Chapter 88 Wan Guan's family property goes to the east

At the same time that Emperor Jiaqing ordered the arrest of Heshen, the search of Heshen's family property was also launched.In the end, a large amount of gold and silver treasures, jewelry and jade, calligraphy and paintings of celebrities, etc., as well as real estate such as houses and houses were copied from Heshen's house.It became a sensation in the government and the public for a while, and became the number one news that shocked China and foreign countries, and the streets and alleys were also hotly discussed. Heshen's wealth was unmatched by any official in the Qing Dynasty.The Korean envoys also recorded this: Gelao Heshen was very powerful.Then the emperor is not expensive.Therefore, even the princes and princes and nobles of his family are very envious, overwhelmed and coveted by his family's property; even those princes who have no hope of inheriting the throne think that if they want to get as much property as the Heshen family, they would rather not be born among the emperors. Home.

How much property does He Shen have?A popular saying among the people is that his family wealth amounted to 800 million taels of silver, and this statement was accepted by many scholars. What's more, He Shen estimated that it was no less than 800 million taels of gold.What are the facts?We might as well do some research. The annual treasury revenue of the Qing Dynasty in the last years of Qianlong was about 70 million taels, which means that Heshen's 800 million taels of gold was equivalent to more than ten times the annual revenue of the treasury at that time.Heshen has been an official for more than 20 years in his life. In this way, wouldn't he have to keep nearly half of the country's income as his own every year?This statement is suspicious.

In fact, judging from the "Records of the Qing Dynasty" and other official history and archives, the Heshen family has a large collection of rare treasures, pearls and jade, antique calligraphy and paintings (this part of the property is difficult to estimate).In addition, the cash, land, houses, etc. that can be valued are equivalent to between 10 and 20 million taels of cash. This figure is already quite astonishing and rare in the world.Even so, he was already the most wealthy official among the officials whose homes were ransacked in the entire Qing Dynasty. None of Aobai, Mingzhu, Nian Gengyao and others could compare with him.

Some people say that the Heshen family is richer than the royal family, which is not too much.Even in the sixty-first year of Kangxi (1722), when Shengping Changfu was rich and wealthy, the inventory of the household department was only more than 8 million taels of silver, which is nothing compared to Heshen's confiscated family property. big witch.The wealth of prominent princes and county kings is even more incomparable.This can be seen from the attitude they take when facing a lot of property.For example, when Prince Jianyi Depei (that is, Dejizhai) succeeded to the throne in the thirteenth year of Qianlong (1748), he was very panicked when he learned that there were tens of thousands of taels of silver in the treasury, thinking that bane.He quickly decided to distribute part of the savings to some people in the mansion, and use the rest to build houses and pavilions to avoid trouble.Even Prince Cheng Yongxuan, who was famous for his wealth in the Jiaqing Dynasty, had only 800,000 taels of silver in his mansion, which shows the huge wealth of Heshen's family.

More reliable sources of data are official documents and Qing Dynasty archives, in which the records about Heshen's family property are generally consistent and can be mutually confirmed.Although there are slight discrepancies, they can generally correspond to the relevant archives preserved in the First Archives of China today, so they are quite credible. The "List of Confiscation of Heshen's Family Property" has been circulated among the people, and due to mutual copying, discrepancies are inevitable.Therefore, it is more likely to spread false rumors. Among the various "Lists of Confiscated Heshen Family Properties", the "Complete Cases of Heshen Crimes" preserved by the First Historical Archives of China is extremely typical. The List of Heshen Residential Gardens is very similar, and the number is roughly the same, but the credibility is not high.

After Heshen's family property was confiscated, it was all taken over by Emperor Jiaqing in the name of the country.Most of the cash, including gold, silver, and money, was sent to the Treasury of the Ministry of Households and the Treasury of the Guangchu Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.In addition, all jewelry, jade, gold and silver vessels, jewelry, calligraphy and painting, books, antiques, bronzes, tins, leather, silk, cloth, porcelain, furniture, clothing, shoes and hats, etc., except for a small part, were rewarded by Emperor Jiaqing to princes and ministers. , princesses, imperial guards and eunuchs, etc., and a small part (mainly some dilapidated objects, costumes, etc.) were sold in Chongwenmen tax customs and Rehe (ie Chengde) and other places for cash, and handed over to the Guangchu Division’s treasury. Most of them were directly received by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and became Jiaqing's private wealth.No wonder later generations often say that He Shen fell down and Jiaqing was full. This statement is true.

Heshen's residence and villa (garden) in the capital were reserved for Gulun, Princess Xiao and Fengshen Yinde, most of which were rewarded to several princes and county kings.The details are as follows: the front of Heshen’s residence, the ancestral hall, and the horse circle were rewarded to Emperor Qianlong’s seventeenth son, Jiaqing’s younger brother, King Yonglin of Qing County; the back of Heshen’s residence was still reserved for Gulun and Princess Xiao; and The old house of the family was still given to Helin's son Fengshen Yimian to live in; the west section of Heshen's villa garden in Haidian was given to Gu Lun, Princess Xiao and Fengshen Yinde; the east section was given to Prince Cheng Yongxuan.

In addition, many pawnshops in Heshen's family were also rewarded or nationalized.Emperor Jiaqing awarded Yongqing to Yongxuan, Qingyu to Yonglin, Hengxing to Yichun, and Hengqing to Yonglang.In addition, the rest of the pawnshops are handed over to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for management.At the same time, Emperor Jiaqing not only rewarded some of Heshen's commercial storefronts in the capital to the princes and ministers, but the rest were all under the care of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Except for a small part of the Heshen family's clothing and books, which were given to people, most of them were handed over to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for disposal and sale.Heshen's housekeeper, Liu's family, had nearly 40,000 taels of silver in cash, all of which were handed over to the treasury of the Guangchu Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.This means that most of Heshen's family property fell into the hands of Emperor Jiaqing.

He Shen's family has a lot of land, and most of them have also entered the government.Jiaqing rewarded the sporadic and small pieces of land of Zhonghe's family in the suburbs of Beijing to the eunuchs and others.For example, a piece of land of 40 mu, a piece of 47 mu, and a piece of land of 58 mu were rewarded to the Nanfu Jingshan eunuch.In addition, two pieces of land, one hectare, 80 mu and one hectare, nine mu, were awarded to the eunuchs of Yuanmingyuan. In addition, Heshen's tomb in Jizhou was dismantled by Jiaqing on the grounds of violating regulations due to its large scale, and it was sold together with the houses of the nearby gravekeepers.Seventy-nine households of Heshen slaves, a total of 308 people, and more than 20 households of slaves who were captured after fleeing were sold off and all the prices were handed over to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.In addition, Emperor Jiaqing also used part of Heshen's proceeds from ransacking his home to appease the refugees and suppress the White Lotus Rebellion.

In this way, the wealth accumulated by He Shen after working hard for most of his life was divided up in an instant.And Emperor Jiaqing's complacency in the process of dividing the spoils also reflected his dissatisfaction with Heshen's huge wealth and the seamless greedy nature of the ruling class from one aspect.