When the term "selling officials and lords" is mentioned, it must definitely be linked to corruption. Generally speaking, in the court, only greedy dog corrupt officials will be blinded by lard and use their extreme ideas to make money, so they rely on their own power and status, use official positions as chips, and sell back and forth.
If "selling officials and lords" becomes the norm, then from Kyoto to Shikata Prefectures, there will be such a scene: whoever gives more silver will be the biggest official. In other words, the richer the person, the richer he will be.
It should be known that in ancient times, those who could become officials were all selected through the talent selection system, and those who were literate came to be civilian officials, and those who were talented to be military generals, and when they were turned upside down, they would all turn the sky upside down. Not to mention the "outbreak households" whose wallets are bulging and only have silver.
However, in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was such a "strange" emperor, who put "selling officials and knights" on a new stage, that is, openly selling officials.
Probably because his brain was hot and on a whim, Liu Hong, the Emperor of Han Ling, suddenly came up with this trick. First, a system of "selling officials" was set up in the court, and then according to the differences in power and status, each official position was "clearly marked with a price."
Therefore, later, there was such a "law of trading": take the official position of four hundred stones and the price is four million; take the official position of two thousand stones and sell for twenty million... And so on. It is estimated that the people will also sigh when they see it: good guys! This emperor with a less brilliant head seems to be quite "economically minded"!
Presumably, he did not expect at all that who could afford these official positions? In any case, it can't be ordinary people who are hungry and cold, sleeping on the streets.
With the continuous improvement and development of the "system of selling officials", Liu Hong, the Emperor of Hanling, thought of a "new method" - the big guys did not have so much money to buy officials, in addition to such a hammer transaction, you can also add some other forms. Why not let them pay a part of the money first, and then become an official?
As soon as the idea is finalized, it is ready to be implemented. Therefore, under the rule of the Han Ling Emperor, the open "official selling system" was not only paid in full, but also a part of the "down payment" was paid first--for example, some local officials, if they wanted to take office, had to first pay half of the "official purchase fee" to the imperial court. Not that much money? Pay enough for one-third.
We all know that for different regions, the level of economic development is different, so this also determines that there is also a certain gap between the local price and income level. For this point, the very "economically minded" Han Ling Emperor also thought of it early on, so he set up a "floating range" in the price of official positions in different regions according to this difference.
That is to say, in different regions, even if it is the same level of official positions, the price can fluctuate with the level of local economic development. In the more affluent land, the official position of a county order is obviously "much more expensive" than the county order within the scope of poor land.
What's even funnier is that the above mentioned are all the open prices of the open trading market, as well as the opaque prices behind the scenes. The latter is somewhat similar to using a "coupon" and can even be discounted by a 25% discount.
For example, because "the moon is first obtained near the water tower", people close to the emperor, such as relatively well-respected nurses, eunuchs and other people, or foreign relatives who have a good relationship with the emperor, they can rely on the identity of "related households" to get more preferential prices.
Under the vigorous "advocacy" of the Han Ling Emperor, the industry of "buying and selling official positions" that he single-handedly founded developed in full swing and broke through. It is estimated that while counting money in his own small treasury, the Han Ling Emperor praised himself for being so clever, a book of profits, and a steady stream of money into his own pocket!
It is worth mentioning that it would be naïve not to think that all this rolling income had become a fiscal revenue and filled the treasury; all this money went into his private coffers, and in order to have a place to place the money, he also built a vault in the back garden.
Buying and selling official positions is becoming more and more rampant, so what is the impact?
This has directly led to more and more people flocking to the matter of "buying officials". No one wants to study hard in the cold window anymore, no one wants to work hard to learn martial arts and train soldiers, and everyone wants to make up enough to "buy official fees" and then buy an official and a half-job. Even the penniless homeless people on the street will think like this: It doesn't matter if you don't have money on you, first find a way to borrow some, steal some, and kidnap some, and then become an official and then go to "exploitation" and "looting".
For those qing officials who still want to seek the welfare of the people, there is no room for them. Originally, under their rule, the land on one side was peaceful and peaceful and rich, and suddenly a new "official lord" who spent money to buy officials took office, and this latecomer was approved by the emperor and officially stamped.
The newly appointed "officials and elders" began to exploit the common people in turn, and the clean officials who were squeezed out could only be reduced to unemployed ordinary people because they had no money to buy officials and do them. So for a while, the people at the bottom were even more bitter.
In fact, there is a principle in economics, called "bad money drives out good money", which is almost exactly the same as this principle.
Under the rule of absurdity and strangeness, there will be chaos in the ruling situation. The Han Dynasty was heading for its demise, and this pile of piles accumulated one by one, all of which played a role in fueling the waves.
Author: Our team has a falling moon
Reference: "Three Kingdoms Without Righteousness"