15. The “most corrupt official in Chinese history”, Heshen amassed a personal empire valued at over $100 billion over a twenty-four-year career as an imperial minister.
Heshen (b. 1750) was a member of the Manchu Niohuru clan and a favored official of the Qianlong Emperor during the Qing dynasty of Imperial China. Initially assigned as a bodyguard at the gates to the Forbidden City in 1772, within a year Heshen had miraculously risen to become vice-president of the Ministry of Revenue. By the end of 1773, Heshen had also been appointed a Grand Councillor – an important policy-making collective – and a minister of the Imperial Household Department. By the age of just twenty-seven, Heshen received the honor of riding a horse within the Forbidden City: a privilege traditionally reserved for elderly officials of the highest rank.
Rising to Minister of Revenue, thus controlling the entire empire’s finances, Heshen successfully attached himself to the Qianlong Emperor through marriage, wedding his son to the emperor’s favorite daughter. With this greater impunity, Heshen became increasingly blatant in his corrupt practices, openly extorting funds and raising and siphoning taxes at whim. However, upon the abdication of the Qianlong Emperor in 1796, Heshen’s crimes were exposed. Ordered to commit suicide, Heshen hung himself to spare his family ritualistic mass execution. Upon the seizure of his properties, it was estimated that his estate would be valued today at $132,000,000,000.