Chapter 239: Counting History

Counting the Top Ten Corrupt Officials in History, Fourth Place: Cai Jing.

Dynasty: Northern Song (Huizong era).

Lifespan: AD 1047 – AD 1126.

Origin: Xianyou, Fujian.

Official posts: Grand Preceptor, Prime Minister (appointed four times, ruled for seventeen years).

Title: Head of the Northern Song's "Six Thieves".

"Yuanyou reforms, opportunism and flip‑flopping."

"Four times prime minister, a great parasite stealing the state."

"Feng Heng Yu Da, painting over peace."

"Flower‑Stone‑Gang mobilized, popular resentment boiled."

"Starving to death by the road, the blame is self‑inflicted."

The scene opens in the late Northern Song, the Huizong era of flourishing culture and peak artistry, yet fraught with danger and rampant decadence.

Cai Jing, styled Yuanchang, a native of Xianyou, Fujian, born into an official family; his brother Cai Bian was also a high‑ranking official.

Cai Jing was clever and studious; he passed the imperial examinations in the third year of Xining and entered officialdom.

He indeed possessed talent, especially renowned worldwide for his calligraphy—graceful strokes, a unique style; at the time he was grouped with Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, and Mi Fu as "Su Huang Mi Cai", universally acknowledged as a calligraphy master.

In the scene, a young Cai Jing copies a masterpiece in his study, his brushwork vigorous, spirit soaring, truly exuding the air of a talented scholar.

He socialized with Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and other literary figures, chatting and laughing animatedly.

However, Cai Jing's character was completely opposite to his handwriting.

He was cunning, adept at gauging imperial intent, steering with the wind, and possessed no political integrity.

During Emperor Shenzong's reign, he supported Wang Anshi's reforms and was a key figure of the "New Faction".

When Emperor Zhezong ascended, Empress Dowager Gao took power, favoring Sima Guang and the "Old Faction", abolishing the new laws.

Cai Jing then transformed, becoming the most vigorous vanguard in enforcing the repeal, his rapid shift even astonished Sima Guang, who exclaimed, "If everyone obeys the law as a ruler, why worry the law won't work?" yet he harbored contempt.

In the scene, Cai Jing's demeanor before different emperors and power‑brokers is like two different people—sometimes passionately advocating the new laws, other times bitterly denouncing the reforms, his acting superb.

When Emperor Huizong Zhao Ji ascended, this emperor of supreme artistic talent yet dim‑witted decadence became the final ladder for Cai Jing's meteoric rise.

Huizong loved calligraphy, painting, and exotic stones, pursued pleasure, and grew weary of state affairs.

Cai Jing pinpointed this precisely.

He first curried favor with eunuch Tong Guan to regain office, then offered exquisite calligraphy, paintings, and clever curios to please Huizong, and put forward the twisted doctrine "Feng Heng Yu Da", proclaiming the present a golden age where the Son of Heaven should indulge fully, and lavish spending displayed national strength.

This theory won the favor of the pleasure‑seeking, image‑concerned Emperor Huizong.

The heavens display a satirical tableau of the time,

Inside the palace, Emperor Huizong gazes intently at a Taihu Stone.

Cai Jing stands beside him, pointing at the splendid palace and piled tributes, spitting furiously:

"Your Majesty, this is the sign of Feng Heng Yu Da! In a flourishing age there must be splendid scenes; your enjoyment aligns with Heaven's will!"

Huizong smiles broadly upon hearing this.

Relying on this "Feng Heng Yu Da" mind‑bending doctrine and a steady stream of rare gifts, Cai Jing swiftly earned Huizong's trust and was appointed Prime Minister.

Thereafter, despite ups and downs, he was appointed prime minister four times, ruling for a total of seventeen years, his power eclipsing court and provinces, becoming the unquestioned chief minister of the Huizong reign.

He allied with eunuch Tong Guan, Liang Shicheng, and power‑brokers Wang Fu, Zhu Min, Li Yan, forming a death‑clique that dominated the court; contemporaries collectively called them the "Six Thieves", with Cai Jing as their chief.

In the scene, Cai Jing, clad in prime‑minister's ceremonial robes, stands in the hall as the officials bow low.

He conspires with Tong Guan, Wang Fu and others, partitioning state affairs and excluding dissenters.

After seizing power, Cai Jing pushed his greed and ruinous policies to the extreme.

He brandished the banners of "Reform" and "Fiscal Management", implementing a series of draconian policies.

The scene turns dark and brutal.

Monopolizing wealth, competing with the people for food.

Cai Jing instituted the "Tea‑Salt Currency Law", converting the formerly private, lucrative tea and salt trades into state‑run monopolies controlled by his confidants and family, causing prices to soar, quality to plummet, and the populace to suffer unbearably.

He also introduced inferior large coins such as "Dang Shi Qian" and "Jia Xi Qian", plundering private wealth, triggering inflation, soaring prices, and bankrupting common folk.

In the scene at a salt shop, villagers clutch baskets of the shoddy "Dang Shi Qian" yet cannot purchase even a few taels of official salt mixed with sand, their complaints filling the air.

At the market, price tags change multiple times a day, and the people wear gaunt, hungry expressions.

Selling offices and titles, clearly priced.

Cai Jing fully commodified official posts.

From the central government to the provinces, every rank had a set price: "Three thousand Suo, direct to the Secret Chamber; five hundred Guan, promotion to magistrate."

Want an office? Bring money! Prices vary by department and region, but no one is cheated.

Under his administration there even existed a "intermediary" office handling negotiations.

Many idle playboys and wealthy merchants, as long as they paid, could don the black silk badge and wreak havoc on a region.

In the scene, a side hall of Cai Jing's residence resembles a modern exchange, where aspirants haggle with his confidants, and a price list hangs on the wall.

Silver coins, land deeds, antiques flow in continuously.

Arbitrary exactions and crafty new levies.

To satisfy Huizong's and his own extravagance, Cai Jing devised numerous new categories, raising taxes.

"Jing Zhi Qian", "Zong Zhi Qian", "Ban Zhang Qian", … countless petty taxes as numerous as cattle hairs.

He also "creatively" implemented the "Flower‑Stone‑Gang" in the southeast, establishing the "Ying Feng Bureau" in Suzhou under Zhu Min, tasked with gathering exotic flowers, strange stones, and precious curios, shipping them by fleet to Bianjing for Huizong's construction of the lavish garden "Gen Yue".

The transport fleet, called the "Gang", requisitioned laborers wherever it passed, tearing down bridges and houses, even prying open city gates; countless families were ruined and lives lost.

The "Flower‑Stone‑Gang" became a nightmare for the southeast populace, stoking resentment that ultimately sparked the Fang La rebellion.

The scene is grim:

In the water towns of Jiangnan, troops like wolves and tigers stormed civilian houses, seizing rare stones and famous trees from courtyards; any resistance was met with brutal beatings.

Massive Taihu stones were loaded onto specially made large boats, and rope‑pullers struggled to haul the ropes on the shore under whips, with people collapsing from time to time.

Stone bridges and houses were demolished one after another, solely to allow the stone‑transporting ships to pass.

The common folk carried the elderly and children, fleeing in tears and wails.

In the distance, the banner of Fang La could already be faintly seen.

Greedy in embezzling private property, Wealth Can Rival a Nation.

Through these means, Cai Jing amassed astonishing wealth.

He owned five hundred thousand mu of farmland, spread across Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and the capital region.

His residence in Bianjing, the Western Garden, was lavish and magnificent, even surpassing Emperor Huizong's royal garden, the Eastern Garden.

To expand the Western Garden, he forcibly demolished hundreds of nearby houses, driving thousands of people from their homes into displacement.

His mansion was piled with treasures, his concubines numerous, his meals exceedingly extravagant; it is said that a single bowl of soup required the slaughter of hundreds of quails, taking only a bit of tongue and heart.

Worse still, in his later years Cai Jing forged accounts and fraudulently claimed double the prime minister's salary, his greed and stinginess so extreme it made one's hair stand on end.

The scene is highly impactful.

In Bianjing, a block of civilian homes was forcibly torn down by household retainers as fierce as wolves and tigers; the people shouted and begged, only to be driven away with clubs.

On the original site, grander and more splendid pavilions and towers were swiftly erected, adorned with exotic flowers and strange stones; their scale and grandeur subtly dwarfed the nearby palace side garden.

Cai Jing hosted a banquet in the garden; a seemingly ordinary bowl of soup concealed a basket of slaughtered quails.

The accountant, holding forged documents, went to the treasury to draw double the prime minister's salary.

The lingering disaster is far‑reaching, hastening the downfall.

Cai Jing's perverse actions drained the Northern Song's national strength, intensified internal conflicts such as the Fang La uprising, and severely weakened border defenses.

When the Jin troops marched south, the Northern Song army was feeble, the treasury empty, and utterly unable to resist.

Cai Jing can be called one of the most important grave‑diggers of the Northern Song's demise.

The scene shifts to the north, where smoke rises as Jin iron cavalry descend south, and the Song army collapses at the first touch.

The prosperous Bianjing is about to face total destruction.

Those who commit many injustices starve by the roadside.

In the first year of Jingkang, the Jin troops laid siege to Bianjing for the first time.

Under pressure, Song Qinzong and Zhao Huan demoted the retired Cai Jing, exiling him to Lingnan.

Before departing, his household was searched, but because the news leaked, most of his assets had already been transferred and hidden.