Official positions, the name of the country also. Most of those corrupt dynasties in history have the phenomenon of buying and selling official positions. However, even the very corrupt imperial court was also concealed when selling officials, and it was cleverly operated in name only.
However, there was an emperor in history who pushed the act of selling officials to the extreme: not only did he open a special official selling shop in a dignified place, openly selling officials at a clear price, but also institutionalized the act of selling officials and knights.
This corrupt emperor was Liu Hong, the eleventh emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The reign of Emperor Han Ling and his predecessor, Emperor Huan of Han, was the darkest period of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Zhuge Liang's "Table of Renunciation" contains a statement that Liu Bei, the founding emperor of the Shu Han Dynasty, "sighed and hated Huan Ling" every time.
The Han Ling Emperor Liu Hong was fortunate to become emperor. His predecessor, Liu Zhi, the Emperor Huan of Han, died at the age of 36, leaving no heirs behind him. The young Empress Dou (who was honored as empress dowager after Emperor Huan's death) and her father Dou Wu , in order to facilitate control of the imperial government , set the age of their heirs at the juvenile duan. So he locked up Liu Hong, the nephew of Emperor Huan of Han and was only 12 years old at the time. In this way, Liu Hong was ignorantly descended from a branch of the imperial family who had no future, and suddenly came to the world.
What Emperor Huan of Han left to Emperor Han Ling was a mess of holes. After the Han Ling Emperor ascended the throne, the politics of the Han Dynasty was already very corrupt, and disasters such as drought, flood, and locust plague were rampant in the world, and the people were not happy with their lives, and they complained bitterly. Coupled with the seizure of power by foreign relatives, the eunuch dictatorship reached the peak of history, and the fate of the Eastern Han Dynasty inevitably declined.
And the dim-witted and absurd Emperor Han Ling, in addition to indulging in wine, also blindly spoiled the eunuchs, honored Zhang Rang and others as "ten permanent attendants", and often said that "Zhang Chang is my father, and Zhao Chang is my mother". The eunuchs acted recklessly under the emperor's favor, extorting the people and plundering the people's fat, which can be described as extremely corrupt.
The Han Ling Emperor was passionate about business and could be called the first emperor in history to be a "stubborn lord". He specially opened a "palace market" in the harem, imitating street markets, various shops, and vendors. He asked some of the palace concubines to dress up as merchants to sell, others to dress up as guests who bought things, and some to dress up as singers and monkeys. He himself, dressed as a merchant in merchant clothes, walked around the man-made bazaar, drank in a hotel, or quarreled, fought, fought with shopkeepers and customers, and had a lot of fun. The Ling Emperor also used a donkey to drive, personally wielding the whip and driving in the garden.
This matter was known to the people of the capital and rushed to imitate it, and the originally low price of donkeys suddenly rose, the same as the price of horses.
We can tolerate such absurd behavior, after all, it has not caused much damage to the country. But sadly, the Han Ling Emperor soon developed his love of business to sell officials and knights. In this way, the consequences are naturally unimaginable.
The Han Ling Emperor opened an official exchange, clearly marked prices, and publicly sold officials. The money from the sale of officials flows into his own pockets. Emperor Hanling personally formulated the rules for selling officials: local officials were priced twice as high as court officials, while county officials had different prices; officials had to pay for their promotions. Generally speaking, the price of an official position is calculated based on the annual salary of the official, for example, the price of the official position of the annual salary of 2,000 stones is 20 million yuan, and the price of the official position of 400 stones is 4 million yuan, that is to say, the price of the official position is 10,000 times the annual income of the official. In addition to the fixed price, it is also increased or decreased at any time according to the value of the person seeking official and the property he owns.
Emperor Hanling's selling of officials can be described as a goose plucking hair, and he did not miss any opportunity, and even Zhang Wen, Duan Jiao, and others, who had great merit and high prestige, also paid enough money to Emperor Hanling to buy officials before they ascended to the public throne. On this point, it is recorded in the "Zizhi Tongjian": "Although Zhang Wen and others have meritorious and diligent reputations, they all export goods and wealth, and they are on the public throne." Later, he intensified, and even the transfer, promotion, or appointment of a new official had to pay 1/3 or 1/4 of the price of the official position, that is, the official had to pay him a legal income equivalent to more than 25 years when he took office. Many people who want to become officials are overjoyed because they cannot pay such a high amount of "official fees" and are in vain.
The story of Cui Lie's purchase of officials is very funny. Cui Lie was born from a prominent family in the north, and successively served as a county sheriff and a secretary of state in the imperial court. In March of the second year of Zhongping (185), Cui Lie wanted to become an official, so he went to the relationship and spent 5 million yuan to buy a Situ.
On the day of the canonization, the court held a solemn ceremony of worship. The Ling Emperor himself came to the front of the palace, and the hundred officials stood down the stairs. Looking at Cui Liechun's triumphant look, Emperor Ling suddenly felt that his position as a situ was too cheap, and he couldn't help but mutter with regret to his followers: "This official has lost money, and he should have wanted ten million." The middle attendant next to him interjected, "He can make five million, which is already very good." Your Majesty, you want to have some brand awareness, like Cui Gong, a Famous Scholar in Jizhou, how can you easily buy an official? Now even he recognizes His Majesty's products and just gives us free advertising, and this official position will be more popular in the future. ”
The seller of officials had been sold to the highest official position in the imperial court, the Three Dukes, and the emperor of the hall greedily discussed the price of the Three Dukes like buying and selling goods, which was really ridiculous and absurd.
Afterwards, Cui Lie asked his son Cui Jun one day: "I live in the third duke, how about the speaker?" This means that people have nothing to say about me being the Third Duke. Cui Jun told the truth: "Commentators hate its copper smell." This is where the term "copper stink" comes from.
In addition, the Hanling Emperor also implemented the bidding method, whereby those who seek officials can evaluate the bid, and the person with the highest bidder can win the bid.
The Han Ling Emperor's selling of officials was not only open, but also had the characteristics of institutionalization and continuity. He happily did seven years of selling official business, making the official field a miasma, which made the already stormy Han Room even worse.
Up-down effect. The emperor was still like this, and those corrupt officials and cool officials intensified their looting and exploitation of the people, squeezing out more money to buy bigger officials, and then using the greater power in their hands to get more money.
The government was corrupt and dark, corrupt officials and officials were everywhere, and land annexation was very serious. The people could no longer bear exploitation and oppression, and they embarked on the road of resistance one after another, and uprisings continued everywhere for many years.
In the more than ten years from the first year of Jianning (168) to the first year of Zhongping (184), there are no less than a dozen peasant uprisings recorded in historical records.
In the first year of Zhongping (184), the three ZhangJiao brothers of Julu (present-day Zhuozhou, Hebei) held an uprising in the name of "the sky is dead, the yellow sky is standing, the age is in the jiazi, and the world is auspicious", which is known in history as the "Yellow Turban Rebellion". Although this uprising was suppressed, it dealt a heavy blow to the terminally ill Eastern Han Dynasty, and the Eastern Han Dynasty has since existed in name only.
In 189 AD, the fainting Emperor Hanling ended his life in a miserable rain and wind, at the age of 34. (Liu Jixing)
