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 people of Middle-earth have spent their efforts to reach the other side of happiness by implementing the words of the saints, and for thousands of years, the "world of great harmony" promised by the saints has never landed on the earth, and the "peaceful and prosperous world" has never been 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 entire culture of Middle-earth was mired in great paranoia, and perseverance was used as a magic weapon to solve all problems. However, the harder people try, the worse the world becomes.

When he took office, Shandong's tax revenue was not a lot, but he was "dedicated to the people", and after he took 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 Zhihuang urged that the construction should start 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 Zhihuang asked the supervisor to block the construction, and the river focused on the Daqing River entering the sea.

In addition to building water conservancy, Ding Zhihuang built Shangzhi Academy in Jinan, recruiting Confucian students from various prefectures and counties to give lectures at the academy, and accepting those who were willing to study astronomy, geography, and arithmetic. After Zuo Zongtang's Western Expedition was apportioned, Ding Zhihuang actively supported it, and paid the salary in full every time. These things he did won him a very high official reputation, but Shandong's fiscal and tax revenues gradually became inadequate. However, Ding Zhihuang 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 Zhihuang has gradually become a "god" and 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 Zhihuang 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".

The phenomenon of "clean officials" is actually an indispensable part of the traditional "greedy culture" of Middle-earth. For thousands of years, on the one hand, the extravagance and corruption of corrupt officials have been unscrupulous, and on the other hand, the clean officials have always been distressing. They are clear to the four walls of their homes, and they are clear to the point that they have no livelihood, and they are shockingly clear. The culture of Middle-earth, which advocates moderation, is actually always like to go to extremes. Confucianism divided people into two opposing groups, the gentleman and the villain, and declared that a person "is not a sage, but a ghost animal", which laid a radical background for the culture of Middle-earth. Everything is divided into two poles, and there is nowhere to hide in the mean.

Shandong's administrative inefficiency and sharp decline in fiscal and tax revenues under the rule of Ding Zhihuang, a Qing official, were the same as those in a certain period of time and space when most people were superficial and inefficient, but the media were always able to dig out some advanced and exemplary figures who worked without regard for their bodies and families and finally collapsed from their jobs.

The innocence of the Qing officials and the lack of taboos of the corrupt officials are actually two poles grown up in the same cultural genes. The two extremes of clean officials and corrupt officials actually complement each other, just as Tai Chi is one yin and one yang. From this point of view, clean officials and corrupt officials are interdependent, and it is the "purity" of clean officials that causes the "extreme greed" of corrupt officials. In other words, the standard of being a clean official is too high, the requirements for people are too harsh, and the vast majority of people cannot meet this standard. If you can't meet the standard of a clean official, then you are more or less a corrupt official, since you are greedy, why not be greedy?

"Qing officials" have just become a negative teaching material for officials in the officialdom. Being a clean official not only enduring material hardships, but also bearing tremendous pressure mentally. In everything they do, the Qing officials must strictly abide by the state regulations, so they are suffocated and struggling. The ridicule, exclusion, and non-cooperation of colleagues, the resistance, swearing, petitioning, and even death threats of the squires do not count. Even at home, mothers, wives, and relatives complain all day long, although they dare not accuse them openly, but at least they will not give a good face. Therefore, to be a "clean official" is actually to endure a kind of suffering that ordinary people cannot endure every day. However, the Qing officials of Middle-earth regarded this ordeal as a test, a tempering, and a necessary way to "transcend the sacred", and they never tired of it.

"Qing officials" inevitably become "outliers" in officialdom, stones in the dung pit that everyone hates, and if they cannot be "assimilated", then they can only be "squeezed out".

――――Dividing Line――――

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