In ancient China, anti-corruption was the top priority of all dynasties, but which period was the most vigorous? That must have been the time of Zhu Yuanzhang, who also became the most drastic emperor in Chinese history to implement anti-corruption measures.
Zhu Yuanzhang stipulated that if a local official embezzled or accepted more than 60 taels of bribes, he had to peel off the skin in front of the land temple, fill it with grass, and put it on the edge of the seat in the lobby of the official palace to remind the next official not to embezzle, which sounded creepy.
He not only used prison and severely punished, but also extrajudicated. If the crime is serious, the punishment shall be ink-faced tattoos, tendons, knees, fingers, severed hands, foot cutting, brushing, weighing rods, intestine pumping, tattooing, stabbing and stabbing the intestines, chopping, castration into slavery, tin snake swimming, beheading the yoke, the order of the shackle to be chopped, the order of the flail of the shackle, the travel of the shackles, the forced suicide, the beheading, the delay of ling, the exemption from sending elephants in Guangxi, the whole family confiscating the distribution of distant slaves, and the punishment of the clan.
Zhu Yuanzhang killed between 100,000 and 150,000 officials in the course of his anti-corruption campaign. For corrupt officials, it is called a ruthless, such a strict criminal law, then Zhu Yuanzhang's anti-corruption is considered a success? Compared with other periods, Zhu Yuanzhang's era was indeed less corrupt, but according to Zhu Yuanzhang's own standards, his anti-corruption campaign was far from achieving its goal.
From the first year of Hongwu to the nineteenth year of Hongwu (1368-1386), people were killed almost every day. Among them, the "Kongyin case" and the "Guo Huan case" were the largest, and as many as 780,000 people were wrongly killed in both cases.
Because of the excessive killings, none of the administrative officials in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Liangguang, and Fujian reached the end of their terms, and they were often demoted or killed before the final examination. In some Yamen, because too many officials were killed and there was no one to work, Zhu Yuanzhang had to implement the method of "wearing the death penalty and doing things in vain" and "beheading, hanging, apprenticeship, and exile in office," so that the criminal officials who had been sentenced returned to the public office in shackles. It's really a must!
Being an official in the Hongwu era was really an extremely dangerous profession. It is said that the emperor went to court every day, and if he put the jade belt high on his chest, he would kill fewer people on this day; If the jade belt is pressed low under the belly, a batch of people will be killed on this day, and the officials will be scared like earth. In this atmosphere of terror, both big and small officials are terrified, and they don't know when a catastrophe will come.
Legend has it that the Beijing officials at that time, every morning when they entered the dynasty, they would say goodbye to their wives, and when they returned home safely in the evening, they would celebrate with their families, and they were glad that they had survived another day. Originally, the most loving readers under the sky to be officials, at this time also regarded the career as a daunting path, some families have studious children, afraid of being known by the county, get to become officials, but told them to take a break from studying and farming; Some even self-mutilate limbs in order to avoid being forcibly recruited from the army.
The officials during Zhu Yuanzhang's period were the most unpleasant, and it can be said that among the emperors of the Chinese dynasties, Zhu Yuanzhang was the least angry with officials. The level of servitude he formulated was even lower than that of the Yuan Dynasty, and he mainly practiced "thin liquor" for ordinary officials, and there was a saying that "the thin official salary" was "the thinnest official salary".
Ming Dynasty Official 员俸禄有多低,Ming Dynasty Zheng 1 Product Annual Salary 1044 koku; 正二品732 koku; 正三品420 koku; 正四品288 koku; 正五品192 koku; 正六品120 koku; 正七品90 koku;正八品78 koku;正九品66 koku.
Convert the current money, a 7-grade official, less than 3000 a month, typical again want the horse to run, and the horse does not eat grass! Under such a harsh system, many officials cannot even maintain a normal life, or even have enough to eat, and have to take risks, which is why the more anti-opposition, the more greedy they are.
Hube Shangshu Teng Demao was reported as embezzlement, and Zhu Yuanzhang immediately executed him, and then opened Teng's stomach to see what was in the stomach of this corrupt official. But after opening it, I found that it was full of coarse grains and herbs, so I had to sigh ruefully: It turned out to be a big Qing official!
Zhu Yuanzhang clearly knew that there were many innocent people among the people he killed, but his principle was that "it is better to kill a thousand by mistake than to spare one." He wanted a pure and pure bureaucracy, insulated from corruption.
Although the intensity is so great, but Zhu Yuanzhang's desired vision did not appear, officials commit crimes, the same as the people, the prison that should be imprisoned, the exile who should be exiled, anyway, what you do will be punished, it is better to take advantage of it as soon as possible, enjoy the day is a day, so corruption incidents are still endless.
Putting aside Zhu Yuanzhang's own harsh standards, objectively speaking, Zhu Yuanzhang's iron-blooded anti-corruption campaign has indeed achieved great success in a short period of time, but judging from the long-term historical effect, Zhu Yuanzhang's anti-corruption campaign has failed.
After Zhu Yuanzhang's death, corruption developed rapidly, and Daming eventually became "one of the most corrupt dynasties" in Chinese history. In the face of corruption, Zhu Yuanzhang is too superstitious about violence, he has almost exhausted all kinds of means on the issue of anti-corruption In the issue of punishing corruption, he believes that violent intimidation can replace all other efforts, and believes that a world free of corruption can be created with a sword, but how can the truth be so simple!