During the reign of Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to consolidate his position in Jiangshan and the dprk, he specially created a service for him.
sell
The organization of the life - JinyiWei.
This organization only listens to the emperor and collects all kinds of intelligence for the emperor, including intelligence on korean and Chinese officials, as well as information about the people, and if it collects information that is unfavorable to the emperor or threatens the court, it will be immediately conveyed to the emperor, so that the emperor can keep abreast of the latest information outside the court and make a decision in a timely manner.
It is said that jinyiwei's means of obtaining intelligence are very cruel, so it is called the most terrifying organization in China, and even many ministers are panicked when they hear Jinyiwei's name. Let's tell the story.
Image from the Internet: Jinyi Wei stills
In the Qin Dynasty, the emperor managed the world by force, as long as it was different from the emperor's ideas, he would use violence to suppress it, and the means were extremely vicious.
Governing the country in this way naturally did not last long, so the first dynasty in history to unify the world was gone by the second, and during the Tang Dynasty and Han Dynasty, the emperor controlled the country through Confucian ideas.
However, in the later period, the eunuchs and relatives on the side of the imperial mother and wife gradually increased their power, and the end was the same, absorbing the blood training of the previous dynasty.
During Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, he used a secret service agency to balance the forces of all sides and to monitor them through it
and
Administer the country.
Photo: Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang stills
Since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the industry of secret agents has developed rapidly, compared to other periods, the Ming Dynasty is the most special, in the stage of development, the emperor does not have a lot of experience to manage such an organization, so it has formed a situation where everyone exposes, blames each other, and prisoners are in groups.
In such a terrible situation, I believe that all the people are very miserable, and all this stems from the emperor's uneasiness and fear,
Many dynasties will have one
parlance
That is, it is possible to experience suffering with the emperor, but not one
same
Enjoy the well-being.
Before each generation of emperors take the throne, there will be a group of people to help, this group of people can be said to be the heroes of the new king, but after the new emperor sits firmly, the new king will worry that this group of people will threaten his own position and the inheritance of future generations, and try his best to get rid of them, or let them lose their rights.
The image comes from the Internet: stills of the situation in which everyone exposes, blames each other, and the prisoners are in droves
Zhao Kuangyin, the emperor of the Song Dynasty, since he learned that the heroes who fought with him in the world now only care about personal interests and losses, and do not consider the interests of the country and the people, he has adopted some relatively peaceful methods, so that these people take the initiative to hand over military power, and did not harm their lives.
Compared with Zhao Kuangyin's benevolence, Zhu Yuanzhang was very ruthless, and after he got the emperor's throne, he ruthlessly eliminated those who had helped him.
Zhu Yuanzhang once said such a sentence: "Lying on the side of the bed, you will not allow others to snore."
。
Alluding to his power and interests, how can he allow others to invade and occupy at will
，
Because in being emperor
bit
Before, Zhu Yuanzhang was a grass dweller
Therefore, he clearly knew the hardships of the road to the throne, and he could not allow others to infringe on his interests.
Even if he had fought together with the founder of the world, in order to solve all his worries, he would brutally kill the yuanxun, including Hu Weiyong and Lan Yu, who had helped him.
Photo: Stills of Emperor Zhao Kuangyin of the Song Dynasty
In the second year of Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, he founded the Secret Service Organization, which is an independent organization and has set up separate institutions in many places
The execution of the task does not require the consent of any other agency, and only obeys the emperor's orders.
After the establishment of this institution, the first to be persecuted were Hu Weiyong and others, and this case affected countless people, even Li Shanchang, who had long retired, and his family suffered.
Then persecuted was another Ming Dynasty hero, Lan Yu, who was the founding general of the Ming Dynasty, who was brave and resourceful, and everyone knew everything he did for the country, but even so, he was eventually killed, and the case also affected tens of thousands of lives.
Photo: Stills of blue jade, the founding general of the Ming Dynasty
Zhu Yuanzhang was so cruel and vicious that even his own son Zhu Biao couldn't stand it.
Zhu Biao once made it clear to the emperor: You have killed many heroes in our country so badly, and even implicated many innocent lives, this move may chill the hearts of the common people.
Unexpectedly, when the emperor heard his son say this, his attitude did not change in the slightest, and he called out to his son and said, You go and pick up the branch on the ground, and the son saw that it was full of thorns, so he did not pick it up.
Seeing this, the emperor said to him: You are not willing to pick up that thorn, is it because it is covered with thorns? Wouldn't it be nice if I had all those thorns removed? The implication is that the emperor wants to help him get rid of those who are unfavorable to him and to the imperial court, so that he can succeed to the throne smoothly and steadily.
Image from the Internet: Zhu Biao and Zhu Yuanzhang argue stills
There are many duties of the Jinyi Guards, including spying on the enemy in wartime and going deep into the people to inquire into the people's opinions in peacetime, they are mixed among the people, and if they catch clues that are unfavorable to the emperor's rule, they will directly arrest the people for interrogation.
Because
Jinyi Wei
The peculiarity of not being in the hands of the local authorities and directly obeying the emperor leads to their rights
Too big
So that they basically dare not provoke, flying high, so when they hear unfavorable news about themselves, they will also act immediately, arrest hostile forces, and torture to extract confessions, and install charges.
Therefore, when a prisoner enters the big prison of Jinyiwei, lifelong disability is a small thing, and tragic death in prison is also a very normal thing.
The intelligence collected by JinYiwei ranged from military intelligence to the private lives of officials, so whenever Zhu Yuanzhang occasionally mentioned the lives of his ministers when he went to the court, they were all terrified and afraid that they would suffer.
There are also many types of torture devices used by Jinyi Guards in the prison, including nail fingers, sticks, horse sticks, etc., each of which makes people feel afraid, and even sometimes, a kind of punishment has different degrees of use. In the case of cane punishment, the Jinyi Guard will carry out the cane punishment according to the prisoner's confession and the degree of cooperation.
It is precisely because of the ruthlessness of Jinyiwei and the strong ability of secret agents that many people feel very panicked, so why is Jinyiwei so frightening?
Photo: Stills of Jinyiwei's torture to extract a confession
This has to start from the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongol Kublai Khan was able to establish a dynasty through force, but if a country is blindly managed by force, then naturally it will not last forever.
So Kublai Khan wanted to imitate the previous dynasties and administer the country according to law, but most of the officials who made the laws were old ministers of the Han Dynasty, they did not understand the situation of the Yuan Dynasty, and in order to cope with the tasks ordered by the new king, they had to learn a little from other dynasties and reluctantly completed the laws of the country.
Because the laws formulated were too empty and formal, and the imperial court could not effectively administer the country according to the law, the Mongols essentially ruled the country by force, and treated the Mongols and Han Chinese very unequally.
It is conceivable that in such a country, how can the people not complain without any complaints, and over time, the folk Han people have the voice of resistance and begin to revolt.
Zhu Yuanzhang was one of the many resistance organizations in the folk, and he had acted under Guo Zixing, knowing that Guo Zixing was often calculated by his own people. Therefore, since he became emperor, he has been suspicious of the people around him, afraid that someone will covet his throne.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the system of the Yuan Dynasty was still adopted, but on this basis,
He politically abolished the province of Xingzhongshu and established the Department of Cloth Administration, which obeyed the emperor's orders and carried out the emperor's orders, no doubt putting decision-making power in the hands of the emperor in order to strengthen the centralization of power.
Militarily, he adopted a decentralized approach of governance, with various places supervising and checking each other, using all methods only so that his descendants could succeed to the throne smoothly.
The picture comes from the Internet: the Cloth Administration Department set up by Zhu Yuanzhang
During the Ming Dynasty, the position of Jinyiwei existed until the murder of the last Jinyiwei commander during Zhu Youluo's reign, and during the Qing Dynasty, the Jinyiwei was also established, but this organization only existed for one year.