The Qing officials were killed, and the Qing Dynasty was dead
One day in early summer in 1809, Emperor Jiaqing heard the news that shocked him: Li Yuchang, a new science and technology scholar, had hanged himself in his residence half a year earlier.
Li Yuchang's uncle, Li Taiqing, a member of the martial arts, recently went to Beijing to express his grievances and ask the imperial court to uphold justice. Why did a new science and technology officer commit suicide? This is unprecedented news in the history of the Qing Dynasty.
According to the usual practice, the seniority of the new science and technology jinshi is low, and it is generally not possible to confer an official position immediately. If you need to go to the local place to serve as a county magistrate, you need to wait for the local ** vacancy. Li Yuchang is a candidate for the county magistrate who "uses the county to distribute the vacancies of the Jiangsu Fu Bureau".
Why does a person who has not entered the officialdom have such a deep sin that he needs to die to end himself? Emperor Jiaqing repeatedly flipped through Li Taiqing's love letter and felt that this matter was full of suspicions.
In the autumn of the thirteenth year of Jiaqing, heavy rains in the Huaihe River basin caused floods, and the people were seriously affected. Emperor Jiaqing issued an order to allocate 200,000 taels of silver to help the hungry, which was dispatched by Tie Bao, the governor of Liangjiang.
Li Yuchang, a relief commissioner, was dispatched to the disaster area to supervise the relief work. Li Yuchang discovered that Shanyang County had falsely reported information about the disaster and fraudulently received 25,000 taels of disaster relief funds, and immediately reported it to request legal sanctions.
Li Yuchang, as a new science and technology scholar, refused to accept the county's wooing, stayed in the temple, and was determined to investigate and punish the ** behavior. This matter involves the ** of Huai'an Prefecture, Wang Zhixian and Wang Zhifu hope to give some benefits to get by, but Li Yuchang is serious and responsible, verifies the list of disaster relief funds one by one, and visits the disaster area to investigate public opinion, and finds problems.
His actions show the quality of integrity and integrity, which has a positive significance for maintaining justice and cracking down on the first.
Wang Shenhan and Tiebao's subordinate Li Yuchang launched a struggle against Shanyuanan, and Bao Xiang offered to bribe Li Yuchang's retinue Li Xiang, but Li Yuchang always adhered to his principles and refused to go along with Wang Shenhan and his gang.
Wang Shenhan had to make two preparations, on the one hand, bribing the prefect Wang Hub, and on the other hand, increasing the bribery, but Li Yuchang was resolutely unmoved, and in the end Wang Shenhan's conspiracy failed.
The Huai'an Prefecture has tried many famous cases in ancient times, including the Dou E case and the Li Yuchang case. The picture shows Picture Worm Creative 03. Wang Hub, the prefect of Huai'an, personally invited the big and small ** in the mansion to hold a grand banquet for the outgoing Li Yuchang.
Although Li Yuchang felt disgusted with Wang Shenhan's behavior, he still attended the banquet according to the rules. Wang Hub, Wang Shenhan and others tried every means to get Li Yuchang drunk, while Wang Shenhan's retinue Bao Xiang teamed up with several of Li Yuchang's evil servants to prepare to poison Li Yuchang's bedroom and fake his suicide.
That night, Li Yuchang drank a lot of alcohol after returning to his residence, completely unaware of the danger around him. In the middle of the night, he felt thirsty, so he called Li Xiang, a retinue waiting on the side.
Li Xiang immediately handed him a cup of tea with a lot of arsenic in advance. Li Yuchang didn't think much about it, and drank it all in one go. Soon after, the poison set in, and he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, and suspected that he had eaten unclean food at the banquet, so he cried out.
Bao Xiang, Li Xiang and others heard the voice and hurried to it. They were afraid that Li Yuchang's shouting would be too loud and expose their conspiracy, so Bao Xiang strangled Li Yuchang's neck from behind.
Due to the lack of oxygen in his brain, Li Yuchang immediately came to his senses and looked at several wicked people angrily. His servant Ma Liansheng immediately unbuckled his belt and assisted Bao Xiang in strangling his master.
With the joint efforts of everyone, Li Yuchang was strangled to death in bed. They then hung Li Yuchang's body on the beams of the house, creating the illusion that he had hanged himself. Then, rummaging through his room, they found Li Yuchang's account of the disaster relief details that he was going to report to the Governor of Liangjiang, and fled the scene in a hurry.
The next day, Li Xiang and other evil servants pretended to wake up their master and bluffed near the Good Yuan Nunnery. Soon, the news of Li Yuchang's suicide spread throughout the city. After receiving the report, Wang Hub, who had been prepared in advance, immediately went to the scene to investigate with the work of the government office.
After some investigation, he truthfully reported that Master Li had blood in his mouth, and it did not seem to be a suicide.
The scene of the ancient post-mortem examination: Wang Hub angrily scolded the 20 boards, and Li Yuchang's death was full of suspicions. The case needs to be reviewed at four levels, and the upper level has not conducted an in-depth investigation. Li Yuchang's family found it difficult to accept the conclusion, and Li Taiqing was in charge of the aftermath.
The Li family believed that Li Yuchang's death was full of suspicions, and Wang Hub and Wang Shenhan sent people to bury Li Yuchang's body in order to prevent the matter from being revealed. Li's family asked to see Wang Shenhan and learn about the incident, and Wang Shenhan recounted that Li Yuchang talked and laughed when they met, and there was nothing unusual.
Li Taiqing was suspicious of Wang Shenhan's remarks, and found that there was a note in Li Yuchang's clothes that read: "Shanyang Zhixian pretended to give money to benefit Yuchang, Yuchang did not dare to accept it, and was afraid of losing the Son of Heaven."
After Li Taiqing returned home, he told Li Yuchang's widow Lin's family about the incident, and the two found blood stains on their clothes and deduced that Li Yuchang had not committed suicide. With the assistance of Shen, the Li family saw Li Yuchang's tragic situation and determined that Li Yuchang was poisoned before his death.
However, after four levels of trial, it is difficult to overturn unjust cases. When Li Yuchang's teacher Chu Pengling learned of this, he was filled with indignation.
Original text: Li Yuchang's mentor, Chu Pengling (1749-1825), a famous minister of the Qing Dynasty. In order to seek justice for Li Yuchang, he wrote a complaint for the Li clan, and wrote in Li Taiqing's tone at the end: "Weeping and thinking about his nephew, he first received the favor of the country, tried his best to find relief, and was murdered by the rebels, where is the reason of heaven? ”
Li Taiqing took this complaint and appealed all the way to the Beijing Metropolitan Procuratorate, and soon received a reply from the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and the case was also transferred to the Jiaqing Emperor case. At the beginning of Emperor Jiaqing's accession to the throne, he sent important ministers to copy the homes of Qianlong Yuanfu and Shen to show his determination to stand against the **.
Now, Li Yuchang was ordered to investigate the relief, and died in the local area, which made Emperor Jiaqing very angry. Emperor Jiaqing immediately made a decision and asked the court to retry the case. As the main responsible officials of Jiangsu, Tie Bao, the governor of Liangjiang, and Wang Rizhang, the governor of Jiangsu, could not escape the blame, but both were old ministers in the Qianlong era, and Jiaqing intended to open up the net.
Hearing that the two old ministers "opened their eyes and said nonsense", Jiaqing immediately pointed at their noses and scolded, stupid and confused, and disregarded human life! Since Li Yuchang's body was still in Shandong, Jiaqing, who was gloomy, could only ask Shandong Governor Ji Lun to retry it on his behalf.
Soon, after the interrogation of the Shandong Governor's Yamen and the Inspectorate, Li Yuchang's death came to a conclusion similar to that of the Li clan's open coffin and autopsy: "But the chest bone is the same, and the rest is black."
Gai was poisoned and did not die, but hanged to death. Emperor Jiaqing personally decreed that in the name of "Qingzheng", Li Yuchang was rewarded with the title of prefect, and he was buried, and a poem "Loyal Poem" was made, and the monument was engraved in front of the tomb.
For Li Taiqing and others who avenged Li Yuchang, Emperor Jiaqing also did not hesitate to reward Li Taiqing and gave Li Taiqing the status of a person, so that he could glorify his ancestors.
In the face of the corruption of the country, the emperor was deeply saddened by this but helpless. After this major incident, Chen Zhongfu, the imperial historian, immediately proposed to the imperial court that the qualifications of those who donated as officials should be examined to ensure that those who donate are truly talented and learned, and those who do not have knowledge and skills cannot be allowed to become officials opportunistically.
However, Emperor Jiaqing had a different view on this matter. He believes that although there are indeed some lawbreakers like Wang Shenhan and Shan Zhangchang who are donated, there are also many greedy and bad bureaucrats among the ** who have been selected through the formal imperial examination.
Therefore, the crux of the matter is not the donation system, but the hearts and minds of the people. Sadly, Li Yuchang's tragic death was soon forgotten by the entire empire. No one reflects on it, no one wants to make changes from it, and everyone moves blindly in the great inertia of history, whether it is a high mountain or an abyssal ravine.
References: Zhao Erxun, Manuscripts of Qing History, Zhonghua Book Company, 1977; Li Yangying, "On the Transmutation of the Qing Dynasty's System of Raising Honest Silver", Journal of Social Sciences of Jiamusi University, No.5, 2007; Zhang Guoji, "On Institutional Corruption in the Daoguang Period of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty", Journal of Social Sciences of Hunan Normal University, No.3, 2009; Xi Hua, "Anti-corruption is a life-and-death contest - The Huai'anqi case of the Qing Dynasty and its enlightenment", Integrity Outlook, No. 24, 2016; Wang Kaixi, "The Governance of Jiaqing Dynasty from the Case of Li Yuchang", Historical Archives, No. 2, 2004.