Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty learned the lesson of the demise of the Yuan Dynasty, and when he came to the throne, he warned his courtiers:
"The great cause has just been settled, the people of the world are not living, the most important thing is to restore vitality, but only honest and honest people can unite and benefit the people, you must remember this."
Zhu Yuanzhang took honesty and honesty as his own responsibility, and through studying and summarizing, he formed a relatively complete system of honesty and corruption. Although this system showed some strength in the early years of Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, it did not completely reverse the decline of the entire imperial court.
1. The building of Zhu Yuanzhang's clean government system
(1) Multi-level and all-round institutional construction
1. Establish an independent oversight mechanism.
In the 13th year of Hongwu (1380), Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the Yushi Tai and established a new body, the Supervisory Yuan, which was responsible for the supervision of the whole country and supervised the officials of the six ministries. In the local area, it is also called the governor, and there are thirteen governors under it, which are not subordinate to the local government, but directly subordinate to their chiefs.
This system has greatly helped the Supervision Department, and the 13 Supervision Departments can directly supervise their own direct organs, the Metropolitan Inspectorate, which shows their strong independence.
2. Establish a vertical monitoring system.
In Middle-earth, Zhu Yuanzhang not only established the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office, but also set up six Imperial Offices, which were relatively independent anti-corruption agencies and institutions that reported directly to the emperor. Although the status of the imperial history is not high, if they feel that their work is not done well, they can still be directly impeached. The government is under the supervision of the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office, which in turn is supervised by thirteen Metropolitan Prosecutor's Yuan, which checks and balances each other, thus forming a three-tier supervision system in the central government, with the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office as the core, and the six ministries to the government and the supervision of the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office.
Zhu Yuanzhang set up thirteen local inspectors, each of whom independently enforced and supervised the areas under his jurisdiction, while the administrative agencies of other regions did not interfere with law enforcement in those areas. In addition, the central authorities appoint inspectors to inspect various localities, which are called supervision envoys. Inspectors were set up in various places to supervise the emperor and the Metropolitan Prosecutor's Office. In addition, the governors and chief executives of the provinces also have supervision duties for officials in their own regions and departments, so a three-dimensional four-fold anti-corruption network has been formed in the local area, consisting of supervising the imperial history, inspecting the imperial history, provincial-level inspectors and local governors. It can be seen that the state supervision system during the Ming Dynasty has developed to its heyday, and it is unprecedentedly strict.
3. About "rumors" and secret service rule.
Zhu Yuanzhang played a positive role in the inheritance and development of Song Shenzong's decree of "wind and rumors." Although the Ming Dynasty's Control Yuan was not high-level, it had great power and enjoyed the power to "hear and hear". Anything involving state affairs, whether big or small, can be attended or reported in rumors, but there must be evidence to prove it. The Imperial Inspector could report directly to the Emperor without being bound by any institution or official. And the integration of "wind and rumors" with the special agencies was even more by Zhu Yuanzhang.
Zhu Yuanzhang also set up a janissary camp in the palace, and the duty of these two institutions was to "supervise the crimes committed by officials in Beijing and Central China and the gossip they heard." "Anything about an official, even some gossip, can be secretly reported to His Majesty by the relevant personnel.
4. Remittance report system.
Zhu Yuanzhang set up a whistleblowing system in the Great Edict, which clearly stipulated that any official who committed corruption and breached the law could be escorted to the local supervision office to be tried by a well-known local person, and could also be reported to the local governor. In cases where it is unacceptable to the local supervisory authority, a report may be made to a higher authority. Moreover, no one can stop it, and whoever stops it is the culprit, and there is no amnesty for killing. This system has greatly increased people's enthusiasm for regulation and reduced their exposure to attacks and reprisals.
(2) Strict and severe punishment laws
Zhu Yuanzhang was the first person to achieve a law to follow by enacting laws such as the "Great Ming Law" and the "Four Parts of the Great Decree." In the Criminal Law of the Great Ming Law, Zhu Yuanzhang specifically stipulated the provisions on official corruption, and made specific provisions on his crimes of embezzlement and bribery, embezzlement and dereliction of duty, and ignorance of government affairs. The Fourth Part of the Great Curse contains more than 100 articles on corruption.
Because the most hated thing in Zhu Yuanzhang's life was official corruption, he punished officials very heavily, such as: "Corrupt officials, seventy, eighty, hanging." "Zhu Yuanzhang has zero tolerance for these corrupt officials, and as long as he finds them, they will be beheaded, or they will be delayed, and then skinned and exposed to the wilderness, so as to deter and warn future generations." ，
(3) Promote a social atmosphere of extensive participation in supervision
Zhu Yuanzhang came from a poor background and never received a good education, but he knew that in this era, Confucianism had a great influence on corruption. Therefore, he put Confucian moral education at the top of the fight against corruption, highlighted Confucius's "way of benevolence", and included the "Great Ming Law" and the "Four Parts of the Great Teachings" into the compulsory courses of the imperial examination, and asked teachers to explain the relevant laws to students, so that students can understand these laws and lay the foundation for future careers.
Zhu Yuanzhang also ordered that local officials should convene a nationwide meeting twice a year to popularize relevant laws and regulations to the people and enhance their concept of the legal system. In addition, affirmation booths were set up throughout the country to show responsibility and punishment for corrupt officials, so that the people had an impression that the imperial court severely punished corrupt officials. When Zhu Yuanzhang severely punished corrupt people, he also hyped the deeds of several honest people, trying to give them positive guidance and set a good example for them, so as to promote a good social custom.
Second, the factors of the failure of the Ming system to fight corruption
Despite Zhu Yuanzhang's stricter decrees, many officials were willing to risk being killed and skinned for corruption, and in the Ming Dynasty alone, more than 100,000 officials were executed for corruption. Even Zhu Yuanzhang himself couldn't help but sigh: "Kill and offend." ”
So why did Zhu Yuanzhang's "near-perfect" system of institutional corruption fail? Zhu Yuanzhang's system, in addition to the greed and luck in human nature, there are many problems, let's do some simple analysis.
(1) Officials' assets are not transparent
The British historian Acton once said, "Power corrupts man." "In the Ming Dynasty and China's feudal society, many officials were from wealthy families, and their wealth was very rich, so the only way to determine whether their wealth was their own, their family's, or received, was to make all their wealth public, so that everyone knew their wealth and property, so that they could know whether their spending exceeded their income, and thus know whether they were corrupt."
Zhu Yuanzhang had made many attempts, but he was helpless about this matter. This is also an inherent drawback of the mainland's traditional anti-corruption system. Therefore, without a complete financial reporting system for civil servants and a financial information disclosure system for civil servants, the effectiveness of anti-corruption will be greatly reduced.
(2) Officials are low-ranked
Zhu Yuanzhang's administration was based on "a gentleman being an official" and "a gentleman ruling the country", making the Ming Dynasty the dynasty with the worst treatment of civil officials in all generations. A prefect of the seventh grade has a monthly salary of 7,500 taels of silver, which is 2,500 yuan according to the current price. Moreover, their salaries are also discounted, that is, they are exchanged for rice with paper money, physical goods, silver, and the discounted price is much cheaper than on the market, and they can only feed themselves.
Because of the system, such as masters, accountants, servants, janitors, scribes, etc., they all rely on the prefects to make ends meet, and wages alone are far from enough. As a prefect, he wanted to socialize and make friends, all of which required money, which forced him to use other means to fill the gap.
In those days, when a person became an official, one person could support a family, in our country, there is a saying that "thousands of miles to be an official only for money", if there is no benefit, who will drag a family for money, thousands of miles to run here to become an official?
(3) Some systems are not very operable
Zhu Yuanzhang once ordered that if someone saw corrupt officials, they could take their elders and bring them to the Control Yuan, but China has been a country of honor for officials since ancient times, and the people are naturally afraid of the government, and the concept of "not being an enemy of the government" has become deeply rooted, and few people will stand up against the government. Coupled with the hidden and small-scale nature of corruption and bribery, the people do not understand their living and property conditions, which makes the excellent mechanism of "mobilizing the masses against corruption" not be implemented in practice.
(4) The system of "wind and smell" that changes taste
In the Ming Dynasty, the power of supervision officials, which was mainly characterized by "rumors and rumors", received a very good role at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. However, over time, many supervisors will inevitably exaggerate the problem for the purpose of gaining attention, pursuing mavericks, and pursuing meritorious achievements, and some will create something out of nothing, setting off an uproar, and some will slander or even personally attack the fold.
In the early Ming Dynasty, Yu Yuren, a commentator of Dali Temple, wrote an article entitled "Four Proverbs of Wine and Wealth", accusing the early Ming Dynasty of incompetence, cruelty, lecherousness, faintness, and uselessness. This is true for the emperor, not to mention other ministers, in the late Ming Dynasty, these inspectors were caught in partisan and regional disputes, they would fight another faction for their own faction, they would raise the flag for their faction, they would not hesitate to distort the facts, reverse black and white, all this became a weapon for ministers to fight for power, and had lost the original intention of supervision and impeachment, but their supervision system has not improved.
(5) The degeneration of the group of officials
In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang pursued a policy of "righteousness but disadvantage", granting Shidafu a policy of "righteousness without wealth", and granting Shidafu a small salary, a practice that continued until the end of the Ming Dynasty. Especially in the coastal areas of Jiangnan in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, it has been greatly developed.
With the development of the economy, every level of society has been affected, and the atmosphere of the whole society is undergoing tremendous changes. As far as the official class is concerned, it has also been profoundly affected by the overall social atmosphere, and many people are unwilling to be unwilling to suffer and rely on their own power to supervise and supervise officials, brazenly soliciting bribes, buying and selling for profit. At the beginning of Chongzhen's reign, when Yang Zhiqi was in charge of the household department, "he never gave money according to the routine, and when the people were in difficulty, he ran to Yamen and accepted bribes in the name of eliminating violence and Anliang, and in the name of officials."
In order to conduct an investigation of local officials, Yang Zhiqi came to the door to ask for some benefits. If he did not hand it over, he would go directly to the door to blackmail him and rate him as inferior to intimidate local officials. The officials of the 13th Supervision Department had to bow down at the door to greet them, and the officials in the supervision departments were even more domineering and greedy, which shows how low the status of the supervision envoy is.
Author's conclusion:
It can be seen from the clean governance established by Zhu Yuanzhang that this political system has reached its peak in Chinese history. However, due to the complexity of anti-corruption methods and historical limitations, the system has not been effective in curbing the spread of bureaucratic corruption.
How can corruption be reduced? Only by continuously compressing the power of the government and officials, transforming its management function into a service function, putting all work on the bright side, supervised by everyone, truly "serving the people", and strengthening the punishment of corruption and bribery, so that corrupt officials pay an unbearable price, can we fundamentally curb people's greedy desire, so as to achieve the effect of a clear and honest government.
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