In 1781 (the forty-sixth year of Qianlong), the Gansu Incident, which shocked the government and the opposition, broke out, thus uprooting the greedy ink chain of the Gansu officialdom that had been dormant for eight years, which made the Qianlong Emperor Long Yan furious, and not only was the Zhejiang Governor Wang Qiwang, who was headed by him, sentenced to capital punishment, but also hundreds of people were implicated in the incident, and the impact was evident. As the culprit, Wang Qiwang, under the premise of being trusted, did something that Qianlong could not tolerate, which really damaged his father's prestige and disappointed the Qianlong Emperor to the extreme.
Born into a famous family, his father was clean all his life
Wang Qiwang grew up under the aura of his father, whose father Wang Shi was a famous courtier of the Yongzheng and Qianlong dynasties. Born in 1690 (the twenty-ninth year of the Kangxi Dynasty), he was influenced by his father, who was then the garrison of Suzhou, from an early age, and was determined to take the meritorious name and enter the service of the country. After years of hard work, Wang Shi succeeded in winning the battle at the age of 24, and in 1730 (the eighth year of Yongzheng) he entered the army and the first, and then officially entered the career path with the direct subordinate yuancheng Zhi County.
Although it is a small party that knows the county, Wang Shi regards it as a lifelong cause, "decision and fairness" in his seven years in office, and turns all bad deeds into invisible under the vigorous action. Most of the Yuancheng is a sand field, the villagers are abandoned and do not cultivate, after the arrival of Wang Shi, he encouraged the villagers to reclaim and cultivate, and eventually turned the hundred acres of sand into fertile fields, and the people had enough food and clothing, and they were also grateful to this parent official.
Qianlong Hanfu statue
In his subsequent terms of office in Qingyuan Zhixian and Jizhou Zhizhou, Wang Shi continued to uphold the principle of "not fearing the territory and not being defamatory", not only enabling the political achievements of the government office to rank among the best every year, but also "serving the people's feelings", and was promoted to a Qinghe Road Taoist in the early years of Qianlong. At that time, when the Qianlong Emperor ordered Gao Bin of Wenyuange University (the father of Emperor Huixian's noble concubine Gao Shi) and Liu Yuyi, a co-founder of the university, to go to the direct subordination to raise water conservancy projects, as an assistant minister, Wang Shi did his best to lead by example, personally went to Baoding, Hejian and other places to investigate the terrain one by one, got the praise of Gao Bin and Liu Yuyi, and made outstanding contributions to the water conservancy undertakings near Gyeonggi, so he was promoted again, and successively served as political envoys in Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang. The highest official was promoted to the Inspector of Zhejiang (promoted from Erpin, November 1750).
During his tenure as inspector, it coincided with Qianlong's first southern tour of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and he summoned Wang Shi to inquire about the people's feelings in the palace, and Wang Shi replied to him like a stream, and Jiangsu was indeed orderly under his management, in order to reward this elder of the two dynasties, Qianlong personally wrote the imperial letter "Wu Hui Fengqing" four characters to Wang Shi. Unfortunately, Wang Shi, who had been running and working all his life, finally died of overwork in August 1751 (the sixteenth year of Qianlong) at the age of 62.
Donated to the people by example, he was favored by Qianlong
Qianlong deeply regretted the death of Wang Shi, and the second son, Wang Qiwang, gained the meritorious name in 1750 (the fifteenth year of Qianlong) and was greatly praised by the Qianlong Emperor. However, under the favorable situation that everyone thought that Wang Qiwang was about to "inherit his father's business", he took the opposite path from his father Wang Shi, while the Qianlong Emperor remained in the dark until two public cases surfaced.
Wang Qiwang stills
Before the public case was revealed, Wang Qiwang's career path could be described as enviable under the aura of his father. After being admitted to the examination, Wang Qiwang obtained the official title of ZhiXian county through donation, and successively served in Shandan and Gaolan Counties in Gansu, and officially entered the career path from then on. Relying on Qianlong's trust in the Wang clan and his own good manners of greeting, Wang Qiwang successively served as gansu's envoy and zhejiang's inspector, and from the fact that he was able to enjoy the treatment of promotion and promotion to inspector after he made a greedy affair in Gansu that shocked the government and the opposition, it can be seen that Qianlong's favor for him is extraordinary, but he should have bowed down to serve the country and embarked on a road of no return.
When the incident occurred, Emperor Long Yan was furious
From the beginning, Wang Qiwang was incompatible with his father Wang Shi in both personality and style of doing things, and he relied on his cunning mind to be good at pondering the Holy Will on the one hand, but on the other hand, he secretly started to covet ink.
During his tenure in Gansu, as the chief of the local finances, Wang Qiwang instigated the governor Le Er to apply to the imperial court to reopen the policy of donating prisons that had been abolished for many years on the pretext that the local "people were poor and the land was barren and the granaries were difficult to buy.". The so-called "donation of prisons" means that ordinary people are given the qualifications of invigilators who can participate in the examination through the way of donating grain from ordinary people. According to common sense, the donation supervisor must adopt the method of donating gong rice beans, but at the instigation of Wang Qiwang, a number of local officials, including Le Erjin, all started a two-faced faction, on the one hand, they reported to Qianlong as usual about the annual grain donation, especially some drought-prone prefectures and counties fabricated and sat down, on the other hand, they privately changed the color (silver two) to collect, and these money and silver were not used to buy and return the warehouse, and in fact all of them were collected by Wang Qiwang and others.
In only half a year after the donation of grain was changed to the donation of silver (silver two), in the recital that Le Er jin played to Qianlong, a total of more than 19,000 inmates were qualified to be sent, and the rice and bean grain was as high as 820,000 stones, so the outrageous data had to make people suspicious, and after Qianlong issued the "four incomprehensible" questions, Ler Jin reluctantly passed the pass under the instruction of Wang Qiwang. Thus, after three years of office as envoy, Wang Qiwang not only "had a huge amount of money", but was also promoted to the governor of Zhejiang in 1777 (qianlong forty-two years), and it is conceivable that qianlong at this time, although he had doubts about the gansu charity, still had a favored attitude toward Wang Qiwang.
In 1780 (the forty-fifth year of Qianlong), Wang Qiwang was relieved of his post due to the death of his mother and returned to his hometown, but when the Hangzhou Shitang renovation project was put on the agenda, because he knew so much about the project, Qianlong specially ordered him to supervise the work, but because Wang Qiwang's wife and children stayed in Hangzhou together and did not return to his hometown to guard the funeral, Qianlong, who had always been filial piety, was deeply annoyed, and not only severely reprimanded Wang Qiwang, but also dismissed him from his post and still ordered him to stay in Hangzhou to "prepare his own axe to atone for his sins".
Qianlong stills
He was reprimanded by the emperor, who had always been fond of himself, and the blow to Wang Qiwang was not small, so he did not hesitate to return to his trust by donating 5,000 taels of huge funds to the project, but unfortunately, at the time of the Qianlong Emperor's fifth southern tour, he saw that Hangzhou "added more seats", and he was even more disappointed in Wang Qiwang, and for the fact that he had just been appointed as the inspector of haitang project, he donated huge funds to himself in the Haitang project, which made Qianlong suspicious and sent out doubts about whether these silver two were obtained from his tenure in Gansu.
In March 1781 (the forty-sixth year of Qianlong), a Hui people's uprising led by Su Forty-three broke out, and when the scholar Ah Gui went to suppress it, he reported that there had been rain in Gansu in recent days, which caused Qianlong to pay attention to the "four puzzles" of Gansu's relief in that year. Because the governor Le Erjin was dismissed from his post and raided his home, more than 10,000 taels of silver were found only from the name of his housekeeper Cao Lu, and Wang Tingzan, who was then the envoy of Gansu Province, was willing to contribute 40,000 taels of silver as a military supply in order to suppress the uprising.
Portrait of Li Shiyao
Under such circumstances, it proved even more that Qianlong's suspicions were indeed well-founded, so when Ah Gui was suppressing the uprising in Gansu, Qianlong ordered him and the governor Li Shiyao to take Le Erjin and Wang Tingzan as the starting point to conduct a detailed investigation of the incident of repaying the relief that year. Qianlong, who was furious, finally ordered that Wang Qiwang and 56 others be executed and 46 sent to shubian.
Shi Haijun said:
As the saying goes, in the ancient feudal society, accompanying the king is like accompanying the tiger, and the subject is in danger. The father and son of the Wang clan, the same official to the inspector, one who was honest and obedient to the public, bowed to the fullest extent, and was well-deservedly used by Qianlong; while the other was only fond of the way of the A-Chan, and was insatiablely greedy, although he had the same treatment as his father before the incident, but the day when the window paper was broken, it ushered in not only his own head, but also more than a hundred officials who were severely punished, if it were not for his instigation, Le Erjin would not dare to take the lead in doing such a rebellious thing even if he had the courage, presumably if his father Wang Shiquan knew, Like Qianlong, he will certainly be deeply saddened by Wang Qianwang's actions.
Resources:
Records of Emperor Sejongxian and Records of Emperor Gaozong
Zhao Erxun's Draft History of the Qing Dynasty. Sejong Benji", "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty. Gaozong Benji", "Qing History Manuscript. Volume 308. Liechuan 95", "Qing History Manuscript. Volume 339. Lectionary 126
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