In the eyes of the rulers of the Song Dynasty, the reason why corrupt officials have emerged one after another in the past is only one reason, the salary is too low, and the poverty of officials is the cause of collective corruption, this summary overemphasizes the material level to determine the degree of corruption, and ignores the important influence of moral character and political ethics in human nature in the integrity of the government.
This error in understanding determines the inevitable failure of this system design. As Song Taizong said: "The system of Lulu should be excellent, and the responsibility should be honest." (The History of the Song Dynasty and the Chronicle of Officials xi therefore, the Northern Song Dynasty, from Song Taizu to Emperor Huizong, continued to increase the number of salaries for the sake of a hundred officials.)
According to the records of the "Chronicle of officials of the Song Dynasty", high-ranking officials at the level of prime ministers and privy councillors paid 300,000 yuan (that is, 300 guan) per month, 20 horses, 30 horses, and 100 stones per month for spring and winter clothes; local prefecture and county officials, large counties (more than 10,000 households) county orders were 20,000 per month, small counties and counties were ordered 12,000 per month, and Lu Su was 5 to 3 stones per month. In addition to the main salary, there are various subsidies, such as tea, wine, cooking materials, salaries, artemisia, charcoal, salt and other things, as well as fodder for feeding horses, and clothing and food expenses for personal servants, all of which are considerable in quantity.
Taking the Song Dynasty's Yipin grand officer (prime minister and privy councillor) as an example, even if there is no title, his monthly salary can reach 300 to 400 guan ("History of Song", the chronicle of officials), which is 10 times that of the Han Dynasty and 6 times that of the Qing Dynasty.
Some scholars calculate according to gold as a reference, the Song Dynasty's three hundred thousand, equivalent to 200,000 yuan, whether the conversion is extremely accurate, it is certain that the high salary level of the Song Dynasty is beyond doubt, the Song Dynasty officials are dressed in fine clothes, food, life luxury. This kind of "high salary and clean government" took the lead in "testing the waters" in the Song Dynasty, and the time is not early, but the Song Dynasty is precisely the most corrupt dynasty in Chinese history. To create this situation, the wrong top-level design of high salaries and low salaries is mainly responsible.
Taking the most famous and incorruptible Bao Zheng in the Song Dynasty as an example, when Bao Zheng's annual salary was the highest, it should be before his death, he was not only a privy councillor, but also a deputy envoy of the Privy Council, but also a lieutenant of the Chaoshan Dafu, a minister of the Shizhong, and a lieutenant of the light car, and was also named the founding marquis of Donghai County, and the height of the official and knighthood was second only to that of the current prime minister, so this time must be the highest salary in his life. Bao Zheng's salary slip reads: "20,856 copper coins, 2,180 stones of rice, 180 stones of wheat, 10 horses of silk, 34 horses of silk, 2 horses of luo, 100 two cotton, 15 scales of charcoal, 240 bales of firewood, 480 bales of hay." The above is the price data that appears in the historical data relatively close to the time when Bao Zheng served in Kaifeng Province.
Using this set of price data, we can exchange all the income in kind of Bao Zheng for money every year, which adds up to roughly 1022 yuan, plus 20856 yuan of monetary income, a total of 21878 yuan. This is Bao Zheng's annual salary when he served in Kaifeng Province. According to the purchasing power of 400 copper coins at that time and the purchasing power of 250 yuan now, the purchasing power is similar, in view of the accuracy of the data, we conservatively estimate that the minimum annual salary of Bao Zheng is not less than 5 million yuan. The Qing officials Bao Zheng can still have such a salary level, and the rest of the high-ranking officials, in addition to the money and wealth of "high salaries and honesty," plus all kinds of "additional income" and the proceeds of embezzlement and bribery, can be said to be shocking in the amount of money.
Bao Zheng's incorruptibility was not built by high salaries, but entirely on the basis of an independent political personality and the noble ethics of Confucianism, and he usually had no personal letters, and even friends and relatives were cut off. Although he was of noble status, he wore the same clothes, utensils, and food he ate as when he was a common man. He once said: "Future generations of descendants who are officials and politicians, if they are corrupt and pervert the law, they must not be released to their hometowns, and they must not be buried in the family cemetery when they die." If you do not obey My will, you are not My descendants. This resolute warning against corruption reflected the difficulty of being clean and honest at that time.
The means of corruption in the Song Dynasty were more obvious, mainly including embezzlement, bribery, malpractice, and exploitation of the people.
The honesty and greed of officials are mainly determined by their different spiritual qualities and personality pursuits, rather than being "cultivated" by the number of people who are rich and widowed. In the case of the same lulu, it is often the incorruptible who are honest and the greedy who are greedy. The honest one is what I have, although it is nothing to take; the greedy one is to use his power, to see profit and forget righteousness, to abandon honesty and shame and to gain, and the devil makes God send, and the will will be greedy.
The most notable examples are in the areas of "utility money" and "occupation fields". The purpose of this system is to cultivate honesty, for which the honest people are all owned by the public, and the greedy people "serve themselves privately, and go to the rest" (Song Shi Xiang Jing Chuan). Its Jingwei is so clear! In essence, raising honesty with high salaries can only be a kind and subjective desire, and the complexity of human nature in reality is too simple, and even mistakenly believes that honesty and greed are "cultivated" by the amount of money. Lu Hou has an end, and the desire of corrupt officials and corrupt officials is a bottomless black hole, which is by no means filled by any Hou Lu, and corrupt officials and corrupt officials have no personality, so how can they "self-respect"! For the qualities that are not in the first place, can Houlu "cultivate"? At this point, high salaries and low salaries are a false proposition and are not alarmist.
In the design of the salary system with high salary and low salary, the Song Dynasty was not the only one. On the basis of salary, the Qing Dynasty Yongzheng changed into a politician who fought corruption most resolutely and thoroughly after Zhu Yuanzhang, in addition to subsidizing the lives of officials, and as we all know, the Yongzheng Emperor was the most resolute and thorough politician to fight corruption after Zhu Yuanzhang, but after the high-pressure crackdown on the huge corrupt political team, he also had to make appropriate policy adjustments. The introduction of the yanglian bank is aimed at improving the welfare of officials in order to curb their corruption.
Raising lianyin, also known as raising lian money, is the System of Feng Lu for Officials of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, which was unique to the Qing Dynasty in Chinese history.
In the first year of Yongzheng (1723), Emperor Shizong of the Qing Dynasty created this salary system, originally intending to cultivate and encourage the integrity of officials through high salaries, and to avoid corruption, so it was named "Raising Honesty". However, after the spread of land into acres and the fire consumption was returned to the public, the Qing government changed all taxes (including local taxes such as wine and vinegar taxes) to the imperial court, resulting in local financial difficulties, seemingly high salaries and low-costs, in fact, the local administrative costs were owned by the local chiefs, and the raising of incorruptible silver did not completely solve the problem of the livelihood of officials, so it aggravated corruption, and the general Beijing officials did not have fire consumption or taxes in the ruling places, and the capital expenses were large, and there was not enough silver income, relying on the local officials' ice and charcoal and other bribes. Li Ciming said in his diary: "The Beijing officials are poor and cannot survive on their own, and every time a foreign official enters the capital, they all examine the friendship of the new year and plan to climb the aid." ”
After Zeng Guofan served as a reviewer of the Hanlin Academy, the family letter mentioned: "The man's current situation is getting worse and worse, just like the continuation of the silver, and in the winter, he hopes that foreign officials will send charcoal funds, which can still be reluctantly supported this year." It will be harder to plan until next year. ”。 However, there are fat and thin points in various places that can be transferred to prosperous areas to become officials, of course, the benefits are large, which promotes the power and money trading relationship between local officials and Beijing officials, and who can be transferred to where to become officials, Beijing officials often have substantial influence.
On the other hand, raising lianyin and supporting the extravagance of officials, Zhang Jixin's expenses after being promoted from Daoist to envoy were: "Don't respect the military aircraft minister, every place is four hundred gold, Sai Heting does not receive it; two shifts of Zhang Jing, each sixteen gold, if there is a friendship, or a correspondence office fold, ranging from one hundred and eighty gold; six Shangshu, the general constitution hundred gold, the waiter, the great nine Qing fifty gold, in the second decreasing; fellow villagers, the same year and the year of good family lineage, the general social reward, sharing other respects more than fifteen thousand two" Qing Dynasty Literature Examination criticism: "The more abundant and the more tired, the heavier the burden, Knowing what is private does not know what is public.
The longitudinal double of the salary, the increase of the annual funds, how to make up for the squandering of the people, the burden of the small people", this is because "the indulgence is thick, the indulgence is followed, the reward is heeled, and the consumption is extravagant." Coupled with the financial difficulties of the late Qing Dynasty, the money and the raising of incorruptible silver were often stopped, and officials "arbitrarily invaded the fishery under the pretext of insufficient maintenance of incorruptibility." The Kangxi Emperor once said to his ministers: "The way to rule the world is based on leniency" and "the incorruptibility of the husband and official can only be discussed as great." Zhang Peng was now an official in the Qing Dynasty, and when he was an official in Yanzhou, Shandong, he was also subject to regulations. Zhang Boxing was also a Qing official, but there were many engraved books. Engraving a book is not a thousand gold, where did this come from? There is no need to investigate such places. The two Huaiyan officials sent gifts to others, but they did not know or pursue" (Records of the Holy Ancestors, vol. 245)
Whether it is the Song Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, the vision of trying to completely solve the problem of official corruption is good, but it is feasible to fight corruption and promote honesty, seek governance and rejuvenate the country, and reduce redundant provincial officials, but only relying on increasing the number of officials or issuing various subsidies cannot fundamentally solve corruption.
Judging from the relationship between the level of the Lu system and the situation of the officials in the Song Dynasty, the relative low price of The Lu lu did not necessarily lead to the prevalence of corruption, on the contrary, high salaries did not necessarily enable the maintenance of incorruptibility to stop corruption. Therefore, in the Song Dynasty, there were not only scholars and doctors who were "widowed", "indifferent to the taste of wealth and nobility", and "officials who often served outside and did not take anything", but more were corrupt state thieves who were insatiable and extravagant in addition to the double-handed GaoLilu.