Since the Qin and Han dynasties, it is generally believed that the income of the Song Dynasty was the highest, and the Ming and Qing dynasties were the lowest. From the point of view of legitimacy and legitimacy, this statement is roughly correct. But how many of the bureaucrats in the feudal era lived on their money?
Even if it is a clean official, there will be some gray income. For example, the statement "three years of Qing Governor's Mansion, 100,000 snowflakes of silver" confirms this.
The Qing Dynasty was the last feudal dynasty and the dynasty with the highest total national economy in history. However, the country's affluence also has a negative effect, which is corruption on a massive scale.
Although the Qing Dynasty's ** was not high, they had a considerable amount of incorruptible silver and countless unscrupulous income. If you add up all the incomes, even the ** of the Song Dynasty cannot be compared.
Because of their wealth, their pomp and circumstance are also very large, and they must show the noble status of their official positions in terms of clothing, food, housing and transportation. However, there is one thing that is very surprising, that is, although the Qing Dynasty has gone through more than 200 years, it is extremely unparticular about the yamen that works and lives on weekdays.
Therefore, there is a saying that "officials do not repair the government". According to common sense, the yamen is a symbol of power, a place of concern for millions of people, and it should be built magnificently.
However, this was not the case with the Qing Dynasty's yamen, most of which were in tatters. As long as it doesn't leak and can live in people, they can barely do it. This is very inconsistent with the style of the Qing Dynasty.
So, why are the ** at all levels so unconcerned about their yamen?
It turned out that the Qing Dynasty generally followed an unwritten rule, that is, "officials do not repair the government". This regulation is derived from the theory of Feng Shui, which believes that arbitrary changes to the architectural layout of the official office will adversely affect the future of **.
In addition, the large-scale construction of official offices will also have a bad reputation for abusing people's power, and may even lead to the loss of official status and demotion.
Therefore, after the new officials take office, they generally prohibit the repair of the official office and prohibit the replacement of furnishings, so as to avoid being apportioned by the officials and profiting from it.
The official does not repair the government, it is not lazy government, but it is actually forced by the Qing Dynasty's first-class tenure system. According to the regulations, the term of office of civil servants is usually three years, two years in remote areas, and there is frequent mobility.
In particular, grassroots state and county officials often need to be transferred or promoted after their term of office ends, and they rarely have enough time to build a yamen in one place, and they also have to take great risks.
More importantly, there is no special project for repairing the yamen, and you must pay for it.
In addition, there are no statutory office funds in the local government, and the daily office expenses and even the money and the incorruptible silver have to be paid out of their own pockets, and the imperial court only distributes them within the time limit, regardless of anything else.
This is also the reason why the bad rules prevailed in the Qing Dynasty.
Pension is not a private money, but a public income that includes salary subsidies and local miscellaneous expenses. The imperial court was unwilling to allocate additional funds for the renovation of the yamen, and only allowed the state and county yamen to use idle funds, and they had to deduct them from the maintenance of the incorruptible silver within three years.
In the Qing Dynasty, ** often regarded all the incorruptible silver as their own, so they were unwilling to pay out of their own pockets to repair the yamen. However, due to the failure of the previous term to repair and the failure of this term, the state and county yamen often become dilapidated, and even unable to work and live.
In this regard, some local governors suggested that the imperial court issue a fixed silver tael every year for repairs. However, this proposal was rejected by Qianlong, who believed that it was impossible for the yamen to be repaired every year, and that the cost of repairs would be more or less.
If it becomes a fixed expense, localities** may reap the benefits.
The dilapidated government of the Qing Dynasty became a unique scene, and the officials who had been working in a yamen for a long time had no choice but to take the official documents home to deal with because they had no accommodation in the yamen, which led to a new problem, that is, the excessive decentralization of archives management, which was completely in the hands of the scribes.