Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang jumped from a cloth to an emperor, in order to strengthen the centralization of power, so he set up the Jinyi Guard, let the Jinyi Guard manage all the affairs in the palace, collect military information, and also supervise the movements of the ministers, so that the emperor knew the secrets of the ministers for the first time. The Jinyi guards were directly managed by the emperor, and no one but the emperor could command them. JinyiWei had great power in the Ming Dynasty, and even if he wanted to arrest any minister, he did not need to report it to anyone, just arrest it. Therefore, the ministers of the Ming Dynasty were still very afraid of the Jinyi guards, even if they were caught by the Jinyi guards one day, it would be over if they were cut first and then played.
After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, after Zhu Di became emperor, he also learned from his father's practice and took Jinyiwei with him, but he was worried that Jinyiwei's power was too great and out of his control, so he established the East Factory, hoping that the two could check and balance each other. Later, in order to strengthen his rule, Emperor Mingxianzong established the West Factory in addition to the East Factory and the Jinyiwei, which was jointly called the Factory Guard with the East Factory and the Jinyiwei. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, the factory health system prevailed.
Everyone should still be familiar with the Jinyiwei and East Factory of the Ming Dynasty, and they have also appeared in the movie, but in the Ming Dynasty, there is actually a very low-key institution, which can be called the most mysterious institution of the Ming Dynasty. The style of doing things in this institution is even more fierce than that of Jinyiwei and Dongchang, which is the inner factory. Neihang Factory was established in 1506 by Emperor Mingwu Zhu Houzhao. The reason for the establishment of the Neihang Factory in the first place was to monitor the East Factory, the West Factory and the JinyiWei. From the original intention of this setting, it can be seen that the rights of the inner factory are higher than that of "two factories and one guard", and the members of the general secret service agency are very respectful when they see the people of the inner factory, and they are even more respectful to the leader of the inner factory, and everyone must be very curious about the leader of the inner factory, he is the grand eunuch Liu Jin.
Compared with the "two factories and one guard", the Neihang Factory is not only the pawn of the emperor's news, the scope of the Investigation of the Neihang Factory is even wider than theirs, and they can not only check the ministers, but even the people can supervise. Moreover, under the instruction of the emperor, the "two factories and one guard" were also within their supervision. If there are officials in the "two factories and one guard" who have committed some crimes and the grade is not very high, then the insider factory can directly detain them without even telling the emperor. It is precisely because of this that the power of the insider factory in the Ming Dynasty at that time was very large. The officials of the "two factories and one guard" were also very afraid when they saw the officials of the insider factory, afraid that they had made some mistakes and would be targeted by the insider factory. However, their fear was not without reason, at that time, the factory was only under the management of the emperor, and the factory did not have to listen to anyone other than the emperor, and after catching people, they would directly torture them without asking anything.
At that time, these four institutions of the Ming Dynasty had different responsibilities, the Jinyiwei was responsible for supervising all the officials and people, while the East Factory was to supervise the officials and the Jinyiwei, the West Factory was to supervise the East Factory, and the Inner Factory was to supervise the officials and the people and the factory guards, so that the level was larger than the first level, and the Inner Factory became the most powerful institution. The emperor's direct leadership and supervision of these four institutions constituted a unique system of investigative agents of the Ming Dynasty. Later, in the fifth year of Zhengde, the great eunuch Liu Jin fell, and both the Neihang Factory and the West Factory were removed together. Although it has only existed for five years, it has killed many loyal ministers. In the Ming Shi Penal Chronicle III, it is written: "'Death by torture, unauthorized use of Weifu, and thieves killing liang'".
Because the inner factory led by Liu Jin had greater power than the East and West Factories and the Jinyi Guard, and in the Ming Dynasty, when it was also hegemonic, no one dared to resist, and Liu Jin also used this power to attack his colleagues and oppress the ministers. Yu shi, who was righteous and outspoken like Wang Shizhong and Wang Cheng, who had never made any mistakes, was persecuted and killed by the Neihang Factory because of the impeachment of Liu Jin. The Insider Factory supervised all the public opinion dynamics among the people, and the people of the whole country were under their observation, so for a while no one dared to say anything ridiculous about Liu Jin and Wu Zong.
However, compared with Liu Jin's suppression of Zhongliang at the upper level, although the grass-roots politics of the Ming Dynasty was difficult, it could also be regarded as the qingming of the officials because of the cooperative development of the factory health system. This is really because of the mutual supervision of the two factories and one guard, a complete set of balance system, will form this balance situation.
After the fall of the Great Eunuch Liu Jin, both the Neihang Factory and the West Factory were removed. Since then, the Ming Dynasty has only been left with the East Factory and the Jinyi Guard. In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, after Wei Zhongxian came to power, he used the power of the East Factory to censor officials, and then threw them into the prison of JinyiWei for severe torture, resulting in many tragic cases, for a time, the factory guards spread all over the country, almost provoking a popular uprising, so some people said that "the Ming Dynasty died in the factory guards." ”