On the third day of the first lunar month in the fourth year of Jiaqing (1799 AD), the Qianlong Emperor died. Five days later, the Jiaqing Emperor ordered he to be imprisoned.
When he copied the He yan family, he found that in the more than 20 years of his reign, his assets included 20 million to more than 30 million taels of silver (most of which were the proceeds of his illegal industrial and commercial operations, the Qing Dynasty stipulated that the flag bearers were not allowed to engage in business, and He Yan used the internal affairs office to cover the slaves, and took advantage of the convenience of official duties to take advantage of the situation to take advantage of the situation to seize the throne, although doing business, it was still a crime of greed under the Great Qing Law), annexing millions of hectares of land and 219 real estate properties in the country. Under his protection, his domestic slave Liu Quan also became an upstart who spent thousands of dollars every day. The wealth amassed by Hezhen was worth about 800 million to 1.1 billion taels of silver, and its gold, silver and antique treasures exceeded the combined revenue of the Qing government in the past 15 years.
Fifteen days after the death of the Qianlong Emperor, the Jiaqing Emperor committed suicide with a white silk gift. Before he was given death, He Yan wrote a poem in which yun said: "For the previous events of Jing's injury, Huai Cai mistakenly went to this body." ”
As the saying goes: "Accompanying the king is like accompanying the tiger", but He yan is the most able to understand the "providence", figure out the emperor's mind, do it well-behaved and decently, the power is great, even the emperor dares to bully, he set his own tax rate, form a party for personal gain, and be more rational and bold, and wantonly plunder the people's money. Killing people does not require compensation, only a fine. No one would ask which official in the court was gone, and no one would dare to ask. To be an official, you must be loyal to Hezhen, and the words of Hezhen are equivalent to the holy will, and you must not fail to listen to them. He favored the slave Liu Quan, sent people to collect debts and kill people, robbed the daughters of others and sold them as prostitutes, and fled. Afterwards, not even a single punishment was received. In those days, as long as he was a close associate of Hezhen, he could be forgiven for any crime he had committed. Therefore, the British envoy Macartney wrote in his memoirs: "Many Chinese privately called Hezhen the Second Emperor."
He Yan became the "king of corrupt officials" and "the king of corruption" in later generations, who was full of power and rich enough to be enemy of the country, but how did he accumulate the wealth of the country that made him rich and invincible?
In fact, He yan held an important position in the foreign affairs of the Qing Dynasty, and even the British envoy Ma Jiaerni was very appreciative of hezhen's diplomatic methods. When He Yan first became an official, he was shrewd and strong, and for the sake of clean government, he consolidated his position through the "Li Shiyao case". Qianlong favored him and married his youngest daughter, The Tenth Princess, to his eldest son, Fengsheng Yinde, so that he could become a relative of the emperor and also had great power. As power grew, selfish desires grew, and he used his position to form a party for personal gain, amassed money, and formed a pyramid-like large corrupt group, and Hezhen was at the top of the pyramid.
He Yan held many positions, the most important of which were the Chongwenmen customs duties, the treasury of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the emperor's own treasury), and the national treasury. When he first took office, the treasury of the state treasury and the ministry of internal affairs were very empty, and they had to spend money to do things, such as repairing the "Four Libraries of the Whole Book", using soldiers, repairing gardens, repairing imperial tombs, repairing rivers, and providing disaster relief. In just a few years, He Yan used his ability to turn the empty treasury of the Ministry of Internal Affairs into a profit, and the money obtained was mainly used to run state affairs and let the emperor spend it. He's corrupt, but he's really good at managing money. The previous Hubu Shoshu was dismissed because he could not do it. Hezhen's financial management ability was fully demonstrated when he spent money to repair the Four Libraries.
He Yan was re-elected as the superintendent of chongwenmen tax customs, a fat position regarded as a "royal cash machine", and as he became more powerful, he could arrange for high-ranking officials or royal cronies to directly manage it. These taxes are not received from the Ministry of Households, but from the Ministry of the Interior. In addition to the Chongwenmen Tax Customs, which is regarded as the "Tianzi North Treasury", even the "Tianzi South Treasury" of the Guangdong Customs is also in the hands of Hezhen.
He bought land sharply at low prices and sold them at high prices. For example, during the 43rd Uprising of the Soviet Union, He Yan acquired land by "encuming land", specifically the landlord pawned the land to He Yan, and He Yan acquired the land at two-tenths of the price.
He Yan was corrupt and fraudulent, but Qianlong was partial to everything. In fact, Qianlong spent a lot of money, but he could still spend money without moving the national treasury, and he relied more on hezhen's work. Ever since Wakan became Theobu Shoshu and Minister of internal affairs, the Interior Ministry, as well as the Tianzhuang and Qianzhuang, were all managed by Washun. He moved the functions of the household department to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and moved the revenue of the state to the royal family, and when he shuttled between the Ministry of Households and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he could free up a lot of money and fall into his own pocket. Qianlong spent money, and it was never asked where the money came from, which made Hezhen have more space. For example, on his birthday, He yan initiated the "dedication of silver", indicating that officials at all levels from the central to the local level should "dedicate"; there are also some current items such as "folding silver", which uses silver to atone for sins, and these financial resources continue to flow into the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
During the Yongzheng period, he once proposed a system called YanglianYin to solve the above problems, but He yan used Yanglianyin to increase yanglianyin, saying that it was necessary to increase Yanglianyin to catch up with the hyperinflation caused by the White Lotus Sect uprising that year, so he only had 170 taels of money, but the amount of Yanglian silver was as high as more than 100,000 taels.
He Yan also invented and implemented the system of deliberating on crimes and silver, so that after the corrupt officials were exposed, they still did not need to be sentenced to death, but only fined, resulting in the phenomenon of corruption among hundreds of officials in the Qianlong Dynasty. So that the Qing Dynasty popular a sentence: "One year in the Qing prefect, 100,000 snowflakes of silver." Although Chinese officials were already corrupt before the Qing Dynasty, they reached their peak during the reign of Hezhen, and even the Qianlong Emperor admitted: "Among the governors of the provinces, there are only two out of ten who are honest and self-loving." "In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was already the drawback that the official official position was too low, and even the middle and upper-ranking officials at the prefectural and county order level only had a few dozen taels of annual salaries, and as a result, even officials who were not particularly profligate often needed to use corruption to cope with the marriage and funeral and communication expenses that cost hundreds of taels at any time.
After the fall of He yan, the system of deliberative silver invented by He yan was abolished by Jiaqing, and the Jiaqing Emperor ordered that no more silver should be increased, and at the same time abolished the system that was all conducive to corruption, but the effect was not large, and in the final Jiaqing dynasty, the problem of corruption was not only not solved, but more serious. Moreover, under the premise that the corruption system of Hezhen was not completely abolished, a large number of corrupt but at the same time promising officials were also opened.
After Qianlong Chan gave way to emperor Jiaqing, even though the chancellor had repeatedly impeached He yan, he could eventually turn the danger into ruin under Qianlong's protection.
It was precisely because of the legitimization of the corruption system that officials embezzled together, which accelerated the decline of the Qing Dynasty. It is said that before he was ordered to cut himself off, he cursed that the imperial court would be destroyed by floods in the sixty years after his death, and after that, the Qing Dynasty did stretch the treasury due to several floods, and even nearly overthrown by Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom sixty years after his death.