The Yongzheng Emperor was a moody emperor, and after he ascended the throne, he killed his brothers and broke his brotherhood; Daxing Went to prison, with minor crimes and heavy punishments, and everyone endangered himself; he used troops in the northwest to destroy his life. In the face of these shortcomings of the Yongzheng Emperor, the ministers could only discuss it privately, and no one dared to play a game of advice.
One of the ministers, however, was not afraid of death, and wrote directly to the Yongzheng Emperor, asking him to "get close to his brothers, stop collecting donations, and collect troops from the northwest." When the Yongzheng Emperor saw this, he was furious, but fortunately the assistant minister Zhu Shi knelt down and persuaded: "Although Sun Jiagan is arrogant, I admire his courage. ”
The Yongzheng Emperor pondered for a while, laughed and said, "Since he succeeded to the throne, the only person who has dared to speak out and advise is Sun Jiagan. ”
Born in 1683, Sun Jiagan came from a poor family when he was young, but he studied bitterly and entered the examination in the fifty-second year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1713), and from then on he entered the career path, and was known for his outspoken advice.
Sun Jiagan had served as an official in charge of the treasury, and the Yongzheng Emperor asked his younger brother Yun Li the Prince of Guo to investigate the field, and found that the accounts he managed were orderly and without any mistakes, and that he himself had a clean sleeve and did not embezzle a silver or two from the treasury. The Yongzheng Emperor said satisfactorily: "Although Sun Jiagan is humble, he does not love money. ”
Such an upright and incorruptible minister was, of course, highly valued, and Sun Jiagan was successively reused by the Yongzheng Emperor and the Qianlong Emperor, successively serving as a high-ranking official such as the Punishment Department Attendant, the Official Attendant, and the Viceroy of Zhili.
During his tenure as governor directly under the governor, Sun Jiagan cared about the well-being of the people and rectified many unjust, false and wrongly decided cases. For example, an ordinary person named Ji Huairang accidentally spilled it on his body when drinking small bean juice, and he saw a piece of blood red. It happened that a child in the village was killed, and when ya gong saw that Ji Huairang's body was covered with blood, he arrested him and tortured him severely. Ji Huai rang could not bear the torture of torture, had to confess, was sentenced to death, and was beheaded after the autumn. The day before the execution, someone told Sun Jiagan that there was a grievance, and Sun Jiagan personally handled it, and sure enough, he found that the case had another mystery and corrected the error in time.
Sun Jiagan had been an official all his life, but he had not saved a few dollars. In the twelfth year of Qianlong (1747), the 65-year-old Sun Jiagan resigned from his official post due to old age, and the Qianlong Emperor saw that he was indeed older, so he agreed.
Sun Jiagan's hometown was in Xingxian County, Shanxi, and before he left, he suddenly thought that he had been an official all his life, but he had no property, and he still looked poor, so he was really embarrassed to meet with the villagers like this, and he also lost the face of the imperial court.
Sun Jiagan came up with a good idea, he asked the servants to buy more than a dozen heavy wooden boxes, personally filled the wooden boxes with bricks, pretended to be rich, and set off home. He never expected that someone would grab his pigtails and report to the Qianlong Emperor that Sun Jiagan was incorruptible on the surface, but in fact he was a big corrupt official, and after resigning from the government, he revealed his original form and returned to his hometown with more than a dozen boxes of gold and silver.
When the Qianlong Emperor heard this, he immediately ordered the local government to inspect Sun Jiagan's luggage. In this way, Sun Jiagan was stopped halfway, and the officials were stunned when they opened the box and found that it was all bricks. The Qianlong Emperor was very touched and generous, and immediately issued an edict asking officials along the way to exchange all the bricks in Sun Jiagan's box with gold and silver, which was regarded as an affirmation and praise for his incorruptibility.
Since ancient times, there have been many Qing officials in China, Sun Jiagan is one of them, he is honest and has no surplus wealth, but in order to take care of the face of the whole imperial court, he actually pulled a cart of bricks to return to his hometown, such a clean official makes people move, and his honesty is worthy of eternal learning from future generations.
Among the four ancient civilizations, why China's civilization appeared at the latest but ranked alongside the "four majors" is only because of two points