The Ming Dynasty was very strict with the private life of officials: if they were caught soliciting prostitution, they would not be hired for life!

Historically, dynasties have generally paid close attention to the private lives of officials, that is, their personal lives. Strict supervision is exercised not only over the "public morality" of officials, but also over their "private morality", that is, the moral character displayed in the daily life of individuals.

A typical example is: Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang knows everything about who Song Lian, the "head of Wenchen", drinks with at home and what he says. Not only that, after Song Lian retired, what he was doing in his hometown, who he was dealing with, and whether it was "duty", Ming Taizu was still very concerned, and asked Song Lian's grandson from time to time. Therefore, when Song Lian was in office, he was cautious in his words and deeds, and kept himself clean. When he returned home from work, he talked to his family and relatives and friends, and never mentioned anything about the DPRK and China. The inscription reads the word "Wen Shu," which means that he cannot even speak of the "greenhouse tree" (the tree planted in the palace), let alone anything else! After his retirement, he closed his door and did not associate with the people in the officialdom, and in the eyes of others, he looked like a law-abiding landlord who was indifferent to the affairs of the world.

All dynasties want to maintain a stable and long-term rule, so generally speaking, they do not want officials to be morally corrupt, corrupt, exacerbate conflicts with the people, and destroy the foundation of their rule. To this end, it is necessary to strengthen the management of officials, including the supervision of their private lives. At the same time, it is also necessary to persuade officials to be officials who do their duty and not to do things that violate laws and disciplines. The book "Guanzhen" by Lu Benzhong in the Song Dynasty was compiled to meet this need. At the beginning of the book, it is written: "There are only three things to do as an official: clear, prudent, and diligent." Knowing these three, you can be in the position of Paul, you can be far from shame, you can get the knowledge of the top, and you can get the help of the bottom. From the Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, this passage was the motto of officials.

Drink the wine of the public house, and drink it out of sin

In ancient times, officials could not drink the wine they wanted, they could drink as much as they wanted, they could drink the "best" if they wanted to, they could drink the "best", and they could give it away if they wanted to. Some officials are greedy for cups, and they do not distinguish between public and private, and they will drink their sins. Some officials borrow flowers to offer Buddha, and public wine is given away casually, which will also violate the law.

The Song Dynasty Wang's book "Yan Yi's Conspiracy" records the case of the crime of private use of public liquor: the rules set by the early Song Dynasty, the so-called "ancestral old system", stipulate that the public liquor stored in the state and county official treasury is specially used to feed the officials who come and go, and the officials who have taken office or resigned, for them to exchange for silver money and use it as travel expenses. If officials want to talk about "good-neighborliness," it is okay to give public wine to the officials of neighboring states and counties, and officials from neighboring counties to give public wine in return. "But they leave each other behind wine, trade with each other, and return the public money. If you use it for personal use, you will be punished." After receiving the public wine, if you think that it is for your own enjoyment, it is a big mistake, it is still public wine, and it must be returned to the national treasury. In the first year of the Song Dynasty (1064), Chen Xiliang, the prefect of Fengxiang Prefecture, made a big mistake on the issue of public wine. He turned himself in to the authorities and admitted that he had drunk the public liquor given by the neighboring state without permission. The imperial court's treatment of him was to be demoted to too often Shaoqing. The imperial court once again strictly forbade the drinking of public liquor given by other officials without permission, and reiterated that all public liquor received must be handed over to the state treasury. An official named Zu Wuxuan was dismissed from his position as a direct scholar because he had given 300 small bottles of public wine to his relatives without permission, and was placed as a "loose official" (an official with an official name but no fixed ministry).

The Song Dynasty writer Su Shunqin also had a tragedy because of drinking. According to the History of the Song Dynasty, the Biography of Wenyuan, and the Biography of Su Shunqin, Su Shunqin served as the manager of Jixian School and the supervisor of the Jinjuanyuan (the Jinjuanyuan was the office in Beijing of the envoys of the feudal town). After entering the temple to worship the gods, he and Liu Xun sold the waste paper of the public house, and used the "public money" to buy wine to entertain guests, and also invited prostitutes to play music and sing. This matter was inquired about by Su Shunqin's father-in-law, Prime Minister Du Yan's opponent, King Gongchen in the imperial history. Wang Gongchen instructed his subordinates to impeach Su Shunqin and Liu Xun. The imperial court dismissed Su Shunqin and Liu Xun from their official positions on charges of "self-theft". Su Shunqin became a "deposed" person because of his drinking, that is, a person who was exiled and deposed. There are more than 10 well-known people who were kicked out of the capital because of attending this party. Wang Pizhi's "Records of the Discussion of the Water Swallow" wrote about the impact of this incident in the capital: For a time, "the whole country was shocked". Han Qi told Song Renzong that Su Shunqin was just "a guilty man of being drunk" and that it would be enough to give him a lighter punishment, and that he would not be guilty of such a great crime by removing him from his official position. Drinking with the money from the sale of public waste paper actually made such a big deal.

Officials caught soliciting prostitutes are barred for life

The Ming Dynasty strictly controlled the private life of officials, prohibiting the use of official prostitutes and prostitution. Moreover, Ming Taizu also appeared to persuade officials not to be confused and burdened by "voice, lust, and profit". He wrote in "Ming Dahe": Broke Wuchang, destroyed Chen Youliang, brought his concubine back, and sent her to the harem. "I suddenly doubted myself, what I did, I was so proud that the wise man supervised me. I spared my life to protect myself, and I didn't do anything for the sake of profit. Gai is the number of people who are happy and profitable, and the rise and fall are lost. He said that after "confiscating" Chen Youliang's concubine to himself, he also suspected this practice. Is it lustful or bold? The wise man can see it. Those who draw on "sound and profit" will "rise and fall in the twilight", and the defeat will definitely come quickly.

Lu Rong's "Shuyuan Miscellaneous Records" of the Ming Dynasty mentioned several major aspects of the Ming Dynasty surpassing the previous dynasties, one of which was the dismissal of official prostitutes and the prohibition of prostitution: "The political system of this dynasty has many people who have lived in the previous generations. The most important of them is ...... In the past, civil and military officials had to use official prostitutes, but now it is forbidden to coerce prostitutes to stay with prostitutes, and even to be dismissed. "Officials soliciting prostitution were not a big deal in the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties, but in the Ming Dynasty, they were to lose their official positions and never be hired.

Wang W. of the Ming Dynasty wrote about the harm of official prostitutes in the Tang, Song and Yuan dynasties: "In the Tang and Song dynasties, there were official prostitutes who waited, and the eunuchs were restrained by them, and they often harmed the government. When it comes to victory, the more shameless it is. My ancestor is gone. The official is a prostitute, and the crime is a murder of the first class, although he is pardoned, he will be recounted for life. The wind is gone. "Tang and Song official prostitutes harmed the government, especially the Yuan Dynasty. Officials use official prostitutes, and official prostitutes often blow "pillow wind" to officials, so officials are dizzy and are bound to be led by the nose by official prostitutes. Ming Taizu dismissed official prostitutes, and stipulated that officials solicited prostitution, and murdered people under the crime, although they encountered amnesty, they were not allowed to use it for life. Because the Ming Dynasty used strict punishment to govern prostitution, it was also "clean and evil" for a while.

According to Gu Qiyuan's "Guest Words" in the Ming Dynasty, Jiang Bao, the secretary of the Nanjing Ministry of Rites (the word Feng'a, speaking of which is still the sage of the village in the author's hometown), once banned prostitution in Nanjing: "Mr. Jiang Feng'a is the uncle of Nanda University, and he affirms the prohibition of prostitution. Once a prostitute is caught, he will be fined seven cents of silver for one night, and the silver will be used to arrest "those who help prostitutes." Not only that, but also bring a flail to the public, and lose face.

Yu Jideng of the Ming Dynasty recorded a typical case of officials being punished for soliciting prostitution: during the orthodox period of Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty, the commander of Hainan Wei in Guangdong went to Beijing to play a chapter. The matter was revealed, and Wei Yuanwei was "killed", that is, Wei Yuanwei was sent to serve as a guard. This punishment is not insignificant.

Smuggle horses, kill them as they are

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang had a total of 16 daughters, one of whom was Princess Anqing, who was married to Ouyang Lun in the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381). This Ouyang Lun is a person of bad conduct, and later he was even more lawless - the emperor also had a time when he chose a son-in-law. In the last years of Hongwu, the imperial court implemented the "Tea and Horse Law", prohibiting private sales of tea, especially the smuggling of tea. Ouyang Lun sent people to smuggle tea out of the country many times, causing a commotion. For this imperial relative, even the local high-ranking officials did not dare to ask. Zhou Bao, a slave of his family, relied on "my master is a horse master", and was particularly arrogant, and instructed the relevant departments to levy and issue civilian vehicles at every turn, and as many as dozens of vehicles were levied at a time. When the huge smuggling tea convoy passed by the Heqiao Inspection Division, Ouyang Lun dared to beat and scold the officials of the Inspection Division.

The beaten official angrily reported Ouyang Lun's evil deeds to the imperial court, and Ming Taizu was furious when he learned about it, and said: "I can only do one law, and it is the worst!" As a concubine, he took the lead in destroying the "Tea and Horse Law", which had a bad impact. So Ming Taizu took Ouyang's horse and ordered him to be punished with death: "Give death." "In order to maintain the law and order, Ming Taizu did not protect his son-in-law, nor was he afraid that his daughter Princess Anqing would be a widow. Queen Ma didn't dare to persuade Taizu to avoid Ouyang's death. Ouyang Lun's domestic slave Zhou Bao and others were all executed. More than 100 years later, in the eighteenth year of Hongzhi (1505), Liu Jian, a member of the Cabinet University, told this story to Ming Xiaozong and sighed: "No one dares to tell such a story. This incident actually became a "sensitive" topic, and people avoided talking about it for fear of stimulating and offending the imperial relatives who were alive at the time.

It is also illegal for officials to sit in antique shops

Officials were not allowed to go to antique shops, which was a prohibition on officials in the Qing Dynasty. Originally, among the various forms of bribery of officials, there was a kind of bribery called "elegant bribery," that is, giving officials calligraphy, paintings, antiques, and so on, which could not only achieve the purpose of bribery, but also appear "elegant," which was easy for officials to accept, and was not easy to be detected and investigated. "Ya bribes" are mostly carried out by antique dealers. Antique dealers "sell" valuable calligraphy and paintings or rare antiques to officials, and then the bribe giver and the antique dealer settle the payment according to the actual price. This method of bribery is very secretive. In order to prevent and eliminate "elegant bribery" - of course, it is impossible to completely eliminate it, and the Qing Dynasty forbade officials from entering and leaving antique shops.

Liu Shengmu of the Qing Dynasty "Chang Chu Zhai Five Strokes" book cloud: During the Xianfeng period, "at that time, there was a certain waiter, who occasionally went to the antique shop of Liulichang to sit idly, which was the imperial history column, and he was blamed for the family, and he was also despised by the public." There was a squire (a "deputy ministerial-level" official) who occasionally went to Beijing Liulichang to sit and sit, and was impeached by the imperial history, lost his official position, and was idle at home. Not only that, but it was also spurned by everyone.

According to this book, after Guangxu, the situation changed greatly. Officials of the Military Aircraft Department, Shang Shu, Shilang and others did not visit antique shops, but "opened their own antique shops, tablet shops, and self-titled shop signs, openly entering and leaving them, unscrupulous." Some of the people who bribed them called themselves "protégés", and they were called "Taiping money" for their silver, and there were also "dim sum money". "Shame and shame begin here." Liu Shengmu said that the defeat of the Qing Dynasty was not due to the business and corruption of officials, not because one person raised his arms and shouted in anger, but because "all the people rebelled."

Officials publish books for personal gain, and take off black gauze hats

In ancient times, officials could write and engrave books, but they could not make profits, let alone use their positions to buy and sell by force. Violators are punished severely.

Liu Shengmu's "Five Strokes of Chang Chu Zhai" said: When Qi Zao was a scholar and politician in Jiangsu, he "used all the books he published to order all students to buy and read." When Xu Song was the Hunan academic administrator, he also forced all students (students who entered the school, that is, Xiucai) to buy the books they engraved to read. The two scholars took advantage of their authority to make the books they wrote and engraved as "textbooks" or "teaching aids" that they must read, and forcibly apportioned them and demanded that each person have one volume. The two men were impeached and dismissed. Liu Shengmu said that Xu Song "Although he was proficient in the study of the Western Regions and the land and waterways, he was famous at that time, and was known as a peerless scholar, but he used his own books to buy and read all students, and he was close to greed for profit." It is believed that this kind of behavior of carving books and apportioning them to students is close to "greed". Xuezheng is a high-ranking official, and the imperial court selects those who are from the scholars among the officials such as Shilang, Jingtang, Hanlin, and Kedao, and is responsible for the examination of students, and inspects the examinations of the subordinate prefectures and offices on a regular basis. During his three-year tenure as a school administrator, he was parallel to the governor and governor. And Xu Song is not only a high-ranking official, but also a well-known scholar of geography and water conservancy in the Western Regions, but unfortunately he was removed from his post in order to publish books for profit. The two scholars, who published books for profit, did whatever they could, swept Sven to the ground, and the ending was tragic.

Beijing officials are released, and there are rules for how to go to work

The change of Beijing officials to local officials, and how to take office is not up to the officials themselves, but has uniform regulations. After receiving the letter of appointment, they are not allowed to stay in Beijing, and they are not allowed to borrow money to buy clothes, marry wives and buy concubines. When you go to work, you are not allowed to take a detour home.

Yu Jideng of the Ming Dynasty wrote the book "Allusions and Chronicles", during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, Yao Kui, the secretary of the Ministry of Shangshu, said: The old rules of this dynasty, the Beijing officials are selected and awarded foreign officials, and they must immediately receive the voucher to go to work. Recently, after leaving the capital, the officials who were released from abroad often returned secretly, borrowed money, bought clothes, married wives and concubines, and then made a detour home. From today onwards, officials who have been released from outside the city will be allowed to collect the vouchers within five days, and those who do not bid farewell to the imperial court for more than half a month will be sent to the judicial organs for punishment. Those who go out of the city and sneak into the city will be demoted to use. Those who arrive more than one year late shall be dismissed from their posts and served as citizens.

"Allusions and Chronicles" also contains: During the orthodox period of the Ming Dynasty, the supervision of the imperial history was sent to Shaanxi, and he made a detour home in violation of the regulations of the imperial court. and colluded with Cheng Xiao in Changyuan County, and with his help, forcibly married a folk woman as a concubine. After Ming Yingzong learned of this, he thought that "violating the law of etiquette and discipline is defiled", and issued an edict to arrest Shi Ji and send him to the judicial organ for punishment.

Why did the Ming Dynasty stipulate that officials who were released from Beijing must leave the city as quickly as possible according to the regulations, and were not allowed to stay in the capital, were not allowed to leave the city and then returned, and were not allowed to borrow debts? This was because the income of Ming officials was very low compared with that of the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. Moreover, when officials take office and are transferred, they have to pay for their own travel. There are not a few lower-level officials who cannot afford to pay for the journey. If the officials who are released to Beijing delay in the capital, and buy clothes, or even marry wives and concubines, the expenses must be very large, and they will inevitably borrow usury. The usury of the Ming Dynasty had a monthly interest rate of as high as 5 cents, or 5%. When an official takes office, the creditor follows him to the place where he took office, forcing him to repay his debts every day, and no matter how majestic the official is, at this time, in front of the creditor, he also becomes a "grandson". In order to repay debts, officials have to loot people's money and bend the law for bribes. Therefore, in order to prevent corruption among the officials who were released, the imperial court had to make the above prohibitive provisions. As for the Beijing officials who are not allowed to go on business trips to other places, they are also afraid that they will collude with the "parents and officials" in their hometowns and do things that violate the law and discipline. This system design of the Ming Dynasty may be harsh on officials, but it is not without a little reason.

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