"Twenty million taels?" Yang Zhi was so frightened that the chopsticks he just picked up fell on the table again.
Li Tuo sneered, "Isn't that too much? Of the 24 provinces of the Qing Dynasty, except for Xinjiang, Tibet and Mongolia, which province is not allowed to spend this money? Especially in the richer areas like Jiangnan and Guangdong and Guangxi. It provides more than half of the Bingtanjing..."
"On average, we really don't have much money. A province only costs about one million taels. Those governors are all very fat. How can they be worth millions or tens of millions?"
"Bingtanjing is just a corner of the undercurrent of the capital's wealth. In fact, Bingtanjing is now half-laundered money. The court does not use this money as corruption at all. The last account I mentioned is true. It’s a bribe!”
"Why are you looking at me like that? Doesn't it mean that eldest brother looks down on us? Does he think that we, the humble officials who are as big as flies and mung beans, have no money at all? Do you think that no one will give us money at all?"
"What a big mistake! Let me tell you the truth today, the more minor characters like us are the big ones who really change history!"
In the night, only one room of the small building in Quanjude was lit up. Children were running around carrying lanterns on the street, holding firecrackers and incense in their hands. The snow piles in the corners were filled with firecrackers. When the incense was pressed upward, the sound was heard. There was a crisp sound followed by people's joyful laughter.
The entire Forty-Nine City is immersed in the joyful atmosphere of the New Year. According to the old rule, no matter how vicious people are during the New Year, they have to say good things with good intentions to bring good luck to the new year.
Therefore, even loan sharks are not allowed to collect debts this month. Instead, they have to give some rice and grain to those borrowers who really can't survive. This shows the importance of the New Year to the Chinese people.
But on such a festive day when the whole world was full of joy, Yang Zhi took a profound political lesson, and the name of the course was The Appearance of Officialdom.
"Bingtanjing is nothing, the gifts for weddings and funerals are a big deal. How many foreign officials want to give gifts to the big officials in the capital to get a step up. How many poor officials in the capital would rather borrow usury than use other methods to get it. A fat cadre, the guilty one wants to spend money to avoid being punished, the innocent one wants to spend money to get promoted..."
"What's so great about the prince? Let's take our Prince Gong as an example. The imperial court rewards him with a double salary. How much is that? The prince's annual salary is only more than 10,000 taels. Let the Japanese six eat double and get additional rewards. Is 30,000 taels enough? But for such a large palace, 30,000 taels is not enough to reward the servants for a year!"
"What are you waiting for if you don't commit corruption? When the prince buys a new theater troupe, he will post a message to receive gift money. The prince also has to buy a manor outside the capital, and he also has to invest in a company in Jiangnan to earn dividends, otherwise he will starve to death!"
After Li Tuo finished speaking, Lao Jiang continued, "We can hold several tables for weddings, funerals, and even buying a dog... This is not over yet, there is still money to be made in the future!"
"Regular fee, have you heard of this term? Haha, you look like that, but you have never heard of it... When ministers, especially foreign ministers, submit memorials to the emperor for approval, the court usually leaves it to the competent authorities for discussion. This According to the Taoist Ministry, the pass has a great influence on the success or failure of the matter, so the relevant people usually send "regular fees" to open up the joints."
"There are also regular expenses reimbursed by the imperial court. It is a bottomless pit. Do we need to allocate food, fodder and military pay for the war? One million military expenses have gone out from the Ministry of Household Affairs. How can we get a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand regular expenses? Yongding River Repair The actual reimbursement of the river bank is 1.5 million taels. If you can withdraw 1.2 million taels of cash from it, I will call you grandpa..."
"It's all regular fees. Even if the Ministry of Internal Affairs purchases some wood, there are regular fees included, but they call that kind of small money a kickback..."
Li Tuo waved his hand, "No more, no more, the water here is really too deep, even three days and three nights would not be enough... Let's not mention those officials who are dressed like beasts, let's just talk about us. How do these little officials survive!"
"Brother Yang may have looked down on us petty officials before, but I repeat, sometimes many major events that change history are changed by us petty officials, for example..."
Li Tuo's ancestral home was in Baoding Prefecture. He was able to join the Military Aircraft Service only because of the recommendation of Li Hongzao, a fellow villager. However, in fact, Li Tuo grew up in the home of relatives in the capital and has been living in the capital since he was fourteen or fifteen years old.
He knows all the ways in Sijiu City very well. There is nothing he doesn't understand about black, white and gray. Do you want to sell your official position and get a title? He's a good fit. Do you want to hire someone to do bad things? He can also find several ways to connect you.
Now he has the golden job of Zhang Jing from the Military Aircraft Department, which gives him a place in the gray area between black and white.
In fact, Li Tuo is not short of money now, and his life is very comfortable, but he knows his identity very well. Small officials will never be able to make a living. They will always be vines wrapped around big trees. Even if No matter how powerful they are, they still need a big tree to support them in their search for sunlight.
I don't know what Li Tuo and Lao Jiang were thinking, but they actually put the treasure on Yang Zhi, so tonight Yang Zhi heard some unprecedented secrets.
Li Tuo's face was close to the candle, and the interplay of light and shadow made his facial features look very ferocious. "Xinyou Palace Change... You must have heard of it, right? Minister Gu Ming, you don't know about it, right?"
"But you only know the rhetoric on the surface. What's the secret behind it? What role do we petty officials play? I'm afraid you can't even dream of it..."
Accompanied by the gloomy voices of Li Tuo and Lao Jiang, the Manchu and Qing power struggle that shocked the world eight years ago appeared in front of Yang Zhi in a new look, and the protagonist of the story was the famous military minister Sushun. .
Sushun is a serious descendant of the Aisin Gioro family, the son of Prince Zheng, and his status can be described as very noble. However, Sushun was an idle clan in the Daoguang Dynasty and had no actual positions at all. He held the so-called empty position of cabinet bachelor and military guard commander but actually did not have the slightest power in his hands.
Why couldn't Sushun be reused at that time? In the final analysis, this man has a bad temper and is so arrogant that he has no friends. He not only looks down on the servants and petty officials, but even the high-ranking officials within the Manchu people.
At that time, the colloquial saying of "Sushun" was just one sentence: "It's useless even if you hold office!" Do you think that people who are scolding the streets in the Forbidden City every day can have good popularity?
However, Sushun, who was not very popular, fell into the eyes of Emperor Xianfeng after Emperor Daoguang passed away, and was promoted and reused.
The root cause was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom!
...
