The qing dynasty's largest corruption case shook the whole country, and even Qianlong exclaimed that this case was "a strange and greedy thing that has never been seen before." This case is the famous "Gansu Fake Relief Case."
This corruption case began in the thirty-ninth year of Qianlong and was not completely exposed until seven years later. In March of the 46th year of Qianlong, Su Forty-three, a Sala ethnic group under the jurisdiction of Hezhou in Gansu Province, was dissatisfied with the ethnic discrimination and oppression of the Qing government, so he led a rebellion of the tribesmen and Hui people to rebel against the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The rebel army was directly approaching Lanzhou, and Qianlong was worried about the loss of Lanzhou, so he quickly dispatched reinforcements from Liancheng, Liangzhou, Shaanxi and other places to suppress it.
Tens of thousands of officers and men gathered in Lanzhou, and because the Qing army could not make a quick decision, military food and salaries became a big problem. In this regard, Qianlong was furious and removed The Governor of Shaanxi and Gansu from his post, Le Erjin, and for a time the officials in the Gansu region were very afraid, deeply afraid that they would be implicated. Wang Tingzan, who was then the envoy of Gansu Province, took the initiative to write to the emperor in order to get rid of this predicament, expressing his willingness to take out his savings of several years and silver for 40,000 taels for military pay. Not wanting to return, Wang Tingzan lifted the stone and smashed his own foot.
The shrewd Qianlong was very puzzled after seeing his recital, where did a political envoy get so much money? Therefore, he immediately asked Ah Gui, a university scholar who was already in Gansu, and Li Shiyao, the acting governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, to closely investigate whether this matter had anything to do with the gansu donation to prison. The so-called donation of prison means that as long as the readers who are willing to obtain the qualifications of the guozi supervision supervisors must donate grain to the local official warehouse in accordance with the prescribed number, and when they encounter a famine, these grains can be used to help the victims of the disaster, killing two birds with one stone. Later, the donation prison stopped for a time.
After a man named Wang Qiwang served as gansu's envoy, he persuaded the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, Le Erjin, on the grounds that Gansu's storage was insufficient and could donate grain and rice to help the victims, and the latter asked the imperial court for approval. Gansu began in the thirty-ninth year of Qianlong, and there were donations to prison. However, this time, Wang Qiwang changed the previous method, so that the inmates converted the beans and wheat that should be donated into silver, and in this way, the donation supervisor changed from grain and rice to silver. It facilitated The filling of personal pockets for Wang Qiwang and officials at all levels, and at the same time, he also transferred his close associate Jiang Quandi to serve as the prefect of Lanzhou, specializing in the affairs of donation and supervision.
After consultation, Wang and Jiang planned the disaster situation for each county, and formulated the amount of collection according to the severity of the disaster reported by each county. Then let the clan si yamen issue a predetermined number of orders to the counties, and order the counties to issue relief according to the order, which is "fake relief". The two men also discussed the establishment of a method of "sitting with the governor", sitting in Lanzhou, and receiving two silver. The counties gave Wang Qiwang silver two disguised as disaster relief and sent them in according to the method of "sitting with the governor of the province." After Wang Tingzan took over as the envoy of Gansu Province, he had prevented this matter, but in the end he could not withstand the temptation of money, and he joined them, and he intensified his efforts to extort silver and silver. There was a saying in the Gansu officialdom at that time: "One thousand and two to meet, two thousand to eat, three thousand two to shoot arrows", which is a true portrayal of the bribery situation of Wang Qiwang.
After a period of investigation, Ah Gui truthfully reported wang Qiwang and others' illegal acts of collecting donations and fraudulently selling grain in Gansu Province. It has been learned that the case involved 113 Gansu officials, all of whom were involved in gansu province; more than 2.81 million taels of stolen silver were recovered; it affected several provinces such as Zhili, Shengjing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Yunnan, shaking the whole country. The specific number of corruption by these officials is unknown.
Qianlong was very angry, and on July 30, 46, Qianlong ordered Wang Qiwang to immediately bring the Fa to justice, Le Erjin committed suicide, and Wang Tingzan was hanged. On August 18, Qianlong dealt with other officials. By October of that year, as many as 56 officials had been taken to the execution ground to bring justice, and with 46 exiled, there were almost no more officials in Gansu Province.
In fact, the 46 Gansu officials who were exiled, as well as those waiting to be dealt with, survived only after Qianlong revised the law. According to the law of the time, officials who embezzled more than 1,000 taels of silver were imprisoned and then beheaded. However, there are too many officials involved in the "Gansu Fake Relief Case," and if they are all killed, it will certainly affect the normal operation of local government agencies. Qianlong had no choice but to amend the law to read: Officials who embezzled more than 20,000 taels were immediately executed; those between 10,000 and 20,000 were exiled; and those under 10,000 taels were to be dealt with. Even so, there are so many officials who have been dealt with, and if Qianlong does not "relax" the policy, the number of officials who will be executed is self-evident.