#点亮真知计划 #
At the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the various systems basically inherited the Yuan Dynasty, and after the rule was basically stable, Zhu Yuanzhang presided over the formulation of various systems in the political, military, economic, and legal aspects of the Ming Dynasty from the ideological and cultural aspects, with a view to strengthening the absolute monarchy and centralizing power and making the Ming Dynasty long-term peace and stability.
Ming Taizu's measures to strengthen the centralization of power began with the reform of the official system. In the ninth year of Hongwu (1376), Ming Taizu ordered that the province be changed to the Department of Political Envoys, whose chief was the Left and Right Envoys, and the previously established Department of Commanding Envoys and The Department of Punishment and Punishment, were in charge of local administration, finance, and prisons, and were not subordinate to each other, and were directly responsible to the imperial court. There are prefectures, prefectures, and counties under the Department of Political Envoys, which are basically unified counties in the province, which is more concise than the roads, prefectures, and counties under the provinces of the Yuan Dynasty. The reformers of the central bureaucracy were more drastic, and the biggest change was the abolition of the prime minister system.
Zhu Yuanzhang believed that the emperor's slackness in government and excessive power were an important reason for the rapid decline of the Yuan Dynasty, and in the thirteenth year of Hongwu (1380), he killed Hu Weiyong, the left chancellor of Zhongshu, on the grounds of rebellion, abolished the Zhongshu Province, abolished the system of xiangxiang, took care of the affairs of the world with six parts, and changed the yushitai into the Metropolitan Inspection Yuan, and set up six sections according to the six departments, and together with the thirteen imperial histories of the DuchaYuan, they were called the Section Dao Officials and were responsible for supervision. Later, due to the complicated government affairs, Zhu Yuanzhang imitated the Song system and set up a scholar of the DianGe University to consult with the secretary, and the Dian Ge bachelor was able to participate in the pre-flight maintenance.
Second, the military system with the Weishou system as the core is also an important manifestation of Zhu Yuanzhang's strengthening of centralized power. From the Beijing Division to the localities, there are guardhouses, about 5600 people are 1 guard, the chief is the commander, there are 5 thousand households under the jurisdiction, each thousand households has jurisdiction over 10 hundred households, and there are general banners and small flags under the hundred households. In the thirteenth year of Hongwu (1380), the Governor's Mansion was changed to the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies before and after the left, center, and right, to command all the guards (except for the pro-army) and the military department to hold the military power, the Five Armies Governor's Mansion did not directly command the troops, in wartime, the troops were transferred by the military department, and the military generals were elected as military generals, and after the war, the generals returned to the seal letter, and the soldiers returned to the guards.
In addition, Ming Taizu attached great importance to the cultivation of governing talents, and firmly exercised the power to select and promote officials in his own hands. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, he established the Guozi Academy (later renamed Guozijian) in Yingtian. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it also set up prefectural, state, and county schools in the localities, and there were also schools in the folk villages; in addition, there were also room schools opened by the children of the clan and martial arts for the children of military attachés, and so on.
Then, the reconstruction of the household registration and reconsideration system made Zhu Yuanzhang another important measure to strengthen the centralization of power At the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the household registration was scattered, and the conscription of conscription was inconvenient, Hongwu three years (1370) ordered the inventory of the national household registration, the creation of household stickers, Hongwu fourteen years (1381) and the establishment of the understanding system as a unified grass-roots management organization, and appointed the chief of the li and the head of the jia to manage, and was responsible for compiling the yellow book to register the household registration population. Later, a fish scale atlas was drawn to register the soil. Through the statistics of the two major elements of hukou and cultivated land, the Ming Dynasty formed a set of household registration and conscription management systems that were more detailed than in the previous generation, which played a huge role in consolidating the economic foundation of the authoritarian state.
In addition, the implementation of heavy rules to govern the country and strengthen legal rule under authoritarian authority also played a major role in strengthening the centralization of power in the early Ming Dynasty. Ming Taizu advocated toughness and severity for the government, and he said: I rule the chaotic world, and the punishment must be heavy. The Hu Weiyong case, the Blue Jade case, the Empty Seal case, and the Guo Huan case are the concentrated embodiment of his key governance of the country; these major cases have been denounced by many people, and to a certain extent, the goal of rectifying the rule of officials has been achieved, but on the other hand, perhaps many people have been unjustly killed, and the punishment is too harsh, which has caused a serious impact on society. At the same time as the Major Case, the Hongwu Period formulated a variety of codes and decrees that fully reflected the key political characteristics, such as the "Great Ming Law" and the "Great Curse".
Of course, in addition to severe punishment and harsh laws, Ming Taizu also adopted some moral and indoctrination measures to strengthen the control of society, especially the grass-roots people, such as restoring the ancient etiquette of respecting the elderly, selecting people with high moral standing in the countryside to preach laws and edicts, so that the people know the law and fear the law.
Finally, Ming Taizu's strict policy of cultural autocracy and the suppression of the literati's speech and ideology were unprecedentedly strengthened. Especially after he grew older, every time he was critical and picked up only a few words, so that the prison of words flourished for a while, Ming Taizu not only regarded himself as a monarch, but also pretended to be a teacher, trying to infiltrate his authoritarian authority into the field of culture and education, because he read mencius's ideas of disrespecting the monarchy, almost withdrew Mencius from the Temple of Confucius, and later ordered that all the remarks of Mencius that had a heavy people's color be deleted and designated as "Mencius Verses".
Zhu Yuanzhang rose from the humble beginnings, but was able to stand out among the heroes at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and rebuild his unification. During the thirty-one years of his reign, he devoted a great deal of energy to leaving a wealth of written canons for future generations, which were regarded as ancestral by the rulers of the Ming Dynasty and had a profound impact. Most of the emperors in the middle and late Ming Dynasty were indifferent to political affairs, and even did not look at the dynasty for decades, but they were able to maintain a reign of up to 280 years, largely due to the institutional construction of Zhu Yuanzhang in the early years of the Ming Dynasty.