I drank 1 cup of tea on the way back. Why did Yongzheng kill three people when he returned to the palace?

Yong Zhengdi is a famous emperor in the history of China. During his reign, he has been in peace and prosperity. And when he was in power, he was also a person who hated corruption. Yongzheng once visited incognito and drank a cup of tea on the way, and found that the price of this tea was quite different from that he drank in the palace. He knew that someone was embezzling public funds, and when he went back, he killed the embezzler.

Manchu emperors like drinking tea very much. Qianlong, the son of Yongzheng, wrote many poems in his life, most of which were related to tea.

Because the emperor often lived in the palace and didn't go out much, he didn't know much about folk prices. On one occasion, during the period of tea production among the people, Yongzheng liked tea very much, so the Ministry of Internal Affairs dedicated the good tea to the emperor. As soon as the emperor drank it, he asked the little eunuch around him how much is this tea? The eunuch knelt down and replied, this tea is 320 taels of silver a catty, which is unique to the palace. Yongzheng didn't answer him, but he was shocked that such tea was so expensive. He silently wrote down the price in his mind.

Later, when the Yellow River flooded and the people of Henan suffered heavy losses, Yong Zhengdi went to Henan anonymously. When he was ready to go back after watching the disaster, he passed by Jincheng, Shanxi, and a group of them walked into a teahouse. When the boss saw that these people were definitely not ordinary people dressed in wealth, he asked them what kind of tea they wanted to drink and said that they had all kinds of tea in their shop.

Yongzheng asked them to deliver the most expensive tea in the shop. Sure enough, the tea he drank was exactly the same as the tea he drank in the palace. He turned to ask the boss, how much is this tea? The boss replied, 500 pence a catty.

The price of the same tea was so different between the people and the palace that he ordered the investigation of corrupt officials after he returned.