Emperor Jiaqing is called mediocrity, this is helpless. From a personal point of view, he is indeed mediocre as the son of the emperor's father who claims to be "the old man of perfection", but Emperor Qianlong's criterion for selecting heirs is to conform to the Chinese traditional ethics of "the mean". Since the early death of the former sons of Emperor Qianlong, he could only choose from the sons of the concubine. However, compared with Yonglian Yongcong, these few have many shortcomings, only Yongzhen has relatively few shortcomings, so he made him a reserve. Yong Jin has a loyal face, a beautiful face, and well-defined features; he has excellent academic ability and is familiar with the history of the scriptures; he has a good character and has a good reputation among the courts and the public, especially with the Han literati Zhu Gui, Dong Gao, Liu Yong, and Wang Jie.
From the perspective of governance, the Taishang emperor passed away for four years before he took over the ruling power, but the vigorous and vigorous removal of He Shen shows that the city is deep and rich in political experience. As everyone knows, Emperor Jiaqing hated corruption, but the Taishang emperor reigned for a day, and he endured it for a day, with a deep endurance, and finally waited until his early days and he was done. In addition, to put down the White Lotus Rebellion and govern the transportation of water, it cannot be denied that Emperor Jiaqing was also a wise ruler, diligent and caring for the people, but his character and education limited his country policy.
Emperor Jiaqing abide by the hadith of "the golden mean" and "respect the gods", did not dare to go beyond the thunder pool, and had no motivation and courage to reform. He is a well-behaved personality and is a qualified gentleman, but he doesn't realize the root cause of corruption.
Killing a huge corruption like Heshen and Fugang will not solve the problem. There will only be more corrupt officials who will come forward. There will only be changes in the system, but the Emperor Jiaqing couldn’t do it. He dare not do it; he is frugal by nature, but he can't stop the extravagance of the ruling and the opposition; he fights fire everywhere, but the fire is getting stronger and stronger. When he still followed the ancestral motto of shutting down the country, the European continent had already left the Qing empire far behind with the rumbling wheel of the "industrial revolution". The supreme ruler did not realize that the Qing empire was no longer a kingdom in the heavens. Think of it as the center of the world.
In the entire Jiaqing period, corruption in the officialdom, corruption in the army, and financial difficulties were not resolved. He worked hard but was unable to return to the sky, and finally went slack. Because his ambition was polished by the local governor and the central officials, the polish disappeared. He is an emperor in an era of great change, but he has not carried out any Westernized or modernized reforms. He caused the Qing empire to become more degenerate without any change. It can be said that he was completely unable to change the destiny of the empire.
Reference "Drafts of Qing History"
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