If you have been reading about ancient chinese military or court affairs (in particular political intrigue/conspiracy), you will realize that bribery was often used as an underhand/corrupt method to sway to one's advantage. It was often used in diplomacy, for instance the Han dynasty at its earliest provided beautiful girls and several tributes to the Xiongnu in order to buy off peace. It's a form of bribery.

Bribery usually exploits the greed of the person by providing 'gift' such as money, jewellery, beautiful girls, cities, lands, food etc.

In ancient chinese warfare, bribery was usually used to 'buy off' an enemy's personnels (officials) to provide secret intelligence for one's advantage or to provide false deceptive intelligence to the enemy in order to confuse the enemy and make them fall into a trap.
In court affairs, corruption took place when a lower official bribed a higher official in order to have a higher position. Officials also used bribery to form cliques to expand one's power in the court.

Understandably, the term "Xiao Ren 小人" (corrupted immoral person) was often used to describe people who resort to bribery.

1. Why was this underhand method often used?

2. Was it inevitable that chinese history esp. military and court affairs was full of bribery and was filled with dark intrigue/conspiracy?

3. What are the examples of bribery you have seen in chinese history?