In the Central Plains in 1328, Fengyang County in Anhui Province produced a famous ruthless man in China's five-thousand-year history, and he was Zhu Yuanzhang. Why is Zhu Yuanzhang a cruel person? From the orphan whose parents died, to the Hongwu Emperor who defeated the Yuan Dynasty, he went from having nothing at the beginning to sitting on the master of the world, which took only forty years.
And such outstanding achievements, for Zhu Yuanzhang's legendary life, is still only a simple prelude. His title of ruthless man is more reflected in the establishment of Daming. According to historical records, Zhu Yuanzhang hated corrupt officials very much throughout his life, liked to use torture, and often killed people, and died under his hands.
Killing corrupt officials is for the sake of the country's honesty, and killing heroes is for the sake of peace for the sake of peace for their children and grandchildren, but in daming's history there is such an "unlucky egg"; he is neither a meritorious official nor a corrupt official, but he has been very clean all his life, but he was castrated by Zhu Yuanzhang when he returned to his hometown.
1. Qing official Zeng Bingzheng
The name of this "unlucky egg" is Zeng Bingzheng, Zeng Bingzheng is not a big person in history, there are not many stories about him, no one has written a biography for him alone, and his name has only appeared briefly in the "History of Ming".
According to the Ming History, Zeng Bingzheng was only a Haizhou Xuezheng at the beginning. Xue is an official position of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, this official position is very small, and the Ming Dynasty belongs to the Jiupin official position, which is equivalent to the smallest and smallest official. Many people are easy to confuse it with the study and politics of the Qing Dynasty, but in fact, there is a clear difference between the two official positions.
The Qing Dynasty was a very large official position, in charge of a province's schools and examinations, with great power and authority, and was the official position of Zheng Sanpin, which was a rare existence in the Qing Dynasty's court. Many people who are not very proficient in history are extremely easy to confuse these two official positions, and when they see that Zeng Bingzheng is xuezheng, they think that he has done a very big official position.
Although Zeng Bingzheng was originally only a Haizhou Xuezheng with a nine-pin official position, he was roughly equivalent to today's university teacher. But Zeng Bingzheng has a high social status. In some wild histories, it is recorded that Zeng Bingzheng had strong personal ability and prestige, and in today's terms, a figure equivalent to a professor of Chinese language and literature at Peking University had a high social status.
Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang invited him to be an official after the founding of the Ming Dynasty, but Zeng Bingzheng was not a very profit-hungry person. As a person who had been reading sage books since childhood, Zeng Bingzheng did not pursue these desires, and finally only did Haizhou Xuezheng, although he slowly rose to the rank of envoy, but it was not Zeng Bingzheng's original intention.
As mentioned earlier, because Zeng Bingzheng is not a person with a desire for profit, he has no pursuit of money, and his life is very clean. There are many people who send money to Zeng Bingzheng, but Zeng Bingzheng has always been alone and does not charge a penny.
Second, the famous unlucky egg
And the question is reflected at this time, why is it that a person who was so incorruptible as Zeng Bingzheng was finally sentenced to castration? Is his incorruptibility all pretended? Or did Zhu Yuanzhang castrate him indiscriminately? Have you framed someone?
The above conjectures are not correct, first of all, Zeng Bingzheng's honesty is recorded in the history of the Ming Dynasty as the entire Daming at that time, secondly, Zhu Yuanzhang, although fierce in heart, but he was absolutely protective of the Qing officials, and finally, Zeng Bingzheng made friends with people all his life, and no one came to frame him. And the problem is that Zeng Bingzheng is too clean...
First of all, a clear concept is that under the strict control of Zhu Yuanzhang, the salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty were very large. Among the officials of the Nine Pins and Eighteenth Ranks of the Ming Dynasty, the most salaried were undoubtedly the Zheng Yipin Xiang and the like, but the annual Feng Lu was only a little more than a thousand stones. The county order of the seven products, the moon is also seven stones, equivalent to today's two thousand seven hundred yuan, which can be seen.
By the time Zeng Bingzheng came, the salary was even less, and it was only 79 stones a year, barely living. When he reached the level of Zheng Sanpin's envoy, Nian Lu was only a few hundred stones, although it was said that there were many more than before, but as a province, he still had a large number of people to support. Coupled with Zeng Bingzheng's very clean and honest life, his life was very difficult.
Zeng Bingzheng was very old and had been an official all his life, on the other hand, Zeng Bingzheng was very capable, but he was very pedantic, and in today's parlance, emotional intelligence was very low. He once accidentally angered Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang dismissed him from his official post in a fit of rage and let him go home.
And Zeng Bingzheng didn't have anything to do about it, and he didn't want to be an official, so he was ready to go home. But there is a real problem in front of Zeng Bingzheng. Money, Zeng Bingzheng had no savings in his life, and he could not even come up with the cost of the trip home.
This question was placed on other Zheng Sanpin officials who might have drunk a meal of wine and been happy once, and then squandered his travel expenses for an unknown number of times, but for Zeng Bingzheng, who had been incorruptible all his life, this money could cost him his old life.
Third, sell women back to their hometowns
Just when Zeng Bingzheng was worried about this travel expense, a helpless idea was placed in front of him. When he was an official, he saw many high-ranking officials raising boys and girls outside as playthings. And Zeng Bingzheng actually moved his crooked mind of selling his four-year-old daughter!
If this matter were put in the present, it is estimated that it would have been the crime of abducting women and children, and in ancient times, it would have been punished with more severe punishment. Moreover, his daughter was Zeng Bingzheng's own flesh and blood, and he actually made such a vicious plan for the sake of travel expenses.
Although Zeng Bingzheng also had countless grievances to say in his heart, it was reasonable that once this kind of thing was done, he would be punished by humanity and heavenly reason. Taking ten thousand steps back, the cause of this incident was also because he himself was too pedantic and angered Zhu Yuanzhang.
As the saying goes, there is no impermeable wall in the world, even if Zeng Bingzheng did this very secret, but there will always be people who find out, not to mention this kind of harmful thing. Sure enough, not long after, Zhu Yuanzhang learned of this matter and was furious. The fact that his own Zheng Sanpin master had actually done the act of selling his daughter was intolerable to him.
But Zhu Yuanzhang still had some sense, knowing that Zeng Bingzheng was incorruptible, but only sentenced him to corruption, that is, castrated him, which if it was exchanged for other corrupt officials, it might be the lightest beheading. On the other hand, Zhu Yuanzhang also redeemed Zeng Bingzheng's daughter and raised her well.
summary:
As a member of the Ming Dynasty's Zhengsanpin, Zeng Bingzheng's honesty is indeed an example worth learning, but his practice of selling his daughter for road expenses is indeed contrary to heaven and morality, and can be called a typical case of self-inflicted sins and inability to live.
On the other hand, Zhu Yuanzhang's approach, his governing philosophy is that officials should not have too much money, and vigorously control corruption, first of all, this is very correct. But what is incorrect is that the corruption of officials in the Ming Dynasty still exists, and it is sad that the truly incorruptible people want to sell their daughters for travel expenses.