If you ask who the most corrupt official of the Qing Dynasty is, many people will answer "Hezhen".
However, if you ask who is the most successful corrupt official in the Qing Dynasty, I am afraid that it is yi kuang, the prince of Qing.
The embezzled money was confiscated by Jiaqing, who was only a obligatory custodian of the Treasury of the Qing Dynasty. After Qianlong's death, Hezhen's stolen money was confiscated, and he took his life into it.
And Yi Kuang was not only greedy and occupied, but also landed safely and retreated with his whole body, and a lot of the embezzled money was left to his descendants.
What is even more amazing is that Yi Kuang dares to spend any money, for 3 million. Even Puyi dared to sell.
It is well known that in feudal societies, corruption and power are twins, and the two are inseparable; the greater the power, the greater the opportunity for corruption.
How much power does Yi Kuang have?
In the eighteenth year of Daoguang (1838), on March 24 (the twenty-ninth day of the second month of the lunar calendar), Yi Xi was born in Beijing.
He was the grandson of yongxuan, the seventeenth son of the Qianlong Emperor, and his roots were red and miaozheng; so he was born with a golden key, and his life was smooth.
In the thirtieth year of Daoguang (1850), the 12-year-old Yi Xi attacked and was made a general of the auxiliary state.
In the first month of the second year of Xianfeng (1852), Yi Li was given the title of a shell; at this time, Yi Li was just 14 years old.
Other children are working in the fields, or when the cold window is studying hard, Yi Xi strides in a square step, carries a bird cage, has no worries about food and clothing, and is a prince.
In the 10th year of Guangxu (1884), due to the defeat in the Sino-French War, Prince Gong Yili, who served as the foreman of military aircraft and the foreman of the Prime Minister Yamen, was deposed, and Yi Li entered the center of power, was promoted to the prime minister of state affairs, in charge of foreign affairs, and was enfeoffed as the king of Qing county.
In September of the eleventh year of Guangxu (1885), the Qing court set up a naval court, and Yi Li and Yi Zhen, the Prince of Alcohol, handled naval affairs together, and came to fame and fortune.
In the twentieth year of Guangxu (1894), the sixtieth birthday of Empress Dowager Cixi, Yi Li was busy and busy, so tired that her legs were cramping. Lafayette looked at his tired body, was deeply moved, and sealed him as a prince.
In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu (1898), at the critical moment of the coup d'état of Wushu, Yi Xi, as the director of the Shenji Battalion, closely followed Ronglu in judging the situation, made great contributions to quelling the change of law, saved Cixi, and was naturally praised by Cixi, and personally crowned the hereditary king of the iron hat.
When the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing in the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), Cixi fled west, and Yi Xi, as the minister of the prime minister Yamen, was ordered to stay in Beijing and serve as a plenipotentiary minister with Li Hongzhang, and after arduous negotiations with foreigners, signed the "Xinugu Treaty", once again retaining Cixi's power, Cixi was even more grateful to him, and regarded him as a hardcore horse boy.
In the twenty-ninth year of Guangxu (1903), Rong Lu fell ill and died, and Cixi naturally became interested and promoted him to the position of foreman of the Military Aircraft Department.
Because Yi Xi reported to Cixi very frequently, asking for instructions early and reporting late, there were rumors that the relationship between the two was extraordinary, and Cixi also had a fetus for this.
Three years after the reunification, the Military Aircraft Department was abolished, the Qing court organized the so-called "responsible cabinet", and Yi Xi became the prime minister of the cabinet, becoming the de facto supreme administrator of the Qing Dynasty, with actual powers greater than that of the regent Zaifeng.
In 1913, Empress Longyu died, and by this time the Qing Dynasty had already perished, but Puyi's father, the former regent Zaifeng, made it clear that he would wait for Yili to return to Beijing from Tianjin to discuss, which showed how important Yili's position was.
It can be said that among the political leaders of the late Qing Dynasty, Yi Li had a high position of authority and no one could compare.
Absolute power leads to absolute corruption, because the power of Yi Li has created favorable conditions for himself to accumulate wealth.
How rich is Yi Li?
In August 1911, on the eve of the Wuchang Uprising, the British "Times" broke the news, revealing that the Qing Dynasty politician Yi Li was rich and invincible, and hsbc silver alone had 2 million taels of deposits.
The price list of grain in the late Qing Dynasty collected by the First Historical Archive of China shows that the price of rice in Shuntianfu in the thirty-third year of Guangxu (1907) was about 5 taels per stone.
A stone of rice weighs about 125 pounds, and one or two pieces of silver can buy 25 pounds of rice.
The current price of rice is calculated at 3 yuan per catty, and one or two pieces of silver are equivalent to 125 yuan.
In this conversion, Yi Li's deposits with HSBC alone are as high as 250 million.
Looking at the value of Yi Li's private house, he owns three mansions in Beijing and Tianjin, one of which is "divided into five large courtyards, with nearly a thousand large and small buildings, covering an area of 25,000 square meters." Based on Beijing's current 61,000 square meters, it is worth 1.5 billion.
Three mansions are worth at least around $3 billion.
Not only that, according to the notes of Yi Xi's eldest son Zai Zhen in 1931, he built a mansion for his concubine Fujin in 1916, which took 6 years to 1922 to complete, costing a total of 125,000 taels of silver, worth 12 million yuan.
From the impeachment of him by the ministers when Yi Li was in office, we can also see the bits and pieces of his corruption.
In 1903, Yushi Jiang Shiyan took bribes on a large scale, saying that since Yi Li became the Minister of Military Aircraft, he had accepted no less than 400,000 taels of money from other provinces, and even the five million taels of bribes sent by the Russians dared to accept them.
A year later, the Qing court prepared to build a government bank, and Jiang Shiyan participated in the impeachment of Yi Xi for having a deposit of 1.2 million yuan in the British HSBC Bank.
It can be seen from this that although Yi Xi's wealth is not as good as that of Hezhen, he is also rich enough to rival the country.
Where does Yi Li's money come from?
Yi Li was insatiable and loved money as fate; with his son Zai Zhen and the chancellor Na Tong, he used power for personal gain, engaged in power and money transactions, and blatantly sold officials and lords, which was called "Qingna Company" by people at that time.
In the thirty-third year of Guangxu (1907), Yi Li was assigned to the post of inspector for Duan Zhigui, charging 100,000 taels, and his son Zai zhen and Duan Zhigui's singing prostitute Yang Cuixi.
In the thirty-fourth year of Guangxu (1908), Yi Xi's seventieth birthday was celebrated, and he became an official who rose to the rank of official and became rich. A good opportunity to run for office.
And Yi Xi was even more undisguised, and those who came did not refuse; on the same day, 500,000 taels of silver were earned, and the gifts were worth millions.
In 1911, the post of Shangshu of the Ministry of Posts and Communications became vacant, and Yi Li released the wind and sold 300,000 taels of silver. Sheng Xuanhuai offered to buy it, and Yi Xi knew that he was rich enough to be an enemy of the country, so he wanted to increase the price: "Others can do 300,000 yuan, but you don't have 600,000 taels to talk about."
Later, Sheng Xuanhuai asked for a bargain and sold it for 300,000 yuan, but Yi Li demanded "cash transactions, no other things".
Yi Li's greed for money has reached the point of unscrupulous and reckless, whether it is greed or perverting the law, and even the Qing Dynasty dares to sell for money.
In 1903, the foreman Rong Lu was terminally ill, and Yuan Shikai felt that Yi Xi would take over after observation, so he let his horse Boy Yang Shiqi visit the door with a silver ticket of 100,000 taels.
Yang Shiqi said: "Gong Bao (Yuan Shikai) knows that Wang Ye will soon enter the military plane. People who worked in the military aircraft department had to go into the palace every day to serve Lafayette, and around Lafayette, many eunuchs must beg for the king's congratulations, and this cost is also considerable. Therefore, these money are only pocket money for the arrival of the prince, and will often be honored in the future. ”。
Yuan Shikai did what he said, after Yi Li took office, he often took up the goods, and every New Year's Festival, he had to say that he would sing and invite guests on the birthdays of King Qing and Fujin, and his children got married, and Yuan Shikai spared no effort to perform vigorously.
Therefore, when Cixi died and Zaifeng tried to kill Yuan Shikai, Yi Li strongly dissuaded him.
After the Wuchang Uprising, the former governor of Sichuan, Xi Liang, volunteered to lead the army to oversee Shaanxi, and Yi Li, who loved money as much as his life, still wanted to collect money according to the old rules, asking for 5,000 taels.
This means that I usually don't spend money to buy officials, and I will not do this when the Qing Dynasty is alive and dead.
At the critical juncture of life and death in the Qing Dynasty, Longyu summoned Yi Li into the palace, and Yi Li accepted a bribe of 3 million yuan yuan from Yuan Shikai, tried his best to speak for him, and forced the palace on Empress Longyu: "There are already 50,000 people in the revolutionary army, and none of the former enemy soldiers of our army have any intention of fighting..."
As a result, Empress Dowager Longyu was chaotic and had to resign herself to Yuan Shikai and let Puyi abdicate; Yuan Shikai became the supreme ruler of China as he wished.
Puyi deeply resented and hated what Yi Xi had done.
On January 29, the sixth year of the Republic of China (1917), Yi Xi died of illness in the Tianjin Concession at the age of 79, when the Minister of Internal Affairs first proposed "Zhe", according to the name of the emperor, and knew the person who knew the zhe.
Puyi was resolutely not allowed, believing that he was a traitor to the Qing Dynasty and was not worthy at all. Then he personally chose the four words: "false, ugly, humorous, and strong", and let the Ministry of Internal Affairs choose from them.
The meaning of these words is self-evident, they all mean that Yi Li's character is not good, and he is despicable to the extreme.
After Puyi's father Zaifeng heard about it, he felt that Yu couldn't bear it, after all, he was also a clan and couldn't be too bad-
But Puyi Tie was blue in the face and resolutely refused to give in.
Later, under the persuasion of the elders of the Qing Dynasty, Puyi reluctantly gave the word "secret", which means "repentance of previous deeds". After Puyi grew up, he also said indignantly: "The rivers and mountains of the Qing Dynasty for more than two hundred years have all been destroyed in the hands of Yi Li."
It can be seen from this that Yi Li's greed is far better than that of He Yan; He Yan is only selling officials and corrupting the law, and Yi Li even dares to sell for money in the Qing Dynasty.