In many films, TV dramas, and popular novels, the role of emperor appears to be the most enviable profession under the sun: living in the opulent Forbidden City, feasting on exotic delicacies, surrounded by a vast harem of beauties, and free to travel wherever one pleases. There is no need to endure the drudgery of a workday; instead, one can spend the evenings happily summoning concubines—a life of unbridled extravagance and care-free ease.
However, if we shift our gaze from the imaginative flights of screenwriters to authentic historical archives from the Qing Dynasty—and specifically examine the records of the Yongzheng Emperor—we uncover a harsh reality: the job of emperor was likely nothing like what we imagine. For Yongzheng, being emperor was far from a life of leisure; it was, in fact, an endless grind of high-pressure labor.
Yongzheng’s relentless daily routine as emperor
Yongzheng’s personal name was Aisin Gioro Yinzhen, while “Yongzheng” was the era name he adopted after ascending the throne. He inherited the throne in 1722 and ruled for 13 years.
The Qing dynasty left behind a remarkably extensive and well-preserved collection of court records. Among them, the Qijuzhu (Daily Records of the Emperor’s Activities) is one of the most important primary sources for studying the emperor’s daily life. The Qijuzhu was compiled by specially appointed court chroniclers who followed the emperor each day and meticulously recorded his words, actions, and major court activities. The records cover court assemblies, audiences, memorials, religious ceremonies, meals, and even the emperor’s very limited periods of daily rest.
During the Yongzheng era, the scale of the Qijuzhu compilation expanded further. It typically consisted of two volumes per month, or 24 volumes per year, with additional volumes produced in leap months.
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According to these meticulously preserved historical records, we can reconstruct the Yongzheng Emperor’s standard daily schedule: He rose at around 5 a.m. each day for washing and morning reading; at 7 a.m., he attended court meetings or received senior officials. It was not until around 2 p.m. that he had his second main meal of the day. He then continued reviewing official documents until late at night, retiring only after 10 p.m.
This schedule was not occasional but a daily routine maintained throughout the year without interruption. By modern standards, Yongzheng was an extremely disciplined, even almost self-punishing, “workaholic.”
Daily life No. 1: Extreme pressure in handling state affairs
One of the Qing emperors’ primary methods of handling state affairs was reading and annotating memorials submitted by officials. The Yongzheng Emperor was particularly renowned in Chinese history for personally reviewing a vast number of such memorials.
Existing historical archives show that more than 22,000 memorials with imperial vermilion annotations in Chinese have survived from the Yongzheng reign alone. When Manchu-language memorials and various other official documents are included, the total is staggering. According to research and statistics from Beijing’s Palace Museum, during his 13-year reign, Yongzheng handled state affairs primarily in the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin Dian), personally reviewing tens of thousands of memorials and official documents. The vermilion-red annotations he left on these memorials—known as zhupi (“vermilion rescripts”)—amounted to millions, and possibly even tens of millions, of Chinese characters.
These vermilion rescripts carried enormous legal and administrative authority. When an official submitted a memorial, the emperor would write his instructions in vermilion ink, directly determining imperial policies and the fate of officials. Some responses consisted of only a few words, such as “Noted” or “I am well.” More often, however, Yongzheng wrote detailed instructions of hundreds or even more than a thousand characters concerning local governance, fiscal budgets, military deployments, and the conduct of officials.
To improve administrative efficiency, Yongzheng effectively combined his living and working spaces after ascending the throne—the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin Dian) became the center of his activities. In other words, the emperor’s “office” and “bedroom” were located virtually within the same palace complex. The Western Warmth Chamber (Xinuange) of the Hall of Mental Cultivation served both as a place for brief periods of rest and as his primary location for reviewing memorials and holding private meetings with officials.
For Yongzheng, the enormous imperial palace was not a luxurious residence for pleasure, but rather a round-the-clock, high-intensity headquarters of central administration.
Many people assume that the emperor had to hold a daily “court audience at the palace gate” (yumen tingzheng), just as portrayed in television dramas: Every morning at 7 a.m., civil and military officials would line up in formation and enter the palace, while the emperor sat on the Dragon Throne and declared, “If you have something to report, speak; if not, the court is dismissed.”
In reality, Qing court affairs were far more complex. Court assemblies, palace-gate audiences, meetings with officials, and memorials submitted by government departments each followed their own strict systems and procedures. More importantly, most sensitive matters involving military deployments, personnel appointments and dismissals, and corruption investigations were state secrets that were simply unsuitable for open discussion at court.
For this reason, Yongzheng strongly promoted and refined the confidential memorial system (mizhe), which allowed senior local officials to submit encrypted or confidential reports directly to the emperor. This meant that the emperor could obtain information from the front lines without having it pass through the cumbersome intermediary channels of the Secretariat or Grand Secretariat. But this also meant that the entire burden of processing this information was concentrated on the emperor himself. The work that consumed most of Yongzheng’s time was sitting alone under the lamps in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, carefully reading and responding to one confidential document after another.
Daily life No. 2: Solitary and austere palace meals
Apart from his heavy workload, another common misconception portrayed in television dramas is the emperor’s lavish dining life—“gathering a group of consorts every day to feast together on a Manchu-Han Banquet.”
In reality, the Qing imperial dietary system was highly regulated and, in some respects, rather austere and lonely.
The Qing imperial court’s regular meals generally followed a two-meals-a-day system.
Typically, breakfast was served between approximately 6 and 8 a.m., while dinner—the second main meal of the day—was served between noon and 2 p.m. Outside these two main meals, additional wine, snacks, or refreshments could be provided by the Imperial Kitchen if necessary.
Even more contrary to popular perceptions, the emperor generally ate alone. The Qing imperial court had extremely strict rules governing food safety and dining etiquette. Wherever the emperor was working or resting, eunuchs would deliver his meals there in specially designed heated food containers. Unless it was a major festival such as the Lantern Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, or the emperor’s birthday (Wanshou Jie), or a special banquet, the imperial consorts generally had no opportunity to dine with him.
Thus, the lively scenes of the emperor dining surrounded by beautiful consorts are largely fantasies created by modern television dramas for dramatic effect.
Entertainment after work: role-playing
If the emperor spent virtually the entire year working under intense pressure, how did he relieve that stress? The famous “Yongzheng Emperor Enjoying Himself” album gives us a glimpse into an unexpected way this serious ruler may have sought relaxation: role-playing.
In this series of paintings created by court artists, Yongzheng is sometimes depicted wearing the clothing of a Han Chinese scholar and playing a qin beneath a pine tree. In others, he appears as a lone fisherman sitting in a boat, or as Tao Yuanming, the famous poet who withdrew from official life to live in the countryside. In some paintings, he wears exotic-style clothing and a traditional European wig, confronting a tiger with a pitchfork, or appears as an immortal traveling on a raft through a mountain valley.
Under the constraints of strict ritual rules and the enormous pressure of governing the empire, Yongzheng could not simply leave the palace like an ordinary person to travel and enjoy the scenery. These paintings suggest that, apart from the slight relaxation he could enjoy on his birthday each year, this hardworking emperor remained in constant operation for virtually the other 364 days of the year.
Unable to personally travel to distant places, having court artists portray him as various historical figures or characters from his imagination became one of the few ways he could find psychological comfort and spiritual relaxation amid his extreme workload.
The truth behind the ‘3,000 beauties’ and short lifespan
In terms of material conditions, the emperor undoubtedly enjoyed the highest standard of living available in society at the time. But from the perspective of power and responsibility, the greater the concentration of power, the greater the responsibility.
The hardships of the people throughout the Qing Empire, military conflicts, and the state’s finances would ultimately land on the emperor’s desk. Ordinary government officials could apply for retirement and return to their hometowns when they grew old. But the position of emperor had no genuine retirement system.
Throughout history, many people have attributed emperors’ short lifespans to “wine, women, and debauchery.” However, if we examine Yongzheng’s life through concrete data, this explanation simply does not hold up.
Although palace regulations stipulated that the emperor should retire for the night at 10 p.m., the famously hardworking Yongzheng worked late almost every day, often getting less than six hours of sleep. Even more revealing are the records concerning his children. Historical sources indicate that Yongzheng had a total of 14 children, but 12 of them were born before he ascended the throne, when he was still the Prince Yong. During the 13 years after he became emperor and held supreme power, he fathered only two children.
Consider this: During his 13-year reign, he personally reviewed more than 20,000 confidential memorials and tens of thousands of official documents, writing millions of Chinese characters in vermilion annotations. On average, he had to read and write thousands of characters every day. Under such an extreme workload, Yongzheng had very little time even to attend to his harem, let alone indulge in the leisurely practice of deciding every night which consort he would “flip the plaque” to summon.
Even his father, the Kangxi Emperor, once lamented: “Whenever I see an elderly official submit a request to retire, I think to myself: You can retire and return to your hometown—but where am I supposed to retire to?”
Thus, when many scholars and historians throughout history casually attributed emperors’ early deaths to “debauchery and indulgence in wine and women,” such explanations, at least in the case of an extremely diligent ruler like Yongzheng, were largely the imagination of scholars lacking access to solid historical evidence.
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