What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
As the saying goes, "Three years of Qing prefect, 100,000 snowflakes of silver", in the ancient times of learning and excellence, the initial motivation of most readers was nothing more than to become an official and earn money. It is really not an easy task to adhere to principles for decades and be a clean and honest official, so there is also the saying that "it is easy to meet the wise, but it is difficult to seek a clean official". However, in the Qianlong Dynasty, where corruption was rife, there was such an official who used his life to interpret the word "clean and honest" to the extreme. He is Sun Jiagan.
▲ Yongzheng Emperor stills
Sun Jiagan, also known as Xigong, was born into a poor family in Xingxian County, Shanxi. In the fifty-second year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1713 AD), he entered the career path, initially serving as a Shu Jishi, and then serving as a reviewer of the Hanlin Academy. After the death of the Kangxi Emperor, the Yongzheng Emperor succeeded to the throne. His temperament was so moody that at the beginning of his reign, the ministers were afraid to speak out. Sun Jiagan, who was the superintendent of the State Son at that time, was different, quite like the style of Wei Zheng in the Tang Dynasty. Disapproving of the emperor's disposition of Song Hao and Fang Congren, Gengzhi's Sun Jiagan made several suggestions, much to the displeasure of the Yongzheng Emperor and his rejection of his suggestion.
▲Guozijian
So Sun Jiagan did something even bolder--he wrote to bluntly say that he was incompetent and took the initiative to ask the emperor for guilt. Yong Zheng was almost angry when he saw the fold, and threatened to behead Sun Jiagan. But not long after, the Yongzheng Emperor calmed down again, thinking that although Sun Jiagan was too straight, he had the advantage of not loving money, and it might be a good idea to let him go to the household department to manage money and grain. After Sun Jiagan was transferred to the household department, he fulfilled his duties and scored no badly on the management of the household department's money. Due to his outstanding work performance, Sun Jiagan was promoted to the rank of Punishment Department Attendant in the Tenth Year of Yongzheng (1732 AD), and soon concurrently served as the Ceremonial Attendant.
▲Today's Yongding River
In addition to being outspoken and outspoken, Sun Jiagan's official conduct was not inferior in the slightest. During his tenure as governor of Zhili, Sun Jiagan organized labor to build water conservancy on several occasions, and successively managed the Yongding River, Ziya River and other waterways, so that the people directly under the direct subordination no longer worried about the intrusion of floods, and for a time the people on the outskirts of Beijing lived and worked in peace and contentment.
▲Old photos of Qing Dynasty carriages
However, such a good official who loves the people like a son has his own unspeakable secrets. In the twentieth year of Qianlong (1755 AD), the 63-year-old Sun Jiagan told the old man to return to his hometown, and the emperor approved his request. However, this qing official, who was not afraid of heaven, felt very timid. People in the world pay attention to "returning to their hometowns" and "returning to their hometowns with honor", but they have been officials in the imperial court all their lives, but they return to their hometowns with such a poor and sour appearance.
▲ Stills of the Qianlong Emperor
In order not to be too embarrassed to return to his hometown, Sun Jiagan ordered his domestic servants to find several large boxes, fill them with heavy bricks to impersonate gold, and then pulled several large boxes of "gold" to return to their hometown. Sun Jiagan's battle to return to his hometown naturally aroused people's suspicions, and some officials took the opportunity to participate in him. When Qianlong heard about it, he sent someone to investigate, and it turned out that the box contained bricks. The Qianlong Emperor was touched by Sun Jiagan's incorruptibility and ordered that the bricks in the box be replaced with gold and silver as a reward, which became a good story for a while.