Why was Qianlong's anti-corruption campaign unsuccessful?

Why did the trend of bribery appear in the Qianlong era, when the punishment of corruption was the most severe, and it was difficult to curb it even if it was punished harshly? Why was the first great corruption in ancient China cultivated precisely under Qianlong's nose? Political corruption was very responsible, while Qianlong bore even greater responsibility, but in the final analysis, it was the autocratic political system that was not supervised and restrained at the peak of imperial power that went wrong, and the degeneration of Qianlong's personal morality was nothing but a concentrated reflection of the fundamental defects of the autocratic system.

One

　　Qianlong had a sober understanding of the extreme importance of purging officials and ruling in order to stabilize the people's livelihood, and he always listed "corruption" and "rebellion" as the primary targets of severe crackdowns with legal weapons. Qianlong deeply sympathized with his father Yongzheng's remark that "there is no greater way to eliminate evil than to eliminate corrupt officials and corrupt officials, and if corruption is eliminated, the world will enjoy its own benefits." He was also an emperor with a strong sense of responsibility, and proceeding from safeguarding the fundamental and long-term interests of the Qing Empire, he would never allow corrupt officials to strip the people of their own wealth and destroy the foundation of the country. He made it clear to his subjects on many occasions that "I am stricter than I treat the ink officials, so I can reassure the people", and "if these inferior people stay for one more day, the people will suffer one more day's disability, and the country will suffer one more day's beetle."

　　The more than 60 years that Qianlong was in power were indeed recognized as the most severe period of punishment of corruption in the entire Qing Dynasty at that time and later generations. In the past, although the Qing law stipulated that embezzling silver up to 1,000 taels would be sentenced to beheading, and would be executed during the autumn trial. However, if a corrupt official who is about to die pays all the stolen money within the time limit, he can invoke the "regulations on the reduction of stolen goods" to avoid the death penalty and other punishments. In this way, few corrupt officials and corrupt officials have been tied up to the execution ground, and they have been punished in a canonical manner. After repeated consideration, overcoming all kinds of resistance, Qianlong resolutely issued a decree abolishing the "regulations on the reduction of stolen goods" and replacing them with a new precedent of "not allowing the reduction of stolen goods." Why did the Qianlong Dynasty have so many bloody legal cases involving the highest military and political leaders at the provincial level who were guilty of corruption, bribery, and bribery? It is a pity that as soon as Jiaqing took office, he deleted this new law from the "Laws of the Qing Dynasty", and added the new regulations that not only can the stolen goods be reduced and the distribution will be reduced, but even if "the three-year limit is not completed", the capital offender will still be "imprisoned forever", so he returned to the old way before, and even went backwards a lot, and no matter how many corrupt officials and corrupt officials hugged him, he would stay in prison for a lifetime at most. Xue Yunsheng, a great lawyer in the late Qing Dynasty, said with deep feelings: "During the Qianlong period, there were many officials who embezzled the law and embezzled the law. ”

　　After the stricter anti-corruption legislation, there is also the issue of law enforcement. Later generations commented on Qianlong's punishment of corruption, and almost unanimously affirmed the strictness of his law enforcement. In the late Qing Dynasty, the thinker Xue Fucheng said: "Gaozong (Qianlong) was wise and did not enforce the law strictly." At that time, the governors such as Guotai, Wang Wang, Chen Huizu, Fu Song, Wu Lana, and Pu Lin Zhilun were full of stolen money and were repeatedly imprisoned. embezzled public funds and confiscated family property to hundreds of millions, which was rarely seen by his generation. "That's exactly what happened. During the Qianlong period, there were as many as 30 cases of cases of corruption and investigation of senior officials in the Ming Dynasty, of which more than 20 committed suicide by punishment or order, and an average of one or two years was punished by a provincial-level military and political officer for corruption or bribery, which was rare in the previous generation and was also seen only in the Qing generation. Strict law enforcement against corruption such as governors and officials is also manifested in vigorous and resolute raiding of homes. In all cases of embezzlement or solicitation of bribes, once the chief in charge of the case has found out the evidence, he will immediately request that the offender be dismissed from his post and confiscated, and the confiscation of his family property will be unusually fast, strict, and thorough, and the end of the corrupt officials will not only be in a different place, but also that the family property will be admitted to the official regardless of the fineness and coarseness, and it is really a "white and vast land is really clean"! The major case of corruption and corruption by officials of Gansu Tong Province, headed by Wang Wang, the secretary of the Gansu domain, who was exposed in the 46th year of Qianlong (1779), was characterized by Qianlong as "an unprecedented strange and strange thing"! In this case, nearly 60 people were beheaded for the crime of "stealing money and grain" (more than 20 corrupt officials were killed at the entrance of Jingshi Caishi), in addition, 57 people were sent to Heilongjiang and Xinjiang without death, 165 people were ordered to be confiscated, and other sentences were sentenced to prison, exile, dismissal, retention, and fines.

Two

　　Later generations commented on Qianlong's punishment of corruption, and almost unanimously affirmed the strictness of his law enforcement. On the other hand, however, political corruption has been one of the most serious problems in the country since the middle of the Qianlong period, and its prominent manifestation is the blazing corruption. Why is there such a puzzling strange thing that the punishment for corruption is getting stricter and the greed is getting stronger?

　　There are many reasons for political corruption and fierce greed after the middle of the Qianlong period. There are legislative and judicial mistakes, there is the extravagance and decadence of the social atmosphere, there is the corruption of the officialdom so that the clean officials cannot do anything and cannot do it, there is the general collapse of the embankment of the moral self-discipline of the officials, and there is also the practical problem that the officials' incorruptible and incorruptible silver is not enough to support the incorruptible, and so on, but the most important thing is that the insurmountable disease of extreme autocracy is manifested in the excessive expansion of imperial power and the excessive power of the local military and political chiefs related to it.

　　Taking the major corruption case of Wang Wang's relief as an example, a total of 7 or 8 million taels of relief money was embezzled, which is equivalent to about 1/6 of the state's annual fiscal revenue. The circumstances of this major case of collective corruption are not complicated. In the 39th year of Qianlong (1774), in order to raise grain for disaster relief, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, Leer, respectfully allowed Gansu to resume the old practice of donating to prisons (that is, scholars from all provinces can get the qualification of prisoners by donating grain in Gansu). Jiang Quandi agreed at the provincial level that all prefectures and counties that bribed more than two dollars of silver would be given more disaster points, and those that gave less silver would be given less disaster points, so all the prefectures and counties made disaster relief one after another, embezzled the relief money, and distributed fertilizer layer by layer, so that there was hardly a good official in Gansu Province.

　　However, the officials of Gansu Tong Province colluded with the upper and lower levels to openly commit fraud, and the fraud lasted for six or seven years, and the supervision mechanism designed by the supreme ruler to expose each other in secret folds was generally ineffective, and finally the lid was lifted only when the Qianlong Emperor personally exposed it. This may be the best illustration of the institutional defect of "the state and county are afraid of the governors and the imperial law", which is the excessive power of the governors. After the local officials investigate and report, they must be investigated layer by layer by the government and the province to have the score of reporting the disaster. In addition, the distribution of silver and grain relief also requires supervision and verification by the provincial government and the government, and if the provincial government and the government do not take the trouble to do so, who in the prefecture or county will dare to give money? However, within a few years, none of the prefectures has come forward to report the accumulated malpractices to the governor or the imperial court, but on the contrary, they have defended themselves in every possible way after the fact. Some confessed that "I have seen that the provinces are all in this way, and I really can't stand in the way"; some confessed that "all matters are in charge of the feudal department, and the provincial government cannot compete with the feudal department, and the prefecture and county regard the provincial government as insufficient"; some confessed that "the boss was aware of the disaster relief and the provincial government added the tie and the committee members were dissolved, and this is all a false story...... Leerjin, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, who was originally responsible for enlisting each other, was in collusion with Wang Wang, the secretary of the Gansu domain, in the case of the donation and the fraud; Bi Yuan, who had been in the neighboring province for eight years, and had not participated in the two bureaucratic seals; Funing, the governor of Gansu Province, who was at the same level as the feudal department, kept silent on the grounds that "the province is like this, and I alone cannot obstruct it."

　　Regarding this huge corruption case, Emperor Qianlong once said helplessly: "Everyone knows about the evils of Wang Wangwang of Gan Province who invaded and imprisoned grain, and the matter has not been exposed, and no one has discovered it first. But he didn't understand it thoroughly, or didn't want to say it, the excessive power of the governor was, in the final analysis, subordinated to the need to strengthen the autocratic imperial power. If Wang Wang, who is the secretary of the Gansu domain, hadn't bought off his top boss and the highest military and political governor of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, especially if he hadn't done everything he could to finally win the emperor's favor and trust, how could he dare to cover the sky with one hand and act recklessly?

Three

　　It is true that the excessive power of the governor during the Qianlong period was a major problem in the political system, but the biggest structural flaw of the autocracy was the imperial power, which had no other checks and balances.

　　Qianlong has no objection to the severity of punishing corruption, and at the same time, we must also see that whenever a major case of punishing corruption is launched, his heart is extremely unsettled. Proceeding from safeguarding the fundamental and long-term interests of the Qing Empire, he absolutely could not allow corrupt officials to destroy the foundation of the country; however, whenever the investigation and handling of major corruption cases deepened day by day and the dark inside story of politics was about to be revealed, he hesitated and relented. Qianlong claimed that he "couldn't bear to see them "killed with their heads," so he tried in every possible way to find all kinds of excuses to save half of them from death and reduce them; the major corruption case in Gansu has not yet been dealt with, and the major corruption case of Guotai, the governor of Shandong, has been exposed. I can't bear to "seem to be in Gan Province to revive the prison." What exactly did Qianlong worry about? In his words, one is the "national system" and the other is "the face of me." The so-called "national system" refers to the rationality of the Qing Dynasty's rule, while the "face" is related to the authority and dignity of the holy monarch. This is Qianlong's ambivalence when investigating and handling major corruption cases. This kind of mentality plays a serious negative role in putting an end to political corruption once and for all, or at least curbing the trend of growing corruption.

　　Not only that, but some of Qianlong's own actions are actually contributing to the rampant corruption and bribery. Xue Fucheng said: "Gaozong is wise, and the law enforcement is not strict, but the more people are punished, the more greedy the wind is." At that time, human nature was greedy alone, and it was implicitly driven by persecution, so that it had to be greedy. He said this when he spoke of covetousness. Logically inferred, the so-called "implicit persecution" means that the governors and others are forced to covet and seek refuge in order to be corrupted. It led to extreme political corruption, and nature could not escape the blame, but if it was said that the ministers and workers were "implicitly persecuted" at that time, then the biggest "persecution" that made them miserable and unspeakable came from Emperor Qianlong himself. For example, the biggest public hazard of the Qianlong Dynasty's corrupting of the rule of officials can be cited as the comparison of tribute among the ministers and workers, the punishment of the guilty silver, the deduction of fines and the maintenance of the incorruptible, and the compensation of public items, all of which are related to the inferior nature of Qianlong's greed for money and good goods.

　　Here is just an example of the punishment of the guilty silver. The system of punishing and deliberating on crimes was a malpractice that corrupted the rule of officials after the middle of the Qianlong period. In the past, commentators believed that the system of penalizing the guilty silver may have been planned for Qianlong, but in fact, the origin of the penal silver was Qianlong's ingenuity. However, since the 50th year of Qianlong (1785), He took over this confidential affairs for the emperor, and the punishment of the guilty silver can be called institutionalized. The main targets of the punishment were the military and political chiefs, governors, and governors of the provinces, and the reasons for the punishment were mostly minor negligence such as dereliction of duty and favoritism. For example, Bi Yuan, the governor of Henan, asked for a fine of 20,000 taels of silver for "failing to quickly find important criminals," and Leer, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, paid 40,000 taels of silver for the crime of neglecting to detect the smuggling of jade by merchants. These are barely famous, and some are really not any faults, and they are enough to make people spit. For example, He Yucheng, the governor of Henan, was careless, and the incense ash stained Zhu Pi's performance, and he couldn't live in panic, so he asked for a fine of 30,000 taels of silver, and even Qianlong felt a little embarrassed to accept so much, and sent a decree to him and said: "Grace forgives 20,000 taels of silver", He Yucheng was still not sure, and asked "In addition to the ministers who pay 10,000 taels of silver first, the remaining 20,000 taels will be pleaded with Hongren again, and the quasi-ministers will still be handed over to the Internal Affairs Office for confiscation." The punishment for the crime is as little as 10,000 taels, usually around 30,000 taels, and the maximum time recorded is as high as 384,000 taels, which is the 59th year of Qianlong (1794) to punish two Huai Yan Zhengquande. If the officials are honest and honest, they cannot afford such a punishment, but the emperor knows that they all have other ways to make money, so he dares to open his mouth; so how can the income of the superintendent be with outsiders? The two pieces of silver are generally handed over directly by the person being punished to the royal treasury - this is not the treasury of the state household department, but the treasury under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and it is regarded as the emperor's "small treasury" - as a general rule, and it is a special case to keep the river workers and sea ponds for public use. For the governor and other officials, almost everyone is inevitably burdened with the unpaid silver imperial debt, you must know that this is only a small number, other compensation, deductions, fines, etc. are often clustered, and they are even more overwhelmed, and the most expensive and costly contribution to the three major festivals of the year is not to mention it.

　　In the fifty-eighth year of Qianlong (1793), Fu Song, the governor of Zhejiang, who was beheaded for sending subordinates and embezzling bad rules on salt affairs, confessed: " In the past 46 years, I have been overspent more than 112,600 taels of silver in Lanzhou for handling the compensation for the Salar military quartermasters, and I have been ordered to deduct 50 percent of the money from the maintenance of Lian every year; I have also negotiated a fine of 14,000 taels of incorruptible silver in the case of supervising the arrest of deserters; I have also compensated Chen Huizu for omitting a total of more than 6,900 taels of silver for missing the name of Haitang and the work of the Hushen Temple; another 51 years of inventory of warehouses and 40,700 taels of silver have been compensated; I have also compensated Fan Gongtang Shiba and other workers for more than 4,900 taels of silver; I have also compensated Nanxinguan for shortfall of more than 3,500 taels of silver; and in 51 years, the acting governor of Shanxi has negotiated a fine of 20,000 taels of silverIn the case of 54 years of negligence in the case of the replacement of Yarkand jade, it was decided to impose a fine of 10,000 taels of silver for one year, and in the case of resumption, a fine of 30,000 taels of silver should be imposed on the incorruptible -- a total of more than 278,000 taels of silver. "The governor's maintenance of honesty is about 15,000 taels of silver a year, how can Fu Song not be corrupt and ask for bribes to make up the 278,000 yuan in fines and compensation? Among the governors, it is not uncommon for people like Fu Song to be fined hundreds of thousands of taels and even involved in embezzlement, and the governor of Jiangsu, Min Juyuan, was fined 240,000 taels of silver for only two things, and Prince Li Zhao said that when he first took office as the governor of Anhui, he was honest and self-respecting, clothed and vegged for food, and "when he was Fu Wu, he changed the previous festival quite a lot, and the buds were advancing day by day, moving more than 10 million yuan", which was an out-and-out false Taoism.

　　In fact, there is inherent in Min Yuyuan's personal hypocrisy in this, and we cannot ignore the hidden external reasons that "drive" him to "have to be greedy". The problem lies in the serious harm of the ministers comparing each other with tribute, punishing the guilty silver, deducting fines and supporting the incorruptible, and compensating for public items. People are shocked by the despotic emperor's coercion of the population and fooling the world, and they have a deep understanding of the twilight monarch's adversary, arrogant and arrogant mentality, in such a political environment, who else dares to criticize the so-called "prosperous era" that is really full of holes, but has been whitewashed by the monarch and ministers, "that is, going back to three generations, down to the Song and Yuan dynasties, and it is also rare to compare"?

　　For a feudal emperor, the greatest expectation is that the world is peaceful. It is true that social stability is of paramount importance to a large agricultural country like China, which has a large population, and long-term social stability has indeed provided the most crucial guarantee for the brilliant achievements made by the prosperous Kangqian era, but when a series of unseen problems began to emerge within Chinese society, such as population and commodity prices, under the influence of the tremendous changes that have taken place in the world, reform and development have actually been sternly put on the agenda of history. Regrettably, the Qianlong Emperor, who held China's destiny in his hands, still clinged to the basic political goal of pursuing stability, even at the expense of development and reform, and as a result, not only delayed China's development on the eve of the transformation of modern society, but also failed to achieve social stability.

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