In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the low salary system was implemented, and the salary was so low that it was almost impossible if it did not violate the law and discipline.
* Corruption is often perceived as lacking institutional constraints"No official is not greedy"。This system is called"Structural hypocrisy"。Among them, the ** in river affairs is the best example of officialdom ecology. "
The problem of corruption in river affairs in the Qing Dynasty was very serious, and it was difficult to solve it even during the period when the rule of officials was very severe. River affairs ** often use their power to make personal gains, such as bribery, changing right and wrong, selling official positions, etc.
For example, during his tenure as the general manager, Zhao Shixian was greedy for money and bribes, without considering the national economy and people's livelihood, and even married courtiers and sent regulations every year. When Jin Fu was governing the river, he had set aside official land to plant willow grass, but during Zhao Shixian's tenure as the head of the river, all of them were reclaimed as farmland, and the river officials used in the former fertilizer and rent, and the materials used in the dangerous work were still distributed to the people.
Even in the heyday, the rivermen were blatantly corrupt. Although the emperor had access to information on river and water affairs through multiple channels, it was still very difficult to deal with corruption in river affairs.
The Qing Dynasty's river affairs department was one of the most wasteful departments, so the "river affairs habit" became synonymous with extravagance and waste. In the Huaibei region, some important river officials have donated money to their official positions, and they are obviously interested in the "fat" of river affairs rather than the country and the people.
This habit began to rise in the late Qianlong period, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty, it became more and more serious.
During Qianlong's 60-year reign, 400 large and small ** were ** punished, and most of them were never punished. The reason was that the Qing Dynasty could not afford the economic and political losses caused by the fight against corruption.
During the Jiaqing period, the Huai River had to break several times a year, and it would cost millions of taels of silver at one time. From the winter of 1808 to the spring of 1810, the canal was executed at the east and west embankments of Shanyang Erpu, and then burst on the east and west banks of Baoying Wangjiazhuang and Baitianpu, causing huge losses of people and property.
Due to the backflow of the Yellow River, the water of Hongze Lake could not flow out, so five dams had to be put to drain the lake's water, but Hechen took this opportunity to dry up the people's fields and make a lot of money. In this process, Hechen and the relevant ** have wantonly managed and disposed of huge funds for river control, which can often cost millions or tens of millions of taels, but there is little effective supervision.
This absurdity was common in the Qing Dynasty's water control affairs, and it could not be corrected. The river governor Qi Sule reported to Emperor Yongzheng that most of the silver received by the river members in the past, but most of the material projects were unsubstantiated, and by the time they were exposed, the deficit had reached hundreds of thousands of taels.
This phenomenon shows that the ** people alleged that the name of the material, the general went to the silver, the private enrichment, and when the silver was requested, the Taoist was transferred to the details of the Taoist, and the total river of wholesale, each deducted one-tenth and two.
Therefore, after receiving the silver, it has consumed five or six tenths, and it is impossible to make enough materials and repair work. If the matter is revealed, the superiors are often difficult to follow, and they have to let their expenses and cover up with each other.
Emperor Qianlong compared the river members to black-hearted doctors, and was very dissatisfied with the behavior of fraudulently receiving funds from the state for river control. He pointed out that river workers are happy to work, but often spend unnecessary money for their own selfish interests, which does not help the river affairs substantially.
This phenomenon did not improve in the Qing Dynasty, but intensified. In the 19th century, the phenomenon of donation became more prevalent, resulting in the abandonment of many normal bureaucratic systems, and the people who donated were focused on collecting money and becoming moths.
They seek or preserve their official positions by giving them gold and jade to please their superiors. However, there is no effective supervision of the distribution of benefits in river affairs, but instead encourages all kinds of false accounts and improper behavior.
Therefore, the profession of foreign workers came into being, and they seek personal gain by exploiting various loopholes in rules and regulations. ** Although rules and regulations are constantly being formulated, they have not effectively restrained the behavior of river members, but have given river members more opportunities to seek personal benefits.
The new rules create a new breeding ground for corruption. This kind of corruption became more and more common, and by the beginning of the 19th century, the river department had become a representative of the most unethical and a channel for rapid promotion of cadres.
On September 3, 1812, Bai Ling, the governor of Liangjiang in the Qing Dynasty, pointed out that when the Li Dam of Hongze Lake was discharged, he did not have a good understanding, did not block the gate according to the requirements of the superiors, and even tampered with the data of the drainage Zhichun, resulting in a large number of flooding of downstream farmland.
Emperor Jiaqing was deeply saddened by this, saying that there was a problem of fraud in Nanhe**, and they pretended to be public and private, set up clever names, abused **, and profited from it. Emperor Jiaqing also pointed out that the officials took it for granted and always used various excuses to build projects in order to increase their income and status.
These bad habits are deeply ingrained and difficult to change. In 1825, the costly Gaojiayan Stone Dam was washed away, exposing the shortcomings of the project.
Yang Dianbang listed 10 shortcomings in the Gaojiayan project: the embankment workers were greedy for the price of the party and the ship, and were unwilling to take soil from a distance, so they often dug soil on the side of the embankment to supplement the top of the embankment with the root of the embankment; According to the standard, the outermost layer of the embankment should be the face stone, and the second layer should be the inside stone, but in the new embankment of Gaojiayan, the face stone does not meet the standard, and after Li Fei, two layers of bricks are laid, called "brick cabinets", and the gaps are filled with mortar; The new embankment of Gaojiayan is too thin and substandard; After the brick cabinet, the fine loess and glutinous juice and lime are used to build a solid hanging kiln, which is called "Sanhe soil", which is glued and harmonious, and lasts for a long time, but in the new embankment, it is trying to save the soil price, and the black mud with loose soil is mixed and filled; The standard stone and face stone must be square on six sides, and the bricks are 5 inches wide and 3 inches thick, but in the new embankment, the face stone can not be square on six sides, there are many drum oblique gaps, which are easy to collapse, and the width and thickness of the bricks are not up to standard; The standard masonry should be one ding and one shun, and the left and right arrangements should be buckled with one ingot and two curiums, so that they can be pressed against each other, and hooked inside and outside, but in the new embankment, there are three shun and one ding, some four shun and one ding, some are incomplete, and some do not have ingots at all, and the materials are arbitrarily reduced; Before the masonry is not built, the row of piles should be built, and then the stone is added to flatten the foot, so that its roots and feet are stable, so that it will not be washed away by the water, but in the new embankment, in order to reduce the use of wood, the old piles are used to make the foot foundation not firm; After the masonry is completed, according to the standard, the upper and lower joints should be made of iron sheets, and then the joints should be made with ash juice after the pads are flattened, so that the lake water can not enter, but in the new embankment, the iron pieces are replaced by wood chips, and some even wood chips are not used; After the masonry works along the embankment, the application of the kiln is solidified, when the completion of the construction, the acceptance personnel should sign the cone irrigation one by one, in order to check the reality, but in the new embankment acceptance of the sloppy matter, let the soldiers mixed report; The three rivers and two dams on Hongze Lake were originally used for drainage when the lake water rose sharply, but now when they are opened and closed every year, no matter how big or small the project, more than half of them are floated.
Yang Dianbang pointed out: "There are many disadvantages, nothing more than masonry, the bad atmosphere, but also more than the river members, up and down the same, the ratio is false, I don't know if something is appropriate, then the whole work is useless, one person encroaches on profits, then the money is endless." ”
1.River officials would rather see the Yellow River and the Huai River overflow than see these calamified rivers not harmful, and once the water is not harmful, the state stops investing a large amount of money in water control, and the officials will lose the opportunity to make money.
2.* They often take advantage of special circumstances such as river rescue to extort and profit from it. They are not afraid of the overflow of the Yellow River and the Huai River, but hope that the floods will continue so that they can continue to collect state funds.
3.Large river workers often become bait for river workers to constantly collect state funds. They will do whatever it takes to get state funds, without regard for the livelihood and security of the people.
4.The river has always been a mess, and the consequences of the floods caused by ** can only be borne by ordinary people. The more powerful have long prepared a safe way out for themselves, while the people have to bear the heavy burden of the disaster of the flood and the cost of treatment.
The extravagant atmosphere of the Qing Dynasty's river governance: luxury cars and food, banquets are extremely extravagant, and even hasty office. The annual cost of river control is millions of taels, accounting for 20% of the financial expenditure, and the Nanhe River needs to cost five million taels per year.
The river hall raises the opera troupe, and the bird's nest is purchased in boxes, and the value of gladiolus and peony is more than 1,000 taels. When reimbursement, a penny can be turned into thousands.
Sea cucumber and shark fin are spent on two recipes, and the dishes for entertaining guests are usually up to 100 kinds of dishes.
There are dozens of coal stoves in the kitchen, and each chef is only responsible for one dish, and when it's done, it's time to play. The leather coat of the river hall is a full fox skin purchased from outside the customs at a cost of tens of thousands of taels of silver in the summer and autumn every year, and the color is uniform and flawless, even the large leather stores in the capital cannot be compared.
The clothes were custom-made by the Suzhou and Hangzhou silk merchants, and those of the most luxurious people, in the house and in the upper room, there were no oil lamps or cloth threads, because candles were lit up and down, and there was no cloth for binding feet.
The pearls and gold and jade are countless, and the pearls, belt plates, and fingers are often dry gold. If you wear Qi Nanzhu, plus the Pixia pendant, you need at least 3,000 gold, and if you hang it on your chest, the fragrance can spread half a mile away, just like entering the room of Zhilan.