"Yangzhou Character Chronicle" Baoying Qing Dynasty official - Wang Kaitai

Wang Kaitai (1823-1875), initially known as Dun Min, the characters Youyi, Youxuan, and Supplementary Sail, the owner of the Supplementary Garden, and the Baoying people of Jiangsu. In the 30th year of Daoguang (1850), he entered the priesthood, selected Shu Jishi, and taught editing at the Sankan. Xianfeng Ten Years (1860) in Xiangxiang to run the Jiangbei regiment training, against the Taiping Rebellion. Later into the Li Hongzhang curtain. He successively served as the governor of Zhejiang Grain Road and the envoy of Zhejiang. The waterways of The three counties of Shanyin, Huiji, and Xiaoshan were built. In the sixth year of Tongzhi (1867), he moved to Guangdong as a political envoy, and served as a government envoy to eliminate bad rules, reduce donations, and revitalize the academy. He was promoted to Inspector of Fujian for seven years. In the thirteenth year (1874), due to Shen Baozhen's request to move to Taiwan to assist in diplomacy, he crossed taiwan in the first year of Guangxu (1875) to deal with Taiwan affairs, and later died of overwork and miasma.

In the twelfth year of Qing Tongzhi (1873), due to corruption from top to bottom and the decline of the government, the Tongzhi Emperor secretly ordered government and opposition officials to offer strategies to govern the country and the country. Wang Kaitai, as an official of the imperial court, intended to help the building in the general, and responded with great enthusiasm, Chen Yan six things, and needled the shortcomings of the times. The gist of it is:

1. Cases of suspension of donations

The statutes of the Qing Dynasty to buy officials were called donation cases, which were limited to official positions below the middle level of the Jingguan Lang and below the level of the Foreign Officials Daotai. Xianfeng donated a lot of silver in order to increase the amount of military expenses and widely implemented it, resulting in a large number of officials being corrupt and dimwitted, embezzling and accepting bribes, which was appalling. According to the analysis of the princes, those who buy officials often "have a family that is not a vegetarian, and people are restless and enterprising, and they seek benefits from their own, how can their disadvantages be better than words?" Sharply pointed out: After these people become officials, they will embezzle money and "make up for the deficit." Taking Fujian Province as an example, after calculating a detailed account, tongzhi for ten to twelve years, the three-year cash register was only tens of thousands, but "with a trickle of small and harmful officials, the gain is not worth the loss." Therefore, it is urgent to call for "stopping donations as a top priority" at present. At the same time, for the poor collection of the national treasury, it is recommended to donate tens of thousands of dollars from the six southeastern provinces and the customs and foreign tax customs, "can be donated by the Beijing Copper Bureau". It's a meticulous consideration.

Second, eliminate redundant personnel

In the late Qing Dynasty, most of them were admitted to the government with donations and military merits, and the number of additional divisional personnel in the ministry and temple increased unabated, most of them "filled the vacancies indefinitely, in vain to consume travel food, and the candidates in various provinces were twice as large as in Beijing." The prince suggested that "depending on the number of deficiencies, two out of ten" should be retained", and then "to help the county of big pick (people who fail to pass the test three times, can participate in the big pick, do not take the exam, mainly look at appearance, eloquence, etc., as the waiting for the county) rank in the latter, temporarily ordered to return to the hometown Hou Consultation."

3. Limit the warranty

In the late Qing Dynasty, internal and external troubles arose at the same time, and wars were frequent and special attention was paid to the army, so zhongbaoju was promoted to an official in the Xingjun Army. However, the wind of taking the back door took advantage of the situation, making the "protection case layer by layer", and the official and promotion were various. The prince denounced it as "extremely indiscriminate, there are many shortcuts", which must be verified, and those who pass the examination are "only allowed to be promoted, and the rest of the shifts are deleted" and "must not be abused" to rectify the style.

Fourth, restore the integrity

During the Xianfeng period, when there were many wars and military uses, the Qing court implemented the "Jingwai Feng Lian (Jingguan Waiguan Feng Jin) to make up for the deficiencies. Officials complained about "hardship," and many people used their power for personal gain in the name of insufficient funds to make up for it. The prince first took the civil service in this province as an example, carefully calculated, saying that "if you collect money, grain, and envy expenditure, you still have a win", and then ask "to change the old amount, or add a supplement to the expenditure", so as to avoid his excuse, so as to punish corruption.

5. Heavy school quotas

During the Tongzhi Dynasty, the provinces encouraged Confucian students to buy officials with money in order to collect more donations, so there was a system of widening the median quota and the number of schools. The prince said that "the median amount is tried every three years, and there is no need to worry about abuse", which seems to be increased. This is not the case with the guangdong school quota, because in various places , "the scholars and phoenixes are uneven, but the people with shallow literature and science abuse the toilet", "after getting a single student (just become a scholar), they will take over the lawsuits, arbitrarily cut the township songs, and the abuse index is unbearable", so they should "only add the median quota, not the quota", and ask "the scholar to review it as appropriate".

6. Set up a training camp

During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi dynasties, they set up a company camp in response to the war, which was originally organized by Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang in their hometowns and opposed to the Taiping Army. The Qing army was repeatedly defeated and collapsed, and after the Qing court competed for the victory of the training camp, it was particularly important. However, the soldiers and soldiers were all recruited from their own nationality, and because "the monthly salary was not enough to support eight families", PingSu had to go home to learn their own crafts and do their own business. Every time there is a drill, "but follow the story", "there is a conscription, humble and tiring, can be done", what about "soldiers and nobles are fast"? The prince also worried that "the soldiers do not know each other, and the people have their own hearts, can They win?" And the military expenditure cost tens of millions, "it can not be used, its drawbacks are really due to this." It advocates "reducing the number of soldiers and increasing the salary, and adding the reduced salary to the soldiers", and "five hundred people are battalions, choose the place to divide, and transfer each other at any time", so that "all the pawns will leave their hometowns and will not be scattered in the city". In this way, "the salary will not be increased, and the soldiers will be practical", and it is expected that "the soldiers will be turned into courage, and the armament will be shameful." He also said that Zeng Guofan and Zuo Zongtang used this method to achieve practical results.

Although the prince's remarks could not bring the precarious Qing court back to life, it was also a good medicine for Peiyuan to consolidate the roots. Soon after, guo was appreciated by the Tongzhi Emperor and summoned him by a special edict.

After Receiving the order, Wang Kaitai went to Beijing to meet the Tongzhi Emperor. However, due to years of physical and mental exhaustion, coupled with the fatigue of the journey, he fell ill in Suzhou and had no choice but to beg for false medical treatment, and the imperial court approved it. While he was about to raise him, he suddenly arrived on his orders, causing him to rush to Taiwan to deal with urgent matters and "take into account the overall situation." The edict was at the door, anxious for the spark, and the prince supported the sick body and "returned to his post with force".

It turned out that in the tenth year of Tongzhi (1871), Japanese Ryukyu ships were adrift, and "dozens of refugees were killed by Taiwan's Shengfan (the old national contempt for Kaihua Late)". At that time, the prince was responsible for the inspection, and immediately investigated and sent the refugees back to China. The matter had already been settled, but Japan used the pretext of attracting troops to invade Taiwan. The Qing court ordered the prime minister of shipping, Shen Baojiao (Lin Zexu's son-in-law), to cross the taiwan to prepare military affairs and negotiate with them, and then discussed peace and settled the dispute. At the time of the discussion of "opening the mountain and fufan", Shen Shangshu's court requested that it be handed over to the prince to preside. The prince had also taken the initiative to ask for help before. In the first year of Guangxu (1875), the prince took illness to Taiwan, looked at the terrifying waves, his heart fluctuated, and he felt a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. Therefore, while opening up the mountains and caring for the mountains, on the other hand, recruiting troops to raise salaries and strengthen defense. He repelled several harassments by the Japanese army to ensure the tranquility of the Taiwan Strait, and his bones were far better than Li Hongzhang's. At this time, the government and the army were in full swing, and Haibo was not happy. In his spare time, he composed 32 "Taiwan Miscellaneous Songs" and 12 "Continuation Songs", which are self-annotated and are now collected in the "Taiwan Literature Series" compiled and printed by the Economic Research Office of the Bank of Taiwan. According to this, the prince traveled several times throughout Taiwan, exploring the people's secrets to promote the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages, "especially the righteousness of the world's Taoist hearts, the enlightenment of teaching chemistry schools", "persuading smoking, gambling, and all bad habits, compiling five words and a hundred songs, and children under the age of fifteen who can recite them, and rewarding the green ants with ten texts." As a feudal governor with such good intentions, Ze Guang's influence on Taiwan is both deep and far-reaching.

In the same year, the ancestral hall of Zheng Chenggong, the national hero of Tainan in Fucheng, was completed. The prince admired Zheng Gong, personally went to pay homage, and inscribed a joint note: "The new Yanping King Temple was completed, and the Yu inscription was linked to the clouds: loyalty to the sense of the firmament, the sea suddenly appeared on the isolated island; through the Lunguan Games, the whole mountain was left for posterity to open." This association not only praised Zheng Gong for not fearing hardships and dangers and obstacles, but also for recovering Taiwan on the vast sea, and was touched by the loyalty of the motherland, but also stressed the importance of planning and development, and encouraged future generations to work hard to turn a barbaric land into a rich treasure island, which is extremely insightful to historians.

In the winter of the first year of Guangxu (1875), the prince was terminally ill due to "overwork and illness", and had to return from Taiwan to the provincial capital of Fuzhou for treatment, and finally died of worsening illness at the age of fifty-three. Throughout his life, gong was honest and self-guarding, and his clothes were mostly old clothes as early as the Hanlin period, and when he died, it was difficult to bury the poor. The imperial court gave the crown prince the title of Shaobao (正二品), rewarded him with a pension according to the treatment of the governor, and gave him the title of "Wenqin" (文勤), and ordered the construction of a shrine in the city of Fujian Province and the capital of Taiwan. Every four o'clock and eight festivals, the officials and people who come to the temple to prepare the food treasures are endless, and they pay homage to the ceremony and burn incense to bow down to show their remembrance of the ancestors and princes. This is also the Qing court's desire to take the prince as a model and play a role in educating and imitating the corrupt officials and corrupt officials who are full of government and opposition?

In December of the following year (1876), his coffin was buried in Yinjiazhuang, Longshou Village, North Baoying City. Yu Yue, a native of Zhejiang, was the same age as the prince, and his eldest daughter was married to the second son of the prince, Wang Yuqing, married to his children, and wrote for him the "Monument to the Prince Shaobao Wenqin Fujian Inspector of the Prince's Shinto Monument", which was included in the twenty-seventh volume of the "Biography of the Continuation Stele", which was detailed and will not be repeated.

Looking at the life of Wang Gong and Eunuch Hai, he has indeed achieved "purity, prudence, and diligence", worthy of a generation of clean officials and honest officials, and enough to be a model for officials. The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, which occupies the same status as the Twenty-Four Histories, is specially established for its biography and praised, making it famous throughout the ages. Both at home and abroad are admired, and the hometown of Baoying has also increased its popularity. We can't help but be proud that our county has produced such a star.