Copying officials is a fat job.
In June of forty-six years of Qianlong, Qianlong just caught a big corrupt official, Wang Danwang. Looking back now, Wang Danwang was the second largest corrupt official in the Qing Dynasty, and the money he embezzled was second only to Xiao Shenyang, the chief corrupt official. This Wang Danwang stayed in Gansu for many years, and he misappropriated huge relief funds. Now he may need a special train to carry his property.
Emperor Qianlong is handsome and clever. The most intolerable thing is that others lied to him, so he finally killed Wang Danwang and ordered the soldiers to raid all the property of Wang Danwang in three ways.
However, when the case was exposed, Wang Danwang had been promoted to leave Gansu and went to richer Zhejiang as the governor, so Qianlong sent Chen Huizu, governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, to be responsible for raiding all the property of Wang Danwang in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.
The Qing emperor especially liked to copy the minister's house. Cao Xueqin, who wrote a dream of red mansions, was not copied by Yongzheng? Don't underestimate the property, it's a fat job, and there are many doorways in it. For example, if you copy 1000 taels and only quote 300 taels, then 700 taels will go into your pocket, or if you take a fancy to a small object, you can keep it while people are not paying attention.
Of course, the emperor is not stupid, knowing that the slaves below will steal the chicken and touch the dog. So when I arrived in Qianlong, I already had a fairly mature system. Not only officials from different government departments are responsible for moving objects, sealing boxes and opening back books, but also the keys to sealing boxes and gates are kept separately. Finally, the book was distributed to different government offices to keep the book.
What shall we do with the property after it has been looted?
Now we can find some clues from an imperial letter written by Qianlong to the governor of Yunnan in the sixteenth year. Gan Long told shuosi:
Iraq now finds that if anything in the disintegrated object can be seen in Beijing, it will be sent to the tax bureau of Beijing Communications and Chongwenmen; I can't understand that ordinary things in Beijing have changed their prices there. ?
What do you mean? In other words, you copied the home of the corrupt official Tu Erbing, and there are any good objects in it, which need to be escorted to Beijing immediately and handed over to Chongwenmen Tax Office. If it is an ordinary item, it can be converted into cash on the spot. The important message here is that good things must be sent to Beijing, and they must be delivered immediately, without delay.
You see, from the design of the system, the cheating space has been greatly reduced. In the case of stolen property, it is difficult to take the opportunity to steal or embezzle unless the property owner is an accomplice, which is obviously impossible. However, nothing is absolute. It happened that when Wang Danwang's property was raided, something went wrong. It was not others who found this mistake, but Master Qianlong himself.
Qianlong is unhappy that the baby is gone.
The case of Wang Danwang came to an end at the beginning of the forty-seventh year of Qianlong, and the year before last, in June of the forty-sixth year of Qianlong, the local government had counted and catalogued all the property of Wang Danwang.
According to the regulations, Wang Danwang's property in Hangzhou should be escorted back to Beijing immediately, but it was not until July of the forty-seventh year of Qianlong that it was registered for more than a year and escorted back to Beijing. Even if there is a delay, a year is too long, right?
Qianlong waited left and right, and finally waited until Wang Danwang's property was transported to Chongwenmen. Master Gan Long can't sit still this time. Go and check it at once. It is said that such things are generally the responsibility of officials, and there is no need to trouble the emperor himself. That is unknown to others. Qianlong wanted to find a treasure in Wang Danwang's property that he had long coveted.
What baby?
It is a copybook stone carving by Mi Fei, a great calligrapher in the Song Dynasty. Before Qianlong raided another corrupt official, Gao Qiu, he knew that his family had Mite Medog carved by Wang Danwang. At that time, many people saw this Medog, so Qianlong knew that since Wang Danwang had Medog, there must be an original stone carving, not in his ancestral home, but in Hangzhou.
To Gan Long's great disappointment, this treasure was not found in all the property handed over to Chongwenmen by Wang Danwang, which made the shrewd Gan Long feel something strange.
Looking at it again, all the other objects handed in were ordinary rags, which made Master Long even more confused. Because in Qianlong's impression,
Wang Danwang usually pays the most attention to collecting antique calligraphy and painting, and those who have given various items before without appreciating them are better than others? .
All kinds of signs convinced Qianlong that someone must have been dirty and took the stolen goods belonging to the emperor, so he ordered a thorough investigation. This investigation really found out a big corrupt official, whose property was definitely the top ten in the country at that time.
Just caught a demon and knocked down another demon.
Who is so bold to steal Wang Danwang's stolen goods? Gan Long secretly ordered Zhejiang Buzheng to conduct a secret investigation. He is also a manufacturing agent in Hangzhou. In August, Sheng Sheng really found some problems.
According to the original registered list, what is Wang Danwang's home in Hangzhou? Gold leaf, gold bar, gold ingot, etc. * * * 4748 beam? But Beijing didn't win the gold medal, only 73,594 taels of silver. It is speculated that someone may convert gold into silver at the ratio of 1: 15.5. In addition, some antique objects such as Yushanzi and Yuping were found in the original book, but Beijing did not accept them.
Received a report from Sheng Sheng, which made Gan Long very angry. Well, some people really dare to steal money from the emperor's pocket. How can this be put down easily? We must find out the truth.
Who is the first suspect?
The first thing that Ganlong thought of was that when Henan provincial judge asked Wang to stop his property, Wang stopped his grain in Zhejiang and was responsible for cataloging and registration that day.
The hot Ganlong immediately formed a central investigation team to investigate. First, let Kanin, the minister of punishments, and Fu Changan, assistant minister of the Ministry of Finance, conduct an investigation in the name of visiting workers in Henan. Later, I couldn't wait, so I asked Agui, Henan's confidant minister, not to go to Shandong to investigate the water situation for the time being, and directly interrogated Wang to stop.
However, after investigation by Agui, Wang Zhanzhan was not suspected of committing a crime. After counting Wang Danwang's property on June 9, he handed the property list to the Governor's Office, and then left for Beijing on June 13. Later, it has nothing to do with him.
However, A Gui did not stop in vain. He got two important messages.
Wang stopped to confirm his home. There are indeed more than 4,000 taels of all kinds of gold, and there are many precious antiques, which are consistent with the investigation of Sheng's residence. In other words, someone did cheat.
Then, the king stopped to tell another important message. He said:
Only the governor wants to take spare hanging screens, jade articles, etc. Read, and most of them are kept by Si Gaomo, handed over to Zhou Jie and other officials, and sent to the governor's yamen with the official seal. After the governor read it, he affixed the governor's seal, sent it back to officials such as Zhazha, and still handed it over to Gao Mo for inspection. Because the governor is the person who should investigate this matter, I must send it to have a look. I asked Cheng Tang Mao Xiu of Linhai County, and it is said that Chen Shengchang is very meticulous and has seen it. ?
In the face of the accusation, Wang stopped, and first thought that the most likely problem was that the governor inspected the stolen goods, which undoubtedly pointed the suspect to the governor. Who is this governor? This is Chen Huizu, then the governor-general of Fujian and Zhejiang, who was in charge of looting Wang Danwang's property in Hangzhou.
Ganlong was shocked by A Gui's report. He never doubted Chen Huizu, and even asked Chen Huizu to investigate with Zhu Sheng. Isn't this how thieves find thieves? Oh, this is a disgrace to Qianlong. This is obviously the negligence of employing people.
So on September 17, in a rage, Qianlong ordered Chen Huizu to be removed and replaced by him. He also issued a 600-mile urgent order for Governor Huguang to personally copy Chen Huizu's hometown in Hunan. A Gui also left Shandong Hegong alone and went directly to Zhejiang to handle the case, and ordered A Gui to clarify the case and fight as soon as he found important clues. It can be seen that Lord Ganlong is really anxious to get angry.
The process of investigation is also full of twists and turns. Chen Hui Zu was also prevaricated at first, and refused to admit it under various excuses. Gan Long gave Agui many orders and personally pointed out the investigation direction. A Gui fought two lawsuits, but Qianlong was not satisfied, and he also reprimanded A Gui for his poor handling of the case.
It turned out that Chen Huizu, seeing that things were exposed, colluded with all the officials involved just before Agui arrived in Zhejiang, which made the handling of Agui's case extremely difficult.
The case was heard on1October 2 1 and finally made progress. A Gui found another way to interrogate Liu Dalu, the official who escorted the goods into the government. Liu Dalu frankly:
1at the end of October1at the beginning of October, the governor inspected jade antiques for three times, and Wang Shizhuo and Yang handed them over to Zhu Tong and me for inspection and escort. The first time was sent out on the same day. I brought it back and gave it to Wang Shiluo and others to collect it. I also watched it nearby. I remember that there is a jade bottle in the object, the color is very white, and there are several black spots on the surface of the jade bottle, which is much smaller.
In other words, what was sent to the Governor's Office was a fine product, but what was returned was a rough product, not an object.
After this hole was torn open, the case quickly entered? A bright future? In the fast lane, Agui followed the trail and made an in-depth investigation, and the people involved in the crime had to confess. In this way, in the case of full confession, in front of a mountain of hard evidence, Chen Huizu confessed to replacing calligraphy and painting, jade and other pieces.
In the subsequent trial, Chen Huizu also confessed that he privately exchanged gold for silver because he was greedy for money and wanted to eat the difference. According to the market price, 1 2 gold is 20 taels of silver, but Chen Huizu forcibly exchanged 15 taels of silver for 1 2 gold, and every two taels of gold can corrupt about 5 taels of silver.
At this point, the case of Chen Huizu embezzling Wang Danwang property was completely solved. The Mitie Stone Carvings seen by Master Gan Long were also found in the articles that Wang Danwang left in Zhejiang for evaluation and sale, and were immediately sent to Beijing.
Who was the first corrupt criminal in Qing Dynasty?
The same object has different values in the eyes of different people.
Chen Huizu never imagined that it turned out to be a valuable Mi Fei stone carving in his eyes, but it was priceless in the eyes of Emperor Qianlong. No one expected that Emperor Qianlong would be the king of a country. Greed? The minister's collection regards stolen goods as his own private property.
Chen Huizu is bold, incredibly dare to touch property into the official thing in the world, and the emperor? Share soup? This is a great disloyalty and disrespect to the monarch. Unfortunately, I didn't send Mi Fei stone carvings. How could Qianlong treat him lightly? Then, with other cases, Chen Huizu committed suicide and copied his home. Chen Huizu's property totals about 532,000 silver. If 200 yuan is replaced by the current 1 silver, Chen Huizu's property is about 1 100 million. The details are as follows.
Table 1
Table 2
Table 3
Then why did Chen Huizu do this job?
You know, after Chen Hui's ancestors were famous ministers, his father's name was Chen Dashou, who was rewarded by Qianlong as an official and diligent, and finally died in the post of governor of Liangjiang.
Chen Huizu/KLOC-debuted at the age of 0/9, and was later appointed as the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang by the assistant minister of the Ministry of Finance. After 30 years as an official, the official voice is not very high, but the reputation is not bad, just doing my duty. Supposedly, he has no reason to take such a big risk. Some people speculate that this may be caused by Chen Huizu's psychological imbalance.
Before the Wang Danwang case, Chen Huizu's younger brother, Chen Yanzu, was also found involved in the case, embezzling 3,700 taels of silver. In order to show that he was negligent in discipline and had a negative debt, Chen Huizu took the passbook and fined himself thirty-two thousand pieces of silver. Gan Long acquiesced.
About three months after this incident, another Zhejiang official who participated in the same case in Wang Danwang was also investigated. Chen Huizu was in charge of the property, and only copied three taels of silver. Of course, Qianlong didn't believe it, and he also severely reprimanded Chen Huizu. I can't help it Chen Huizu got the passbook again, so please punish yourself with 72 thousand silver.
After this, Chen Huizu was fined 65438+ 2 million silver, equivalent to 20 million now. This money was called "guilty bank" at that time. It was Xiao Shenyang's idea to make officials make amends. In fact, the emperor made up a story to ask officials for money.
Do you think a man running errands for the emperor was finally killed by the emperor because others made mistakes? Blackmail? After 20 million, can psychology be balanced? Now I am in charge of copying Wang Danwang's home. Is it reasonable for me to earn some money? If I don't make money, where can I get a fine next time? This may be Chen Huizu's mentality at that time.
Who was the biggest corrupt criminal in Qing Dynasty? Not Shenyang, not Wang Danwang, not Chen Huizu, but Gan Long, who takes the benefits of the world for himself and the harm of the world for himself.
In the middle and late Qing dynasty, it was like a greedy snake, greedy for the money of big officials, greedy for the money of small officials, and extorting money from the people by small officials. These people hollowed out the foundation of the whole country.