, and the situation became chaotic.
