Zhu Yuanzhang's anti-corruption campaign was probably the most stringent in ancient Chinese history. Zhu Yuanzhang was poor when he was young and used to herd cattle for landlords, so he could understand the suffering of the people. After he laid the foundation of the country, he vigorously rectified corruption and corruption, and his treatment of corrupt officials was quite fierce, and the torture of "peeling the skin and grass" must have been heard of by everyone. However, there was a Qing official, geng zhi who had never embezzled a single point, and was also "punished by the palace" by Zhu Yuanzhang, for the reason that it was quite strange.
This is called Zeng Bingzheng for the Qing official. When Hongwu was in his ninth year, Zhu Yuanzhang held a huge debate tournament to select talents, and Zeng Bingzheng performed well in this debate, shining brightly, and was named the first place by Zhu Yuanzhang, and was promoted from a small official of the seven pins to a number of grades to a senior member of the three pins. Because he was good at debate and good at eloquence, Zhu Yuanzhang arranged a position for Zeng Bingzheng to be a speech official.
Because of the needs of his work, Zeng Bingzheng walked around the country without any problems, and when he saw something wrong or bad, he recorded it and reported it to the emperor. Because this position itself is a matter of offending people, it needs to be done by people of integrity, Zeng Bingzheng is exactly this kind of person, he is meticulous in his work, oil and salt are not progressive, there is no possibility of flexibility, no one wants to win over, and he is absolutely not corrupt.
However, it is precisely because of his unworldly and flexible personality characteristics that he often offends Zhu Yuanzhang verbally. Zhu Yuanzhang considered him to be an official, so he always tolerated him. But finally one day, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't bear it anymore and dismissed him.
So Zeng Bingzheng was preparing to return to his hometown, his hometown was Nanchang, Nanchang to Beijing nearly three thousand miles, about two months to get home. At this time, Zeng Bingzheng said that he was a corrupt official and had no travel expenses.
No travel fee to borrow, it may also be that too many people can not borrow, do not know what this big brother thinks, anyway, very strange - he sold his 4-year-old daughter, history said "poor can not return, his four-year-old daughter."
When Zhu Yuanzhang knew about it, he was furious. He ordered Zeng Bingzheng to be arrested and sentenced to palace punishment. Zhu Yuanzhang meant that since you can't treat your children kindly, you don't have to have children in this life.
However, the officials of the Tang Dynasty and the Three Pins, is Feng Lu really low enough to support his family, and he has to sell his children and daughters for the sake of travel expenses?
The treatment of Ming officials was indeed relatively average, and Feng Lu was generally low, but it was still very exaggerated that zheng sanpin officials were so poor that they wanted to sell their daughters. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the annual salary of the Sanpin officials was 420 stones, equivalent to about 200 taels of silver, which was equivalent to the current annual salary of 200,000 yuan according to the purchasing power at that time. Therefore, even if Zeng Bingzheng is not corrupt, and his salary alone is enough to support a family, how can he be so poor that he has no travel expenses?
Therefore, some people speculate that either Zeng Bingzheng has a serious idea of favoring sons over daughters and does not want to return to his hometown with his daughter who is regarded as a burden, so he will sell his daughter before returning to his hometown, speculating that it is to raise travel expenses; others speculate that this is Zeng Bingzheng demonstrating to Zhu Yuanzhang, so he used such a strange method.
In any case, tiger poison does not eat children, selling daughters is a very hateful act, was castrated by Zhu Yuanzhang, Zeng Bingzheng also deserved it. After Zeng Bingzheng was punished, the history books recorded that he "did not know the end."