兩岸故宮第一屆學術研討會：為君難－雍正其人其事及其時代
Emperor Yongzheng’s Historical Status
from Perspectives of Lengthy Period
Feng, Er-kang
Abstract
Yongzheng lived in the last dynasty in Chinese history, and was not the first
emperor of the Qing dynasty, so he seemed not to have enough scope and space for
his ability. However, he had made several important policies and regulations, which
included that return of compensation for silver meltage to the public(haoxianguigong),
nourish honesty silver (yanglianyin), sharing farming land tax into poll
tax(tandingrumu), confidential decision on the Crown prince(mimilichu), establishing
the offices of the Privy Council(junjichu), nomination of magistrates over minority
groups(gaituguiliu)and exempting pariah. Through enforcing these policies, he
succeeded in getting over the crisis which took place in the later period of Kangxi’s
reign. Yongzheng had enriched the state treasury, attacked actively and pacified
revolts of Junggar and established the effective system of decision on the Crown
prince, which made him become one of the most important emperors who had created
the prosperity of Qing dynasty and a figure who inherit the former and indicate the
latter in heyday during reigns of Kangxi and Qianlong. Yongzheng’s reform loosened
the relationship of personal control and brought great profit to economy. Furthermore,
it had a more important sense because what he eliminated not only the long-standing
abuse of the Qing Dynasty, but also the issues left over by history. Levying tax on
poll and property respectively had been a tradition of the history of China. Very
heavy corvee often becomes the origin or trigger point of peasants uprising. So in
Chinese history, there were successive reforms in tax, such as Yang Yan’s two-tax
system in Tang dynasty, Zhang Juzheng’s the single –whip method of
taxation(yitiaobianfa). Yongzheng’s tax reform (tandingrumu)is the full of realization
of revenue from land which had integrated the corvee. Although people who didn’t
have his own land didn’t have to pay his tax, it did not decrease the revenue of state.
In fact, there was no poll tax in nominally in the whole country at that time.
Yongzheng’s reform Inherited from the previous Tang dynasty and Ming dynasty, and
he carried on the reform more comprehensive than Yang Yan and Zhang Juzheng who
belonged to the six major known reformers in history of China. Additional
tax(xianyu)is the product of the history, when two-tax system was carried on, it
existed and was used as king tribute; In Ming dynasty, the additional tax
(haoxian)was heavy, Yongzheng`s tax reform(haoxianguigong)accompanied by
nourish honesty silver policy was a effective measure which solved the long-standing
abuse of hunderds of years in history. In a word, we can conclude that he was a
successful reformer and an outstanding emperor in history of China.
Keywords: long history, promote what is beneficial and eradicate what is harmful,
speedy and strict enforcement, being harsh, reformer
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