More than twenty years ago, Xu Zheng starred in a costume drama called "Full Seat of Man Han", which is about the growth of a generation of kitchen gods, but this TV series accidentally revealed a ridiculous phenomenon: the silver of the ministry of internal affairs.
In the play, the male protagonist entered the royal dining room to work (internship + stealing teacher) and found a phenomenon, the purchase price of dishes in the palace was outrageous, and a cart of dishes was actually 160 taels!
What is the concept of one hundred and sixty-two? The number of a pin official is only 180 taels.
It's much higher than the market price, and he reacts upwards but no one above bothers him.
So does this phenomenon really exist in TV dramas? Is it the screenwriter's own subjective creation? Not really.
1. The Daoguang Emperor who was deceived by the Ministry of Internal Affairs
Because in the Qing Dynasty's Internal Affairs Office, there was indeed a phenomenon of false reporting and concealment, such as the Daoguang Emperor in the Qing Dynasty Emperor, who was known for being frugal, eating and simply wearing clothes and patching. But the money did not save much, and the Daoguang Emperor did not consume much silver when he ate, but it was frighteningly large.
Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, said this in his memoirs", "The First Half of My Life":
It is said that the daily life of the Daoguang Emperor was relatively frugal. One day he asked a minister, "What do you eat at home before you go to court in the morning?" The minister replied, "It's very simple, just eat a few chickens." DaoGuang was shocked and said, "Is it still simple to eat chicken?" Later, I learned that the public price set at that time in the palace was a chicken that needed a few silver or two, so Daoguang's surprise could not be regarded as "stingy".
The reliability of this matter is Puyi's own words, but being able to reach his ears shows that it has been spread very widely.
Coincidentally, Li Baojia's "Notes on the South Pavilion" also said that the Guangxu Emperor ate four eggs for breakfast, and the opening price of the imperial dining room was thirty-four silver, and the average cost of each egg was eight and a half silver.
At that time, an egg was only a few pieces of money, and one or two pieces of silver could almost buy hundreds. This bridge section was pressed to the movie "Battle of the Sea of Jia wu".
So why is the Interior Ministry so corrupt?
Let's first talk about what the Interior Ministry does, as the name suggests, the Interior Ministry serves the life of the royal family.
Such as royal daily food, clothing, storage, ceremonies, engineering, farms, animal husbandry, guards, mountain harvesting, etc., but also control the salt administration, divide the harvest, and receive tribute.
The main organs of the Ministry of the Interior are the "Seven Divisions and Three Chambers".
The seven divisions, namely the Guangchu Division, the Duyu Division, the Palm Ceremony Division, the Accounting Division, the Construction Division, the Qingfeng Division, and the Prudential Punishment Division, are directly subordinate organs of the Ministry of internal affairs.
The three chambers include the Shangsi Yuan, the Wubei Yuan, and the Fengchen Yuan, which are the governing organs of the Ministry of internal affairs.
This involves a very wide range of businesses, and many of them still seem to belong to the oily and water sector today. For example, the Construction Division, the Guangdong Storage Division, etc.
Therefore, in the procurement and quotation, there will often be catty. In addition, there are fund management offices, which often have deficits.
In the following table, from the seventh year of Xianfeng to the eleventh year of Tongzhi, most of the cases of borrowing silver occurred. Moreover, in the case of hundreds of thousands of taels, there are still hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels of silver borrowed, and what happened to this is unknown.
At that time, many people were quite critical of the Ministry of the Interior, and there was a phenomenon of false reporting in many activities, and then the over-reported part was divided.
Like the Daoguang Emperor, Puyi said that he was very frugal, but he was also fooled, just like the rumors said that a patch cost a lot of money:
Emperor Xuanzong (Emperor Daoguang) was frugal by nature, and he wore his trousers as knees... The people who make up for it, but the internal affairs department costs a supplement, and all the silks used dozens of horses are used, and the total price is four hundred gold.
There was also a big marriage with the Tongzhi Emperor, which required four large cabinets, and the result was that the price of the clerk was 60,000 taels. What is this cabinet sixty thousand two?
Second, Jianyi and the courtyard were greedy for two million taels of silver
With the construction of the Summer Palace, the Ministry of Internal Affairs frantically brushed up on Empress Dowager Cixi's IQ tax.
Xiu Yuanzi is considered to be a major reason for the defeat in the Battle of Jiawu.
At that time, it was rumored that the Summer Palace project had cost 20 million gold, and the national treasury did not have enough money, so the naval construction funds were embezzled.
However, according to the meeting of people at that time, only six million silver was actually allocated to the construction of the project.
According to the records of the construction and payment of Wanshou Mountain (Qingyi Garden) from the fifteenth year of Qianlong (1750) to the twenty-ninth year (1764), a total of 5,695,639,260,260,000 silver was collected.
The construction of Wanshou Mountain used 4,897,322,233 silver for 4 minutes and 6 cents, excluding the old wood planting materials for 494,523 cents and 93 cents, and the net sales of silver 4,402,851,290,500 cents, a total of 56 projects.
That is to say, the predecessor of the Summer Palace was only 5.69 million taels more than 5.69 million taels, and the actual project was less than 5 million taels.
And the Summer Palace?
In 2012, Wu Chen, Zhang Long, and Wang Qiheng further sorted out the relevant "Practice Money Bottom Book" and "Two Detailed Volumes of Materials and Silver" of the Summer Palace, believing that the total cost of the unscheduled projects of the Summer Palace renovation project should be no less than 3316657.401 two silver, plus the 3720546.901 silver that had been listed, and the total cost of the summer palace reconstruction project should not be less than 7.03 million two silver.
Of course, there are more to think, in 2013, Chen Xiansong published in the "Historical Research" "Interpretation of the Historical Materials of the Construction of the Summer Palace and the Misappropriation of "Coastal Defense Funds"", the Summer Palace project funds are about 8.14 million taels, from the Navy Yamen funding 7.37 million taels, the Prime Minister Yamen funding 770,000 taels.
In addition to the 'huge Navy's money' of 320,000 taels of interest and silver originally raised for the Summer Palace project, the amount of the Navy's Yamen funds that belong to the nature of 'misappropriation' is about 7.05 million taels.
Qi Qizhang's examination in the "Summer Palace Project and the Beiyang Navy" believes that the Qing government's funds for the Summer Palace project are more than 11 million taels of Kuping silver.
According to the minimum estimated number, the Ministry of Internal Affairs built a garden, calculated according to the standard of 5 million taels, greedy for more than 2 million taels, and the moisture was as high as 40%!!
Third, why is the Ministry of the Interior so bold?
The greed of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was indignant at the time.
The "Qing Barnyard Banknotes" also records: "The handling of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is particularly untrustworthy, and only one in ten workers arrive, and the number of internal supervisors is as high as six out of ten." Because the emperor would go to Tianjin to read the exercise, Nanyuan also prepared a big reading, built a number of barracks, and reimbursed 1.6 million, while Li Lianying got 700,000. ”
Regarding the oil and water of the officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. Deng Youmei's novel "The Five" has two sentences that say: "Fang Xinshu's small paintings are not ancient, this person must be the Ministry of Internal Affairs." ”
Regarding the matter of the internal affairs office being full and fraudulent, Puyi, as a person who has personally experienced it, mentioned in his own memoirs that the annual expenditure of the ministry of internal affairs is staggering, and even if the four million yuan of preferential fees are paid in full, no one will be able to make ends meet.
He also mentioned a mortgage handled by his father-in-law Rongyuan.
The date of the mortgage contract is May 31, 1924 of the 13th year of the Republic of China, and the signatories are Shaoying, Qi Ling, Rongyuan of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Yue Qianzhai, manager of the Beijing Salt Industry Bank, and the collateral is gold chimes, gold books, gold treasures and other gold utensils, and the mortgage amount is 800,000 yuan, with a term of one year and a monthly interest of one cent.
The contract stipulated that the 400,000 yuan would be collateralized by 16 golden bells (weighing a total of 111,439), and the other 400,000 yuan would be: 10 golden treasures of the eight empresses and five queens, 13 gold books, as well as gold treasure chests, gold seal ponds, golden pagodas, gold plates, golden pots, etc., weighing 10,969,270 yuan for 9 minutes and 6 centimeters, less than 100% of the gold 36 pieces, weighing 8832,880 yuan, plus 1,952 pearls inlaid with pearls, 184 gems, agate bowls and other treasures.
According to Puyi's statement, only the last mortgage of 400,000 yuan is equivalent to selling the objects such as the Jinbao Gold Book and other 100% gold as wild gold, and the rest is completely free. There are always several such mortgages and price changes every year, especially when the cost is required for the New Year's Festival. At this time, there will be secret news in the newspaper, and there will also be a statement of the Ministry of internal affairs to refute the rumors or explain them.
Regarding the sale contract recorded in the Beijing "Beijing News" on February 14, 14, 1414 of the Republic of China, the prior rumors and statements of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Rongyuan were also recorded in the "Beijing News" at the end of the thirteenth year of the Republic of China.
How many national treasures were sold by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and how much oil and water Puyi himself did not know how much oil and water the Ministry of Internal Affairs had fished.
Didn't the corrupt emperor of the Ministry of Internal Affairs know?
The Guangxu Emperor once wanted to raid the home of Qingkuan, an official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Fu Kun, who was in charge of raiding the house, was a close friend of Qingkuan, and as soon as he received the will to raid Qingkuan, he secretly spread the news to Qingkuan.
And Qingkuan learned the news of the raid, immediately made a disposition, before the raid, he had arranged to send people to smuggle out the silver coupons, contracts, soft and other items in the home, and finally did not find anything.
This is already obvious. Because a chain of interests had been formed, the corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had not been resolved until the fall of the Qing Dynasty.