Chapter 3331

In the ancient officialdom, gift-giving is an art. Since it is an art, it cannot be explained clearly with concepts and formulas like science; there are many contents within it that can only be understood but not expressed in words.

First of all, giving money and gifts directly to officials is the most direct and simplest way, but the effect is also hard to predict. Giving money and things directly to officials, strictly speaking, is a crime scene: the giver is bribing, the receiver is accepting bribes, and both are caught red-handed. Therefore, the most direct way of gift-giving is too dangerous; it is neither safe nor guaranteed in effect. For officials, the most realistic choice is to righteously refuse and scold the gift-giver: "What do you take me for? Take it away, I am untainted by the mud!" The more humorous ones might say: "Please take the gift money to the government." As a result, the gift-giver becomes a tainted witness for the official to show off their own integrity, and an act of gift-giving turns into a case of refusing corruption.

There is a joke from the Ming Dynasty about a magistrate having a birthday. The magistrate was born in the year of the Rat, and a minor official went bankrupt to cast a small golden rat to give to the magistrate. The magistrate accepted it happily and then reminded him: "My wife's birthday is next month, she was born in the year of the Ox." If a gift-giver encounters such a top-tier official, they would probably collapse. Therefore, gift-giving in officialdom is not a transaction where money and goods are exchanged hand-to-hand; it cannot be so direct.

Fortunately, officials have some hobbies and like to feign elegance. Giving gifts that cater to their preferences is safe because it is covert, and it often serves better to enhance relationships. In the late Qing Dynasty, Prince Qing, Yikuang, and his son Zai Zhen were famous for corruption. Suffering from strict anti-corruption systems and active public supervision, gift-givers dared not go too far, and Yikuang and his son found it inconvenient to collect wealth directly. Thus, Zai Zhen thought of the idea of opening a high-end club. At that time, "bird play (mahjong)" was very popular in the Beijing-Tianjin area, so Yikuang and Zai Zhen rented houses in Tianjin and Beijing, decorated them, and used them as "guest-receiving" places. After guests arrived, the host and guests would naturally entertain themselves, sitting together to play mahjong. Zai Zhen's mahjong stakes were very high, three thousand taels per game. Most of those who came were seeking official positions, and it was normal to lose several thousand or ten thousand taels in one visit. Yikuang and his son decided the level of selling official positions based on how much the guests lost. Public opinion called it the "Qing Company." Later, business was so booming that Zai Zhen couldn't entertain guests every time; the guests played by themselves, and Zai Zhen took a cut. Fortunately, the guests' intentions were not in the wine, and as long as they lost money, they were satisfied, so the gift was considered given.

Calligraphy, painting, and antiques are another hobby of ancient officials. Many officials liked to collect antiques, calligraphy, and paintings, and a group of epigraphy experts and calligraphy and painting connoisseurs emerged. Duanfang, a late Qing frontier ambassador, was an epigraphy expert and even published monographs on epigraphy and antiques, such as "Taozhai Jijin Lu" and "Taozhai Jijin Xulu," which could be called "books equal to his height." His reputation in the late Qing was quite good, and he had a name for integrity. When others gave him gifts directly, he would righteously demand that the money and gifts be sent to the public hall to show his integrity. However, Duanfang liked to study calligraphy, painting, and antiques. Whenever someone sent him something to "appreciate," he would enthusiastically discuss it with them. Appreciation takes time, so these treasures would remain at Duanfang's home for him to slowly enjoy. There were quite a few such "calligraphy, painting, and antique addicts" like Duanfang in the late Qing. Because they received too many treasures, many antique shops on the Liulichang street behind them had high-ranking officials like Duanfang as their behind-the-scenes bosses—the front-stage bosses were either their relatives or their servants and confidants. The "elegant" high-ranking officials would put the antiques, calligraphy, and paintings from their homes up for sale in Liulichang. To improve performance, they would often inadvertently "reveal" to those seeking their help how good a certain antique or painting was. Sometimes, they would simply and deliberately hype up the works of a certain author. Those who intended to seek their help would naturally go to the market to look for related calligraphy, painting, and antiques, only to find them in the shops opened by those people. Thus, if one saw a certain antique repeatedly entering and leaving the mansion of a high-ranking official, it was understandable.

Giving calligraphy, paintings, and antiques seems very costly, but it is not. Although the proportion of scholars among ancient officials was high, very few were truly proficient in literature and history or understood antiques, calligraphy, and paintings; most were just feigning elegance. This is not to mention those high-ranking officials who entered the officialdom through messy channels. Duanfang was actually feigning elegance too. After his death, people found many forgeries and many unremarkable collections among his belongings. It is said that Duanfang's judgment of antiques, calligraphy, and paintings relied entirely on his subordinates who were also not very knowledgeable, and the criteria for judgment were not based on the gift-giver's boasting, but on the fame of the author. Needless to say, Duanfang's monograph on epigraphy was also likely ghostwritten. As long as officials like Duanfang thought the gift had value, the gift-giver's goal was achieved. Gift-givers could completely look for forgeries or inferior goods to pass off as genuine, thus reducing the cost of gift-giving.

Whether it is catering to preferences or giving calligraphy, paintings, and antiques, there is a "giving" involved, which cannot completely eliminate the traces of interest transfer; they do not look like legitimate and decent income earned through labor. Then, how can one build a labor relationship with an official? The most common practice is to ask an official to write inscriptions or articles and then give the official a substantial "run-pen fee" (remuneration for writing).

Run-pen income was an important source of income for Ming and Qing officials. In the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, a trend gradually formed in society of purchasing ink

treasures and articles from officials. Commoners would ask officials, and lower-level officials would ask higher-level officials for articles and inscriptions whether there was a reason or not. Officials would reluctantly accept them, and after writing, they would half-heartedly accept substantial run-pen fees. Later, officials didn't care about the character of the requester or the reason, only about the amount of the run-pen fee. In the end, it evolved into officials requiring payment for inscriptions and articles; there were no free ones. By the Qing Dynasty, this trend became more and more prevalent, and run-pen fees became higher and higher, becoming a semi-legal income in officialdom, accounting for the bulk of some officials' income. Even now in officialdom, there are still some officials who like to publish so-called monographs to earn a legal remuneration from them.

It is said that when Zhang Zhidong was the Viceroy of Huguang, because he lacked money for modern undertakings, he set his sights on run-pen fees. A wealthy man's father had a very poor reputation during his lifetime. In order to whitewash his father's life and, more importantly, to bleach his father's evil deeds, he urgently wanted Zhang Zhidong to come forward and write an epitaph for his father. With the affirmation of the highest local official, who would dare to speak ill of his father? Zhang Zhidong actually wrote it. He had passed the imperial examinations and was a Hanlin scholar, so writing articles of praise was naturally a piece of cake, but the run-pen fee was not low either. "One word, one thousand gold"—Zhang Zhidong ruthlessly extorted a large sum from the wealthy man at the price of one thousand taels per word. However, the good side of Zhang Zhidong was that he used this money for modern undertakings and didn't put it into his own pocket; the bad side was that he didn't ask about the object at all and wrote articles regardless of the facts.