Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 348: Jiajing and Qianlong as Examples, The Promotion of Corrupt Officials [Request for Subscription]

Maybe because it was their first time watching this kind of humorous narration-style video, the Zhu family was a little uncomfortable with it and almost everyone frowned.

But no one said anything and was quickly attracted by the video content.

"In a feudal society without telephones, satellites, or the internet, if you held a low-ranking official position but wanted to make money safely, the best way was to provide 'disaster relief.'"

Disaster relief?

Except for a few people like Zhu Yuanzhang, Empress Ma, and Zhu Biao, everyone else was surprised when they heard this.

I thought: Could it be that he is making money by embezzling disaster relief funds and grain?

In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao thought the same.

They soon discovered that their ideas were too "naive".

As a few ugly pigtail scenes passed by, four big words appeared on the screen - human blood steamed bun.

"In ancient times, natural disasters occurred frequently. Coincidentally, your county was hit by a sudden downpour, and flooding is inevitable."

"Since the disaster has already occurred, as a patron saint, you will not sit idly by and watch the victims starve to death. Instead, you will report it to the emperor. In your report, you will minimize the disaster and make a minor matter look serious."

???

Seeing this, Lao Zhu and others had question marks on their heads, suspecting that there was something wrong with their eyes or ears.

I thought: Shouldn't it be "big things become small, small things become nothing"? What does "small things become nothing" mean?

The subsequent explanation told them.

"As everyone knows, the more severe the disaster, the more tax relief the court will provide to the local areas, and they may even distribute money and grain for disaster relief. The more money and grain they distribute, the greater the opportunity to make money."

"In ancient times, when communication was not well developed, communication was even more difficult when a natural disaster occurred. Disaster information could only be reported to higher levels through 'humans'."

“The lack of transparency between the upper and lower levels is your umbrella for making money, and corruption is rampant!”

Zhu Biao, Zhu Di and others stared in amazement, thinking: How can this be possible?

In the minds of princes such as Zhu Biao and Zhu Di, once a disaster occurred in a local area, although there were cases of false reporting of the disaster, most of the time they would downplay the matter to avoid damaging their political achievements due to the disaster.

They never thought that there were officials who deliberately exaggerated the disaster and used the court's tax exemptions and disaster relief funds to make money.

Zhu Biao, who talked a lot with Liu Kuan, couldn't help but think of a word - cool operation.

"In order to make more money without forcing the victims to rebel, you copied the advanced practice of Ming Dynasty generals who fraudulently claimed food and military supplies, and fabricated the number of households to 11451, both in whole and in part."

"The people of the future will mock you by saying, 'You only start writing books when you have money, and then you write books about ghosts.'"

Seeing that Daming was named by the old lady, Zhu Biao and others couldn't help but look at Zhu Yuanzhang worriedly.

Fortunately, Zhu Yuanzhang just frowned slightly and was not angry yet.

"You're not the worst. In the tenth year of Qianlong's reign, officials from Funing County, Huai'an Prefecture, fabricated over 30,000 household registrations when the Yellow River burst its banks, profiting from the blood of others. This was the heyday of Qianlong. It was truly a life of rebirth and death."

The video kept showing scenes of pigtail dramas, so Lao Zhu and others could see that the video should mainly talk about the history of the Qing Dynasty.

The example of the "Qianlong Era of Prosperity" further proves this point.

"Of course, the court will not believe your one-sided statement and will definitely send officials to verify it."

"Although the imperial court stipulated that officials must visit disaster victims door to door, you know, how could those pampered feudal warriors possibly visit the disaster site in person? Most of them sent their subordinates to investigate."

"Even if an official really does come to the countryside, it's easy to deal with. You can bribe him with silver and bring him on board."

"Generally speaking, this is enough. No one would be ignorant of the current situation. Look at the 14th year of the Jiaqing reign. Surveyor Li Yuchang was even poisoned to death for refusing to go along with the corrupt officials. This is the result of being ignorant of the current situation."

"But you felt that poisoning the surveying officials would inevitably lead to an investigation by the imperial court, which was not a good idea. So you sent someone to take the surveying officials to the area with the worst disaster and the worst transportation, in order to buy time."

"And the surveying officer has limited time, so he can't visit every place. For those places he doesn't have time to visit, he'll have to listen to you and your staff fabricating data."

"And just like that, the false report of the disaster was realized, and the imperial court's relief money and grain were finally distributed..."

The video's early sections depict how county officials profited from disaster relief while simultaneously achieving both political success and a good reputation. This truly opened the eyes of Zhu Biao, Zhu Di, and other princes and grandsons of the emperor. Even Zhu Di began to reevaluate those he had previously considered "honest and capable officials."

But when he thought about the fact that he had the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot, and now he even had a wireless telegraph, which would eventually allow it to be deployed to the county and prefecture offices, he became less worried about this.

The video then goes on to describe how corruption occurred after being promoted to middle and senior local officials.

For example, how to collude with local gentry, how to make slaves make money for themselves, and how to make slaves and subordinates scapegoats after something happens, etc.

It can be said that this opened the eyes of Zhu Biao, Zhu Di and others, and their trust in officials was reduced again.

However, seeing this, everyone also discovered one thing.

This video gives a lot of examples of people and events during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, and occasionally mixes in events from the Jiajing and Wanli dynasties of the Ming Dynasty, or the Kangxi, Jiaqing, and Daoguang dynasties of the Qing Dynasty.

A few minutes later, the protagonist in the video not only made a lot of money in a middle or senior position in the local area, but also got promoted to become a governor and a provincial governor.

A few big words appeared on the video again - flattering the superiors and bullying the subordinates, the governors and governors are upright.

"To sit in the position of governor, integrity is of course important, but the most important thing is loyalty to the emperor."

"You will never be like Yin Zhuangtu during the Qianlong period, who was loyal to the court, disregarding his own safety, and bravely admonished against bad government policies. In the end, he resigned and returned home."

"For most emperors, no matter how corrupt or evil a person is, as long as he can understand the emperor's will, he is a loyal minister."

"What exactly is the emperor's will? I don't know if you've seen "The Ming Dynasty 1566." Just like the Jiajing Emperor in the show, and the Qianlong Emperor and many other emperors in real history, they wanted to make money but didn't want others to know about it. Their main goal was to be both powerful and independent."

"So you used two methods to secretly give money to the emperor."

"First, tribute—tribute has been a traditional culture of nations around the world since ancient times. Your dynasty inherits and furthers the fine traditions of previous dynasties. Provincial governors pay tribute to their provinces two or three times a year with their specialties."

"But ever since the Emperor used the Empress Dowager's sixtieth birthday to amass a fortune, the tributes from the provinces have changed."

"You lead the charge. In addition to the regular tribute two or three times a year, you also pay tribute on the birthdays of the Emperor, the Empress Dowager, the Empress, the Imperial Concubine, and on festivals like the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival. Roll, roll, roll, roll like crazy!"

"In order to please the dog emperor, the items you offer as tribute have also been upgraded from local specialties to priceless antiques, famous calligraphy and paintings, and even gold, silver, and jade..."

Zhu Yuanzhang was just a farmer and a wandering monk at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and Empress Ma was just the daughter of a small landlord. Neither of them understood what kind of corruption might arise in the middle and late stages of a dynasty.

As for Zhu Biao and Zhu Di, they also grew up in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. The biggest corruption case they had ever seen was probably a crude corruption case like the Guo Heng case.

Before watching this video, they had never imagined that there were so many ways to commit corruption.

What was even more unexpected was that in the middle and late stages of the dynasty, even the emperor took the lead in corruption, becoming a protective umbrella for corrupt officials and the country's biggest termite!
The video is only a little over halfway through.

The next ten minutes or so told the story of how a corrupt official bribed the emperor and was promoted to the court after the emperor returned to power.

He also used the money he had embezzled to bribe other officials in the court, formed cliques and excluded dissidents, so that they could more easily exploit the people and erode the country!

"The clique has formed, it's time to crack down on honest officials."

"Strike the central officials first."

"The Minister of Revenue, Shi Aimin, was a man of integrity and a vision for making money. He requested the establishment of a mining industry three times. However, because his daughter-in-law rode a sedan chair into the Shenwu Gate, you instructed your cronies to impeach him for lax family management and he resigned."

"So, naturally, you took a step further and became the Minister of Revenue."

"Yue Gangfeng, the Censor of Jiangnan Province, worked tirelessly to eradicate corruption, earning him the nickname 'Yue Qingtian'."

"You instigated your cronies to impeach him, claiming he was 'addicted to alcohol and had a perverse temperament.' The Emperor, under your slander, also disliked him and issued an edict reprimanding him, saying, 'Your character is extreme. Come and impeach him immediately. Despite my repeated admonitions, you remain too harsh in your punishment.'"

"The fault of an imperial censor is actually his hatred of evil. How ridiculous is this dynasty that has entered into the fold?"

Seeing this, Lao Zhu’s anger was finally aroused again.

Although the video mostly uses the examples of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, he understands that there must have been similar emperors and similar corrupt officials in the middle and late Ming Dynasty!

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)