When it comes to corrupt officials in the Qing Dynasty, probably everyone will think of Hezhen.
According to the "Complete Works of Yong'an" written by the late Qing dynasty diplomat Xue Fucheng, there is a section called "Raiding and Raiding the List of Family Property", "the valuation has been 264 million silver, plus there is no valuation, a total of about 1.1 billion silver." According to the "Qing Dynasty Wild History Grand View and He yan family wealth" and other wild history records, the total property of He Yan is: "Two billion and two qi government revenue of seventy million, and He Yan with twenty years of cabinet ministers, its reserve as a country twenty years of tax (years) into the strong." "What did he rely on to make money?" It is nothing more than selling officials and lords, embezzling public funds, embezzling bribes, and so on. However, the most important point was the favor and connivance of the Qianlong Emperor. Without Qianlong, Hezhen's life did not last even a month, and he was uprooted by the Jiaqing Emperor, leaving behind the folk song "Hezhen fell, Jiaqing was full".
Unlike Qianlong, who sold his fame and reputation, his father, the Yongzheng Emperor, was very ambivalent about corrupt officials. On the one hand, when he selected ministers, he "preferred to use ordinary officials with ordinary conduct than to clean officials who followed the rules." Therefore, Yongzheng reused Li Wei, who was not stingy, and Tian Wenjing, who was mean to the official. At the same time, it also severely cracked down on corruption and deficits. Therefore, during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor, Nuo Min, who had lost more than 4 million taels (3 million taels) of silver to the Treasury of Shanxi and committed suicide, there were also Guangdong Daoist Li Bin and Fujian Daoist Tao Fan who committed suicide because of corruption. However, did the Yongzheng Emperor have corrupt officials? At least in the legend, there is Tang Wenyao, who is the governor of Liangjiang.
However, this Yipin master is different from Hezhen's high-spiritedness, he has never shown off his wealth at will, but has carefully hidden his wealth. In the eyes of outsiders, Tang Wenyao is a very clean official, three meals a day not only do not have mountain treasures and seafood, not even big fish and meat, just ordinary cabbage. The clothes worn were not silk satin, but old clothes with patches and patches. According to Tang Wenyao, the reason why he was so simple was because he grew up poor and grew up with the help of his neighbors. So after getting rich and rich, he continued to maintain his past life. Therefore, the Yongzheng Emperor wanted to set him up as an example for officials. However, due to the fact that the Yongzheng Emperor had made a big joke because of the reward for Nuomin's "first inspector in the world", this time he became cautious and cautious, and let Li Wei secretly investigate him.
This investigation did not matter, and all of a sudden it was found that the biggest corrupt official of the Yongzheng Dynasty was found. Although tang Wenyao did not have any statistics on how much he was corrupt, the degree of his life was that Yongzheng sighed to himself. Specifically, according to Li Wei's investigation, Tang Wenyao, who only eats cabbage for three meals a day, eats cabbage that is actually the most tender cabbage in a few leaves, and it takes dozens or even hundreds of cabbages to make a plate of cabbage. And it is used as a firewood for simmering cabbage hearts, so that you can enjoy the delicious taste of cabbage hearts, and the essence of ginseng penetrates into the soup pot, which can have the best of both worlds. It is said that Tang Wenyao burned more than 2,000 kilograms of ginseng every month in order to eat this delicious cabbage heart.
In addition to eating this luxurious cabbage heart, Tang Wenyao's daily necessities also make people feel "shocking". After raiding Tang Wenyao's family property, there was a jade pot with fine workmanship and studded with diamonds. The Yongzheng Emperor liked it very much after seeing it, and felt that using it to make tea would definitely be fragrant. However, Li Wei shouted loudly, because this jade pot was Tang Wenyao's night pot. When Yongzheng heard this news, Long Yan was furious, because he, who was the son of heaven, did not dare to be so luxurious, and a small governor of Liangjiang (in the eyes of the Yongzheng Emperor, the viceroy of Liangjiang was indeed insignificant) dared to act so boldly. Therefore, Tang Wenyao was immediately beheaded.
However, during the 13 years of Yongzheng's reign, there were a total of eight viceroys of Liangjiang, including Cha Binna, Fan Shixuan, Shi Yizhi, Gao Qizuo, Yin Jishan, Wei Tingzhen, Gao Qizuo, and Zhao Hong'en, none of whom was named Tang Wenyao. However, among these eight people, one of them was indeed brought down by Li Wei, and he was Fan Shixuan. His grandfather was Fan Chengcheng, a meritorious figure in the establishment of the Qing Dynasty and the founding of the Qing Dynasty, and his father was Fan Chengxun of the Shangshu of the Military Department.
At that time, because there were many thieves in Jiangsu, but Fan Shixuan, who was the governor of Liangjiang, had no way to arrest the thieves, the Yongzheng Emperor had to appoint Li Wei, who was then the governor of Jiangsu, to handle the case. As a result, soon Li Wei sent a man named Zhang Yunru to "spell people" and plotted against him. Because Fan Shixuan had a relationship with this person, he was still trying to defend him, so Li Wei impeached him. In the end, the Yongzheng Emperor only temporarily relieved him of his post as governor of Liangjiang. Not long after, the Yongzheng Emperor reactivated "because Fan Shixuan was a descendant of Xun Chen".
It can be seen from this that the story of Tang Wenyao may just be a kind of praise for Yongzheng's iron fist and greed.