When it comes to the first corrupt official in China's history, there is no doubt that He yan will inevitably be on the list. Although he may not be able to assume the title of the first corrupt official, he still dominates the list in the Qing Dynasty. According to Mr. Lü Simian, Hesheng embezzled nearly one billion taels of silver, equivalent to more than ten years of tax revenue in the Qing Dynasty, which shows the abomination of his people.
But then again, although Hezhen was greedy for a lot of money, he could not transfer assets at any time like modern people, or directly deposit them in Swiss banks. Moreover, at that time, the most valuable money in currency was only gold and silver, so the question is, he has so much money, where will he put it?
According to historical records, when He yan was raided, the soldiers could not find a penny, and later they inadvertently found that the money of this and the adult was hidden quite deeply.
During the feudal dynasty period, corrupt officials were a phenomenon that was difficult to prohibit, especially when a dynasty was about to decline in the heyday. Because, in general, when the prosperous world comes, the country is very rich, so the total amount is large, and the officials have more money from corruption. Moreover, because of the transition from prosperity to decline, many systems are decaying, and there are more opportunities for officials to manipulate up and down.
It should be said that the first corrupt official of the Qing Dynasty at that time, He Yan, was in this period, and also took the opportunity to gain a lot of benefits. According to some records, the Qianlong Emperor and officials robbed the country's wealth at that time, and as a result, the Qianlong Emperor could only make a strange move at a time, and as a result, the emperor not only turned the tortoise into a scavenger, but even made Hezhen serve as his national wealth manager, in order to help himself gain more benefits to combat the corruption of those ministers.
But this practice is to let the wolf guard the sheep pen, and Hezhen himself is the biggest corrupt official, so Hezhen frantically collects money when he has the allocation of national resources. According to the statistics of historians during the Republic of China period, this person's assets have reached 800 million to 1 billion taels of silver, and their total is more than all the compensation in the late Qing Dynasty.
Of course, in addition to Chinese cognition, foreigners also generally believe that Hezhen is the number one corrupt official. For example, the Wall Street Journal described Hezhen as one of the world's richest people in the millennium.
But the question is, as a big corrupt official, with more than the revenue of the government treasury, then what should Hezhen do with this money? I believe that you have seen a lot of money laundering movies, in an era when coins become data, you need to launder money through various means to avoid their own property being liquidated. So, with an era when money is still dominated by gold, silver and copper coins, how can Hezhen hide these billions of family properties?
According to historical records, the Jiaqing Emperor was waiting for the old emperor, so he immediately launched an impeachment, arrested Hezhen and imprisoned him, and sent people to loot Hezhen's family property.
But what was surprising was that these officials and soldiers surrounded Hezhen's family very smoothly, and also rushed in to check it, but sadly, they didn't see a penny inside. The only people who were worth a little money were the clothes and jewelry worn by those people, but this did not match the value of the first corrupt official of the Qing Dynasty. Is it true that the Hezhen family is surrounded by disciples? What a great irony.
When he learned of this news, the Jiaqing Emperor also thought that his subordinates were also full of money in corruption, but after repeated confirmation, it was found that it was really the case, and the inside of Hezhen's home was clean, and no specific money was found. This is strange, such a large amount of money, can not be hidden.
However, the next thing changed everyone's cognition, it turned out that when the search was conducted, the Jiaqing Emperor still wanted to save some face for the Hezhen family, and did not want to make the chickens fly and the dogs jump, so they did not destroy the walls and the ground. But I never expected that there was a soldier who rested on the pillar during the search, and perhaps by accident, the knife handle worn by this person hit the pillar and actually made an empty noise.
As soon as the soldier heard it, he realized that something was wrong, how could a pillar be hollow? There must have been something hidden inside. So the man immediately reported it to the officials who raided the house, and the officials were immediately interested when they heard it, so they told the emperor that he might have hidden the money in the house, hoping that the emperor would allow them to carry out moderate destruction.
Soon orders were given, and the officials, like adventurous braves, went around wreaking havoc. The first was to cut down the pillars with a knife, only to be surprised to find that the pillars were all silver inside, and only the outer layer was a camouflage structure.
They then destroyed Hezhen's study and walls, and were surprised to find that there were a large number of dark lattices hidden inside the walls, and there were also many gold and silver jewels inside.
But before they could finish, they turned around and began to dig the ground, in which a pot of silver and gold had been dug up under the pavilion, and in addition to the dirt in the back garden, there were some well-preserved wine jars, some of which were wine and some of which were silver.
Not only that, but there were also more powerful officials who directly instigated the people in the Wakan family, and they also implied that as long as someone could provide useful clues, then the gold, silver and jewelry obtained could also be a part of the subordinates. As a result, someone immediately reported that his grandfather had built a cellar behind the rockery, and there may have been gold and silver jewelry in it.
The people around them were overjoyed when they heard it, and quickly ran over to check it, and the result was that they really found a clever mechanism, and there were indeed a lot of valuable things in it, but this was not exactly gold and silver jewelry, but also a lot of antique calligraphy and paintings.
After looting Hezhen's family property, the emperor also found accurate evidence of the crime, which was used to accuse Hezhen of being a big corrupt official who sentenced him to death.
But then again, as the most corrupt official in the Qing Dynasty, He Yan's family property was so much that people were outrageous, and perhaps he was also afraid of attracting people's attention, so he came up with various ways to hide money in various places. People say that the three caves of the cunning rabbit are hidden, but the adults have hidden the gold and silver jewelry in several places, which is even more cunning than the rabbit.
However, no matter how many clever tricks and tricks he has committed, the sins he has committed, and the well-known and well-known he speaks, it is impossible to really hide them, because good and evil will eventually be rewarded, and the eyes of the masses of the people are bright. Perhaps, as the ancient sages said, gold and silver jewelry are like dung and soil with me, red strips come, red strips go, why bother so much. Obviously, He Yan did not see through this, his money not only did not enjoy it himself, but also did not leave it to posterity, but only cheapened the Jiaqing Emperor, but he also had to leave a name for eternity.
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