Chapter 23 Section 5 Corruption into Collectives

In an authoritarian society, eradicating corruption is as impossible as stopping the sea from undulating.China's traditional political system tacitly allows officials to corrupt to a certain extent, because the design of the "low salary system" makes it impossible for officials not to rely on gray income to live.In fact, there are too many loopholes that can be exploited in the traditional financial system, and corruption is not difficult for anyone with a normal IQ.Most of the time, there are two reasons why corruption can be limited within a certain range: one is the restriction of personality and integrity under the effective operation of Confucian values; the other is political pressure from top to bottom, that is to say , the supreme ruler's anti-corruption determination and eye-catching surveillance.

In the later years of Qianlong, the two conditions for restraining corruption lost their effect.Under Qianlong's continuous blows and humiliations, officials gradually gave up their personal integrity, and their actions had only one constant guideline, that is, real interests.In his later years, Qianlong's energy was low, "more lenient", and he took the lead in corruption, setting an example for corrupt officials.At the same time, the economic development of Qianlong's prosperity provided a huge space for corruption.In the early Qianlong period, the economy of the Qing Dynasty had been growing at a high speed, and the total economic volume increased rapidly.The population grew from 100 million to nearly 300 million.China's economy ranks first in the world, its population accounts for one-third of the world's population, and its foreign trade has long exceeded that of the world.The cake has grown bigger, and the base for searching and amassing money has expanded several times than before.Under such circumstances, political corruption is like bacteria meeting the right temperature, humidity and pH, and it developed at an alarming rate under the eyes of Emperor Qianlong.In just over ten years, the Qianlong Dynasty completed the transformation from strict political discipline in the early stage to pervasive corruption in the late stage.Under the appearance of prosperity, the heyday of the Qing Dynasty has been riddled with holes.

In the middle and late Qianlong period, corruption showed the following characteristics: One is that the amount involved in the case increases from small to large, and the number of corruption cases increases from small to large.In the early Qianlong period, after Yongzheng's killing, corruption cases rarely occurred.Occasionally, the amount of corruption is not large.In the few cases handled by Qianlong in the early stage, the few cases were thousands of taels, the most cases were only tens of thousands of taels, and the cases were rarely hundreds of thousands.Like the admiral Eshan who received a thousand taels of bribes, he was executed immediately.In the middle and late stages, corruption cases broke out one after another, and the amount involved doubled and increased by ten times. Officials embezzled tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and hundreds of thousands.In the thirty-fourth year of Qianlong (1769), Liu Biao, a small magistrate of Guizhou, eroded 240,000 taels of public funds.In the second battle of Jinchuan, a small Songgang station clerk actually embezzled nearly 90,000 taels of public funds at a time.

Second, corrupt officials have developed from the bottom to the top, and more and more high-ranking officials are involved.Generally speaking, senior leading cadres are selected through thousands of selections through organizational procedures, and their personal integrity and political quality should be much higher than the average level of the bureaucracy.Indeed, in the early Qianlong period, there were no more than three or five senior officials dealt with for corruption.After the mid-term, the situation changed.From the state capital to the provincial officials, and finally to the chief minister of military affairs, they have all fallen into the quagmire of corruption.During the middle and late 20 years of Qianlong, more than 20 senior officials at the provincial and ministerial levels were dealt with.Emperor Qianlong himself had to admit: "Among the provincial governors and governors, only two or three out of ten are honest and self-loving." ("Qianlong Daily Life Notes" August 60th)

The third is bribery in public companies. The number of nest cases and serial cases has increased rapidly, and corruption has shown a trend of grouping and openness. During the Kangxi and Yong Dynasties, the court regarded corruption as an enemy.By the Qianlong Dynasty, everyone was no longer ashamed of corruption, but took it for granted.Under the background that power has been fully marketized, there are tacit rules on how much money is needed to do one thing, arrange a job, get promoted once, and turn the law down once.If you don't understand these unspoken rules, you will not be able to gain a foothold in officialdom.Without corruption, a person cannot manipulate his network; without corruption, he cannot make contributions.Corruption within a certain range is not only acquiesced by society, but also necessary. "Corrupt but not corrupt" is the highest state of being an official.

In order to protect themselves, corrupt people form cliques politically, implicate each other economically, and form interest alliances, showing obvious group nature, that is, "nest case" and "collusion case".Its main feature is that there are many people involved in the case, forming a network of close personal attachments.From the forty-sixth year of Qianlong (1781) to the forty-ninth year (1784), the imperial court detected five major corruption cases in a row.If one person is exposed, dozens or even hundreds of officials related to him will be exposed.Often a single person commits a crime that paralyzes the bureaucracy of a province.

The most typical major corruption case in Qianlong's later years—the Gansu fraudulent relief case—had the above three characteristics at the same time. In the forty-sixth year of Qianlong (1781), Su Shisan, a native of Gansu, led the Hui uprising, and Emperor Qianlong sent troops to suppress it.Due to the sudden incident, it was difficult for Gansu to raise a large amount of military pay for a while.In order to express himself, Wang Tingzan, the chief envoy of Gansu at that time, offered to the emperor that he was willing to donate 40,000 taels to relieve his urgent needs: "I am willing to put 40,000 taels of cheap salary and silver accumulated over the years into the treasury of Gansu vassals to pay for soldiers." .”

Cleverness is misunderstood by cleverness.After reading this memorial, Qianlong's first reaction was not to praise it, but to be taken aback.As we all know, Gansu is a poor province, and the income of officials is very low. How can a chief envoy spend so much money all at once? While arranging for the war, the emperor sent someone to closely investigate the source of Wang Tingzan's family property.After an investigation, the Gansu counterfeit relief case was quickly brought to light. It turned out that in the thirty-ninth year of Qianlong (1774), Wang Tingzan's predecessor, Wang Shanwang from Shanxi, was appointed as the chief envoy of Gansu.He told the emperor that Gansu has been suffering from severe drought for many years, and many people died of starvation.Therefore, he asked the imperial court to carry out a food donation campaign in the local area, and rich households who donated a lot could obtain the qualification of "supervising students".The emperor, who has always been a strong supporter of disaster relief, approved Wang Shanwang's proposal.However, in actual operation, the Wang family only accepts money, not grain.In a few years, millions of taels of silver were raised.He didn't use any of this money for disaster relief, but after ordering governments at all levels to fabricate false accounts for reimbursement, he privately divided it with officials at all levels.

While embezzling a large amount of silver, Wang Shanwang continued to report to the court, saying how many victims he had saved in handling food donations, how the victims thanked the emperor and the court with tears, and praised the Qing Dynasty one after another.Such a memorial made the emperor elated.In May of the forty-second year of Qianlong (1777), Qianlong was transferred to Zhejiang to be promoted to governor because of Wang Shanwang's "meritorious service" in handling grain donations.Wang Tingzan took over as chief envoy and continued to embezzle according to the previous practice.According to subsequent statistics, from the thirty-ninth year of Qianlong (1774) to the beginning of the forty-sixth year (1781), a total of more than 270,000 people in Gansu Province donated more than 270,000 students and received more than 15 million taels of cash. A total of more than 2.9 million taels of embezzled and embezzled silver was stolen.

Such serious corruption cases are extremely rare in Chinese history.It reflects many fatal problems of the Qing political system. The first is that the monitoring mechanism is useless.In the Qing Dynasty, the relief process had strict and detailed regulations.When distributing grain and rice, the officials must be present in person, and after the daily distribution, the officials must personally sign and mark it as a certificate.On the day when all the distribution is completed, the general name should be signed at the beginning and end of the distribution booklet, and the seam mark should be added to the general booklet for the superior's inspection.At the same time, the number of distributions, the names of the specific recipients, and the amount should be announced on the list, so that the people can supervise them.However, Wang Shanwang ordered officials in the whole province to report the disaster situation by themselves. All the regulations on disaster reporting, disaster investigation, and prison release were regarded as empty papers and were not implemented.In the past few years, not only has no one checked and verified, but no one has reported it.

The emperor attached great importance to such a major event as donating grain from Gansu.At the beginning of the forty-second year of Qianlong (1777), the emperor sent people to Gansu to open a warehouse to check the grain in order to prevent the process of donating grain from being harmful.However, officials from various prefectures and counties in Gansu conspired to spread wooden boards under the granaries, and sprinkled grains on top of the boards, giving the supervisory officials the illusion that the granaries were full, and easily deceived the court. What's more serious is that this case reflects that corruption in the Qing Dynasty has developed from partial to complete, and from abnormal development to normal.This case involved more than 200 officials in Gansu Province, including 113 officials below the county magistrate level and above.Without exception, these court officials who read the "Four Books and Five Classics" have lost their integrity and shame.Faced with such a blatant crime, none of them refused, but scrambled to be the first.They formed an organized corruption group. There was premeditation and planning before the case, division of labor, organization, and steps during the case, and an offensive and defensive alliance after the case. Such a huge case involving the whole province is not only an open secret in Gansu, but also known to many people in the whole country.However, within seven years, no one made a report, and in the end it was the embezzlers who exposed themselves.This is the case in one province, and the official style of other provinces can probably be imagined.Emperor Qianlong also couldn't help sighing: "In this case in Gansu, the upper and lower levels colluded to invade and deprive the people, earning tens of thousands of dollars. This is a strange and strange incident that has never been seen before." The second is that local corruption is directly related to the central government, and the corruption has spread to the political center. When Wang Shanwang proposed to the court to make a donation, the emperor hesitated.It was Yu Minzhong, the academician in charge of the Ministry of Household Affairs in the DPRK and the Chief Minister of Military Aircraft, who was constantly instigated by the side and kept saying good things about Wang Shanwang, and finally got the approval.In the forty-second year of Qianlong (1777), the emperor sent people to check the grain, but was deceived by officials in Gansu, and it was obvious that someone in the court tipped him off. Yu Minzhong died earlier in the forty-fourth year of Qianlong (1779). He was known as an honest man during his lifetime, but after his death, his family made a fuss over the division of property, which even reached the ears of the emperor.In the name of helping to separate the family, the emperor investigated Yu's property, which actually amounted to two million taels.Synthesize today's currency value, at least 200 million.The emperor has never figured out where such a large family property came from.The emperor didn't realize it until the Gansu fraud case happened.Corruption has spread to the level of the chief minister of military affairs, that is, the prime minister, and the depth of this country can be estimated. If the investigation is strictly carried out in accordance with the laws of the Qing Dynasty, almost all officials above the division level in Gansu Province will lose their heads, and the operation of the Gansu Provincial Government will immediately be paralyzed.Therefore, Emperor Qianlong had to set a death line of 20,000 taels.Even so, there were as many as fifty-six people who were executed before and after.In the autumn of the forty-sixth year of Qianlong (1781), the emperor decreed that fifty-six corrupt officials, including governor Le Erjin, two chief envoys Wang Shanwang and Wang Tingzan, should be executed.Forty-six people were sent to avoid death, and dozens of people were dismissed, killed, died of illness, and committed suicide in fear of crime.Yu Minzhong's memorial tablet was removed from the Xianliang Temple. In the so-called prosperous age, the occurrence of such a huge case has already disgraced the court. Unexpectedly, this case triggered another even more embarrassing joke. After dealing with Wang Shanwang's case, the emperor felt depressed and angry on the one hand, and on the other hand, he also had a secret expectation in his heart.It turned out that on the emperor's 70th birthday a year ago, Wang Shanwang had presented a generous gift to the emperor, almost all of which were exquisite, including a pair of jade vases and a jade mountain with excellent jade materials and unique shapes, which the emperor liked very much .It's just that, when the emperor received gifts, there was a rule of nine times and three times. After weighing everything, the emperor reluctantly gave up and returned the two things to the Wang family.After returning, the emperor regretted it a little. The appearance of these two things appeared in front of his eyes every day, which made him worry about it. This time, at least through ransacking the house, these two things can enter the palace again.And with Wang Shanwang's greed, there might be better rare treasures in the family. The results of the house raids were reported, and the two counties of Yangqu and Linfen, Shanxi, where Wang was originally from, found a total of 75 houses and 33 shophouses.The land is 1,095 mu, and there is a pawn shop with a total valuation of 98,548 taels of silver.In addition, there are nearly 400 taels of gold wares, more than 5,000 pearls, 43 jade wares, 17 bronze wares, and 25 porcelain wares. There are more good things in Zhejiang Rensuo.Emperor Qianlong specially ordered Chen Huizu, governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, to search carefully. The reported result was that more than 90,000 taels of silver, nearly 5,000 taels of gold leaves, gold utensils, gold ingots, and gold bars, and 565 taels of gold, jewelry, and jade clothes were confiscated. box. The emperor quickly decreed that these gold, silver, pearls and jade should be sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs as quickly as possible. A month later, dozens of carts arrived in the capital, and hundreds of boxes were piled up in the palace.The emperor couldn't hold back the anticipation and joy in his heart, so he opened the box to check it himself.However, one box after another was opened, but the pair of jade bottles and the jade mountain were never found.Even other jewelry, most of them are old-fashioned in design and mediocre in workmanship, "the rate is unsightly", which disappointed the emperor. The perplexed emperor ordered someone to submit the first-hand files recorded by officials in Zhejiang Province to search the house carefully.It doesn't matter if it's wrong, the emperor turned pale with fright under the pair.It turned out that the more than one hundred pieces of high-quality treasures in the confiscated family book were never transported to Beijing, and there were eighty-nine more items in front of the emperor. Obviously, someone has transferred the wealth of the Wang family! This is simply an anecdote that has never been heard in history!Who is so bold, dare to cheat the emperor's treasure face to face? The distraught emperor ordered his two most trusted ministers, Agui and Fuchang'an, to put down the heavy work of the river project at hand, and rushed to Zhejiang at night and night, and investigated the matter with Chen Huizu, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and strictly ordered them to find out the truth.The emperor speculated that it was probably the ignorant and fearless servants who handled it, who were blinded by profit for a while, and did this shocking event. The result of the investigation surprised the emperor again: it was none other than Chen Huizu, the dignified governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, who was interested in the money!It turned out that the treasures collected by Wang Shanwang made Chen Huizu coveted.This person has done too much corruption and breaking the law, his courage is getting bigger and bigger, and he also treats such a serious crime as deceiving the emperor as normal.He was so careless when he changed the package, and even forgot to revise the family copy, which unfortunately revealed it. Of course, Chen Huizu could not escape death.However, in order to compete for the property of a prisoner, the emperor and his ministers, one was ashamed and the other was a thief, leaving a rare and absurd scene in Chinese political history.