Confucius once said that although wealth is what everyone wants, if it is not obtained by the right means, then a gentleman will not accept it. But obviously, there are not so many gentlemen in the world.
In the eighth year of Xianfeng, that is, in 1858, during this year, the Qing Dynasty had a shuntianxiang test field case that shocked the late Qing dynasty. Because of the complicated circumstances and wide implications, this major case was personally ordered by the Xianfeng Emperor and handed over to Prince Zaiyuan of Yi and others to investigate and handle in batches. After the two batches of judgments, a total of more than ninety people were investigated, of which five people, including the chief examiner, Yipin Dayuan Bai, were directly beheaded.
However, after the sentence of execution, Bai Yao also asserted himself as a member of the Yipin Commandery, believing that the emperor would not push himself out of the power core of the Qing Dynasty because of this "small matter". Therefore, he also specifically instructed his son to pack his luggage, believing that he would be exiled at most, not executed.
As a result, Bai Yao overestimated his own value, and also lowed the determination of the Xianfeng Emperor, and finally Bai Bao, a member of the Yipin Dynasty, was executed, shocking the government and the opposition.
1. The fuse of the case
Since the advent of the imperial examination, the emperors of any dynasty have attached great importance to the imperial examination. Because the imperial examination can select talents in the world, this has a very direct relationship with the emperor's rule over the world, and the Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan is of course the same. Therefore, in Xianfeng's eight-year Shuntianxiang examination, the position of chief examiner who supervised the examination room fell to Bai Yao, a senior member of Yipin.
In September of that year, after the end of the Shuntianxiang examination, the list was released as scheduled, and the result was that the white flag manchurian students ranked seventh in the ordinary age examination, which surprised many people. Because of his ordinary age, he has always liked tunes and has acted on stage in the theater. And here's the thing.
The Qing Dynasty considered that performing drama on stage was a lowly profession that "did not do the right thing", so it was clearly forbidden for flag bearers to sing opera texts on stage. The act of singing opera texts on stage by this person of ordinary age is considered to be "willing to be inferior". The tragedy is that Ping Ling's humanistic pen is really not good, he not only sang the drama on stage, but also many typos on the test paper were discovered by Yu Shi Meng Chuanjin.
Therefore, after understanding the situation, Yushi Mengchuanjin directly tried to raise Pingling in the impeachment of the Xianfeng Emperor on the seventh day of the following month, believing that his Zhu Mo did not match, and specially asked for a re-examination. After learning of this news, the Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan was very concerned, and then immediately dispatched Prince Zaiyuan of Yi, Duanhua the Prince of Zheng, Chen Fuen and others to investigate the matter.
Subsequently, Ping Ling was summoned for trial, and as a result, in the process of interrogation, Ping Ling only confessed the fact that he did sing the drama on stage, but did not make a decent explanation for the problem of Zhu Mo's inconsistency on his examination paper. Then, Zaiyuan and the others first removed Pingling's meritorious name, and then further tortured and interrogated.
Judging from the content of the re-examination and proofreading by the officials and the inspectors, it can be seen that the content of the examination paper of the ordinary age does have a situation where Zhu Mo does not match, and there are seven typos in the verses in it. When the examiner Zou Shilin was reading the papers, he thought that Pingling's typos were clerical errors caused by transcription, so he changed them privately.
Logically, if such a thing happens, if the conviction is based on the laws of the Great Qing, it is enough to suspend the ordinary age penalty from the three subjects and dismiss the examiner, and the chief examiner will be punished for one year. However, the problems that arose in PingLing's body were only a fuse, and from this fuse, when the case was tried in depth, the ministers Quan Qing, Chen Fuen, and others found out many cases of favoritism and fraud. Now, things get serious.
As the chief examiner, Bai Ye was implicated and cursed in this situation.
Second, the first officer was punished and beheaded
During the trial of Zhu Mo's examination papers, Quan Qing, Chen Fu'en and others found that there were poetry contradictions and other problems, involving more than fifty candidates. Among them, thirty-eight people's examination papers should be rated as "papers of discussion" after deliberation, and the issues involved in the common age are such issues. In addition, there is a person named Yan Jingtang, whose test paper is also too wrong.
Subsequently, Ping Ling and Yan Jingtang were punished with suspension of the third and second sections of the examination respectively, and soon after, Ping Ling died in prison. The occurrence of this incident greatly annoyed the Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan, and when he was angry, he directly stripped Bai Bao, the chief examiner of the Shuntianxiang Examination, of his position, and at the same time, the deputy examiners Zhu Fengbiao and Cheng Tinggui were also dismissed to await further investigation.
After Bai Ye, Zhu Fengbiao, Cheng Tinggui, and others were fined for a year and nine months, Xu Tong, the editor of the Hanlin Academy, and other examiners were dismissed, and Guo Shouchang, Xie Zuyuan, Pan Guanbao, Wu Xinjian, and others were all punished with reprimands and punishments.
However, it's not over yet. During the further trial of the Pingling case, it was also found that Li Heling had revised the joints for Luo Hongling and sent a note to the deputy examiner Pu Andai. This kind of thing involved the removal of the examination paper by the family of the chief examiner Bai Yao, but Bai Ye resigned himself to it, took Luo Hongxuan's test paper in the middle, and then removed Liu Chengzhong's test paper.
Therefore, Bai Bao, who had already been fined for one year and nine months and had been stripped of his post, was implicated in the fraud case of being entrusted with the commission.
In this way, Zaiyuan and others asked the Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan, saying that Bai Ye was a senior member of the Yipin Clan, but it was involved in the case of fraudulent fraud under the instructions, although there was no precedent to follow, but it should be punished according to the case of bribery and joint purchase of joints by traffic instructions. His crime shall be decided.
Finally, in the middle of February of the ninth year of Xianfeng, emperor Yixuan of Xianfeng sentenced Bai Ye and others to the crimes of Bai Ye and others in front of Prince Zaiyuan of Yi and Duanhua the Prince of Zheng, as well as many military ministers and ministers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Xianfeng Emperor Believed that the Kechang was a great ceremony of talent, and whoever found traffic fraud would be severely punished.
Therefore, Bai Ye was sentenced to beheading, as the ministers had proposed. Similarly, Pu An, Li Heling and others were also sentenced to beheading.
Third, the final fate of Bai Bao
After the fraud case involving Bai Ye at the behest of the emperor, the Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan sentenced Bai Ye, a major member of the Yipin, on the grounds that "although the situation is excusable, the law is difficult to forgive". For Bai Yao, he was not worried at first. Because he knew that he was a big member of the First Class, he had entered the core circle of power of the Qing Dynasty.
For such a person, he was almost the emperor's right hand. Even in this case, even in cases of fraudulent acts of obedience and entrustment implicated in scientific expeditions, the maximum penalty is only exile. Therefore, before the execution, Bai Ye also told his son not to worry, and let him pack his bags and prepare for exile.
However, everything is Bai Bao's own fantasy. For any emperor, daring to commit traffic fraud in scientific expeditions is a national event that is difficult to tolerate. As a result, the Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan directly pierced Bai Ye's illusions, ordered that Bai Ye be beheaded immediately, and also sent the Shangshu ministers Su Shun and Zhao Guang to monitor the execution.
In this way, Bai Yao became the only Yipin official in the Qing Dynasty to be sentenced to a decision due to a scientific expedition. After the end of the whole case, the Xianfeng Emperor Yixuan punished more than ninety people in batches, in addition to the officials who were dismissed and exiled, the death of Bai Yao, a major member of the Yipin, shocked the entire government and the public.
However, after the coup d'état of Xin You, under the circumstance that Sushun, Zaiyuan and others were punished, there were new changes in the Shuntianxiang examination case. Whether it is due to political needs or not, I will not mention it here, but the result is that Bai Ye has been "shown to snow".
Because Bai Yao's crime of "listening to his instructions" is irrefutable, but in the absence of precedent to follow, Zaiyuan, Duanhua and others have arbitrarily agreed to compare their crimes to the case of traffic bribery and joints, which is really a kind of favoritism revenge. Therefore, Zhong Lian, the son of Bai Bao, was given the title of Four Pin Qing. In the "Qing History Manuscript And Biography of Bai Bao", it is recorded that Zhong Lian, the son of Bai Bao, finally achieved the position of a waiter in the Shengjing Bingbu.
epilogue:
The Xianfeng Emperor gave Bai Yao, a member of the Yipin Dynasty, a sentence of summary sentence for the proposed crimes of Zaiyuan, Duanhua, and others. After Emperor Muzong took the throne, he was also invited by Yushi Ren Zhaojian to give Bai Hao a clear result. The two emperors have different judgments, and whether they have different positions is unknown.
One thing is certain, though, that a mistake is a mistake. Since Bai Ye was able to obey the instructions, it was no wonder that he caused the subsequent fate. If he hadn't been a member of the imperial court and hadn't taken this matter to heart, he wouldn't have been directly asked to be beheaded later.
It can be seen that no matter what the identity, it is best to do as Liu Bei said: do not act with evil and small.
Reference: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty
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