The Peking opera "Yutang Spring" tells an ancient love story, Wang Jinglong, the son of the official Shangshu, and the famous prostitute Su San knew and fell in love, but Wang Jinglong later ran out of money, so he was driven out of the brothel by the old duck, and then the bustard cheated Su San to sell to the Shanxi merchant Shen Yanlin as a concubine, Shen's wife was jealous, and wanted to kill Su San, but unexpectedly let Shen Yanlin eat poisonous noodles by mistake and die, Su San was falsely accused and convicted of capital crimes. After Wang Jinglong was expelled by the old duck, he worked hard to be strong, obtained a meritorious name, and was appointed to the post of "Inspector of the Eight Provinces", patrol Shanxi, investigate the case, rescue Su San, and finally reunite the lovers.
The reason why everyone loves this type of historical drama is probably because the "Eight Houses Patrol" is not afraid of the powerful, enforces the law impartially, and ultimately eliminates harm for the people, and the grievances are revealed, and a large piece of the people's hearts is blocked. In fact, the official name of "Eight Provinces Patrol" did not exist in the Ming Dynasty, but because of the rise of ming and qing civic culture, literary works such as dramas and novels changed the inspection history to "Eight Provinces Patrol" in order to create needs, referring to the fact that the people regarded as clean and powerful officials.
So what happened to Inspector Goshi?
The imperial history system probably dates back to the idea of supervision in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. At that time, Han Feizi put forward the view that "Ming Zhi zhi officials do not rule the people" in his book "Han Feizi Wai Chu Said Lower Left", believing that "officials" were the top priority of monarchical governance, which had a major impact on the construction of the mainland's thousands of years of family rule model. The Qin Dynasty advocated the rule of law, created a special picketing of hundreds of officials, the Supervision and Inspection Agency, the Yushifu and Yushi System, and successively established a relatively independent and complete supervision and inspection system from the central to the local level. In the Han Dynasty, the imperial history system was further developed, and in the third year of the Han Hui Emperor (193 BC), the first specialized supervision regulation "Nine Articles of Supervision of Imperial History" appeared, and during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the first national local supervision regulation "Six Articles of Thorn History" was formulated in ancient times.
This heralded a milestone in the development of the imperial history system. In addition, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty set a precedent for the central government to send inspectors to inspect the localities, which is regarded as the earliest prototype of the Ming Dynasty's inspection system of imperial history. During the Wei and Jin dynasties, due to social turmoil and the decay of the scholarly clan, the development of supervision ideology reached a trough, and the effectiveness of supervision was weakened, but there were still enlightened people who had a full understanding of supervision ideology, such as liu Song, a lawyer of the Western Jin Dynasty, who proposed that the strengthening of supervision over officials should first lie in the unification and clarity of the law, so that there can be laws to follow and officials to abide by. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the authoritarian centralized political structure matured day by day, the three-province and six-ministry system was established and perfected, the local government implemented the three-level system of prefectures, counties, and counties, and the supervision system was truly independent. In the Song and Yuan dynasties, the supervision and legal system developed in depth, which accumulated indispensable strength for the emergence of the Ming Dynasty's patrol imperial history system.
The Ming Dynasty also inherited the institutional spirit of the supervision system of the previous dynasty. However, to establish the imperial history as a system, we have to start with Zhu Di. After Zhu Di succeeded to the throne, on the one hand, he was exempted from the corresponding tax burdens of shandong, Beiping, and Henan, which were plagued by the war, and other places, and on the other hand, he "dispatched Yushi to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of the world." To this end, he ordered the inspector, the inspector of the imperial history, and the chasi to "check that those who have been in office for more than half a year in the county of Fanfu Prefecture should be able to detect that they can be honest and corrupt, and have practical music", and in February of the first year of Yongle (1403 AD), "Yi Di, send the imperial history to tour the world, for customization" that is, to establish the system of patrolling the imperial history.
According to the "History of Ming", although the official rank of the inspector of the imperial history is only the seven products, which is equivalent to the current level of the Zhengxian regiment, that is, the inspector of the imperial history at that time, the official position is equivalent to the level of the zhengxian county, but its power is still very large. "And the inspector is to patrol on behalf of the Heavenly Son, and the ministers and county officials who are pressed to investigate, impeach and punish, and the big things are judged, and the small things are decided." According to the situation, the prisoner must first be interrogated, the case file shall be lifted, and those who have been in and out of the case shall be justified. Altars of sacrifice, save their walls and altars. Save the elderly, patrol the warehouse, check the money and grain, encourage the school, praise the good, remove the beetle, correct the customs, and revitalize the discipline. All dynasties will be ritualized and sacrificed. All political gains and losses, military and civilian interests, must be bluntly spoken. There are major policies, and the court of the Que court is preconsidered. It can be seen from this that the power of the inspector of the imperial history is very large, because the inspector of the imperial history is "the patrol of the heavenly son", so "the big things are decided, and the small things are decided"; "all political affairs are gained or lost, and the military and the people are ill," and they must speak bluntly and without avoidance", not only can impeach the offending officials, but also the emperor can give the power to directly try administrative officials, and to exercise substantive supervision over the prefectural and county roads and other yamen.
According to records, during the orthodox years, Han Yong inspected Jiangxi and deposed 57 corrupt officials, and when Li Gang inspected Zhejiang and other places, he impeached more than 400 corrupt officials. During the Jiajing period, Sejong wanted to tour the south, but the first assistant of the cabinet could not dissuade him, and the inspector said that the disaster in Chuzhong was serious, the people's hearts were floating, and they wanted to cause chaos, and finally made Sejong change his intention to tour the south.
It can be seen that the influence of the Ming Dynasty Inspector Yushi was extraordinary.
References: 1. History of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Tingyu Zhonghua Bookstore
2. "Ming Shilu" Ming Dynasty official Xiu Zhonghua Bookstore
3. History of the Development of the Supervision System in Ancient China, Jia Yuying People's Publishing House
4. "History of the Central Bureaucracy in China", Wang Chao, Shanghai People's Publishing House
5. "History of Honest Government System in Ancient China", Yu Huaqing Shanghai People's Publishing House