From joining
Guo Zixing
By 1368, the Red Turban Army had broken through various forces and claimed the title of emperor in Nanjing, and although Zhu Yuanzhang had swept away various obstacles to unify the world, he established the Ming Dynasty surnamed Zhu.
However, in the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, was actually faced with a situation of waste waiting to be revitalized and internal and external troubles.
First of all, in the war, although Zhu Yuanzhang successfully expelled the Yuan Shun Emperor from the capital, the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty still occupied the northern grasslands, and with their strong military strength, they constantly threatened the newly born Ming Dynasty regime.
In the south, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and other places are also entrenched in various forces, Chen Youyu and Zhang Shicheng's old departments have also been eager to move, Zhu Yuanzhang is sitting on the throne, and the pressure is also very huge.
Secondly, after taking a closer look after laying down the Jiangshan, Zhu Yuanzhang found that what he had to face was a mess that had been devastated by the disasters of the Yuan Dynasty.
After years of war, the people have been displaced, the population has plummeted, the industry is waiting to be revived, and the whole society is on the verge of collapse.
Then, Zhu Yuanzhang started from scratch and came from a poor background, so there was no strong clan support around him, but instead relied on a group of hardcore brothers who were born and died together.
Hardcore brothers have great talents, and when fighting the world, brotherhood is naturally a good thing.
However, after the world was decided, these brothers were proud of their own merits as founding heroes, flouted the imperial power and violated the law, and did not give Zhu Yuanzhang face.
The original hardcore brothers now made Zhu Yuanzhang deeply feel that his imperial authority was being challenged, and in order to tighten the power in his hands, it was inevitable that he wanted to get rid of it quickly.
Against such a background, Zhu Yuanzhang decisively adopted the thunderous means of "re-administering the country.".
It is said that "chaotic times use heavy codes", that is to say, the major monarchs and emperors will choose to use extremely strict laws to rule in the face of social chaos and unclear situations.
Zhu Yuanzhang obviously also recognized this practice very much, and he also believed that only through harsh and cruel punishments could we deter all social strata, and let everyone keep to themselves at the fastest speed, perform their own duties well, and develop society.
In order to achieve the goal of "re-enforcing the country", Zhu Yuanzhang strictly formulated a legal system, and the most important representatives were the "Great Ming Law" and the "Great Commandment".
The "Great Ming Law" made detailed additions to the legal system of the previous dynasty, such as: comprehensively stipulating what feudal punishments were, the duties of civil and military officials and the corresponding punishment methods, the identification and punishment of military crimes, and so on.
In particular, in the treatment of civil and military officials, it is clearly stipulated that "making friends and forming parties to disrupt the government and government" and "making friends with close servant officials" can be sentenced to death.
The Great Commandment is a supplement to the Great Ming Law, which Was specially promulgated by Zhu Yuanzhang in order to make up for the lack of law.
The torture provided for in it makes everyone feel frightened, such as picking bones, picking tendons to fingers, cutting off hands, castrating, etc.
In the early ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang's strategy of "re-enforcing the country" conformed to the actual situation of the society at that time, and the society on the verge of collapse in the last years of the Yuan Dynasty was steadily restored and developed, laying a solid foundation for the prosperity and development of the Future Generations of the Ming Dynasty.
Speaking of the Ming Dynasty, many people will think of Zhu Yuanzhang, the ming taizu who struggled all the way from beggar monks to the supreme emperor of the world, and Zhu Yuanzhang's famous management methods of "anti-corruption and clean government".
As we all know, it is not an easy task to become an official under Zhu Yuanzhang, and the founding heroes of the early Ming Dynasty were almost all put to the end of the pot under his thunderous means, and the officials in the DPRK also took the minimum wage and had to pin their heads to work every day on their pants belts.
Almost all the famous "poor officials" in history appeared in the Ming Dynasty, which made everyone very interested, how poor were the officials of the Ming Dynasty?
It is a common phenomenon that ordinary officials are too poor to open the pot, and you can say that officials are too small to be poor.
But in fact, at that time, even the famous courtiers of the official Zhizheng Erpin could eat meat, which could become news.
Among these poor officials, the most miserable one is this one named "Zeng Bingzheng", because he not only lost his official position, but he could not even afford to pay for the road back to his hometown, and he ended up selling his children and daughters to make up for the road expenses.
Impoverished Ming dynasty officials
From ancient times to the present, in the eyes of many people, "being a civil servant" is also being an official, which is always a good job.
But this matter was different in the Ming Dynasty, and being an official in the Ming Dynasty can be regarded as one of the "most tragic" civil servants in history.
If you are a corrupt official, then Zhu Yuanzhang's cruel methods of dealing with "corruption" are unheard of, coupled with the management of water without leaks, so that you are full of courage and dare not be greedy.
According to the ming law, officials who embezzled more than sixty taels of silver could be sentenced to beheading. Logically, this punishment is already heavy enough.
However, even under such a strict law, corruption was still repeatedly prohibited, and at this time, Zhu Yuanzhang believed that the punishment for corrupt officials was still too light.
Whether it is beheading, raiding homes, or even "a thousand knives", it is not enough to deter these bold and corrupt officials.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang invented the punishment of "skinning", after killing corrupt officials, he skinned and filled in straw, made a human skin dummy, and placed it next to the official seat in the yamen.
When the new officials saw the tragic end of the original officials' corruption in this position, they were simply shocked and did not dare to cross the thunder pool again.
This practice finally effectively curbed the trend of corruption in the official arena at that time.
If you are a Qing official, and because Zhu Yuanzhang himself is poor in eating chaff and throat vegetables, in order to avoid officials from being careless and indulging in extravagant bad habits because of their extravagant lives, the "Feng Lu" he formulated for officials is also pitiful.
In terms of "frugality", Zhu Yuanzhang believed that the salaries paid to officials only needed to meet a slight balance in the daily life of officials.
In addition to being very low, the Ming Dynasty's Feng Lu was also very depressed for officials in the form of distribution.
On the one hand, due to the emptiness of the national treasury, on the other hand, zhu Yuanzhang, in order to prevent officials from spending money indiscriminately, the money issued by the imperial court was basically not silver, some were "paper money", some were "grain and rice noodles" and other physical objects, as to whether these things were worth so much silver, only the poor and destitute officials themselves knew best.
Hai Rui, a famous minister of the Ming Dynasty, was an extremely capable and incorruptible official, and the officials were all worthy of Zheng Erpin.
Once, Hai Rui's mother had a birthday, and Hai Rui was a very filial person, so he specially bought two pounds of meat for his mother's birthday.
Unexpectedly, an official who was in the right second product became everyone's talking point because he bought two pounds of pork.
Because everyone knows that Hai Rui is a clean and honest official, he relies on the qilu issued by the imperial court, and it is good to have food to eat, and everyone has lamented that Hai Rui actually has money to buy meat!
Another famous poor official is the aforementioned "Zeng Bingzheng".
Women who sold their daughters to survive were tortured
Zeng Bingzheng was originally a minister who was very popular with Zhu Yuanzhang, which can be seen from his path of origin.
Zeng Bingzheng was originally just a Xuezheng recommended by the local magistrate during the Hongwu period, and Xuezheng was just a nine-pin sesame official, but he was a learned person and a person who was good at seizing opportunities.
In the ninth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that it was a little inappropriate, so he summoned all the civil and military officials to ask what everyone thought.
Still
Zeng Bingzheng was very good at talking, and after a thousand words, he was appreciated by Zhu Yuanzhang, who promoted him all the way to the official position of Zheng Sanpin.
However, Zeng Bingzheng was a man, and his official was the same as his name, very upright.
Although Zeng Bingzheng later became an official to Sanpin, after all, he started from a local official, and in the process of promotion along the way, he also had the opportunity to see more of the shortcomings of the society at that time and the darkness of the court.
Zeng Bingzheng was not a person who flattered Zhu Yuanzhang for the sake of his future as an official, so he repeatedly spoke directly about the social situation at that time.
What kind of person is Zhu Yuanzhang? He had a strong and rough mind, and he had a very clear judgment of the situation in the early Ming Dynasty, but he was full of suspicion, and the slightest carelessness in speaking would anger him.
Zeng Bingzheng often blamed officials regardless of the occasion and the situation, and even refuted Zhu Yuanzhang.
Coming and going, Zeng Bingzheng unconsciously offended Zhu Yuanzhang many times.
Finally, once again, Zeng Bingzheng and Zhu Yuanzhang had a disagreement over political views, zeng Bingzheng still indomitablely confronted Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Yuanzhang deposed Zeng Bingzheng as an official and dismissed him in anger.
According to the regulations of the Ming Dynasty, a dismissed official could not continue to stay in his post, and he must return to his hometown immediately, otherwise he would have committed a major crime that required a full door to be cut down.
The place where Zeng Bingzheng was dismissed and dismissed by Zhu Yuanzhang in anger is very far from his hometown, and if the family wants to return to his hometown smoothly, it will inevitably need a road fee.
Zeng Bingzheng could not do it, and hurried home to pack his bags and prepare to return to his hometown.
I didn't expect this cleaning up, although I was promoted from a local official to an official of Zhengsanpin, and I worked hard for the imperial court for many years, and there were almost no silver in my family.
The road back to his hometown is high and the water is long, and the family is so poor that they don't even have money for the road.
In a hurry, Zeng Bingzheng remembered that he could find friends in the official field, hoping to borrow some silver and raise the family's travel expenses home.
But on the one hand, it may be that Zeng Bingzheng usually speaks quickly and offends more people, or it may be that Zeng Bingzheng is the official deposed by Zhu Yuanzhang, and everyone dares not make friends with him, and no one is willing to lend her money after borrowing a large circle.
Back home, facing the empty room, Zeng Bingzheng made a mistake, what to do?
Returning to your hometown, there is no money; it is not okay not to go back to your hometown, breaking the law, dragging down the lives of the whole family.
In this desperate situation, Zeng Bingzheng had no other way.
Zeng Bingzheng, who was "unemployed in middle age" and no one dared to help, set his sights on his daughter, who was only 4 years old, and the life of her daughter alone or the life of everyone in the family?
Zeng Bingzheng made a decision that he regretted, he painfully sold his 4-year-old daughter, exchanged a little silver money to take the whole family back to his hometown.
This matter was soon known to Zhu Yuanzhang, but after Zhu Yuanzhang knew about it, he was not moved by the extreme poverty of Zeng Bingzheng's family for the official Qinglian, nor did he feel that there was anything wrong with the family of a Zheng Sanpin official who was so poor, but was furious.
Seeing this, many people do not understand, Zhu Yuanzhang knows that the official's family sold his daughter to change the road fee because he was "poor", why would he be angry?
The first reason is that in Zhu Yuanzhang's calculations, Zeng Bingzheng, such an official of Zheng Sanpin, has 35 stones of Qilu every month, and if he is diligent and thrifty, it will be enough for their family's daily expenses.
The second reason is that Zeng Bingzheng has always been a reader who is full of poetry and books, and Zhu Yuanzhang feels that Zeng Bingzheng is usually full of benevolence and morality, and now he is actually staged to sell women back to his hometown.
Zeng Bingzheng's behavior in Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes was clearly a show, and it was also a mockery of Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor.
In anger, Zhu Yuanzhang arrested Zeng Bingzheng, who had struggled to collect the travel expenses, and said that Zeng Bingzheng's behavior of selling women for money in this way was against morality and did not deserve his descendants, and he inflicted a cruel and inhumane palace punishment on Zeng Bingzheng.
In fact, now it seems that Zeng Bingzheng is really still very wronged, although according to Zhu Yuanzhang's idea, the grain of 35 stones per month is much better than when he was a child, how can he really fall to the point of selling women to survive?
But in fact, under the "salary system" at that time, in fact, the fenglu that officials like Zeng Bingzheng actually got every month was not as rich as Zhu Yuanzhang thought.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the regime had just been consolidated, and after a long period of war, the national treasury was empty.
Therefore, the 35 stones of "Feng Lu" that Zeng Bingzheng obtained at that time were neither grain nor silver, but the paper money "treasure money" promoted by the Ming Dynasty government.
Can these "treasure banknotes" maintain the daily life of the Zeng Bingzheng family? Not really.
Because in the society at that time, people's daily life did not use "treasure banknotes" as the imperial court wished, and everyone still only recognized "real money and silver" and did not recognize "treasure banknotes".
Therefore, the poor Ming Dynasty officials took the "treasure money" issued by the imperial court, but when they got it on the market and wanted to use it, it was like a pile of waste paper that no one received.
Therefore, Zeng Bingzheng was really not putting on a show at that time, and he really had no money to sell his daughter, but unfortunately, Zhu Yuanzhang did not believe it.
Although it is said that Zhu Yuanzhang's "heavy code" methods adopted at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty made everyone tremble with fear, he treated officials too cruelly and withheld, leaving many unjust cases, and also laying hidden dangers for the decline of the Ming Dynasty later.
However, at that time, after experiencing the chaos at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the preliminary determination of the world, only in this way could Zhu Yuanzhang stabilize the situation at the fastest speed and open the later prosperous world.
CNKI References:
1. "On Zhu Yuanzhang's Heavy Rule of the Country", Wu Zhipeng, Soochow University, May 2013
2. "Analysis of the Causes of Low Salaries of Ming Dynasty Officials", Liu Kejin; HUANG Xiurong; Hu Hua, "Quest", March 2006
3. "The Dilemma of Low-Paid Officials in Ancient Times", Chen Zhonghai, Integrity Lookout, February 2021