When the Yongzheng Dynasty established Yanglian in the early years, it was not regarded as a static amount. During the first decade of reform, there were numerous examples of increases and occasional decreases in integrity to meet the needs of officials.
Sometimes it is to increase the integrity of all officials in the province. In other periods, it was agreed to increase the maintenance of individual officials, arguing that it would cost more than it had set when the province began to implement the reform of the fire and burn to the public.
Initially, the increase in integrity was often considered and implemented by the provincial officials themselves. However, after 1731, at the instigation of Hubu, the change in the number of pensions had to be approved by the emperor.
First, changes in the distribution of maintenance and integrity
The most obvious examples of increased integrity nationwide occur in Fujian and Henan. Initially, Fujian set a much lower level of support than the equivalent positions in other provinces in central China.
This is the result of both the low fire rate imposed by the province and the excessive use of the province's funds for management and military defense. The emperor was extremely concerned about the insufficient distribution of Fujian to maintain Lian, and ordered that Miyata and miscellaneous tax surpluses be compensated for the shortage of provincial funds.
Fujian Yanglian still needs more than 40,000 taels to meet the actual needs of local officials. When the surplus income from the reward could not meet all the expenses of maintaining the integrity and public expenses, the superior agreed to allocate an additional 20,000 taels from the regular income to supplement the Fujian Domain.
The reasons for the growth of Henan Yanglian are the opposite of those in Fujian. The surplus of the domain is increasing, reflecting the success of the reform in Henan.
In 1728, in response to this increasing income, Yongzheng ordered Tian Wenjing to try to spend more income for the benefit of the people and the government.
In this regard, Tian Wenjing suggested that the maintenance of grassroots officials be increased. Tian Wenjing believes that it is enough to allocate 3,000 taels to each Taoist every year. However, he did request an increase of 400 taels for the prefecture officials and 300 taels for the prefecture of Zhizhou.
After the promotion, the maintenance of the lian is: 1800 taels in direct prefectures, 1400 taels in large prefectures and counties, 1200 taels in medium prefectures and counties, and 1000 taels in small prefectures and counties. There are also many examples of increased integrity for individual official positions. This is usually made by the governor or the envoy.
In the fifth year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1727), Li Wei requested that Zhejiang's academic administration be raised from 1,000 taels to 2,500 taels. In the ninth year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1731), Xie Min, the governor of Jiangxi, proposed that several border counties and small counties with a large number of "shantymen" should be classified as medium and large counties, and their maintenance and honesty should be improved accordingly.
Such a change was made in recognition of the difficulties posed by controlling border areas and preventing civilians from migrating to neighbouring provinces to avoid paying taxes. Jiangxi Liangyi Erdao was initially only responsible for Cao, Yi and salt affairs.
However, during the Yongzheng period, each Taoist inspected the three prefectures and was responsible for all criminal cases in their prefectures and counties, and as a result, they had to increase the interrogation fee in order to hire additional officials who were good at local administration and criminal cases, so there was a request to improve their integrity.
Changes in bad rules have also led to adjustments in the distribution of maintenance and corruption. When the reforms were first implemented, the Governor of Rivers received donations from salt merchants, which formed a major part of his integrity.
When these donations were cancelled, the governor of the river was left with only a small number of merchants' donations and surplus silver from the river treasury, totaling about 5,000 taels.
This is not enough to pay for inspection of construction sites, subsidize patrols, reward soldiers for tenders, hire private guests, etc. Therefore, it is requested that the integrity of this official position be improved.
The elimination of the various fees for financing river management and their replacement with increased maintenance banks also reflect the gradual development of local administration towards greater financial rationalization.
Officials often request additional integrity for their positions. In the sixth year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1728), Xu Ding, the Hubei governor, complained that the approximately 11,600 taels he received and administrative expenses were too small, and that sending books and numerous personal attendants and entourage to the Hubu was staffed to the province's highest financial office, all of which required huge expenses.
Xu Ding claimed that because the provincial budget was inadequate, he was forced to rely on his father's help to cover Yamen's expenses. This situation did not exist in the fiscal system before the reform.
Moreover, in the past, the emperor's usual reaction to requests such as Xu Ding was to exhort him to be more frugal in his private life and official duties. Xu Ding's own concern about such a response proved superfluous, and this confirmed the transformation of the concept of fiscal responsibility after the change.
Yongzheng did not punish Xu for excessive spending, and praised programs to improve his integrity, stating that the dynasty never had such a policy of requiring officials' families to support him in the performance of his duties.
By the end of the Yongzheng dynasty, officials sometimes actively fought for their right to be well nourished. Huang Tinggui, the governor of Sichuan, made a request to increase the maintenance of lian, and the emperor made the discussion of this public to the imperial court, and Huang Tinggui was extremely angry at this treatment.
Huang Tinggui said that the governor of Sichuan only had 6,000 taels of maintenance and requested an increase of 4,000 taels. Through Tingzhi, he received a reply from university scholars Zhang Tingyu and Jiang Tingxi.
Among them, the emperor's edict said that 6,000 taels was indeed not enough. However , because Ng Tinggui was also the Governor , the Emperor ordered the university members to investigate whether Ng Tinggui could be supported by the second official position, and expressed displeasure that he had not mentioned this additional maintenance in the compromise.
Huang Tinggui refuted this, insisting that he was not trying to take advantage of his personal position, pointing out that the post of governor did not provide for corruption, and only paid about 2,800 taels a year for salaries and salaries.
Huang Tinggui said that he had already been short of funds, and was forced to transfer funds and borrow 1,000 taels of silver from the governor, which has not yet been returned. Moreover, his funds as governor had already paid for the Battle of Liangshan twice, which were used to reward soldiers and hire labor.
Finally, Ng Teng Kwai complained that although the duties of the governor were extremely heavy, the governor and the envoy raised 19,000 taels and 10,000 taels a year.
At the end of the play, he doubled the original number and requested 20,000 taels per year as the governor's support. This was approved by the emperor, who wrote a simple "view" character on the fold.
Generally speaking, the emperor gave the decision on the amount of money to the provincial officials. But he did intervene, most often when a position was first established.
In this case, the emperor acted as an advocate of the maintenance of officials to ensure that the determined maintenance of honesty could fully meet the needs of officials. For example, when discussing with the governors of Anhui, Jiangsu and Jiangxi to provide support for the governors of Liangjiang, they suggested that the three provinces donate a total of 14,000 taels. Yongzheng felt that this was not enough and suggested that 20,000 taels would be more appropriate.
The emperor's intervention also played a role in ensuring that the governor of Hunan was sufficiently nourished. When the envoy Zhu Gang suggested that the governor should be subsidized by 1,000 taels per quarter, then it would be 4,000 taels a year, and the emperor replied:
How to apply a thousand gold to the inspector? The former, Brantai sold Yijia assets for use. It is not an edict. It is reasonable to wait for the maintenance of integrity and the discretion of the successor.
It seems that this kind of honesty is acceptable, and there is no reason to make the members of the feudal province do it. Hunan Bu political envoy for several years, you naturally know... Be impartial.
Very few officials have requested a reduction in integrity. In the eleventh year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1733), the governor of Shanxi claimed that the new acting inspector had only spent 7,000 taels of his annual 10,000 taels. He therefore requested that the remaining 3,000 taels be returned to the domain.
However, this is a reduction in personal maintenance and may not mean that all future maintenance quotas in the province will be adjusted.
The only example of a downward adjustment that had an institutional impact was Tian Wenjing's refusal to accept additional maintenance when he was promoted from governor of Henan to governor of Shandong, Henan.
However, this position was created exclusively for Tian Wenjing and was abolished shortly after his death.
2. Expand the scope of maintaining integrity
We have seen that neglected governors and governors in several provinces are quickly compensated. In many provinces, it takes several years to provide integrity for academic administration.
This is because they often have an informal income that is considered legitimate and a substitute for maintenance. In general, these funds are related to the imperial examination.
In Shaanxi, for example, Xuezheng went to a region to hold the primary imperial examination, and the prefecture and county where the scholar was located provided with goods. These items are called test shed supplies, but in fact they are additional levies on the local population.
In Hubei, Xuezheng sells books to students for a fee. Each set will charge two or three taels, and make an annual profit of 6,000 taels. These funds were widely recognized by the admissions that in the fifth year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1727), when Yang Erde, the governor of Guangdong, requested an increase in his maintenance quota, the governor did not agree with this opinion, arguing that the government should be funded by the prefecture and county where he presided over the examination.
The emperor referred the issue to the provinces to decide whether or not to agree to the government. In general, he thinks that four or five thousand taels a year is more appropriate.
And Yongzheng hopes that providing them with integrity will motivate them to perform their duties more diligently. The emperor did not suspend donations to these officials, nor did he insist on providing support for the government throughout the country, probably because he feared that some officials would continue to be charged for conducting examinations.
Because the fee is paid directly by those who take the expedition, it is not something that can be simply stopped by official consent, and there is no guarantee that such a widely accepted practice can be eliminated by a single decree.
Despite the emperor's lack of guidance on this matter, eventually, thanks to the efforts of several provinces that had previously relied on informal funding, the establishment of academic governance and maintenance of integrity was also integrated into the mainstream of reform.
When the fire was first reformed, only civil servants at and above the state and county levels were established. Those officials who were close to the people, including prefecture and county officials and a large number of officials related to Yamen administrative affairs, such as economic officials, prison officials, various academic and teaching posts, and other eight- and ninth-grade, miscellaneous officials who were not in the stream, were not included in the new funding system.
There are two reasons for this neglect. First, officials below state and county officials are not considered to be the main part of the bureaucracy. These positions are often filled by those who fail to pass the highest level examinations or are obtained through donations.
Except in rare cases, they were not qualified to rise to higher positions, and despite being officials, their status was regarded by the rest of the bureaucracy as not far from the scribes and servants under them.
Moreover, they do not have the full-fledged Yamen found in the upper echelons of bureaucrats, nor do they need the extensive history of high-level officials. The economic constraints of the provinces are also the reasons for their exclusion from the list of pensioners.
In the first years of the reform, there was concern that the revenues from the fire consumption would not be sufficient to cover all the administrative expenses of the province. The inclusion of these grassroots officials in the integrity circle is probably considered to be an excessive burden on provincial resources.
The Yongzheng Emperor's reaction to the first budget for the inclusion of micro-staff in the budget also confirmed this view. Henan governor Tian Wenjing first proposed at the beginning of the third year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1725) to provide support for grassroots officials.
He pointed out that the duties of these officials are very important and that they are constantly dispatched on official duty. However, their material rewards are pitiful, their grades are low, and they have little incentive to comply with the rules and regulations.
Tian Wenjing, who himself had been promoted from the county magistrate, believed that some people in this position were extremely talented, and he proposed that if the emperor provided them with support, they would naturally be more conscientious in performing their duties.
The Yongzheng Emperor was not as confident as Tian Wenjing was of the efficacy of the policy. Although once again stressing that all such decisions rested with the governor and governor, Yongzheng accepted the prevailing view that not many of these low-level officials were truly superior.
Under the newly enacted Grant Decree, few people have the opportunity to rise to higher positions. The Yongzheng Emperor did not agree to add maintenance to these subordinates, and he thought that it would be better to increase the maintenance of prefecture and county officials so that they could improve the general administrative level of prefectures and counties.
However, Yongzheng's genuine concern is reflected in the last few lines of Zhu Ping: The Commentary is a little closer, and it is necessary to take the edict as the right, and then to stop it.
If this is not a matter of stopping at Yu Province, if he encounters the envy of other provinces, what will benefit from it? I also have to think about it.
By the beginning of the sixth year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1726), signs of success were evident, and the provinces had probably found sufficient funds to expand their budget to include all officials.
At the beginning of the year, Tian Wenjing once again proposed to provide grassroots officials with clean government. The real intention of this motion is to eliminate corruption at the bottom of the bureaucracy, which is clear from Tian Wenjing's concession: officials who are not directly close to the people need not consider the issue of maintaining integrity.
However, some officials, such as the prefecture of the prefectures, the prefectures, the magistrates, and the magistrates of the counties, the role of supervising and investigating local affairs, make them closely linked to the daily lives of the people, and should be given 80 to 120 taels of integrity.
This time, the emperor felt that Tian Wenjing's proposal was fair and moderate, so he informed him that it could be implemented. Although palace officials already had a maintenance of corruption, they continued to accept bad rules, and this concern prompted the expansion of the new reform of providing maintenance to micro-staff to provinces outside Henan.
In mid-1728, Tian Wenjing was promoted to the post of governor of Hedong. One of the first steps he took in office was to expose Shandong's continued practice of accepting bad rules as a way to raise funds.
Tian Wenjing's report prompted the emperor to issue an edict to distribute the maintenance of corruption to all officials in the province as the most effective means of permanently eliminating these corrupt and irregular financial transactions.
In his edict in August of the sixth year of the Yongzheng Dynasty, the emperor admitted that some officials continued to collect bad rules despite the fact that they had been honest, which was distressing.
Yongzheng ordered the governors of the provinces to investigate their subordinates one by one and report the situation. The emperor still believed that to solve this problem, it was necessary to ensure that every official had sufficient integrity.
Therefore, he also ordered the superintendent to find out whether there were any subordinates who had not yet been able to maintain integrity, and to provide them with integrity. At the same time, Yongzheng openly agreed to release all the fire consumption to the envoys and carry out an open redistribution from the domain.
Hunan was one of the first provinces to respond. The edict urged Hunan to change part of the fire consumption to a full solution according to the Shanxi-Henan model.
Hunan officials also used the opportunity to measure the integrity of all micro-workers in the province. According to the principles formulated by Tian Wenjing, only those officials who have direct contact with the people or who often go out on official business are established to maintain integrity.
These people included the envoys and envoys of the Yamen, Teruma, Ambassador Ku, the Prison Commander, the History, the Experience, and miscellaneous officials of the prefecture and county.
Hunan's fire consumption income is not as much as Henan's, so Hunan's maintenance is low. Nevertheless, the province was able to supplement these extrabudgetary expenditures, using the 8,000 taels of salt gauge previously given to the grain routes and now committed.
Not every province followed the emperor's edict so quickly. In many cases, either the existing allowance is increased or funding is provided only to high-level provincial officials who were not previously included in the provincial budget.
It was in the handling of such cases that Prince Cha and Hube came into play and could eventually lead to greater authority over the issue of integrity.
For example, in the seventh year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1729), Yang Kun, the governor directly under him, reported to the emperor the discussion on providing the province with sufficient and fair maintenance for every official.
Prince Yi and Hubu considered the amount discussed appropriate, and suggested that the emperor order Yang Kun to distribute the maintenance according to this and report the original books to the Hubu.
Although this program provides maintenance to prefectures and prefectures directly under the prefecture and prefectures, it does not consider providing incorruptibility to county officials and below.
Considering that after allocating about 220,000 taels of maintenance, there are still nearly 80,000 taels of silver deposited in the direct domain, the Hubu proposes to provide the remaining micro-staff with maintenance and honesty every year, ranging from tens of taels to 100 taels.
Seeing Hubu's opinion, the emperor immediately ordered Yang Kun to reconsider the issue of maintaining the integrity of the micro-staff. Yang Kun consulted with the envoys and reported to the emperor a yellow book, listing the possible maintenance of dissenting officials.
Surprisingly, the emperor reacted that the amount of maintenance was high, and he feared that this would cause the loss of the province's resources. Yongzheng once again cited Henan's financial management under Tian Wenjing as a model and told Yang Kun that he would secretly investigate the money paid by these officials in the province.
At the same time, Yang Kun was replaced by the left capital Shi Tang Zhiyu. Tang Zhiyu once again submitted the reduced plan for maintaining corruption, and the micro-staff used more than 8,600 taels of silver every year, and the province's surplus of public funds still exceeded 3,000 taels.
These new amounts were reported to the emperor in the form of a yellow book, and at the same time to the household ministry in the form of an inventory, which revealed the increasingly important role of the household ministry in the issue of maintaining integrity.
Micro-staff integrity is a new concept that has taken many provinces years to implement. Occasionally, the implementation is delayed due to disputes over the amount of maintenance. In Guangdong, those in power have embraced the idea of providing these officials with integrity, but differing views on the role of salaries have led to disagreements in determining the amount of maintenance.
Both the governor and the acting governor saw these additions as symbolic rewards, in the same way that the emperor paid officials with money.
Therefore, they proposed that each official be funded only from the fire, in the same amount as their money, so that they would receive double their salary.
The envoy disagreed with this approach, pointing out that the purpose of maintaining integrity was not only to cover the personal expenses of officials, but also to meet the expenses of the administration of the government and the official expenses outside the Yamen.
If a program of supervision is implemented, officials can only feed their families and nothing more. The emperor left the decision to the provincial authorities, who finally agreed with the envoys.
As a result, the maintenance of micro-staff was set at 60 taels to 80 taels, a decision that increased the already tight budget of Guangdong Province by 17,520 taels.
The funds for the new maintenance of the integrity were paid out of the surplus of the tax deed in Guangdong. Given the number of personnel involved, it is not surprising that senior officials are hesitant to allocate significant amounts of money to support the integrity of micro-staff.
In Guangdong alone, there are 225 officials who have been added to maintain integrity. The largest numbers were canonical history (78 people) and patrol inspectors (126 people). This latter figure is particularly significant because it shows that, at least in some counties, there is not only one subordinate officer, but at least one inspector below him, indicating that county administration is more pro-people than generally accepted.
By providing such officials with adequate administrative funding, it is clear that the Government is taking important steps to eliminate illegal additions and extortion.
As provincial officials seek funding to support micro-workers, controlling and eliminating corruption at the lowest levels of administration seems to be their most important idea.
When the plan was reported to the emperor, the issues expressed by the governor of Jiangnan and the governor of Anhui were of common concern. Anhui initially did not provide maintenance for micro-workers because the Domain's fire consumption was insufficient.
Because these miscellaneous officials are unable to pay their administrative expenses, it is well known that they take advantage of the people's words. In the tenth year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1732), it was found that about 30,000 taels of salt gauges in Anhui were sent to Yamen of all levels.
With the consent of the cabinet and the emperor, the governors Gao Qizhuo and Li Wei decided to transfer these funds to the public and use them for public expenditure in the province. As a result, they were able to allocate 50 taels to each of the 163 closest micro-workers, hoping to eliminate the illegal means they used to finance local administration.
In fact, it is precisely the absorption of the previous bad rules and commercial and tariff surplus revenue that expands the scope of maintenance and makes it possible to return fire to the public.