The Jinyi Guards of the Ming Dynasty were both functions such as guarding the imperial palace, monitoring hundreds of officials, spying on military intelligence and performing poles, while the secret service agencies directly responsible to the emperor, such as "Jinyi Wei", "Embroidered Spring Knife", and "Dragon Gate Flying Armor", which we have seen, are all films with the theme of reflecting the special organization of the Ming Dynasty. The Jinyi guards in the movie are all highly skilled in martial arts, strict in their work, decisive in killing, cruel and vicious in their means, which makes people feel frightened. So, is the Jinyi wei in the history of the Ming Dynasty really terrifying?
In order to consolidate his hard-won Jiangshan and strengthen the central authoritarian centralization, in addition to dismissing the chancellor and dividing the authority of the chancellor into six ministries, which was directly responsible to the emperor, in order to defend the imperial power and monitor the hundred officials, he also established the Jinyi Wei. The Jinyi Wei was formerly known as the Gongwei Division established by Zhu Yuanzhang, and later renamed the Pro-Military Duwei Mansion, which ruled over the Yiluan Division and was in charge of the emperor's honor guards and bodyguards. In the fifteenth year of Hongwu's reign, he abolished the pro-military capital Weifu and yiluan division, and replaced them with Jinyi Guards.
The Jinyi Guards had a strict military establishment. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the military system was "Wei" and "Suo", each Wei had about 5,000 regular troops under its jurisdiction, and its subordinate offices were divided into 1,000 households and 100 households. The Janissaries of the capital guarded all forty-eight places. In the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang reformed the Janissaries and established twelve Guards, the most important of which were the Jinyi Guards. Jinyiwei was under the direct jurisdiction of the emperor, and set up one person under the command of The Three Pins of Jinyiwei, two of the Tongzhi commanders from the Three Pins, three commanders of the Zhengsi Pin Commanders, two envoys from the Town of Sipin, and fourteen of the Thousand Households of the Zhengwu Pin Fourteen Houses, and the following ranks were deputy thousand households, hundred households, test hundred households, general banners, small banners and generals, and ordinary soldiers were called lieutenants and soldiers. The commanders of the Jinyi Guards were generally generals of the emperor's cronies, and the generals at all levels below could be promoted by military merit.
The Kinniku guard has a special function. It has the function of guarding the honor guard. The Jinyi Guards were the Emperor's bodyguards and honor guards, consisting mainly of generals, lieutenants, and soldiers. The general's initial name was "Tianwu", and when he was in Yongle, he was renamed "General of the Great Han", and selected a majestic and courageous person to serve as the guardian of the palace. The lieutenant and the lux are all selected men who are physically strong and have no previous criminal records, and the lieutenant is in charge of the halogen and the umbrella cover, and the lux holds the golden weasel and the flag. The Noon Gate is the main gate of Miyagi Castle, which is usually guarded day and night by 100 Generals of the Kinyi Guard, and whenever the Emperor has a great pilgrimage, sacrifice or parade hunting, they are guarded by the Kinyi Guard, the honor guard and the driver. Because the Jinyi guards have the function of honor guards, the costumes of the Jinyi guards are very gorgeous, and the official uniforms worn by the lieutenants are hats decorated with goose feathers and brightly colored clothes. Whenever the emperor sacrificed or paraded, the lieutenants of the Jinyi Guards were required to wear flying fish uniforms that only imperial court officials could wear to a certain rank, and wore embroidered spring knives that only the emperor could wear on their waists. During the Jingtai period, the Jinyi guards and the guards on duty were allowed to wear the Qilin dress that only gong, hou, bo, and horses were eligible to wear. When the Jinyi Wei Han general was on duty, he was required to wear a helmet decorated with a small flag and a cloak armor on the placket. The armor comes in a variety of colors, including gold armor, red armor, and red armor. The forbidden gold medal and sabre are also hung around the waist. It is precisely because the Jinyi guard is dressed beautifully that it is called the Jinyi guard. It has the function of detecting the court staff. "Patrolling and arresting" is the special point that distinguishes the Jinyi guard from other dynastic Janissaries, and the Jinyi guard institution responsible for investigating crimes is the Southern and Northern Town Fusi, of which the South Town Fusi is the one who supervises the internal Jinyiwei, and the Northern Town Fusi is specialized in handling cases decided by the emperor. Beizhen Fusi was set up in the fifteenth year of Ming Hongwu, and during the Chenghua period, the Beizhen Fusi Seal Letter was added, and all prisons did not have to be closed to Bai Benwei. Beizhen Fusi had its own prison and could be arrested, tortured, and executed on its own without going through the imperial court judiciary. There are five offices under the Fusi Division of the South and North Towns, and there are thousands of households and hundreds of households under them. The court staff is to drag the ministers who have angered the emperor out of the noon gate to beat them. The person in charge of the execution was the Lieutenant of the Jinyi Guard, and the prisoner was the eunuch of Si Li. Officers who received the cane were stripped of their official uniforms, tied with straw ropes, lying on the ground, receiving 80 canes, and the firing lieutenant changed every five sticks, for a total of 16 people. The lieutenant of the execution school should look at the expression and movement of the eunuch to determine the weight of the staff: if the eunuch's feet are open in a figure of eight, it will show his life; if the eunuch's two feet are close together, the staff will be killed. The Ariake dynasty executed the staff more than 500 times, of which more than 50 were killed. There are surveillance and spying functions. In order to prevent trouble before it happened and ensure the safety of the emperor, the Jinyi guards had to act secretly from time to time, monitor the words and deeds of officials who might threaten the imperial power and endanger the imperial court, and could capture and interrogate suspects. Because of the emperor's permission, this made the officials very afraid of jinyiwei, but they also spied on military intelligence, and in the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, Jinyiwei spied a lot of Japanese intelligence and made contributions to the victory of the war.
The Kinniku guard has special powers. Since Jinyiwei was directly under the emperor's jurisdiction and was directly responsible to the emperor, the ministers and officials of the DPRK and China had no right to inquire and interfere, so Jinyiwei could handle many major cases of the imperial court. For example, in the Hu Weiyong case and the Blue Jade case, there are many shadows of Jinyiwei, and the two cases involve the killing of more than 45,000 officials and family members of the famous generals and ministers, and almost all the founding heroes of the early Ming Dynasty died in these two cases. Jinyiwei can arrest anyone, including relatives of the emperor and state, and conduct interrogations in public. Before the arrest, they will also be issued a "driving sticker", if there is resistance during arrest, no matter who it is, they can be killed on the spot, and their purpose is to prefer to kill by mistake rather than let go of a suspicious person. The Jinyi Guard official school in charge of reconnaissance and arrest is called "Ti Riding"; due to the lack of restrictions on power, in order to ask for merit and rewards, they sometimes fabricate charges, do whatever it takes to expand the scope of involvement, and create appalling unjust, false and wrong cases, so that the officials of the imperial court are all afraid to hear about it. However, the scope of torture by Jinyiwei was limited to officials and doctors, and generally did not arrest and interrogate ordinary people. Criminal cases and civil disputes of ordinary people can only be handled through normal judicial procedures. In the 26th year of Hongwu, because the Jinyi guards had illegally insulted and abused prisoners after their arrest, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the burning of the Jinyiwei torture equipment and abolished their torture function. However, after Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ascended the throne, in order to cover up his usurpation of the throne, he not only restored all the power of jinyiwei, but also established the Dongyishi Factory, referred to as the Eastern Factory, with eunuchs as the leader, above the Jinyiwei, only responsible to the emperor, who could supervise and arrest his subjects at will, and further strengthened this function. During the reign of Emperor Mingxianzong Chenghua, he also added the West Bureau, together with the East Factory and the Jinyi Wei, called the Factory Guard, using the eunuch Wang Zhi as the admiral, the power exceeded the East Factory, the scope of activities from the Beijing Division spread all over the place, and then because of the anger of the heavens, it was revoked, and the eunuch Liu Jin during the reign of Emperor Wuzong was restored, and after Liu Jin was reprimanded, the West Factory was abolished from then on. Of course, although the East Factory and the West Factory were commanded by eunuchs, their personnel were still composed of Jinyi guards, but their leaders became eunuchs.
Jinyi Wei has a very terrible prison. According to relevant historical records, there are hundreds of torture tools used by Jinyiwei to extort confessions by torture, and some of them make people shudder just by listening to it. Among them, peeling the skin, that is, arresting the prisoner and stripping him alive; brushing, that is, pouring the parts that people want to brush in advance with boiling water, and then brushing the cooked meat down with an iron brush, so that the layer of brushing is washed again and again until the white bone is exposed; the hook intestine, that is, hooking the prisoner's anus with an iron hook, hooking out the large intestine, and then pulling violently, the prisoner's intestines will surge out and kill him; frying, saying that it is fried, but there is no oil, but first burning a large iron plate, and then pressing the prisoner on it; standing shackles, that is, putting the prisoner on a heavy shackle. The maximum weight can reach three hundred pounds, so that the prisoner only stands, not allowed to sit, and slowly exhausts the prisoner to death.
Since Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, the special organization of Jinyiwei has existed until the demise of the Ming Dynasty. After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the Ming system qing sui, in order to consolidate the regime, also followed the Ming Dynasty to set up the Jinyi Guard, but it was only implemented for one year, and then abolished. This system was only to strengthen the imperial power, so that the officials and nobles lived in fear all day long, so that the people were always in a dark and terrible state, and naturally they would be opposed by the majority of the ruling class and the lower classes. This unique Jinyi guard system of the Ming Dynasty eventually accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty.