An Imperial Examination Scandal in Yangzhou in 1711

The 50th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was 1711. Shortly after the Double Ninth Festival on September 9 in 1711, Yangzhou, a key city on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and only dozens of kilometers from Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, was thrown into chaos. The chaos was touched off by the official announcement of the result of the imperial examination at the provincial level held every three years. Most provincial graduates on the list were sons of wealthy salt merchants and high-ranking officials. The scholars who failed called for a crackdown on corruption and corrupted officials.

Zhang Boxing, Jiangsu Governor new in post, looked into the alleged corruption case. The result was astonishing: vice chief examiner Zhao Jin accepted a bribe of 100,000 liang of silver and sold key information on the examination; chief examiner Zuo Bifan covered the crime up and made no report. Zhang submitted his report immediately to Emperor Kangxi, calling for punishment of the corrupted officials.

Before the imperial decree was publicly announced, more than 1,000 angry scholars gathered in Yangzhou and took to street. Led by Ding Erjian, the demonstrators carried a statue of the fortune god into the local Confucius Temple and posted a couplet lampooning the audacity of the crime and the greed of the corrupted officials.

Gali, the viceroy of the Jiangsu Province and Jiangxi Province, ordered to have Ding Erjian and about another ten leaders arrested on the charge of false accusation. The whole Yangzhou was outraged.

Emperor Kangxi was infuriated. He appointed two imperial commissioners and sent them overnight to Yangzhou to handle the case. A hearing was held, attended by the two commissioners, Gali and Zhang Boxing and other officials concerned.

The vice chief examiner Zhao Jin admitted taking a bribe of 300 liang of gold; two scorers under him confessed to malpractices. Cheng Guangkui and Wu Bi, two successful provincial graduates of the imperial examination in question, failed to prove their scholarship. Cheng failed to correctly write three of the first four characters of a first-year primer for preteen children. Wu was totally clueless about the Three-Character Primer, also a classic textbook for first year learning at school in ancient China. No doubt they were frauds. Cheng and Wu admitted giving a bribe of 300 liang of gold each. As the vice chief examiner Zhao Jin took 300 liang only, where was the other 300? Interrogated, Wu Bi confessed that the other 300 was handled by Li Qi, a relative of the former provincial governor. Li Qi was brought in and questioned. He testified that, acting on the instruction of Zhao Jin, Chen Tianli, a county magistrate, handed the bribe money over to Gali.

Hearing the testimony, the viceroy Gali flared up and ordered to cudgel Li Qi to death on the spot. Zhang Boxing stopped the order. Zhang and Gali argued vehemently. The two imperial commissioners decided to suspend the hearing.

The two commissioners later came to Zhang Boxing, asking him to let Gali go as the latter was a minister-level governor appointed directly by the emperor. Zhang turned the proposal down.

A few days later, Chen Tianli and Li Qi, key witnesses to the case, died mysteriously in prison, making the case impossible to proceed. Aware of the odd deaths of the two witnesses, Emperor Kangxi secretly instructed Liang Shixun, Governor of Anhui, a neighboring province, to probe the death of Chen Tianli (he was a government official and Li Qi was not).

Reports to the Emperor contradicted each other. The two imperial commissioners reported that Zhang Boxing was a man of suspicious temperament and that he made groundless allegation against Gali. Anhui Governor Liang Shixun reported that he was unable to get down to the truth of Chen Tianli’s death as all the officials in the area were Gali’s henchmen. Gali reported that Zhang Boxing had Chen Tianli killed. Zhang Boxing reported that the commissioners and Gali acted in collusion and lied to the emperor.

Emperor Kangxi decided to reinvestigate. He appointed two new imperial commissioners to handle the case. The two commissioners came to Yangzhou and heard the case. Their verdict: the vice chief examiner Zhao Jin and two scorers were sentenced to death; the two bribers were sentenced to death; the chief examiner Zuo Bifan should be removed from the post; Gali had nothing to do with the bribery and fraud; Zhang Boxing should be dismissed from the post for accusing Gali groundlessly.

Emperor Kangxi was displeased with the verdict. He read all the case files and ordered to bring all the suspects to Beijing and have a joint trial in Beijing with court ministers as judges. The ministers affirmed the decision by the two new commissioners.

After reading the new decision, Emperor Kangxi was so angry that he threw the document to the ground. He decided to hear the case himself. The emperor said that the case had last two years and become more and more absurd. Ministers were afraid of offending corrupted officials and tried to protect the commissioners. He declared the previous verdicts totally wrong. The emperor announced his decision: the officials and the bribers involved were all sentenced to death. Gali was dismissed from the post and turned over to the law department for further punishment. Zhang Boxing remained in office and would be rewarded later.