Daoguang did not expect that under his own eyes, someone dared to be so bold as to smuggle away all the silver in the treasury, so that the 12.18 million taels of silver originally stored were only 2.93 million taels of silver left by the time they were discovered.
Dao Guang was furious and decided to investigate the matter thoroughly, but in the process of strict investigation, he found a strange phenomenon, everyone obviously knew that the people guarding the Treasury Had transported the Treasury, but no one had ever taken care of it. Daoguang must find out the truth of the matter.
Treasury silver is lost
Under normal circumstances, the Treasury of the Qing Dynasty was divided into two parts, one part of which was the Inner Treasury dedicated to providing services for the Emperor's usual expenses, which included the Silver Treasury of the Forbidden City and the Silver Treasury of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the other was the Treasury of the Household Department, which was used to be responsible for the state's financial revenue and expenditure, and the two silver vaults were not subordinate to each other and could not be misappropriated from each other.
For example, Xianfeng had no money that year, and wanted to borrow the 200,000 taels of silver from the user's treasury to use it, but it was rejected by the household department for not complying with the regulations, which fully explained that to some extent, the treasury management of these warehouses was still relatively strict, plus each silver treasury would employ at least 13 kuding management, and only 9 days a month was open to let them go in to work, in such a case, it was basically impossible to take away the treasury silver in the warehouse, so the emperor has always been more assured.
But who ever thought, even if XianFeng wanted to borrow a little treasury silver, in the end these treasury silver disappeared, and the amount of silver that flew away was still very shocking, the original warehouse stored 12.18 million two silver, now only 2.93 million two silver, a total of 9.25 million two silver is missing, Daoguang can no longer sit still, must strictly investigate this matter.
However, in the process of strictly investigating this matter, Daoguang found a strange phenomenon, obviously the warehouse guards are very strict, why is there a loss of treasury silver in the end?
The guards of the storehouses guarded themselves
At first, Daoguang thought it was someone else's behavior, but after strict investigation, he found that this seemed to be a kind of public behavior, in addition to not knowing it, it seemed that everyone in the whole world already knew, even when recruiting a Kuding, it was clearly marked, and it was necessary to prepare 6,000 taels of silver as an activity fund to successfully enter the company, after joining the company, these Kuding of course wanted to earn back the money spent, so it can be seen that this kind of prison self-theft at that time was already well known, only the emperor was in the dark.
In order to cover people's eyes, these Kuding who guarded the treasury silver, in the initial stage, also developed a lot of special methods to take away the treasury, such as hiding the silver with their bodies is the oldest and safest way, it is said that the Kuding who guarded the treasury at that time, before entering the treasury, will generally undergo strict training, let them use the "valley road" to hide silver.
At the beginning of the training, only the use of quail eggs, later replaced by eggs, goose eggs and even iron pills, and finally increasing the number of iron pills, from one to ten, after ten, basically out of the division, wait until they become Kuding, these people can hide the Treasury silver in their own "valley road" to take out.
Judging from the degree of their training, these Kuding can hide 80 to 100 pairs of silver at most once to take out of the warehouse, 6,000 two activities, in fact, it does not take long to earn after entering the job. In the summer, many kuding hide silver with their bodies, and when winter comes, they will hide silver in a different way, using pots to hide silver.
Presumably many people who see the palace drama will find a detail, in the winter, some staff will hold a teapot in their hands, used to drink hot water to warm up, Kuding is the use of this drinking water pot to hide the silver, they put some cold water in the pot, after entering the warehouse, put the treasury silver into the pot, due to the low temperature, when the water comes out, even if someone checks, Kuding turned the pot upside down and shook it, no movement can be put out, the treasury silver is so easy to take away.
But this is only the beginning, and then the situation is serious, in fact, these Kuding do not need to be so careful, after all, there was no such thing as surveillance and cameras at that time, Kuding only needed to get some of the guards or duty to get rid of the Treasury.
It is also under such an operation that the Treasury Silver will be reduced from the original 12.18 million taels to the current 2.93 million taels, after The Daoguang strict investigation, it is found that the Treasury silver was stolen, but it is not a matter of one day or two days, the number of personnel involved, the length of the time span, has far exceeded the imagination of Daoguang, but even so, Daoguang must also be severely punished.
Daoguang is how to deal with the relevant personnel
After careful consideration, Daoguang began to punish the relevant personnel, and the main idea of punishment was probably as follows: For those who are currently in office or not in service and are still alive, according to the amount of treasury silver taken, the number of kills that should be killed, the exiles who should be exiled, the prisons that should be imprisoned, and the silver that should be taken back will be compensated according to the quantity; for those who are no longer alive, the amount of silver will be halved, their descendants will be investigated, and they will repay them, and if they do not repay according to the quantity, they will be investigated for legal responsibility and locked up in prison.
In addition, Daoguang also investigated the responsibility of the successive responsible persons of the silver treasury after five years in Jiaqing, and ordered them to share the losses according to the length of their tenure, among which the treasury officials, Chaku Yushi and others paid 1,200 taels of silver per month of their term of office, the minister of management and treasury paid 500 taels per month, the minister of chaku paid 6,000 taels of silver per chaku, and after the fine of the deceased official was halved, it was repaid by his descendants.
According to the punishment of Daoguang, it is indeed very promising to recover the Treasury, but in reality, Daoguang's plan is quite difficult to implement, after all, the participants in this matter at the beginning, far more than the warehouse so simple, there are many behind-the-scenes masters and big men, even if Daoguang wants to pursue responsibility, it is really unlikely, so now the punishment is also impossible, even if Daoguang has repeatedly lowered the compensation standard, it is still useless.
epilogue
The demise of the Qing Dynasty has actually had a hint since Qianlong, whether it is the bad habits of the imperial family such as cixi in the later period, or the behavior of ministers who go up and down to serve as a prison and self-theft, they are all powerful promoters to promote the demise of the Qing Dynasty, when the entire imperial court is already full of problems, the Qing Dynasty is naturally not far from extinction, and all this is not just the strength of Daoguang alone can easily change?
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