In the fifteenth year of Hongwu (1382), Zhu Yuanzhang issued a decree to abolish the Luan Yi Division of the pro-military capital and establish a new Jinyi Guard. Since then, the Jinyiwei institution has become one of the most important permanent institutions of the Ming Dynasty, almost the same as the Ming Dynasty. The main function of the Jinyi Guard, on the surface, is to position itself as the emperor's palace guard institution, "palm direct driving guard". But in reality, he also has a vital stealth function.
In order to solemnize the discipline of the imperial court and promptly discover all kinds of illegal acts among the ministers of culture and military affairs, Zhu Yuanzhang gave Jinyiwei a new function: "patrolling and arresting." Jinyiwei can use various means to monitor and spy on the imperial court ministers, find out who has illegal acts or remarks, and immediately report to the emperor. At the same time, Jinyiwei also has law enforcement powers, and there is an internal "edict prison" that can arbitrarily arrest, detain, interrogate, and even kill ministers.
To put it bluntly, Jinyiwei is another law enforcement department in addition to the "three laws" of the imperial court, such as the Punishment Department, dali temple, and duchayuan. On the surface, the functions of jinyiwei and the punishment department, Dali Temple, and Duchayuan are highly overlapped, but Jinyiwei has one of the most unique characteristics: it is under the direct jurisdiction of the emperor. The commanders and envoys of the highest commander of the Jinyi Wei were all appointed by the emperor and were directly responsible to the emperor.
For example, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to see which minister was not pleasing to the eye and wanted to bring him down, and according to normal procedures, he had to hand over to the Dali Temple of the Ministry of Punishment and other departments to carry out a set of complicated and cumbersome procedures such as evidence collection, investigation, interrogation, and conviction, which was not only protracted, but also had too many uncontrollable factors in the middle, and it was easy to be interfered with by stereotypes and bad customs such as "officials and officials defending each other."
But with the Jinyi Guard, everything is solved. The emperor only needs one word, in a moment or three moments Jinyiwei can take the target to the prison, its killing and survival depends entirely on the emperor's personal likes and dislikes, and can realize the emperor's will as quickly as possible, no wonder the Ming emperors love Jinyiwei.
Although Jinyiwei was a loyal lackey of the emperor, he was favored and treated favorably by successive Ming emperors. However, when the Ming Dynasty fell, Jinyiwei's performance was criticized. In the middle of March of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng commanded more than 200,000 Dashun troops and launched a final attack on the Ming Dynasty, encircling the capital in the wind and rain, and the last emperor Chongzhen was also trapped in the city, with no way to enter the heavens and no door.
In the early morning of March 19, Li Zicheng commanded a large army to break through the city from Changhua Gate, and the defense of Jingshi City collapsed completely. The Chongzhen Emperor saw that the general situation had gone, so he had to flee in a hurry and try to break out of the city, but the result was blocked everywhere, and he had no choice but to return to the palace. In the whole process, only a few eunuchs followed, but none of the Jinyi guards who usually flaunted their martial prowess disappeared.
When the Ming Dynasty collapsed, Chongzhen was in danger, and there was no Jinyi guard, so where did they go? I really didn't blame them. There was a man named Wang Shide, who came from the Jinyi Wei family, and he entered the palace as an errand boy in the second year of Chongzhen (1630) and worked for fifteen years, going through the whole process at the time of the fall of the Ming Dynasty.
During the change of Jiashen, Wang Shide was lucky not to die, fled to Jiangnan, and never lived in seclusion. In his later years, he wrote a memoir, "Chongzhen's Testament", recalling what he saw and heard during his tenure as a Jinyi guard, and reviewed some historical facts before and after Chongzhen's invasion of the capital in March of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen and Chongzhen's death, which has high historical value.
After Li Zicheng's army besieged the city, because the defenders were weak and overstretched, the Jinyi guards who originally served as palace guards were all assigned to the outer city by Chongzhen to cooperate with the defenders to serve as defensive operations, so when Chongzhen died, there would not be a Jinyi guard around. Wang Shide was also assigned to the Northern City and climbed to the head of the city to fight Against Li Zicheng's army.
In the early morning of March 19, 1777, Li Zicheng attacked the Beijing Division, and the army surged into the city. Wang Shide saw that the situation was not good, and his heart was still worried that There was no one around Chongzhen in the palace to guard him, so he immediately ran down from the city in a chaotic situation, found a group of war horses, carried a sabre, and rushed to the Forbidden City with a single knife and a horse and a whip, "riding a horse to the Imperial Palace", and wanted to rescue Chongzhen. Who knew that just after running outside the Donghua Gate, he saw groups of palace women and eunuchs scattered and fleeing, and Wang Shide hurriedly inquired about Chongzhen's whereabouts, only to learn that Chongzhen had been martyred and died.
Wang Shide was extremely sad, hated himself for being a step late, "pulled out his sabre to kill himself", and was hugged by The old servant Yang Mou next to him. Under the persuasion of Yang Mou, Wang Shide hurried out of the city and hid in a temple to avoid a disaster. It can be seen that the Guards are not as useless as people think, and there are still loyal and hot-blooded men.
References: "Juyetang Anthology", "Chongzhen Testament"