If you want to talk about corrupt officials, then the most common thing that everyone thinks of is Hezhen, after the Jiaqing Emperor raided Hezhen, he found that Hezhen's property was equivalent to the income of the 15 years of the Qing Dynasty, and the people have always had the saying that "Hezhen fell, jiaqing was full", but it should be said that there was no shortage of these huge greed in all dynasties and dynasties, and the Wall Street Journal, as an authoritative newspaper in the United States, selected the world's richest 50 people in the past thousand years, but included a eunuch.
This eunuch is actually no stranger to everyone, he is the great eunuch Liu Jin during the Ming Wuzong period, throughout the history of the era when eunuchs were in power, perhaps everyone will think more about the Ming Dynasty, in fact, the era of real eunuch power is in the Tang Dynasty, especially after the end of the Tang Dynasty, almost every eunuch has great rights, can depose the emperor at will, although the Ming Dynasty also gave birth to many famous eunuchs such as Wang Zhen, Liu Jin, Cao Huachun, etc., but they have not been able to reach the level of Tang Dynasty eunuchs.
Although the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty were also powerful, but they wanted to reach the level of deposing the emperor, basically there was none, they were more to deceive the emperor, so as to achieve their own political goals, including Liu Jin, as a famous eunuch of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Jin was not born as a ceremonial supervisor or a royal horse supervisor, which can not but be said to be a miracle.
The process of Liu Jin ascending to the throne is also very simple, that is, by sneaking around the horse, at the beginning he committed a crime to be killed, in order to atone for his sins, he castrated himself into the palace, and later worshiped a eunuch surnamed Liu, which changed his surname to Liu, which is strange to say, Liu Jin admired his predecessor Wang Zhen very much, eager to become a big eunuch like him, we all know what kind of goods Wang Zhen is, one hand directed the change of Tumu Fort, Liu Jin took him as an example, naturally not a good bird.
After Emperor Wuzong of Ming succeeded to the throne, Liu Jin, together with some other eunuchs, known as the "Eight Tigers", specially provided the emperor with the opportunity to have fun and enjoy himself, so that his position gradually rose, achieving the purpose of his power in favor of the opposition, and for this reason he later opposed the important ministers of the imperial court, but because Liu Jin fully grasped the habits of the emperor, these ministers were naturally not opponents, but since he took control of the government, Liu Jin still did not dare to slacken off.
The history books record that after encountering things, Liu Jin took the folds home first, and then gathered ordinary people to discuss countermeasures, and the cabinet approved them before implementing them.
Liu Jin died on the point of greed for money, although later the nemesis Zhang Cai once advised him not to collect, and even spent a lot of effort to rectify the corrupt officials, but in the end Liu Jin's reputation has been polluted, and finally was executed for treason, and later when he raided his home, he found a huge amount of property he had accumulated, according to the statistics of the "HongyouLu": 240,000 gold ingots, 8.05 million kilograms of silver, which was more than 6 times the income of the imperial court at that time, when the Ming Dynasty died, Li Zicheng raided the state treasury, but also harvested 200,000 kilograms of silver. It can be seen that if a person is too greedy, it must be the road to self-destruction.