During the Hongwu dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang killed more than 100,000 officials and Confucians, including many corrupt officials and misbehaved ministers, but also many princes, princes, prime ministers, and generals who were killed without guilt and became unjustly killed. In this way, what is the use of becoming the first hero? The birds are exhausted, and the good bow is hidden; The rabbit dies, the lackey cooks. Even a wise man cannot predict his own end.
Zhu Yuanzhang's mood was also contradictory, and at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he found that those heroes who followed him began to corrupt. In the twenty-fourth year of Zhizheng (1364), when he heard that some meritorious servants were bullying people, he quickly called Xu Da, Chang Yuchun and other meritorious servants and warned them: "It is not easy for you to follow me to this day, many of your servants are villains, they break the law and discipline and oppress the good, you should drive them away as soon as possible to save them from being burdened by them in the future."
In the third year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang made meritorious ministers and once issued them Danshu iron coupons, in addition to not pardoning for the major crime of rebellion, the meritorious heroes themselves and their families had several opportunities to avoid death. Where did it come to mind that the heroes who received the privilege of freedom from death misunderstood the emperor's original intention, and they became more fearless. For example, Fu Youde, the Duke of Yingguo, had thousands of acres of good land, and he was insatiable, and he still asked the emperor to grant him thousands of acres of land. Some meritorious officials privately served the officials and troops, evaded their errands, and cut down trees to build castle towers or private houses. The misdeeds of the heroes have intensified social contradictions.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born at the bottom of society, seemed to see the shadow of society at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, where officials and magnates oppressed the people, lawlessness and no one cared, and finally the officials forced the people to rebel, and finally the dynasty fell. The past is vividly remembered, how can the rivers and mountains that you worked hard and built from scratch die in one lifetime? He was familiar with history books, and often envied Liu Xiu, Emperor Guangwu of Han, Li Shimin of Tang Taizong, and Zhao Kuangyin, Emperor Taizong of Song, for their ability to preserve meritorious heroes and end well. To this end, he pondered how to warn these domineering heroes so as to preserve their wealth for the rest of their lives. After some thought, Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a special law for meritorious heroes - the iron list.
The iron list stipulates that if the prince's family relies on the power of others, embezzles the property of the field, and privately trusts the subordinates, and the death penalty shall be imposed. The iron list stipulates that meritorious heroes "commit the first offense, and the second offender will not be subject to death." "Freedom from death" means that the heroes of the first and second offenders are lenient and exempted from punishment, but they need to be recorded as evil in the iron coupons of the meritorious heroes.
Zhu Yuanzhang bitterly warned the meritorious heroes again and again to abide by the law, not to bully the people, and not to act illegally. Even though Zhu Yuanzhang taught and admonished so bitterly, many heroes still went their own way. For example, Huai'an Hou Hua Yunlong, during the period of defending Beiping, occupied the residence of Former Yuan Cheng Xiang, and privately seized the treasures of Former Yuan's court; Tang Shengzong, Marquis of Yan'an, blackmailed local Fan people in Longzhou, Guangxi; Lu Zhongheng, Marquis of Ji'an, cleverly seized and privately occupied people's land in Linqing; Wang Bi, Marquis of Dingyuan, usurped state taxes; Yongjiahou Zhu Liangzu harmed the place and framed the Qing official Daotong...
In the face of the fearless heroes, Zhu Yuanzhang clenched his fists, and for the stability of the Zhu family, he had to take action.
If we say that the "Blue Jade Case" in Hongwu's 26 years was a large-scale purge of military systems, then Hongwu's 8-year "Kongyin Case," Hongwu's 13-year-old "Hu Weiyong" case, and Hongwu's 18-year "Guo Huan Case" were all large-scale purges of non-military systems.
The fall of blue jade was mentioned earlier, and this article takes a look at the "empty seal case", "Hu Weiyong case" and "Guo Huan case" that are also the four major cases of Hongwu
The first major case: Hongwu's eight-year "empty seal case"
The Kongyin case occurred during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty. Empty seal is to stamp the document in advance, and then fill in the specific content when needed. This case received considerable attention from Emperor Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang at that time. Zhu Yuanzhang believed that officials could use blank document books to cheat, so those who used blank document books with official seals should be severely punished, because the large number of people implicated was a famous major case in the early Ming Dynasty.
According to the system in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court implemented the payment of taxes in kind, that is, the local government handed over grain to the household department. In order to prevent corruption among local officials, Zhu Yuanzhang specially stipulated that when local governments pay money and grain, in addition to sending personnel to supervise the transportation of grain, they must also prepare account books in advance to record the income and expenditure of money and grain.
Zhu Yuanzhang's idea is that if the account books are written in black and white, the counties, prefectures, provinces, and ministries will send grain from level to level, and check the number at each level, so that illegal acts such as withholding, embezzlement, and reselling of grain may occur in all links on the road from the county level to the central government.
But at the moment, the account book presented to Zhu Yuanzhang is strange because he only saw the seal of the local government, but did not fill in the amount of grain delivered. This made Zhu Yuanzhang feel frightened, if the official in charge of grain betting came to a "middleman to earn the difference" and underreported and filled in, then he could not hide the sky! In anger, he immediately sent people to thoroughly investigate the matter and demanded that all the local officials who came to Beijing to pay taxes and grain be controlled.
The "empty seal case," one of the four major cases in the early Ming Dynasty, broke out.
After inquiring and collecting evidence, the case-handling official summed up and reported the details of the empty printing case: In addition to this blank account book, most of the other officials who came to pay the money and grain also had this kind of blank paper in their hands. What's more, household officials have long been accustomed to this, taking empty account books to check money and grain and fill in data. This is like the "unspoken rule" that everyone in the Daming officialdom defaults to.
As we all know, Zhu Yuanzhang was from a bitter background. At a young age, due to the disaster at home, both parents died, and he was forced to run to the temple to become a monk. Later, due to chance, he was able to participate in the Red Turban Army uprising at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, attacked the world, and strongly counterattacked as the son of heaven.
Even as he grew up as an emperor, he still remembered his childhood experiences.
And the fundamental inducement for Zhu Yuanzhang and other heroes in the world to rise up against the Yuan is that there are no officials and no greed, resulting in the people at the bottom not having enough to eat.
According to historical records, at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, corruption and corruption reached the root. From the top of the Mongol aristocracy in the Yuan Dynasty down, officials were greedy. In order to ask people to take money, they cleverly set up the name of paying taxes and collecting more taxes, involving almost all aspects of the people at the bottom.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang established the Daming Dynasty, the evil atmosphere of the late Yuan Dynasty was still pervasive in the official field of the early Ming Dynasty, which was shocking.
Zhu Yuanzhang, who had always abhorred official corruption, immediately ordered that the "number one" of the local government in charge of Dayin be executed, and that his deputy be charged with 100 sticks.
For Zhu Yuanzhang's resolute "one-size-fits-all" verdict, the imperial court officials looked at it, but did not dare to say more than half a word. Because, they knew Zhu Yuanzhang's temper and means too well. Such unspoken rules of officialdom, which have been taken for granted, have been in operation for a long time, and you can imagine how many people are involved.
There are many doubts about the handling of the empty seal case, as well as the time of occurrence and the number of people killed. Whether the Kongyin case punished corrupt officials or indiscriminately killed innocents, there are also differences in the evaluation of Zhu Yuanzhang by later generations. Although the Kongyin case caused an uproar in the political arena in the early Ming Dynasty, compared with the other three cases, which were also four major cases, this was only a small test of Zhu Yuanzhang's ox knife.
The second case: Hongwu's thirteen-year "Hu Weiyong case"
In the first month of the thirteenth year of Hongwu (1380), Hu Weiyong claimed that Liquan gushed out of his old mansion, which was Xiangrui, and invited Zhu Yuanzhang to come and see it. Zhu Yuanzhang gladly went, and when he reached the Xihua Gate, the eunuch Yunqi grabbed the reins tightly, couldn't say anything, and desperately pointed to the Hu family. Zhu Yuanzhang felt that the situation was serious, and immediately returned, and when he boarded the palace city, he found that the sky above Hu Weiyong's house was dusty, and there were soldiers hidden in the walls.
Emperor Taizu of Ming accused Prime Minister Hu Weiyong of the Nine Clans for "plotting wrongdoing", and killed several people such as Chen Ning, Zhongcheng Tujie and others. Ten years later, in the twenty-third year of Hongwu (1390), Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated the "Record of Showing Traitors to the Party", and executed the founding heroes of the country, such as Li Shanchang, the prince of Korea, Lu Zhongheng, the late Duke of Teng, and the descendants of the late Duke of Teng for conspiring with Hu Weiyong. Later, Hu Weiyong Tongwo and Tongyuan (Northern Yuan) were used to investigate his henchmen, and killed more than 30,000 people before and after, which was called "Hu Prison" at the time. Li Shanchang suffered the most, nearly 80 years old, not only was he given death, but also condemned by the clan.
Hu Prison was an extremely brutal political persecution that encompassed almost the entire court officials. The Hu Weiyong case became the most typical example of ancient Chinese emperors killing meritorious figures. The charges in Hu Weiyong's case are extremely exaggerated, including many Ming officials, ministers, and Yuan Yuan, as well as Hu Weiyong's family and friends, in addition to Hu Weiyong. The far-reaching impact of this political persecution not only affected the political atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty, but also profoundly affected the authoritarian system in Chinese history.
Hu Weiyong was the prime minister for seven years, and he was in power and chaotic government, which made Zhu Yuanzhang feel that he was sidelined with great power, and he had no choice but to cut it off. The so-called Hu Weiyong case was just an excuse to resolve the contradiction between the power of the monarch and the power of the king, and the result was the complete abolition of the prime minister system. After getting rid of Hu Weiyong, Zhu Yuanzhang dismissed the prime minister and abolished Zhongshu Province, which was based on six parts, and later set up a palace scholar for the emperor as an adviser, and Zhu Yuanzhang ended the Chinese chancellor system and set up a cabinet for the emperor as an adviser. The power of cabinet scholars is not as good as that of the prime minister, and only the power of "votes" is sent to the eunuchs first, and then the eunuchs present them to the emperor, strengthening the autocratic imperial power.
The Hu Weiyong case and the Lanyu case were collectively known as Hu Lan's Prison, and they were destroyed until the end of the twenty-fifth year of Hongwu (1392), when Zhu Yuanzhang finally leveled his power before the emperor and grandson.
The third major case: Hongwu's eighteen-year-old "Guo Huan case"
Who is Guo Huan? A Tobe squire (i.e., the deputy minister who manages finance and taxation) who has been working for less than a year. What is different is how he achieved huge corruption in a very short period of time? A corruption case triggered by him implicated 12 administrative departments and six central ministries across the country, involving tens of thousands of people, causing a shock to the whole country.
Zhu Yuanzhang also swept away the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty through this case, achieving his prestige as an iron-blooded emperor. After this corruption case, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the capital numbers of one, two, and three to one, two, and three in order to prevent officials from arbitrarily tampering with the amount of the accounts, which had a great impact on future generations.
This is the Guo Huan case, one of the four major cases of Hongwu. How did this case come about and how was it investigated?
In the eighteenth year of Hongwu (1385), not a single grain was submitted to the treasury in the five prefectures, including Yingtian and Zhenjiang.
These places were Zhu Yuanzhang's base for pacifying the world, and he supported Zhu Yuanzhang's army in the southern and northern wars for a long time during the war years. Zhu Yuanzhang never forgot this kindness, and after he came to the throne, he exempted all the civilian land in the region from summer taxes and autumn grain. The people's land is completely exempt from taxes and grain, but there are still hundreds of thousands of mu of official land in the local area, where does the grain collected from the official field go?
The details involved in the grain collection corruption case caused by Yingtian and Zhenjiang prefectures and prefectures are very complicated, but the ultimate direction of this case is tied to one person, that is, Guo Huan, the attendant (vice minister) in charge of grain collection work in the household part. The result determined by the case-handling personnel was that local officials Zhang Qin and others colluded with Guo Huan, a household attendant, to privately divide all the taxes and grain that should have been put into the warehouse.
How much bribes did Guo Huan take and how much official food was stolen? According to Zhu Yuanzhang's statement in "The Great Truth", Guo Huan and others even embezzled and stole official grain and destroyed it with water within a few years, causing the Ming Dynasty a loss of 24 million stone grain, which was equivalent to the annual income of the entire country at that time. In the face of such shocking figures, Zhu Yuanzhang was extremely angry. He immediately ordered Jinyiwei to track down the relevant personnel in this case, find out where the bribes came from, and ordered Wu Yong of the Criminal Trial Department to preside over the case.
The corruption and bribery of Beijing officials such as Guo Huan and Wang Zhi was the source of the scourge, and it was difficult for local officials to escape the blame for their crimes. As for the false output value exaggerated by the local government, Zhu Yuanzhang no longer went to the bottom of it. As for the losses caused by this case, Zhu Yuanzhang sent people to various places to recover the stolen goods.
There are policies and countermeasures, and Zhu Yuanzhang described the countermeasures of local officials at that time in the "Great Order". For example, Liu Rulin, the judge of Kaizhou Prefecture, a daimyo prefecture, knew that the official Luo of the prefecture had deposited 17,000 stolen money from Li, but he issued a notice asking the people to apportion the stolen money from household to compensation. It can be seen from this that the local officials did not spit out the stolen money, but once again passed the deficit to the heads of the common people.
Zhu Yuanzhang was extremely angry and sent a message: Many local officials took this opportunity to collect the people throughout the county, which was equivalent to collecting an additional tax. Of the total amount of taxes collected, about one percent is enough to compensate for the stolen money, and the rest goes into one's own pocket, and the original collection of stolen money is naturally his own. He called on the elderly from all localities to go to Beijing to expose the criminal facts of the local officials, and resolved to severely punish the officials at all levels and the rich people implicated in the case.
At this point, this case is no longer a matter of Guo Huan and several main criminals, but Zhu Yuanzhang's investigation of Guo Heng's party will be launched nationwide. In order to ensure that the elimination of evil is exhausted, Zhu Yuanzhang followed the harsh route of "it is better to kill a thousand by mistake than to let one slip through the net." For him, the operation of bloodless power could not guarantee the long-term peace and stability of the Ming Dynasty.
Under strict investigation, Zhu Yuanzhang soon discovered that almost all the officials of the six ministries had become Guo Huan's accomplices, of course, this result should have been able to think of by Zhu Yuanzhang beforehand. The officials involved included Wang Zhi, an attendant of the Ministry of Military Affairs (Ministry of National Defense), Shangshu Zhao Yao of the Ministry of Rites (Lifa), Wang Huidi of the Criminal Department (Ministry of Justice), and Shilang of the Ministry of Works (Ministry of Construction).
The founding emperors of successive dynasties hated corrupt officials, especially Emperor Taizong of Ming, who was born poor, his parents died since childhood, and the people forced by officials in the late Yuan period to live in poverty, only then joined the rebel army and achieved the rule of the world. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang was extremely compassionate to the people, but very harsh on officials, and the low morality of Ming officials was also notorious. In addition, soon after the world was stable, some of the official vices left by Yuan still existed, which bred a large number of corrupt officials. If the Kongyin case is controversial, then Guo Huan's case is the biggest corruption case in Daming.
Through the four major cases, especially the Hu Weiyong case, which affected for ten years, Zhu Yuanzhang almost eradicated the meritorious heroes, and unified the imperial power, showing the ruthless nature of the emperor in killing. The so-called bird's bow and hide, Hu Weiyong's dictatorship, and blue jade's domineering are all challenges to imperial power. If Zhu Biao can still take the throne, but Zhu Biao is dead, and the young lord succeeds to the throne, for the future of Daming, the emperor will clear the way with decisive measures. It turned out that his strategy was correct, and although Zhu Di came to power, his surname was Zhu.