Ding Baozhen admonished himself to "work hard to be a good official", and he did so, but his "hard work" is not good news for the people. Pen, fun, and www.biquge.info

Ding Baozhen was born in the last years of the Qing Dynasty, when the rivers were declining and the country was declining, and he was more interested in "corrupt officials in the world than robbers; As a feudal minister, he can get out of the sludge without being stained, "worry about the world, and not take the position as pleasure", honest and honest, and his way of being an official embodies the glorious ideas of Confucianism of "protecting the people", "raising the people", and "teaching the people", which can be said to be the value of his thoughts, but when it comes to concrete practice, it is beyond recognition.

Because the set of theories in his mind does not have any operability at all now!

In Ding Baozhen's theory, officials serve the court and the people. They should pretend to be the people first and then themselves. This is what the Confucian scriptures teach, but as a whole, officials pursue their own interests. They pretend to be themselves first in their hearts, and if there is any surplus, then they will decorate the people by the way. If it's too crowded, forget it. It's not a matter of one or two people's morality, it's universal human nature.

The theories of Confucianism, which had been emasculated by the Song and Ming dynasties, provided people of this era with very attractive visions. As far as society is concerned, as long as everyone abides by the teachings of the saints, the society will be in order and achieve great harmony. For individuals, if you work yourself, you will reach the realm of "sainthood". But what Ding Baozhen will not know is that the saint's "preserving heavenly principles and destroying people's desires" is actually unrealizable. Because it only recognizes moral education, but does not admit that the fundamental driving force that governs the functioning of society is profit. It requires people to restrain themselves at all times, walk on the tightrope of "heavenly principles", but regard "human desires" as enemies. As a result, it lacks operability from the foundation.

"Preserving the principles of heaven and destroying human desires" is itself a terrible spiritual treaty. Or a well-intentioned scam. The signing of this treaty means that a person must be at war with the "self" at all times in his life, and squeeze a living natural person into a moral specimen. Almost all of them swore that they would "be saints", but the vast majority of them gave up halfway, and they smuggled their desires under high-sounding pretexts, which became a "nostalgic wish" to say one thing and do another. Only a very small number of people with special talents can be victims of this treaty with extraordinary mental strength.

And Ding Baozhen is such a wonder.

Ding Baozhen believes that being an official "is particularly important and exemplary", "one's heart must be fair, one's ethics must be honest, one's work must be diligent, and one's case inquiry must be careful", "it is urgent to be compassionate to the people, to be compassionate to the people in everything, and to be virtuous." He believes that "if you are confused about profit, you will be immersed in prostitution for a long time, and there will be people who are greedy and ignorant." Therefore, he also specially instructed his son Ding Tichang: "If you want to be an official, you must first establish a foothold from now on, and you must not follow the flow of those who are disheartened and ignorant at this time, only care about the current liveliness, and do not think about the corruption of your descendants, which is the most instructed!" ”

Ding Baozhen believed that the unhealthy practices that were prevalent in officialdom at that time, such as gifts for holidays and birthdays, and money for subordinates to pay homage to their superiors every quarter, were corrupt phenomena and must be resisted. "All the festivals and seasons are unacceptable. …… If you accept bad rules, you can't ask yourself, how can you treat others? And the state and county send bad rules, which are nothing more than taken from the people. One of the prefectures and counties is taken, and the prefectures and counties are taken from the ten of the people. After thinking about the catastrophe, why do you still endure such a hurtful and cruel abuse of the people? If you ask your heart at midnight, you will be afraid of the sky. "When the word is profitable, cut off the roots, and intend to be a clean official, and future generations will receive infinite blessings." …… To go to the festival and harvest the seasonal rules, it is still not a robbery but a thief (a thief who wears through the wall), which is a thief. A person must have a heart of patience in order to become a good person. …… That is, it is poor for a while, and it is difficult to find a clear name, and it is worth millions, so why not do it? …… Poverty is not disease, poverty is a gentleman, the sage tastes it, and he should take it as his own practice......"

When it comes to the cultivation of being an official, Ding Baozhen believes that a competent and good official must "be aware of the affairs of the time, be good at reading, learn from the past, see and hear more and more widely, adhere to more and more certainty, and become more and more knowledgeable. He believes that in order to prevent corruption and resist corruption, we must first stay away from corruption and keep ourselves clean. In addition to going to the yamen, it is still better to close the house all day long, read, write, compose, and write poems. He admonished his son Ding Tichang to "sleep in the morning and worry about the people"; "not frightened by humiliation, flattered"; We must "be prepared for danger in times of peace", and do not "forget worries in happiness"; We must be indifferent to the ups and downs of the sea and personal gains and losses, but we must pay attention to our own personality and clean conduct. He said: "As an official, my ambition is to be the monarch and the people, and he has nothing to ask." Officials can be deposed by participation, and they must not follow the customs, and harm themselves physically and mentally, and shame future generations! ”

After Ding Baozhen took office as governor of Shandong, he practiced what he preached, and under his vigorous and resolute actions, the atmosphere of Shandong officialdom was indeed much more "upright", but what followed was extremely low administrative efficiency and the embarrassment of fiscal revenue.

Ding Baozhen has always believed that scholars are all disciples of Confucius and Mencius, and their starting point should be to follow the way of Confucius and Mencius, and should not be for their own selfish interests. Therefore, his abolition of the bad rules of accepting and accepting and maintaining the "low salary" of the ancestral system are just conducive to the officials to "temper their temperance" and "maintain righteousness", which is exactly the so-called "preservation of heavenly principles and destruction of people's desires". The low-wage system is actually a political tradition based on Confucianism in China, but the problem is that on the one hand, the official salary is sometimes too low to maintain normal expenses, and on the other hand, the official standard is omnipotent, and the power of officials at all levels is not constrained, and there are almost no obstacles to formulating various local policies and collecting all kinds of arbitrary fees. It is a normal phenomenon in the politics of the past dynasties to collect administrative expenses through additional assessments to support the operation of the government, and it is also the basis for the maintenance of the low-wage system. The question is how much to collect and how wide the apportionment is, and there is no explicit stipulation, and it is completely a black-box operation. In addition, an effective accounting and auditing system has never been established for the financial revenues and expenditures of government agencies. Officials put money in their pockets as easily as eating with vegetables. The absurdity of this system, like "thirsty horses guard water, vicious dogs guard meat", leads to the overall corruption of officials as an inevitable trend. Under this system, if you become a clean official and do not take anything from it, the result will be to be willing to be poor that normal people cannot bear.

The problem is, it's okay to be poor, but you can't ask someone else to be poor with you!

This impossible myth created by Confucianism has supported the Chinese nation through thousands of years of difficult years. This myth is a trap that tells people that the path of a society or a person to the other side of happiness has been pointed out for the saints. Therefore, happiness is at hand, and it is within reach. The problem is that the words of the saints are in a trance, and there is no objective standard for how to implement them 100 percent. If you haven't found happiness yet, it's because you haven't done it right.

For thousands of years, the Chinese have spent their time trying to achieve happiness through the implementation of the words of the saints, and for thousands of years, the "world of great harmony" promised by the saints has never landed on earth, and the "peaceful and prosperous world" has always been only a temporary respite from war and famine. When the words of the saints are satirized, all that is seen is chaos, stagnation, and poverty. No one ever doubted the correctness of the words of the saints, and no one jumped out of the trap of this myth. People just go and follow, generation after generation.

The whole of Chinese culture has fallen into great paranoia, and perseverance is used as a magic weapon to solve all problems. However, the harder people try, the worse the world becomes.

However, Ding Baozhen still persevered in this, when he took office, Shandong's tax revenue was not a lot, but he was "dedicated to the people", and after taking office, he built a "project for the benefit of the people" and built water conservancy. In 1871, the Yellow River broke at Houjialin in Yuncheng, Shandong, blocking traffic and flooding most prefectures and counties. The minister in charge of river control suggested that construction should start the following year. Ding Baozhen asked to start the construction immediately when the water dried up, and asked him to personally supervise the repair. It was completed in less than two months, and it was said that "half the cost is twice the result". But soon after, the Yellow River broke at Shizhuanghu, and the river rushed south, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Anhui were affected for hundreds of miles, and the canal traffic was abandoned. Ding Baozhen asked the supervisor to block the construction, and the river water focused on the Daqing River entering the sea.

In addition to building water conservancy, Ding Baozhen built Shangzhi Academy in Jinan, recruiting Confucian students from various prefectures and counties to come to the academy for training, and also accepting those who were willing to study astronomy, geography, and arithmetic. After Zuo Zongtang's Western Expedition was apportioned, Ding Baozhen actively supported it, and each time he paid the salary in full. These things he did won him a very high official reputation, but Shandong's fiscal and tax revenues gradually became inadequate. However, Ding Baozhen did not study the reasons for this, but practiced frugality throughout the province, and personally took the lead in setting an example, and strictly forbade the disadvantages of extortion and extortion, such as extortion and selling. …… If it is heavy, it will be done again, and if it is light, it will be punished in court,...... Those who do not claim dirty are to be returned immediately, and the merchant will be returned to the merchant on the spot, without delay." But although he has set an example well, there is nothing else except his personal official reputation continues to rise.

But the paradox is that while being regarded as an alternative wonder in the officialdom, in the people, Ding Baozhen has gradually become a "god" and has become the sustenance of the people's hopes. In the minds of the common people, Lord Ding is the great man of the blue sky who saves the suffering and the needy, and the hero who promotes good and punishes evil. He became the embodiment of justice for the common people, a surreal existence. And Ding Baozhen in real life, while enjoying the worship of the small people, is also secretly distressed by financial embarrassment.

This kind of distress of his can't be told to the small people!

Of course, among the small people, not everyone thinks so, and some gentry and merchants have privately lamented that "clean officials are fiercer than tigers".