In the forty-sixth year of Qianlong, a peasant uprising was launched in Gansu. Dissatisfied with the Qing government's ethnic discrimination and oppression, local peasants organized a rebellion and marched on Lanzhou. Qianlong sent officers and soldiers from the three surrounding areas to suppress it, but due to insufficient military expenses and salaries, he was unable to attack.
At this moment, the local envoy Wang Ting was courteous and generous, and took the initiative to find the Qianlong Emperor, saying that he was willing to donate the 40,000 taels of cheap silver accumulated over the years to the imperial court to pay the soldiers.
There are two wonders here, and these two wonders are closely related to the corrupt officialdom of the Qianlong period.
Poor and rich Gansu
It stands to reason that Qianlong was prosperous, so why worry about soldiers' salaries, but soldiers' salaries are lacking, and second, Gansu has been a barren land since ancient times, and before the imperial court also frequently allocated funds for disaster relief, how can local officials hand over 40,000 taels of silver, even if he spends nothing over the years, he will not be able to make up half of it.
However, in the current chaos, it was important to hold Lanzhou, and Qianlong remained quiet, suppressing the rebellion while beginning a close visit to Wang Tingzan.
Unexpectedly, this investigation led to a shocking case, the Lanzhou officialdom earthquake, and even the vine finally found the side of the Son of Heaven.
The rebellion was suppressed, and Wang Tingzan's fortune was also clarified. It turned out that the Qing Dynasty once practiced "donating prisons" in Gansu, which was essentially buying officials, but paying grain according to the prescribed amount in exchange for the academic qualifications of a Guozi prisoner.
These grains are used to relieve local people in the event of disasters, and they are also taken for civilian use. This system was temporary and has long since ceased to exist.
After Wang Tingzan's uncle Wang Qiwang served as a local envoy, he asked Qianlong to reopen the policy of "donating prisons" on the grounds that there was a shortage of granaries, but in fact he received not grain, but silver.
The silver of the white flowers did not enter the granary, but all went into the pockets of Wang Qiwang and officials at all levels.
Not only that, but he also deceived the official silver of the imperial court, wooed local officials, lied about the disaster from time to time, suffered drought every year, and fraudulently received the disaster relief silver issued by the imperial court, which was the "Gansu False Relief Case" that alarmed the entire Qing Dynasty.
What made Qianlong even more embarrassed was that he was also promoted to governor of Zhejiang as a superintendent of grain by Wang Qiwang, and his nephew Wang Ting approved of continuing to pay for the sake of the local governor of Gansu. In the process of suppressing the rebellion in Gansu, the officers and soldiers reported that it was rainy all the way and it was difficult to march, which exposed that the uncle and nephew cried about the drought all year round and were false.
When the money of corrupt personnel was later investigated, the amount was staggering. Readers openly express that the purpose of being an official is to make money. Not only petty officials are corrupt, but also high-ranking officials of the imperial court cannot be upright. For example, Qianlong's red people and jun also accepted bribes in the Gansu case, and after he was executed by Jiaqing, the family property was found to have 900 million taels of silver.
Just one Gansu fraud case provides a glimpse of the Qing court's entrenched officialdom. The official could naturally take out his greedy silver for the emperor, and he had already normalized corruption in his mind. Such officials abound in the middle and late Manchu dynasties.
Although the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty was ruthless to put an end to corruption, the reality was deeply ingrained and could not be changed. Officials protect each other, corruption is a matter that officials of all ranks are accustomed to, even the people believe that no bribery can not be done, the Qing government in the later period of decline, the main reason is that corruption has emptied the national treasury and is unable to develop the military.
The cost of the war was not spared
When it comes to the corruption of Qing Dynasty officialdom, we have to talk about Qianlong's outstanding military merits.
Qianlong claimed to be a perfect old man, which ten perfection is it, which is the ten perfection, which has to talk about his military merits.
During his reign, Qianlong had ten great victories, including two battles in Qingzhun, one in the Great and Small Jinchuan, two in the suppression of Taiwan's Lin Shuangwen uprising, one in the Qing-Burma War, one in the Battle of Annan, and two battles in the Gorkha campaign, a total of ten victories.
Let's talk about the famous Battle of the Great and Small Kanagawa River. Originally, it was the Qianlong Emperor who promulgated the policy of "transforming the land and returning to the river" to replace the Tusi system, which was originally intended to benefit the people of Yunnan and Guizhou, and it was implemented smoothly in Yunnan and Guizhou, and this encountered hard bones in Tibet.
There was civil strife between the big and small Jinchuan in Tibet, and the Qianlong Emperor sent troops to pacify it, and this war, which began in 1747 and ended in 1776, lasted for 29 years, cost a total of 90 million silver and killed more than 30,000 people. The situation was stabilized and the national unity was maintained, but the sacrifices of money and military resources were enormous.
Two Dzungars and one Dzungar: In 1755, Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty ordered Amursana to lead 50,000 soldiers to attack Dzungar, and the people of the Ili region had long been dissatisfied with the brutal rule of Dzungar and very supportive of the Qing army to suppress the rebellion, so the Qing army encountered no obstruction along the way.
However, Amursana only pretended to be sincere to the Qing court, and he actually used the hands of the Qing soldiers to eliminate his mortal opponent on the steppe, wanted to be the chief khan of the four departments, did not return to the Qing court, and defeated the Qing army that came to suppress it.
So the Qing court launched a second expedition to Ili, and the internal strife of the Dzungar department and the plague led to no human resistance, and the Qing army gained control of the area without much effort. The Qing army reached Kashgar in 1759 and put down the rebellion of Amursana's supporters, Dao and Zhuo.
These three battles eliminated the invasion of the frontier by the Dzungars since the Kangxi Dynasty, ended the long-term fragmentation of the northwest, and cost a total of more than 33 million taels of silver.
The Battle of Qing-Burma was a self-defensive counterattack by the Qing court, and the Burmese army invaded Yunnan, China in 1762, and 50,000 Qing soldiers sent out to fight against the enemy. There is a huge disparity in the strength of weapons between the two sides. Burma actually used flintlock guns, they introduced French shipborne guns and land artillery, and even hired a large number of Portuguese and French mercenaries! This advanced Western-style weapon and combat method made it very difficult for the Qing army to fight.
Even if the battle is won in the end, it is a narrow victory, the Qing army spent 10 million taels of silver on military expenses, and far more people died of illness than in battle.
In 1786, Taiwanese Lin Shuangwen became the leader of the Heaven and Earth Society and launched an anti-Qing uprising. In the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the officialdom was dark and corrupt, and the feudal oppressive rule intensified class contradictions, Lin Shuangwen raised troops to kill many Qing officials, and the Qing Dynasty's management of Taiwan fell into crisis. The Qing government sent troops to suppress bandits and quell the rebellion, spending more than 8 million silver.
Attack on Annam: Caused by a power struggle within Vietnam, Annam Nguyen Van Huy overthrew the rule of the Le Dynasty. The old dynasty of Annan asked the suzerainty, the Qing dynasty, for help. The Qing Dynasty was the suzerainty of the tributary system, and he had the responsibility and obligation to maintain the stability of the vassal state.
As a result of this obligatory war, Nguyen Van Huy's army fled in defeat, and the original king was renamed King of Annam by the Qing dynasty. To cross the border to fight, it is obviously indispensable to spend millions of taels of silver.
Battle of Gurkha: This was the Qing government's war against Nepal's attack on Tibet. The Gurkhas, the ruling tribes of Nepal, attacked Tibet on the grounds of border trade conflicts.
Before the Qing soldiers cleared the land, local officials reached an agreement with the Gurkhas to redeem the land, and the army stopped. It can be seen that local officials are unreliable in their work, and things involving national honor are rashly used to deceive the rulers of Nepal.
Sure enough, the other party later asked for money but could not, and used this reason to attack Tibet again, and Qianlong became furious when he learned about the incident, and sent Fu Kang'an and Hailancha to lead the army. Here Fukang An performed the most incredible feat in history, he not only forced back the enemy soldiers, but also led his troops over the Himalayas and arrived in Kathmandu!
Frightened, the Gurkhas hastily surrendered, promising never to invade. Fu Kang'an drafted a charter to rectify the governance of Tibet, and the following year Nepal also became a vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, and Tibet was peaceful.
This war was fought necessarily, and the cost of silver taels was also enormous.
The Qianlong Emperor's ten complete martial arts operations cost 160 million taels of silver! A grand and protracted war is ahead, so at the beginning of the article, it is not surprising that the Gansu Ping rebels did not pay enough.
Although the above wars are necessary, compared with the early Qing period, they are not economical in terms of use.
War and corruption caused the collapse of the treasury
During the Qianlong period, all expenses were exaggerated, and Qianlong had to be mentioned.
As we all know, Qianlong himself was poor and extravagant. He loves to enjoy, pays attention to life, eats and dresses extravagantly, and has a lot of pomp and circumstance, for example, he has held four thousand banquets, in addition to buying meals, but also to give the old man a variety of luxurious rewards, each time it costs a lot. The last time he spent at least a million taels of silver.
His father, Yongzheng, lived a simple and frugal life, and when he arrived in Qianlong, although the country was prosperous, he spent money like flowing water. Only the aesthetic difference between Yongzheng and Qianlong in porcelain can be seen that Qianlong likes the style of bright and exquisite patterns, in fact, such porcelain is very laborious and financial, and in order to cater to the emperor's preferences, craftsmen only study and manufacture such expensive and expensive exquisite official kiln products.
And Qianlong has traveled to Jiangnan six times, went to Chengde Mountain Resort more than 50 times, and Taishan Songshan and Wutaishan have his footprints of several visits. And every time it's a luxury tour.
Not to mention his passion and attention to building palaces. More than forty palaces were built for him all over the country, and they were all of high specification.
There were more than 50 million taels of silver spent on tourism and palace construction. The famous Old Summer Palace was built by Qianlong on the basis of Kangxi's construction and renovation, such as the Great Water Law and the Great Theater are the large landscapes he ordered to build. One transformation took four years and cost more than two million taels of silver.
Qianlong took the lead in extravagance and waste, paying attention to the use of food and clothing, and the entire dynasty was also unrestrained, wantonly collecting money and wealth, and corruption was rife.
On the one hand, several wars were fought, on the other hand, extravagance, on the other hand, official corruption was rampant, resulting in the gradual decline of treasury silver in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, but the West was vigorously carrying out the industrial revolution at this time, which was in sharp contrast to the empty and lazy Qing Dynasty.
There are also reasons why the money wasted by Qianlong and the officialdom was not used to introduce muskets and artillery ships, to bring in talented people to carry out scientific education, and the empty treasury in the late Qing Dynasty, and the inability to build Dingyuan ships.