Lu Xun said that China has been divided into two types for thousands of years, one is that he can't be a slave, and the other is that he has been a slave for a while. This sentence is very incisive At that time, most people really wanted to be slaves, but they could not be slaves. Friends who often watch the court dramas of the Qing Dynasty know that the words slave and minister are different. Before the emperor, some people claimed to be slaves. Some people call themselves ministers, those who call themselves slaves are Manchu, and those who call themselves ministers are Han Chinese.

So who is higher and who is lower in these two names? Arguably, it should be a slave who is low and high, and it should be a slave who is relatively humble. Being a slave is too humble, just being a slave of an official. As a minister, he is at least a government official. He is the minister of the whole court. In fact, the status of slaves in the Qing dynasty was higher than that of ministers.

This truth is easy to understand. Manchu belongs to the privileged class of Qing Dynasty. To say that he is a slave means that he is a member of the privileged class and has a closer relationship with the emperor, but all the ministers of the Han people belong to foreign countries. He and the royal family are just subjects, not servants, so the relationship is a little far away.

People who call themselves slaves are more loyal, so many people want to call themselves slaves, minions and ministers. The two appellations are subtle, intentionally or unintentionally distinguishing the Han nationality from the Manchu nationality. Yong Zhengdi is aware of this. He thinks that slave and minister should both mean liegeman, so they should not be used together, and they should all be obedient. But many people disobey orders. Later, in the Qianlong period, Qianlong also gave orders. Then this behavior spread.