Jinyiwei, East Factory, West Factory, is the Secret Service Agency of the Ming Dynasty, with more functions, in addition to protecting the emperor, there are also important tasks such as interrogating prisoners, torturing confessions, assassinating ministers, etc., but what is the difference between Jinyiwei and Dongchang West Factory? Let's take a good look at it.
The glory and loneliness of the Jinyi guard
The Jinyi Guard was set up by Zhu Yuanzhang, the ming emperor, and the standard equipment is a luan belt, an embroidered spring knife, and a flying fish suit. Whenever Zhu Yuanzhang became suspicious of his courtiers, Jinyiwei would faithfully investigate and arrest people for interrogation, and Li Shanchang and Lan Yu were successively arrested and arrested by Jinyiwei.
Three-piece set of Jinyi wei
After Zhu Yuanzhang killed the heroes almost completely, he gradually snubbed the Jinyiwei, and the Jinyiwei became an organization that purely protected the emperor. After the mild-natured Zhu Yunjiao ascended to the throne, he did not use the Jinyi Guard, which allowed the imperial court under the shadow to breathe.
After Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ascended the throne, the situation was very different, Zhu Di was a fierce monarch even more than Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to deal with the former emperor's courtiers, he reactivated the Jinyi guard, the Jinyi guard's ranks were expanded, and rapidly developed its power.
After the power of Jinyiwei reached its peak, there was a leader of Jinyiwei named Ji Gang who tried to rebel in vain, but Xiao Jigang was Zhu Di's opponent and was easily killed, and Jinyiwei also entered a trough.
The birth of the East Factory and the West Factory
Because jinyiwei was too arrogant, Zhu Di had to establish another institution to supervise the division of Jinyiwei, so the East Factory and the West Factory were born.
The East and West Factories are different from the Jinyi Guards, the leaders are mainly eunuchs, through history we know that the generals who lead the army and the prime minister in power may seek power and usurp the throne, while the eunuchs will not, with the status of eunuchs, the only thing that can protect themselves is to desperately protect the emperor, and the emperor is not worried about the eunuchs' power is too large and rebellious, and there are eunuchs who have chaotic governments in history but there are no rebellious eunuchs.
A loyal eunuch of the East Factory
Under the guidance of this idea, the East Factory and the West Factory, which was trusted by the emperor, were established. The gradual development of the East Factory and the West Factory slowly squeezed out the Jinyi guards, and the "factory guard system" of the Ming Dynasty was also completely formed.
The Ming Dynasty buried the hidden dangers of eunuchs
The monarch trusts someone too much, which leads to a situation where he has great power even without any official position, which is the power of cronies.
The Ming Dynasty relied too much on eunuchs, which provided the basis for future disasters such as Wei Zhongxian and other disasters to the country and the people.
Grand Eunuch Wei Zhongxian
But at the same time, the emperor's practice of giving power and other aspects also deserves our in-depth consideration, although the eunuchs have brought calamity to the country and the people, but it is beneficial to the emperor personally, we can only say that if we meet a good emperor who cares about the world, we will certainly not trust someone too much and bring chaos to the imperial court. Nor does it bring gangs and corruption to the bureaucracy because of excessive trust in one institution.