Zhu Yuanzhang was a founding emperor from a grassroots background, who lived a begging life since childhood, even when he was a monk. In the year of the Great Famine, the disaster relief grain distributed by the imperial court was embezzled by officials, causing his parents to starve to death. Therefore, after he ascended the throne of the emperor, once he discovered the phenomenon of official corruption and bribery, he would grit his teeth with hatred and shout from the heart: You bastards, you should all be killed! Everyone deserves it!
Emperor Hongwu (Hongwu, founding year of the Ming Dynasty, founded the capital Nanjing) was a man of violent personality, decisive killing, and indispensable. He is well aware that the internal relations of the ruling group are intertwined, and everyone is a human spirit. In particular, some of the emperor's relatives and state relatives think that they have the support of him, the emperor, and live a life of flying and domineering, spending days and wine, and fish and meat.
Zhu Yuanzhang naturally hated these ugly official customs, and in the second year of Hongwu, he cautiously declared to the Manchu officials: When I was a common people, I saw corrupt officials who did not care about the well-being of the people, and I hated them in my heart. From now on, legislation must be enacted to strictly prohibit it, and if any official dares to harm the people, he will be severely punished and will not be forgiven!
The emperor did what he said, and he issued the most stringent decree ever: officials who embezzle more than sixty taels of silver are decided! You must know that although the Ming Dynasty has just been founded, sixty taels of silver is not a large amount, from which we can see the determination of this monk who has just ascended the emperor's throne to purge corrupt officials.
With the written decree documents, he felt that they were not enough to shock people, and Zhu Yuanzhang also set up a shocking policy, that is, to set up "fur halls".
What is a Fur Hall? Once an official is executed for corruption, the skin of the corrupt official must be peeled off, and then straw is stuffed into the skin to make a scarecrow and placed on the public court. That is, it is placed next to the seat where the official hears the case. This is not intended to be visited or to intimidate the interrogated, but to deter officials who sit in public court. This means that the adjudicator should handle the case with a public mind, and you must not have the idea of taking advantage of it. Otherwise, you risk becoming a scarecrow next to you.
The first person to enjoy this cruel treatment was called Zhu Liangzu, Zhu Yuanzhang's old subordinate, and the founding general made great achievements. Being named Yongjiahou and guarding Guangzhou can be described as a high authority.
However, this person has a fatal weakness - arrogance and invincibility. At that time, the county order of Panyu County was an incorruptible official who offended the local tyrants and inferior gentry due to strict law enforcement. These inferior gentry bribed Zhu Liangzu, and this Yongjia Marquis joined them in a fit of anger and united to repair this county order. After several battles, the county commander was Yongjiahou's opponent and was eventually killed. However, this prefectural decree was also passed to the imperial court before he was killed.
When Zhu Yuanzhang found out the truth, he hated Zhu Liangzu to the bone and wanted to eat his flesh. But Zhu Liangzu was far away in Guangzhou and could not start for a while. After a while, Zhu Liangzu thought that the matter was too peaceful.
The officials of the Dali Temple came to Guangzhou to cut his military power and capture him in Beijing, armed with Zhu Yuanzhang's edict. At this time, Zhu Liangzu still felt that he was the founding hero of the country, and the emperor could not take him for a small county order. But when the officials of the Dali Temple brought his son into Beijing with him, he faintly felt that something was wrong.
Zhu Liangzu followed Zhu Yuanzhang to fight on the battlefield, and he knew his character: either don't do it, or do it if you want to do it! Sure enough, when Zhu Liangzu and his son were escorted to Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor did not ask a word, so he copied the whip by hand and directly moved his hand. He not only whipped himself, but also acquiesced to the surrounding guards whipping together, and poor Zhu Liang's grandfather and son were whipped to death alive. From the middle to the outside, from ancient times to the present, the emperor beat him to death with a whip in court, I am afraid that this is one person.
Zhu Yuanzhang still did not understand his hatred, and he ordered all the co-criminals to be arrested and taken to Beijing, and all of them were killed and skinned to make scarecrows. He also issued decrees providing for five types of punishment: flogging, roding, discipleship, exile, and death. However, the emperor was a master who played his cards out of the rules, and he used more than a few tactics to deal with corrupt officials and ministers who opposed him. There are several punishments that are too vicious and will be extremely uncomfortable after watching, so I will not introduce them all here.
However, in the face of these formidable death machines, officials are still "corrupt" and successors, living like a group of death squads, walking in droves under Zhu Yuanzhang's torture instruments.
During the Hongwu period, the Daming Dynasty continued to be corrupt, and Zhu Yuanzhang found that one killed another. According to relevant statistics, tens of thousands of officials at all levels were killed for corruption and bribery, and being an official was a high-risk industry at that time. Later, many prefectures were seriously short of staff, and there were no suitable officials available.
One year, 364 officials were sent to the same list to hold a concentrated meeting to study before leaving for office, and held a "study class" in the Gongyuan, where Zhu Yuanzhang personally taught the lecture, instilled the concept of honesty and honesty, and became a good official with integrity and conscience and a clear distinction between public and private.
A year later, six officials with halos on their heads were killed. This number makes people look at it, hey! Not bad, the progress is not small. In fact, there were also three hundred and fifty-eight people who were guilty of wearing the death penalty and exiling them in vain. That is to say, this group of specially trained officials is counted as one, and all of them are criminals. Because there was a serious shortage of staff in the Yamen, they were allowed to work in shackles and try cases. This is probably unheard of strange officialdom.
Throughout the anti-corruption storm during the Hongwu period, Zhu Yuanzhang could be regarded as painstaking, using all cruel means to rectify the officialdom, but with little effect and no effect. What is the reason for this situation? Later, many historians studied it. Most researchers believe that this is due to the low salaries of officials in the early Ming Dynasty, and the salaries are too small, and they want to make up for it with corruption and bribery.
In fact, the low salary is only a superficial phenomenon, and such a large-scale corruption cannot be possible with a low salary, and no matter how it is cracked down, it is getting worse.
In my humble opinion, there are three deep reasons for this.
First of all, the ancients read hard in order to enter the road of honor. And from the beginning of their studies, the education they received was "read and read, and the book has its own golden house." "Three years of Qingzhifu, ten thousand taels of snowflake silver." Very few people study to become officials for the sake of ideals, and the idea instilled in the whole mind is: if you are an official, you can get rich, and if you want to get rich, you have to be an official.
Secondly, in the journey of becoming an official, he did not think that corruption and bribery were a shameful thing, but felt that he was a person with skills, and it was very honorable to get silver. People's desires will swell with self-perception, such as today's drug traffickers, no drug trafficker does not know what consequences await them if they are caught. Despite the great risks, the mentality that it is possible to get rich at no cost or low cost motivates them to take risks, and this is the same reason.
Again, the political system of the feudal dynasty made this group of people unbalanced. The feudal royal family represented by Zhu Yuanzhang can live a life of spending time and drinking, arrogant and lascivious, so shouldn't those of us who are officials under you make a little fortune? Therefore, no matter what means Zhu Yuanzhang uses to fight corruption and promote clean government, it is a cure for the symptoms but not the root cause, and it will not play any role.
The failure of the anti-corruption storm during the Hongwu years should serve as a warning for everyone.
