Huai'an story |" Five ghosts "Haunt the king's camp."

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In the year of great calamity, the people do not have a good life, and often have the sigh of "people are not as good as ghosts". The same is true in this ancient officialdom, where there are often cases of wealth accumulation and corruption, corruption and perversion of the law, glamorous and evil, and upright gentlemen retreating to big ghosts and small ghosts appearing on the scene. Throughout the history of the wild ride, there are often corrupt and malfeasant officials who are scolded by the common people as "ghosts", and their notoriety is far and widespread, and posterity reads them and is full of resources to learn from them.

In the fourth year of Daoguang (1824), the Yellow River flooded, the two Huai regions became zeguo, and the Hongze Lake collapsed overnight, and countless victims in and around Huai'an City were countless victims. The water of the Yellow River is stronger than that of the Huai River, so that the water of the Yellow River is poured south into the Huai River and the Li Canal, and the boats transporting grain to Beijing on the Li Canal are blocked in Huai'an and cannot move. Caoyun was unable to pass, the Beijing division was short of grain, and the imperial court was shaken, and the Daoguang Emperor ordered the River Yamen to quickly find a way to block the breach and dredge the Caoyun.

The presiding official in charge of the management of the Huai'an River was Zhang Jing (字嵨井; pinyin: ZhāngĀng, in modern Yan'an, Shaanxi), who had just taken charge of the governor of Jiangnan River, and he immediately invited Qi Shan, the governor of Liangjiang and the governor of Caoyun in Huai'an Province, to discuss the strategy of governing the river. Zhang Jing advocated digging a new river from Lianshui into the sea and draining away the flood water stranded in the Huai'an area, while Qi Shan and Pan Xi'en insisted on another plan: dig a dam near Wangying Town, let the Yellow River water discharge to the north, and when the flood receded, dredge the lower reaches of the Yellow River and dig deeper, and then block the Mouth of Wangying, and the Yellow River will return to its old road, the water flow will be smooth, the water potential will become smaller, and the water transportation will be smooth.

Zhang Jing had been managing the Yellow River in Henan and Shandong for a few years, and now that he had just arrived at the Huai'an territory, he could not resist the stubborn opinions of qi shan and Pan Xi'en, two colleagues, although he initially held objections, but insisted on it, and reluctantly agreed. As a result, the water conservancy project began quickly, taking three years and costing a total of six million taels of silver.

In the sixth year of Daoguang (1827), the project was successfully completed, but the result was that it did not work. Although the flood was diverted from Wangying, the water of the Yellow River was still turbulent in the spring of the following year, and the water of the Yellow River poured into The Hongze Lake and the Li Canal from north to south, and the fleet of ships transporting grain was still unable to break through Huai'an.

Zhang Jing saw that the rule of the river had failed, and it was useless to stomp his feet on the Qingkou embankment, so he had to go back to yamen to draft a fold: "The subject ruled the river without merit, and there is a holy grace, please cure the sins of the subjects to thank Cangsheng!" ”

The Daoguang Emperor saw that Caoyun had been interrupted for three years, and the yellow control project had consumed a lot of manpower and material resources, and in vain, he immediately ordered qishan, the governor of caoyun, to be demoted to a cabinet scholar. "SpecialLy appointed University Scholar Jiang Youjun (xiān) and Shangshu Mu Zhang'a of the Ministry of Works came to Huai'an to investigate and handle the case and hold the principal responsible.

Qi Shan was the governor of Caoyun, and if Caoyun was not smooth, it was difficult to blame him, and the emperor demoted him to a low punishment. Another party, Pan Xi'en, would actually push the responsibility: "This idea was made by SuiNan, a subordinate of the minister, who knew Tang Wenrui, and asked the emperor to make a clear note." With a big stroke of the Daoguang Emperor, Pan Xi'en and Tang Wenrui were dismissed from their posts together, Pan Xi'en was also a senior official of the Qing Dynasty, the emperor had some protection, Tang Wenrui was pulled out naturally without good fruit to eat, as a direct responsible person was sent to Xinjiang to charge the army. Zhang Jing, the governor of the river, as the chief official of the lianghuai river, was not firm in his position, and was pulled into the water by Qi Shan and Pan Xi'en, and was sentenced to "dismiss and stay in office to see the after-effects". When the minister of Chincha was investigating this river control project, he found that The Huaiyang Dao Yin Zou Xichun (Zi Gongmei, now Zhenjiang Dantu), who presided over the construction of the project, also had certain economic problems, and the emperor ordered That Zou Xichun be demoted to four levels to see the after-effects.

The project of governing the river, which affected the national economy and the people's livelihood, cost three years and millions of taels of silver and actually ended in failure, after which the Chincha investigation and the emperor decided, and as many as 20 officials were dismissed from their posts and assigned to the army, which can be described as a sensation in the government and the opposition. After this case, some locals in Huai'an compiled this matter into a paragraph, and their name was "Five Ghosts Haunting the King's Camp", which satirized the five "main criminals" headed by Qi Shan for laboring and hurting the people's wealth and achieving nothing: "Qi is a daredevil, Pan is an instigating ghost, Zhang is a ghost who has been wronged, Zou is a mean ghost, and Tang is a confused ghost." ”

Qi Shan was a daredevil, which means that originally he was just the governor of Caoyun, but he was in charge of the "idle things" on the other side of the river, and he was burned by fire; Pan Xi'en was only a deputy in the river channel, bypassing his superiors to encourage Qi Shan and supporting his plan, and his heart was not right; Zhang Jing was a wronged ghost, and originally this project was Qi Shan and Pan Xi'en who took charge of the project without authorization and pulled him into the water; Zou Xichun was a mean ghost, which was a counter-statement, saying that he was in charge of the river and wasteful, and millions of taels of silver were floating in the water; Tang Wenrui was a confused ghost, what a bad idea, Those who made people angry and resentful ended up "selling" to people and losing their careers.

The imperial court had no way, and later adopted the method of "irrigating the pond and transporting the pond" to solve the problem of water transportation: another pond river was opened between the Yellow River and the canal, and when the Yellow River was strong, the boats entered the pond, and then blocked the side of the canal, and the water of the Yellow River was diverted into the pond, and the boat could enter the Yellow River, and vice versa, the principle was similar to today's locks. The anecdote of "Five Ghosts Haunting the King's Camp" has been recorded in Huai'an local documents such as "Spring in the Water Window" and has been circulated to this day.

Resources:

(Qing) Ouyang Zhaoxiong and Jin Anqing: "Spring in the Water Window", vol. 1984, Zhonghua Bookstore, 1984.