Chapter 21 Chapter Three

At the beginning of the 41st year of Qianlong (1776), the 66-year-old emperor visited Shandong for the fourth time.The emperor seemed to have a special interest in the "Hometown of Confucius and Mencius" and visited it eleven times in his life.Six of them were tours to the south, and five were special visits. Obviously different from the previous east tours, this time, there were a lot of princes and ministers who came to pick them up along the way: before, all local officials from Hebei and Shandong came, but this time the nearby Mongolian princes, several salt bureaus weaving, and even Officials from far away in Huguang, Sichuan, and Guangdong also gathered here.Along the way, the pilgrims met each other, and the road was blocked by guards of honor, causing the small Shandong to be turned upside down.

It wasn't that the emperor was going to hold some "enlarged meeting" on the way, nor was it that the Shandong provincial government held some major event to invite everyone to participate.The officials scrambled to come to Shandong just to satisfy one of the old emperor's growing preferences: to accept tribute.The emperor's trip to Shandong has also become a meeting of ministers from all over the country.Every official's team is full of pearls and radiance.These ministers had long aimed at this opportunity, went to the poor and went to the underworld, and began to search for the "things" that the emperor liked.Let's copy some historical data to see what kind of gifts the emperor received during this short trip:

On February 16th, when he was staying in Huangxinzhuang, Prince Luobuzangduoerji of Mongolia Alshan brought in "sixty gold ingots", with a net weight of 592 taels.The prince said that this was to prepare the emperor to reward others along the way. Six days later, still in Huangxinzhuang, Xu Ji, governor of Henan Province, brought in several carts of clothing materials for the emperor: Fifty pieces of tribute satin gown, fifty pieces of tribute satin cover, fifty pieces of Ningpao, fifty pieces of Ning jacket, one hundred pieces of Hangling silk, one hundred pieces of Bianchi silk, one hundred pieces of mink fur, one thousand pieces of black cloud leopard, and ermine One thousand sheets.

Today's readers may not know the value of Gongsun and Ning.However, the weight of "one thousand black cloud leopards and one thousand ermines" should be imagined. "Dark Cloud Leopard", "Qing Barnyard Banknotes" says "the fine hair under the fox's neck is warm and black and white", which refers to the small piece of skin under the jaw of the wild sand fox born in the desert.The ermine is the ermine, with silvery white and lustrous fur, and has always been extremely expensive. Five days later, the emperor arrived at Baojiaying, where Governor Chen Huizu of Hubei was waiting. He brought in a batch of gadgets: "Thirty-six foreign magnetic knives, fifty sea dragon hat brims, and thirty-six ivory fire scythes."

In short, from Beijing to Shandong, along the way, almost every station has a large number of tributes waiting for the emperor.The Ministry of Internal Affairs sent a large number of receiving personnel to continuously load these tributes back to Ouchi.The list of tributes in the file is too much and too long to be copied in full. Here are a few more characteristic ones: On the eighth day of March, in Dezhou, Yao Lide, the governor of Hedong River, respectfully entered "one hundred Cao fans and one hundred snuff bottles". On March 15th, in Tai'an Mansion, Quan De, the supervisor of Jiujiang Pass, entered the "Thirty Happiness Snuff Bottles" 20 snuff bottles, 20 blue watch snuff bottles, 20 Yutangchun Fugui snuff bottles, and Jindi foreign flower snuff bottles. Twenty snuff bottles, twenty blue Fushou belt hooks, twenty alum red painted gold Fu Lushou belt hooks, twenty cloisonné enamel belt hooks, twenty pine green arched flower belt hooks, and cloisonné enamel spanner fingers Twenty, Kouji Darhan fingers, twenty Yangcai bamboo yellow fingers, and variegated stone fingers.”

On March 17th, in Tai'an Mansion, Li Shiyao, the governor of Guangdong, respectfully brought in "fifty plates of ivory court beads, fifty pieces of beeswax fasting signs, fifty Zi'er skin nail flower finger sets, and fifty ivory finger rings". On the ninth day of April, in Dezhou, Xiong Xuepeng, the governor of Guangdong, respectfully entered "30 pieces of yellow feather gauze mandarin jackets, 30 pieces of big red woolen rain jackets, 30 pieces of grape green woolen raincoats, and 30 pieces of Chengxiang cocoons"... The emperor's trip can be said to be a rewarding experience.Presumably, on the way back to Beijing, in the imperial chariot, I must have been in a very happy mood when I played and tasted these snuff bottles, belt hooks, finger pullers, and Cao fans carefully.

"Tribute" is a customization in the autocratic era. Kong Anguo's preface to "Shangshu·Yugong" says: "Let the soil be the tribute." That is to say, officials from all over the country and the vassal states donated local specialties to the emperor, which not only met the needs of the emperor, "for the use of the state", but also The feelings of the upper and lower sides were communicated, so the emperor and all the places enjoyed it. To a certain extent, the quality of life of the emperors in the Qing Dynasty was directly related to the tribute. Contrary to our imagination, although the emperor is rich all over the world, he cannot arbitrarily dispose of the treasury to satisfy his personal consumption.It turned out that the private finances of the emperors of the Qing Dynasty were completely separated from the state treasury.The treasury was managed by the Ministry of Household Affairs, while the emperor's private finances were managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.The emperor's personal wealth mainly comes from the following parts: one is the income from the royal manor managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs; the other is that the Ministry of Internal Affairs generates some income for the emperor through business and lending; "responsible".

Therefore, the prosperity of the Qing Empire's finances did not directly guarantee the rise of the emperor's daily consumption level.Generally speaking, due to the customized scale of the royal estate and the limited operating level of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, no matter how rapidly the national tax revenue increases, the emperor's personal income is basically fixed.A very important way for the emperor to satisfy his increasing material desires was to accept tribute.The same is true for the consumption of luxury goods.One was that the emperor did not have the money to buy in large quantities, and the other was that the system was limited. It was obviously inappropriate for the emperor to send people directly to the market to bargain with merchants to buy luxury goods.What's more, loving luxury goods has always been the first taboo in the emperor's code, and it should not be known to the people.Therefore, whether the officials paid tribute, how much tribute they paid, and the quality of the tribute directly determined the emperor's quality of life.

In fact, at the beginning of Qianlong's ascension to the throne, he was famous for refusing to pay tribute. When he first came to the throne, Qianlong issued an edict saying that he was in mourning and had no intention of enjoying himself, and asked ministers from all over the country to stop making various tributes within three years. If there is a historical precedent for not accepting tribute during the filial piety period, then three years later when the filial piety period expires, the emperor still does not accept tribute, which clearly reflects the emperor's stern attitude towards material comfort.The emperor also issued an edict explaining his reasons for not accepting tribute.He said that the local ministers paid me tribute, but they wanted to use this to connect with me and establish emotional communication. "I don't know that the relationship between the monarch and his ministers is only based on sincerity, and not on empty words. If you are a governor, if you can serve the national economy and the people's livelihood, the public will forget your private interests, and the country will forget your family. If you are one-hearted, I will reward you. If you don’t know how to do this, and just use contributions to connect things with others, you will already see it as less than me.” ("Qianlong Life Notes") The state of striving for governance is clearly visible.

So why did the emperor change his original intention in his later years? One is that the evening environment is smooth and you can sit back and relax. Second, Qianlong himself was never an ascetic.He has always had a soft spot for material comforts.Tianhuang's noble life has cultivated him a super fine appreciation taste since he was a child.As the Taiping emperor at the pinnacle of prosperity, he has more enjoyable capital and conditions than ordinary emperors. It is impossible for a person's nature to be suppressed for a long time. Although the emperor forced himself to endure it for more than ten years after he became the throne, after entering middle age, the emperor is no longer so strict with himself.After more than ten years of being the emperor, Qianlong's journey went smoothly, his achievements exceeded expectations, and his self-confidence also increased linearly.He thinks he has the ability to balance his career and life, and there is no need to torture himself like an ascetic.In the sixteenth year of Qianlong (1751), the gate of tribute was opened for the first time.In that year, he made his first tour to the south, and at the same time, it was the Empress Dowager's 60th birthday. The emperor decreed that because of the two grand ceremonies, many ministers repeatedly asked for tributes to show their gratitude.It would seem unreasonable for him to refuse all of them.Because those who paid tribute "belong to the big bureaucrats, and they are in love with each other, it is difficult to generalize, and they will be played immediately, so they have to save one or two."

Once the door of enjoyment is opened, it is doomed to open wider and wider. The ministers who grew up under the autocratic system are all good at guessing and doing what they want.In fact, they didn't spend as much energy on work as they did on thinking about the emperor's likes and dislikes.All senior officials in the entire empire understood the emperor's heart from this decree.Since then, preparing tributes for the emperor has become an important, even the most important task of their duties.It didn't take long before they figured out the emperor's preferences. Clocks, watches, calligraphy and paintings, and ancient jade were the emperor's favorites.In addition, finger rings, snuff bottles, knives, etc. were also easily accepted by the emperor. In the 22nd year of Qianlong (1757), Li Yongbiao, Admiral of Guangdong Customs, and Li Shiyao, General of Guangzhou, presented a batch of tributes, mainly including red sandalwood inlaid nanmu throne and red sandalwood inlaid wood case.Among them, the special ones are "a glass-mounted ocean-going chime bell" and "a gold-plated ocean-view pavilion". Generally speaking, since the tribute is a gift from the minister to the emperor, the content is of course decided by the minister, and the emperor is inconvenient to express his opinion.However, shortly after the tribute was delivered this time, the emperor issued a very rare instruction on the issue of tribute: "The gilded ocean view pavilion that was brought in this time is very good, and it will be better to find a few more like this later. And those who are good can also find a few pieces, don't worry about the price, if you find a few pieces at Duanyang when you find them, please respect this." From then on, the emperor's preference for Western watches and clocks was immediately known to officials, and the price of Western music boxes in Guangzhou skyrocketed. "Although these things are of no practical use, Chinese officials are obsessed with pursuing them, signaling their subordinates to buy them at any price." As for calligraphy and painting, they are the most important content in the emperor's private collection.As we all know, Qianlong's cultural accomplishment is excellent.He started practicing calligraphy at the age of nine and painting at the age of nineteen.For rare calligraphy and paintings, the emperor, like those famous collectors in history, was obsessed with life, and he wanted to get them quickly.However, other collectors collected calligraphy and paintings, traveled here and there, and worked hard.However, the emperor's collection does not have these troubles at all.Most of these dazzling and supreme products come from the contributions of servants.As long as his preferences are detected, the best collections in the entire empire will flow into the Forbidden City continuously. The emperor was also very interested in ancient jade. He wrote more than 40,000 imperial poems and essays in his life, among which more than 800 articles related to jade.Most of the tens of thousands of ancient jades in the Forbidden City were paid tribute by governors and governors of various provinces during the Qianlong period.His imperial poems show that he often squatted alone in the jade storehouse to play with jade, picked out some ancient jade, ordered people to scrape and clean it, and personally judged grades A, B, and C. In fact, among the many historical firsts of Emperor Qianlong, one can be added-the largest collector in Chinese history. In his middle age, Qianlong's material life had a higher grade, more ostentation, and more meticulous and comprehensive requirements than the previous emperors.However, at this time he is still aggressive and restrained in material desires, so his daily enjoyment can be called exquisite, not luxurious. When people reach their old age, their advantages often take a step forward, break through the limits, and turn into disadvantages.And the shortcomings are often intensified, from inhibiting the convergence state to becoming unscrupulous.After entering his old age, the emperor had no intention of making progress, and the boundary between exquisiteness and extravagance quickly broke through.There are strict regulations on qualifications and time for tribute in the past dynasties.As a rule in the Qing Dynasty, only governors had the right to pay tribute, and the time for paying tribute was limited to three festivals: the winter solstice, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the emperor's birthday.In Qianlong's later years, these rules were broken.Local chief envoys, inspectors, and even the inner court Hanlin in central Beijing also began to pay tribute.In order to collect private treasures, some ordinary people can also transfer the treasures at home to the emperor through the ministers.Tribute became the most important way for the emperor to search for folk treasures.In order to meet the emperor's appetite, the time limit of three festivals a year was also broken.In addition to the three major festivals, the Dragon Boat Festival, Shangyuan Festival, and Double Ninth Festival, ministers can also actively pay tribute.In addition, the ministers used their brains and concentrated their wisdom to create countless new names for paying tribute: the emperor went on a tour, and when he passed by the place, the ministers greeted him and paid tribute, which was called "Yingluan tribute"; the emperor went to Rehe every year to escape the summer heat, and the ministers paid tribute , called "Mulan Gong"; when ministers went to Beijing to meet the emperor, the tribute they offered was called "Majesty's tribute"; There is really no excuse, so they simply call it "Chuanban Gong". Therefore, the tribute received during Qianlong's forty-first year (1776) tour to the east should be classified as "Yingluan tribute".However, even the "Yingluang Gong" should be limited to officials in the places they pass.But this time, the governors and officials in Huguang, Sichuan, and Guangdong also put down their work and worked tirelessly to donate a large amount of property from thousands of miles away. It can be said that there is no precedent in terms of the system, and it is also unreasonable.The only thing that can be explained by this incident is that the emperor's demand for tribute has reached the level of losing his composure. As the old emperor lost his temper more and more, more and more officials in the frontier pushed aside other government affairs and concentrated on buying and manufacturing luxury goods for the emperor.The later the period, the more officials paid tribute and the items became more abundant.According to the archives, in the fifty-ninth year of Qianlong (1794), the Changlu Salt Administration paid tribute to Rui 15 times, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang Wu Lana paid tribute 11 times, and the governor of Fujian Pu Lin paid tribute 9 times.Among them, the eleventh tribute dates of Wulana are: March 8th, March 11th, March 24th, April 19th, June 7th, July 19th, and August 11th , December 7th, December 21st, December 24th, and December 29th, there are almost no moons without tribute, which has become a spectacle in the history of Chinese tribute. And on the emperor's birthday, the wave of tribute swept across the country.At this time, the entire empire becomes a world fair where officials big and small present tributes.According to the records of the Korean envoys, on the 70th birthday of Qianlong in the forty-fifth year (1780), the tribute scenes he saw all the way in China were really staggering: Near Beijing, according to incomplete statistics, there were as many as 30,000 tribute carts. car.In addition to carts, those precious and fragile tributes are carried by people, camels, and cars, and there are countless more. "Those who bear the weight of the bar are especially fine and soft clouds." "Each cart draws six or seven horses and mules, and four mules are driven in a sedan chair or coupled with poles. A small yellow flag is placed on it, and the words "tribute" are written on them."In order to grab the tribute, the vehicles competed with each other, "the springs and fires look at each other, the bells shake the ground, and the sound of the whip shakes the field".How imposing. (Park Ji-won's "The Tribute of All Nations") Many people say that the rise of the trend of paying tribute is the key to opening the door to political corruption in the Qianlong Dynasty. The emperor's excessive acceptance of tribute is a serious corruption in itself. In the officialdom, it is human nature to give small gifts.If the value of the gift exceeds the limit, it is corruption.Similarly, accepting tribute according to custom is a must for the emperor to maintain a normal life, but it is of course a crime to accept gifts without restraint like Qianlong in his later years. The emperor's theory was that the gifts to the emperor were "self-made" by the officials, that is, paid for by themselves, and the purpose was to "connect the feelings of the superior and the inferior."It will neither increase the burden on the people, but also communicate the personal feelings between the monarch and his ministers. Why not do it? In fact, it doesn't take much thinking to judge the impossibility of "self-manufacturing".The "native products" given to the emperor were almost beyond the affordability of the officials.The emperor liked the kind of jade ruyi inlaid with pearls, and his officials offered them one after another.At that time, a jade ruyi without beads was worth four thousand taels of silver.At that time, the price of pearls in Guangdong was that a pearl weighing four cents was worth about four to five thousand taels of silver, and a pearl weighing five cents would cost six to seven thousand gold. For example, a large pearl weighing three cents like longan fruit was worth twenty thousand taels of silver.The value of a wishful handle is so high, and other gifts can be imagined.Wool comes from sheep, and each of these exquisite gifts is made of the blood of the people. Because of the popularity of paying tribute, the term "bang tribute" appeared in the officialdom during the Qianlong period, that is, the minister who had the right to pay tribute ordered his subordinates to help him "purchase things" in order to "honor the emperor".This new vocabulary is upright and very honorable, and it has the meaning of uniting all officials' incomparable love for the emperor, but it has actually become a new way of corruption.Because the gift to the emperor, from purchasing to sending it to the palace, the process is often not open, the accounts are not clear, there are many clouds and mist, and there are many agencies.In fact, the 10,000 taels sent to the emperor may mean that the governors exploited 100,000 taels from the state and county officials, and the prefectures and counties may have exploited a million taels from the people. In fact, several major corruption cases in Qianlong's later years have all brought out the issue of tribute behind them.Most of the ministers who paid the most tribute, the best and the most appreciated by the emperor later became corrupt criminals.For example, Wulana, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang Province, who paid tribute more than ten times a year, colluded with his officials and embezzled more than 850 million taels of silver in stock for private distribution.After the incident, the imperial court ransacked Wulana's home and confiscated more than 400,000 taels of silver.After being arrested, Wulana confessed that part of his huge wealth came from ordering his subordinates to "contribute": "We don't invest in comprador items ourselves, but we are greedy for so much money." Li Shiyao, the favorite minister of Emperor Qianlong, was one of the representatives of "better than paying tribute" at that time.At that time, people believed that he was the leader of the rise of the tribute trend in the Qianlong Dynasty: "(Li Shiyao) is good at accepting contributions, and everything is exquisite. It is because of the great changes in the world's borders that the wind prevailed." This is not a lie.In the existing historical materials, there is a list of tributes paid by Li Shiyao, who was the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi on the eighth day of November in the thirty-sixth year of Qianlong (1771), from which we can get a glimpse of the greatness of Li's tribute: Inlaid foreign watch gold Wannian Ruyi a handle of gold immeasurable longevity Buddha a coral pilgrimage beads a plate of beeswax pilgrimage beads a plate of fat jade Wannian Youqing a piece of white jade Xianglushou Samsung a piece of white jade Changchun pot a white jade flat peach nine-ripe piece of white jade Baohe Taihe, a piece of white jade periwinkle washing, a piece of white jade longevity star, a piece of white jade wishful fairy, a piece of white jade incense plate, a piece of Hanyu bergamot, a piece of Hanyu flower pouch, a piece of Hanyu arched wall, a piece of white jade with cloud pattern, and a piece of white jade yuan Washing one piece of Hanyu furnace bottle is one thing, one thing is one point, one piece of Hanyu Feixiong Ye Rui, one piece of white jade seal pool, one piece of Song Ciji red flower pouch, one piece of Ding kiln washing one piece of Xiyao Yitong Zun, one Cheng kiln multicolored vase, and one piece of Dingyao Fulu A Xuan kiln plum vase, a Song Ciji red vase, a Ding kiln treasure moon vase, a Ge kiln brush wash, a green three-generation statue, a green handle beam, a green mallard statue, and a bright yellow engraved silk Wanfu Wanshou dragon robe One piece of dragon gown with eight groups of standing water dragons embroidered with azure silk, one piece of dragon gown with bright yellow satin embroidered with blessings and longevity, one piece of dragon gown with embroidered eight groups of sky blue satin, one piece of dragon gown with embroidered three colors of gold and dragon robes with three colors of gold, one dragon robe with three colors of azure satin embroidered One piece of green satin embroidered Longevity Changchun dragon gown, one piece of fragrant Ning silk embroidered six contract spring dragon gown, one sauce-colored Ning silk embroidered Jiangshan Wandai dragon gown, one piece of sky blue Ning silk embroidered eight groups of standing water dragon gown A dragon robe with green solid yarn embroidered with four seasons and auspiciousness. A fragrant-colored solid yarn with embroidered Eight Immortals celebration dragon robe. A red solid yarn with embroidered auspicious nine-like dragon robe. Twenty bolts of foreign flower velvet, twenty bolts of red mandarin duck velvet, ten editions of red feather satin, ten editions of foreign embroidered handkerchiefs, one hundred squares of foreign embroidered handkerchiefs, one hundred squares of carved red sandalwood throne, one carved red sandalwood royal case, one piece of red sandalwood inlaid with glass, three screens, one carved red sandalwood A few pairs of rosewood carved kangs, a pair of purple core inlaid glass clothes mirrors, a pair of purple four carved books, a pair of red sandalwood carved square stools, eight red sandalwood inlaid glass horizontal drapes, a pair of enamel inlaid glass five screen makeup mirrors and nine enamel inlaid Nine pairs of glass hand mirrors with red sandalwood inlaid with glass, Fulu style small hanging mirrors, nine pairs of oriental lacquer kang table, one pair of oriental lacquer incense box A pair of diamond bead vase-style music clocks, a pair of foreign diamond peach push clocks, a pair of foreign diamond-encrusted peach watches, a pair of foreign glass goldfish bowls, a pair of imitation Jingtai enamel vases, a pair of enamel Fulu vases, and a pair of small glass mirrors. Two boxes of beeswax snuff bottles, two boxes of foreign gold and silver thread, two hundred gold enamel hand basins, nine pairs of enamel spittoons, nine pairs of emerald flowers, thirty boxes of emerald flowers, fifty boxes of natural agarwood bottles, a foreign oil painting, and a pair of small hanging screens The reason why Li Shiyao was so keen on "paying tribute" was to please the emperor. The other half of the reason was that during the process of paying tribute, he could arbitrarily apportion it to his subordinates.What's more, the treasures returned after the tribute were included in his own pocket.At that time, the North Korean envoys who came to China heard that "probably three out of five of the corrupt servants of Yao went to pay tribute."It turned out that in order to show his demeanor, the emperor generally did not accept all the tributes brought in by his ministers, he could only choose a part, and the rest had to be returned.In this tribute list, the emperor received only a dozen samples, and other 74 and hundreds of items, including jade, Song and Yuan ancient porcelain, dragon robes, red sandalwood thrones, and enamel, all belonged to Li.In the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780), Li Shiyao was punished for crimes, but he copied "three golden Buddhas, one pearl grape frame, and three coral trees four feet long." ". The governor of Shandong, Guotai, is also a typical example of the evolution of a "capable tribute minister" into a criminal of corruption.Cathay Pacific's achievements in paying tribute are outstanding, and even Qianlong once praised it as "paying tribute is excellent" and "better than handling tribute".He paid tribute so diligently that it annoyed the emperor a bit.On the sixth day of the first lunar month in the forty-seventh year of Qianlong (1782), the emperor commented on the tribute book of Guotai, the governor of Shandong Province: Why do you have to work hard?Today's tributes are all idle in the Yuanmingyuan warehouse, and they are useless, and they will just rot after a few years.It's a big joke. Only three months after the wholesale sale here, that is, in April of the forty-seventh year of Qianlong, Cathay committed the crime.Seven days later, Cathay was ordered to commit suicide. In addition to Li Shiyao, Guotai, and Wu Lana, those involved in major embezzlement and corruption cases related to tribute during the Qianlong period included Pu Lin, A Siha, Lu Zhuo, Heng Wen, Liang Qing, Fang Shijun, Gao Pu, Zhang Bao, and Wang Shan. Wang Wang, Le Erjin, Chen Huizu, Hao Shuo and other major cases, and such major cases that have been exposed are at best the part of the iceberg that has come out of the water.The wealth directly absorbed by the entire bureaucratic system through the excuse of paying tribute is unimaginable. Corruption in the process of paying tribute is just the lightest of the many consequences of paying tribute.What's more serious is that the emperor's unrestrained pursuit of material desires sent many bad messages to the world. The first adverse consequence is the blowing of extravagance in officialdom. In the later years of Qianlong, the social atmosphere became increasingly extravagant.In the officialdom, the officials compare themselves to whose cook is better, who hires a better actor, and who has a rare collection of antiques.It is said that in the official society in the south of the Yangtze River at that time, people had "three good things", that is, "cooking poorly, betting on actors, and talking about bone (ancient) Dong".This can also be said to be a microcosm of the daily hobbies of officials and scholars throughout the Qianlong era. In the later years of Qianlong, many government offices sang and danced all day long, enjoying themselves and drinking.The River Governor's Office is the most typical representative.Every time the Governor launched a river harnessing project, "Every time the work is completed, the building is built and shops are opened. There are jades, clocks, silks, satins and leather clothes. The philistines flock to them, and there are prostitutes and actresses vying for profit. These are all the squandered money of the workers, and the bribes of the workers are nothing but obtained from the misappropriation of fishing funds."When the Hengkou project was blocked, "the work was extravagant and squandered, and shops were opened, and there was a lot of fun, and there was everything." Another effect of the craze for tribute is the rise of gift-giving in official circles. In the early years of Qianlong, he observed in detail the disadvantages of paying tribute and giving gifts.At the beginning of his accession to the throne, he stipulated that in the officialdom, gifts should not be given to superiors in the name of giving "souvenir products".The emperor said: "There is no way to be honest before being cautious. The governor is an example for a province. If it is appropriate to receive the land of the prefecture and county, then the legacy of the two divisions and the Taoist government cannot be rejected. If the prefecture and county send the governor and the soil, it is appropriate for the two. The donations from the Secretary and the Taoist government are indispensable, and they are handed over repeatedly, the governor’s income is limited, and the fees of the subordinates are not cheap.” ("Qinghuidian Case") However, in his later years, the emperor himself openly demanded heavy gifts, so he could only turn a blind eye to this rule in his early years.The wind of entertaining guests and giving gifts in the officialdom is rapidly heating up.Zhang Xuecheng said: "When the seal official takes office, the book servants donate more than tens of thousands of dollars, and the governors and governors pass through the border, and the prefectures and counties must welcome and send them off." In the 60th year of Qianlong (1795), the corruption case of Pu Lin, the governor of Fujian Province, was found. The emperor searched his home and found "three inlaid jade pieces with a total of 157 handles of Ruyi size". How different is it to eight hundred shi.” In fact, the emperor needn’t be so surprised and inexplicable. Pepper can’t be eaten when it reaches eight hundred shi. The empress dowager's birthday, the elder brother's marriage, and the princess's need to marry, see you in Beijing, and get through the joints everywhere. Which entertainment can be fulfilled without "Ruyi"? In the later years of Qianlong, there was no money in the officialdom and nothing to do.When Wang Shanwang came to Gansu Province, there was a catchphrase circulating in the whole province: one thousand for meeting, two thousand for light meals, and three thousand for shooting arrows.It means that if you give one thousand taels of silver to Wang Shan, you can only hope to see him once; if you give two thousand taels of silver, if Mr. Wang appreciates you, you may keep a simple meal; if you give three thousand taels of silver, Mr. Wang will be happy and will give gifts People from different places draw bows, shoot arrows, and practice riding and archery together to show that the relationship is closer.From meeting to eating to playing together, it shows that the relationship with the chief envoy who is in charge of money and property in the whole province is getting closer step by step, and the weight that dominates this relationship is silver. There are two strange phenomena in the contemporary officialdom—the office phenomenon and the driver phenomenon. These seem to be new things, but in fact they already existed during the Qianlong period.In the forty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign (1781), Wang Shan, the political envoy of Gansu Province, revealed a new occupation when he hoped that the case of counterfeiting relief would be discovered: "sitting with the governor", that is, sending the "personal long-term follower" to be stationed in the provincial capital. Liaison.According to Wang Tingzan, who later took over as Gansu chief envoy, when Wang Shanwang was in office, he ordered the subordinate prefectures and counties to send their personal "long followers" to wait in the provincial capital to establish "offices".In the provincial capital, these people are responsible for making friends with Wang's family members, building relationships, and inquiring about information.Whenever a member of the subordinates donated gold and silver to Wang Shan Wang, he put it into a wine jar, sealed it with mud, and sent it in by these "accompanying governors".Wang Shanwang confessed: "When I have a need, I will ask the governor to accompany me so that I can send letters to all states and counties. Therefore, all the things that are sent to me by the states and counties will be handled by the governor." Over the past few years, he has amassed a fortune of three million yuan, most of which are completed by "sitting with the governor" to complete these "deals".