There are many film and television dramas about the Ming Dynasty in China, and by watching these, we can find that many film and television dramas have the jinyiwei as an institution. The fire of "Under the Golden Dress" last year made many people have a great interest in the institution of Jinyiwei.
We can see from the play that the Jinyi Guard is an institution that makes the minister feel frightened. The Jinyi guards were highly skilled in martial arts, and they only obeyed the emperor's orders, and their first shot was bound to be a bloody rain. Why did such a powerful Jinyi guard completely disappear?
First, the origin of the Jinyi guard
The jinyiwei has been implementing the Ming Dynasty, and at the beginning the Jinyiwei was established by Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang was the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and the whole country had just experienced war and was in ruins. Shortly after Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, the situation was unstable, and Zhu Yuanzhang was suspicious of his own nature, so he established the Jinyi Guard.
He was afraid that the chancellor would have different intentions, so he selected elites from his own cronies to form the Jinyi Guard. These Guards only obeyed the Emperor's orders, and their main duties were to protect the Emperor's security and gather intelligence for the Emperor to deal with the ministers.
During Zhu Yuanzhang's time, the power of the Jinyi guards was above that of the ministers, they could cut first and play later, and once the ministers were targeted by the Jinyi guards, they could not live. At that time, the entire Korean situation was shrouded in the shadow of the Jinyi guards, and everyone was in danger.
With the gradual stabilization of the korean situation, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to abolish the Jinyiwei institution. However, Zhu Di gained the throne through rebellion, and he feared that the chancellor would disagree with him, and he restarted the jinyiwei institution, which continued until the fall of the Ming Dynasty.
Second, the fate of Jinyiwei
The power of the Jinyi guards is very large, and they control the life and death of the ministers. With the development of time, the power of the Jinyi guards became more and more powerful, and the institutions that restricted their rights almost did not exist, which also led to the emergence of many unjust, false and wrongly decided cases at that time.
In 1420, Zhu Di established the East Factory in order to restrain the Jinyiwei, and the East Factory and the Jinyiwei had the same responsibilities, and the two institutions played a role in mutual restraint and strengthened the centralization of power to a certain extent. The East Factory was mainly held by eunuchs around the emperor, whose power was above that of the Jinyi guards.
Due to the fact that several emperors at the end of the Ming Dynasty did not appoint eunuchs, the Ming Dynasty gradually declined, and although the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor, had the intention of reviving the Ming Dynasty, he could not restore the fortunes of the Ming Dynasty. In the end, Li Zicheng attacked the capital, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself at Coal Mountain.
After Li Zicheng attacked the capital, Jinyiwei's commander Shi Huyang put his own interests first and surrendered to Li Zicheng without hesitation. Later, when the Great Qing attacked the Ming Dynasty, he saw the wind and made the rudder surrender to the Great Qing.
However, there were still some Jinyi guards who were loyal and very backbone, loyal to the Ming Dynasty, and did not surrender with the camel, and most of them were killed in battle. Some of the remaining Jinyiwei and descendants of the Ming dynasty royal family fled to establish the Southern Ming, but it was not long before they were attacked by the Qing Dynasty, and since the Jinyiwei disappeared.
Third, the reason for the disappearance of the Jinyi guard
Hun Yang surrendered several times, and Daqing did not trust him very much, and tried to deprive him of his rights. Moreover, the existence of the Jinyi Guard brought panic to the people and the ministers, and in order to win the hearts and minds of the people, the Qing Dynasty cancelled the Jinyi Guard and changed it to Luan YiWei, but the person in charge of the Honor Guard had no real power.
A large part of the reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was due to the existence of the Jinyi Guards. Jinyi Wei made the imperial power unprecedentedly powerful, not constrained by the ministers, and the emperor acted willfully. Moreover, the power of the Jinyi guards was great, and their bad deeds caused the dissatisfaction of the people.
4. Summary
Jinyiwei was established as a starting point to strengthen imperial power, but in the end it accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty due to the lack of restraint. The Qing Dynasty learned its lesson and did not set up a jinyi guard, which completely disappeared since the fall of the Ming Dynasty.