Yang Jiaofeng on the Three Kingdoms No. 3:
When it comes to Liu Hong, the Ling Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the label that people can think of is often one of "Dusk Jun". He inherited the "great character" of many emperors in history, what absurd and lustful, what poor and extravagant, the key is greed for money.
It is reasonable to say that Liu Honggui, the Emperor of Han Ling, is the Son of Heaven, but he is rich in all parts of the world, and the whole world is his own, so why is he still greedy for money?
Liu Hong's greed for money is not a tyrannical expropriation, nor is it a robbery, but a "business" gained, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he was the first successful businessman in the Eastern Han Dynasty.
So what exactly is his business, and why has it been criticized for thousands of years and become a key factor in the demise of the Eastern Han Dynasty?
Yang Jiaofeng on the Three Kingdoms No. 3: Emperor Han ling: After two thousand years of wrongs, selling officials and lords is really not to satisfy selfish desires, but to have another wonderful use!
One
The Han Ling Emperor was not a Ming Emperor, there is no doubt about it, and it has long become a historical conclusion, and he has not had to wash it if he wants to:
For example, greedy for money, the treasures obtained are stored in a place called "Wanjintang", and from time to time they go to visit it; for example, they do not ride in a carriage, get a few donkeys to pull carts, and make the capital a donkey expensive; for example, they get a court dress for the dog, and call it "a good dog official"; there is also a market in the palace, let the palace women and concubines do business, dress up rich merchants, and play ultra-real family wine games...
Regarding these absurd deeds of the Han Ling Emperor, there will be a special article to ridicule later, and we will first talk about his business.
As the emperor of the Great Han dynasty is so ridiculous, the world is naturally chaotic, in fact, this is not all the fault of the Han Ling Emperor, as early as the many emperors before him, the world has been like this.
After the Han Empire entered the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, all kinds of clear rules and unspoken rules ran rampant, and those who could become officials, such as the history of the state and county thorns, Taishou, etc., basically had backers.
And this kind of patron is divided into three kinds, either foreign relatives, the little emperor is too small, the foreign relatives are in power, and officials are appointed in a big way; or after the eunuchs, the little emperor is older, and with the support of the emperor, the eunuchs will rise up, and the eunuchs' children will become officials all over the world; and then there is the famous family door, which does not need much explanation, and the children of the cold door cannot enter the career at all.
Among these officials, the children of eunuchs are the most rampant, fishing and fleshing the people, robbing people's lives, robbing men and women, and doing all kinds of evil. This group of people themselves started by relying on eunuchs, most of them did not learn any skills, even if they were illiterate, they could get a high position, and naturally oppressed the people without any psychological burden.
Two
Whether it is a foreign relative or a eunuch, they act in such a way, as an emperor, why turn a blind eye?
In the final analysis, they belong to a community of interests, whether they are foreign relatives or eunuchs, the ultimate patron is the emperor. If the emperor wants to rule the world, he needs the support of these people, especially against everyone who can challenge the imperial power.
After resisting several waves of attacks from the eunuch clique from the scholars, Liu Hong, the Emperor of HanLing, used these eunuchs to secure the throne. As the biggest moth in the Han Empire, the nature of greed for money was also revealed at this time, which in fact could not all be blamed on Liu Hong, but on his mother.
Liu Hong's old wife's surname is Dong, and when playing the Three Kingdoms game, there is a character who is Empress Dong, that is, she. Dong Shi was a hejian person, and Liu Hong's fiefdom was also here, and he was poor and afraid, so as soon as he entered the palace, the two women showed extraordinary ability to collect money.
In Kyoto Luoyang folk circulation of this nursery rhyme:
"Car shift, into the river. The female workers in the river counted the money, and used the money as the room gold as the hall, and the yellow sorghum was pitiful on the stone. There is a hanging drum under the beam, and I want to strike the beggar in anger. ”
This nursery rhyme is about how greedy Empress Dong is, just as the so-called upper liang is not right, which leads to the crookedness of the lower liang, and the righteous people in the world want to beat the drum and shout, how dare the people dare to be angry and dare not speak.
After Empress Dong entered the palace, she lived in the Yongle Palace, where the treasures piled up were as high as mountains, and even then she was not satisfied, prompting the Han Ling Emperor to make a major decision.
Earlier we also said that Cai Yong, who dared to speak out, was assigned, and there was no longer a righteous and outspoken minister in the DPRK, and the Han Ling Emperor could also collect wealth with great fanfare, and the way he could think of was to sell the official.
Three
In fact, selling the official Qijue was not the first creation of the Han Ling Emperor, but he carried forward this trick:
Before the imperial examination system came out, if people wanted to become officials, they either had to climb the ladder with the korean and Chinese officials and go directly to the green channel, such as foreign relatives, such as eunuchs. Or, through "filial piety and honesty, gather the people's hopes", start from the local level, and step by step.
This kind of selection mechanism, in the eyes of the Han Ling Emperor, was very absurd, and it was equivalent to taking the officials of the Yuan and seeking the welfare of the senior officials below. After all, whether it is recommended by the patron or what is "filial piety and honesty, gathering the people's hopes", it must involve power and money transactions, and the worst is also the sale of human feelings.
With this purpose in mind, he decided not to let these officials earn the difference, and he directly "factory direct sales" here, clearly marked the price, and the emperor personally "live-" the sale of officials.
In fact, selling officials is not a rare thing in history, and when the imperial court encounters a financial crisis, it often raises money quickly in this way. This can also be regarded as an ordinary scholar donating money and materials in order to obtain an official position.
As early as the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang collected grain from the rich families in order to alleviate the impact of the locust plague on the country and prevent the common people from starving to death. However, if it is forced, it is afraid of losing the support of these people, so it proposes the gimmick of "donating grain for knighthood" to balance the relationship.
In the Han Dynasty, this trick was also tried and tested, even during the reign of Wenjing, the Han Jing Emperor also issued a government decree that "the offender donates grain to atone for his sins". In the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, in order to make up for the consumption of money and grain caused by perennial conquests, he also exchanged his title for the grain of large households.
Four
But their titles are essentially different from those of the Han Ling Emperor:
After all, people donate grain and money, helping thousands of poor people, and they have to give a "meritorious knight", right?
In fact, by the time of the Han Heng Emperor, natural disasters were continuous, the national treasury was empty, and simply selling knighthoods was no longer cost-effective. Due to the excessive sale of titles by the imperial court, which led to the proliferation of titles and inflation, the rich and large families were not easily fooled.
After the Han Ling Emperor came to power, he began to sell officials on a large scale, although the price was too high, but the people who bought officials were still endless, and some popular official positions still needed to be trusted and walked to buy.
Of course, no one does a loss-making business, since it costs a lot of money to buy officials, then after becoming an official, you must try to earn it back, and in the end, it is definitely the common people who are bitter.
The emperor has come to sell officials, which is equivalent to explicitly admitting that official positions and power can be bought with money, and exploiting the people has become a legitimate business.
Of course, the Han Ling Emperor also had some regulations on selling officials:
For example, the price of local officials is twice as high as that of officials in the court; the prices of county officials in various places are different; even the promotion of officials must be paid according to the price.
Not only that, he also engaged in auction-like activities, such as bidding for some popular official positions, and only those who bid high could win the bid.
The consequence of this was that the rules and regulations of the Han Dynasty were destroyed, resulting in serious consequences. Some rich people who do not learn and have no skills are even more popular, and some who sincerely understand the people's feelings and want to do things for the people are also frightened to retreat when they see this high official price.
Five
Then, as an emperor, No matter how absurd and unscrupulous Emperor Han Ling was, he could not do such a thing of self-destruction and self-destruction of the people.
The Han Ling Emperor was faint, short-sighted, and stupid, which needless to say, but as the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were several adult emperors. He is also the emperor who completely controls the government of the dynasty, and he must have some reason to do this, is it really because there is not enough money to spend?
As we said earlier, the performance of Liu Hong, the Emperor of Hanling, in the palace was indeed absurd, and the crotch pants, the dog officials, the donkey cart, and the market were all absurd manifestations. And these things do require a lot of money support, plus his wife loves money so much, naturally find ways to raise money.
But in fact, all the money from selling officials did not go into the pockets of the Han Ling Emperor himself, but had another wonderful use:
At the beginning of the sale of officials, the Han Ling Emperor set up a complete system of selling officials, and also set up an account to manage this money. As for where this money was used, the historical records do not record in detail, and people take it for granted that this money was wasted by the Han Ling Emperor and satisfied his selfish desires.
But in addition to part of it being spent on the palace, more money was actually used by the Han Ling Emperor to do what he wanted to do.
After the Han Ling Emperor ascended the throne, he was a small emperor, and he was also accustomed to the struggle between foreign relatives and eunuchs, and he was also secretly plotting in order to completely regain the imperial power. As mentioned above, there is a hen turning into a rooster in the institution of Shizhong Temple, in fact, Shizhong Temple is a small department set up by the Han Ling Emperor, which belongs to its own direct subordinate team, which can bypass external officials and eunuchs to directly handle political affairs.
He also established a "three-reciprocal law" system of recusal of officials, which was used to prevent people with family ties from becoming officials in the other state and county.
Six
In addition, one of the biggest moves of the Han Ling Emperor was actually the founding of the "Hongdu Gate Study":
The school was the earliest junior college in China and did not teach Confucian classics, which was a feat in its time.
This school enrolled a large number of civilians, changing the previous monopoly of nobles and landlords, so that the commoners also had the opportunity to display their talents, and even the Sui Dynasty established the imperial examination system, which was also a reference to this "Hongdu Gate Study".
The reason why the Han Ling Emperor founded this school and let the students who graduated from this school become officials was to establish a team of Tianzi protégés to control the world.
Running a school naturally requires a lot of financial support, and this school is still a cold child, and the cost can be imagined how huge. The policy of selling officials was promulgated in the same year as the establishment of the "Hongdu Gate School", and it is very likely that the Han Ling Emperor took the money from the sale of officials and used it to run a school.
Moreover, the officials he sold would still find a way to take them back, and many of the official positions he bought did not last long before the Han Ling Emperor found a reason to kill them. For example, Cao Song, that is, Cao Cao's father, spent a lot of money to buy a lieutenant at that time, and worked for seven months with full calculations.
It can be seen from this that the Han Ling Emperor enriched his money bags on the one hand by selling officials, and on the other hand, he also took this opportunity to purge the ranks of officials, and finally through this money, he established a team loyal to himself.
The idea of the Han Ling Emperor was to "break the old" and then "establish the new", first "mess up" and then "govern", so as to achieve the purpose of putting it to death and reborn later.
Unfortunately, the ideal is very full, the reality is very bone, the strategy of the Han Ling Emperor is theoretically feasible, but unfortunately the resistance faced is quite large.
Because soon, the Yellow Turban Rebellion began... We'll talk about that next time!
Yang Jiaofeng talked about the Three Kingdoms series of articles, wonderful and interesting, although the story of the Three Kingdoms you tell me to tell everyone, everyone is familiar with it. Don't seek to compete with celebrities, just re-tell this history in your own language, it is also a different time travel, like please pay attention to it!