The profession of spies has been set up in china's feudal dynasties, such as the red-clad embroiderers of the Han Dynasty, who were responsible for suppressing peasant uprisings; the Tang Dynasty set up internal guards and inspection departments to investigate officials and people; the Imperial City Department of the Song Dynasty, which was in charge of palace prohibition and spying on people's feelings; and the "factory guards" set up in the Ming Dynasty pushed the secret agent system to the peak.
In the history books, the Ming Dynasty Jinyi Wei often appeared as villains, and these spies seemed to be highly skilled in martial arts and did no evil. When we open the history of Jinyiwei, all we see is the embroidered spring knife with cold light out of its sheath and the sinister and terrifying prison, but these are not all of Jinyiwei. Among the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, there were not all powerful emperors like Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, but there were also benevolent princes such as Emperor Mingrenzong Zhu Gaozi and Ming Xuanzong Zhu Zhanji, and what the emperors of benevolence needed were conscientious and honest Jinyi guards.
During the reigns of Emperor Renzong and Emperor Xuanzong, the two sages successively cleaned up and straightened out the secret service organs, and a large number of loyal and honest young people were recruited into the Jinyi Guard, which basically reversed the high-pressure social atmosphere formed during the Taizu and Chengzu periods, and to a certain extent also improved the political image of the Ming Dynasty. However, with the death of Empress Zhang and the cabinet ministers, Emperor Yingzong's most favored eunuch Wang Zhen gradually came to power, and his cronies and henchmen were all over the government and the public, and the Jinyi Wei at this time became an accomplice of the eunuchs. In the era when Jinyi Wei commanded the interweaving of good and evil, whether it was Liu Mian and Xu Gong's cautious self-preservation, or Ma Shun's many evil deeds, it had nothing to do with Yuan Bin, a seemingly inconspicuous Jinyi Wei lieutenant. In the fourteenth year of orthodoxy, at the instigation of Wang Zhen, Emperor Mingyingzong Zhu Qizhen personally led a large army to defeat the Northern Expedition to Wala, which was also the "change of civil engineering" in history, and both Yuan Bin and Emperor Yingzong became prisoners.
During the year of his captivity, Yingzong suffered the most painful days of his life, Yuan Bin was always by his side, and Yuan Bin gradually became the person the emperor relied on the most. In 1450, the commander of the Wallachians also sent Yingzong and Yuan Bin back to Daming. Seven years later, Emperor Yingzong succeeded to the throne again, and immediately appointed Yuan Bin as the commander of the Jinyi Guard, which had always been infamous, but Yuan Bin was a rare loyal and upright soldier among the Jinyi Guards. During his several years as a commander, Yuan Bin treated his subjects well, adjudicated and imprisoned, and changed the image of JinYiwei as corrupt and bribery and persecuting Zhongliang. In the first year of Hongzhi, Yuan Bin died.
In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Jin Yiwei commanded the envoys except For Zhu Ji (the son-in-law of the poet Yu Qian) and Mou Bin, and the rest of them were greedy and violent, aiding and abetting abuse. During the Jiajing period, Jinyiwei suddenly changed the world, not only becoming more and more powerful, suppressing the eunuchs of the East Factory, and even winning the praise of some people, which was very much related to Lu Bing, the commander of Jinyiwei at that time. Lu Bing's mother was the nursing mother of the Jiajing Emperor, who grew up with the Jiajing Emperor and risked death to save Jiajing in a fire, so he was deeply favored. During the twenty years that he was in charge of the Jinyi Guard, Lu Bing's righteous and wealthy affairs were often spent on the needy, and some ministers who were imprisoned for directly advising them to avoid committing crimes, Lu Bing would try his best to save their lives. In addition, he also rescued yu Dayu, a famous anti-Wu general who had been framed by Yan Song's henchmen, and eliminated the border general Qiu Luan, who had plagued the country and the people, for the imperial court.
In the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing, Lu Bing completed his legendary life, and although he was a Jinyi guard, Ming Shi still gave him a positive evaluation. And Lu Bing's subordinate Shen Lian also inherited his character of daring to speak directly, being upright, and jealous and hateful, and repeatedly confronted Yan Song's henchmen.
The Jiajing Dynasty was the golden age of jinyiwei, which not only overshadowed the East Factory, but also investigated Yan Song's party. However, from the perspective of contribution to the country, the Wanli Dynasty is the real glorious era of Jinyiwei. With the death of Zhang Juzheng, the first assistant of the cabinet, and the suspension of reforms, the Ming Dynasty's national power also began to decline rapidly. In 1592, the Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi mobilized 200,000 troops on land and water to invade Korea with the intention of military expansion in Asia. In order to rescue the feudal state and maintain the tranquility of the Ming Empire, the Daming army rushed to Korea without hesitation and composed a magnificent song of praise for defending the family and defending the country.
The Ming Dynasty was well aware of the invasion of Korea by the Wokou, and its real intention was to lie with China. The Wanli Emperor sent Jinyi Wei to Korea and Japan to inquire about military information, and was ready to send troops to Korea to make preparations. Jinyiwei's ability to do things was far beyond the imagination of the Wanli Emperor, and he quickly reported the Japanese army's marching route and combat configuration to the imperial court. When Li Rusong, the governor of the Eastern Crusades, led an army of 40,000 into Korea, Jinyiwei had already woven a huge intelligence network in the local area, and also made a great contribution to the great defeat of Wu Kou.
Jinyiwei, who played an important role in the war, was praised by the emperor, but this was the last glory of Jinyiwei in the Ming Dynasty. With the death of the Wanli Emperor, the power of the Ming Dynasty took a sharp turn for the worse, and Jinyiwei was also unable to extricate himself from the whirlpool of party strife and eunuchs, especially under the command of Wei Zhongxian, which also plunged Jinyiwei into political struggle and internal contradictions, and could no longer return to its former state. When the Chongzhen Emperor dragged Daming's battered body in an attempt to cheer up, the Manchu Qing regime outside Shanhaiguan was looking at the tiger, and Emperor Taiji, Dolgun, and Hauge were preparing to attack Daming at any time, and jinyiwei was also dying in the chaos of the late Ming Dynasty.
In the third year of Qing Shunzhi (1646 AD), the Qing court completely abolished the Jinyiwei institution, and since then, the Jinyiwei has completely become history. The rulers of the Ming Dynasty intended to vainly attempt to achieve the purpose of maintaining imperial power by exercising harsh surveillance over society through the Jinyi guards, and some people in later generations commented that the Ming Dynasty did not perish from the exiles, but from the factory guards, but rather the Ming Dynasty died from the dark system of absolutism and feudalism.