Preface
When the Ming Dynasty fell, where did the 150,000 Jinyi guards, who were once known as fearful, go? Say it, you may feel unbelievable, even unbelievable. This mysterious and powerful army, once proclaimed the belief in preserving the glory of the dynasty, is now hidden in the corners of history.
The whereabouts of the 150,000 Jinyi guards have become a mystery in history, and the mystery is incomprehensible. Did they choose to slip away after the fall of the Ming Dynasty and enjoy the rest of their lives? Or did they find a new home in the troubled times and continue their faith and vows?
At the beginning of its creation, the Janissary was full of power
In 1368 AD, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty and established himself as the emperor, which was the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty. As the founding emperor who started from the bottom peasantry, Zhu Yuanzhang was extremely sensitive and arbitrary to power in his bones, and he knew that in order to make a department for his own use, it was necessary to let it break away from the six-part system and exist alone. So he directly upgraded his guard department to the Praetorian Guard, and named it "Jinyi Guard".
Jinyiwei is only responsible to the emperor alone, not bound by any other department, and can supervise the crimes of officials, and even the six Shangshu must give him three points. During this period, Jin Yiwei handled the case extremely quickly, and whatever information the emperor needed, he could submit the imperial case for him to check the next day. The extent to which hundreds of officials were monitored by him, and it was rumored that Zhu Yuanzhang could even read out what a certain minister had done the night before.
At the same time, Jinyiwei has also become Zhu Yuanzhang's sharp blade to clear the troubles of his henchmen. With their cooperation, some dissidents, such as the protagonist in Hu Weiyong's case, and Lan Yu, the former minister who opposed Zhu Yuanzhang, were secretly executed. It can be said that Jin Yiwei made great contributions to Zhu Yuanzhang's seizure of the world.
However, the good times did not last long, and Zhu Yuanzhang realized in his later years that his son Zhu Biao could not fully control the organization of Jinyiwei, which was like a double-edged sword. In order to avoid the leakage of power, he chose to take matters into his own hands and directly abolished Jinyiwei.
Power has swelled again, and it has intensified indiscriminately killing and abusing power
Unexpectedly, his son Zhu Di was not willing to be placed under house arrest in the position of the vassal king. In the first year of Yongle, Zhu Di raised troops to rebel in the name of "Qing Jun's side", and finally defeated his nephew Emperor Jianwen and won the Ming Dynasty.
After seizing power, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di immediately restored the Jinyi Guard system. With its support, Jinyiwei re-emerged as the most solid backing of imperial power. It can even be said that the status of Jinyiwei reached an unprecedented peak under Zhu Di - when the emperor was not in the capital, the commander of Jinyiwei represented the supreme ruler.
So during this period, when Ming Chengzu went out to use soldiers, the brocade guards made waves unscrupulously. The most typical case is the "death in prison" solution. Xie Jin is the chief editor of the Yongle Canon, a top scholar. But because he offended Ji Gang, the commander of Jinyiwei, he was thrown into prison and froze to death in the bitter cold.
The list goes on and on. Jinyiwei's power is boundless, there is almost no reason to arrest and kill, and the struggle between the government and the opposition is becoming more and more intense. And they themselves are extravagant in receiving gold and silver treasures, and they are corrupt, which has aroused widespread dissatisfaction among the government and the public.
It gradually became a vassal of Dongchang and existed in name only
The good times did not last long, and in the Zhengde and Jiajing periods, the emperor's trust was no longer concentrated on Jinyiwei, but was replaced by the eunuchs of the East and West Factory who controlled the harem. These eunuchs from the court were so powerful that they soon seized the power of the Jinyi Guards in gathering intelligence.
At this time, the status of Jinyiwei was not as good as before, and he even had to rely on institutions such as Dongchang to obtain resources and survive. The structure of its ranks also gradually deteriorated in this environment - many children of princes and nobles mixed into the establishment by virtue of their family background, and they were useless. And the commanders will only eat and drink all day long, and no longer care about their achievements.
Under these circumstances, the ranks of the Jinyi Guards quickly swelled to 150,000 people, but most of them were redundant people receiving salaries. Many of them had to buy and sell official positions to make a living. Even some of the sons and grandchildren of Wenchen participated in it, trying to get a piece of the pie.
As a result, these market villains who pretended to be "Jinyi Wei" went around extorting the people, and when they arrived in Suzhou, they were beaten by the local people. The once formidable Praetorian Guard is now dead in name only, reduced to a bunch of hooligans in sheep's clothing.
At the moment of crisis, they fled from all sides
During the Chongzhen period, the Ming Dynasty was already devastated. At this time, the brocade guards who were greedy for life and afraid of death had already lost their hearts. Li Zicheng's peasant army was killed under the city, but the 150,000 Janissaries did not react and allowed the land to collapse.
The last group of backbones chose to follow the Nanming regime and continue the struggle against the Manchus. But they were left to fend for themselves, and they were soon killed in Burma. And those Jinyi guards who surrendered to the Manchu Qing Dynasty were also killed by the pit and had no life to return. The Yiyantang of that year ended in a dramatic sword shadow.
In the end, this group of self-defeating brocade guards threw off their armor and fled in all directions. Their fate was like the Ming dynasty, which was about to fall, falling apart and being forgotten by the long river of history.
People's hearts are not ancient, why did Jinyiwei change from a hero to zero
The success or failure of Jinyiwei reflects the entire process of an empire from its peak to its decline. It is closely related to the national fortune of the Ming Dynasty, and in the end it will inevitably be destroyed together.
We can't help but ask: Why did this initially glorious spy agency lose its morale at the last moment and flee from all sides? In fact, the reason for this is that the people's hearts are not ancient.
The majesty and status they established at the beginning of their establishment have been changed beyond recognition in the later situation of lazy government, dragons giving birth to dragons, and phoenixes giving birth to phoenixes. Instead, a group of scoundrels turned the golden sign of Jinyiwei into a tool for blackmailing interests.
And at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when they were at the end of the road, how could this group of brocade guards have the slightest loyalty at all? When their interests were zero and their lives could not be guaranteed, they would naturally only choose to flee for their lives, rather than sacrificing their lives for righteousness.
epilogue
People's hearts are unpredictable, and their rise and fall are impermanent. Both history and reality remind us that the most critical pillar of a good system or system is still the destabilizing factor of people. Once human nature deviates, everything will collapse alive. Self-defeating is the best footnote of Jinyiwei.
The existence of Jinyiwei has become the focus of historical controversy, and some people believe that they are the bane of the fall of the Ming Dynasty, because their bottomless power struggle directly affected the stability of the government and the country. However, there are also opposing voices that believe that Jinyiwei played an active role in some key historical moments and protected the national security of the Ming Dynasty.
In the long history of the Ming Dynasty, Jinyiwei is a unique and complex existence. Their presence is both a tool to appease power and a double-edged sword, becoming a source of historical controversy. In any case, by examining the role of the Jinyiwei in history, we may be able to understand more fully the historical process of the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and the far-reaching impact of power and loyalty in troubled times.