After hearing so many terms related to corruption, I wonder if anyone has heard of "new/covert corruption"? This is a situation revealed by the anti-corruption authorities this year—under the high pressure of anti-corruption efforts, it has become more difficult to catch corrupt officials than before.

Why is that? As the saying goes, "There are policies above, and countermeasures below." Now these corrupt officials have started to go underground to play "hide and seek," engaging in corruption in more covert ways. Therefore, the definition has become more professional and refined, evidence collection is more difficult, and it is not easy to find clues. Moreover, the types of corruption are countless, and they are called "new/covert corruption."

In fact, if we open the history books, we will find that corrupt officials have existed in every stage of the long river of history, and the methods of corruption are also different. But the old ginger is still spicy, and the means of corruption today are completely insignificant compared to the ancients.

Corruption was very serious in the Xia Dynasty, and the earliest record is Cheng Tang praying for rain, including the previous "big rat, big rat, don't eat my millet." For more than 4,000 years, corrupt officials have been as numerous as the stars in the sky, and they are like the wild fire that cannot be extinguished and the spring breeze that brings new life. The lightest leads to the suffering and exploitation of the people, the heaviest leads to the rapid decline of the dynasty, and the most serious even directly leads to the fall of the dynasty.

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Ancient corrupt officials have already mastered the tricks of modern corrupt officials to perfection, and the means of corruption are diverse.

In summary, there are four major categories, but they include all the roots of greed. After understanding these four types of corrupt means, everyone will basically understand the "invisible" means of modern corrupt officials.

01 Elegant Corruption · Antiques, Calligraphy, and PaintingsWe understand that in ancient times, most officials were scholars by background, and "elegance" was the highest pursuit for scholars, so they would basically not accept those blatant gold and silver, and the risks were too great.

How to operate? By accepting bribes through antiques, calligraphy, and poetry, these rare antiques, and literary calligraphy are not as hot as cash, nor as eye-catching as real estate, the authenticity is hard to distinguish, and the value is flexible, and the means of cashing out are hidden and diverse.

If you want to get things done, either send valuable calligraphy and paintings to officials, or buy worthless antiques and calligraphy through intermediaries at high prices. In this way, the transaction of power and money is not so direct and rough, and the carrier of the transaction can be transformed, and it can also be labeled as "tasteful" and "high-grade" for officials, and both parties are more "safe".

During the Guangxu period, the red-capped businessman Hu Xueyan went to the finance minister's house and spent 30,000 taels of silver to buy a painting called "Listening to the Wind and Watching the Spring," and then successfully obtained a loan of 3 million taels of silver. After doing business and repaying the loan, he sold this painting to a low-level official who wanted to please a high-ranking official. Both officials and merchants are suitable, which is really "black in the dark, and the world is wide in the ink."

During the Qing Dynasty, the custom of "elegant bribery" was most prevalent, and some antique shops in Beijing's Liuli Factory even developed into "bribery intermediaries."

When a local official came to Beijing to seek help from a certain official, he would first go to Liuli Factory to inquire about the "market situation." After the boss asked who he was looking for and what kind of matter he was handling, he would give suggestions, asking the person to send a piece of calligraphy or a fan surface, which was exactly the thing that the Beijing official was consigning or from the Beijing official's family. After the local official paid the money, the boss would "buy" the item from the Beijing official and give it to the local official. When the local official met the Beijing official, he would leave the calligraphy or fan surface in the study, and without saying a word, the matter would be done.

Before, Zhang Lingping, the former deputy director of the Agricultural and Rural Work Committee of the Gansu Provincial People's Congress Standing Committee, was called "Calligraphy and Painting Secretary" by the local people. Many bribers cater to his preferences and regard pieces of calligraphy and paintings as "knocking bricks." Zhang Lingping received more than 40 pieces of precious calligraphy and paintings, some of which were worth hundreds of thousands of yuan each; there was also Jiao Weifa, the former Party Group Secretary of the Qinling Office in Xi'an and the Secretary-General of the Xi'an Municipal Government. His judgment has such a sentence: "The three pieces of calligraphy and paintings involved in the case (Zhai Yunsheng's 'Hiding Solidly', Huang Binhong's painting, Xu Beihong's running script couplet) are confiscated and turned over to the state treasury," which also brings the "elegant bribery" to the extreme.

But not all officials can get rich through elegant corruption, so there is the second type - commercial corruption.02 Commercial Greed · Middleman

Commercial greed, a form of corruption similar to the antique shop mentioned earlier, has a broader scope. For example, opening a mahjong parlor or a pawnshop, the Qing Dynasty's Prince Qing and his son Zaizhen made a fortune using this trick in the late Qing Dynasty.

First, rent a courtyard and open a mahjong parlor, with a venue fee of 3,000 taels for each game. The higher the official position you want, the more money you need to lose at the table. Everyone who comes here to play mahjong knows the rules and there is an implicit understanding. Zaizhen doesn't need to show up, just have someone secretly observe and record. Those who lose three games in a row without changing their expression and continue to play are particularly worth paying attention to. Later, when this person comes to handle affairs, give more care, and both parties are well aware.

In addition to the mahjong parlor, the corruption of opening a pawnshop is also world-famous, and the most exquisite player is He Shen.

After Jiaqing overthrew He Shen, he estimated the value of 26 out of 109 confiscated items on the list - 220 million taels of silver. What is this concept? At that time, the national treasury's annual income was only more than 40 million taels, which means that the money He Shen embezzled was equivalent to 5.5 years of fiscal revenue of the Qing Dynasty. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Qing government spent 25 million taels over 10 years to build the Beiyang Navy. Assuming the money He Shen embezzled was taken out, it could build 8 Beiyang Navies.

So, how did He Shen accumulate such a huge fortune? The combination of two swords, first accept antiques and calligraphy and paintings with "elegant greed", and then use the pawnshop to reuse antiques and calligraphy and paintings. If you want to handle affairs, go to He Shen's pawnshop and redeem a worthless thing at a very high price, or pawn a precious item at a very low price. In this way, He Shen has received the money, and the stolen goods have been laundered.

He Shen's most classic sentence is: I'm not taking your money, I'm using your money to do things for you. This is equivalent to today's shadow companies. On the surface, the company operates normally, but what is done inside and who is operated for, who knows?If you do not wish to go through intermediaries, there are more covert methods available. For example, one could first have someone purchase a residence in the capital for sale, and then through an intermediary, have a relative of a certain official in the capital "take a liking" to this residence. Both parties would then sign a contract stipulating a penalty for breach of contract. Once the contract is signed, they would immediately "breach" it, and the official's relative would then take the matter to court. Following this, both parties would reach a settlement, and the local government would compensate for the loss. Everything would appear as a normal economic dispute, and the official would not need to make an appearance to fulfill their respective "needs."

Many modern corrupt individuals have their spouses, children, and others act as white gloves, agents, and intermediaries, serving as power brokers, front puppets, and corrupt partners, accepting the transfer of benefits while they themselves remain behind the scenes as the actual controllers and shadow shareholders, forming a money-laundering model of "I do the work, he takes the money," or even "he does the work, he takes the money." Some bribers may never even come into contact with the leaders and officials, only knowing their names but never meeting them in person.

However, a problem arises: not every official has the power to handle affairs, nor is there always someone seeking their help. This is when the third method emerges—embezzlement.

03 Embezzlement · Misappropriation of Public Property

The most typical example of embezzlement is the Guo Huan case during the reign of Zhu Yuanzhang.

Guo Huan, a vice minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and his accomplices embezzled 24 million taels of the autumn grain tax from Zhejiang Province. These individuals created various pretexts and intercepted the disaster relief funds of the time, which essentially amounted to the misappropriation of state subsidies for supporting rural construction.

This method should be familiar to everyone, with various substandard projects; roads that are constantly being repaired and rebuilt; including the recent major road accident, which may not be unrelated.

After winning a project bid, it is usually subcontracted at various levels, and management fees must be collected for the parent company and the subordinate management departments before any work is done. After collecting the fees, the project is further subcontracted, with each layer "skimming off" profits, and the entire process is filled with the interception of benefits. There was once a local project with an estimated cost of 40 million, but in the end, only 1.35 million was left for the execution phase. The extent of the padding can be imagined, which is known as "plucking feathers from a passing goose."Last year, a newly constructed river embankment in a certain county of Hunan was damaged by rain, with several meters of it being destroyed. Some people raised serious doubts, and coincidentally, the contractor who built the embankment was present. He made a speech that could be called a classic: "If the corrupt officials hadn't arranged the project here, you wouldn't know when the embankment would be repaired. It's already good that a ten-million-yuan project can be repaired with five million yuan, and you are still not satisfied? It's not your money!"

Do you need to put cement when repairing the embankment? Then use yellow mud to replace the cement mortar; when pouring a dam, do you need to put rebar? Then pour some concrete; do you need to build a slope protection? Then use broken road concrete blocks to build it.

The public servants who should have been seeking happiness for the people have become a "chain" of collusion between officials and businessmen; what should have been a project for the people's hearts has become a project of public resentment; what should have been a national investment in road construction has allowed officials to take the opportunity to fill their pockets, and finally summarized as: "The country's money, I don't covet, where do you have the project?"

So in the past, Zhu Yuanzhang killed tens of thousands of people because of Guo Huan's case and ordered the construction of a human skin exhibition hall. Those who embezzled more than sixty taels of silver were executed without mercy, but unfortunately, it not only had little effect but also forced officials to become desperate, leading to the fourth method of embezzlement - bullying greed.

04 Bullying Greed · Deceiving the People and Dominating the World

The most typical ancient bullying greed is the father and son of Yan Song and Yan Shi Fan. They held the court for 20 years. Generally, Yan Song would first give a national treasure to a rich merchant, and then borrow 5 million taels of silver from the merchant, of course, it was a one-way trip. If the merchant dared to refuse or bargain, Yan Song would immediately report the merchant for hiding national treasures and then confiscate the property for his own possession.

Another method is to first allocate funds to the people to do business and set up factories. When the factory has become a climate, it will be immediately nationalized. There are 10,000 reasons for those who do not comply. The Yan father and son relied on this, and in 20 years, they monopolized 1.07 billion taels of money, and there were dozens of good fields and beautiful houses in Nanjing and Yangzhou.

Nowadays, many officials who have fallen have been exposed as domineering and arrogant, with no one in their eyes. Some even take arrogance as a pride and regard it as work strength.For instance, take the case of Cheng Han, the former director of the Hefei Public Security Bureau who was brought down. He once knocked out a deputy director's tooth over a disagreement; slapped a police officer for being slow to stand up and salute; no one dared to look him in the eye during meetings, and he would curse at the slightest provocation; at banquets, subordinates had to line up and toast to show their loyalty.

Some departments such as urban management, urban construction, fire protection, environmental protection, and market supervision are even more rampant in exploiting and oppressing private enterprises and merchants. The business environment was already not good, and not long ago, a basic operation of an e-commerce platform for approving store entries in Hangzhou was able to accept bribes from merchants amounting to more than 92 million yuan in just one year. It is unimaginable how serious the internal competition in the private economy is now, coupled with the resources occupied by state-owned enterprises, more and more private enterprises are moving from being helpless to considering withdrawing. This is a series of effects triggered by bullying and greed.

Therefore, it was only after the painful realization that Emperor Yongzheng implemented reforms - fire consumption was turned over to the public, the population was divided into the land, the local system was reformed, and the military machine was established, so that the profit space in the tax revenue was owned by the state - using the money of corrupt officials to deal with corrupt officials.

So, a clean official must be even more ruthless than a corrupt official to deal with corrupt officials.

The world is bustling for profit, and the world is bustling for profit. All these are not enough, but "the essence remains the same". The root of corruption is actually only two points: one is human greed, and the other is the lack of supervision.

No matter how the means of corruption are renewed, how the path of corruption is carefully designed, and how the interests of corruption are transformed, the essence of new-type corruption and hidden corruption, the transaction of power and money, will not change.

"To beat a snake, you must hit the seven-inch point". This "seven-inch point" is to firmly grasp the essential characteristic of the transaction of power and money, continuously expand the channels for discovering clues, and at the same time use technological means such as big data analysis to peel the onion and analyze the connection between the "power, assets, and connections" of key personnel in order to deeply uncover the hidden power and money transactions.

At the same time, special attention should be paid to key areas where power, funds, and resources are highly concentrated, such as state-owned enterprises, finance, and bidding, and to focus on the "key few" such as the leaders and their relatives.Only in this way can we truly expose and leave no place for the various forms of corruption, which are disguised under the guise of legality, to hide or conceal themselves!