Chapter 20 People in the officialdom can't help themselves

There is actually no big difference between Liu Yong and Heshen himself in the basic principles of being an official. After listening to what I said, you said that Liu Yong thought in his heart: "To please the emperor, do it when it is time to do it." After hearing this sentence, After seeing what he did, we may feel very unhappy, thinking that this is Liu Yong?Liu Yong would also do such a thing that would add insult to injury?We may feel very awkward in our hearts, thinking that Liu Yong should not be such a person.In fact, we can see that in such a dynasty, in such a society, they wanted to maintain their official positions, let alone get promoted, let alone climb up the ranks. .

So we can say that, to some extent, there is no big difference between Liu Yong's actions and He Shen's actions in some respects, and he is also involuntary.Of course, small differences, in subtle respects, their differences still exist. For example, as Liu Yong is concerned, he does not need to rush to get the emperor's approval. In his mind, he feels that if I do this well, I will do it well. I have made things worse for others, but I want more To win the trust of the people and do things that are welcomed and praised by the people, I want the people to sing about me and let them know that I am a hero. I use this method to achieve the purpose of influencing the emperor.Our family has been officials for four generations, and we have always had a good relationship with the people.

It is impossible for Heshen to do this. Heshen's parents died since he was a child, so he can only rely on himself to work hard, and every achievement and every effort he makes is eager to get the emperor's approval. We can find that, relatively speaking, the tempers of these two people are different.He Shen has a quick temper, so he does things quickly and neatly, which makes it easy to please the emperor.And Liu Yong himself is very slow.We analyzed just now that to a certain extent, two people have both connections and differences, both similarities and differences, but there are many similarities and few differences.It is precisely because of this that we can say that Liu Yong and He Shen met together and had conflicts and disputes. This should not happen often.

But there are exceptions to everything, especially when Liu Yong and He Shen meet, this is an exception.When Liu Yong and He Shen meet, there will be stories, dramas, and conflicts.Because the family backgrounds of the two people are completely different, one has been an upright official for generations, and the other has gotten rich to such an extent in a very short period of time.Liu Yong's family has been dedicated to the Qing Dynasty for more than 100 years. He will not ignore He Shen's actions. He will take care of them, but he must seize the opportunity.Liu Yong also wants to impeach Heshen, but Heshen has been an official in the court, and he has no chance to meet Heshen. He has been working under Heshen for decades.

In the forty-seventh year of Qianlong (1782), Liu Yong finally returned to Beijing.So what was Liu Yong doing before the forty-seventh year of Qianlong?Let me give you a relatively concise official career spectrum of Liu Yong: From the 16th year of Qianlong (1751) to the 19th year of Qianlong (1754), Liu Yong worked in the Imperial Academy in Beijing. ; From the 19th year of Qianlong (1754) to the 21st year of Qianlong (1756), he was in prison, and his whole family was serving sentences in prison; in the 21st year of Qianlong (1756), he began to serve as Anhui Xuezheng; In the twenty-fourth year of Qianlong (1759), he served as the academic administration of Jiangsu, and has been focusing on education; in the twenty-seventh year of Qianlong (1762), he served as the prefect of Taiyuan Prefecture in Shanxi Province; He was promoted to Jining Daotai because of his meritorious service.

As a result, in the thirty-first year of Qianlong (1766), Liu Yong was sent to the army because of another case.In fact, this case has nothing to do with him. It was during his tenure as the prefect of Taiyuan, Shanxi, that one of his subordinates was corrupt.This official is Duan Chenggong, the county magistrate of Yangqu County, Shanxi Province.He didn't know about Duan Chenggong's corruption. As a result, in the thirty-first year of Qianlong (1766), this Duan Chenggong case was found out by the subsequent magistrate, so he was dispatched to the army for a year. In the 32nd year of Qianlong (1767), he returned to Beijing, still served in the Imperial Academy, and continued to be an editor, so he waited for another three years.In the thirty-fifth year of Qianlong (1770), he went to Jiangxi to serve; in the thirty-seventh year of Qianlong (1772), he went to Shaanxi as an inspector; in the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong (1773), his father Liu Tongxun died, and he returned to Shandong Three years of filial piety in Zhucheng, that is, Ding You.As we said before, when your parents die, you must go home and observe filial piety, and you cannot be any official.As an official, you must resign immediately and go home. You cannot live in your home when you go home. You have to build a grass shed next to your parents' grave and live there every day.What else can you ask for?They eat cold rice every day, because the hot ones have to be offered, and you can only eat them when they are served cold.

In the forty-first year of Qianlong (1776), Liu Yong and Dingyou returned to Beijing again after the three-year term expired, and served as a cabinet bachelor.As a result, in the forty-second year of Qianlong (1777), Liu Yong was promoted again, and concurrently served as the vice president of "Siku Quanshu".Then in 1778, Liu Yong once again served as Jiangsu Xuezheng.In the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780), Liu Yong served as the governor of Hunan again.After serving as governor of Hunan for two years, at the end of the forty-sixth year of Qianlong (1781), Liu Yong returned to Beijing. This time he was going to confront Heshen with real swords.

Here, we note that when Liu Yong returned to Beijing, he was not an ordinary person. First of all, at the end of the forty-sixth year of Qianlong (1781), there was a 130-year gap with his great-grandfather. In a family of 130 years, four generations of Jinshi, four generations of loyal officials of the court, his family gave him a strong support. The capital for others to fight wits and courage. Secondly, we can see that when he held the following official positions, he did a lot and did a lot of things. No matter whether the things were good or bad, some of them won the hearts of the people and some of them were appreciated by the emperor.Although a local official said that he was 62 years old at that time, he was already very old, but his heart was not old!We can see that he has been an official for more than 30 years, has worked so hard for so many years, and done so many things, especially when he came to Beijing, the people in Jiangsu have already sung "Liu Gong Case".Such a person who is quite popular among the people, in Beijing, he can be said to be "a newborn calf is not afraid of tigers", but he doesn't know how powerful He Shen is.

So after arriving in Beijing, seeing He Shen's actions, Liu Yong couldn't stand it anymore, and thought, sooner or later, I will get rid of you and Shen. What kind of official position did Liu Yong hold when he first returned to Beijing?He is the Minister of the Ministry of Officials!We have said that the Ministry of Officials is the official who manages officials.In addition, Liu Yong also held another official position called Zuodu Yushi, not only managing officials, but also impeaching other officials.It just so happens that no matter who commits the crime, it will fall into the hands of my Liu Yong. No matter how old you are, you and official Shen have to leave me, right?Liu Yong had just arrived in Beijing at this time, and he seized an opportunity. The creator of this opportunity was Cathay Pacific.

Cathay is not an ordinary person, he is the uncle of the imperial concubine. In other words, Cathay Pacific has three capitals.The first capital, his younger brother's daughter married Emperor Qianlong, and Emperor Qianlong happened to favor this concubine at that time.The second capital, Cathay Pacific, is very close to Heshen.The third capital, Cathay's father, Wenshou, Governor of Sichuan, is Liu Yong's old superior, and has a good relationship with Liu Tongxun. So although Cathay Pacific is not very capable, his official position has been promoted again and again-because there are always people protecting him, always helping him, and always reminding him.Along the way, Cathay Pacific was promoted from a small county magistrate to what?In 1777, he was promoted to the governor of Shandong Province, also known as "Fengjiang Dali", from the second rank.

As soon as he arrived as the governor of Shandong, he immediately colluded with Yu Yijian, a civilian official in Shandong Province. Yu Yijian is not an ordinary person either. His elder brother is Yu Minzhong. Yu Minzhong is the president of "Siku Quanshu", and later died of exhaustion in office.Emperor Qianlong admired Yu Minzhong very much, and Yu Yijian was Yu Minzhong's younger brother.But what people did not expect was that Cathay Pacific and Yu Yijian committed corruption. In a blink of an eye, they squandered all the money in the state treasury of Shandong Province. This was not enough. These two people also asked the lower governments, states, and counties to pay up, so that all the states and counties under Shandong Province were state treasuries. The shortfall caused the whole Shandong to be in a mess.Just in time for Shandong to be hit by disasters for three consecutive years, how does this prefecture, state, and county collect taxes from the common people? According to the past theory, the government should prevent this problem when it collects taxes.Therefore, when encountering natural disasters and man-made disasters, ask the court for instructions: What should I do if I am hit by a disaster?The imperial court immediately distributed all the grain from the national treasury, so that this year there will be no need to hand over grain, and it is necessary to receive relief grain, which has always been the case. But Cathay Pacific can't do this. There is no money in the national treasury. If I don't accept it from you, how can my treasury be filled?So he ordered the tax collection to continue.Then there must be someone who will not do it, who will not do it?Jinshi will not do it, and Juren will not do it.When we talk about Confucius, Mencius, and Sun Fuzi, whether they are literary or military, which one is not from Shandong?So these Shandong people stopped working, and gathered hundreds of Jinshi and Juren to block the gate and protest!As a result, Cathay Pacific was Cathay Pacific after all, and immediately killed nine Jinshi and Juren without asking anything. If you continue to make trouble, if you continue to make trouble, you will fight again. If a case involving human life is at stake, Jinshi and Juren are beaten to death, and Juren can be called a master. No one can afford to offend you. How dare you beat him to death?What crime did he commit?During the Qing Dynasty, no local authority was allowed to commit suicide without permission.Who should be sentenced must be decided by the emperor himself, and all prisoners on death row must be marked by the emperor before they can die.Who are you in Cathay Pacific, nine people were beaten to death by you, even if they gathered a crowd to make trouble, it is not your right to take the lives of these nine people. At this time, someone bravely stood up to impeach Cathay Pacific, and it was not just one person, but several people.But among these several people, there is no Liu Yong.who?These people who impeached Cathay Pacific are not ordinary people. The first two people jointly wrote to the emperor, one is the scholar Agui, and the other is the governor Fukang'an. The two jointly impeached Cathay Pacific, saying how well he governed in Shandong. Oops.These two people knew that Cathay Pacific was not a mortal, so they saved enough face for the emperor. The impeachment of Cathay Pacific finally stated that it was recommended to transfer Cathay Pacific to the capital, and there was another important task.That's great, didn't he commit a murder?Wouldn't it be nice to transfer him away and continue to be an official in another place? But what did Emperor Qianlong think?The impeached person doesn't have eyes, the impeachment came to my uncle, he is corrupt, his family is so rich, can he be corrupt?is it possible?Not likely.I don't believe what you say, forget it, I'd better find someone to ask. Emperor Qianlong suppressed Agui and Fukang'an's impeachment paper against Cathay, and threw it there without anyone discussing it.After throwing it there, Emperor Qianlong himself sent someone to call Yu Yijian, and Yu Yijian ran from Shandong to Beijing.When he arrived in Beijing, the emperor asked, and Yu Yijian replied that the submissions of Agui and Fukang'an were all nonsense, rumors and slanders.Cathay Pacific is just doing things for the emperor, so he is in a hurry.He is just eager to collect taxes, and there is no disaster in Shandong. The tax should be paid or not. The tax should be paid in other places, and it should be paid in May. Cathay Pacific thinks that it should be paid in full by the end of March, so some people have Opinion, this is understandable. As a result, Yu Yijian told Emperor Qianlong to be happy, and Emperor Qianlong immediately issued two imperial decrees in a row to excuse Cathay, saying that the impeachment of the two people who impeached Cathay was just rumors.You have heard about it, I checked, it is not the case, Yu Yijian, you go back and continue to be an official.Emperor Qianlong was deceived in this way. After Emperor Qianlong was deceived, there was another person who continued to impeach Cathay. The "Jiang" in "Jiangnan Road" refers to the Yangtze River, and he is the inspector censor to the south of the Yangtze River.The censor is originally equivalent to the chief prosecutor of our procuratorate. The difference is that the inspector censor is not an official in Beijing.But you are in charge of Jiangnan, and this is Shandong, which has nothing to do with you.In the end, this Qian Feng had to challenge him. Since I am the inspector censor, I have to take care of Jiangbei.Only the inspecting censor has this qualification. I can impeach if I hear rumors and rumors, and I can impeach if it is impeached by the inspecting censor. The emperor must send someone to investigate.This is the duty of inspecting the censor, and an imperial envoy must be sent to investigate. On the first day of April in the forty-seventh year of Qianlong (1782), as soon as Qian Feng, the censor of Jiangnan Road, impeached Guotai, the manuscript was published, and Emperor Qianlong couldn't sit still.Forget it, I'd better send an imperial envoy, three, one will not work, one imperial envoy won't solve the problem.Then Emperor Qianlong immediately issued two imperial edicts on the fourth day of April.The first decree is that the Cathay Pacific case must be strictly investigated and dealt with.The second imperial decree asked Heshen, Liu Yong and a prince named Nuo Muqin - this prince is a direct relative of their family and a minister of the Ministry of Industry - to appoint these three people as imperial envoys and go to Shandong to take charge of the investigation Cathay Pacific case. Send three ministers as imperial envoys, and investigate one person, Cathay, it seems that Emperor Qianlong attaches great importance to this matter, and he is determined to investigate to the end. In fact, you guys are wrong. What he sent these three people actually wanted to achieve the effect of killing two birds with one stone. First, I sent so many people to investigate a case, knocking mountains and shaking tigers, you corrupt officials elsewhere have heard clearly, I am going to start, put it away! Second, he sent these three people, we explained earlier, which one do you think has nothing to do with Cathay Pacific?He Shen, the backstage of Cathay Pacific.Liu Yong has known Cathay Pacific for a long time.Nuo Mu is a member of the royal family, and he knows very well that the emperor is doting on this imperial concubine.Isn't he easy to deal with these three people?Isn't it easy to cover up?Emperor Qianlong, I sent these three people with the purpose of knocking mountains and shaking tigers, and scaring others.These three people went to Cathay Pacific's case. Within two days, the case was found to be unsubstantiated, and the matter was over.He had a good idea, right?He thought, He Shen is such a smart person, how can he not understand what I mean?With Heshen here, I can rest assured about this matter.Liu Yong has just arrived in Beijing. Although he has been an official for so many years, he finally arrived in Beijing, and he is so familiar with Cathay and his family. Emperor Qianlong thought quite well, but in fact he was wrong. What was wrong?Liu Yong was used to staying in the local area. When he saw this kind of corruption case, he became angry. As a result, Liu Yong got involved with Qian Feng.Just after the first imperial decree came out, who was Qian Feng?Jiangnan Road inspected the censor, Qian Feng, the inspector censor, immediately thought that if Emperor Qianlong wanted to send someone, he must send Liu Yong, and he must be sent as a cover.Then he ran to Liu Yong's house and said, "Let me tell you, I guess it's time for the imperial edict this afternoon to let you serve as imperial envoys. I'll go first. Don't tell He Shen that I'm leaving. I'll go first. He can’t catch up with me, so I’ll go there first to find out the details.” Liu Yong said, “Okay, if there is me, I can let him leave at eight o’clock in the evening, and never let him leave at seven o’clock in the evening.” That’s what Liu Yong did. Got together with Qian Feng.