Corruption in Ancient China

Corruption has always been with China….
From S Ni
excerpt:
“estimates corrupt income to be 14 to 22 times official income circa 1873 resulting in about 22% of agricultural output accruing to 0.4% of the population. By the time the Qing government attempted to curb corruption by raising salaries, rent-seeking income was so high and corruption so entrenched that a three-fold increase in salary could not—and as we will show, no fiscally feasible increase could—restore honest behavior.1”