Editing Dorgon (section)

==Posthumous demotion and restoration==
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In 1651, Dorgon's political enemies, led by his former co-regent [[Jirgalang]], submitted to the [[Shunzhi Emperor]] a long memorial listing a series of crimes committed by Dorgon, which included: possession of yellow robes, which were strictly for use only by the emperor; plotting to seize the throne from the Shunzhi Emperor by calling himself "Emperor's Father"; killing [[Hooge, Prince Su|Hooge]] and taking Hooge's wife for himself.  It is difficult to prove verbal accusations made at the time when all records were ordered to be purged by the Qianlong Emperor in 1778 when he also ordered the rehabilitation of Dorgon.  The last charge that Dorgon took Hooge's wife was mostly contrived, as the Manchu tradition dating from the 12th century had allowed a male relative to marry the deceased person's wife almost as a charitable act to save her and her children from being starved to death in the minus 20, merciless winters of the northeastern tip of China, known nowadays as Manchuria.

Jirgalang was an ally of Hooge in the 1643 bitter fight against Dorgon, who allied with his biological brothers for succession to the throne. Jirgalang had been expelled by Dorgon from the joint regency in 1646.  This time, Jirgalang succeeded in convincing Emperor Shunzhi that even Dorgon's descendants could become a threat to the throne. As a result, Shunzhi posthumously stripped Dorgon of his titles and even had Dorgon's corpse exhumed and flogged in public.  In the February 1651 imperial edict trying to justify the ultimate punishment to a dead person as well as a key member of the imperial clan, Shunzhi ordered that not only Dorgon's name be removed from the scrolls of the imperial ancestral temple.  His biological mother, Empress Xiaoliewu, got the same treatment.  It was a political act to remove the legitimacy for succession to the throne by any future heir descended from Empress Xiaoliewu.

Execution of all of Dorgon's heirs was also ordered but intentionally not recorded in official Qing history. Dorgon had two biological brothers: Ajige, the 12th son of Nurhaci and Dodo, the 15th.  With Dodo dying of smallpox a few months prior to the death of Dorgon in December 1650 and the death of Ajige after he was arrested by Jirgalang's forces and put in jail, the 1651 purge was meant to permanently eliminate the potential that a future prince descending from Empress Xiaolewu would repeat the two Dorgon competitions for succession to the throne happening in 1626, upon the death of Nurhaci, and 1643, upon the death of Hongtaiji.

However, Dorgon was posthumously rehabilitated during the [[Qianlong Emperor]]'s reign.  In 1778, the Qianlong Emperor granted Dorgon a posthumous name ''zhong'' (忠; "loyal"), so Dorgon's full posthumous title became "Prince Ruizhong of the First Rank" (和碩睿忠親王).  The word "loyal" was intentionally picked.  It starkly testified that the charges made by Jirgalang in 1651 were all trumped up. The Qianlong Emperor, either intentionally or inadvertently, contradicted the records of the imperial ancestral temple left behind by Shunzhi when he ordered that the words "Dorgon's heirs having been exterminated" (后嗣废绝) be included into official Qing history to indicate why Dorbo, a fifth generation descendant of Dodo, was designated to inherit the iron-cap princely title of Dorgon.  The expression "Dorgon's heirs having been exterminated" (后嗣废绝) does not carry the same meaning as "Dorgon never had a son."  Regardless, after a lapse of 128 years, the Qianlong Emperor could no longer find the heirs of Dorgon.  The Qianlong Emperor also ordered that the rehabilitation of Dorgon be accompanied by a destruction of all the records related to the elimination of the heirs of Dorgon.  This was an inglorious chapter not only of Qing history but also the history of the imperial clan of Aisin-Gioro.