Chinese President Xi Jinping's relentless anti-corruption drive has witnessed the imprisonment and punishment of powerful communist party officials in just two years of implementation.

And the campaign continues to rage on with the fate of one of the country's most powerful communist party elders hanging in the balance.

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For centuries, Chinese politicians have been known to employ hard-to-understand historical allegory to attack rivals without directly confronting them.

This time, top anti-corruption authorities are using the same tactic in its operations.

The top anti-corruption agents have published  an article last Wednesday,  blasting the 'evil deeds' of a long-dead Manchu Prince, Prince  Qing, and detailing his various positions in the government and how he had amassed so much wealth and stashed them overseas.

Netizens scrambled to speculate on the identity of  the person purportedly being represented by the Prince from the late 19th century and have come up with Zeng Qinghong, China's vice president until 2008.

Zeng was also the trusted man of former President Jiang Zemin and one of the most powerful politicians in modern China.

The published article sent the internet into frenzy with netizens joining in the guessing game on who the real target could be. The most popular guess was Zeng Qinghong.

The article, which was published on a Chinese website under a pseudonym, enumerated the manchu prince's government positions such as foreign affairs head, navy commander and prime minister until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911.

Netizens surmised that the Chinese character on Prince Qing, which is "qing" is the same character used in the name of Zeng Qinghong.

Reports said the details of the article appeared to lambast Zeng and this was how the netizens construed the piece.

Hundreds of netizens commented on the article and the fact that their inputs have not been deleted from social media by China's censors was indicative that their speculations have been taken by many as spot on.

Several years ago, the extent of the wealth amassed by the Zeng family was revealed in the international media when Zeng's son, Zeng Wei, purchased a whopping A$32 million Australian mansion in 2008, while his father was still vice president.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, a family friend of Zheng and another friend, who is privy to Zeng's Chinese real estate investment, said the family feels that they will be targeted by the authorities soon.

TagsZeng Quinghong, Prince Qing