Chapter 15 13. The victory of the white players

During the Spring Festival of 2002, I was browsing Gu Yanwu's, and suddenly I was touched by a sentence, and my heart was shocked, and I ran around the room, thinking about it.The passage is transcribed below (the quotations are in parentheses): "In a city (county), those who benefit from food and officials will die (approximately) a few pedestrians (25 people in the ancient military brigade), and they will be able to scare and shoot people with money because of the harsh punishment. Therefore, there are six or seven people in one battle. Together." A common phenomenon is described here: a quota in the official family is always shared by six or seven people.So, I asked myself, what were the names of the five or six extra people and the group they belonged to?

In modern Chinese, these five or six people are called "supernumerary staff", and in ancient Chinese, the redundant officials are called "redundant staff".More than 30% to 50% may be called this way. Now the excess is five or six times the positive amount. Who is more than whom?Who is whose "redundancy"?The most outrageous thing is: "supernumerary" and "redundant staff" are the same, they both emphasize the subsidiary nature of this group, it seems that they are just fat, without heads and limbs, not a relatively independent subject of interest, without their own pursuit and life, He refused to give someone a name from the front.Doing so helps to gloss over major problems, but it's unfair.

In fact, words describing this group are not uncommon, and many scientific names and nicknames of each branch have been handed down, such as "Chuanfeng", "Xiaoshu", "White Book", "Banghu", "Xiaolaozi" , "Yilaozi", "Baiyao" and so on.One of the more general is "white slavery". "Bai" can be understood as Baiding or Baigan, doing official work without being an official, doing official work without receiving salary, this is white service. "Chinese Dictionary" defines Baiyue as "non-staff errand".

The cadres and workers of the ancient Chinese government were divided into officials, officials, and servants. "Baishu" refers only to non-staff scribes. It was found in the archives of Baxian County, Sichuan in the Qing Dynasty, and could not be found in dictionaries or official history. The word "white slave" is a little more popular, but it refers to servants.These two words do not contain the position of an official, which is very disrespectful to the leader.In order to make up for this defect, we might as well create a "white member" based on the word-formation method of "baiyao" and "baishu". "Baiyuan" is a general term for white servants and officials outside the establishment.

I have a conjecture: the rise and fall of China's past dynasties has a close inverse relationship with this unnamed social group-the prosperity of the white members leads to the decline of the society.Moreover, there has been no shortage of people who understand this truth in all ages, but they have no skills to eradicate it, and they have repeatedly fought and failed.In the process of verifying this conjecture, I found that I had made fifty or sixty notes related to the white members, and I turned a blind eye dozens or hundreds of times, passing by this behemoth that surpassed the official group. "Have eyes but don't know Mount Tai".Can't let it slip this time.

In the nineteenth year of Hongwu (1386), officials in Songjiang Mansion broke the law and harmed the people. The Metropolitan Procuratorate searched for the root cause and revealed a special group. The Metropolitan Procuratorate is similar to today's Ministry of Supervision.Songjiang Prefecture is located in today's Songjiang County, Shanghai, and has jurisdiction over Shanghai County and Huating County.If calculated by the years in power, the nineteenth year of Hongwu is equivalent to 1968 in the Republic, which was the time when the Cultural Revolution was in full swing.Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was full of energy and tried to build a clean society. He paid attention to "melon copying" when trying cases, tortured confessions, internal investigations and external investigations. At most, one melon could involve more than 20,000 large and small melons. melon.This time, they followed the vines in Songjiang Prefecture and involved Suzhou Prefecture. As a result, they discovered a group of 2,871 people who harmed the people.

Zhu Yuanzhang described the discovery in detail.He said that there are a group of people in Songjiang Mansion who are not doing their jobs properly, and they are attached to Zaoli, the servants in the yamen, and use the power of the government to harm the people.These people called themselves Xiaolaozi, Yelaozi, Zhisi, Zhuwen, Xiaoguan, and Banghu. There were 1,350 of them in Songjiang Prefecture alone, and 1,521 in Suzhou Prefecture. Zhu Yuanzhang said that these people don't know the hardships of farmers, and they go to the countryside to make trouble when the farming is busy.It was the season for planting ear seeds. They took the official approval to find the farmers, locked them from the water truck, or took the seedlings from the farmers, and locked them out of the field.

Zhu Yuanzhang also analyzed in detail the tricks in the position of "prisoners" (similar to today's prison guards).Zhu Yuanzhang said that prisons are divided into three classes, namely positive prisons, small prisons and wild prisons.Zheng Laozi is a regular worker in the establishment, and Xiao Laozi and Ye Laozi are all idlers. There are more than 900 such people in Songjiang Mansion alone. The position of Zaoli (the servants in the yamen, similar to today's judicial police and criminal police) is also tricky.Zaoli outside the establishment are called "Little Archers" and "Zhisi".Small archers are probably equivalent to temporary workers in Zao slave positions, and the status of "directors" ranks behind small archers, and may belong to second-class temporary workers.The government workers at that time seemed to be the same as they are now. Once they had secured their seats, they wanted to hand over the dirty work to temporary workers.Temporary workers have been working for a long time, and their seats have been secured, and they will recruit and employ second-class temporary workers. Three grades can be formed in the same position.

There are also non-staff personnel in the positions of official officials. Zhu Yuanzhang mentioned "main text" and "writing post".I am unable to determine the number and status of these people, but from the archives of Ba County in the Qing Dynasty, there are also three grades for the same position.There are no more than 15 official officials (code officials) in Baxian County, Sichuan, and there are often more than 200 first-class temporary workers (semi-regular workers) "Jingshu", and second-class temporary workers "Qingshu" and "Xiaoshu" are Jingshu's apprentices. Collectively referred to as white books, the number is similar to that of the master.

Zhu Yuanzhang said that these people do not serve the four major occupations of scholars, agriculture, industry, and business, that is to say, they do not belong to the above four social groups.What group do they belong to?Zhu Yuanzhang collectively referred to them as "helping officials".The word "leisure" is used well.Originally, the bureaucrats and yamen servants group were already full, and their lives were quite idle, so they wanted to help.However, the word "bangxian" had already existed before the Ming Dynasty, and it specifically refers to those patrons who help rich people with leisure, and the term created by Zhu Yuanzhang has not been popularized.

Zhu Yuanzhang arrested 2,871 members of this harmful group, but he believes that he has not caught them all.According to his estimation, "If you want to search for everything, there will be no fewer than 2,000 people in each prefecture." In the early Ming Dynasty, there were only three yamen in one prefecture and two counties in Songjiang, so on average, each yamen had six to seven hundred white officials.In the Ming Dynasty, there were no more than four or five official officials in a county, plus more than a dozen officials, the number of "economic system" in the county-level yamen was only about 20, and there were about 200 yamen servants. more than three times that number. Gu Yanwu said that "one battle will last for six or seven people", and he was talking about the end of the Ming Dynasty.In the early Ming Dynasty, the officials were strictly governed, corruption was not so serious, and the number of white members was three times that of regular members.I read in Li Changping's book "I Tell the Truth to the Prime Minister" that in 2000, the Rongcheng Financial Office in Jianli County, Hubei Province had an official establishment of more than 30 people, with more than 140 actual staff members. four times.Not as good as the early Ming Dynasty, but better than the late Ming Dynasty. Facing the Baiyuan group, Zhu Yuanzhang's reaction was extremely fierce, and killers appeared one after another. Zhu Yuanzhang said that some officials dared to set up names outside of the imperial court's decrees, and used idlers as "workers" and "deputies".Officials naming names without authorization, and idlers taking responsibility without authorization.From then on, when they were arrested and brought to Beijing, officials and idlers were all beheaded in the city. It didn't take long for Zhu Yuanzhang to feel uneasy just beheading the person involved.He said: Today's government deliberately violates the law and indiscriminately sets up useless people.These people call themselves "dedang", "ganban", and "management", and they go to and from the cities and villages, and they harm the people more than tigers and wolves. ... In the future, anyone who dares to do this will "de-dang" himself, "guan gan" himself, "gan ban" himself, together with government officials, will be punished by the family. Genocide?Genocide. "Law of the Ming Dynasty · Official Law · Abuse of Officials" stipulates that the heaviest punishment for officials who arbitrarily appoint non-staff personnel is one hundred sticks and three years in prison.The legislation of the Ming Dynasty was harsh, and the prison sentence stipulated in the Tang Dynasty had been increased by one year.As for those who exploit and exploit indiscriminately, the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" stipulates that one hundred sticks and relocation.Officials who tolerate (mistakes are lighter than abusive) impostors will be punished with a maximum of one hundred sticks and will not be sentenced to imprisonment.Zhu Yuanzhang didn't make any distinctions, and copied and executed them all. Zhu Yuanzhang not only enacted severe torture laws, but also mobilized the masses to ensure their implementation. "The Fourteenth List of Officials and Soldiers" stipulates that in the future, officials of the provincial, prefecture, prefecture, and county yamen must post a list of the number of slaves to be served to let the public know.At the end of the announcement, it must be stated: "In addition to the names on the list, there are others who are called Zaoli and Shushu under the name of the Yamen, and they will be captured and sent to Beijing." In order to encourage the common people to capture Bai Yuan for him, Zhu Yuanzhang offered a big reward: "In the village where I live, my good people, the heroes, and the seniors, agreed to capture this person and go to Beijing to receive rewards. If one is captured, one should be a person, one person will be responsible, and one person will be in charge. See A reward of 20 ingots per person is a true show." Twenty ingots in the eighteenth year of Hongwu were equal to one hundred guan. If inflation in the following year was not considered, this money could buy seven or eight thousand catties of rice, worth six to seven thousand yuan, which seemed to be higher than the income of farming. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang raised the reward again. "Dagao Continuation: Idlers and Evil No. 62" stipulates that idlers who call their names and sex in private, and harm the common people together with officials, will be punished by the family.If the victim denounces, the prisoner's property will be rewarded to the first accuser.The relevant officials were put to death prematurely. "Da Gao" is a compilation of various cases handled by Zhu Yuanzhang himself, and its status is equivalent to the interim regulations during the "Cultural Revolution" or "Strike Hard". The "Dagao" was distributed throughout the country like "Chairman Mao's Quotations". Zhu Yuanzhang asked everyone to learn the "Dagao", and every household had the "Dagao", which cast a net in urban and rural areas across the country. If this situation is compared to a game of chess, then Zhu Yuanzhang's new move appeared on the chess game that lasted for thousands of years.In addition to the emperor, the players in the game also have the white group, the common people and the official group, let's see how they move. Knowing the legal risks of "drilling and overcharging" in the government office, one should also understand the practical benefits of drilling. At the beginning of the article, I wrote about a few government servants, whom the common people respectfully called "Daddy", and being able to drink with them is an honor worth showing off.Their real income, according to the second introduction to a fast-track yamen servant (similar to a criminal policeman): "Papa Li has really run around in the hands of the new master in the past few years, and I am afraid that he will have to find thousands of dollars in a year! His old man likes to gamble, he is not as good as Xiban Huang, who used to play in these things, but in the past few years it has become a success, and the house at home is built like a palace in heaven, so lively!" In contrast, this time when it comes to the teacher's income, the annual museum fee is no more than twelve taels of silver.Father Li's income in one year is more than that of the teacher in 1983.This is not an exception.According to statistics, in the Qing Dynasty, the average annual income of pawns in Baxian County, Sichuan Province exceeded one thousand taels of silver, and the average income of Baxian servants was also around one thousand taels.Ordinarily, the nominal income of the third class of yamen servants ranges from sixty-seven to twelve taels, which may not be comparable to that of the teacher, but they have the opportunity to make extra money. Not only teaching is not as good as being a government servant, but opening a small shop is not as good. (Ming) The ninth chapter of "Happy Friends" by the owner of Yuyin in the West Lake talks about the income of a small businessman who opened a Nanhuo store in partnership. With three hundred taels of silver as capital, he managed well and could make a profit of one or two hundred taels a year (Ming Dynasty The two hundred and two taels of silver in the Qing Dynasty was converted into about 40,000 to 50,000 yuan in grain prices. The purchasing power of silver gradually decreased in the Qing Dynasty, and the comparison of purchasing power is not made here), but this is only one-fifth of Li's father.With such a comparison, we can imagine the intensity of the drill camp and the difficulty of Zhu Yuanzhang's strict defense. Father Li is probably a government servant, and is responsible for arresting people, so he is very easy to get along.His status and income can attract white labor, but it cannot represent white labor.Li Rong, a retired official in the late Qing Dynasty, once wrote a letter to his parents, describing in detail how the servants (white servants) made a living. The following paragraphs are copied again: This text introduces three kinds of income: 1. Food and drink or a meal.No matter what happens, the work meal has already been settled.2. The disk fees paid by the leaders of the towns and streets.This is a relatively guaranteed daily cash income.As for how the local leaders apportion the money, that is their business.3. Blackmailing alcoholics, gambling and thieves.We know that catching gambling is still a source of extra income for grassroots police officers and joint defense team members.As for other minor crimes, if the leverage is properly used, a small fortune may also be made.With the above income, it can probably be mixed between food and clothing and well-off. This is highway extortion of sulfur sales tax.Sulfur is used in the production of gunpowder and firecrackers. It is a contraband, and offenders are punished as selling illegal salt.With the basis of legal harm, it is easy to extort.This income must be richer and more stable, so that the local "rogue children" can also "collude with each other and share the fat."What is a scoundrel?If the card checking officer is a regular job, the scoundrel is a white job.If card checking is already a white job, the rogue is a second-level white job, just like the wild prisoner under the small prison.The scoundrels are familiar with the local conditions, can increase the income of card checking and share the hard work of card checking, so it must be cost-effective to accept them.Because these people have the right to legally harm others, the people dare not stand up, and their courage is growing: This is a more active and brazen application of the legal right to harm.The legal right to harm should be more precisely called "low-risk harm capability". Backed by a powerful state apparatus, the exerciser's personal cost is very low, the risk is small, and the ability to cause harm is huge.The guards came to the door, claiming that they were ordered by the leader to blackmail money by threatening to stop the business.Common people lack information, and it is difficult to estimate the cost and success rate of suing. Therefore, among suspending business, suing and bribery, the three evils are the lesser, and bribery is very normal.The value of the legal right to harm is determined by the cost of avoiding harm.Of course, if there is a way to reduce the cost of filing a lawsuit, such as finding a cheap way to ask the squire Li Rong to write a letter to the county leaders to file a complaint, then the amount of bribes will be limited and reduced by this cheapness.In the pattern of "the lesser of the three evils", the second least "harm" seals the upper limit of the value of the legal right to harm. Li Rong finally said: Through Li Rong's appeal, we further learned that the "poor ticket" is the proof of the legal right to harm.Bad tickets do have a price and can be bought and sold.In the case of a poor ticket, the distinction between the white servant and the regular soldier is no longer important, but the regular soldier can still use the white servant to reduce the risk of illegal extortion: in case they are accused, they can say that it was done by the white servant, And Bai Jie has already fled in fear of crime.We can also see that even if squires like Li Rong who had been high-level provincial officials were willing to come forward to sue, they still lacked a reliable restraint mechanism and could only count on the conscience and sense of honor of the county magistrate.If his sense of honor is not strong, the value of the poor ticket should be expected to increase. Li Rong here revealed the process of the "poor ticket" transaction: there is a one-time payment when accepting the ticket, which is called "regulation fee".There is another payment when selling tickets, which is called "reward". The general procedure for the issue of bad tickets is as follows: first, the clerk drafts a draft, writes the names of the plaintiff and the defendant, the name of the person to be passed on, the cause of the case, the name and number of executors, the date of the invoice, and the date of validity, etc. Officials fill it out, and then it is issued by the County Code History or State Officials, and finally the state county magistrate takes a red pen and clicks on the name of the person to be passed on for confirmation.The folk proverb says: "A little Zhu in the hall, a thousand blood in the folk", which refers to this point.After the executive officer gets the ticket, the transfer can be carried out.What exactly is being bought and sold in this transaction?I think the sellers are very similar to the second or third landlords who rent out the land. They earn money from the possession of tickets (legal injury rights); while the buyers are equivalent to tenants, and they make money from the use of the legal injury rights.If there is too much "land" for active duty officers to be too busy, or if they are rich and too lazy to run errands to search, they can rent it out to white servants to cultivate and harvest. We now have a rough idea of ​​the costs and benefits of being a white man.The money for bad tickets is a direct cost, and the money and food and drink for extortion are direct benefits. When I say "direct costs," I mean there are other costs, at least opportunity costs.Why are the town scoundrels so eager to get involved?Because they have no serious business anyway, the opportunity cost is very low.Then, the opportunity cost of the poor and lower-middle peasants in the slack season is close to zero. Will they enthusiastically participate?In terms of income, the poor and lower-middle peasants seldom eat wine and meat, and earn less money than free labor, but honest people are not good at extortion, people with too sensitive conscience cannot bear extortion, and ignorant people lack the opportunity to compete for bad tickets. Spiritual, psychological and informational costs also limit the access of the masses.In comparison, the advantages of the lumpen proletarians are even more obvious. They are the reserve army for white labor. If I want to go one step further and directly become a second or third landlord, and become a full-time officer who receives tickets directly from officials, or go further and become a landlord, as an official who fills in and writes tickets and signs tickets, the price will be much higher.This money is called "top money" or "top silver". Ming Dynasty scribes generally cost three to forty taels of silver on top of their heads, and the most were more than a hundred taels.The price of clerks in the yamen of the capital is even higher, hundreds of taels.The largest amount is Lianghuai Salt Administration. According to Chen Renxi's "Wumengyuan Chuji Jiubian Salt Law" in the late Ming Dynasty, one scribe of the Salt Academy received 10,000 taels of silver.Yandao Book Office eight thousand taels.Guangyingke topped the head with two thousand taels of silver.For other wards, at least four to five hundred taels.Converted to the price of grain, one hundred taels of silver is equivalent to about 30,000 RMB.Nowadays, the number of places in a financial office (household clerk) is roughly the same price. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, an acre of grain field was only sold for three to five taels of silver. The price of the above-mentioned many "deficiencies" was enough to buy a piece of land to settle down.In the minds of the ancients, the "queuing" transaction is not essentially different from the land transaction. "Lack" has fat and thin just as the field has fat and thin.There is a "lack of master" just as there is a "landlord" in the land.There is a lack of "queen bottom", just as farmland is also divided into "field bottom" (ownership) and "field surface" (tenant use right).Land can be rented out, and "lack" can also be rented out.If you think about it carefully, the ancients' ideas make a lot of sense.Land ownership is a rare resource, and legal right to harm is also a rare resource, and it is the basic resource to ensure how other resources are allocated, so it can be called the first resource.The so-called "drilling and overcharging" is to compete for the right to possess or use such scarce resources. Low-cost harm ability, legal right to harm and other things are like a profit, a culture medium, and an ecological niche, and white members are the inevitable product of this ecological niche.Although this is a large species that makes a living by harming people, we don't want to scold them.Capital and labor will always flow into areas with higher income. It is unreasonable not to eliminate this culture medium, but to accuse the bacteria that came to breed for their low awareness and to block other people's money. After counting the white members, then count the officials.Purely considering the immediate interests of the bureaucrats, reducing the number of white workers is harmful, while increasing the number of white workers is beneficial. (Ming) In the sixteenth year of Zhengde (1521), Emperor Zhengde died and Emperor Jiajing came to the throne.Yang Tinghe, the civil official leader at that time, drafted the imperial edict for the emperor, laying off 148,700 white employees and reducing grain by 1.532 million shi.These white members are not in Jinyiwei, they are in prison, and they have a lot of background.Some were originally eunuchs, some were godsons recognized by the emperor, and some were "passed up" or "begged for promotion" directly ordered by the emperor.It is conceivable how much property and effort those 140,000 people spent to obtain these good jobs.After the edict was announced, it was praised both at home and abroad, saying that the new emperor is a saint. In this campaign, the new emperor won the reputation of a saint, and the common people lightened the burden of 1.53 million shi of grain, but Yang Tinghe encountered life-threatening. "History of the Ming Dynasty" said that after the layoffs, "dereliction of duty" hated Yang Tinghe deeply. When Yang Tinghe went to court, someone hid a white knife and watched for opportunities beside the sedan chair.After the emperor heard about it, he sent hundreds of guards to guard Yang Tinghe in and out. According to the records in "Wanli Yehuo Chapter Ministers Use Imperial Guards", only Ma Wensheng and Yang Tinghe used imperial guards in Ming Dynasty.Ma Wensheng was the minister of the Ministry of War (similar to the Minister of Defense) in the early years of Hongzhi. He hated the indiscretion of military officers and dismissed more than 30 generals and schools from the barracks.As a result, the enemies led bows and shot into his house, searched for his faults, and shot into the palace with flying books.So the emperor gave Ma Wensheng twelve guards in brocade clothes.From this point of view, layoffs are not only in danger of death, but also in danger of losing their hats.It is a common official method for the resentful to collect the faults of the layoffs and write anonymous letters to complain, but how many people who have been in the officialdom for more than ten years are clean enough to withstand this kind of nitpicking?This pickiness is equivalent to a high threshold that limits the qualifications for layoffs. The huge bureaucratic group may not be able to pick out a few qualified people. In the past, it was difficult for ministers to lay off staff, and now it is equally difficult for small officials to lay off staff. On May 22, 1998, "Southern Weekend" told a story about the failure of a town party secretary to dismiss temporary workers.Dong Yang, 43 years old, was transferred to Hekou Town, Huangshi City, Hubei Province as a secretary for 11 months, and 48 temporary workers were dismissed.This is related to the jobs of temporary workers, and it is also related to the face of the characters who put temporary workers in.As a result, 18 cadres from the town jointly signed a letter requesting that he be transferred away. As expected, the superior transferred him to be the head of the District Science and Technology Bureau.The reason for transferring Dong Yang was that he was a good cadre, but not a good secretary. Why has it always been so difficult throughout the ages?In "I Tell the Truth to the Prime Minister", Li Changping quoted a passage from a member of the White House, which has a lot of meaning.Under the pressure of superiors, Rongcheng Finance Office, which is several times overstaffed, is preparing to lay off employees. The person who was laid off said: "It costs money to enter the Rongcheng Finance Office, and we can't get in if it is less than 30,000 to 50,000. Should we leave now? no way!" I think this makes sense.Thirty to fifty thousand is not a decimal, it is a major investment in a person's life, and it is an investment that is expected to be used slowly with interest, you just say a few words and forget it?Isn't this confiscation of land for land reform?If you have to confiscate it, you have to prepare for a cruel class struggle. Don't expect a certain class to be captured and wiped out for nothing.Looking at the problem from the perspective of class struggle, it is easier to understand the situation of Ma Wensheng and Yang Tinghe when they used the army, and it is easier to understand the fate of Dong Yang and Li Changping today.In Li Changping's writing, the efforts to reduce the white staff of the Rongcheng Finance Office ended in vain; the hundreds of people who were laid off under his rule also returned one after another, and it was himself who was really squeezed out. Take a step back and the world is wide.Accepting white members is actually very cost-effective.The wages of cadres are set by the state, and it doesn't matter if they work more or less.Under the condition of fixed income, the way to pursue welfare maximization is to reduce the workload, that is, to increase helpers.What's more, the 30,000 to 50,000 yuan investment of the white staff is also a considerable amount of extra money. This is the contract fee for the right to search for people's fat and people's anointing, a one-time advance collection, or advance commission. What is discussed above is the self-interest of officials, without considering the requirements of superiors and the emperor, nor the provisions of laws and regulations.If officials enforce the law to their own benefit, this law is not difficult to implement.Conversely, if the law enforcement is not good for oneself, it is laborious and offending others, and it cannot be rewarded by the superiors, then the orders issued by the emperor to the officials are almost like a dead letter.Liu Yu, a native of the Qing Dynasty, analyzed the bad governance of officials in Sichuan, and cited the refusal of senior officials to enforce the law and restrict white officials as the primary reason.He said: Sichuan's bad governance is not because of how evil the officials are, but because there are too many officials.Why so many?Because of the violation.Dare to break the law?The high officials tolerated this.None of the high-ranking officials acted seriously, knowing that they violated the law and refused to deal with it. In order not to implement or less to implement the decrees that are not good for them, and at the same time not to be blamed by their superiors, officials have developed a set of camouflage techniques, a strategy of dealing with decrees with false words. "Wuzazu · Shibu II" introduces this set of general strategies as follows: As soon as Shangguan takes office, he must announce some bans, which is a common routine.In general, the subordinate staff used the old tricks to deceive the officials, and the officials pretended to deceive the people.Saying that it is forbidden to visit, to feed, to pass joints, to criticize privately, to routine, to meet and see, to prohibit extravagance, and to prohibit the demand for human service is forbidden by oneself, and it is ordered in the morning to be changed at night. With this set of tried and tested camouflage techniques, the risks from legal aspects can also be greatly reduced. Theoretically speaking, only ordinary people can really stop the torrent of profit-seeking.The source of the white people's income is the fat of the people and the anointing of the people. As long as the people protect their blood and sweat, the surging river may become a trickle.Zhu Yuanzhang saw this, and he also pinned his hopes on the people. In the nineteenth year of Hongwu (1386), Zhu Yuanzhang wrote a paragraph full of disappointment and hope, to the effect that the officials I appointed in the past were all incompetent people. The Rogues conspired to cheat and harmed many of my good people.I want to rely on officials to distinguish right and wrong for the people, but in nineteen years, I haven't seen such an official.From now on, the elders and heroes of the people will help me to comfort the people.If the government bends the law again for personal gain, it will tie up the officials in the punishment room (similar to the county court) for me.It's not fair to pay taxes again, so I will tie up the officials of the household house (similar to the county finance bureau). ...As long as the people follow my orders, all corrupt officials will be transformed into sages within a year.why?Because good people can distinguish right from wrong by themselves, it is difficult for treacherous evil to succeed, so officials can be forced to become good officials.Who dares to stop the people from arresting corrupt officials, they will be executed everywhere! What is the implementation and effect of the mass supervision policy?I have not found many historical records, so it is difficult to make an accurate assessment, but from the scattered records, it can be seen that some people did use this right and received rewards, and some officials who made things difficult for the exerciser had their knees dug out or even was put to death. Zhu Yuanzhang once recorded a story of a county magistrate begging for mercy from the common people in a complacent style.He said that Wang Duo, the head of Laoting County (now Laoting, Hebei Province) (the third in command of the county government), tried every means to harm the people, and imposed labor labor without authorization.As a result, 34 people, including the respected old man Zhao Hanchen, banded together and bound him to Beijing.On the way, He Rui and other ten "deputies", "talkers" and "managers" (at least two of them are white servants) repented, corrected their mistakes, and assisted Zhao Hanchen and others to carry out the specific execution of the harm. Eight people, including Zhang Jin, a workshop official of the people's policy (the leader in charge of the county's transportation, urban construction, water conservancy and other projects), were bound to Beijing.Forty miles after walking out of Leting County, the county clerk Wang Duo begged for mercy and said: I studied at the age of fourteen, and I gained today with the hard work of lamps and windows. Please spare me this time, and don't ruin my future. Put yourself in the shoes of the common people, if the hotel owners described by Li Rong are forced to close down, they will definitely ask whether the ban on closing down is legal.If it can be confirmed that it is illegal, if it can be confirmed that the police have harmed people, they are likely to use this policy to tie the murderer to Beijing.However, I want to emphasize that this is only a possibility, and there are still many conditions that need to be discussed if it is to become a reality. First of all, there is a fee to ask for information. It takes time and money to find out this in the county. It needs to be connected and find the right person. This is not easy.Secondly, the ban is likely to be legal. There are many ambiguous areas in the decree, and the officials and government officials will not be so stupid that the common people can grasp it as soon as they stretch out their hands.Again, it takes money and time to find out whether a servant is a free servant. Sometimes the definition is vague, unspoken rules are in power, and files are kept strictly. You also ran away early, and you also went bankrupt long ago.Afterwards, after passing five levels and killing six generals, everything will be cleared up. How many people and money will it take to bind a few people from Sichuan to Beijing?Is five or six thousand yuan or the defendant's property enough?What if they fight or run away?Do people have the right to imprison or even kill him?Finally, the corrupt officials and white officials were escorted to Beijing. Who did you go to?Looking for the emperor?Looking for a minister?If it's so easy for them to talk, I can just sue myself, why arrest people?If the complaint is one-sided and unreliable, will he confess his crimes when the defendant is arrested?Officials at all levels have always treated ordinary people like footballs, and if they catch a few petty officials who they don't care about, they won't kick us?What if they kick us back to Sichuan again? All the risks, costs and skills mentioned above should have been borne by the government.The government collects taxes, hires many experts who are familiar with laws and policies, and hires many police officers to escort prisoners, giving them the power and weapons to suppress resistance, and allocates a large amount of travel expenses and case handling expenses every year.Did Zhu Yuanzhang expect the old peasants to bear all this?If they really come to bear it, I'm afraid it will be even more unlucky than bearing the damage of corrupt officials.Moreover, I always feel that it is life-threatening to do so. Can you really expect people to stand still and let you catch and exterminate the clan? In short, I dare not expect that Zhu Yuanzhang's "mass supervision" can solve many problems.It may be possible to solve some big problems worth fighting for, but we are often faced with a large number of small problems that are not worth fighting for alone. In addition, mass supervision has an unclean side, which must be familiar to those who have experienced the Cultural Revolution.Zhu Yuanzhang told the story of how some unscrupulous people abused this power, how they took the opportunity to eat and drink, went to other people's houses to kill chickens and sheep, extorted and extorted, and how they captured corrupt officials for free and made private transactions.That's all right, anyway, it can reduce the income of corrupt officials and white people.The problem is that it is difficult to perform government duties normally.Zhu Yuanzhang originally restricted the legal right of harm to the yamen servants. They were not allowed to go to the countryside to arrest people with cards.As a result, when the government needed to summon people to serve in the normal military service, 251 households in a certain county refused to come for the first pass, the second pass, and the third pass. As a result, the guards who went to inform were also bound to Beijing. We can imagine how officials at all levels quickly and exaggeratedly passed this information to Zhu Yuanzhang's ears with snickering.Their subtext is: Isn't it to limit our power?Don't we want the masses to supervise us?Well, it's not our fault that we can't do the work you've assigned us.Zhu Yuanzhang heard this kind of report too much, and sighed: Woohoo!In order to facilitate the people's livelihood, greedy officials were banned, and the unruly people took the opportunity to insult the officials.In order to maintain the prestige of the officials, the people were banned, and the greed of the officials rose again.No one knows where benevolence and righteousness are.Woohoo, governing the country is difficult! Zhu Yuanzhang died in the thirty-first year of Hongwu (1398), and his grandson, Emperor Jianwen, ascended the throne.In the enthronement edict, Emperor Jianwen, who is known for his gentleness, announced: "In the future, officials and people who commit the five punishments will be judged by the judicial department according to the "Law of the Ming Dynasty", and there will be no profound texts (deliberately and strictly). " The subtext of this sentence is: in the future, it is not allowed to judge cases according to the severe punishment and harsh laws in "Da Gao". "Da Gao" was quietly abolished.Emperor Jianwen was very young, grew up in a deep palace, was not familiar with the grassroots situation, and was surrounded by a group of civil servants. There was obviously a shadow of bureaucracy behind this decision. Zhu Di raised troops in the name of upholding the "ancestral training", seized the throne from his nephew, and restored the status of the "Da Gao" as a legal code.However, after insisting on it for 19 years (1421), Zhu Di also announced that the prisoners questioned by the Judiciary will be punished according to the "Law of the Ming Dynasty" in the future, and no further articles will be allowed. Three years later, Zhu Di died, and his son Zhu Gaochi came to the throne. In the imperial edict issued in the first month of the first year of Hongxi (1425), Zhu Gaochi declared the mass supervision system created by his grandfather illegal.Zhu Gaochi was a weak emperor, and he had a brother coveting the throne by his side. His imperial edict had the taste of winning the support of the bureaucracy: "The imperial court established civil and military officials, so it ruled the army and the people. Among them, there are officials who are not their own people, and those who do not have the hearts of the soldiers and the people, the soldiers and the people Binding and humiliating at every turn will harm the general. From now on, anyone who harms the army or civilian officials is allowed to go to the superior to report. That is to say, history has circled in a circle for more than 30 years and returned to the starting point.Farmers were bitten and sucked blood, so they could only report to the chief, and could not beat mosquitoes by themselves.But the chief doesn't feel pain or itch himself. Would he really be in a hurry to slap mosquitoes for farmers?Zhu Yuanzhang said that he hadn't seen one in 19 years, so he made a law to let the farmers beat it themselves.Zhu Yuanzhang lived too early and had never been abroad for investigation, so he was inevitably a little ignorant.Now it seems that the chief may not be motivated to fight mosquitoes, it depends on who owns his black hat.If it is in the hands of the peasants, he will fight for the peasants.Enough talking, let's move on to legislation. Zhu Yuanzhang was also worried that future generations would abolish his good law, so he specially wrote "Ancestral Precepts" to prevent it.But this is still a matter of conscience, and children and grandchildren ignore it, and he can't climb out of the grave to evacuate others.And the children and grandchildren who are born rich must have a different feeling of spending money to do things than entrepreneurs. The founding emperor is like a little shepherd boy who worked hard to create a herding kingdom and became a herder with millions of cattle and sheep.He is very clear that the interests of cattle and sheep are to eat well, drink well, reproduce well, and not be eaten by wolves, which is the same as the interests of the shepherd.In order to realize this common good, it is best to select 10,000 cattlemen carefully.If the shepherd is not good enough, it is not acceptable to be overstaffed.If the number of herding workers reaches 900,000, the so-called ten sheep and nine shepherds, then the extra 890,000 self-proclaimed herding workers will be no different from tigers and wolves in the eyes of Zhu Yuanzhang and the common people.Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to kill, because he didn't want tigers and wolves to waste his hard work. Harsh punishment and harsh laws are in line with the entrepreneur's personality and interests. The problem is that selecting herd workers and hunting tigers and wolves is a lot of work. "Chunming Meng Yulu" mentioned Zhu Yuanzhang's workload: "In eight days, the internal and external divisions reported 1,660 Zhafan, totaling 3,291 things." Based on this calculation, Zhu Yuanzhang averaged 1,660 cases. Every day, I have to read more than 200 memorials and deal with more than 400 political affairs.Calculated by working ten hours a day, each hour would read twenty memorials and deal with forty things.On average, each memorial is only three minutes long, and each event is only one and a half minutes long.Such a high-intensity work, ten hours of non-stop hard work, what does this emperor have in charge? Zhu Yuanzhang himself also complained. It is said that he wrote a poem: "I got up before I got up, and I didn't sleep when I was asleep. It's not as good as the rich man in the south of the Yangtze River. He is as tall as five feet and still wearing a quilt." "The rich man in the south of the Yangtze River" It's just a cow of the herdsman, and the life of the herdsman is so enviable. Who is the master and who is the slave?Zhu Yuanzhang is used to suffering himself, so it's okay to complain.But Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants are used to it. Wouldn't it be more reasonable if they reduced their workload and divided the work of the past day into fifty days to do it slowly, leaving more time to enjoy life?If you don't do well, it will just make the cattle and sheep suffer more, and allow tigers and wolves to eat more meat, which has little to do with the emperor's personal welfare.Looking at the problem from a long-term perspective, future generations may suffer some losses because of this, but how much is the misfortune and blessings of the descendants after three or five generations discounted today? History is developing in this direction.Since Ming Yingzong ascended the throne (1436), the workload of the Ming emperors has been reduced to eight things in the morning every day, which is equivalent to one-fiftieth of Zhu Yuanzhang's daily workload.Volume 1 of Wang Kai's "Yupu Miscellaneous Notes" records: Yingzong came to the throne as a young man, and the three cabinet scholars worried that the emperor's health would not be able to bear it, so they stipulated that only eight things should be said in the morning court every day.Moreover, a copy must be sent to the cabinet the day before, and the cabinet will propose handling opinions in advance.What's interesting is that this rule of taking care of children temporarily has been finalized: Yingzong has grown up, and the three elders have passed away one after another. No one asked to restore the old, so it became a custom. Later, the lives of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty became more nourishing. Some people dared not to go to court for more than 20 years, and the emperors who did not love to go to court had a relatively long life span, each occupying the throne for more than 40 years.After their death, the Ming Dynasty would go through three or five emperors before finally perishing.To put it more thoroughly, even if the Ming Dynasty perished, the subjugated king would not necessarily suffer much personally.Chongzhen hanged himself because of his strong temper. If he didn't die, it wouldn't be a big problem to get the title of king.This is enough treatment to make countless heroes bow down. In short, the emperor's personal interests are not completely consistent with the national interests, and it is natural for him to pursue the maximization of personal welfare. Furthermore, the emperor also had personal relationships, and the interests of his personal relationships were closer to him than the interests of the state.Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty loved treasures. During the Chenghua period (1465-1487), "Bai Ding" from all over the world colluded with his courtiers to present treasures to make the emperor happy, and rewarded officials at every turn.According to regulations, the appointment of officials must go through the Ministry of Officials, but the emperor insisted on taking care of private individuals and breaking the rules of the ancestors, and the bureaucrats couldn't stop them.Such "non-staff officials" have a special term called "Chuan Feng Guan".Ma Wensheng mentioned earlier gave a number. He said: "There are more than 1,200 officials in Beijing, and there are even more than 800 officials who have been entrusted." In the Ming Wuzong (1506-1521) era, there seemed to be more entrusted officials. The number mentioned in Volume 186 of "History of the Ming Dynasty" is: "There are as many as thousands of redundant staff."From this point of view, the emperor is actually the biggest abuser and shelterer of white officials. According to the provisions of the "Da Gao", even if the clan is not exterminated, it should be executed later in the mausoleum. The analysis of the interests of all parties in the game is over, and now we can make a summary. Suzhou Mansion is a typical example that Zhu Yuanzhang personally captured.More than two hundred years later, "Yu Xie Zhi" described the lineup of white servants in Changshu County, Suzhou Prefecture: "Changshu Zaoli, Kuaishou, Jianbu, Minzhuang, and Makuai, a total of 200. Each has four friends, The name is 'Zhengshen'. Each one or two assistants are called 'helpers'. For each assistant, there are six or seven white servants, called 'buddy'. Together, there are more than ten thousand people." The author of "Yu Xiezhi" said , This means that more than ten thousand tigers and wolves are rampant within a radius of a hundred miles, endlessly eating the weak and the strong.The reason why the ignorant and kind-hearted countrymen lost their families and died was because of this. People in the Ming Dynasty generally did not have a high level of arithmetic, and "more than ten thousand tigers and wolves" were quite suspicious.According to my calculations based on the figures given above, there are no more than 8,000 people.Even so, the number of white members is more than ten times that of "right body". (Ming) Huang Shengzeng also provided a number in "Wu Fenglu": "The harm of subordinates is especially serious. One person is the right, ten people are the deputy, and the fate of the official Xu Kuang is adultery." Here is also ten times. As for the situation of officials (Bai Shu), the archives of Baxian County in Sichuan show that the Qing Dynasty's suppression during the Guangxu Dynasty in the late Qing Dynasty also ended in disastrous failure.In March of the 25th year of Guangxu (1899), there were 243 official officials in Baxian County, of which 15 were official officials recognized by the central government, 228 were "gray officials" who were recognized by the local government but dared not report to the central government, and a large number of officials were given to the central government. The "white book" for officials as apprentices.Since the white book is not registered, the exact number is unknown, but the number that can be counted is already close to that of the gray official.This means that the number of official-level white members is nearly thirty times that of official officials.In the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), the Eight-Power Allied Forces occupied Beijing, and Ba County eliminated redundant officials on a large scale. In the following year, there were only 113 registered officials, less than half of the previous year.Another year later, the number of registered officials in Ba County rebounded to 233, more than doubling, and layoffs failed. The number of white laborers in Ba County is also appalling.Liu Heng served as the magistrate of Ba County during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. He said that there were about 7,000 people in Ba County eating government servants.There are only seventy government servants in Ba County, and the number of white servants is one hundred times that of regular servants. In short, there is no doubt that the court failed, but Baiyan and Baishu won. The situation of the bureaucracy is also not optimistic.In the late Ming Dynasty’s Criminal Division (similar to the presidential secretary in charge of supervising the Ministry of Justice), Xie Xuelong mentioned the number of officials in his letter to the emperor: “At the beginning of the country, there were 5,400 civil servants, and 28,000 military officials. At the time of Shenzu, the number of civil and military officials increased to more than 16,000, and that of martial arts increased to more than 82,000. I don’t know how many times they have increased.” According to the figures he provided, civil and military officials almost tripled, and then “I don’t know how many times they have increased.” several times". The records of the Ming people on the actual situation also support the above figures.In the 14th year of Zhengtong (1449), Zhou Chen inspected the south of the Yangtze River and found that there were many Zuo Er (superior deputy posts) in the government offices of various prefectures and counties. (Third in command).When Wang Tingpei, a county resident, wrote a poem on the wall of the post station to complain: "What is wrong with the people in Kunshan, one city wins two great officials. The governor is not ashamed when he is free?" In fact, according to today's standard of four teams, a county has only a handful of senior officials, two overlapping teams, and a few supernumerary deputy positions, which is really refreshing.I read in Li Changping's book "I Tell the Prime Minister the Truth" that the Organization Department of the Central Committee and the Ministry of Personnel clearly stipulate that the position of the county magistrate is one chief and two deputy, and at most one chief and four deputy. The actual situation is one positive and six sets, and one positive and ten sets at the peak.There are usually one director and eight deputy directors.This is only the case of one of the four teams. As I write this, I'm again confused about definitions.Are the six or seven deputy county magistrates who are extra among the ten deputies counted as "white members"?They are within the establishment approved by the local government, and they get their salaries from the finances. They are not "white" in any way.But they are not within the express regulations of the central government, similar to those gray officials in Ba County in the Qing Dynasty.If we want to judge the outcome of the game, we cannot determine a standard and classify these gray officials into categories. In contemporary Western concepts, the relationship between the government and the public is just a special transactional relationship.People pay taxes and buy government public goods and services, such as security and disaster relief.The number of government officials and servants and their products and services depends entirely on the amount that the people are willing to pay for, just as the annual purchase of pastries by the village agency depends on the amount of purchases by the villagers.Even if there is only one piece beyond this amount, that piece is also a waste snack - a superfluous white member. This standard is too idealistic. I am afraid that the people and their agents cannot be expected to manage public service companies so cleanly.Not to mention the agents of the people, even if it is a company directly managed by a private boss, once the management level increases and a few agents are added in the middle-people who are qualified to be generous to others-the phenomenon of redundancy and laziness is inevitable.Therefore, Western governments and large companies are more or less infected with officialdom.However, this Western standard provides a measurement center after all, that is, the people's willingness to buy.According to this scale, the eunuchs around Zhu Yuanzhang are also white members, because the common people do not need them. The traditional standard in China is to recognize eunuchs. After all, the emperor is the big boss, and it is the emperor who pays for the hire, not the people.The problem is the number of eunuchs.Zhu Yuanzhang regarded himself as frugal and simple, and used very few eunuchs.Zheng Xiao, Shangshu of the Ministry of Punishment during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, said that the number of internal officials (internal envoys, supervisors, Feng, Yu) stipulated in the second year of Hongwu was no more than 60 people. Product) Zhihuo Zhe (handyman in the palace) has nearly 10,000 people.This hundreds of times gap reflects the distance between a good boss and a prodigal son.With so much personal color, which emperor should we use as our standard? In addition to the two sets of standards of the people's center and the emperor's center, there is actually a third set of standards, which is the government standard or agent standard.Ordinarily, they are not the bosses, and if they don’t pay for it themselves, they should not be used as the standard at all. However, China has its own characteristics, and the agent can often be the master of the house, at least as a second landlord.In this third set of criteria, the scales of high-level agents and low-level agents are still different.According to the standards of the central government, the remaining six or seven deputy county magistrates are white members.According to the standards of the local government, the deputy county magistrate is not counted as a white member, and the more than 100 people outside the more than 30 official establishments of the Rongcheng Finance Office are counted as white members.But these more than a hundred people also receive wages and finances. According to the standards of the Rongcheng Finance Office, they are not considered white workers. Temporary workers who do not pay for finances but for policies are undisputed white workers. This is too complicated.When we judge the outcome of the game in the Age of Empires, we can only adopt the emperor's standard, to be precise, it should be the founding emperor's standard.Officials and servants outside the circle designated by Zhu Yuanzhang must be counted as white members.In order to implement this standard, we have to treat eunuchs as civil servants, and we have to treat civil servants that ordinary people may need as white officials.The emperor refuses to pay for the people, what can we do?He is the general representative of all things in the world, monopolizing the right to determine the standard of right and wrong.We say that Zhu Yuanzhang was defeated by the Bai members, based on his standards. Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang launched several major raids during his tenure and achieved partial and temporary victories, but this was a protracted and guerrilla war.We can regard the Confucian creed and the formal regulations established on this basis as a consensus, a border agreement, and a recognized boundary explored through long-term interactions between the ruling group and the people.We have seen that officials, white officials, and even the emperor were willing to violate the borders of the people, but the people lacked the weapons to fight back.Resistance to aggression mainly depends on the conscience of the emperor and ministers, relying on the Confucian style of "knowing what can't be done and doing it".This is too weak and flimsy.Since it is impossible to borrow civil power to build a pattern of confrontation of interests, the conscience of a good emperor and a good Confucianist will fall into a strategic situation where the enemy is outnumbered, and the defeat is thus determined. What does the victory of the white players mean?Hou Fangyu (1618-1654, courtesy name Chaozong), a famous scholar of Fushe, witnessed the fall of the Ming Dynasty. After entering the Qing Dynasty, he wrote a passage in "Zhuanghuitang Collected Works" "Zhengmin". I want to call the thoughts expressed in this passage "" Eliminate the Law of Good People". "Laws" need to be more fully demonstrated and cannot be falsely claimed. Here we call them "hypotheses".Hou Fangyu's "Elimination of Good People Hypothesis" shows the overall situation involved in the victory of the white people from the perspective of the common people. Hou Fangyu said: For the people of the Ming Dynasty, taxes were added, soldiers were added, punishments were added, labor was added, floods, droughts and plagues were added, officials’ invasion and fishing were added, tyrannical annexation was added, the people were one, and seven were added. What is the countermeasure of the common people at this time?Hou Fangyu said that the wealthy people are competing to pay money to enter the school; the cunning people are competing to attract connections and serve as officials.Two of the seven burdens can be avoided in this way. A few words of explanation are needed here.According to the regulations of the Ming Dynasty, students (commonly known as scholars) and subordinate officials in prefecture and county schools were exempted from taxes and servitude.The students are the reserve army of the officials, and the officials eat the tax but not pay the tax; the subordinate staff are already servicemen receiving food subsidies, so they no longer bear taxes.Thus, these two identities provide a refuge against "tax plus" and "service plus".We know that the status of subordinate staff can be bought with "top money".The identity of a student can also be bought. For example, Zhou Jin in the third chapter, the private sc