Qingguan belief is a major feature of ancient Chinese legal culture, and for thousands of years the people's tireless expectations and praises for Qingguan have made this belief even form a culture. The names of famous Qing officials such as Bao Zheng and Hai Rui are familiar even for the three-foot child. As a mirror reflecting the psychology of ordinary people in society, during the Song and Yuan dynasties, Qingguan literature (including public case novels, scripts, miscellaneous dramas, etc.) began to emerge and become popular in large quantities; in modern society, there are still a large number of Qingguan dramas in TV dramas to continue this tradition. Ordinary people erected temples for their "Qingtian Grand Master", enjoyed the worship at four o'clock, and the incense burned endlessly for thousands of years. This is not only because of the valuable qualities possessed by the Qing officials themselves--honesty, honesty, honesty, selflessness, compassion for the people's feelings, and so on," but also from the negative side, it also shows such a sad problem: that is, corrupt officials and corrupt officials emerge one after another, "the people are all over the world", the common people are in a situation of being insulted and damaged, isolated and helpless, and desperately hope that someone can serve the people's parents and make decisions for them. The deeds of the Qing officials are a concentrated reflection of this psychological need of the people, and to put it pessimistically, it is a kind of psychological compensation for painting cakes and filling hunger.
In the hearts of ordinary people, the Qingguan can be described as a perfect person, the embodiment of God, with only a dazzling aura on his body and no possibility of even a white and slightly flawed sunspot. However, looking through the pen and ink left by the ancients, we can find an intriguing "rupture of group consciousness" - the evaluation of the Qing officials by the scholar class is really not satisfactory to the ordinary people, and sometimes even very different.
The late Qing dynasty novelist Liu Hu directly elaborated on this issue. He said in "The Journey of the Old Disabled": "The honest man is the most admirable, only one has a bad temper, he always feels that the world is a villain, only he is a gentleman." The most harmful thing about this thought is how many major events in the world have been harmed... Corrupt officials are hateful and everyone knows them; clean officials are especially hateful, and many people do not know. The officials who cover the stolen goods know that they are sick and dare not openly act wrongly; the Qing officials think that I don't want money, why not, just use themselves, kill people in small ways, and mislead the country when they are big. In order to support this thesis, he created in the book the image of Yuxian and Gangbi, two cool officials who regard themselves as incorruptible but at the same time are arrogant and self-conscious, indiscriminately inflict heavy punishments, and take people's lives, and let them handle many unjust, false and wrongly decided cases.
Liu Yan believed that the problem with Qing officials was that there was an absolute sense of superiority in morality, which made them feel that they were ashamed of what they did, and thus it was easy to fall into a situation of self-righteousness and even self-sufficiency. Blindly confident in their own behavior, doing things only morally condescending, the actual situation, secular sentiments are all dismissed as nostalgia, only a little, not as good as the rest. This mentality is extremely harmful, and in a small way, for example, when listening to prisons, it is easy to abuse punishment and take people's lives; on the larger, it is not beneficial to the national economy and people's livelihood, but it will be wrong.
The criticism of Qing officials by the ancient scholar class predates Liu Hu, and Ouyang Xiu, a contemporary of Bao Zheng, criticized the blind confidence of Qing officials. In Emperor Renzong of the Shang Song Dynasty's "Letter on the Removal of the Three Envoys", he denied Bao Zheng's practice of taking over his posts as a wind constitutional official after impeaching two ministers, believing that doing so would make "a minister who speaks and does things, covets others, and becomes a common practice." Bao Zheng defended himself with no such heart, and Ouyang Xiu said: "Those who have a heart are hidden in the middle, but the people are invisible; those who trace it are shown to the outside, and the world looks at it." Now he wants to be confident in his invisible heart, and to hide the traces of the world, is to probe his things with his hands, and his mouth does not want it, and whoever believes in it. The so-called suspicion of this minister is also unavoidable. He also made a very targeted attack on Bao Zheng's sense of moral superiority: "Some husbands are not honest, and some are shameful." The actions of the close ministers, the laws of the people. At this time, save yourself from doing nothing, and you can wind the world with the festival of shame. ”
Ouyang Xiu's views represented the attitude of a considerable number of Song Dynasty scholars: they undoubtedly appreciated Bao Zheng's discipline, but political affairs had their own characteristics and could not be equated with personal cultivation. Bao Zheng only valued moral blamelessness, but ignored the impact of his actions on the political atmosphere of the dynasty. In this way, relying only on moral self-confidence, "the court affairs may not be thought of", "the thinking is not familiar, and the treatment is obedient".
Hai Rui of the Ming Dynasty also attracted criticism from the scholar class, and it was even worse than Bao Zheng, almost to the point where it was not tolerated in the world. Hai Rui was incorruptible and honest in his life, and his usual learning was mainly based on Gang, calling himself Gangfeng, and he took the world as his own responsibility, but his fate was uncertain, and he was not able to do it, and when he opened the scene for the official several times, he was vigorous, but he ended up in disgrace. The reason for this, of course, is not only because "the whole world is turbid and I am alone.". The assertion given to him by the Wanli Emperor was: "Although the authorities are in charge, I am afraid that they are not good at it, but they are used to calm the customs and encourage the decadence, but it is not useless." "On the surface, hai rui's strengths are affirmed, but in fact, it is a criticism and denial. The Wanli Emperor was convinced of Hai Rui's integrity, but he believed that this loyal servant of Geng Jie only had an exemplary role in moral weathering, and could not achieve anything in the work of the national economy and people's livelihood.
The Kangxi Emperor had his own understanding of the qing official problem, and he said in an edict: "Qing officials are carved, and the engraving is embarrassing to subordinates, and the purity and leniency are perfect." Zhu Ziyun: An official, a person who is clean and does not think that he is clean, but is true and pure. Kangxi's meaning is very clear: Qing officials should throw away their sense of moral superiority, not be too harsh on people, and their administration cannot blindly rely on almost paranoid toughness. As the monarch of a country, of course, he does not encourage corruption, but does not want the situation of "no fish when the water is clear, and no one is in vain" that makes the state apparatus unable to function normally. Shi Shilun, the protagonist of "Shi Gong Case", is a character who is called "The Great Lord of Qingtian" by the public like Bao Zheng and Hai Rui. Someone recommended him to be an envoy to Hunan, and the Kangxi Emperor said: "He knows shi lun and honesty very well, but when things are paranoid, the people and the people will sue the people, and he will favor the people; and the students and the gentlemen will sue, and he will favor all the beings." Isn't it paranoid to do things only in the middle of what they seek? If the worldly lun entrusts the affairs of the money valley, it is appropriate to hear. In the end, he was renamed as a political envoy in Hunan. It seems that Kangxi was deeply used by The Ming and Qing dynasties.
The difference in the evaluation of qing officials by ordinary people and social elites is intriguing. The criticism of the Qing officials by the scholars (and even the emperor) focused on a single "engraved" character. This "engraving" has a wide range of meanings, including harsh usage, harsh criticism of subordinates and subordinates, and also paranoid, tough, and unkind in governance. Qing officials are generally morally perfect, have moral purity, and are too harsh on people, and if others cannot meet their standards, they are all dismissed as mud pigs, leper dogs, and filthy villains. This mentality has led to their harsh use of law in governance, and this is precisely the reason why the common people respect clean officials.
The common people's expectations for the Qing officials are nothing more than three: to suppress the powerful and powerful people who oppress the people; to crack down on the scoundrels in the fish and meat townships; and to punish the corrupt officials who are corrupt and pervert the law. The more severely the Qing officials cracked down on these people, the more they conformed to the simple desire of the common people to "eat big households", and it was "love for the people". For example, Liang Taishou in "The Surprise of shooting" saw wang Xi, a pranky scoundrel who abducted women and caused human life, and was only sentenced to charging the army, so he was furious, "Drinking soap and paying heavy responsibility for sixty plates, and being desperate at the moment." This kind of killing behavior has been affirmed by the author, who said that he was extremely righteous.
The scholar class was very disgusted by this "engraving" of the Qing officials, and in addition to the value factor of the way of loyalty and forgiveness, considering the reality of governing the country was the more important reason. As the Kangxi Emperor said, "The only way to deal with things is to seek success", political affairs are different from personal cultivation, it is an art of compromise, it is a chess game for the interests of all parties; if the administration wants to make a difference, it cannot only rely on moral condescension and blind paranoia and toughness. According to Sima Guang's "Chronicle of Shuishui", "Bao Xiren knew Luzhou, that is, the township also ... There are uncles who break the law, and Xi Ren kills them. Since the pro-old are breathless. This "good story" of killing relatives in great righteousness always gives people other thoughts: If the uncle has a deathable sin, he can kill him; if the sin does not lead to death, Bao Zheng will be severely punished in order to show his selflessness, and kill him in the name of Bo Zhi, and this kind of behavior of "killing his wife and asking for a general" will undoubtedly greatly reduce our reverence for him.
His family tragedy makes a perfect footnote to his temperament: his first two wives were suspended, his third wife died violently, and a concubine committed suicide, forcing him to marry nine times. And his daughter died because she ate a loaf of bread given by the domestic servant and was forced to go on a hunger strike. It can be seen that his temperament is harsh.
In addition, Hai Rui was also an admirer of harsh punishments, and he was nostalgic for Zhu Yuanzhang's cruel punishment measures of "skinning and grass" in the early Ming Dynasty, and suggested that the ancestral system of "no offenders and fishermen plus cruel punishment" should be restored. His suggestion not only shocked the officialdom, but even the Wanli Emperor thought it was too much.
According to the "Chronicle of Hai Zhongjie", after Hai Rui was appointed as the Inspector of Ying Tian, "the thunder and thunder, the county officials were in a rage, and the embezzlers looked forward to the wind and left." Powerful and powerful officials, holding their breath, until they move to his province to avoid it." This kind of murderous spirit that makes corrupt officials and powerful people want to flee from the wind is naturally also the effect of Hai Rui's daily actions. However, the subordinates hung up the crown and fled, which also made Hai Rui's grand plan to benefit the people unable to be implemented, and finally ended in disgrace.
The Qing officials are the moral models advocated by the whole society, but in reality they are not tolerated in the official field, which really makes the Qing officials wonder: the corrupt officials can not care about their bitter hatred, and the criticism of the famous courtiers and scholars is nothing less than a thunderbolt for them. The most important thing they value is the praise of qingyi, and this criticism is undoubtedly the social elite's disapproval of what they are guarding.
Is it really because "the whole world is turbid and I am pure, and the whole world is greedy and I am alone"? Non also.
Wang Huizu, a famous official of the Qing Dynasty, in his "Xuezhi Hypothesis", gave advice based on his decades of experience as an official: The Qing Dynasty cannot be carved. Qing is only one end of the healing technique, and it is not enough to solve all the problems in reality. Moral purity, extreme personality and tough wrists are the root causes of their inability to tolerate the world and cannot be beneficial to the national economy and people's livelihood. As the Kangxi Emperor said, "Purity and leniency are perfect." Zhu Ziyun: An official, a person who is clean and does not think that he is clean, but is true and pure. This is not a wish, but an expectation of the qing official's deep love and responsibility.
Placing honesty and corruption on personal moral cultivation is a tragedy in itself, so it is of no practical significance to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of clean officials and corrupt officials. In today's world, all countries with relatively clear politics are all using perfect systems and strict law enforcement to safeguard social fairness and justice and promote the overall progress of society. Is there still a market for corrupt officials? Reflection on history cannot be misrepresented, otherwise the conclusions drawn will be absurd.