In the dark and filthy prison of the yamen, an old eunuch who was full of corruption wailed: "I would rather be tortured than confess the crimes of my colleagues." He would rather be tortured than betray them. Is there a distorted system of power behind this that underpins this corruption? Why did the Ming Dynasty's Yulu system become so deformed, leading to corruption becoming the unspoken rule of officialdom?
The low system of money and the temptation of bribery
In the seventeenth year of Yongle (1419), Wei Yipeng, a magistrate who was accustomed to corruption, was severely punished. He was subjected to extremely cruel punishments: cutting off more than five of them alive, dismembering the nine orifices, and being punished by the sun. Watching his flesh and skin being peeled off layer by layer, the pain in his heart made him feel painful. But just when he thought that his life was about to end, Wei Yipeng suddenly remembered something and shouted in horror: "No! Nine thousand taels of silver are still hidden in a private cell, and no one knows! If it is discovered, the wealth I have accumulated over the years will be burned!"
What happened to Wei Yipeng? It turned out that he, a civil official in the dynasty, was in the position of a magistrate, but he was extremely greedy. He extorted money from the people, extorted merchants, demanded large sums of money, and was insatiable. Finally, in an investigation, his corruption crime was completely exposed, which attracted the attention of the imperial court. In order to set an example, the emperor ordered severe punishment to set an example.
So, as a magistrate with a prominent status, why is he so greedy? The root lies in the Ming Dynasty's Yulu system. Since Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, unified the world, in order to reduce the financial burden, he clearly stipulated the monthly salary of civil and military officials: "Eighty-seven stones of the first grade of the month, from the first grade to the third grade, decreasing from thirteen stones to thirty-five stones...... From the seventh grade to the ninth grade, decreasing five buckets, to five stones. "Up to the first-grade officials, down to the nine-grade officials, the money is meager. And the system has been "perpetual since then" and has hardly changed.
It can be seen that the annual income of a high-ranking official of the dynasty is only 20,000 or 30,000 yuan when converted into the current value. How can such a lowly man, under the temptation of power and money, not induce the greedy desires of some people? Surrounded by money all day long, how many people will inadvertently be bewitched by these shiny banknotes, and thus embark on the road of no return to corruption and bribery?
What's even more terrifying is that in addition to Yulu, the Ming Dynasty also implemented the color folding system. Many items, such as cloth and pepper, were converted into grain and distributed to officials by the imperial court, and the converted prices were often far lower than the actual market price. For example, a piece of cloth is worth three or four yuan in the market, but the Ming Dynasty may convert it into the value of thirty stone of grain. In this way, it further derogates the meager income.
There is an allusion that can be seen. The famous Qing official Hai Rui was only a servant in the ministry, but when he died, he couldn't even make up the funeral expenses. Zhu Liang visited his residence, and when he saw the miserable situation, he wrote a poem: "There is nothing left outside the coffin of depression, and there is a vegetable root before the cold spirit." This is the poor life of Qing officials, can you imagine how ordinary officials will live?
Lack of social security and welfare
During the Jiajing period, a tragic incident occurred in the capital that shocked the government and the opposition. Wang Shouyuan, a retired official, was killed in his home and was found with severe brutal abuse. The police reported the case level by level, and finally reached the ears of Emperor Jiajing. Jiajing was furious and immediately ordered the establishment of a special task force to make every effort to solve this appalling murder case.
The clues left at the scene of the crime soon helped the crackers to identify the main suspects, Wang Shouyuan's two sons, who had been worried about the quality of life after retirement. As an official of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Shouyuan devoted his life to his duties, but after retirement, he had no other source of income except for a meager salary. The Wang family was already very poor, and Wang Shouyuan had to support his old mother, and the two sons of the Wang family were forced to worry about their livelihood all day long.
In the Ming Dynasty, officials faced abject poverty when they retired, and the imperial court never set up any social security fund for them. Whether they spend the rest of their lives at home or live on the streets depends entirely on the individual's financial situation. Even officials with small savings will become impoverished as they grow older.
And that's just one aspect, even while in office, officials don't have any medical coverage. As long as you are seriously ill, it means that your previous efforts are wasted and your family is ruined. According to the records, the founding father Wang Zhen reigned for more than 40 years, but finally died of hatred because he had no money for medical treatment. Similar tragic cases abound, resulting in many honest and honest officials having to be contaminated with some petty corruption.
Not only that, but the officials in the Ming Dynasty were also a huge hotbed of corruption. They have been officials in the court for many years, but they have never had any money, and they rely on self-reliance and extortion to support themselves. Over time, corruption spread among the officials and became a black pot in officialdom. You must know that these officials are the attendants and clerks around the officials, and their misdeeds will soon affect the officials.
It is precisely because the imperial court cares so incompletely for the vital interests of officials that corruption gradually breeds in this lack of social security and welfare. Faced with the threat of extreme poverty, many officials have had to take risks and plunge into the abyss of corruption. How sad and unfair it was for all Ming Dynasty officials to work diligently all their lives, but not in exchange for the social security they deserved!
Power rent-seeking and benefit transfer
In the thirty-seventh year of Wanli (1609), the government and the opposition were shocked, and Zhang Xiang, the governor of Jiangxi, moved. Zhang Xiang was originally a highly talented student who was once regarded as the best of the Qing Stream, but this time he committed a treasonous act. It turned out that he had already colluded with the Wukou and conspired to transport Jiangxi Yanjiao Makou to Japan. This is equivalent to delivering food and grass to the enemy, and the sin is unforgivable!
The investigation found that the reason why Zhang Xiang was so rebellious was because he had too deep grievances in the officialdom. As a high-ranking civil official in the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Xiang was ostracized in his early years and his promotion was blocked. Until he was able to serve as governor in his later years, he was still questioned by the government and the opposition for his incompetence. In order to take revenge on the imperial court, Zhang Xiang committed such a treasonous act.
Zhang Xiang's case can be described as shocking, but it also reflects another dark side from the side: in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty, it has long been a common phenomenon to rely on power to seek rent and obtain illegal benefits.
The so-called "power rent-seeking" refers to obtaining illegal gains with the help of privileged status. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, officialdom was dark, the powerful were in control, and rent-seeking behaviors were everywhere. And high-ranking officials such as governors and prefects have more plundered power resources.
This is the case with Zhang Xiang. As the governor, he was in charge of the purchase and sale of the entire Jiangxi salt class, which can be described as monstrous. coincided with the Eastern Crusade of the Japanese Invaders, and Zhang Xiang took the opportunity to privately transfer the profits of the salt class to the Japanese Invaders to make profits for himself. It can be seen from this that this high-ranking official has great power and respectful status, and what he has done has reached a staggering point!
In addition to the high-ranking civil officials such as the governor, even the eunuchs deliberately set up their own interest networks to seek rent. In the twenty-fifth year of Wanli, the then eunuch leader Wang Chengen was forced to disobey the emperor's order out of interest. After investigation, it turned out that Wang Chengen formed an interest group with several high-ranking officials who carved up the latent power of the cabinet, and extorted officials, embezzled and accepted bribes, and dug deep into the gold and silver wealth of the royal body through personal service to the emperor. It can be seen from this that from the eunuchs' cronies to the county officials, there are widespread phenomena of collusion of interests, corruption and transportation, and rent-seeking and wealth accumulation.
In other words, once you have wealth and power, you will greedily get more and more. As the Ming Dynasty thinker Wang Fuzhi said: "The ancient power of the door cave mansion is not borrowed from obscene people, but only what is sought." There is a corrupt atmosphere in the whole country, which is simply chilling!
Moral decay and family entanglements
In the thirty-eighth year of Wanli (1610), the government and the opposition were shocked, and Zhu Youxi, the king of Yongping County, was dealt with extremely severely. It turned out that this royal relative was deeply mired in corruption and committed many crimes. After investigation, Zhu Youxin has long used the respect of the prince to extort and accept bribes, and his greed is difficult to shake. What's even more fascinating is that his children and family members have participated in all the crimes he has committed, which can be described as a wolf's den!
This is undoubtedly a major disgrace for the Royals. Emperor Wanli was furious and immediately issued a decree to punish him. In the end, Zhu Youxi was deprived of the title and was demoted to civil nationality along with his family. His son was sentenced to death, and all his family property was confiscated. It can be seen that the level of corruption of Zhu Youxi's family has reached a point where the imperial court cannot tolerate it.
Back in the early Ming Dynasty, corruption was relatively rare due to the strict constraints of national concepts and moral values. But since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, especially in the Wanli Dynasty, the shackles of this tradition have gradually dissolved. Many officials and aristocrats began to indulge their selfish desires, their morals deteriorated, and family interests became their only pursuit.
Taking Zhu Youxi as an example, since he has been a royal nobleman for generations, he naturally feels that he has high power. In their eyes, what is the treasure of gold and silver from the people of Li that they should not take for themselves? What's more, relatives and friends have turned a blind eye to all kinds of ugly acts committed, conniving at each other, and no one dares to accuse them.
The temptation of power and money has made many princes and nobles completely lose their minds and abandon the discipline of a gentleman. Some royal families have completely abandoned the moral bottom line and become a hotbed of corruption. According to historical records, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, greedy princes and nobles spread all over the capital, and the government and the opposition were deeply ill.
What is more, some princes and nobles simply regard corruption as a family tradition, colluding with each other from generation to generation, forming an incomparably large network of corrupt family interests. One example is Zhang, a county magistrate who has been doing the same job for generations: extortion and bribery. According to investigation, the Zhang family's "family collection" alone has more than 100,000 taels of silver, and the wealth is staggering.
The collapse of the Zhu Youxin family reflects an astonishing fact: in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, moral decay and the family interest network had completely corrupted the ruling class. This class takes advantage of its privileges, excludes dissidents, colludes with corruption, loses traditional morality, and disregards everything for the benefit of the family. This is undoubtedly the most direct manifestation of social moral decay, and it has also become an important factor in the accelerated decline of the late Ming dynasty.
Lack of supervision and corruption in the administration of officials
In the forty-sixth year of Wanli (1618), the government and the opposition were shocked. That year, the corruption of Chen Jingshi, the Yushi Tai, was extremely serious, and there were hundreds of people! This recital of the imperial historians is undoubtedly like a slap in the face, and it has dealt a severe blow to the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, though. In fact, since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the corruption of government and opposition officials has been very rampant. In a fit of rage, Guo Qin wrote a 10,000-word essay "Bad Rules", which was violently criticized. In this article, Guo Qin listed dozens of ugly phenomena in officialdom, from the Ministry of Industry cutting corners and fraud, to the criminal department's private prisons; From officials colluding with corrupt officials to corrupt officials extorting the people...... Too many to name!
The reason for this is that although there are major flaws in the Yulu system left by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. More importantly, however, the Ming Dynasty lacked an effective system to monitor and punish corrupt officials.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, in order to curb corruption, Zhu Yuanzhang set up special supervision agencies Yushitai and Jinyiwei. However, as time passed, the monitoring function of the Imperial Historical Observatory gradually became useless. Because the criminal law of the Ming Dynasty did not set clear sentencing standards for embezzlers, many officials often escaped serious crimes even if they were found to be corrupt. Over time, the imperial historians naturally neglected their duties and turned a blind eye.
What's more, some imperial histories have colluded with the targets of supervision, exchanged bribes, and become corrupt groups with internal and external collusion. It is reported that during the Chenghua period, the imperial history of Liang Gongji was a eunuch, and the family was as much as more than 200,000 taels of silver, which is staggering! It can be seen that the imperial history was originally corrupt by the supervision officials, but he became the most greedy gang.
In addition to the lax management of the Imperial Historical Observatory, the prison system of the Ming Dynasty was also a major source of corruption among officials. According to the actual records, many of the prisons were not directly under the imperial court, but were privately managed by local bureaucrats. The jailers took advantage of this power to secretly enrich themselves and be greedy.
As a result, there were many shady scenes in prison: prison business, running private cells, soliciting bribes and releasing people, etc. Even Hai Jui, who has always been honest, had to bribe the jailer to survive in prison after he was imprisoned. It is not difficult to imagine, then, what suffering a penniless poor prisoner must have suffered!
From the central to the localities, from the supervisory organs to the prison system, the system of supervision and punishment has failed at every level, and eventually corruption has become rampant and spread to officials at all levels. It can also be seen why the government and the opposition at that time had amazing remarks that shocked the government and the opposition and sensationalized the public.