Emperor and Corrupt Officials: Receivers of Ill-gotten Gains

If the emperor can incite social violence to seize the country for his own family, why can’t officials at all levels share in the world’s ill-gotten wealth through bribery and corruption?

Both emperors and corrupt officials are recipients of ill-gotten gains, the difference being that emperors openly plunder while corrupt officials secretly embezzle.

When open plunder and secret embezzlement join hands, the livelihood of the common people is cut off. The drums of Fengyang begin to beat.

Institutional Corruption’s Vicious Cycle

“Institutional corruption forces every official involved into a vicious cycle between bribing their superiors and embezzling from their subordinates, quelling their thirst with poison and yet never being satisfied. The inevitable result of this vicious cycle is to shift the ever-increasing burden of bribery onto the most vulnerable groups at the bottom of society, thereby completely collapsing the basic social order and pushing the general public into a desperate situation of ‘poverty and theft leading to death.’”

Yu Yunguo, Professor at the School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University

(This article is from the author’s book “The Three Flavors of Learning History,” originally titled “Institutional Corruption in Late Ming Dynasty,” with the title provided by the editor.)

The Anti-corruption Struggle in the Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty could be considered a dynasty where peasants rebelled and took the throne, yet the wind of bribery seemed to be more rampant than in other dynasties.

At the beginning of the dynasty, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang also made a determined effort to punish corruption. Officials who embezzled more than sixty taels were not only beheaded but also subjected to the punishment of skinning and stuffing with straw. The land temple on the left side of the prefecture’s yamen was the execution ground for skinning corrupt officials, also known as the Skin Temple; on both sides of the official seat in the yamen, there were straw-stuffed bags of human skin of corrupt officials, which made officials tremble with fear and abide by the law.

Such severe punishments to combat corruption might be the most intense period in the history of Chinese monarchies’ fight against graft. Even so, under Zhu Yuanzhang’s rule, bribery was not eradicated. “Those in charge of money and grain steal money and grain, and those in charge of criminal cases manipulate criminal cases.” Even Zhu Yuanzhang lamented, “I want to eliminate corrupt officials, but how can I kill them in the morning and they commit crimes at dusk!”

Social System and Institutional Corruption

As the Ming history expert Wu Han profoundly said, “This is determined by the social system. Zhu Yuanzhang, despite being the most authoritative emperor, could kill people but could not change the social system.” In short, the corruption in the Ming Dynasty was entirely an incurable systemic disease.

Upright Officials and Institutional Corruption

Wu Han once counted 125 people in the “Biographies of Upright Officials” in the “Ming History.” From the ascension of Emperor Jiajing to the death by hanging of Emperor Chongzhen, there were only five; the remaining 120 all appeared in the previous 153 years. This does not mean that politics were clear and bribery was eradicated before Jiajing.

Let’s look at Zhou Chen, who served as the governor of Jiangnan for 21 years during the reigns of Emperor Xuanzong and Emperor Yingzong. He was praised by Wu Han as a “good official who loves the people.” In order to get things done, he generously gave gifts to high-ranking officials in the court and provided funds to important visitors; he turned a blind eye to the embezzlement of his subordinates. He hoped to use bribery to offset the resistance to his work, thus “repeatedly attracting criticism,” which already reflects the magnetic attraction of systemic corruption.

The distribution of upright officials over time also proves that under the accelerating law of decay of autocratic dynasties, this kind of systemic corruption spread rapidly like cancer after Jiajing, becoming seriously deteriorated.

Zhang Juzheng and Corruption

Zhang Juzheng was a reformer with considerable achievements in politics, but bribery was also an undeniable fact. Yin Zhengmao, the Minister of the Ministry of Justice in Nanjing, once bribed him with two gold plates, each planted with a three-foot-tall coral.

Censors and Corruption

Under the monarchical system, the main duty of the censors was to correct and punish bribery, but under systemic corruption, even they extorted bribes.

Although there was already a case of censor Hu Jie bribing the eunuch Liu Jin during the reign of Emperor Wu Zong, the phenomenon of bribery was not widespread. By the end of Jiajing’s reign, censors were also involved in the bribery wind, forming a situation where the cat and mouse slept together, resulting in “no one heard of corrupt officials being reported.”

During the Longqing period, Sun Yi, the salt inspector of Huaiyang, “embezzled more than a thousand taels of salt silver,” and was dismissed from his post for investigation. Yin Zhengmao, as the right vice-censor-in-chief and governor of Guangxi, “received thousands of taels of gold from subordinates every year.” When the axis was relying on him to suppress the uprising of the people, the first assistant Gao Gong even claimed: Allocate ten million taels of gold to him, even if “half of them are embezzled, the matter can be done immediately.” In order to stabilize the rule, they even indulged in bribery, vividly exposing the essence of systemic corruption.

Corruption in the Chongzhen Dynasty

By the time of the Chongzhen Dynasty, the bribery of censors had completely run rampant. The censor Shi Fan was particularly “unprincipled.” When inspecting Huaiyang, he pocketed more than 100,000 taels of fine silver from the treasury; after taking over the salt inspection, he also swallowed up more than 200,000 taels of fine silver stored by his predecessor. He also acted as an intermediary for the Minister of Personnel Tian Weijia to accept a bribe of 80,000 taels, and extorted 10,000 taels from the rich Yu Chengzu. When the incident was thoroughly investigated, the first assistant Xue Guoguan still protected him, but “there is evidence of embezzlement,” “60,000 taels cannot be concealed,” and the legal source could not be explained, and finally died in prison.

Systemic Corruption in the Officialdom

The cabinet assistants were the highest administrative officials, and the censors were the central supervisors, and they were also so corrupt. After Jiajing, the systemic corruption of the entire officialdom can be imagined. Eunuchs need no mention, even the royal family, the military, and the candidates joined the ranks of corruption.

The Imperial Examination and Corruption

After the Tang and Song dynasties, the imperial examination has always been a key process for the dynasty to select reserve officials, and the bribery in the late Ming Dynasty also made its fairness disappear. In just the 40th year of the Wanli era (1612), there were many people who bribed to become Jinshi, such as Liu Chen and Zhu Liangcai, with prices ranging from “three thousand taels to five hundred taels,” and the targets were either room examiners or Si Jing.

The Result of Systemic Corruption

Leading by example, permeating every nook and cranny, has always been the inevitable outcome of systemic corruption.

Looking at the officialdom of the late Ming Dynasty, those who bribed to buy officials and those who received bribes to sell officials have become an open secret. Behind the letters of appeal, there is a transaction of power and money. In the Chongzhen Dynasty, it was well known that “the Ministry of Personnel selected officials privately,” and the Minister of Personnel Tian Weijia accepted a bribe of 80,000 taels from Zhou Ruyi and reported back to the position of Yan’an governor. Even Emperor Chongzhen had to personally plan the ministers to decide on appointments.

In the late Ming Dynasty, not only were the links of promotion and vacancy, but also other occasions such as court visits, appointments, performance appraisals, investigations, and recommendations, all depended on money to facilitate, and bribery opened the way.

The year before the Ming Dynasty fell, Liu Zongzhou also made an analysis taking the county magistrate as an example: “The demands of the superiors, from the prefecture to the road, from the road to the department, from the department to the governor and the censor, and the passing guests, the local gentry, and the powerful in Beijing, all progress in this way, and they are not enough to respond. And as for the promotion and recommendation, it is especially severe for the censors who patrol the area.” A small county magistrate must satisfy the greed of various levels of superiors, and must also give gifts and bribes to the censors who control his career. As long as he is still in this system, there is only one way to go, that is, to shift the huge cost of bribing upwards to the people in the county. In this way, “a round of dispatch, a round of extortion, can the people’s livelihood not be poor and steal to death?”

In this regard, this systemic corruption can be summarized: the wealth created by the entire society has lost a relatively reasonable distribution mechanism and has flowed into the pockets of officials and clerks at all levels who control the central and local powers to the greatest extent.

Conclusion

These officials and clerks, as the main body of the ruling class, should be responsible for protecting the national interests and social wealth, but systemic corruption follows the unwritten rule of distributing bonuses according to the level of officials, dragging the majority of their members into the magnetic field of corruption, becoming the actual beneficiaries of all sizes, and it is impossible to be a gentleman.

At the same time, systemic corruption forces every official involved to cycle between bribing their superiors and embezzling from their subordinates, quelling their thirst with poison and yet never being satisfied. The inevitable result of this vicious cycle is to shift the ever-increasing burden of bribery onto the most vulnerable groups at the bottom of society, thereby completely collapsing the basic social order and pushing the general public into a desperate situation of “poverty and theft leading to death.” The inevitable result of this systemic corruption ultimately sent the Ming Dynasty on a one-way trip.