Chapter 7 5 Second-class fairness

The feeling of unfairness is a kind of inflammable and explosive dangerous goods. A few heroes knocked out a few sparks in the world of fairness and scarcity.The whole of China will be rolled into a threatening heat wave. 【Fairness is graded】 In the 19th year of Daoguang (1839), Shen Qixian, the governor of Shanxi (the top leader of the provincial government), went to Yanbei to inspect the work.Passing through Daizhou (present-day Dai County), some local Lizhengs (similar to village chiefs) and gentry (similar to old intellectuals or retired veteran cadres) stopped the sedan chairs to file a complaint, reflecting the problem of the post station’s collection of grass.Stopping the sedan chair of a senior official is like beating the drum to make a complaint. It is an act that officials dislike. If there is any discrepancy in the facts reported, according to the regulations, they will be beaten 80 times. This is a punishment that is enough to kill the old men.Han Yu said that if everything is not in balance, it will make a sound, which makes these old men and village officials feel unfair, and they must make a sound. What is it?

The post station in the Qing Dynasty was similar to the current post office, and the grass was the fodder for the horses in the post station.The forage is apportioned by the people of the county and paid regularly.Those old people and the village chief complained that there are two unfairnesses in collecting grass at the post station. The family members pay the envoy fee, otherwise they would not accept it. The first clause needs no explanation.The second point, in contemporary language, is that you have to pay a lot of hard work to hire the post secretary and family members to trouble them to accept your number.The post office is similar to the current leader of the county post office, and the family members are the personal cronies of the county magistrate, similar to the life secretary. The "Great Qing Huidian" stipulates that the financial expenses of the post station are provided by the local state and county governments, and the county leaders send cronies to collect the grass, which reflects this power and responsibility.From this we can also see the helplessness of the complainants: the family members of the county leaders extorted money, how could they not stop the provincial leaders from suing?

According to Governor Shen Qixian himself, when those old men stopped him from complaining, he was already sick and irritable.But I regretted it as soon as I finished playing, and felt uneasy.He said that the old men who were beaten had white hair and fell out, and he was afraid that the slap would kill someone.So the case was approved to Daotai Zhang Jixin (similar to the leader of the Yanbei Prefectural Committee) for personal interrogation. On the way, Governor Shen wrote another letter, urging Zhang Jixin to handle the matter well. Shin Ki-hyun is justified in feeling uneasy.People can block the way and sue for a thousand or eight hundred catties of forage, but they don't necessarily have to go to Beijing Control.Going to Beijing to appeal is a costly affair with a low success rate.But it's different when someone dies, and the sufferer will not give up easily.Besides, those old men and village cadres can also share the expenses of Beijing Enterprises, so they are not only willing to sue, but also affordable.Once it enters the Beijing Control Program of the provincial government, there may be an imperial envoy to investigate.According to the routine, the imperial envoy will smooth over the matter, but the province, prefecture, and county have to pay a considerable price, and the imperial envoy fee of twenty to thirty thousand taels of silver is definitely unavoidable.Converted according to the price of grain, the two to thirty thousand taels of silver is close to twenty million NT dollars. Shen Qixian couldn't help muttering whether it was worth the huge sum of money for a short time.The above conjectures have not taken into account the role of conscience, but as far as I know, although Governor Shin is not a villain, his conscience is not very sensitive, so it doesn’t matter.

This is where the story I want to tell officially begins. After investigation, Zhang Jixin found out that those white-collar workers suffered from two more difficult numbers. According to regulations, the government should purchase them from the private sector.The purchase price stipulated by the state is one penny per catty.Converted into the current currency and unit of measurement, it is about 80 cents per kilogram.The local area collects more than 100,000 catties of post grass every year, and the financial allocation is nearly NT$80,000, but this money cannot reach the hands of the people at all.Zhang Jixin wrote: Although the officials offer a price but the people cannot accept it, the people are willing to settle for it.

I would like to stress one sentence: Three standards of fairness emerge here.According to the official regulations, the nominal rights of ordinary people are so great. Not only should they not be deducted by the government's black balance, they should not pay envoy fees, on the contrary, they should also get a sum of money from the government to buy grass.This is of course first-class fairness, but it is only a nominal thing, not a standard that ordinary people really count on.The standard of people Xi'anzhi is the standard of Baijiaoyicao but not making things difficult, which is a level lower than the official regulations.What the common people dare to be dissatisfied with is that they use black scales and extort envoy fees, and it is not for nothing.Officials and yamen servants pushed forward, wanting the common people to recognize the third-class standard after recognizing the second-class standard, and the village cadres refused to admit it, so they blocked the way and sued.

【The Origin of First Class Fairness】 When it comes to the first-class standard of fairness in station affairs, even though it is only a nominal standard, we cannot but miss Li Zicheng, a hero in the late Ming Dynasty. Li Zicheng has a special relationship with the station.One said that he himself was a courier before the rebellion, and he rebelled because he was laid off and unemployed because of layoffs at the post station; Can't afford debt.Both of these claims are related to the affairs of the post station.The founding fathers of the Qing Dynasty fought against Li Zicheng. At least they saw Li Zicheng overthrow the behemoth of the Ming Dynasty with their own eyes, and they must have left a very deep impression.Therefore, in the eyes of the emperor and ministers of the Qing Dynasty, post stations and post horses were issues of great political significance, and when they were dealt with, they had the meaning of facing Li Zicheng in the future, and did not dare to treat the people as easy to bully.So we see formal regulations that reflect first-class fairness.

Emperor Kangxi decided to reform the Ming Dynasty's system of apportioning horse-raising tasks among the people, and changed the use of people's support for officials to government-raised use for officials.At the same time, reform the Ming Dynasty's system of dispatching slaves for free among the people, and the slaves are hired by the government.The emperor made such a rule, and he made a great determination.In the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 2,000 post stations throughout the country, using nearly 70,000 cattle, horses, donkeys and mules, and spending more than 3 million taels of silver every year. This is not counting the more than 14,000 official organizations that deliver mail on foot.The emperor was really afraid that Li Zicheng would be created, so he imposed priceless restrictions on the government's power, and these reforms and systems were all recorded in the "Imperial Qing Huidian", which is the most formal system of administrative regulations.

According to the provisions of the "Great Qing Huidian", there is a fixed annual fee for the post station, which must be reported for assessment every year.The cost of fodder for raising horses is a large item in the rated cost②. "Great Qing Huidian" stipulates that the additional fees of post stations are allocated from the land tax and land silver collected by prefectures and counties. up.In this sense, asking the common people to pay the grass for free is tantamount to selling the same item twice. In modern terms, this is called double charging. If we do not discuss whether the family system is fair, these provisions of the "Great Qing Huidian" are technically irreproachable.The post station is the neural network of the country, the channel of national defense and administrative information, and it is necessary anyway.And what supports this network must ultimately be the taxation of the people.As long as the taxation level of the people is reasonable and the nervous system of the country is not corrupted, we have to admit that this standard is fair.This is why we should thank Li Zicheng.

In this sense, we should also thank Qin Shihuang, at least Chen Sheng and Wu Guang.Qin Shihuang was tyrannical, treating the common people as bullies who could be trampled on at will, conscripting hundreds of thousands of millions of common people to build palaces and tombs for himself, and build walls for his empire.This lesson must have left a very deep impression on the emperor of the Han Dynasty.Without the short-lived tyranny of the Qin Dynasty, I am afraid there would be no Confucianism of the Han Dynasty.This lesson from the past made the threat of Confucianism more credible, and the proposition of benevolent government and kingly way also showed the benefits of the emperor's approval.Therefore, the Confucian scholars represented by Dong Zhongshu were qualified to bargain with the emperor and reach a win-win agreement: the emperor obtained the support of the Confucian scholars and the status of acting as an agent of the way of heaven, and the Confucian scholars also obtained the privilege of expressing the way of heaven.The Confucian classics are very similar to the beautiful regulations on post stations we saw in the "Great Qing Huidian", which is quite fair and reasonable, and its status is also very similar to today's constitution.

Of course, Confucianism is not opposed to the family world.Therefore, the royal family and nobles should be pure parasites, and the common people should pay the emperor to support many harem beauties and thousands of eunuchs who serve them.But after all, the kingly way is a step up from Qin Shihuang's undisguised domineering, and this is also in exchange for bloodshed and sacrifice. [Second-class fair basis] I think that the people of Daizhou do not expect the first standard to be achieved at all, which is very self-aware.The standard of first-class fairness is close to the standard of equivalent exchange in the market, and market transactions require a prerequisite, that is, both parties are equal and have the freedom to participate in or withdraw from the transaction, and no one can force the other.Obviously, the government is not an equal trading partner of the common people, and the government has the right to charge fees.No matter at that time or in modern times, resistance to food, tax or extortionate miscellaneous fees will lead to serious consequences.

Let's take the money and food payment procedures in the spring and autumn of each year as an example to see the regular consequences of people's disobedience. Whenever the levy starts, notices are posted in front of the county government, requiring the people to pay money and food at the designated place at the designated time according to the usual practice.The process of paying is of course unavoidable, and you don’t have to pay if you don’t accept the exploitation. There are legal means to deal with you later. Those who have not paid or have not paid enough will leave a delinquency record in the book, and these people must go to the designated place to make up the payment according to the prescribed time limit. If you don't pay after the deadline, the scribes and servants will go to the countryside to urge the department.Recruitment is a very lucrative job, and it requires competition for posts.During the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty, Tu Renshou said in the film "Want to Get Rid of Money and Grain Accumulations" that all errands to the countryside for labor must be bought with money.Some even bought errands ahead of time to stock up.When it was time to urge the department, the ticket was revealed and went to the countryside to collect from the grain households.In addition to extorting the supply of food and drink, hundreds or even thousands of Wen were extorted for each ticket.A little unsatisfactory, they reported to the officials for the crime of resisting grain.The villagers were afraid and had to satisfy the greed of these people, so as not to be dragged down by crimes. If you haven't paid enough money and food after urging the department, you have to be caught in the yamen to beat the board and stand in the shackles.It's even darker here, and needs to be elaborated in another article. In short, the government is not afraid of the resistance of scattered people, and the servants are even afraid that you will not resist.They are watching, just waiting for you to be caught because of the confrontation and give you a mouthful of fat.In such a situation surrounded by tigers and wolves, as long as the county magistrate said hello, who would dare to pay the number grass honestly?Who dares to pay late?Who is not afraid that the post office and his family will refuse to accept the number he paid?Who would dare to take their nominal rights seriously? 【The Metaphor of Monopoly Price】 For the second-class fairness imposed by the government, the Chinese people seem to have broad recognition regardless of time and place.To use a modern analogy, this looks a lot like the acceptance of some kind of monopoly price and the associated hidden costs.Seven or eight years ago, we had to pay an initial installation fee of NT$5,000 (NT$20,000) to install a telephone. Ordinary people like me who are not familiar with the outside world thought this regulation was fair and reasonable, and deserved it.In my eyes, this is first-class fairness. What I'm a little bit dissatisfied with is that they will delay you for more than half a year after collecting the money. If you don't urge a few times, if you don't go through the back door, the installer will not come to install it for you.I also knew at the time that the installation workers came to the door, and according to the rules, they had to give them NT$100 or two hundred hard-earned money, at least two good cigarettes, otherwise the phone might not be able to connect.I'm willing to pay even that fee if you don't drag it on forever.I agree with the half-year delay and the hard work. If the phone company forces me to buy their phone, I'm ready to admit it too.This is the second-class fairness in my eyes, and it is also the fairness I really count on.During the whole process, I took the initiative to do everything. No one used a knife to force me to line up to install the phone, and no one forced me to put money into the hands of the workers to stuff cigarettes. . I saw a similar story in the records in June of the fourth year of Xianfeng (1854) in the "Jinghu Self-written Chronicle" by Duan Guangqing, an official of the late Qing Dynasty.He talked about the experience of Ningbo fishermen and businessmen buying maritime security. At that time, the sea outside Ningbo was turbulent, and there were many pirates, which greatly affected the business of fishermen and merchants.This was originally the dereliction of duty of the navy (navy) of the Qing Dynasty. They were paid and fed but did not work.But this is normal again.Laziness of civil servants, in technical terms, is the pursuit of maximizing the utility of leisure. This is well-known and universally recognized, and the Chinese people fully understand it.Officials are not really expected to serve the people conscientiously.They may have such a conscience, but they don't have to.The Manchu Qing Dynasty monopolized the public service business, and no one dared to compete with him. All competition was called rebellion, which was a crime of beheading. The merchants and fishermen had no choice but to pool their own money to motivate the sailors and trouble them to go to sea to maintain law and order.This is again selling the same item twice.Merchants and fishermen have already paid for various taxes and fees, which already include the cost of supporting the navy to maintain maritime safety, but now they have to pay again.Of course, no one forced them to pay, we can only say that they did it voluntarily, and they recognized this second-class fairness.More precisely, it was a recognition of his second-class status. According to Duan Guangqing, the prefect of Ningbo (similar to the Ningbo market), this method worked well at first, and the navy was working.But the money was given this year, and the money was given again next year, and the money was given year after year. This money seemed to have become a bad rule that the navy deserved again. The navy became slack again and gradually stopped working.Another explanation is that the pirates became more and more powerful, and the sailors lacked training, could not beat them, and dared not go to sea to work.In any case, the common people have spent twice their money and still haven't bought safety at sea. Fortunately, perhaps it should be said that the monopoly of the navy in the Qing Dynasty was broken by foreigners.The merchants in Ningbo saw that the navy was really useless, so they paid for foreign warships to escort them, and asked Duan Guangqing to issue the foreigners a permit to sail and enter the port.Not long after, the imperial court received a report that the Northern Coast Guard had discovered a ship that was trying to catch pirates, and it turned out that there was also a letter of permission issued by the prefect of Ningbo.There was an encounter between a foreigner and a pirate. In an artillery battle, a foreigner sailor was seriously injured and also sank the pirate leader's ship.It can be seen that the foreigners who do not have a monopoly position are really doing the work when they take the money, and they are not selling fakes like the navy in the Qing Dynasty. [Injustice is a flammable dangerous product] Finally, let's take a look at how Zhang Jixin dealt with the problem of numbering. He called in the large scales for harvesting grass at the post station, and after inspection, it was indeed the kind of black scales that the people complained about.So Zhang Jixin ordered another official scale to be built, and at the same time announced that the grass price should be paid at the official price of one penny per catty, and post books and servants were not allowed to disappear.He said that the people were very happy with this treatment, but Zhou Mu and Ding Xu were not happy. Is this the end?It's over.There was no mention of extortion, no accountability for corruption, and no official Xu Jiading paid for years of wrongdoing.All the processing is nothing more than issuing a new scale and reiterating the official regulations.According to this logic, unfairness can exist for many years, is it because of the lack of an accurate scale?Is it because of the lack of a rule against corruption? In my opinion, such treatment is not so much a punishment as an encouragement.If it is not dealt with, those who break the law and discipline may still have a little guilty conscience.After such a treatment.They can rest assured: report to the secretary of the provincial party committee, and appoint a well-known prefectural party secretary to handle it personally, so what will happen in the end?But gave us a new scale.After a year, we will still be involved in corruption and extortion, and at worst, we will gain another scale.Is this also a risk?Therefore, their unhappiness is only temporary.The ability to harm in their hands has not been reduced in the slightest, and their desire to counterattack has been revealed in their unhappiness.Capable and willing, what else can stop them from moving forward? Zhang Jixin didn't record what happened next, so I don't know.But I guess the local people will give up suing from now on.As for the unspoken rules of post stations that prevailed throughout the Qing Dynasty, I am not well-versed in history, so I can’t say for sure, but I am sure: the Qing Dynasty as a whole did not realize the Confucian ideas and the first-class fairness stipulated in the "Great Qing Huidian", even the second-class fairness. Equity may not be universally achieved.Taking the era when Lu Xun wanted to be a slave but could not, we might as well call the first-class fairness the fairness of the subjects, and the second-class fairness the fairness of the slaves.Evidence that slave-level fairness is not universally realized is the Taiping Rebellion. Eleven years after the village chief and the old man in Daizhou, Shanxi filed a complaint, the Taiping Army uprising broke out.The feeling of injustice is a flammable and explosive dangerous product. A few heroes knocked out a few sparks in the world of fairness and scarcity, and the whole of China was turned into a threatening heat wave.What is amazing is that the gap between the actual internal relations of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and their beautiful banner is not much closer than the gap between the "Great Qing Huidian" and Hei Scale. Notes: ①For the whole story, please refer to Zhang Jixin: "Records of Daoxian Officials' Experiences", Daoguang 19th year. ②For the description of the post station system in the Qing Dynasty, this article mainly refers to Ma Chujian's "A Brief Introduction to the Post Station Biography of the Qing Dynasty", see "Analysis of the History of Characters in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", published by Jiangxi University Press in 1996. ③ "Guangxu Finance General Compilation", Volume 29, Taxation and Service.Quoted from Lu Zijian: "Sichuan Financial History in the Qing Dynasty", page 587.