Written by | Zhao Guren
"It is difficult to be an official, it is difficult to be an official, it is even more difficult to be a clean official, it is even more difficult to live in an official dress, and the two sleeves are fresh and cold." This is a line in the TV series "Jigong", but it vividly shows the difficulty of being an official. Why was it difficult to be an official in ancient times? If you don't want to be a clean official, it is naturally not difficult, but the difficult thing is to be a clean official. In the Qing Dynasty, especially being a Beijing official was quite difficult, because of what? The low-wage system makes the Beijing officials cry bitterly, but they have no choice. Leaving aside the past dynasties, from the Perspective of the Qing Dynasty alone, it is very representative.
Kangxi replied to the fold
In the eighth year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the inspector Yushi Zhao Jing wrote a note to the emperor, specifically appealing to the poor life of the officials in Beijing, pointing out that the salaries of the officials in Beijing were difficult to sustain even ordinary food and clothing, coupled with the huge expenditure, so he hoped that the emperor would increase the salaries of these officials. However, the proposal was eventually shelved.
After studying and judging in the Yongzheng period, it was finally decided to implement the practice of returning envy to the public, and to increase the amount of incorruptible silver for local officials, and the Beijing officials also began to implement the "grace" that is, the double salary system, but the level involved was not extensive. What really allowed the Beijing officials to receive general welfare was during the Qianlong period, and regardless of the level, they were all doubled according to the original Feng Lu, as if to let the Beijing officials live an economical life.
In fact, it was not, and the Beijing officials after that were still poor. Or because the support of the Beijing officials is quite large, and the main reason for this is the various scenes of the official unspoken rules, and even can be interpreted as the prevalence of the official unspoken rules leading to the lack of money of the Beijing officials. Among them, etiquette is indispensable. The difference is that although the income of the Beijing officials is not high, they have the largest number of gifts, and they must do enough face kung fu. Like the indispensable three festivals and two birthdays, the seat master and the house master add up, and after a year, there is certainly no one hundred and eighty silver. In the past, there was a poem that said: First cut the carriage and horse, then carry people, and cut to the division door two or two silver. Only two meals cannot be cut, and one pawn is used to hurt the spirit.
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It is to lay out the objects that decorate the façade one by one to maintain the last resort.
In addition, there are chiefs, superiors, fellow villagers, and colleagues, which is a relatively large expense. This also includes the servants of officials, the caravans, the door bags of the concierge, and the door tea, which can not be less, because the people used by officials in the past were hired at their own expense, which belonged to the real sense of "temporary workers".
Although they are temporary workers", the many tea houses, soaps, and servants in this yamen must also be rewarded according to the festival. During a harsh winter season in Beijing, Li Ciming was so poor that he sent his large cotton jacket to a pawnshop because he had to reward the caravan and servants. This is the identity and decency that the Beijing officials always want to maintain. Interestingly, Zeng Guofan, who had previously been a Beijing official, was looked down upon by his subordinates because he was poor, and simply took the initiative to "fry Zeng Guofan's squid", which made Zeng Guofan quite embarrassed and angry, so he also wrote a "Proud Nu Poem", but finally had to admit: "Who knows that Ao Nu is me." Even a slave is better than me.
Zeng Guofan's diary
In addition to gift-giving, another major expense in the life of The Beijing official is to invite guests to dinner.
A major feature of The life of a Beijing official is the "stability" of leisure. The style of many yamen is "official not director", only at the first fifteen o'clock of the first month, so there is a lot of time for drinking and playing. The Beijing officials also lived in a large web woven by their fellow villagers, fellow men, and colleagues. An official must follow the rules of the game in the official arena in order to survive, which is what is called circle culture today. In order to maintain your network, you need to constantly contact parties. The annual indispensable party and dinner is the group worship of the various ministries and courtyards in the New Year, often taking turns to undertake one or two people every year, setting up a feast, extending the drama class, and the price is not cheap. In addition to group worship, weekdays are also daily feasts.
Zhang Chen's "Manuscript of pingpu" of the Qing dynasty said that it was customary for officials to gather for banquets, and "if they did not rush to the banquet and did not feast on guests, they were not listed in the number of people." That is to say, if your circle of officials is lost, all future connections will be cut off, and the consequences of this situation for those who are enthusiastic about fame are indeed quite serious. Therefore, the characteristics of the life of the Beijing officials are that there are not many government affairs, and various recreational activities are quite busy. Therefore, every night, the cars and horses are full of doors, and the lights are red and green. The names of the restaurants often mentioned in Li Ciming's "Diary of Yue Man Tang" are "Ju Bin Tang", "Wan Fu Ju", "Cheap Fang" and so on.
Li Ciming's diary
The Officials of Beijing also often formed various "salons", either for the purpose of tasting poetry or for the study of learning, and each meeting was bound to have a meal. The "Dumen Jiluo" published during the Daoguang years has a poem: It is not easy to be a chang'an at home, and it is frugal to hold a little self-restraint. I am most afraid of human feelings and white things, and it is difficult to arrive alone. If the Jingguan wants not to fall down the shelf and maintain a life commensurate with his identity, he must pay attention to the house, concubines, horses, servants, plus singing, opera, yeyou, and drinking, which constitutes the entire scene of the life of the Jingguan.
According to the price level of each period, the beijing official's acceptance to maintain its basic life is more than enough, but to maintain its official life, that is, to be commensurate with the status of decency, it must rely on the foreign official's respect, charcoal respect, and ice respect.
Xue Fucheng, who had served as an aide to Zeng Guofan, concluded that in history, people were happy to be Beijing officials and not to foreign officials, but the Ming and Qing dynasties reversed: "Since ancient times, officials have been set up, emphasizing the inside over the outside.... I am going to the Ming Dynasty, because of the old system. The Beijing staff is thin and does not catch one-tenth of the Han and Tang Dynasties. After returning to the public after self-consumption and envy, foreign officials have to raise honesty, while Beijing officials have no maintenance of honesty, and people's feelings are more important than internal. "The basics of what he said are in line with the fact that the Qing Dynasty's Beijing officials and foreign officials received people and were suspended.
List of foreign officials' income
If a Beijing official wants to reject this kind of atmosphere, then all he can face is a more difficult life. Of course, there are also some fairly ethical officials who refuse to unspoken rules and live only on their own little salary, such as Zhang Pengfei, a famous Minister of the Qing Dynasty who did not encounter the general salary increase before, "living in no house, eating no half an acre, clothing cloth, family planning, four walls empty, a coffin is cold, and the poor eunuch is no different from the old monk." Yu Chenlong was reluctant to eat meat for many years and only ate green vegetables, so he got a nickname "Yu Green Vegetables". After his death, the relics are only one robe, two sets of bootlaces, coarse rice, salt and soy sauce, and silver.
Chen Zhuo became an inspector, and he was usually reluctant to eat meat, "his innocence is unbearable for human feelings", kangxi called him an "ascetic old monk" in front of the ministers. The integrity of these officials was achieved with great material endurance. In addition, when Zhu Jue, a famous courtier of the Jiaqing Emperor's teacher who had been in the dynasty for fifty years, died, "there was only a cloth of cloth bedding in the lying place, and his other house was only a few books, and those who saw it were not sad." Li Ciming's diary mentions that the death of Yuan Xizu, who was "unnamed" and "unnamed" who "learned to be a regent of the cabinet and a soldier second waiter", is more representative: "In the ten years of Xianfeng, Yuan Xizu learned to be a violent pawn. Qi Qizhen, only platinum eight two, can not be buried. The Secretary of State has a coffin for the rate. Yuan Yige learned to be a regent and a soldier, and had no clear name. Last year, Fang Fang tried to return from the Min Dynasty, and his poverty was so poor that the situation of the Beijing officials was conceivable. ”
The poverty of jingguan In the Guangxu period, Liu Guangdi, the jingguan, brought this poverty to the extreme.
After he was later reused for his involvement in the change, his ethics and style were also unique among military aircraft. When he was promoted to an official, everyone else had to give a reward to the eunuch who reported the letter, but he did not give a single piece of money: "Xiang Zhi, all those who are first-time military aircraft, the internal servants ask for money, and the king holds the right one." Not only that, he did not follow the courtesy of anyone who had a family affair: "Prince Li's military plane first assistant, birthday celebration, colleagues all go to worship, the king does not go; The Minister of Military Aircraft, Yu Lu, promoted the Shangshu of the Ministry of Rites, and his colleagues all went to He, jun bu he; Saying that current affairs are difficult, my generation worships the emperor in the dynasty, and when the king is doing things, do you have time to run away from the powerful and powerful? Its integrity is so severe."
Poor Liu Guangdi
When he became a military aircraft Zhang Jing, others could receive a large amount of gift money from foreign officials every year, but he did not want a single item: "(Guangdi) sexual incorruptibility, not old friends, although the gifts are rejected." In the Zhishu Mansion, a certain clan division gave to Zhu Zhangjing according to the routine, but the king resigned alone. Or: 'Whoever receives and refuses alone, shall not exalt himself?' Thank you very much. ”
In such a style of being an official, it is even more costly for him to be promoted, so that he has to lose five hundred taels every year. In this regard, he himself said in his home letter: "Brother does not distinguish between military aircraft and money, if it is not too much, the compensation is still small; If you can't quit, you must pay five hundred gold per year. ”
Based on the above reasons, Liu Guangdi's life naturally cannot get rid of embarrassment. In a letter to a friend, he described his situation and said that because of his low income this year, all the housework was done by his wife and a maid herself: "My brother was so embarrassed in Beijing this year that even the cook could not be invited, and all the maids operated with our room, and there was no end to the day." Because the home became more and more dilapidated and did not look like it: "After the heavy rain in the summer, the roof was all leaky, the rotten paper was hanging everywhere, and the framer was not allowed to find it, and when he found it, he was too expensive, and he repeatedly disagreed with each other, until the winter month, when he was forced to spend more than ten gold, but he cleaned it up in good condition... When the ceiling is mounted, the living room is blocked and the furniture is quite sloppy. "Poor people don't even have money to repair the leaking rain in the house, and it's really to a certain extent."
Qing Dynasty official robe hierarchy
Because of his remote residence, he could not afford to raise cars and horses, and walked more than ten kilometers to work every day, and this poverty situation ran through Liu Guangdi's career as a Beijing official. Information on the miserable lives of ordinary middle- and lower-ranking officials abounds. There are self-accounts of Beijing officials, such as Li Ciming's own diary, which often has records such as "I have been embarrassed in recent days, and I can't lift a fire"; At that time, there was also an official Dai Lu who, through his own eyewitness in the "Miscellaneous Records of The Vine Yin", recorded that when Zhang Heng was serving as the secretary of the Ministry of Works, "poor people could not raise fire", that is, they could not even afford to cook.
Li Ciming's diary records that one of the chief officers of the Punishment Department in the late Qing Dynasty was "poor and miserable, the courtyard was poor, the house was leaky, so that the order was not provided, and the people had dishes", which made Li Ciming see "creepy bones". It scared him to goosebumps. Relatives and friends of a certain Beijing official also provided such circumstantial evidence: "Yu repeatedly entered the capital, all of them lived in the residence of the Beijing official, personally saw the embarrassment of the princes, when receiving rice, they asked for entrustment, paid the rent, and pledged loans from many parties."
For this phenomenon, Kang Youwei also gave a more systematic summary: "The Beijing officials are cold and bitter, and there is nothing in the world." That is, the minister is only a few hundred gold... Therefore, since the university scholars as far as the Seven Pins of Jing cao, Gou Fei hopes to get the difference between the president, the main examiner, the academic administration, and the house official to read the papers, in order to recognize the protégé, to receive the gold of respect and ice respect, and the people who borrow the official seal from The Ministry Cao are starving to death. ”
Therefore, the Beijing officials of the Qing Dynasty were generally poor, but if they gave up their integrity and had good relations with the local government all day long, they could also get many kinds of "respects" every year, and then constantly studied silver in the circle of Beijing officials, and their lives were quite comfortable.
References: "Self-Statement of a Beijing Official", "Li Ciming's Diary", "Settling Accounts for Zeng Guofan"