Iraq, etc. Everyone respects the old minister, and I rely on the center of my heart, which encourages me to be loyal, protects me as the master of the country, and assists government affairs. Although Ao Bai ranked last among the four assistant ministers, historians often refer to this period as "Ao Bai's assistant minister period", and the reason is related to Ao Bai's personal monopoly of assistant minister power. Among the four assistant ministers, Sony, who was in charge of the interior office during Shunzhi period, was a veteran of the four dynasties and had a high status; Suksaha and Bilong appeared in Huang Taiji's later years, and their abilities were limited. Although Ao Bai ranks last, its actual position is equal to Sony's.
In the early days of losing power, "Sony is old and sick, Ao Bai is dictatorial, and it is incompatible with Suksaha. It is impossible to be different if it is suppressed." In this case, Ao Bai's role is by no means the smallest, on the contrary, it is increasing day by day. On the other hand, these four ministers are all ministers of the Three Flags. In addition to the internal struggle between the flags, their policies during the Fuzheng period were basically the same, that is to say, Ao Bai's opinions basically represented those of other ministers. In this way, the history of Fuzheng from the 18th year of Shunzhi to the 8th year of Kangxi is actually the history of Ao Bai's Fuzheng.
Although Fu Lin accepted his father's lesson and arranged everything behind him before his death, what he left to the heir to the throne and four assistant ministers was not a peaceful and prosperous time, but a dilemma with many problems and complicated contradictions. On the one hand, anti-Qing forces still exist, such as the regime of Nanming in the southwest and the remnants of the Great Western Army, the Zheng regime in the southeast coast and the 13 Kui Dong Army. Some Han landlords still miss the motherland and are unwilling to cooperate with the Qing government. On the other hand, years of war have caused serious social and economic depression, people's lives are miserable and the economic situation is very difficult. In this way, how to ensure fiscal revenue, resume production, and continue to conquer and unify the war has become a major issue facing the rulers at that time.
In addition, "the soldiers entered the customs, and the Ming officials welcomed them, and it was convenient to be loyal to the monarch, so they won the country and abused the government, but did not do their best." During the Shunzhi period, there were constant party struggles, and the bad habit of attaching importance to eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty was also inherited. Officials at the central and local levels are not loyal to their duties, but corrupt and accept bribes, and the management of officials is quite corrupt. Moreover, some evil policies implemented during the Shunzhi period, such as enclosure, fleeing and moving the sea, still bring great pain to the people and arouse their dissatisfaction. If these problems are not solved, it will inevitably lead to the instability of the newly established Qing Dynasty and even the danger of subversion.
Under such circumstances, at the beginning of the auxiliary government, they declared that they would "follow the ancestral system, restore the old chapter with salt, and leave the deputy emperor." The tampered posthumous edict of Shunzhi blamed itself on fourteen counts, such as "gradually learning China customs" and "distrusting Manchu officials", which reflected the basic principles and policies of the auxiliary government period. However, these principles and policies are not "revival policies" that "go against the historical development trend at that time".
Ao Bai and other assistant ministers attached great importance to correctly handling Manchu-Chinese relations. It is an established national policy for Qing rulers to "worship Manchuria first" in all aspects. No matter during the reign of Huang Taiji, Dourgen and Shunzhi, or after Michelle Ye ascended the throne in May of the eighth year of Kangxi (1669), this national policy remained basically unchanged. No matter how friendly they are to the Han landlords, once they touch the vital interests of the Manchu rulers and endanger the dominant position of the Manchu nobles, their fundamental principle of "emphasizing the Manchu and neglecting the Han" is fully reflected. During Ao Bai's Fuzheng period, it was no exception. While Ao Bai emphasized the dominant position of Manchu and Qing Dynasty and eliminated the remnants of evil government in the late Ming Dynasty, he did not make more changes to the pattern of Manchu-Chinese relations in Shunzhi Dynasty.
In March of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, Ao Bai and others ordered that the system should be "one that is different from Manchu and Han, or one that is easier and more difficult to formulate", according to which "Emperor Taizong and Emperor Taizong should consider it more". However, "if there is a difference between today and the past, the times will be flexible, and there is a disparity between Manchu and Han, so it is difficult to unify the rules, but we must also consider it properly and play it in detail." This shows that they are not completely stuck to the old rules, but also pay attention to "flexibility." For example, in the first year of Kangxi, the Inspectorate was ordered: "I will make a tea-horse tour and discuss it recently. I have also worked part-time in Manchu, and I have been instructed to do it. " Today, I think Chamacha patrol was originally an imperial history of the Han Dynasty, and it was never full. Later, I tried to imitate the old case, and I could stop the Han officials without full officials. "Show its principle of meritocracy. Yuan specializes in diplomacy. Ao Bai and others thought that it was "responsible, and now it belongs to the Ministry of Rites, but it was not integrated with the old system", which improved its status, and the minister was "included in the discussion" and was full-time by Manchu. This change is not a complete move.
As we all know, the success of the Qing dynasty's policy towards ethnic minorities is inseparable from the role of Kaiyuan. Therefore, Ao Bai and others realized that "the responsibilities of vassal king, Baylor, princess and other affairs, as well as etiquette and criminal names, are great, which is incomparable to that of the Ming Dynasty", thus strengthening the control and management of ethnic minorities, which is actually of positive significance. As for the system adopted after Kangxi, during Yongzheng, princes and university students were in charge of hospital affairs at the same time, which was the continuation and development of this policy during the reign of Ao Bai.
It dealt a great blow to the landlords of the Han nationality in the south of the Yangtze River, but it was not so much the narrow national concept of the rulers of the Qing Dynasty as the need of the political and economic situation at that time and the continuation of shunzhi dynasty's policy of cracking down on the southern officials and gentry. This can hardly be regarded as the expression of "valuing Chinese over Han" in Ao Bai period. Although the "selling case" was implicated too much and dealt a heavy blow, it made up for the defect that the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty rarely touched the landlords in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and was conducive to consolidating the ruling order just established by the Qing government.
Ao Bai attaches great importance to the rectification of bureaucracy. In view of the disadvantages left over from the late Ming Dynasty, Ao Bai and others carried out some rectification and reform to improve the administrative efficiency and the ability of officials to handle affairs and get rid of the bad habits of officialdom. In February of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, they abolished the thirteen yamen of inner officials under the pretext of "everything was customized according to Taizong", which cleared the way for the Qing Dynasty to avoid eunuch intervention.
Half a month after the auxiliary administration, people issued an imperial edict to officials in the name of the emperor: "I took my post at my age, took charge of tens of thousands of things at the beginning, and worked together with Ryle, big and small, to praise the item." The next day, Asha, the minister of the Ministry of War and Zuo Yushi of Duchayuan, put forward ten requirements for inspection, promoting people who can "obey the imperial edict, lead an honest and clean life, love the people like their lives, reward the poor and promote the good, and eliminate evil deeds" ... and greatly broke the heart of compassion and picketed "local evil officials and villains" respectively; Be able to "obey the law carefully, and those who inspect the officials and the people will stay in their original positions"; "those who have no real people in politics" are for external use; "favoritism and bribery" should be expelled and punished. After the performance, the royal approval: "All matters discussed in this meeting must be strictly observed, and should not be regarded as empty talk, and should be strictly implemented." In order to improve administrative efficiency, in March of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, Ao Bai and others demanded that "all chapters related to government affairs should be carefully presented ... through friendly consultation, the contents of statements should be understood, and general words should not be used", stipulating that this chapter should not exceed 300 words.
A few months later, due to the fact that various departments often delay in replying to the memorial, and "although the affairs of various ministries vary in size, they are related to the national government and people's feelings, so it is natural to settle them quickly", the deadline for completing the affairs was stipulated. "If you are as vague and slow as before, you will be punished." The incidents that the governor was ordered to investigate were also divided into four categories according to the distance from the local capital, and time limits were set. "Those who violate the restrictions are punished according to the year and month." Later, it was reiterated many times that "the affairs handled by officials of the Ministry and Academy are related to the national government ... if they still follow the hasty rules, they will be punished."
Ao Bai and others realized that "the security of people's livelihood is due to the turbidity of official management. The turbidity of bureaucracy lies with the governor. " Therefore, we attach great importance to the honesty and competence of local governors. In March of the fourth year of Kangxi (1665), he told the relevant departments to investigate the governor's bad policies in the local area, such as blackmailing officials in private, threatening the post office to send more officials to support him, taking his family anywhere to "eat within the number of soldiers", conniving at traitors and villains and disrupting normal trade, and ordered that this matter be strictly prohibited. In the same year1February, Ao Bai and others accused the governor of taking bribes openly and ordered them to be given "heavier punishment". In the fifth year of Kangxi, "the four ministers wanted to send two ministers from each province to set up a yamen next to the governor to save him." Although it was not completed due to improper methods, it reflected the determination of Ao Bai and others to clean up the local bureaucracy.
During the auxiliary government period, Ao Bai took a series of measures to restore the economy. In encouraging reclamation, in addition to the assessment of officials mentioned above, the government also encourages people to plant wasteland. In June of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, in view of the fact that there was no human wasteland since the Shunzhi dynasty, "after ploughing, people often recognized their jobs and filed lawsuits", and others listened to Liu, an imperial adviser from Henan Province, and "give them a job first and make peace with Du" and "give them ten years' leniency in addition to three years as a river worker and soldier". In the case of national financial constraints, the government also gave the poor in Huguang and other places and the officers and men who surrendered to Henan and other provinces two kinds of cattle and silver, creating conditions for them to cultivate land and make a living by agriculture, which was rare in the past. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Sichuan's economy was in tatters, and Ao Bai and others also accepted the suggestions of officials, allowing people with poor names or nameless jobs to be paid by the government, and "poor officials must be placed", and put forward that "no matter whether civil and military officials in this province or other provinces, some people can recruit 30 people into Sichuan and settle them in counties in Chengdu, with a quantity and record of one time; If you can recruit 60 people, you will be recorded twice; Or to a hundred people, no matter how full, are allowed to rise. " This is of great significance to the recovery of Sichuan's agricultural economy.
One of the economic virtues of Ao Bai's Fuzheng period was the practice of "renaming farmland". In October of the seventh year of Kangxi, "it was ordered to find out the reason for abandoning the field, change the price, and levy grain according to the people's land." Because in the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty, some of these lands were occupied by peasants, the Qing government's move was actually a counterattack against these peasants, which was bound to be fiercely opposed by the latter and could not be implemented. In March of the eighth year of Kangxi, the government ordered that "in order to avoid price changes, the officers sent by them were withdrawn and handed over to the governor so that they could farm and collect grain as usual", and that "the surplus land was not inherited and people were recruited to reclaim it", officially acknowledging some achievements made by farmers in the uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
By the end of Shunzhi, although the war to unify the whole country and consolidate the rule was coming to an end, military actions still existed after all, which also had a certain impact on economic recovery. Due to Ao Bai's efforts to implement measures to promote economic recovery, agricultural production in this period not only did not stagnate, but also recovered and developed. Still based on the figures in Qing Shi Lu: from the eighteenth year of Shunzhi to the seventh year of Kangxi, the population increased by 228,575; The land has increased by 145322 hectares; A total of RMB 65,438+065,438+04,838 was collected from the bank, with an average annual population growth rate of 1.7%. The average annual growth rate of land is 3.6 ‰; The average annual growth rate of tax revenue is 0.62%, which shows that the average annual growth rate of land is more than four times that of tax revenue, which is of course beneficial to people's recuperation and economic recovery.
Although Ao Bai was an important military general who followed Huang Taiji to win the world in one fell swoop, the other three auxiliary ministers were well-equipped and had a long military career. However, apart from continuing the unified war since shunzhi dynasty, Ao Bai did not carry out any aggressive military actions during the auxiliary government period. Compared with their political and economic achievements, their military policies and actions are very moderate.
In the first year of Kangxi, he died of illness, and his son Zheng fought with Qing Dynasty in Taiwan Province and Jinxia. As a result of the infighting over the succession after his death, the internal contradictions of the Zheng regime became extremely fierce, and many civilian military commanders expressed dissatisfaction with Zheng Jing. So people took advantage of this opportunity to offer official salaries to Zheng's staff to appease them. For example, in November of the first year of Kangxi, Yang came back, made him the left governor, and added the Prince Taibao, "still awarded the third-class Ashi Hani Hafan"; In the second year of Kangxi, Zheng Mingjun, his brother, was named Hou Zunyi, and Zheng, his nephew, was named Mu, and so on. In addition to knighthood, others also used these people to attack the Zheng regime to show their trust. For example, Emperor Kangxi ordered Taiwan Province Province in the third year, as well as Shi Lang, Zhou Quanbin, yangfu, Lin Shun and He Yi. The commanders of the navy are all old friends of Zheng. Under the "instigation" of the Qing regime, "from September of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi to July of the first year of Kangxi, puppet generals, governors, generals, lieutenant generals, commanders, commanders and generals were recruited in succession, totaling 290 officers, 4,334 soldiers and 467 families".
From October of the first year of Kangxi to October of the third year of Kangxi, there were 16 or 17 batches of large-scale surrenders, including a large number of officials and generals known as Zheng Jing's "confidant" and "right-hand man", including Zheng, Zheng Shixian, Zheng Zhibao's biological mother Huang, and Zheng's "sons and nephews". There were more than a thousand officials who came to the Qing Dynasty with them, which were shared by the army and the people.
Others took advantage of the infighting of Zheng regime, supplemented by attack, and successively sent troops to conquer Jin, Xia and Tongshan. Zheng Jing retreated to Taiwan Province Province. In the fourth year of Kangxi, Mu was sent to Taiwan Province to surrender in an attempt to recover Taiwan Province Province peacefully. However, Zheng Jing tried to divide the land and said, "Please pay tribute to North Korea", but the assistant minister refused. In the sixth year of Kangxi, Shi Lang invited Taiwan Province to attack again, but it failed because of "the discussion with Zhao Fu". From then on, the two sides confronted each other until fourteen years later.
Ao Bai's unified policy of "giving priority to comfort the soul" during the auxiliary government period should be said to be beneficial to restoring the economy, reassuring the people and alleviating the financial crisis. Until the 21st year of Kangxi, Feng Pu, the minister, asked Michelle Ye not to lightly suppress Taiwan Province, and to "save trouble and share interest with the people" and continue the policy of Ao Bai period. The above actions of Ao Bai and others also achieved positive results, which prepared good conditions for the unification of Taiwan Province Province in the 22nd year of Kangxi.
On the treatment of several drawbacks in the early qing dynasty. In the early years of Shunzhi, the bad policies that brought great harm to people's lives and property, such as escape law, enclosure and banishment to the sea, still existed during the period of Ao Bai's auxiliary government, but gradually eased. Due to the policy of moving to the sea, coastal residents were displaced. In August of the eighteenth year of Shunzhi, the assistant minister ordered the residents who moved to the sea to "give land and houses as soon as possible ... so that the people can get benefits." In the fourth year of Kangxi, the coastal residents of Qingdao, Dengshan and Lailai were "unemployed because of the sea ban", and Ao Bai and others allowed them to "make a living by fishing". In the seventh year of Kangxi, Zhou Youde, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, reported that the local people had moved along the coast for a long time and were unemployed. He suggested that Haikou "set up troops to defend and resettle the relocated households at the same time". This proposal was endorsed by Ao Bai and others. In the first month of the eighth year of Kangxi, the "order to relax the sea ban" was beneficial to coastal residents.
During the Shunzhi period, a large number of people who did not want to be serfs and tu were forced to flee. In the eleventh year of Shunzhi, "100,000 to 30,000 people fled, and less than one tenth of them were arrested". The Qing court enacted a stricter escape law, which not only arrested fugitives, but also severely punished homeowners, implicated neighbors, and many villains and hooligans took advantage of the fire to rob many people. At the end of the third year of Kangxi, Masina, the right assistant minister of the Ministry of War who specializes in arresting fugitives, also pointed out the shortcomings of the Fugitive Offenders Law, demanding "exempting the hostage trial implicated in the proposal" and avoiding "involving many people".
In the first month of the following year, some people recounted the disadvantages of the Fugitive Law, thinking that "it is really pitiful for such people to be implicated, wronged innocently and starved to death in prison", and ordered the relevant departments to formulate legislation that "fugitives should get it, gangsters should not be unscrupulous, and kings should not cheat". In the sixth year of Kangxi, he also ordered the local government to strictly control the release of prisoners and fugitives who harassed the local area. If there is any "conspiracy to cheat", they should be punished for felony, and those officials who are lax in releasing prisoners should also be "severely punished for their crimes and will not be forgiven" Although they regarded the refugee problem as a problem closely related to their own interests and could not fundamentally change the refugee law, they noticed the disadvantages of the refugee law and tried to solve them, which gradually eased the refugee problem during this period. After two large-scale enclosures in the fifth year of Shunzhi, with the direct intervention of Ao Bai, there was another large-scale land exchange in the capital city area, which was a major political disadvantage in the period of Fuzheng.
In the fifth year of Kangxi, Ao Bai proposed that in the early years of Shunzhi, Dourgen took Baoding, which was due to the yellow flag, and replaced the rotten land of Zhengbaiqi with the yellow flag for his own benefit, so he asked for "writing a letter to change the flag". This proposal was opposed by Su Nanhai, minister of Zhengbaiqi. Su Nanhai thinks that "the land has been allocated for a long time, and Kangxi has served the purpose that private land is not allowed to be circled for three years" and demanded that this proposal be rejected. Although this incident was caused by internal contradictions in the Eight Banners, Su Nanhai's proposition is conducive to social stability and the recovery and development of production.
However, he bullied the weak and acted arbitrarily, regardless of the opposition of Su Nanhai, Zhili Governor Zhu Changzuo and Governor Wang. In December of the fifth year of Kangxi, it was determined that "Yellow Flag recruited 4,600 able-bodied men, covering an area of 203,000 noon, and there were three white flags in Jizhou, Zunhua and Qian 'an, which were divided into mainland, private land, reclamation land, land and Han land. If it is not enough, choose Yongping, Luanzhou, Laoting and Kaiping as appropriate. "From the above records, the 1 1 10,000 hectares of land after Zhengbai Banner moved out is far from enough to meet the demand of more than 200,000 hectares of Huangqi, and others will be surrounded by new land. However, the able-bodied men who moved out of Zhengbaiqi did not move to the south, that is, the place where Huangqi moved out, but to the civilian areas of Yutian, Feng Run, Yongping and other counties in the new circle. In this way, the so-called land exchange actually became the third large-scale enclosure since Shunzhi, which brought great disaster to the people of your house.
Although Ao Bai and others ordered that "the land exchange will end in two months", "after that, if there is a petition to exchange flags, it will be banned". However, Ao Bai and others, regardless of the people's sufferings of "supporting the elderly and taking care of the young" and the consequences of "after the autumn harvest" and "abandoning farming for four or five hundred miles in Zunhua, Jizhou", forcibly exchanged land for enclosure, which brought huge losses to people's lives and property and endangered agricultural production and social stability. This is really a major drawback of benefiting the country and the people.
In the eighth year of Kangxi (1669), on May 16, Ao Bai, a powerful assistant minister and first-class male, was arrested by Emperor Kangxi Michelle Ye. The root of this big case is Ao Bai's cronyism and arbitrariness. What he did hindered the high concentration of imperial power, which was not conducive to Michelle Ye's dogmatism, rather than the so-called Ao Bai's conspiracy to usurp the throne.
In the fifth year of Kangxi (1666), Ao Bai dealt a heavy blow to the opposition forces headed by Zhengbaiqi by exchanging land, and its power rose sharply. In June of the sixth year of Kangxi, Sony died of illness. In July, Suksaha asked to quit politics because of Ao Bai's threat, and "went to the mausoleum of the first emperor", which was designated by Ao Bai as a great sin of dissatisfaction with the personal rule of Emperor Kangxi and was executed. In this way, Nuo Nuo was the only passive minister among the four auxiliary ministers in the early years of Kangxi, and Ao Bai's power reached its peak on the eve of his arrest in six to eight years of Kangxi. Individuals were given first-class public and first-class surnames (there were ministers of the Qing Dynasty who added surnames, and only Ao Bai and the Communist Party Suppression Association prospered); His son Nanwu Buddha inherited the second-class male and gave it to Prince Shao Shi. His nephew, Princess Nardushan, is called Heshuo. As far as its members are concerned, such as Bambur, who is good at being a college student, Ji, the minister of work, and Ma, who is the minister of commerce, basically control the affairs of the state. "All political affairs are discussed before the private party, and then implemented, and officials of the Ministry of Education take it to the private party to discuss", and even "the little red book is copied, and Ao Bai, the minister of Fuzheng, takes it back to modify it". As Bai Jin, a French missionary, wrote, "At the age of fifteen or sixteen, the most powerful prime minister among the four regents held the real power of discussing the king and six meetings and arbitrarily exercised the authority of Emperor Kangxi. Therefore, no one has the courage to question him. "
However, at the same time, with the growth of age, Michelle Ye has become more and more mature. When Ao Bai urged that Sunahai and Suksaha be severely punished, he could clearly express his different opinions. Although Ao Bai was too strong to keep calm, it strengthened his determination to destroy Ao Bai. Ao Bai, in particular, used to "reprimand the Minister of Education and cut the chapter", and even "clamored for his arm and beat him hard for a few days" in front of Michelle Ye, which greatly damaged Michelle Ye's dignity as an emperor. With the announcement of Michelle Ye's pro-government in July of the 6th year of Kangxi, Ao Bai became an obstacle for him to monopolize power. Therefore, in the imperial edict of capturing Ao Bai alive, he said that "Ao Bai should be peaceful before me, but he is threatening people and shouting questions ... and whenever he uses it in management, Ao Bai bullies me and does whatever he wants", which is obviously intolerable to a generation of British master Michelle Ye.
In May of the eighth year of Kangxi, Michelle Ye captured Ao Bai by using "Buku Game", ending the "Ao Bai Fuzheng Period" in Qing history.