Commercial Bribery In Ancient Times

"Commercial bribery" is a modern concept. When it came back to the historical scene more than 400 years ago, it seemed that it did not belong to the model of unfair competition in other industry. It also did not affect his election as a moral model in the locale, because public opinion paid more attention to the results of his service to the owners.

However, in ancient China, which always emphasized the use of legal, administrative and industrial rules to regulate all economic activities, the existence of a large number of commercial bribes violating this regulatory system, and most of which were entangled with officialdom, is a topic that can be talked about.

Everyone will talk about the tradition of "emphasizing agriculture and restraining commerce" in ancient China. The so-called "suppression of business" means strict control over businessmen and their businesses, first of all, the management of qualification recognition of business.

In this regard, there are many regulations in the past dynasties. For those who take business as their business, they must apply to the government for permission to obtain a "market name", that is, a business license, and to pay "market rent" or business tax on time.

In this registration procedure, the modern language is called administrative license. In fact, as long as there are "roads" or willing to spend money, they can operate irregularities.

86 volumes of Han Shu volume: when Emperor Xuan Di was in Pixian, five brothers, such as He Wu and He Xian in Shu County, worked in the county government. They were not allowed to do business according to the system of "having no official status in the city" ("Han Shu" volume five).

However, it is noted that their families also have city books, and they often fail to pay business tax. The process of obtaining such business licenses is obviously harmful.

The bribery of industrial and mining enterprises' administrative license is similar to business.

Taking the coal mining industry in Ming and Qing Dynasties as an example, because of the sensitive issues such as ecological protection, land rights disputes, employee management, personal safety in public security and operations, the control of private small coal mines is very strict. The cases must be reported to the central level by stages, and approved by the Ministry of Finance (Ministry of housing) and the Ministry of construction (Ministry of industry), and then the tax authorities at the local government are taxed and taxed.

But the actual situation behind the policy decree is far from that.

Wu Xiaoyu, a specialist in mineral history, has published a large number of historical materials such as local records of the mining history, Qilu publishing house, 2003, and so on. Even in the eyes of "emperor of heaven", Beijing is still colluding with officials and businessmen and bribery.

For example, the Yulu coal kiln in Xishan area, as early as thirty-one years in Kangxi (AD 1692), has been closed by the Ministry of labour. After 40 years, a coal merchant Wang Fu Chen colluded to take part in the examination of the officials of the imperial civil service. He relied on an overdue kiln and sent bribes to the local "parents" to send coal to the coal. He changed the official "to the notice", so that an illegal coal fired kiln which was ordered to close was openly restored.

Also like Qianlong five years (AD 1740), Anyang coal enterprise AI Xue Zeng and others, for the leader to open kiln, successively asked for the relationship between two Prince gates and an alternate magistrate, the agreed "Xie Yin" amount up to silver 6000 two.

The network of bribery and bribery is not only safe for illegal owners, but also escape after "unfortunate" capsizing.

In the eight year of Guangxu (AD 1882), Du Qiheng, a master of kiln in Fangshan County, was seized by the Emperor himself.

Borrow the author's original words: "at that time, even if the Emperor himself ordered, dealing with a small coal mine is not a very smooth thing."

Commercial bribery, which is more eye-catching than the general practice, is concentrated in the administrative licensing process of monopoly projects such as salt, tea and wine.

For example, at all levels of the two Song Dynasty, government offices, wine shops and wine farms were inefficient because of poor management, and later entrusted the management rights to private contractors. The way was to put up notices in the crowded place of the government, to call people to contract (contract for production, and to underwrite the package tax).

After the expiration of the deadline, "according to the offer, the highest bidder will buy it."

If the price is the same as that of the first person "(two O), it is the first time that the lowest price is the priority when the contract price is the same.

At the same time, there is a strict qualification examination system, which is "matched with the famous family, but the officials are not allowed to buy each other."

But in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Ling'an government promoted the official history of chess, Sun said: "people from the prefecture and the county buy their homes to the market.

The old example is mostly the common name of the common people, and the combination of the rich and the poor, which is a common phenomenon in the common practice. The so-called system is merely self deception.

The same is true for the delegation of salt monopoly rights.

Take the Ming Dynasty as an example: in the early Ming Dynasty, the implementation of "opening the Sino French", that is, the government took the list, set out examples, indicating which areas needed what kind and quantity of food, and encouraged private traders to pport local official warehouses. The government's return was to issue salt licences, that is, permits to sell salt. The specific way was to calculate the amount of grain, the grain price and the distance and so on, and then specify the products and quantity of salt products, and draw salt from the location where the salt farm was located.

The qualification examination is also aimed at preventing the official and his family and servants from posing as business people.

But the actual situation is often the eunuchs want home through "feeding gold and silver playthings", "your brother's nephew or family members to go to the Nash".

And then sell these salt licences based on bribes "in the capital city..."

Resell the rich businessmen or go to the central government offices (that is, the government agencies that hold tenders for the exchange of salt for grain), and sell them to merchants who are not able to win the business. They sell more than 100 hundred or seven hundred and eight dozen of the one thousand sellers every single day, and the name is "selling money", so that they can come back full of happiness and cause merchants to sigh. "Volume eighteen"

Switching to modern languages means reselling sales permits or licences.

The essence of the above phenomenon is that those who have the power and the way to offer bribes will not be able to earn their own money if they do not sell their own grain to the grain producing areas. The consequence is that the officials who have the power of administrative licensing will seek bribes and arbitrarily increase their income, resulting in the stagnation of salt.

In particular, the salt fields in the south of the Yangtze River, because of their good quality and wide market, are especially "fishing and hunting everywhere."

If we want to make quick use of the funds drawn from salt, we must get bribes.

In the "Jin Ping Mei", Ximen Qing served as official salt pportation and marketing, and he sent bribes to Cai Yun for two Huai salt pportation. Cai's reward was to let him pick up the goods one month earlier than the other salt merchants, so Ximen Qing got a huge profit of twenty-two thousand.

Qing Jiaqing "Jiangdu County continued Zhi" said that during the Qianlong years, Hubei Hankou was the largest distributing center of Huai salt, and the salt merchants in Jiangnan set up a public office here, and "one or two people in charge of public affairs" to solve all the officials' "honest and clean" and various interests, and entertainment, such as tourists, and so on. The annual cost of the "box merchants" is often up to tens of thousands and millions of two.

To put it all in perspective, these "box traders" are full-time business bribes.

Similar cases are numerous.

For example, according to Yong Zheng's "Jiangxi Tongzhi" volume seven, during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the central government's high-grade paper, such as silk gauze and tricolor paper, was manufactured by state-run paper mills located in Yushan, Yongfeng, lead mountain and Shangrao counties in Jiangxi, Guangdong Province.

"All things are evil, they are all good and bad in the marketplace, and they are the ones who are willing to pay the fee for the sake of their fate." then, after the payment of fees, the government officials are very busy. They spend too much time on the government officials. They will spend more money in the future. Later, they will turn around and seek interest. "When they are strictly delivered, they will only buy the official for the paper industry according to the time they estimate."

Commissioned paper making has become a paper purchase. Suppose that the idea of buying folk paper or paper merchants from the beginning will be the case. Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, with the development of private business economy and the activity of market pactions, there are many agricultural products that have been created by the government or enterprises in the past and taken directly from the people in the form of Gonnaco.

The deepening process and the pros and cons of government procurement are not clear in a few words, but it is a fact that the stubborn disease of commercial bribery can never be cut.

First, let's take the regular item of government procurement - grain as an example: since the Han Dynasty, there has been a tradition of setting up regular warehouses, that is, granting barns to regulate grain prices.

The system of the two Song Dynasty was set up frequently in most parts of the country, requiring all departments to pfer their duties to the Department of pportation, and to take part in the official duties of the state and county officials in the state. During the summer and autumn, they bought grain for the people, and Gu Guishi reduced the price when he was out of green and hungry.

In order to successfully complete the takeover task, grain traders are often used as the intermediate link for grain purchase. Therefore, the "clean and dry" selection standard is put forward, that is, being honest and competent, and not being deceive by a dishonest trader.

But in the Northern Song Dynasty Ren Zong, Li Gou exposed the three major ills of Chang Ping Gu, and listed the disadvantages of "being a traitor" as the key. Until the Southern Song Dynasty, there were some other household members, such as Zeng Huai and others, who pointed out: according to the report and investigation, officials and brothers and merchants have always done the same thing.

The loss of state funds has always existed because of knowing deliberately raising the purchase price.

Of course, the bureaucratic officials will not make in vain to make the merchants of the grain merchants earn excess profits, and to pry the pivot of the lift to the public, which is a bribe.

There is also a worse technique: not only the high price of purchase, but also the change of the content of the goods in the purchasing farm, as some people say, "the Hebei State Army has a lot of every year and buy buy buy D.

This kind of high price and adulteration can make the government procurement department from the government officials from the officials to the Xu service.

Because of the supply of ancient military supplies, quite a few of them came from government procurement, so that even soldiers would have to eat their food or complain.

This is a big mistake in logistical support from commercial bribery.

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It is not for private owners to offer bribes, but for officials to take political power and bribe in the name of kickbacks.

For example, Bao Shichen, "four kinds of ANN Wu", for example, in the nineteen years of Qing Jiaqing, the governor of Jiangsu and the governor of the cloth government decided to use grain for 6 yuan to purchase grain. Jiangning County, Jiangning magistrate, was awarded the approval of the private rice milling industry.

Cai Zhi county is the 32 owners to the County Hall to open an open contract signing ceremony, but also a "swear by heaven", the official business mutual protection of this vote, the purchase of large and fair and pparent, both sides are not allowed to lose their wealth and private interests.

Therefore, the "public opinion agreement" has been implemented in this fight against corruption.

It is not known that the day after the signing of the contract, Cai Zhi county sent another post to invite the owners to go to the flower Hall of the county's official office, and the "emotional quotient eight buckle" is to extract 20% rebates.

The owners disagreed and went to the Chief Secretary for complaint.

The chief executive was furious and called Cai Junbi on the spot.

Lao Cai's face could not come down, and when he was in a hurry, he shook out the truth of the governor's money in the face of many businessmen. The truth was "92 buckles". "The Department was blocking the words," and the result was "twenty percent off rounds of each square."

Businessmen will not lose money in vain, and the beige tide is all mixed up. After all, the Treasury is bad luck.

It can not be said that there is no official or greedy in the world. All these are the above VMS and county Yin and so on. But "arms are stubborn legs" is a general rule.

In the 87 book of Ming history, during the Ming Dynasty, there was a minister in charge of the Ministry of Commerce, Huang Fu Lian, who was in charge of the annual salary of more than 20 million silver.

The contractor who bought the contract could not knock him down with sugar coated bullets, and turn his way to the curve.

The name of Shang Shu is called civilization, but it is not a paragon of civilization, but a small businessman.

And when the "Jia people increased the number of false profits, [Huang Fu] according to his guilt", the Minister of the Ministry actually called "Lian Jie to blame". It is hard to imagine what other serious principles he can say. Therefore, Huangfu Lian immediately contradicted the leader and said: "the government is in charge of the state, and the vice is doing the discipline."

Next year is the year-end assessment. Huang Fu's chief secretary, "the Chief Secretary of Henan was asked to ask questions", was no longer promoted on official career, and the purchase expenses of the Xin Yu division rose to 30 ten thousand silver.

Large and small construction projects are naturally the best environment for commercial bribery to go smoothly.

In the "Golden Lotus", the count should recommend Ximen Qing to manage the garden project for the management of Mr. Ximen Qing. "Supervise the work of the artisans and start the work, first destroy the flowers, and then open the walls and build the foundation feet", and "roll up the shed hills" and "the pavilions and tricks". In the meantime, the bargaining price is estimated, the employees are buying materials, the "openers" are numerous, "the money has always been hooked", and the red envelopes are given to the referrals. "Sooner or later, I only hope that my uncle can support one or two of them in front of my father."

This is a side sketch of commercial bribery in civil engineering.

If you stick to a "official" word, the pattern and amount will naturally be greater.

Since the two Song Dynasty, China's state-run shipbuilding and repair industry has been developing continuously. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there are various state-run shipyards in Taicang, Jingjiang and Yizheng, Shandong, Linqing, Dengzhou, Guangdong, Guangzhou, Chaozhou, Fujian, Zhangzhou, Zhangzhou, and Ming in Jiangsu today. Among them, the largest shipyard which is directly under the Ministry of labour is the largest shipyard, and many of the large ships that Zheng He used to go to the western world were made by the factory.

According to the "Longjiang shipyard records" by Li Zhaoxiang, who specializes in the management of the factory in Nanjing during the Jiajing period, it was said that when he took over, the large enterprise which occupied 540 thousand square meters, including seven or eight professional workshops, had been defeated and exhausted.

The reason for the review is mainly the confusion of management and the shortage of abuse.

When buying materials, they are "not for their own people, but for cheating". When they start their work, they are "Xu Li Jian, temporary difference" (that is, contract subcontracting); employing employees are asked by many parties.

There are eight items of the disadvantages, namely, bribery, abuse, demand, exchange (i.e., after acceptance, and so on).

The above description can also serve as an overview of national manufacturing engineering during most of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

For example, the Jiangnan manufacturing Bureau in the late Qing Dynasty was the largest new military manufacturing state enterprise in the late Qing Dynasty. When it started its "forty years", the Qing government sent personnel to investigate and survey the report. The conclusion is: "in such a huge factory, it is one million and four hundred thousand yuan to spend money on the old age, and all the weapons are not perfect.

As for the redundancy of the staff, the delay of the work, the opening up of the purchase price of various materials, the wasting of materials in various factories, the various malpractices, and so on, "the Kangping Office of leisure and leisure".

Among them, the purchase of mechanical materials and other things is a rampant place for commercial bribery. The Chinese and foreign daily, founded by the reformists, has insider disclosure: "whoever wants to sell the goods to the bureau must first be introduced by a servant or a staff member, who is able to meet with the general office and discuss the private fees and the positive price first.

All of the servants are all paid attention to, and they are all paid for the price. "How much of the cost is on the project?

Commercial bribery, which is comparable to the project construction, has flooded the area, and there are still land pfer, property rights pactions and related administrative approval.

In the past, there are strict laws and policy restrictions on land leasing. No matter whether the parties are individuals or units (such as temples, schools, shops, etc.), they must fulfill a series of procedures, such as submitting applications, examining and approving government offices, submitting approval, signing contracts, checking government offices and collecting taxes.

On the other hand, from the Han Wei Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, illegal land pactions can be described as history. Quite a few of them turned illegal into "legality", that is, the role of commercial bribery in the process of seeking administrative approval.

Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty built six yuan (135 BC). There was a descendant of the founding Minister of Leping who did not extravagant, because he was executed in an illegal real estate paction. He was executed by the Duke (Han book, volume sixteen).

But the situation is not long. Since the late Western Han Dynasty, illegal land pactions have been the magic of hard to get rid of.

Tang Xuanzong, a 95 year old imperial edict on land consolidation and sale in accordance with the law, "illegal selling and buying..."

Far and near, it is too long to follow, and there is no need for improvement. "

What is the reason? The trouble is inside. Like the "Wang Guang" Xiang Wang Sao in the volume 165 of Taiping Guangji, Zou Fengchi, the "Mansion Garden House, full of the sea" in the fourth volume 95, and Wang Yuanbao, Guo Wan and Kim, who are listed in the Kaiyuan Tianbao incident, are named "rich cloth" in the rich list without official positions. There is no political privilege to rely on. The "legitimate" occupation of the land by Zhuang Zhaiyou is obviously only a bribe to the land management agencies at all levels.

By the way, the illegal examination and approval of land sale in the past dynasties mostly used nominal packaging, such as "code stickers", "quality raising" and "live selling", that is, the pfer of real estate mortgage or the right to use land within a certain period of time. In fact, the empty policy of drilling state control laws and regulations on real estate pactions did not change the essence of the massive loss of state tax sources and the rapid division of social wealth.

With the development of commodity economy, some industries belonging to the state or even "Royal" will enter the market for various reasons, and there are various ambiguities.

Far from it, the official merchant shipping merchants Bureau in the late Qing Dynasty bought the flag merchant shipping company of the United States at a high price of 220 million, which is a famous example.

At that time, both Chinese and foreign public opinion believed that this paction was extremely beneficial to Qi Chang, in fact, it used a bunch of "rotten and rotten old" junk to get a good price.

According to the foreign businessmen who are familiar with the shipping situation, the merchants have paid at least 50 or more yuan in the deal, thereby making their situation "very unlucky", adding debts and being at a loss.

However, why did Tang Tingshu, Xu Run and Sheng Xuanhuai, who presided over the Investment Promotion Bureau, make such a decision to jump into the deep trench? It was revealed that they had misappropriated 50 yuan of the public merchants' public funds and bought a lot of them when they were losing money and falling sharply. They became shareholders of Qi Chang.

In order to encourage China Merchants to buy Qi Chang, they have reached a deal at the back of the stock price of 100 two.

In this way, these "state owned bosses" have gained huge profits in changing hands. The foreign shareholders who have been in a state of loss are not only suffering from losses, but also have the right to make profits. Even then, the American envoy, Xihua, can not help but say, "now our shareholders are safe."

The only person who devours bitter fruit is the Merchant Shipping Bureau ("Westernization Movement" and "modern Chinese enterprises"), which is "a large number of ships and a large sum of money". (from Zhang Guohui's "Westernization Movement and modern Chinese enterprises").

As for the details of behind the scenes pactions, it may never be possible.

The most direct victim of commercial bribery is the general public.

Such as grain, salt and other closely related to the livelihood of the people's purchase and sale of goods, once bribed by businessmen, the price of evil can not be avoided.

"The gold pot wave ink" Volume 1 reveals that the salt merchants profiteering said: the price of Huai salt is only about ten yuan per catty, plus the class silver is only seventeen, and phipment to Hankou becomes a fifty or sixty language, and then it is sold wholesale to the water traders in Hankou and the layers of layers.

So at that time there was a saying that "salt business is a fairies".

Despite the tradition, governments in the past dynasties thought "the price is high, but the sick people often show that they are forbidden to raise the salt price". But since there are so many pockets to be filled, they must be returned, and the severe system will be destroyed.

"Under the burden of small people", "official salt has to be expensive, and private salt can be rampant".

Take the irons as an important production tool of the peasants as an example. In the Qing Dynasty, Wu TSE, a magistrate in Mengyin County, Shandong, had an article about the malpractice of the blacksmith, who was guilty of being a gang leader and corrupt officials.

It vividly illustrates the abuse of commercial bribery to consumers' interests.

When it comes to commercial bribery, it's always different.

The whole coal mining industry is getting out of control. At the same time, there is a more startling side. Many people in the system are willing to throw away the risk of the awa.

Mr. Wu Xiaoyu said that in the dozens of contracts for Qing Dynasty coal mines, he or she had a small amount of symbolic capital and more dividends, or simply did not take any money at all.

Such as Shunzhi two years (AD 1645) of a group to do Jingxi coal mine contract, stated that the total kiln share of sixty shares, landlord accounted for ten shares, managers and investors accounted for thirty shares, "the Ministry of household Wang" accounted for twenty shares.

This master is neither a land owner nor a capital owner, nor does he undertake responsibility for ore mining, nor will he dig coal under the kiln. However, the "capital" of the 1/3 stake in Bai de coal mine can only be explained by the rent-seeking power of "relevant department personnel".

This phenomenon has also been disclosed in historical records, such as the case of Yuan Anyu, which was exposed in the early Qianlong period. When he was appointed as an official in Qujiang, Guangdong, he was originally a private coal kiln. After he was pferred to Qiongzhou, he took the "top of the coal hill to investigate and revive the salt business as a contractor", "still secretly shares the shares," and is also a "hero" who plays karate.

Commercial bribery can also change form because of knowing the times and changing things.

There are many inspirations from ancient times.