The incident should start with 1768. The thirty-three years of Qianlong were the most prosperous period of Kanggan. A small stone bridge was to be built in a village in Deqing, Zhejiang, so a stonemason was invited to build the bridge. While working as a stonemason, a farmer came running. He secretly consulted with the stonemason and asked him to put a sign with a name on it. He hit the bridge pile in the river with a hammer, so he hit it with a hammer. At that time, people thought that every time a hammer struck this symbol with a name, that person's soul would shake, and if it was struck too much, it would eventually break that person's soul. The stonemason was curious and asked him why he did it and how he hated this man so much. The farmer said that this man is his nephew. Because he has no children, he has been boarding at his nephew's house, but his nephew often abuses him, and the farmer bears a grudge, so he came up with this idea.
I didn't expect masons not to do it, but to report to the government and expose farmers. Deqing county magistrate arrested the farmer after receiving the report. Beat him dozens of times on charges of stirring up trouble and disturbing public order. I thought it was over to punish this ignorant peasant who believed in feudal superstition and let him stop committing crimes. There was no sound. After the case was reported to the court, it became the starting point of a series of shocking cases, and then it swept across most of China. At that time, people were so worried that they were afraid to tell strangers their names. If someone behaves slightly abnormally, it may be regarded as performing necromancy, and then report to the government or even retaliate by force.
Since this case, officials from all over the country have reported all kinds of cases about soul calling, which spread from Zhejiang to Jiangsu, Hubei, Shandong, Henan, and finally to Hebei and Beijing. The case of evocation involves more than a dozen provinces, with suspects ranging from monks and beggars to warlocks and farmers. The means of committing crimes are also varied, such as asking strangers' names, secretly cutting other people's clothes, secretly cutting other people's hair and so on. Senior officials in various provinces were also troubled by these cases and finally had no choice but to report to the Beijing court.
At first, Qianlong didn't take this case seriously, thinking it was just superstition. It was not until later that the evocation case involved secretly cutting other people's hair that Gan Long suddenly felt that something was wrong. Qianlong was as sensitive to politics as any emperor before, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt that it was a conspiracy. At that time, it was only a hundred years since the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, Yangzhou No.7 Middle School and Jiading Massacre. At that time, the political slogan "Don't let hair grow, don't let hair grow" killed tens of millions of people in the regime change.
No matter what evocation case, no matter how feudal and superstitious, it is only some public security cases at most, but it certainly does not involve haircuts. Once the necromancy case involves a haircut, it may lead to the painful memory of "leaving one's head without hair", which may affect the Manchu regime's rule over China, lead to ethnic conflicts and even lose the throne. At the thought of this, Qianlong couldn't sleep all night, and he couldn't let go. He immediately ordered the whole country to investigate the case thoroughly, and the offenders would be beheaded.
This case didn't really work in the end, nor was it a large-scale case organized by Gan Long because of the revival of anti-Qing consciousness. These cases are due to the fact that the Qing Dynasty itself imprisoned people's thoughts and promoted literary inquisition. Most people are illiterate, ignorant, easily confused and believe in feudal superstition. Some people use so-called evocation cases to cheat and drink, and even extort money. There will be more and more such cases. And the corruption of Qing officials. At first, local officials took the soul call case as a trivial matter, muddled along and didn't want to care too much. However, after learning that the emperor attached great importance to this case, he began to abuse punishment and create unjust, false and wrong cases in order to show his kindness to the court and get promotion opportunities. Under the corruption of officials, the incident became more and more chaotic and more and more investigations were made.