In the thirty-third year of Qianlong, or 1768 by the Western calendar, several things also happened in Europe. France signed an agreement with Genoa to purchase Corsica, and Napoleon Bonaparte was born.
He had two birthdays: one on January 7, 1768, and the other on August 15, 1769. This was mainly to make certain "problems" easier to handle, because Napoleon was simply too young.
Another event was the publication of the Encyclopedia Britannica in Britain—more precisely, it was published by booksellers and printers in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The Qing Dynasty was also compiling the Complete Library of the Four Branches during the Qianlong era. Its chief compiler was Ji Yun, courtesy name Xiaolan, who was exiled to the Western Regions in 1768.
By ritual custom, one had to mourn for three years after one's father died. Ji Xiaolan was quite talented, and Qianlong felt it was better to keep him nearby than send him away to serve as an official in another province. Not long afterward, the Two Huai Salt License Case occurred.
It was not actually a major matter. In the first year of Qianlong, salt merchants colluded with officials to seize the salt ponds of the salt workers, and the two sides remained locked in litigation for years without resolution. The longer it dragged on, the worse the common people suffered.
Ji Xiaolan had an in-law named Lu Jianzeng, a jinshi graduate from the sixtieth year of Kangxi, said to be skilled at controlling floods. But the capital had no use for him during the War of the Nine Princes, so he was posted to Hongya, Sichuan, as county magistrate of a remote, impoverished, chaotic place plagued by endless lawsuits.
By the time Yongzheng finally became emperor, Lu Jianzeng's father had died, and ritual custom required him to observe