Zhuang Yougong

Zhuang Yougong

Zhuang Yougong (1713-1767) was born in Panyu county (now Huangpu), Guangzhou Prefecture, Guangdong Province. In the fourth year of Qianlong reign (1739), the number one scholar of science was no more. He has successively held the posts of Hanlin Academy Xiuzhuan, Shidu bachelor, Zhongcheng, Guanglu Siqing, youshilang of the Ministry of war, Shangshu of the Ministry of punishment, assistant bachelor, governor of Liangjiang, Prince Shaobao, governor of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei and Fujian. In July 1767, he died in Fujian. He was 55 years old. Zhuang Yougong was praised by the people for his "diligent administration, loving the people, honest and self-reliance" as an official.

Personage introduction

Zhuang Yougong's early political road was plain sailing. When he first met Qianlong, he left a good impression on the emperor. "On the day of the palace examination, the public's countermeasures are as follows: not for the horse of the battle, but for the phoenix of the rising sun", which is deeply loved by the emperor. "This second language was quite popular at that time.". Emperor Qianlong saw that his "demeanor was perfect, and Tianyan was very happy. He was given the opportunity to write. The next day, he was ordered to enter Zhishang study. In the fifth year of Qianlong (1740), he was an official in charge of daily life, and moved to be a bachelor in charge. In 1744, he moved to Guanglu temple to find his father. In 1746, he was promoted to a cabinet bachelor and moved to the capital as a right servant of the Ministry of war. In 1748, he was appointed governor of Jiangsu Academic Administration. In the first month of 1750, he was given the title of minister of the Ministry of household affairs, and sought to be the official examiner of Jiangnan Rural examination. In 1751, he still served as the governor of Jiangsu Province and became a local senior official.

Zhuang Yougong is diligent and loves the people, "vowing to be diligent and self-motivated.". Since he became governor of Jiangsu Province in 1752, he has been working in Guangxi for six years. He has seen his staff and subordinates in the daytime and ruled the documents in the night, or even missed a lot of rest. At the turn of summer and autumn in 1753, Huaiyang county was flooded. He went to investigate and pay for the flood in person. Later, he "ordered to cut off 1.2 million stones from the water and pay 5 million taels of silver for relief. The people got the Soviet Union.". In the summer of 1756, there were many diseases in the area. Zhuang took the lead in donating to help the people tide over the difficulties. According to historical records, he made "the first donation to make the Department inspect the people's diseases and give them medicine.". For the dead, give him the name.

During the term of governor of Jiangsu Province, one incident almost killed Yougong. At that time, Zhu Zhe in Fengxing County committed the crime of homicide by sitting as the commander, which should be punished according to the law. Zhu Cheng asked for atonement, and Yougong agreed to Zhu's request in order to ease his financial difficulties. However, Zhuang did not ask for instructions from the central government until 1756, when Zhuang left as governor of Jiangsu Province and went to governor of Jiangnan river. After reading the memorial, Qianlong was very angry. He said, "it's really shocking to see that Zhuang Yougong played it. He didn't hear that he was guilty of committing a crime of death. He ordered the Secretary to allow him to redeem him. He didn't understand the reason until he left office." he also ordered Yin Jishan to investigate and deal with it according to the facts. "In the case of Yin Jishan and his new governor aibida, Zhu Zhe's atonement, Gong failed to comply with the established rules and gave his approval immediately, which made it difficult to argue the crime of being good at it; Gong tried Qiuwei, found out Zhang gusun's bribery and conspiracy, and was good at criticizing and punishing him; he was strict with Yu's cricket fighting, and Gong also criticized and punished him; neither of them played the role of storing the money in Jiangning, Wuxian, Taixing and other warehouses." These charges are enough to kill the head according to the law.

In April 1757, nine Qing, a great scholar, proposed to punish him with a crime of courtesy. Emperor Qianlong considered that the economic problems involved in these cases, the money was stored in the local public treasury, and was not put into his own pocket by the Zhuang family, so he was once again exempted from capital punishment. Qianlong Zhu PI said: "this case has not been involved in personal affairs, so we should be lenient and avoid death, and send it to the military station to serve. Now that Yi's mother is dead, she is still allowed to take care of her home. After that, she goes to the military station and is not allowed to donate or redeem. " After that, Fang Yi was banished and ordered to be the governor of Hubei Province. Zhuang Yougong survived a great political disaster.

During his decades of political career, Zhuang Yougong was punished by salary, dismissal, going to the army to serve in Taiwan, and even beheaded after autumn, but he was pardoned again and again by Qianlong. The reason why Qianlong was merciful to him was from Zhuang's achievements in water control.

Qianlong attached great importance to water conservancy construction. He thought: "since ancient times, governance was based on supporting the people, and the way of supporting the people was to make profits and prevent disasters. Only when there was no danger of floods and droughts, can we make the cover and storage abundant, and the urgency can be used for reference." Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the focus of national wealth, but they are often impacted by the tide. Especially from Hangzhou to Haining, the tidal disaster is the most serious. Water conservancy in Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas has been attached great importance in all dynasties. During the Ming Dynasty and the Kangyong period of the Qing Dynasty, a large-scale seawall construction work was carried out. Qianlong also believed that "the seawall project in Zhejiang Province was the guarantee for the residents of the seven counties of hang, Jia, Hu, Su, song, Chang and Zhen". Zhuang Yougong, a former governor of Jiangsu Province, naturally took the construction of seawalls as one of the central contents of his work. As early as 1752, when he was the governor of the two rivers, he borrowed 16000 taels of kuyin to build Taicang and Zhenyang seawalls. In 1756, he was promoted to be the governor of Jiangnan river. Soon after, because of Zhu Zhe's improper punishment and redemption, Zhuang Dai acted as governor of Hubei. However, in the case of "it is very rare to have a good command of river affairs", Qianlong soon transferred Zhuang from Hubei to Zhejiang.

In the spring of 1762, when the emperor was on a tour to the south, he was very happy to see Zhuang Yougong. He gave him a poem: "I'm not a counsellor myself, and I'm very outstanding. Starting out is not a failure to learn by sitting and speaking. The old voice of Heshi is still with you, and the new deal of Longshan is more popular. The seawall is just the place where the investment is difficult, and the rock is safe, so there is no need to perform meritorious deeds. " I appreciate Zhuang. In September, Zhuang Shubao reported that hainingtang was completed. Emperor Qianlong Longyan Dayue thought that Zhuang was "very dedicated and highly commendable". He proposed to add one rank, to transfer the governor of Jiangsu, and to add the prince Shaobao. However, the seawall project in Zhejiang is very important, "Zhuang Yougong has made great efforts to prepare for the project", so he still listens to Zhuang Yougong's special responsibility for the project and has great trust in him. In November, yougongxuezheng was exempted from punishing more than 60000 liang of unfinished silver. At the end of 1764, Zhuang Yougong, who had been promoted to minister of the Ministry of punishment, asked to overhaul the Sanjiang water conservancy. In the following year, he ordered his assistant to be a bachelor, but he remained as governor for a while. Qianlong made another tour to the South and gave him praise and encouragement.

Zhuang Yougong is a very rare water control talent. As an official, he basically deals with water most of the time. Many seawall construction in Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas have left his footprints. He paid great attention to field investigation. In the autumn of 1762, the water level of Taihu Lake rose and did not recede for a long time. He "went to Jiahu to investigate" and found that the rivers were silted, so he asked the three rivers (Wuxiang River, loujiang River and Dongjiang River, which are the main channels for water discharge from Taihu Lake) to dredge Taihu Lake. In the process of water conservancy construction, he tried to avoid increasing the burden on the people due to the construction of water conservancy. In his last recital, he repeatedly said, "if money is collected to promote construction, and the land is still collected in each state and county year by year, the people's strength will be reduced and the work can be quickly gathered.". This is probably the source of his economic problems. In the process of water control, he had a clear division of labor. For example, in the Qiantang River water conservancy project mentioned above, he "set up a garrison, assigned a thousand teams to 12 teams, divided the defense, and saved the people.". He also stressed that water conservancy construction should be carried out in a concerted effort. "If the construction is carried out in succession, we are afraid that the project will be completed in half year, and we can't resist the flood in autumn, so we still abandon our previous achievements.". He also learned from the achievements and experience of his predecessors. For example, in Ming Dynasty, he created and developed a large stone pond with fish scales stacked vertically and horizontally. His ideas and methods of water control are still of referential significance. Qian Daxin, a famous scholar in the Qing Dynasty, praised his achievements in flood control in Yougong's tomb inscription: "there is no cause for saving the flood and drought, and the river can live in Qingbo. Build a dry pond, build a stone on the sea, or weave bamboo and water bamboo

Although Zhuang Yougong's life is full of twists and turns, his achievements in water control are still praised. As the only number one scholar in Guangzhou in Qing Dynasty, because of his outstanding talent, it caused "scholars in the sea know and don't know, and don't envy when they hear the public name.". He is very concerned about the education in his hometown. At the time of the reconstruction of Panyu county school, he was pleased to write the reconstruction of Panyu Confucianism to encourage later generations. After Yougong's death, people buried him, his grandfather and father on Feieling mountain in Wenchong village, Huangpu District, and called Zhuang's cemetery mountain Zhuangyuan mountain. The tomb of Zhuangyuan covers an area of about 1000 mu, surrounded by a stele boundary of "Tomb of zhuangfu". The tomb stone is engraved with the words "the tomb of junzhuanggong in chunzhai mansion, which was given by the emperor Qing Dynasty to the official of the Chinese parliament, Guanglu Temple".

Figure tombs

On November 1, the tomb of Zhuang Yougong, the only Tomb of the number one scholar in Guangzhou in the Qing Dynasty, was officially finalized. The tomb of Zhuang Yougong, which was discovered in the past, was originally the tomb of Zhuang cunzhai, the "father of the number one scholar", but the real tomb of Zhuang cunzhai was 50 meters away! After that, the location of Zhuang Yougong's tomb became a mystery. Zhuang's descendants and cultural relic experts searched all the places with the place name of "Number One Scholar" in Guangzhou and found some Zhuang's tombs. Zhuang Wenbin, a descendant of the Zhuang family, said, "there is a tomb of the Zhuang family in Dishuiyan, Baiyun Mountain. We have also found several places with the place names of the number one scholar in Huangpu District."

Discovery of Tomb of number one scholar

In 1999, during the third cultural relic survey in Guangzhou, the tomb of Zhuang Yougong was found in Feieling, Dasha Town, Huangpu District. Then, in March 2000, the collection of Guangzhou Cultural Relics supplementary investigation results introduced Zhuang Yougong's tomb: "located in Feieling, Dasha Town, it was built in 1767, the 32nd year of Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty. The tomb covers an area of 132 square meters and the cemetery is about 200 mu. The tomb is made of three-level concrete, with a semi oval tomb in front and a huge stone tablet embedded in the middle. The stone tablet is 16.7 meters high and 0.82 meters wide. The two borders are decorated with reliefs of dragon playing beads, which are extremely exquisite. The inscription on the tablet reads: "the tomb of junzhuanggong in the house of Zhai, which was presented by the emperor Qing to the official of the Chinese parliament, Guanglu temple." There are two stone lions 50 meters in front of the tomb. Further ahead, there stands a granite tomb table, about 4.8 meters high. The top of the table lies a lion, facing each other from afar, majestic.... " On July 8, 2002, Zhuang Yougong's tomb was declared as a cultural relic protection unit by Guangzhou Municipal People's government.

Expert opinion

In 2003, the fourth census of cultural relics was launched in Guangzhou. In the process of census, the census personnel of Huangpu District found the "epitaph of junzhuanggong, Guanglu temple, which was given by the emperor Qing as a gift to the central government by the tomb robbers" in front of the above-mentioned cemetery.

Among them, some experts put forward their own views and new findings

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