The Book of Swindles by Yingyu Zhang

Author:Yingyu Zhang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Columbia University Press

Yamen underlings depend on swindling for their very livelihood; it’s how they’re able to live so comfortably. The volume of their swindles is beyond reckoning. Everything—they swindle! Every day—they swindle! Everyone—they swindle! “More numerous than the bamboo on the southern mountain” are their swindles—you could never count them all! And if Judge Bao himself came back to life, he’d never solve them all!3 I myself have never set foot in a courtroom, and it’s rare for deception of this sort to come to light. I just happened to learn the truth, so I’ve set down a record of these misdeeds. It’s true: everyone in the yamen is a miscreant, and the place is a thicket of swindles. This is why it’s imperative to complete your legal obligations in a timely fashion and do your utmost to avoid lawsuits. If you do, even a corrupt clerk or an antagonistic patrolman can’t touch you. So I say:

Their plots are far too clever, you’d best not get involved;

that feather wine is toxic, you’d best not touch a drop;4

those underlings are tricky, you’d best not get too close.

Now disasters do happen, in spite of everything, and one can end up in court, in which case one might hope for a brilliant official to clear one’s name. Yet to what avail? While officials are all men of learning and thus tend to be enlightened, even they can do nothing about their underlings, who envelop them in clouds of confusion. Whatever small annoyances you may suffer as a result, it’s best to stay out of the yamen.

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