He Shen, I believe everyone is familiar with him. This is not only because He Shen is a famous corrupt official in history, but also because the series of TV series "Iron Teeth Bronze Teeth Ji Xiaolan" is all the rage. But who is He Shen in history? How rich is He Shen? Is his corruption true or false?
Who is He Shen?
Speaking of He Shen, if you are not familiar with history, you can easily be taken away by "Iron Tooth Bronze Teeth Ji Xiaolan" However, I think He Shen is a person who only knows about corruption and has no real talents. If you really think so, you would be wrong. In reality, Heshen could be regarded as the top talent at the time, and the official positions were extremely numerous and heavy.
So how to prove it?
First of all, He Shen is a linguistic expert, fluent in Manchu, Chinese, Tibetan and Mongolian. For now, that is the translator in the senior secretary team.
Secondly, Heshen literature is quite accomplished. We know that Emperor Qianlong was a particularly fond of poetry, so He Shen naturally wanted to cater to it. As a result of hard work, He Shen has also made some achievements in poem composition, and compiled the "Jia Le Tang Poem Collection".
Again, He Shen is good at financial management. Heshen's good financial management lies not only in managing the country's wealth, but also in managing private finances. Since Emperor Qianlong was a very lavish and extravagant "old man", he certainly needed a lot of money to support him. But how can an emperor make his own money? This affects the image! So He Shen became Qianlong's agent. It seems that Heshen is greedy for money, but in fact, most of them were sent to Qianlong.
But Heshen is not very good at fighting, otherwise he can really be said to be a "all-rounder in civil and military."
Does Heshen have money?
It turns out that Heshen is still rich. Why do you say that? Look at what Ye Shili said, how can he have no money when he finds a total of 800 to 1.1 billion taels of silver in the Heshen family? You have to know that the sum of the compensation of the Eight-Power Allied Forces + Sino-Japanese War + Opium War is more than enough.
Some people even said that He Shen was the richest man in the world at the time, and he was richer than the Rothschild family!
But is this really the case?
is obviously too exaggerated. You must know that the Qing government's fiscal revenue for a year was only about 70 million taels of silver. Can He Shen really embezzle so much? There must be a great exaggeration. According to real historical records, the Heshen family property is roughly estimated to exceed 4 million taels, plus some treasures that are not well valued. It is inevitable to exceed 10 million taels, but it is far from reaching 1.1 billion taels of silver.
However, such a scale of corruption is also extremely terrible. Corruption by one person can reach one-seventh of the treasury's income in a year, which is also rare in history. If it is converted to the present, it is terrible. The scale of Heshen's corruption can roughly reach about two trillion, which is equivalent to the total GDP of Guangzhou or Chongqing in one year!
Is He Shen a corrupt official
There is no doubt that He Shen is a real corrupt official. However, there are several types of corrupt officials. He Shen is an agent of "corrupt officials", which is the "corrupt officials" used by Emperor Qianlong. Most of Heshen's money went to Emperor Lao Tzu's pocket, and only a small part of it could really stay in his own hands.
However, after Qianlong's death, Emperor Jiaqing still slaughtered Heshen, and finally took Heshen's greedy money. He Shen was later given to death, but he was only 49 years old.
