Why did Shunzhi suddenly die?
In the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, on the sixth day of the first month, at midnight, a shocking news came from the palace: the emperor shunzhi, who was only 24 years old, died in hall of mental cultivation.
On the third day after Shunzhi's death, Kangxi, who was under eight years old, ascended the throne of the Forbidden City. Calm was quickly restored in the palace, but what puzzled people was that the emperor shunzhi, 24, had been in good health and had never heard of any diseases. Why did he die suddenly?
For the emperor shunzhi's death, a record of the Qing Sai-jo was extremely brief, "Ding Si's night, the child was eating, and he collapsed in hall of mental cultivation. Why is life and death perfunctory with a few figures, and even the cause of death is not mentioned at all? Faced with various doubts about the cause of Shunzhi's death, Li Guorong, an expert of Qing Palace Archives in the First Historical Archives of China, decided to solve the mystery that has puzzled historians for many years from the historical archives that have been dusty for many years.
As the most authoritative record of the emperor shunzhi's life, there is a final record of Shunzhi's death in Records of the Qing Emperor. He fell ill on the second day of the first month of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi. On the sixth day of Shunzhi, he was terminally ill. More than 200 words were used to record Shunzhi's activities before his death, but only 1 1 was used to describe his death. Besides, I can't find any clues. Why? Moreover, Jade Death, a genealogy of the Qing royal family, only records the time of Shunzhi's death, but remains silent about the cause of the emperor shunzhi's death.
Equally puzzling is the will left by Shunzhi before his death. Because in the whole testamentary edict, Shunzhi listed me as many as 14. Why did Shunzhi feel so guilty about what he had done in his life? This kind of regret seems to be very inconsistent with the last mood of a generation of emperors when they died.
According to legend, the emperor shunzhi fell in love with Dong Xiaowan, a famous prostitute in the south of the Yangtze River. sourdrang dowager, Shunzhi's mother, was extremely dissatisfied with this and designed to kill Dong Xiaowan. However, just over one hundred days after the death of Dong E Fei, the news of Shunzhi's death came from the palace. In just a hundred days, the imperial concubine died and the son of heaven died. What a coincidence?
At that time, the famous poet Wu Meicun wrote a poem praising the Buddha in Liang Qing. The poem reads: "Your Majesty has lived for thousands of years, and my life is like dust. I wish * * * Nan Shan Guo and Long Feng the Nishinomiya Cup. "At that time, the story of the emperor shunzhi and Dong Xiaowan spread like wildfire, and people can't help wondering if Wu Meicun wrote your majesty in his poem, and it could be the emperor shunzhi. In addition, the poem also wrote: "Poor Senecio, withered and colorless." Senecio scandens-thousands of miles overlap under the grass, which is clearly a dong word. Therefore, people are more convinced that the concubine in the poem refers to Dong Xiaowan. And your majesty, is undoubtedly deeply in love with Dong Xiaowan the emperor shunzhi. People have repeatedly studied Wu Meicun's poems and are puzzled by one of them: "What is octupole? Go to Liang Qingshan in the daytime." According to Wu Meicun's annotation, Liang Qing in the poem refers to Wutai Mountain, the holy place of Buddhism. Shunzhi had never been to Wutai Mountain before his death. Why did the poem say that Shunzhi "went to Liang Qing in the future"?
According to Manchu archives of the National History Museum of the Qing Dynasty, when the emperor shunzhi 14 years old was hunting in Zunhua, he met a mage who meditated in a cave. Since then, Shunzhi has forged an indissoluble bond with Buddhism. In the 14th year of Shunzhi, under the careful arrangement of eunuchs, 20-year-old Shunzhi met with the monk Han Pu (pú) Cong in Shi Jing Haihui Temple. Han Pucong's interpretation of Buddhism deeply touched Shunzhi. Since then, Shunzhi has developed a strong interest in Buddhism.
Shunzhi worships Buddhism for a long time and has the intention of becoming a monk. After Princess Dong's death, he was heartbroken and had no intention of failing in state affairs. Maybe his death in Yangxintang is just an external excuse. Shunzhi didn't die. He escaped into an empty net and became a monk.
According to Ju Zhu, shortly after Kangxi ascended the throne, sourdrang dowager took him to Wutai Mountain to worship Buddha many times. Such an activity could have been held in Beijing, but it came to Wutai Mountain thousands of miles away. From this point of view, Shunzhi's becoming a monk in Wutai Mountain may be the truth hidden behind the ritual Buddha.
During the Boxer Rebellion, Empress Dowager Cixi fled to the west and borrowed some utensils from Wutai Mountain to receive her. Some people say that those utensils are similar to those of the imperial court, and they may have been used during Shunzhi.
If these details are combined, it seems that the mystery of Shunzhi's death can be summed up as a process: Xiaozhuang killed Dong Xiaowan, and Shunzhi became a monk in Wutai Mountain on the pretext of illness. Xiao Zhuang was afraid that the matter would be known all over the world, so he forged the testamentary edict in the name of Shunzhi. All kinds of remorse in the testamentary edict are undoubtedly the charges that Xiao Zhuang imposed on Shunzhi.
For this statement, Li Guorong holds different opinions. Because from the analysis of Shunzhi's emotional foundation and way of thinking, the remorse in the testamentary edict is not unreasonable. After Shunzhi entered the Central Plains, he felt strange in the face of everything. So he must try his best to get familiar with and adapt to all this, and even deviate from some of his original traditional customs. This made him fall into a kind of confusion and contradiction, and he often felt a little guilty. At the same time, influenced by Tang Ruowang, a German missionary, Shunzhi once believed in Christianity, forming a character of gratitude for income and self-repentance. During his reign, he repeatedly issued confession letters, demanding that all kinds of documents should not call themselves "saints."
In the Chronicle written by Wang Xi, a bachelor of imperial academy in Shunzhi, Li Guorong found records about compiling testamentary edicts. Unexpectedly, he accidentally found a clue to the cause of death in Shunzhi. According to this book, after Wang Xi was called to hall of mental cultivation, the emperor shunzhi said to him on his deathbed, "I'm afraid I can't get rid of my pox." . The so-called pox is smallpox, the emperor shunzhi from illness to death, only five days. His illness is very similar to smallpox. So is it possible that the emperor shunzhi died of smallpox?
After re-examination, the doubt of Shunzhi becoming a monk surfaced again. Dong Xiaowan's husband, Mao Bijiang, recalled his acquaintance with Dong Xiaowan in detail in Memories of Shadow Mei 'an: he first met Dong Xiaowan in early summer. It's the 12th year of Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty, Dong Xiaowan 16 years old, and Shunzhi is only two years old.
Princess Dong Hubei is not Dong Xiaowan, and there is no design to kill Xiaozhuang. In fact, Dong E Fei died of grief because of the child's untimely death. According to the monk's biography "Continued Finger Moon Record", Effie died, Shunzhi was desperate and determined to escape into an empty net. In October of the seventeenth year of Shunzhi, Gao Xisen became a monk and held a purification ceremony for Shunzhi's conversion to Buddhism in Wanshantang. However, the subsequent records led the story to an unexpected ending. The emperor shunzhi will become a monk after shaving his hair. The news angered Xiaozhuang, who hurriedly recalled his master Yulin Xian to Beijing. After Yulin Xian arrived in Beijing, he heard that disciple Mao Xisen had shaved Shunzhi's hair and immediately had a woodpile set up to burn him. After Shunzhi learned about this, he decided not to become a monk.
Inferring from various historical materials and signs, Shunzhi died of smallpox, which seems to be the closest answer to the truth. But it is puzzling that Shunzhi died of illness, which should be a normal death. However, why didn't the Qing Palace archives mention anything about the cause of Shunzhi's death? Is there any hidden secret behind Shunzhi's death?
How many secrets did the emperor shunzhi hide when he died?
Did Shunzhi really die from Zheng Chenggong's shelling?
After Shunzhi's death, the court buried him in the Qing Dongling according to his will. This land of geomantic omen was discovered and confirmed in the winter when Shunzhi was fourteen years old. A generation of emperors were forced by smallpox to leave the palace and live in exile between the cold mountains and frozen waters in the north. For smallpox, people at that time almost turned pale. In order not to cause panic in the ruling and opposition parties, it is also reasonable to deliberately conceal the fact that Shunzhi died of smallpox in the official history of the Qing Dynasty.
During the Shunzhi period, an official named Zhang Chen recorded in his private notes that on the seventh day of the first month, the court told the people not to fry beans, light lamps and take out garbage. These taboos will only appear when the emperor has smallpox. Therefore, historians are more convinced that the emperor shunzhi died of smallpox.
Wang Rongsheng, an expert in the history of Ming and Qing Dynasties in China Academy of Social Sciences, published an academic paper on the posthumous edict of Shunzhi 10 years ago, which once again aroused the concern of historians about the cause of Shunzhi's death. Zhang Yitong described the symptoms of smallpox in this way: when acne boils to a pulp, he is mentally exhausted, dizzy and delirious. He shouldn't make a phone call, and he talks to himself like an evil spirit. Inferred from the symptoms of smallpox, Shunzhi could not have been conscious before he died, and it was impossible for him to dictate the testamentary edict himself. Then, as recorded in the Chronicle of Wang Xi, Shunzhi dictated the testamentary edict before he died, listed his fourteen counts, and even solved the two major problems of who will inherit the throne and the minister of Fuzheng in a very short time. How should these things be explained?
According to Wang Xi's chronicle, Shunzhi died in the early morning of the seventh day. According to Pingpu Miscellanies, Zhang Chen learned the news of Shunzhi's death only when he went to court on the eighth day of the eighth lunar month. Not only did the records of Shunzhi's death differ by a whole day, but when Shunzhi got sick, there were some contradictions in the historical records. According to the records of the Qing Dynasty, Shunzhi felt unwell the next day. In "Paving Miscellaneous Notes", it is said that Shunzhi went to Banzhe Temple the next day to see eunuch Wu give a haircut. According to his own chronicle, Wang Xi entered the palace for three consecutive days from grade one to grade three, but he didn't say that Shunzhi was ill. On the third day, Shunzhi also discussed things with Wang Xi.
At the beginning of smallpox, the body temperature rose sharply, and then it became drowsy and unconscious. If Shunzhi was really infected with smallpox, then he couldn't have braved a high fever to see eunuch Wu haircut at the beginning of the second day of junior high school. Even after I came back, I was not sick. The next day, I'm afraid it's hard to talk to Wang Xi about something important. What makes people puzzled is why Wang Xi only used the content of the discussion-he dared not simply write four words. If Wang Xi has no ulterior motives, why is he so mysterious and evasive?
Why, after all, there are so many abnormal and obvious discrepancies in the records of historical materials in so many key places that it seems difficult to draw a conclusion simply by the narrator's mistakes? Could it be that the emperor shunzhi's death was something else?
1992 On an ordinary afternoon, Zheng Wanling, who lives in Xiamen, was sorting out her father's belongings at home. The Zheng family is a descendant. After Zheng Wanling's father died, he left many books related to his ancestors. However, in the process of sorting out, a book caught Zheng Wanling's attention. ...
The manuscript found by Zheng Wanling is called "Records of King Yanping's Uprising", which records Zheng Chenggong's military career in the form of a diary. On April 20, 2004, Shunzhi, the headline of Xiamen Evening News, was killed by Zheng Chenggong in Xiamen, attracting countless eyes. This amazing news comes from a record in A Record of King Yanping's Uprising: Zheng Chenggong got a tip-off that the emperor shunzhi was shelled at Siming Port in Xiamen during the Battle of Gao Qi, but Da Su, a general of the Qing army, was afraid to announce the news.
In addition, there is a passage in the manuscript about the inside story of Taishi Gong Zheng Zhilong's murder, which once again mentions the cause of the emperor shunzhi's death: after the Qing Dynasty, Taishi Gong Zheng Zhilong wrote to persuade his son Zheng Chenggong to surrender many times, but all ended in failure, but Shunzhi did not convict him. After Shunzhi was shot in Xiamen, assistant minister Suksaha held a grudge against Zheng Zhilong and suggested to Kangxi: "Zheng Chenggong can kill our first emperor with a cannon, but can't the emperor kill his father?" Kangxi took his advice, and soon after he ascended the throne, Zheng Zhilong was executed.
According to folklore, in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, Zheng Chenggong came to Xiamen on the basis of the island's anti-Japanese and the emperor shunzhi's personal expedition. Zheng Chenggong's army fought fiercely with the Qing army along the coast. In this fierce battle, the emperor shunzhi was bombarded by Zheng Chenggong and died. The fish in Zhongjiang, Hong Kong, was deformed by eating the emperor's meat and became a fish that could not swim. Nowadays, this mythical legend has become blurred in people's word of mouth. Did the emperor shunzhi really die in Xiamen naval battle?
Hong Buren, an expert in Xiamen literature and history, believes that Shunzhi is likely to levy it himself. Moreover, the death of the commander-in-chief of the Qing army, Dasu, is full of doubts. According to the records of Yanping Wang Uprising, after Shunzhi was shot, Dasu committed suicide for fear of sin. There is a similar record in another important historical material, Looking at the Sea Record, which Zheng Chenggong studied. In October, Dasu returned to Beijing to plead guilty, and Dasu swallowed gold in the province and died. If this record is true, then what forced Dasu to choose this road of no return?
He Lingxiu, an expert in Qing history, carefully studied all kinds of historical materials provided by Xiamen literature and history experts and raised doubts. There is no such statement in the Record of the Former King, which records Zheng Chenggong's deeds. Moreover, in his speech before sending troops to recover Taiwan Province, Zheng Chenggong only mentioned that he defeated Dasu's army for a while last year, and did not say that Shunzhi was killed. Moreover, Zhang Huangyan, Minister of Nanming Dynasty, never mentioned that Shunzhi was shot by Zheng Chenggong in all his reports to Emperor Li Yong. Obviously there was no such statement at that time. In addition, the fierce battle between the Qing army and Zheng Chenggong's army was in May, so if Shunzhi was shot, it would not be more than May, because there would be no war after May. But it was not until the first month of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi that the new emperor ascended the throne, which meant that the throne was suspended for half a year, and the power vacuum would inevitably lead to political chaos, which was impossible in the feudal dynasty ruled by totalitarianism.
The records of the uprising of King Yanping brought to experts are still at a loss and confused. Did Shunzhi personally levy in Xiamen? Did you really die from Zheng Chenggong's shelling? Apart from a family manuscript and a distant legend, experts can no longer find any strong evidence. It is on this key issue that the lost answer makes the statement that Shunzhi died in Xiamen an unsolved mystery.
What took away the young lives of a generation of emperors may never get a definite answer. People can only rely on sporadic records in historical materials to restore the true colors of that period of history as much as possible. Inferred from various historical materials and signs, Shunzhi is most likely to die of smallpox, but this is still not the final conclusion. The mysterious death of Shunzhi may be buried in the silence of the Forbidden City forever. However, it is precisely because there are many puzzles that are difficult to guess that history is so intriguing.