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4. Rejecting Personal Requests or Favors
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124 book II chair behind a screen and sneak a look at her son when he dealt with litigation. If the decisions made by her son were reasonable, she allowed him to sit with her, enjoying talk and laughter. If he made wrongful decisions or unreasonably displayed his anger and uttered reproaches, she went directly back to her room. She cried all day long, covering her face with her sleeves, and never touched her meals. Because of her, her son Zheng Shanguo was able to earn the title of pure official. CHAPTER : REJECTING PERSONAL REQUESTS OR FAVORS There Should Be No Private Secretary in the Yamen; It Is Necessary Only to Keep a Clerk Who Can Simultaneously Take Care of Both the Magistrate’s Personal Affairs and Public Ones. Nowadays it is the custom to employ a private secretary [ch’aekgaek] to supervise the bookkeeping (the ledgers of rice, salt, and other items that are consumed daily), but this is against the law. The bookkeeping of the yamen is supposed to include all expenditures, both official and private, as well as matters concerning all the personnel in the yamen, including clerks and servants. Nevertheless, a private person who has neither position nor qualifications exercises authority to supervise the work of clerks and officials, saying that a certain thing is too much or too little, or not true or true. Is this appropriate? If the private secretary hired by the magistrate does an outstanding job of discovering the deceptions and irregularities of yamen clerks and government slaves, the complaints eventually return to the magistrate himself. If he decides to go easy on his findings and conceals the corruption, it is also the magistrate himself who has to suffer the consequences . So what good is it to hire such a private secretary? It is not worthwhile to scrutinize every detail of expenditures. If the magistrate is indeed wise, yamen clerks cannot dare to deceive him. Even if they commit some petty thievery, yearly losses will not exceed 500 taels, whereas the annual cost to employ a private accountant will be at least 1,500 to 2,000 taels. Hence what is gained cannot make up for the loss, and this brings only trouble to the magistrate. A private secretary is like a skin tumor that must be removed. I have observed that the magistrate who is stingy repeatedly urges his secretary to check the details of the ledgers thoroughly. His man, however, makes a secret promise to yamen clerks, saying as follows: “I am in distress because our magistrate, by his character, likes to cut down expenditures. Why do you not inflate the amounts of your expenditures so that I can cut them down? If you used 5 hop of oil, you write 7 hop. Then I will cut down the figure to 5 hop. This way, neither you nor the magistrate has anything to lose, and I also can avoid Self-Discipline 125 being blamed and reprimanded. What would you say to that?” The yamen clerks will be glad to accept his proposal and make a deal with him. They will secretly send local products to the magistrate’s secretary as a bribe, and the secretary in his turn will overlook the abuses of the yamen clerks and divide the profits with them. After the magistrate returns home, finishing his term, all the yamen clerks will get together and talk about what happened. They will laugh and clap their hands. They will make the magistrate a fool and his private secretary a cunning fellow, and the reputation of these two men will turn ugly. The magistrate should keep this in mind. As for all the goods used in the government, there is always an established budget on a monthly basis. If there is a monthly budget, why does one have to scrutinize the ledgers in detail? The private secretary, however, cannot be eliminated. The magistrate needs a man who can manage his domestic affairs, serving as a connection between above and below and between inside and outside. If the magistrate has to take care of trivial matters in person, this will damage his personal dignity, and if he lets his children do the job, it will look contemptible. Therefore, it is essential for the magistrate to have a private secretary. As for the handling of goods related to ancestral rites and the wrapping and marking of gift items, as well as handling and controlling household goods, work like this should be...