Chapter 3357 3359 [An unjust case]

 The fourth round of the draft begins immediately.

 The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Revenue received the Queen's order and began to get busy.

After final statistics, the total number of show girls participating in this round exceeded 20,000.

  After all, Xiang Nan has not drafted for thirteen years, so naturally many show girls have been delayed.

How the show girls go to Beijing, how they are selected for primaries, how they are arranged to enter the palace... Naturally, there is a responsible person in charge, but Xiang Nan doesn't care. He is now vigorously promoting anti-corruption and promoting integrity.

However, the first step is to significantly increase the salaries of officials at all levels.

The salaries of officials in the Qing Dynasty were originally fixed. The annual salary of a first-rank official was 180 taels of silver, and the annual salary of a seventh-rank county magistrate was 45 taels of silver. In addition, there were different amounts of Lumi.

 Because the amount of money and lumi was really not much compared to what they gained from corruption, many officials took desperate risks, corrupted the law, and harmed the public and private interests.

As Marx said, “If you have 50% profit, you will take desperate risks; if you have 100% profit, you will dare to trample all laws in the world; if you have 300% profit, you will dare to risk the gallows! "

 Therefore, the system was changed during the Yongzheng period and more money was given to officials to support their integrity.

This money is much more than the official salary. A county magistrate can earn 1,800 taels of silver a year. If you are a high-ranking official, such as the Governor of Liangjiang, the money you need to support your integrity can reach hundreds of thousands of taels.

However, in the past few years, the Qing Dynasty has carried out overseas trade, continuously expanded its territory, and plundered overseas resources, causing a large amount of wealth to gather in the Central Plains, which also led to the depreciation of the currency.

 Most of the time in Chinese dynasties, there was a lack of money.

For example, during the Tang Dynasty, due to insufficient currency circulation, even silk, cloth, and silk were regarded as general equivalents and used for currency circulation. During the Ming Dynasty, the court was short of money and even used pepper as wages for officials.

 This is mainly because although China has a vast land and abundant resources, it still lacks gold, silver and copper mines. It took a long time for the Song Dynasty to invent paper money - Jiaozi, but because all the previous dynasties liked to issue paper money indiscriminately, the credit of paper money was extremely low, and the people were not willing to use it at all.

 But now, as Xiang Nan conquers the world, massive amounts of gold, silver, and copper mines have poured into the interior, making the Central Plains no longer short of money. As a result, it also caused currency devaluation.

In the past, a cow could be bought for more than a dozen taels of silver, but now it may cost dozens of taels. In the past, it cost one copper coin for a sesame seed cake, but now it costs two or three copper coins...

 The currency depreciates and purchasing power decreases, resulting in a disguised decrease in officials’ income. In addition, the imperial court now promotes trade, which has led to countless people making money through trade. Officials are inevitably jealous, so corruption is inevitable.

 For this reason, if you want to cure corruption, you cannot simply arrest people. Arresting people is easy, just catch them all at once, but if the system remains unchanged, if one person is arrested, there will be another.

Just like Zhu Yuanzhang vigorously anti-corruption in the early Ming Dynasty, corruption of more than 60 taels was punishable by death. In addition, after death, daylilies must be peeled and placed at the gate of the government office as a warning.

 But even so, it still cannot stop officials from continuing to work hard and greedily. The bottom line is that the salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty were too low. Honest officials like Hai Rui were impoverished because they were not corrupt, and even their wives, children, and children had to endure hunger.

 So Xiang Nan’s first step is to increase the salary of officials. In addition to the regular salary, lumi, and yanglian silver, another entitlement was added, which was double the yanglian silver.

As a result, the county magistrate will receive an additional 1,500 taels per year, and the first-rank official will receive an additional 300,000 taels per year. Moreover, these are all salaries from the imperial court, and they are earned justly and openly.

In addition, retired officials also have a pension, and they can also apply for a funeral from the government, which is also linked to the official's grade. Officials of the seventh rank have an annual pension of fifty taels, and senior officials of the first rank have an annual pension of two hundred taels. One hundred taels of silver were buried for officials of the seventh rank and two thousand taels for the officials of the first rank.

 In fact, officials in ancient China had pensions very early on, but not every official could enjoy them.

 The system of the Han Dynasty stipulates that officials with a salary of more than two thousand dan can receive a pension equivalent to one-third of their salary after retirement. Officials with a salary of less than two thousand dan do not receive this treatment.

 In the Wei and Jin Dynasties, because the economy of all dynasties was not good, this treatment was directly cancelled.

 By the Tang Dynasty, business was prosperous and the country was strong, so officials' pensions were guaranteed. Officials of the fifth rank and above can receive half of their salary after becoming a scholar. If you have made outstanding contributions, you can even receive full salary.

 The Song Dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty basically continued the Tang system, but the treatment was better. When an official retires, he can even mention his official rank again in order to get better retirement benefits.

 Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, hated corrupt officials the most, so he was very harsh on officials. The salary was not high when he was an official, and the treatment was even worse after retirement, with no pension. It was only during the reign of Zhu Jianshen, Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty, that Lumi began to be distributed to Zhishi officials.

 In the Qing Dynasty, after learning the lessons of the Ming Dynasty, officials were much more tolerant. After becoming a scholar, you can get a pension of half of your salary to ensure your life.

 …

But now Xiang Nan has not only doubled the money for raising money, but also doubled his retirement salary. Naturally, all the officials were very happy, and they all wrote letters to thank the emperor for his kindness.

However, Xiang Nan turned ruthlessly and used a small case in the Ministry of Justice as a starting point to mess up the entire Jiangnan officialdom.

This case was actually not a big one. It was that a Juren was accused of committing adultery with a married woman. Then the woman's husband passed away. So Juren was accused of killing for love, so he was imprisoned and sentenced to Qiuhouwen. cut.

Juren’s family refused to plead guilty, believing that a wealthy businessman from the same county had made a false accusation in order to rob Juren’s property. Therefore, they complained all the way, and the complaint was even handed to the lobby of the Ministry of Punishment.

However, after interrogation, officials from the Ministry of Punishment still believed that Juren was guilty, dismissed the lawsuit, and sentenced him to be beheaded this autumn.

 Because human life is of paramount importance, ancient emperors attached great importance to death row prisoners, and each death row prisoner had to be executed personally.

This system has been established since the Western Han Dynasty, but at that time only important criminals had such treatment.

 During the Northern Wei Dynasty, in order to ensure strict administration of justice and avoid accidentally killing good people, the "three complex memorials" system was established.

The so-called three complex memorials, that is, the autumn trial and the court trial determine the truth. Before the winter solstice, with the participation of the Minister of Punishment, the Minister of Dali Temple, and the Yushi Zhongcheng, the emperor repeatedly considered the call and decided on the day when the execution order was issued. Ke gave the matter three replays and asked the emperor to consider it again.

Of course the system is good, but when it comes to implementation, it may not always be the case.

For example, many prisoners were tortured to death while they were incarcerated. Or in prison, the environment is harsh, bitten by insects and rats, and the food, clothing, and housing are not satisfactory, and it is easy to cause death.

Coupled with the fact that cell bosses, prison bullies, etc. extorted money and oppressed good people, many people died inexplicably before the Qiu Jue. The number of people who can be judged by the emperor every year is no more than a hundred or so.

And this Juren was able to survive because his family had money and he was constantly taking care of himself in prison. Otherwise, Xiang Nan's turn would have been long gone.

 (End of this chapter)