Reputation is a good thing and a bad thing. When you don't care, it's a good thing; when you care, it's a bad thing. Those who seek fame will never understand where true reputation comes from.
Because they were bound by feudal traditional ethics, ancient Chinese intellectuals were very concerned about reputation, so there were many people who were seeking fame and reputation, and did things that went against their conscience and morality for the sake of their reputation.
As a well-known literati, Liu Yong has few works handed down to the world. He does not seem to value his reputation at all. In fact, if we carefully analyze Qianlong's strategy of controlling his ministers, it is not difficult to understand Liu Yong's profound wisdom and self-protection. His understated talent was one of the reasons why Qianlong admired him.
Qianlong was very dissatisfied with the good reputation habits of his courtiers. In his opinion, the increasing reputation of ministers hindered the administration of the court and was not conducive to maintaining the authority of the royal family. Therefore, he often gives some lessons to those who like to seek fame and reputation, and even carries out big actions and killings.
Qianlong once warned Chen Hongmou, the governor of Shaanxi Province, very sternly: "If you don't change your past mistakes, cover up troubles, and still follow the bad habit of seeking fame and fame, you will not be able to escape my warning and think again." "Invite Kuan Dian."
It can be seen that Qianlong was very angry about this. However, as a feudal tradition, a good reputation has become a deep-rooted yearning in the hearts of intellectuals, and it is difficult to stop it. When successive warnings had no effect, Qianlong came up with the idea of ??using a prison to shock people, and so the Yin Jiaquan case broke out.
In March of the forty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign (1781), Qianlong stopped briefly in Baoding on his way back to Beijing from a tour of Mount Wutai. Yin Jiaquan, the former Dali Temple resident who retired at home, took the opportunity to request a posthumous title for his father and worship him in the Confucian Temple. At that time, Yin Jiaquan never imagined that this move would actually bring about a fatal disaster for him.
Yin Huiyi is the father of Yin Jiaquan, a native of Boye County, Zhili Province. He served as governor of Henan in the early years of Qianlong and has always had a good reputation. He believed in Taoism and wrote many works on nature and destiny. When he was an official, he also paid great attention to accumulating virtue and doing good deeds. After returning to his hometown to settle down, he engaged in some charitable undertakings such as setting up charity warehouses, setting up charity fields, and promoting schools in Yiyi.
What this old master admires most is Tang Bin of the Kangxi Dynasty, thinking that he is worthy of being the first person in Taoism in this dynasty. Because of his admiration for Tang Bin, when Yin Huiyi took office as governor of Henan, he petitioned Tang Bin to worship at the Confucian Temple. Although he was not approved by the court, it raised his worth. At that time, people believed that he was related to the Kangxi Dynasty. The three famous ministers of preaching - Lu Longqi, Tang Bin and Zhang Boxing were on par with each other, and they became famous for a while.
Yin Jiaquan has lived with his father, a Taoist, since he was a child. He has been deeply influenced by Taoism and has done some research on Taoism.
When he grew up, he entered an official career and took it as his own responsibility to inherit the Taoist tradition. When he was proud, he even claimed that he was the descendant of Mencius.
Yin Jiaquan was born in Juren. He served as Si, Dao and other officials in Shandong, Shanxi, Gansu and other provinces. Later, he was promoted to the minister of Dali Temple. He was a third-rank official and ranked among the nine ministers. But not long after, he returned to his hometown due to old age. Yin Jiaquan did not develop in his official career precisely because he never forgot to talk about his Taoism, which was contrary to the "sacred will". Unexpectedly, this pedantic master still didn't understand it after he retired and returned to his hometown. He was still blindly confused and didn't know how to observe words and emotions.
After Qianlong read Yin Jiaquan's first memorial, he was not moved by his filial piety, but felt disgusted. Qianlong's idea was that whether or not to give a posthumous title to a minister after his death, and what title to give it, is a very solemn matter, because it relates to the evaluation of the deceased minister's life, so it should be drafted by the cabinet and decided by the emperor himself. And this Yin Jiaquan asked for a posthumous title just to gain a filial name. What kind of etiquette is this? Thinking of this, Qianlong wrote on Yin Jiaquan's memorial: "The posthumous title is a national decree, how can you ask for it in vain? This memorial should be handed over to the Ministry of Justice for punishment. I will remember you. It's my father's affair, please forgive me. If you continue to be unruly at home, your crime will not go unchecked!" Unexpectedly, Yin Jiaquan not only did not appreciate it, but also added fuel to the fire with a second trick, which suddenly forced Qianlong into a dead end.
His second chapter starts with the story of Lu Long of this dynasty who worshiped in the Confucian Temple, and then leads to his father’s wish that Tang Bin should also worship in the Confucian Temple. Only at the end does he point out that not only Tang Bin, but also Fan Wencheng, Li Guangdi, Gu Badai, Zhang Boxing and others were also in Tang Bin's area, and they all agreed to worship in the Confucian Temple. Qianlong was really angry at this time. Someone actually threatened him to do something, and he looked like he would not give up until he was given a posthumous title.
On the same day, Qianlong summoned the Minister of Military and Aircraft and others, showed them the two excerpts of Yin Jiaquan published by Zhu, and gave the following instructions: Immediately remove Yin Jiaquan from Dingdai, lock him up and release him from Beijing, and hand him over to the Ministry of Punishment for punishment. Check their property and property. In addition, Qianlong also made a special statement: During the inspection, the assets and objects should come second, if there is any word "arrogant".
Memories, poetry albums, letters, etc. must be carefully inspected and reproduced truthfully.
Qianlong hated lecturing from then on. He believed that such a trend would eventually endanger the emperor's rule and make everyone feel unhappy. As the saying goes, "In ancient times, giving lectures in the name of teaching gradually led to the establishment of cliques."
Therefore, Qianlong paid special attention to cracking down on cliques and suppressing the tendency of lecturing since the early days of his accession to the throne. He once taught ministers, workers and scholars alike to just immerse themselves in Taoism and practice it. Therefore, whoever thought of himself as a Taoist teacher at that time and talked about his benevolence, morality, and self-cultivation would be ridiculed by public opinion at the least, and would bring disaster at the worst. It was under such a background that Yin Jiaquan unexpectedly appeared. He just gave lectures himself, but he also asked the emperor to respect a lot of famous Taoists who were not fishy and nondescript, and revived the trend of lecturing. Qianlong responded to this Of course angry.
Following Qianlong's order, the Hanlin officials who were responsible for reviewing books found not only 131 "arrogant writings" in each book written by Yin Jiaquan, but also found other "arrogant" places in Yin Jiaquan's books. It turns out that Yin Jiaquan calls himself "an old man from ancient times". The second dictionary of "Guxi" published Du's poem "Life is seventy years old and rare", which is not the patent of emperors. However, unfortunately, Qianlong also happened to have his seventieth birthday. He called himself the "Emperor of Ancient Xi" and wrote "The Theory of Ancient Xi". Proclaim it to the world, thus monopolizing "ancient rareness". Unexpectedly, Yin Jiaquan, who is over seventy years old, does not know that he has a high eyebrow but a low eye, so he also uses the nickname "ancient rare", but he is criticized as "delusion".
On April 17, the forty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign, after repeated interrogations, the bachelor, Jiuqing and others executed Yin Jiaquan in Lingchi according to the law of great rebellion, and his relatives sat in accordance with the law. Qianlong ordered him to be given a favor to prevent him from being imprisoned. Instead, he was ordered to be hanged and decided, and his relatives were also given a favor to prevent him from being imprisoned. At the same time, the provinces were ordered to confiscate and destroy eighty-two kinds of Yin Jiaquan's writings. His stone inscriptions and rubbings on stele cliffs in various places were also shoveled and destroyed. The work of various provinces to seize Yin Jiaquan's written works began in March of the 46th year of Qianlong's reign and was basically completed until December of that year.
It can be seen from this that Qianlong "drunkard does not care about wine". He wanted to use the Yin Jiaquan case to explain to all civil and military ministers the idea of ??"the unknown minister of this dynasty". He said: "To be called a famous minister, one must have his deeds to safeguard the country. However, it is no longer a blessing for the country to wait for famous ministers to be safe. Looking at the past generations, there are only a handful of loyal and good people, but there are endless treacherous ones. , it can be seen that famous ministers are not easy to obtain. I think that this dynasty has a strict discipline and has no famous ministers, and there are no treacherous ministers. "Qianlong's denial of the existence of famous ministers was actually deliberately belittling the role of ministers in politics.
In the forty-ninth year of Qianlong's reign (1784), Emperor Qianlong issued a general order prohibiting local officials from building moral monuments. This was also the reason why he ordered the people to make umbrellas and take off their boots when leaving office. Therefore, Liu Yong, who was born as a famous prime minister, became content and inactive under the influence of Qianlong's thought of "the unknown minister of this dynasty" in his later years. Not only did he remember to attribute his reputation to the emperor, but he also never did anything to "invite fame" to gain fame.
After seeing the example of Qianlong's rectification of Yin Jiaquan, you should understand why Liu Yong, a great calligrapher and famous poet, has few works handed down to the world, because Liu Yong is a very cautious minister with a sense of the overall situation.
In addition to the deterrent effect of the "literary prison" at that time, considering Liu Yong's own way of being an official, he would not ask about this matter.
Let’s not mention the rights and wrongs of “literary prison” for the moment, but the pursuit of fame and reputation is indeed something that should not exist in the officialdom.
This is a highly dangerous item for officials, who may accidentally put themselves in danger.