Dongchang is probably the most well-known secret agency in Chinese history, and there is no one.
It is powerful, it is controlled by eunuchs, and it is only responsible for the emperor alone, and it has a huge deterrent effect on all officials of the entire Ming Dynasty.
But under the East Factory, the most repressed people are probably not the bureaucrats or ordinary people, but the "Jinyiwei", who is also listed as a famous secret agency with it.
In fact, it is precisely because of the existence of the East Factory that Jinyiwei has been subordinated to the East Factory for two hundred years.
If you think about it, you can understand it, after all, compared to the eunuchs, who have no fertility and no heirs, Jinyiwei is more or less a normal person, and the level of trust brought to the emperor will actually be lower.
Because the eunuchs have no descendants, it means that their power cannot be inherited, and they are completely dependent on the reward of the imperial power, so the threat to the imperial power is not so great.
However, some of the official positions of Jinyiwei can be inherited through father and son, and the imperial power is easy to get out of control in this regard and bring trouble to himself.
So from this point of view, even if Jinyiwei also exists as the emperor's direct department and power weapon, it is weaker than Dongchang in terms of overall favor, which seems to be inevitable.
However, there are always exceptions to everything, in the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, there was such a commander of the Jinyi Guard, who was in charge of the Jinyi Guard as the emperor's most trusted person for nearly 20 years.
During his tenure, the position of Jinyiwei firmly surpassed that of Dongchang, and he became the most prominent Jinyiwei chief in the entire history of the Ming Dynasty.
Even after his death, he set a record and became the first "Three Dukes" and "Three Gus" in the Ming Dynasty.
This person is Lu Bing during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty.
Win at the starting line
Speaking of which, Lu Bing's family background is also inseparable from Jinyiwei.
His grandfather used to be a hereditary officer of Jinyiwei, and his father, who later inherited his grandfather's official position and became a member of Jinyiwei, it seems that Lu Bing is destined to be involved with Jinyiwei.
But if it is only the official position of Jinyi Wei inherited by the family, it is actually impossible for Lu Bing to achieve the achievements of the annals of history, and he really wins at the starting line, relying on "fighting mother".
It turned out that Lu Bing's mother was the wet nurse of Emperor Jiajing.
Here we want to popularize a system of the Ming Dynasty, that is, generally speaking, members of the clan or royal family of the Ming Dynasty, after the birth of their offspring, will rarely directly feed with the breast milk of their biological mothers, but will hire special nurses from outside the palace or the palace to feed them.
The core reason for this is mainly to cut off the possibility of foreign relatives interfering in politics.
After all, if the biological son cannot be fed by the biological mother, it will make the child and the mother feel psychologically alienated from each other, so that the child will not have too much affection for the maternal relatives in the future, and will not be reused after having power.
Based on this status quo, the relationship between Lu Bing and Jiajing has brought a blessing.
Just imagine, when he was a child, Jiajing, who had not yet become an emperor, was raised by Lu Bing's mother, and Lu Bing himself was by Jiajing's side all day long, Emperor Jiajing in his youth would inevitably regard Lu Bing as his only playmate, and the friendship between the two can be said to have been established since childhood
Psychologically speaking, the feelings of teenagers are the most trusting for people.
So later, after the death of Emperor Zhengde, Emperor Jiajing unexpectedly inherited the throne, and when he came to Beijing, he naturally regarded Lu Bing as his only confidant.
After all, Emperor Jiajing, as the cousin of Emperor Zhengde, has a natural disadvantage in the succession to the throne, and it is not even very legitimate.
In this case, he needs a confidant to be by his side and face the pressure and challenges with him.
And more importantly, Lu Bing himself is from the Jinyiwei family, and compared with directly arranging Lu Bing into the civil service, it is more reasonable and logical to arrange to take the Jinyiwei route, and it is easier for Lu Bing to help Emperor Jiajing master the court.
After all, Jinyiwei is also a secret organization that does not follow the death process, right? With this level of identity, it will be easier for Jiajing to deal with the opposition.
In this way, Lu Bing took root in the ranks of Jinyiwei, starting from a low-level officer, and step by step to the position of a middle- and high-ranking Jinyiwei official.
Especially in the eleventh year of Jiajing, Lu Bing was admitted to the Wujinshi by virtue of his own ability, for a department like Jinyiwei, which is full of illiterate people, with the identity of a Wujinshi, it is easier for Lu Bing to gain prestige and obedience within Jinyiwei.
After all, the Ming Dynasty also said that "everything is inferior, only reading is high", and Wu Jinshi is also a Jinshi.
Finally, in the seventeenth year of Jiajing six years later, Lu Bing, who had excellent qualifications and status, was appointed by Emperor Jiajing as the commander of Jinyiwei, became the leader of Jinyiwei, and completely controlled the entire Jinyiwei.
And an incident that happened in the second year confirmed Jiajing's trust in Lu Bing.
In the eighteenth year of Jiajing, Emperor Jiajing toured south, arrived at the place of Weihui City, Henan Province today, the result was a coincidence, one day in the middle of the night, the palace where Emperor Jiajing lived had a fire, in the face of the fire, the people around Jiajing were panicked, seeing that the flames were burning, they were going to threaten Jiajing's life, but they didn't know what to do.
Only Lu Bing made a quick decision and plunged into the palace where Emperor Jiajing lived, and rescued Emperor Jiajing, who was almost burned to death, from the fire.
I believe that at this time, Lu Bing's heart may not be loyal to Jiajing as the emperor, I am afraid that Jiajing is more regarded as the best partner in his childhood, and because of this incident, Jiajing's trust in Lu Bing is higher.
But "blessings and misfortunes depend on it", and because of this trust, Lu Bing will also take more risks and face more challenges in the next political struggle.
Bring down Xia Yan and fight against Qiu Luan
In fact, according to common sense, Lu Bing, as a brocade guard, should be very unpopular with the civil official group, after all, their duty is to catch the pigtails of the civil official group and try them outside the judicial system.
But in fact, Lu Bing was an exception, and during his tenure as the commander of Jinyiwei, Jinyiwei had a very good relationship with the civilian clique.
The most fundamental reason for this is that Lu Bing deliberately has a good relationship with the civilian clique, and uses this method to make his image better in the civilian clique.
For example, Xia Yan, the most trusted Shoufu in the early days of Emperor Jiajing's reign, became a big help for Lu Bing in the civil official group.
In fact, Xia Yan is not a "good man", he has always been known for his hard temper and ruthlessness in the entire court of the Ming Dynasty, Lu Bing can have a way to have a good relationship with Xia Yan, and even let Xia Yan often say good things about him and value him, which shows that Lu Bing's emotional intelligence is very high.
It's a pity that the good relationship between Lu Bing and Xia Yan didn't last long.
In the twenty-sixth year of Jiajing, Huguangdao tried to learn from Chen Qixue and publicly impeached Lu Bing for corruption, and when Lu Bing learned of this, he personally went to Xia Yan and gave him 3,000 taels of gold.
In the end, it was Emperor Jiajing who personally intervened and interfered with the verdict, allowing Lu Bing to escape.
This situation directly confused Lu Bing: "Aren't I buddies with you?
Lu Bing simply didn't do anything and colluded with Yan Song.
The purpose of the two people is the same, that is, to bring Xia Yan down.
The opportunity is coming, in the twenty-seventh year of Jiajing, the then squire of the military department, the famous general Zeng Mill, who was on the front line to fight against Mongolia all the year round, put forward a proposal to the imperial court to "recover the Hetao", and Xia Yan also supported this suggestion.
But Emperor Jiajing was unwilling to bother spending money on this matter, so he had a conflict with Xia Yan.
Lu Bing and Yan Song seized this opportunity, and first slandered Zeng Mo for losing a battle on the battlefield and not reporting it to the imperial court, and the reason for the defeat was that he deducted military salaries.
Then he implicated Xia Yan in this matter, saying that Xia Yan had already discussed with Zeng Mo that he wanted to form a party together to deceive Jiajing.
Emperor Jiajing has always been highly sensitive to power, and he first trusted Xia Yan because Xia Yan had a bad personality and couldn't get along with other cabinet officials.
This is an advantage for Jiajing, because in this way, he is not worried that Xia Yan will cover the sky with one hand, Lu Bing is keenly aware of Jiajing's core idea, so he used the crime of "forming a party" to finally kill Xia Yan and let him be sentenced to beheading.
A few years later, another general, Qiu Luan, was also favored by Jiajing, and similarly, Qiu Luan, after gaining Jiajing's trust, despised Yan Song and Lu Bing.
Lu Bing sensed this, and once again united with Yan Song to find a way to bring down Qiu Luan.
This time, Lu Bing used his identity as the commander of Jinyiwei to order Jinyiwei to investigate all the negative news related to Qiu Luan, and finally collected a lot of evidence of his illegality.
It happened that Qiu Luan was seriously ill at this time to recuperate, and Lu Bing passed the evidence to Emperor Jiajing, who knew that during this time period, even if Qiu Luan knew about his behavior, it would be difficult to drag his sick body to compete with him.
In this way, Lu Bing hit a time difference, and Qiu Luan learned about it and was scared to death.
After Qiu Luan's death, Emperor Jiajing used the evidence given to him by Lu Bing to completely liquidate Qiu Luan and open his coffin and kill his body.
In fact, it is said that Jiajing is most likely clear about Lu Bing's power-grabbing behavior, but Jiajing did not hold Lu Bing accountable for this.
The reason here is that, on the one hand, the relationship between Jiajing and Lu Bing is here, Jiajing himself trusts him very much, and can even be said to rely on his friendship with Lu Bing, after all, only Lu Bing can make him feel that he is not a "lonely person".
On the other hand, Jiajing also needs a real cronie like Lu Bing to monitor what the court is doing for himself, so that he can be a behind-the-scenes operator with peace of mind.
Therefore, Jiajing not only did not liquidate Lu Bing because of these political struggles, but reused him even more.
So much so that Lu Bing, the commander of the Jinyi Guard who is not a civil official, was promoted to Taifu Jia Shaobao, that is, the two types of official positions mentioned at the beginning of our article, "Three Princes" and "Three Gus".
You must know that these two types of official positions belong to the top honorary positions in the Ming Dynasty, and generally speaking, they are only awarded to serious imperial examination officials who have died of illness and have made great contributions.
And Lu Bing, as the head of the secret police under the emperor, was able to be awarded these two official positions at the same time when he was alive, and Emperor Jiajing's favor for him can also be seen.
It's just that Lu Bing's good luck will last forever?
It is known in life, but it is not known after death
Contrary to the image of a "traitorous villain" in our impression, although Lu Bing is deeply favored by Jiajing and also participates in political struggles, in fact he is not the kind of traitor who does nothing at all, or only does bad things.
For example, in the 32nd year of Jiajing, Lu Bing once built the outer city wall of Beijing, and gave six repair suggestions: "expanding infrastructure, building buildings, collecting husband service, increasing work and food, strict rewards and punishments, and giving medicine".
This incident laid an important foundation for the later defense against the Mongol Altan forces.
And Lu Bing's Wujinshi is not in vain, he does have real material in the military, in the thirty-seventh year of Jiajing, the border town of Datong was besieged by Altan Khan, Lu Bing reported to Emperor Jiajing for the first time, and personally led people to support, and finally drove away Alta and defended the border security of the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, as a military attaché, Lu Bing is at least qualified, and can even be said to be excellent.
In addition, although he has cooperated with Yan Song, in fact, he does not approve of many of Yan Song's ideas, especially when Yan Song is in power, some loyal ministers and good ministers were framed by Yan Song for various reasons, and at this time, Lu Bing will also come forward to protect these pillars of the country in the hands of Yan Song.
Therefore, Lu Bing is still a relatively good character in the mouth of civil officials, and he did not become a complete villain because he once teamed up with Yan Song.
It's just that the world is unpredictable, in the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing, Lu Bing, who was only fifty-one years old, died suddenly and inexplicably in the post of the commander of the Jinyi Guard.
Jiajing, who learned the news, was extremely sad, not only personally wrote an edict for Lu Bing to commemorate, but also gave him a sacrificial rank equivalent to that of the emperor's relatives, and asked the Ministry of Industry to build a mausoleum for Lu Bing.
It seems that Lu Bing is also sad in life and death, but a few years later, when Jiaqing died of illness and Emperor Longqing ascended the throne, because Lu Bing was very close to Xu Jie, Xu Jie's political enemy, Gao Gong, the first assistant of the cabinet at this time, took Lu Bing's knife, confiscated Lu Bing's family property, and cut off Lu Bing's official position, completely overthrowing all the honor that Lu Bing had.
, the former "strongest brocade guard in the Ming Dynasty", still can't escape the impermanence of the world.