No matter in which dynasty corruption is the final bottom line, the final outcome of many dynasties in history is inextricably linked to faint corruption, to say which emperor attaches the most importance to rectifying corruption, we must mention the name of Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Yuanzhang is a rare cold emperor in history, in order to survive in his youth, he was a beggar and a monk, just to survive in the chaotic world.
Yin and yang mistakenly joined the army, and finally broke out of a world, it is precisely because Zhu Yuanzhang was born in a cold door, suffered from the cold and warmth of the world, and even saw the people deeply poisoned by corrupt officials, which also made Zhu Yuanzhang hate corruption in his heart, and vowed to shape a politically clean dynasty after becoming emperor.
After making up his mind to political corruption, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a strict law stipulating that all officials who embezzled more than sixty taels, regardless of rank, would be shown to the public, and would also be tortured by skinning and wringing grass, and the land temples of all prefectures and counties became execution sites, also known as leather field temples.
It can be said that Zhu Yuanzhang's means of punishing corruption are very fierce, but the effect is not ideal, and Zhu Yuanzhang himself once lamented, "I want to get rid of corrupt officials, so why kill and commit crimes!" Later historians have given an explanation for this phenomenon, believing that corruption in the Ming Dynasty was determined by the social system and was completely an incurable disease of an institutional nature.
Ming historian Wu Han once pointed out that with the weakening of dynastic despotism, institutional corruption spread rapidly like a cancer cell, to put it bluntly in the history of the Ming Dynasty, except for Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, Chengzu Zhu Di and later the short-lived Ming Xiaozong, most of the other emperors had obvious character defects, many people appointed traitors, favored eunuchs, and the Ming Dynasty was also the most powerful dynasty in history.
Once the power of the dynasty fell into the hands of eunuchs, the situation can be imagined, Liu Jin and Wei Zhongxian were not good at bribery, and the eunuchs were deeply loved by the emperor in the rest of the years except for the suppression during the Hongwu years, which can also be seen from Zhu Yuanzhang's profound insights.
In order to punish corruption and consolidate his rule, he did not hesitate to kill people, and many of the founding heroes were also brutally poisoned; in addition to Zhu Yuanzhang's intention to eliminate the meritorious men, there were also some ministers who used their own identities to turn a deaf ear to Zhu Yuanzhang's political corruption tactics and were very arrogant, for which the four major cases of Hongwu occurred, many of which were related to corruption.
First of all, the empty seal case, the Ming Dynasty stipulates that every year the local government must send people to the household department to report the local financial revenue and expenditure, all the accounts must be reviewed with the household department before the end is completed, if any of them do not match, they must be called back to re-create the book, and the original local organs need to stamp the big seal to complete, but at that time the traffic was not developed, many facts appeared in errors To re-create the book is very time-consuming, so many officials who went to the household department for review will prepare a number of blank documents with sealed letters in advance for backup.
After all, money and grain will always be lost in the process of transportation, so local officials and household department personnel tacitly used empty seal documents, but after Zhu Yuanzhang learned about it, he believed that it was collusion between officials and corrupt and perverted the law, so he ordered vigorous punishment, according to statistics, the empty seal case and The Guo Huan case were implicated as many as 80,000 people, Zhu Yuanzhang did not blink, all killed.
From this, we can see That Zhu Yuanzhang's determination to punish corruption, and the official Feng Lu during the Hongwu period was not high, the Zhengyi pin official was only more than 1,000 stones per year, and the lowest official position after the Nine Pin Officials was 60 stones, far less than the rest of the dynasty, which made a lot of Qing officials suffer, after all, everyone cannot be expected to have The style of Hai Rui.
In the history of the Ming Dynasty, there was a very helpless Qing official named Zeng Bingzheng, who had ups and downs in his life as an official, and who was very clean and honest as an official, but was eventually driven back to his hometown, and even on the way home, he was arrested and punished with corruption.
During Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, he constantly suppressed corrupt officials, created a temporary political clarity, killed many officials in several large-scale ways, and many places could not put together a complete system, so Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the recommendation of talents in the people, and after receiving instructions from above, various prefectures and counties began to look for candidates for officials in the people.
Zeng Bingzheng was discovered at this time, gave a Sesame official who studied in Haizhou, although the official is not a good villain is also a member of the imperial court, after becoming an official, Zeng Bingzheng did not forget his original intention to work diligently and earnestly, and was soon discovered by the imperial court, Zeng Bingzheng had written to Zhu Yuanzhang to point out the grass-roots problems, Zhu Yuanzhang thought that this person was available, ordered people to promote Zeng Bingzheng as a supervisor, and then Zeng Bingzheng went all the way to the high position of Shaanxi's political envoy, and was a solid sanpin officer.
To say why Zeng Bingzheng was able to achieve this position, or because he was honest and honest, whether he was serving in the local government or in the central government, he had never been corrupt once, and he was not afraid of the things that were unfavorable to the country by fearing power, and it was also because he was just and honest, and he offended Zhu Yuanzhang by speaking bluntly, this time Zhu Yuanzhang did not give in, directly dismissed him, drove him out, after being degraded, Zeng Bingzheng could only leave the capital and return to his hometown, but after being an official for many years, he had two sleeves of fresh wind, plus the feng lu at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty was really low, and there was no extra money on the road. In order to make up for the road fare, he sold his daughter, who was less than five years old, for money.
This matter was known to Zhu Yuanzhang and then took the case, scolding Zeng Bingzheng for not being worthy of being a parent, not to mention that according to the imperial court's Feng Lu system, Sanpin officials can receive 35 stones of Feng Lu every month, how can they not even get together on the road, he has always thought that Zeng Bingzheng is a clean official who speaks out of righteousness, but at this time he betrayed the morality of benevolence and righteousness, and did the shameless thing of selling women, and in anger, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered people to arrest Zeng Bingzheng and punish him with corruption.
In fact, it is really not Zeng Bingzheng crying poor, the Ming Dynasty's Feng Lu system is really not reasonable, at that time most of the distribution of Feng Lu was replaced by Bao Lu, although bao banknotes were officially issued, the market circulation was still dominated by gold and silver, the quality of bao banknotes was very poor, the imperial court did not know how to maintain, just send regardless of recycling, over time inflation was serious, resulting in currency depreciation, Zeng Bingzheng as a clean official issued Feng Lu in addition to maintaining basic living expenses, it is difficult to save money, this is the next policy, the result was sentenced to capital punishment.