Author: Ruihe
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If you seriously read the history of China, especially the Twenty-Four Histories, you will often encounter a group of people called "cool officials". Literally, these people are unkind, cruel, and offend a large number of people, and no one likes them.
But the strange thing is that in all the dynasties and dynasties, the figure of cool officials is constantly in the history books.
Counting from the "Records of History" of the ancestors of the Twenty-Four Histories, there are "Cool Officials Column Biography", and those who can be on this column are mostly not very famous, such as Lai Junchen and Zhou Xing in the Wu Zetian period of the Tang Dynasty, who are on the list of the "Cool Officials Column Biography" of the Old Book of Tang and the New Book of Tang.
How many cool officials there are, just look at so many history books of cool officials
The Twenty-Four Histories all record the Cool Officials, which also reveals the inevitable connection between these people and the imperial society. In general, if the emperor is a great talent, then there will be more cool officials.
The reason is not difficult to understand. In the traditional imperial society, many times, it is not the emperor who monopolizes power, and there is a delicate balance of power before the emperor, the nobles, and the ministers. However, if you encounter a wise and wise Lord who is talented and wants more power, then it is certain to upset this balance, and the noble ministers are not willing, then they must find someone to do dirty work for the emperor.
Thus, the cool official came into being.
The Chronicle of the Cool Officials records the biographies of 11 people, including Zhi Du, Ning Cheng, Zhou Yangyou, Zhao Yu, Zhang Tang, Yi Zhong, Wang Wenshu, Yin Qi, Yang Shu, Xian Xuan, and Du Zhou. Among them, Zhi Du was a member of the Wen Emperor and Emperor Jing, and the others were bureaucrats during the period of Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty. One of them accounted for 9 places.
This was largely due to the fact that the male lord Liu Che wanted to make a decision.
Bronze statue of Emperor Wu of Han Liu Che
Similarly, the most famous cool official in the whole history, about the same as the Junchen Zhou Xing, these two are the Wu Zetian period, as we all know, Wu Zetian is also a female emperor who wants to monopolize power, and his talent is roughly not worse than that of Emperor Wu of Han. Therefore, not only was it used, but the cool officials of the Wu Dynasty were a hundred times more perverted than the cool officials of other dynasties.
After reading the historical materials about these cool officials, it is easy to help these perverted cool officials summarize some common characteristics.
First, from a humble origin, at least not an aristocrat, so that he will have a heart with the emperor and will not favor the nobles, and the emperor will use it to be smooth.
Second, these cool officials must be proficient in the text of the law and good at causing trouble between the lines. It is not difficult to understand that those opponents that the emperor wants to rectify are not fools, and may not be openly rebellious, so they must be provoked and even framed, and they are not familiar with the law.
Finally, the psychology of these cool officials is perverted enough, can not have any sympathy, do not leave a way for anyone to live, of course, they have done a cool official, then do not leave a way for themselves to live, so the cool officials recorded in the history books, the end is not very common.
Cheng Ji, who killed the Emperor for the Sima family, was not a cool official, but the end was similar
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > the story of Zhang Tang</h1>
In the imperial society, people who meet these three points have always been in an endless stream, after all, so many people want to "go to the Tian Shelang, And ascend to the Tianzi Hall" - to share the worries and solve the problems for the monarch's father, and more importantly, the wise and divine monarchs in history have also been in an endless stream, which makes the cool officials become regular visitors in the history books.
Among these cool officials, Zhang Tang of the Han Wudi Emperor Liu Che's era is one of the most typical representatives.
Zhang Tang is a Chang'an native, and he must trace his family lineage, which is a distant relative of the founding hero Zhang Liang, but he is certainly not an aristocrat, and his father is doing legal work in Chang'an. When Zhang Tang was a child, his father once went out and asked Zhang Tang to look after the house. When his father returned to find that the meat in the house had been eaten by rats, he was so annoyed that he beat Zhang Tang. After being beaten, Zhang Tang dug open the rat hole, caught the rat, and found the meat left to eat, so he carefully filed a case to interrogate the rat, and after the evidence collection and interrogation were completed, he issued a verdict, executed the rat, and dismembered Ling Chi.
Zhang Tang impeached the rat
His father saw this scene and took out Zhang Tang's interrogation file to see that it was still quite like that, so the father let his son study law, and when Zhang Tang became an adult, after several recommendations, he was favored by Emperor Wu of Han.
As we all know, Liu Che has been thinking about "suppressing the powerful" all day long and consolidating and strengthening the power in his hands. It was simply too good to have such a ruthless official who was proficient in the provisions of the law, so Zhang Tang was appointed by Liu Che as a court lieutenant, responsible for the formulation of laws and the trial of cases.
The image of Zhang Tang in film and television dramas
The first case zhang Tang tried after taking office was empress Chen's witchcraft case, which was Chen Ajiao, who Emperor Wu of Han said in his early years that she wanted to "hide the golden house". Now Emperor Wu of Han had a new Wei Zifu and did not want to hide the Golden House, and Empress Chen was also unhappy with Wei Zifu, and Empress Chen's family relatives also formed a powerful force in the dynasty, seriously violating Emperor Wu's Tianwei. To handle this kind of case, it is also necessary to be bold and dark-hearted people to rest assured, then Zhang Tang to do it.
It is reasonable to say that this matter is also Liu Che's family affair no matter what, even if Empress Chen commits a crime, outsiders have to take into account the empress's affection in the trial, but Zhang Tang is not like this, he follows Empress Chen's clues all the way to chase and beat, connecting more than three hundred nobles, because the foreign forces raised by Empress Chen are also uprooted.
Zhang Tang's performance, Liu Che is in the eyes. Later, Liu Che wanted to rectify the princes of the world, but as a result, liu An, the king of Huainan, was forced to rebel. Of course, Liu Che was no better than Wen Jing at that time, the princes were not opponents of the imperial court after several rounds of cutting the domain, the rebellion was quickly put down, Liu Che asked Zhang Tang to try the people involved in the rebellion, rebellion is a major crime, must be executed, there is no problem in sentencing, the so-called trial, is nothing more than to see who participated in the rebellion, and then give him a click.
Sculpture of Liu An, King of Huainan
Liu An, the king of Huainan, had a man named Wu Wei, and although he was coerced into rebellion, he often praised Liu Che in his usual texts of advice, and Liu Che wanted to forgive Wu Chu, but Zhang Tang insisted that since Wu was rebelled, the facts were like iron, no matter what he said, he must die.
At the same time, Liu Che's vassal Zhuang Zhu also colluded with the King of Huainan. After all, it was a favored courtier, Liu Che wanted to release Zhuang Zhu, but Zhang Tang said that Zhuang Help was in and out of the center, but he made personal friends, and not killing him would encourage such a trend.
In the end, Wu Yu and Zhuang Zhu did not run, and they were all killed.
Zhang Tang was a man who tried cases and was very good at maintaining Liu Che's authority. If the case was handled properly, Zhang Tang would give credit to Emperor Wu and praise Liu Che's saints; if it was not done well, he would blame himself for the crime. Moreover, he is also particularly good at speculating on Liu Che's mentality. Liu Che wanted to crack down on the nobles and powerful to establish their own authority, and Zhang Tang knew this very well, so his law enforcement was not based on the law, but on Liu Che's will to influence the handling of the case.
Since he wanted to crack down on haoqiang, he was not soft in handling the cases of these people, even the slightest mistake had to be rectified to death; on the contrary, for the common people and the weak and weak, Zhang Tang was more protective to show Liu Che's magnanimity.
Of course, if the trial of the case is not subject to the law, the ministers will also be dissatisfied. Zhang Tang knew that Emperor Wu of han had "deposed hundreds of officials and respected Confucianism alone" and that Confucianism had become the mainstream, so Zhang Tang asked Confucian scholars to find the basis for judging the case from classics such as the Book of Shang and the Spring and Autumn Period, so as to exploit the loopholes in the law.
So he was in the reign of Emperor Wu, and his power swelled dramatically. He later served as the Imperial Counselor, whose duties were originally to supervise hundreds of officials and draft edicts, but Zhang Tangyue often discussed state finances with Emperor Wu, and was suspected of being an empty minister, saying in Sima Qian's words, "Everything under the heavens is decided by Tang". At this point, Zhang Tang's power reached its peak, and even when Zhang Tang fell ill, Liu Che personally visited him. No way, who made him a red man.
Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty's wild hope was "Han and the world", so to achieve such a wild hope, the cool official is the best tool
Liu Che gained supreme power by virtue of a cool official like Zhang Tang. With such power, Liu Che could coordinate the resources of the entire Han Empire and engage in a protracted war with the Xiongnu. The war was extremely costly, and the wealth accumulated under the rule of Wenjing was quickly consumed, so what to do? Liu Che wanted to use various methods to absorb folk resources, and then he thought of Zhang Tang again.
Zhang Tang certainly did not live up to Liu Che's expectations.
Liu Che ordered the whole country to ban the minting of copper coins, and Zhang Tang severely punished those who minted money. Liu Che wanted the salt and iron official camp, and Zhang Tang severely cracked down on those salt smugglers. Relying on the monopoly of copper coins and salt and iron, Liu Che accumulated a considerable amount of wealth, but these wealth were not enough to support Liu Che's great talent, what to do?
So he began to use the minds of businessmen to impose heavy taxes on them. In the face of such a heavy tax, of course, businessmen do not do it, and there are many people who evade taxes, so Liu Che invented the "Law of Complaint" and mobilized the common people of the world to report tax evaders. Zhang Tang knew what Liu Che meant, that is, to take all the property under the market as his own, so he severely punished the merchants who were sent by the defendants.
History records that the operation "won hundreds of millions of people's property, and tens of millions of slaves", Liu Che was issued, but countless merchants went bankrupt.
The "white deerskin coin" was just a means for Liu Che to amass wealth from the king of the clan clan, and if the clan wanted to make a pilgrimage to Liu Che, or if he wanted to come to the court in the event of a festive celebration, he had to use jade bi as a gift. Of course, yubi can not be sent naked, to have packaging, must be used "leather coins" as a liner. And this "leather coin" must be made of white deerskin. But where are the white deer? The Emperor's Forbidden Garden has. The price of buying "leather coins" made of white deer skins from the Emperor's Forbidden Garden was 400,000 four-baht-and-a-half copper coins.
In the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty (119 BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty issued the "White Deerskin Coin" at the same time, but also minted the "Platinum Three Pins". The so-called platinum three products refer to three different denominations of currency cast from silver and tin alloys. The first is a round dragon coin, each worth 3,000 copper coins; the second is a square horse coin worth 500 copper coins; the third is an oval turtle coin worth 300 copper coins.
Even so, this money still can't meet Liu Che's strategy of "Han and the world", so what to do? Zhang Tang and Emperor Wu of Han discussed the issuance of a "white deerskin coin", a white deerskin coin worth 400,000 yuan. At that time, a piece of jade worn by a nobleman was worth only a few thousand dollars, and a piece of white deer skin cost four hundred thousand, which was obviously robbing money.
Dasi Nong Yanyi strongly opposed this white deerskin coin, and Liu Che was greatly dissatisfied and instructed Zhang Tang to find evidence of his crime. Zhang Tang looked around, Yan Yi this person has no handle, but once when he was at a party with the guests, the guests said how bad the white deerskin coin was, and Yan Yi did not speak, which became evidence of incriminating.
Zhang Tang said that Yan Yi "did not talk about it, but slandered it, and talked about death." The unlucky Yan Yi lost his life like this.
Since then, "belly slander" has become a sin, and everyone is not even allowed to be sad, and can only be happy and welcome with white deerskin coins. That's how the idiom "belly slander" comes from.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the currency system was reformed, and the four and a half baht two were changed to five baht coins
This soup pipes the sky, the bottom pipe, and the middle tube air, which seems to have a lot of power, but behind this is actually the implementation of Liu Che's will. Liu Che wanted to rectify him, and that was also a one-sentence thing.
In the process of implementing the salt and iron monopoly, counting money, and announcing the order, the people who suffered the most were the big merchants and the Hao clan. So they colluded openly and covertly with the state elite. Some of these magnates formed parties with them for personal gain. Among ordinary civilians, the phenomenon of violating laws and regulations and arbitrarily cutting and stealing five baht coins has never been eliminated. These people became the targets of Zhang Tang's strict legal policy, and none of them could escape the investigation. As a result, the scolding voices from the secretary of state to the commoner class all pointed directly at Zhang Tang, and various tricks and plots to frame Zhang Tang were brewing inside and outside the imperial court.
After Zhang Tang served as the Imperial Grand Master for six years, some people waited for the opportunity to harm him.
At that time, there were rumors that Zhang Tang sold information to his old acquaintance merchants for personal gain. Therefore, Zhu Maichen, who had always been at odds with Zhang Tang, and other three long histories in the chancellor's mansion (Changshi was the name of a subordinate official) used the title to report Zhang Tang. The official who tried him was Zhang Tang's former colleague Zhao Yu, who rebuked him and advised him, think of the countless people who were sentenced to death for you in the past, and now you should also know how to score inches, and advise him to commit suicide and die a good death.
In the second year of Yuan Ding (115 BC), Zhang Tang, who was full of grievances, committed suicide.
Zhang Tang's grave has now been found on the campus of Northwest University of Political Science and Law
Then, revered as the "grandmaster of law", there are often students who go to the tomb to pray for blessings, and these students' behavior is really worthy of being a pillar of the country
After Zhang Tang's death, Liu Che mourned his unjust death and sentenced Zhu Maichen and other three chancellors to death. Zhuang Qingzhai, who was responsible for a certain amount at that time, also killed himself because of this. On the surface, this is Liu Che's rehabilitation, but in fact, it is not like this.
Liu Che originally had the idea of putting Zhang Tang to death, what was missing was only an opportunity, and the three changshi just happened to play this role. Otherwise, Liu Che only needed to examine Zhang Tang's family property before his death to get the conclusion that he was corrupt, so why wait until after his death to do it? After the world was basically pacified, Liu Che no longer needed a cool official like Zhang Tang to play a deterrent role, and Zhang Tang had offended many people by handling the case, killing Zhang Tang to calm the anger of the people and buy people's hearts, why not enjoy it? Liu Che did not even want to bear the reputation of unloading and killing donkeys, in order to show that the killing of Zhang Tang was only deceived, so he killed the defendant and killed the plaintiff, the three Changshi were executed, and the minister was forced to commit suicide.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="64" > he is not fighting alone</h1>
After Zhang Tang's death, there were still many legal bureaucrats like Zhang Tang emerging in an endless stream.
Among them, Wang Wenshu, who served as the Taishou of Hanoi, sentenced all of them to capital punishment when he tried more than a thousand families in the county, and it is said that the blood flowed into the blood at the execution site at that time, and the river water for more than ten miles was stained red with blood. Later, he was appointed as a court lieutenant. Yin Qi and Yang Servant, who were known for their investigation and judgment of thieves, were eventually promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander (later known as Right Fufeng). Zhang Tang's official Du Zhou was also promoted to the position of Imperial Grand Master through the post of Ting Wei.
And they are all legal bureaucrats who are well-known as cool officials.
The reason why the legal bureaucracy was continued to be reused by the imperial court was nothing more than that the internal contradictions of the Han Empire under Emperor Wu's rule gradually emerged. Moreover, as long as the new fiscal policies such as salt and iron monopoly, equalization method, and equalization law continue to be implemented, the legal bureaucracy will inevitably be reused.
In Sima Qian's pen, these cool officials recorded were mostly miserable. However, a little better than Zhang Tang's end, the people who can die well are still a lot of people.
At the end of the biography of the Cool Officials, Sima Qian sighed, "To Ruo Shu Shou Feng Dang, Guanghan Li Zhen is good at killing people, DongJun Mi servant sawed Xiang, Tianshui Luo Bi Tui Xian, Hedong Chu Guang vain killing, Jing Zhaowu, Feng Yi Yin Zhou Viper, Shui Heng Yan Feng Pu strike sell please, He Enough counting! What a number! ”
Roughly meaning: Shu County's Taishou Feng broke the suspect's hands and siblings when he did not move, Li Zhen of Guanghan County liked to dismember the suspect, Dongjun Mi servants cut off people's necks with saws, Luo Bi vertebrae in Tianshui County forced confessions to convict, Chu Guang of Hedong County killed people at will, Jing Zhao's unscrupulous, Feng Xu's Yin Zhou, as poisonous as a snake and scorpion, shuiheng du wei Yan Feng forced prisoners to pay bribes by severe torture... These are all difficult books!
But are these cool officials like Zhang Tang, dying? Not all of them.
Therefore, under the imperial system, the so-called good and evil will eventually be rewarded, and this thing is probably sometimes there and sometimes not. Besides, whether or not these cool officials are punished, aren't all those who are being brought to justice dead?
The so-called "prosperity, the people suffer, the people suffer, the people suffer", this is indeed the case.