History is the memory of things that have been said and done. —Carl Baker
Among the feudal officials of the late Qing Dynasty, Ding Baozhen could not rank in the first echelon, and there was still a gap between him and Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang, Liu Kunyi and others. But Ding Baozhen has one thing that others do not have, that is, it is as clean as water. He served as the governor of Sichuan for 10 years, and after his death, he actually owed a bunch of debts, and the family of the governor of Tangtang did not even have the travel expenses to return to his hometown of Guizhou.
Ding Baozhen, a native of Pingyuan, Guizhou, was a jinshi of Xianfeng in the third year (1853), and successively served as a Shujishi of Hanlin Yuan, the prefect of Yuezhou, the envoy of Shandong, the inspector of Shandong, and the governor of Sichuan.
What made Ding Baozhen famous in one fell swoop was that he killed Cixi's pet supervisor An Dehai, and Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang both admired Ding Baozhen's move, calling him "Haojie". Because Ding Baozhen killed An Dehai and received the support of Empress Dowager Ci'an, Prince Gong, and Prince Shuo, Empress Dowager Cixi had no choice. Cixi was a person who was sure to repay the favor, but in Ding Baozhen's case, she made an exception, not only released her previous suspicions, but also promoted him to the governor of Sichuan in the second year of Guangxu.
After that, Ding Baozhen served as the governor of Sichuan for 10 years until his death. During this period, he carried out drastic reforms in Sichuan's political, military, bureaucratic, and economic aspects, leaving behind a series of impressive political achievements.
In terms of the administration of officials, Ding Baozhen asked the imperial court to reform the system of appointing officials, and when the prefecture and county officials were vacant, young and promising people should be selected to enrich the localities, rather than according to the old rules, the alternate personnel should be filled in shifts in sequence. Ding Baozhen also severely punished corrupt officials and impeached a series of officials, including senior officials such as Fang Junyi, Fu Qing of the Salt Tea Ceremony, and Cai Fengnian, as well as ordering the removal of many bad rules and habits in the official field.
In the late Qing Dynasty, officials at all levels of the official court had to accept life festival fees from their subordinates and disguised bribes in the names of Bingjing, Tanjing, Guajing, and Beijing, so as to communicate with each other, protect their official positions, and seek promotion. These bad rules were all abolished by Ding Baozhen's order, and the funds required by the yamen at all levels were paid in the form of open subsidies, and subsidies were issued according to the annual quota of the grades.
According to this system, Ding Baozhen, as the governor, could receive 12,000 taels a year from the clan treasury, but he never received this money, until his death, the money was still stored in the General Bureau of Official Transportation, and eventually became public funds. However, he himself used most of Feng Lu's public welfare undertakings, and for this reason, he owed a lot of debts.
In terms of the economy, the first is to reform the salt administration. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Sichuan salt was implemented by oral salt, and each state and county attracted its own merchants and leaders, and then distributed salt at designated salt farms, and salt could only be sold in the county of Honshu. In addition to claiming the "salt introduction", the salt merchant is also allowed to ship and sell one-tenth of the "residual salt" of the "salt introduction" without paying taxes.
Therefore, the problem of entrained salt is very serious, and because salt merchants can set the price of salt on their own after handing over salt, plus salt costs, freight, entertainment and other expenses, they often collude with the government to raise the price of salt. From the second year of Qianlong to the beginning of Guangxu, the price of salt in Sichuan rose sixfold, and the famine years rose by more than ten times.
The price of official salt is so high that the people naturally cannot afford to eat it, and some courageous unemployed or poor people often organize themselves to gather to sell "private salt." Because private salt is difficult to ban, the profits of salt merchants have been greatly reduced, which has also affected the state tax. In desperation, the Qing government adopted two means: strict anti-smuggling and salt levy to ensure the collection of salt taxes. In this way, the confrontation between salt dealers and the government intensified.
After Ding Baozhen took charge of Sichuan, he took a series of measures to strictly guard against and mobilize heavy troops in an attempt to eliminate the smuggling of salt in one fell swoop. After more than half a year of rectification, private salt has been controlled to a certain extent. Subsequently, he reformed the salt law, implementing official transportation and commercial sales, that is, making salt affordable for the people and increasing the government's tax revenue, and the only people who suffered were the corrupt officials who profited from the salt industry.
In the fourth year of Guangxu, the Sichuan Machinery Bureau prepared by Ding Baozhen was built and put into production, a modern government-run enterprise that could manufacture machines and guns, as well as gunpowder bullets. In the following ten years, the machinery and equipment were added many times and production was expanded. By the fifteenth year of Guangxu, the Machinery Bureau had been able to produce products such as Knuber shells, military leather products, and fire water guns, and in the Sino-French War, the Sichuan Machinery Bureau transported a large number of weapons and equipment to the front-line troops.
In terms of people's livelihood, Ding Baozhen organized migrant workers to repair the dujiangyan old embankment and return hundreds of thousands of people to cultivate land. During this period, he visited the construction site 12 times, and when the project was caused by an accident due to a huge flood, he took the initiative to take responsibility and sincerely reviewed his mistakes.
In the eleventh year of Guangxu, Ding Baozhen died while serving as the governor of Sichuan. Before he died, he took a recital. In his recital, he analyzed the situation in the southwest and the coast and suggested that the imperial court strengthen its war readiness. Finally, he also proposed that he had owed more than 100,000 taels of debt to his colleagues and fellow villagers for many years for the officials, and now that he was dead, he hoped that the emperor could help him pay off the debt.
When the Guangxu Emperor saw this recital, he was said to be moved to tears, and he decreed that the debts owed by Ding Baozhen would be repaid by the state and allocated by the ministry of households. He also gave him the title of Crown Prince Taibao (太保), courtesy name "Wencheng". After Ding Baozhen's death, his family did not even pay for his return home, or the travel expenses paid by Sichuan officials.