Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 1004 0999 [Qin Hui's Death]

Qin Hui is still squeezing toothpaste.

"Xue Bi, the prefect of Xihe Prefecture in Shaanxi..."

"Wanqi Xie has already betrayed him, and a bunch of his subordinates have also been investigated by the Shaanxi Judicial Department. Your Majesty has shown them extra mercy and allowed them to provide disaster relief and make meritorious contributions. Because of his active return of the stolen goods, Xue Bi was sentenced to exile in Shazhou. Although his subordinates were spared from exile, some of them were imprisoned, some were dismissed, and some were demoted several levels."

"Huainan Province Councillor Zhao Kai..."

"Wang Xuan has already betrayed him. He will definitely die. Let's find another one."

"Let me think about it again, let me think about it again..."

Qin Hui racked his brains and thought hard, but it was difficult for him to expose the corrupt officials.

Almost all those who should be caught have been caught!
Xue Bi and Zhao Kai, who were just confessed, are both capable but poor characters.

Take Xue Bi for example. In history, he first assisted Li Gang in defending Kaifeng, then offered advice to Yue Fei on how to destroy Yang Yao, and officially served as Yue Fei's advisor. He also came forward to appease Wang Yan's Eight Character Army. Even after leaving Yue Fei, Xue Bi, as a civil servant, repeatedly pacified or subdued bandits.

But when Qin Hui framed Yue Fei, Xue Bi did not help but actively sided with Qin Hui. He even attributed all his achievements in suppressing bandits to Wan Qi Xie in order to curry favor with him.

In this way, all of Yue Fei's former staff officers were dismissed by Qin Hui, except Xue Bi, who was reused and promoted by Qin Hui.

That Zhao Kai was the "reform pioneer" in the early Southern Song Dynasty. He reformed the wine law, tea and horse law, salt law, banknote law... He made great contributions to easing the financial situation of the Southern Song Dynasty, but also made the people of the Southern Song Dynasty suffer.

His most outrageous move was that the Xuanfu Division caught a counterfeit money-making gang, and Zhang Jun planned to execute all of them according to the law of regular banknotes.

However, Zhao Kai suggested that the counterfeit banknotes be stamped with the official seal of the Xuanfu Division, so that the counterfeit money could become real money. Then, all the 50 criminal gangs were tattooed to make money, using their expertise in making counterfeit banknotes, and then stamped with official seals to turn them into real banknotes! This way, the banknote issuance limit set by the court could be bypassed, and Zhang Jun could use this to print money crazily.

Zhao Kai's suggestions were already outrageous, but Zhang Jun actually adopted them all in order to raise military funds.

In the new Ming Dynasty of this time and space, whenever Zhao Kai served as an official in a place, he could greatly increase the commercial tax there. Moreover, he always managed to fool the inspectors by walking on the edge of the Ming Dynasty Law.

The amount of money this person embezzled was not even less than that of Qin Hui!
When the merchants in the place where Zhao Kai used to work heard that he had been arrested, they celebrated and set off firecrackers.

"Think again."

"I really can't think of it."

Qin Hui became depressed and frightened, waiting to receive his final trial.

late autumn.

The trial of Qin Hui ended with a long list of charges. The amount of money he had embezzled that could be traced back to him was 152 million strings of cash, not including the stolen money of his family, relatives, and cronies.

More than ten years after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, prices have come down.

Only grain and wine prices have risen due to the continuous drought in the northwest. Wine prices are rising across the country, but grain prices are higher in the north, while they are rising steadily in the south.

Take the average grain price in Hangzhou as an example. Even though a lot of rice was shipped to the north for disaster relief this year, it only cost 5 wen per jin (which has been converted to the market price of jin several hundred years later). Moreover, the price of rice in the rural areas around Hangzhou was even cheaper than in the city.

If calculated at 5 wen per catty, based on this year's floating silver price, 152 million guan can buy 3.53 million catties of rice (modern market catty).

You can easily convert the specific value in RMB yourself.

But the real purchasing power of this money is definitely higher than the converted RMB, because food in the context of modern agriculture is far less valuable than it was in ancient times.

By the way, the Ming Dynasty's one-string money was not fixed at 1000 wen per string, but was fixed at one tael of silver per string. According to the floating exchange rate between silver and copper coins, the number of wen equivalent to one-string money was determined, which can be understood as the silver standard.

Of course, the imperial court would determine the amount of copper coins to be minted in the second year based on the amount of silver in circulation (market silver price) and adjust the value of the copper coins accordingly.

The current official basic exchange rate is 1 tael of silver = 1 silver dollar = 1 string of money = 1000 wen.

Occasionally it could be exchanged for 900 or 1100 wen, but in the past five years, it had never been lower than 800 wen, nor higher than 1200 wen.

This gave rise to a group of gold and silver speculators who used Ming copper coins to exchange for overseas gold and silver when the price of gold and silver was low, and when the price of gold and silver was high, they took out their stored gold and silver and exchanged them for copper coins.

More and more wealthy businessmen and gentry no longer hoard a single currency, which enhances the liquidity of various currencies.

But the overall trend is still towards deflation because the money outflow phenomenon is too serious.

Among the surrounding countries, only Annan, Dali and Western Liao minted their own currencies, while the rest of the countries and regions all used Ming coins.

The gold, silver and copper coins of the Ming Dynasty were all hard currencies in Goryeo, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the deserts south and north... Even in Heian-kyō, Japan, traces of Ming Dynasty treasure notes have appeared.

A large amount of money flows out every year and is exchanged for various scarce commodities and shipped back, including gold, silver and copper ingots.

Without the continued influx of gold, silver and copper from overseas, the Ming Dynasty would have been on the verge of collapse.

Fortunately, there are Western Liao and India to supplement. Both places use gold and silver coins, and mainly silver coins, so they can earn their gold and silver through trade. They then take the goods of the Ming Dynasty and go further west to earn gold and silver.

The Ming Dynasty court had almost recovered all the old copper coins from past dynasties and re-melted them into the Ming Tong Bao.

The recycling speed of Sichuan and Shaanxi iron coins was faster. The valuable ones were destroyed and cast into iron ingots, and the worthless ones were destroyed and turned into iron slag (too many impurities). This caused heavy losses to the Ming Dynasty's finances. Although Sichuan and Hanzhong provided a lot of goods to the court, the currency tax was always paid by the court.

The imperial court spent more than ten years paying for Sichuan's finances just to recover and destroy the iron coins there. Dozens of gangs that minted iron coins privately were arrested and many were killed!

Currency unification has now been basically achieved.

At the same time, the bad habits of foot-trapping and short-trapping were abolished, and the government was not allowed to use them to exploit the people.

The lower-class people across the country prefer to use "mo" as the unit, which is to string together one hundred copper coins.

……

On the day Qin Hui was executed, Zhu Ming asked several adult princes to go to the execution ground to see the consequences of corruption and abuse of power.

Qin Hui's children were all minors, so they were separated and sent to orphanages in various provinces. They were taught how to make a living there, and they could work and earn money when they grew up. Qin Hui's concubines were settled in southern Sichuan, Guangxi, western Hunan, and Guizhou. There were many unmarried young immigrants there, who must have been willing to marry them, and they were vying to propose marriage.

At this moment, Qin Hui, Qin Bin, Qin Zi, Qin Di, Wang, Wang, Wang Xun, Wang Bing...the Qin and Wang families knelt in an orderly manner.

Of course, it's not really a one-pot solution.

For example, the son of Qin Hui's eldest brother was an honest landlord in Jiangning, responsible for managing the properties that Qin Hui had invested in his hometown.

Although his father and uncles committed crimes, he himself was relatively honest, so he was not charged with any crime. He was only implicated and exiled because of his own father.

Qin Hui knelt in the middle, with his family and relatives on both sides. He couldn't help but feel sad and burst into tears.

Wang had collapsed on the spot. She didn't even have the energy to blame her husband. She just stared blankly ahead.

Back then, she was the granddaughter of the prime minister, and had been pampered since childhood. In the Ming Dynasty, she was even more prosperous and wealthy. Who would have thought that she would end up like this?
The supervising officer came over, examined them one by one, and began to read out the crimes.

The first person to be beheaded was Qin Hui's nephew Qin Changshi.

This guy was only in his twenties. He had initially planned to take the imperial examination, but he failed to pass the examination for a scholar after six years of examination. So he went to work as a clerk, and was arranged by Qin Hui to be promoted from a clerk to an official. He falsified his resume and was promoted illegally to the ninth rank.

Compared with Qin Hui, the amount of corruption committed by Qin Changshi was not large.

But he was extremely greedy and used his power to the extreme, even dragging down many of his colleagues. He was also extremely arrogant and bullied men and women, and even robbed the people's property.

In comparison, Qin Hui's other nephew, Qin Changling, was much more honest than Qin Changshi.

Therefore, Qin Changling was not sentenced to death, but was exiled to Guangxi to open up wasteland.

"Qin Changshi, do you plead guilty?" asked the supervising officer.

Qin Changshi was so frightened that he immediately shouted: "I refuse to accept it, I refuse to accept it. I only embezzled a few thousand strings of cash, and my crime does not deserve death!"

The supervising officer sneered, "It's useless to refuse to accept. The three judicial departments have closed the case and His Majesty has also made the decision. It has only been four years since you became an official, and you have already been promoted to the ninth rank. You have falsified your resume and achievements, and have been transferred and promoted at random. This is already a serious crime! You are an official, but you still don't do your job well. You colluded with your colleagues to embezzle and pervert the law. You even deceived good people into gambling and borrowing money, and tried to seize other people's property. You are guilty of multiple crimes and deserve death!"

The executioner stepped forward with a knife in hand and pulled open the collar on the back of Qin Changshi's neck.

Qin Changshi was so frightened that he shouted, "Mercy, mercy!"

The supervising officer said to the executioner, "Don't delay deliberately. There will be a second batch in the afternoon."

The executioner laughed and said, "My knife is fast."

The executioners have their own ways to make extra money, but no one would give money to Qin Hui's two families.

Forget it, time is tight and the task is heavy, so I'd better cut it quickly.

The executioner forced Qin Changshi to kneel down and scolded him, "If you keep shouting and moving, you'll probably suffer more. Think carefully!"

Qin Changshi didn't dare to move.

brush!
With one stab, the head fell to the ground.

"it is good!"

The onlookers cheered in unison, expressing their happiness at seeing the corrupt official brought to justice and their admiration for the executioner's knife skills.

Heads fell one after another, and finally it was Wang's turn.

Wang suddenly shouted: "I want to die full. I have no appetite for yesterday's last meal!"

The executioner pressed the button several times, but Wang was still struggling, which made him angry and yelled, "You evil woman, do you want to be stabbed a few more times? It's almost noon, and Grandpa will chop someone else in the afternoon."

Qin Hui sighed: "It's already this late, why are you still delaying?"

Wang turned around and cursed: "It is because of marrying you that I ended up like this. You are so heartless and ungrateful. You have caused me so much trouble!"

Qin Hui asked in return: "Which relative dragged me down first? Except for the one who passed the imperial examination, none of my brothers were officials at first. It was your brothers who begged me to give them official positions every day. Especially Wang He, who was an official in the former Song Dynasty and was also granted an official position in the Ming Dynasty. He was greedy and wanted to climb higher. The first time I helped someone get an official position was for that bastard Wang He!"

"My brother was about to break the law, why didn't you stop him?" Wang began to turn the tables.

Qin Hui said angrily, "I stopped him? Because I rejected him twice, you cried and made a scene, and even scratched my face until it bled! I was so cautious when I was an official, and it was because of your brother that I broke the law."

The executioner shouted, "Stop making trouble and kneel down obediently!"

Wang was still struggling, and the executioner was so angry that he chopped her with his knife randomly.

The knife cut into Wang's shoulder, causing her to wail in pain.

Qin Hui was so frightened that he dared not speak. He knelt silently on the spot, trembling all over, and even closed his eyes, not daring to look at anything.

The executioner dragged Wang up to her knees and asked, "How many times do you want to die?"

Wang finally stopped making a fuss. She endured the severe pain, trembled and cried, and knelt there obediently, waiting to be killed.

When Qin Hui heard the sound of a head falling to the ground, he knew that his wife was dead, and he immediately closed his eyes tighter: "I plead guilty, I plead guilty, please give me a quick death."

brush.

The sword flashed and the head flew up.

Qin Hui finally died, and this major case came to an end.

(End of this chapter)