During Qianlong's reign, he cultivated a group of masters who could sneak around and whitewash Taiping because of their good deeds, and when Jiaqing took over, these officials were still proud of "opening their eyes and talking nonsense." When Jiaqing first became emperor, he still wanted to make a difference, so he decided to start with "cracking down on fake big air in the official field".
In 1796, before the dragon chair in Jiaqing was hot, Hubei caused a White Lotus Rebellion, which soon spread to Sichuan. Just when the officers and soldiers were fighting with the White Lotus Sect, Lin Jun, the envoy of sichuan province, did not want to calm the situation, but instead bullied Jiaqing's young and inexperienced, and when reporting on his work, he falsely claimed that the people of Sichuan lived and worked in peace and contentment. Jiaqing is not "silly white sweet", not so good to flicker, first a scolding: "You report some false data all day, through what channels should you learn about the suffering of the people?" Then warn the officials who have the same virtue as Lin Jun, "Tell lies again, and punish them severely!" ”
But for these old fritters in the officialdom, Jiaqing's warning is like a mosquito humming, and after the sound wave, everyone still "works together" perfunctory.
In the fifth year of Jiaqing (1800), Weiyuan, Yunnan suffered a rare flood, and the situation was serious, especially many salt ponds, which were the pillars of Yunnan's economy, were washed away by the flood. After receiving the news, Jiaqing immediately summoned Inspector Jiang Lan of Yunnan to come to him for questioning, and as a result, Jiang Lan's face was not red and his heart did not beat: "Your Majesty must not listen to the nonsense of others, there has been no flood in Yunnan at all, I don't believe you sent someone to see!" Seeing his posture of "not seeing the coffin and not shedding tears", Jiaqing was very angry, and quickly set up a "Yunnan Disaster Investigation Team" and rushed to Yunnan to collect evidence. The result was naturally clear and clear, in the face of ironclad evidence, Jiang Lan still posed as "the dead pig is not afraid of boiling water", insisting that everything was under his control and there was no need for the emperor to worry. Jiaqing was furious and slapped Jiang Lan's Wusha and never allowed him to be an official again.
It is said that this "killing chicken" can scare other monkeys, but things are far from simple.
In 1804, there was a serious locust plague in the Zhili area, and the governor of Zhili, Yan Guan, had been warned by Jiaqing for lying before, but this time he still did not remember it for a long time, and did not mention the locust plague in the work report handed to the imperial court, but said that the people of Zhili were harvesting wheat, and the scene was in full swing.
Yan Inspection is not diligent, the grain is not divided, but Jiaqing is not such a fool, and Zhili is near the capital, he also went to visit a few days ago, only to see a piece of green wheat seedlings, how can it suddenly be harvested? When Jiaqing was gritting his teeth at Yan's report, several obese locusts landed on his desk with great power. The locusts have all flown into the palace, and the disaster in the fields can be imagined! Therefore, Jiaqing solemnly warned Yan Zhen and ordered him to truthfully record and report the real disaster situation, which gave him a chance to make up for his mistakes.
Who knew that Yan Guan, who had his brain in the water, continued to die, and thought of a way to fool Jiaqing. In his second work report, he admitted that there were indeed a lot of locusts flying from the zhili area, but he quickly turned his words around and said, "But please rest assured Your Majesty, these bugs have long been killed by my dispatches!" In order to stabilize Jiaqing, he actually gave a trendy statement that "coaxed three-year-old children to work hard", "Your Majesty does not know that locusts never harm crops, they only eat grass!" ”
Jiaqing was almost stunned - 40% of the local crops were swallowed by locusts, and you dared to play me like a fool, or go home early to eat grass! After severely investigating and punishing Yan Jian and others, Jiaqing once again educated other officials in a serious tone, "The atmosphere of whitewashing Taiping is easy to open and difficult to stop, if you deceive and deceive like this again, the country will have disasters, and it is necessary to have a long snack!" ”