During the period of the late Qing Dynasty, it can be said that there is no yamen who is not **, but there is only one yamen who is not greedy. Not only was he not greedy, but the late Qing court still relied on him to maintain his life for decades. Which yamen is this? Customs!
Why is this customs not greedy? It's really embarrassing to say, because he is presided over and managed by foreigners, how can China's customs let foreigners manage it? Isn't this a betrayal of sovereignty? It's shameless to say. Because before this, the customs under the management of China's ** became a pickled place for the first place to make a lot of money, and the original function of the customs almost became a joke. However, during the period of escrow of foreigners, foreigners can collect taxes honestly and conscientiously, and after receiving the taxes, they also hand over the tax to the Chinese side. This is supported by historical evidence: when the British diplomat Wittomato and the Chinese Prime Minister Wen Xiang discussed customs reform, Wittoma said that Chinese customs are not necessarily managed by the British. China can hire Chinese, British, French, etc. as much as possible. Unexpectedly, Wen Xiang immediately replied: "It is not possible to use Chinese, because obviously they do not report according to the number of time levies."
Later, when the Englishman Hurd and Prince Gong Yixin specifically talked about customs reform, Prince Gong said that almost no one in China can be trusted. In contrast, the reports of foreigners are more reliable. In fact, the Qing Customs was originally the most corrupt yamen in the Qing Dynasty, and everyone in the world knew it at that time. After a few years as the superintendent of the customs, the money he caught could not be spent in several lifetimes. However, after the late Qing Dynasty was replaced by Westerners, the customs became the only pure land in the officialdom of the Qing Dynasty.
So how did this embarrassing miracle happen? The first time foreigners accepted Qing customs affairs was in 1853, when the Taiping Rebellion was in full swing. In this year, the Little Knife Society uprising broke out in Shanghai, and the society was in turmoil. At this time, the consuls of Britain, France, and the United States decided to send a temporary tax department to each of the three countries to manage Shanghai Customs instead of the Qing Dynasty.
This is a dividing line. Until then, China's customs were managed by Qing officials. After that, the foreigners gradually managed the Chinese customs independently from temporary to fixed until the end of the Qing Empire. So what was the customs under the administration of the Qing officials? Hey, I'm embarrassed to say it, it can be called a mess, a miasma. Since the 24th year of Kangxi and 1685, when the Qing Dynasty reopened the sea ban and allowed international **, the customs of the Qing Dynasty embarked on the road of corruption without any scruples. From the very beginning of the trade, the Qing Dynasty used difficulties, hints and other means to break through the quota and force foreign merchants to pay various additional fees set by themselves. In fact, it is to ask for "bribes", and gradually form a fixed bad rule. There are so many of these bad rules that I can't explain them in the article. Let's take a look at these lists and get a feel for them.
It's just a semi-public rule that the emperor basically acquiesces to. In addition, there are many ** people who have mastered their own and have seen the shame. In fact, the official tax standard is only about 4% on average. It was lower than in France at that time. However, after the blessing of these bad rules, the average tax rate soared directly to 20%. This shows that the customs tariffs of the Qing State are not transparent and need to be bargained, which makes foreign businessmen dizzy, and they never know how much taxes and fees they should pay.
In the 22nd year of Qianlong, since 1757 AD, the four treaty ports of the country have been merged into Guangzhou, and Guangzhou Customs has become a well-known fat shortage. Their corruption is almost an open national secret. Are they so greedy for the emperor? The emperor is embarrassed to care. The Qing Dynasty implemented a low-wage system: the Guangzhou customs superintendent was a second-class officer, and the official salary was only 155 taels a year, which was equivalent to about 30,000 to 60,000 yuan today. The low-level officials of the customs, such as customs inspectors, are only paid a little more than 3 taels a month, and there are no other official benefits and subsidies. This kind of treatment can only sustain the family and barely eat. The emperor knew very well that the imperial court was reluctant to pay the officials enough wages, so they could only acquiesce to the officials to a certain extent to "fend for themselves" and make gray income.
In addition, more importantly, the customs of the Qing Dynasty was not only the yamen of the imperial court, but also the emperor's private wealth machine. Part of the customs revenue is handed over to the Ministry of Households, which can be roughly understood as the Ministry of Finance. This is the part of the imperial court. Another part of the income of the customs went to the Imperial Interior Office, that is, to the emperor's own pocket, which was only fixed. If the emperor gets married and celebrates his birthday or something, the customs will have to follow a large share. In addition, the emperor has a lot of expenses that are difficult to arrange, and they are all solved by Guangzhou Customs. Therefore, customs supervision was generally carried out by the emperor directly appointed by his own cronies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. This is equivalent to a great reward, so the natural ** person should repay the benefactor with the greatest enthusiasm, that is, to obtain as much property as possible during the term of office to honor the emperor's family. In addition to satisfying the emperor, at the same time, he kept his private pockets and accumulated private wealth. So Guangdong Customs is actually a place where the emperor and his cronies share the spoils, a huge locust that parasitizes and sucks blood.
The Qing Emperor and the customs officials made a lot of money, and the foreigners and foreign businessmen were miserable. The pity of the foreigners is unimaginable, they are not allowed to live in the city of Guangzhou, they are only allowed to live in the "Thirteen Hang Street", and they are not allowed to go out if they have nothing to do. They are not allowed to bring their wives to China with them, nor are they allowed to find Chinese women, so they can only work hard. There are no ordinary Chinese to associate with them. Because once the Chinese talk to them, they are considered traitors. They could only do business with the thirteen Chinese merchants designated by the Qing Dynasty, that is, the "Thirteen Lines". Because of the "defense of Huayi", the Qing government disdained and was unwilling to make direct contact with them. Therefore, they can only let the "Thirteen Lines" exploit, buy and sell, and the price is low, and the "Thirteen Lines" have the final say. In order to make a deal, they had to pay a large bribe to @Thirteen Lines. If they have any requests, they can only convey them to the government through the "Thirteen Lines". And even if it was conveyed, the Qing government ignored it most of the time. Therefore, foreign businessmen in China are basically like going to prison, and they are about to be driven crazy.
What foreign businessmen could not bear the most was the "Thirteen Lines" and the insatiable ugly faces of the customs officials of the Qing Dynasty. There are also opaque, brain-burning, constant bargaining processes for additional charges. They were deeply humiliated by this dirty way of dealing, and the foreign merchants knew very well that most of the money they paid went into the pockets of the officials. So they have been trying to establish communication with the upper echelons of the Qing Dynasty. But without exception, they were all despised by the Chinese bureaucracy. Including the famous British Macartney mission to China in the last years of Qianlong, their proposals and requests to improve Chinese customs, taxation, and open more ports were all rejected by the Chinese emperor. It was not until the British used force to defeat the Qing Dynasty in the First Opium War in 1840 that they used war to get something that could not be obtained at the negotiating table.
After the Opium War, the Qing Empire began to implement multi-port trade, and the import and export tax rate was set at 5%, which was significantly lower than the original effective tax rate of 20%. But the strange thing is that the tariff revenue that entered the Qing treasury did not fall but rose, and the tariff amount in Guangdong had been hovering around 1.5 million taels per year before the Opium War. By 1843, it had rushed to 2 million taels at once. Since then, the tariffs collected by the Qing ** from the five trade ports have been on the rise, and the Qing Dynasty has tasted the sweetness of tariff transparency. It's a profound irony.
Now back to the aforementioned year of 1853, during the uprising of the Shanghai Little Knife Society, Britain, France, and the United States sent representatives to temporarily replace the fleeing Qing Dynasty to take care of customs affairs. This was obviously a serious violation of China's sovereignty, but the results of their administration came as a great surprise to the Qing Dynasty. Foreigners can not only collect taxes seriously and hand over the taxes to the Chinese side, but also under their management, the corruption of Shanghai Customs has been significantly reduced, and the amount of tax collected has increased significantly. Historical data says that "tax revenue has increased greatly, and it is good". The court thinks this is really good, don't want it. After the Second Opium War, the Qing Dynasty simply decided to let the British take charge of China's customs, and wrote this into the "Treaty on the Aftermath of the Trade Regulations: Paragraph 10 of the Customs Tariff Rules" signed with Britain, the United States and other countries, and allowed the Prime Minister to invite the British to help with the taxation. From then on, foreigners were solely responsible for the management of customs affairs and were directly responsible to the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Affairs. Not subject to the restraint of any other yamen or individual.
In 1863, Hurd, an Englishman, took over as the General Department of Taxation of Shanghai Customs, beginning his tenure that lasted nearly half a century. Hurd was first confronted with the notorious problem of corruption, and instead of taking a campaign-style anti-corruption storm, he wisely came to the bottom of the kettle, replacing the outdated four-column accounting method that had been used until now with the British accounting system. Not only does the four-pillar account book not reflect all the bad rules and gray income, but even the "positive tax" has been turned into a private one. The new British accounting method allows all customs revenues to be recorded in detail and clearly, which makes it very difficult to keep false accounts, thus effectively curbing the breeding of corruption. In conjunction with the accounting system, HD has established an audit system and set up independent audit accounts. The Department of Taxation supervises the accountants and conducts audits of the ports. The Audit Division shall have the power to investigate without any interference and shall have the power to immediately suspend any department or person who has committed misconduct. Hurd's third initiative was the reform of the personnel system. He had full authority over personnel from the Prime Minister, and at the Shanghai Customs, the General Department of Taxation, that is, the Director-General, was the only person with personnel authority. Hurd replaced all the important positions with foreigners, and recruited globally, and those introduced by the emperor must also be examined. For violations at work, do not make an example, especially bad behaviors such as **, embezzlement, misappropriation, **, etc., are immediately expelled. In the end, Hurd implemented *** even if the cost of wages rose several times, because the salary was not enough, and it could not be expected to remain clean. If we can't maintain integrity, we can't guarantee normal tariff revenues. At the same time, Hurd made the ** income transparent, and everyone was exposed to the sun as much as they were paid.
In July 1864, Hede discussed the topic of "morality" with Dong Sui and Wen Xiang of China. Hurd recalled: "When I say that the difference between Chinese and us can be traced back to the fundamental starting point: Chinese say that human nature is good, and we say that human nature is evil. The Chinese therefore resort to codes of conduct and rules cultivated by education, while we govern and punish violations through "punishment" and establish laws and regulations. Several of HD's management systems are interrelated. The high-salary incentive mechanism makes them "don't want to be greedy"; The advanced accounting system and audit supervision system make them "not greedy"; The strict punishment system makes them "dare not be greedy". Hurd's governance was remarkable, and there were no more than 5 violations of the law by customs officers during his tenure, of which in the 16 years from 1854 to 1870, there were only 4 ** for misconduct, one for business, and one for ** was removed, and the image of the customs came to a fundamental reversal, and the customs became the only clean department in the Qing Dynasty. And the degree of incorruptibility in the history of imperial China for more than 2,000 years can be said to be unique.
While basically eliminating corruption, Hurd's performance is also glittering. In 1861, the customs tax revenue before he accepted the customs was more than 4.9 million cars, and only a year later it reached 11 million taels, doubling. By the time of Hurd's departure in 1908, it had reached 3,026650,000 taels, an increase of more than 6 times. At the same time, in 1861, customs revenue accounted for about 9% of the fiscal revenue of the Qing Dynasty, and by 1887, the proportion of customs revenue in the fiscal revenue of the Qing Dynasty soared to 2435%。The customs led by Hurd greatly alleviated the financial predicament of Qing **, so that Qing **, who was struggling on the verge of death, extended his life for several decades. Customs reform is a happy thing, foreign businessmen have benefited from the reduction of the actual tax rate, the customs revenue has increased exponentially, the customs has obtained a good salary, the three parties have benefited, and the late Qing Dynasty has received a very high evaluation: "In China's general department, the propaganda force has been for many years, and the country is highly reliant." Prince Gong Yixin once said that if I had 100 Hurd, our affairs would be easy. In 1908, the Qing court awarded him the title of Shangshu and posthumously conferred the title of Crown Prince Taibao, the highest honor a foreigner could receive in China.
We not only have to think about why there are two completely different faces of the same department and different people managing it? Is it because people are different? No, it's the system, the system is different, the result is different. Under the old system, Chinese customs officials were corrupt and corrupt. Under the new system, China can be clean and self-sufficient. This shows that corruption is not a terminal disease that cannot be cured in China, and the key lies in the mechanism. Unfortunately, when we opened up again, at the turn of the century, our customs were once again a high-risk area for corruption. In September 1998, the Zhanjiang extraordinarily large smuggling case broke out, involving more than 200 customs officials, and the director of Zhanjiang Customs was sentenced to death. In April 1999, the Xiamen Yuanhua extraordinarily large smuggling case broke out, involving more than 300 people and the director of Xiamen Customs was sentenced to death. In September 1999, the director of Hangzhou Customs was sentenced to death with a reprieve. In February 2000, the case of the director of Shenzhen Customs was transferred to justice. In March 2001, the Deputy Director General of Customs was transferred to justice. From 1998 to 2000, the national customs investigated and dealt with a total of 386 cases of violations of law and discipline by internal personnel, involving 763 people, including 20 cadres at the department and bureau level, 122 cadres at the department and bureau level, 168 people transferred to judicial organs, and 173 people dismissed from public office. Cadres at the department and bureau level and personnel involved in cases account for 20 percent of the cadres at the same level in the national customs, and just like the customs of the Qing Dynasty, the phenomenon of the collapse of a unit once again appeared. The system of governance knows no borders and is the common wealth of mankind. The experience of customs administration in the HD era may provide us with some useful inspiration today.