In the second year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang once said such emotional words to his ministers: "When I was a commoner, I saw corrupt officials ignore the sufferings of the people and hated them in my heart. In the future, I will enact legal prohibitions. If there are corrupt officials who dare to harm the people, I will never forgive me!" Zhu Yuanzhang did it as soon as he said it. He promulgated the most severe anti-corruption laws in history and set up many horrifying supporting policies.

In order to increase the deterrence, Zhu Yuanzhang set up an extraordinary policy of "those who embezzle more than 60 taels of silver, kill them immediately!"

Since the Tang and Song dynasties, the political system and organizational structures have been different, but the layout of the county government offices is similar, with structures such as gates and stones. However, the Ming Dynasty set up an extra land temple between the gate and the second gate. What is this land temple used for? Don’t be surprised, this place is used for peeling, and the skin of corrupt officials is peeled off. It turns out that after Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the corrupt officials to be executed, the skin of corrupt officials must be peeled off, and then straw is stuffed into the skin, and it is hung next to the seat for everyone to visit. This scarecrow is not used to scare birds.

It is used to deter corrupt officials; #65377;

The earliest person to enjoy this high-level "special treatment" was Zhu Liangzu, an old subordinate of Zhu Yuanzhang. He formed a team in his hometown and defected to the Yuan Dynasty. He was appointed as the marshal of the Yi army and participated in the suppression of the peasant uprising. In the 17th year of Zhizheng in the Yuan Dynasty (1357), Zhu Yuanzhang personally supervised the army to attack Ningguo and captured Zhu Liangzu alive. Because he was happy that he was brave, he took him as his subordinate. A few months later, Zhu Liangzu rebelled again in the Yuan Dynasty, fought repeatedly with the rebel army, and occupied Xuancheng. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang was busy attacking Jiankang and had no time to take care of

Zhu Liangzu only sent Xu Da and others to surround him. When Zhu Liangzu broke through, although he repelled Chang Yuchun, the soldiers of Zhu's troops were frightened, but Zhu Yuanzhang went to the front line to supervise the battle again and finally captured him alive. The soldiers tied him to Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Yuanzhang asked, "What else do you have to say this time?" Zhu Liangzu replied, "If you can survive, you will serve you, otherwise you will die." Zhu Yuanzhang admired his bravery and forgive him. From then on, Zhu Liangzu became one of the tiger generals under Zhu Yuanzhang's tent.

Zhu Liangzu followed Zhu Yuanzhang to participate in the Battle of Poyang Lake, marched into Wuchang, and was promoted to commander of Guangxin Guard. Li Wenzhong led his troops to fight with Zhang Shicheng's general Li Bosheng in Zhuquanxin City. Zhu Liangzu took advantage of the victory to burn his camp, captured more than 600 people, recruited more than 3,000 soldiers, seized more than 800 war horses, baggage, and countless armors. Later, he attacked Chen Youliang, Fang Guozhen, and Zhu Liangzu both made great contributions. In the first year of Hongwu (1368), he was the deputy of the general of the southern expedition, Yu Yongzhong, and was granted the title of Marquis of Yongjia in the third year of Hongwu (1370). The following year, he participated in the battle of attacking Shu and was not rewarded for killing the military academy without being awarded. In the 12th year of Hongwu (1379), he was ordered to leave Guangdong.

In the late Yuan Dynasty, Guangdong was the territory of He Zhen, the local warlord. After He Zhen surrendered in the first year of Hongwu (1368), Guangdong was under strict military supervision of the Ming Dynasty. Military guards had a special status here. Not only ordinary people were afraid of soldiers, but even local officials had to let them get three points. The needs of military guards were prepared by the local government, and they also took the opportunity to extort. County officials were often humiliated by military soldiers. Zhu Liangzu was a military general and knew how to fight to the death. He could not know a lot of words, and his actions were mostly illegal. He guarded Guangzhou with a marquis. Not only did he indulge the soldiers in a random way, but he was also more rampant. He even had a gangster with local bullies and bullied the good, which made the heavens angry and the people resentful. Originally, no one dared to provoke powerful people like Zhu Liangzu, but he met a Panyu County Magistrate Daotong who would rather betray the people and love the people as his sons. The conflicts between the two sides became increasingly acute.

Daotong was a native of Hejian Prefecture and a Mongolian. He was famous for serving his mother and being filial. In the early years of Hongwu, he was recommended as the Zanli Lang of Taichang Temple. Later, he learned that Panyu County, which was regarded as a refrained place because of the rampant military guards. Daotong strictly enforced the law and resolutely resisted the irrational demands of the military guards, which slightly restrained the arrogance of the military academies and the people depended on them to rest.

After Zhu Liangzu arrived in Guangzhou, he quickly made Guangzhou City scattered. There was a group of hooligans and gangsters in Panyu City who bullied the market. If there were rare goods in the market, they would try their best to buy them at the price. If the merchants had a little dispute, they would deliberately accusations, or they would privately sell goods or use counterfeit money, and then they would get you to the Bingmasters, at the very least confiscate the goods, and at the worst torture. The merchants either fled to these people or swallowed their anger. One day, Daotong set up his spies and suddenly captured them when the bullies and bullies extorted others.

When he learned that the leader was the leader, he grabbed the shackles and showed them to the public on the street. All the people applauded. Some of the fish that had missed the net found Zhu Liangzu and asked him to come forward to rescue him. Zhu Liangzu had already had some contact with these people. In addition to the instigation of his close confidants, he immediately asked someone to summon Daotong to the mansion, set up wine and food, and asked Daotong to release him during the meal. Daotong was neither humble nor arrogant. He first counted the sins of these people, and then said to Zhu Liangzu: "Sir, as the marquis, he should go to the southern border to comfort the people, and do not bewitched by villains." His words made Zhu Liangzu speechless.

When Zhu Liangzu saw that the same small county magistrate did not buy his account, he had to do nothing and stay away. The next morning, he personally brought people to the scene to snatch the bullies and released them. On the surface, Zhu Liangzu won a great victory, but in fact he was not. He openly became the leader of the gangsters in public as a marquis, and his dignity was devastated. The more Zhu Liangzu thought about it, he became more and more popular, and he spread all his resentment to Daotong. A few days later, he took advantage of the opportunity of local officials to meet him and accused him of his poor manners and severely beat him up.

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Zhu Liangzu was originally corrupt and bribed, but now he is openly hiding dirty things. Some local tyrants and evil gentry are like flies stinking, and they do their best to flatter. A local tyrant named Luo first used money to curry favor with Zhu Liangzu, and then offered his beautiful daughter to Zhu Liangzu as a concubine. The Luo family was originally a domineering place, and now they are even more fearless. The Luo brothers took a group of evil slaves on the street every day, provoking trouble. Zodiac land and houses, and robbed wives and daughters became commonplace. The people reported the Luo brothers to the Luo brothers. The paper was full of papers.

In Daotong's book case, some people even stopped the sedan chair and cried. Daotong felt very difficult about this, knowing that as long as he did, Zhu Liangzu would interfere, but when he thought of the miserable appearance and anticipated look of the victims, he couldn't help but make a decision to fight with Zhu Liangzu again. After careful investigation, he secretly arrested the Luo brothers, imprisoned them in the county government, and sent people to guard them strictly. Unexpectedly, Zhu Liangzu became even more desperate this time, and directly mobilized the army to rush into the county government to steal the Luo brothers.

Daotong was very helpless and knew that he could not defeat Zhu Liangzu with the power of a county magistrate, but he had no way out. He thought: The revenge between him and Zhu Liangzu was a forged, but he still didn't know how he would revenge me? Instead of waiting for death, it would be better to fight for the initiative and take the initiative to report Zhu Liangzu's crime to the court, which may save the people. Thinking of this, he felt much more relaxed, wrote the memorial overnight, and sent someone to the capital secretly.

Unfortunately, after Zhu Liangzu returned, his aides said to him: "According to Daotong's stubborn temper, he will risk his life to submit a memorial to the emperor. Sir, you might as well take the initiative." Zhu Liangzu immediately asked someone to draft a memorial and sent someone to Nanjing quickly.

As a result, Zhu Liangzu was quick, and his memorial was first sent to Zhu Yuanzhang. When Zhu Yuanzhang saw it, he was very surprised. It was very rare to impeach a small county magistrate with a marquis. In addition to adding the charge of "no official" to Daotong, Zhu Liangzu also said as if something happened: Daotong claimed to be the Mongols and indulged the troublemakers to cause trouble. Some of these troublemakers were bandits of the Yuan Dynasty, and some were old subordinates of He Zhen. The matter was suspicious and his heart could be punished. When Zhu Yuanzhang saw that Daotong was in junction with bandits of the previous dynasty, he immediately criticized the "beheading and decisiveness" and sent an envoy to Guangdong to execute it. Zhu Liangzu sent someone to bribe the envoy, abandoned the ship and landed, took a 600-mile fast horse, traveled day and night, and quickly arrived at Guangzhou and beheaded Daotong.

When Daotong was killed, the local tyrants and bullies were excited, and the people could only shed tears secretly and pray silently that Daotong could be rehabilitated.

A few days later, Daotong's memorial was also sent to Zhu Yuanzhang. After he finished reading the word-by-tear memorial, he realized that he had been deceived by Zhu Liangzu and had a clear understanding of Zhu Liangzu's evil deeds of embezzlement and bribery, colluding with local tyrants, supporting scoundrels, and harming the people. So he immediately sent someone to recover the imperial edict who killed Daotong the previous time, and transferred Daotong to the capital.

However, everything was too late, and the messenger came back and called him dead. Zhu Yuanzhang thought carefully and found that something was wrong. According to common sense, the previous order should be recovered. He knew that Zhu Liangzu must have caused trouble. At this time, his anger towards Zhu Liangzu was unstoppable, so he sent people to Guangdong to capture Zhu Liangzu and his son Guangdong Guard Commander Zhu Xian to Beijing.

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On the third day of the ninth month of the 13th year of Hongwu (1380), Zhu Liang's grandfather and son were taken to Nanjing. When he saw Zhu Yuanzhang's angry face, Zhu Liangzu immediately knelt down, walked forward, and kept hitting his head against the ground, asking for forgiveness. Before he could tell the difference, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the warrior to whip it. The warriors also knew that what Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to die this time, and they all secretly increased their strength. After a while, Zhu Liang's grandfather and son flew out of blood and died. This was the first corrupt official killed by Zhu Yuanzhang, and he was out of control. Looking at all of this, Xiao Jing believed that this was all caused by him from the people, witnessing political corruption at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and corruption at the end of the Yuan Dynasty.

The situation of officials was disabled, and they deeply hated corrupt officials to be stupid and harm the people. Therefore, after the founding of the country, they vigorously rectified the administration of officials. Not only did they establish a charter, they prohibited officials from neglecting their duties, not only did their duties but private affairs, but also formulated severe laws to punish corrupt officials and correct the corruption. At that time, the law stipulated that all officials who were found to have corrupt and harmed the people could be captured and sent to the capital. If anyone dared to stop them, they would destroy their families and tribes. Anyone who was custodian stolen money, grain and other items in the warehouse, if the stolen money, grain, and other items were stolen, and the prisoners were beheaded and displayed to the public, and they were punished by skinning. At that time, a temple was set up on the left side of the prefecture, prefecture, and county government offices to worship the land god, which was called the Pichang Temple. There was also a human skin bag filled with grass hanging on both sides of the seats of the government, which shocked the officials in the hall. Zhu Yuanzhang had punished many of them in succession during his thirty years of becoming emperor.

Corrupt officials. For example, in the ninth year of Hongwu (1376), more than 10,000 people were sent to Anweifengyang for farming. Among the series of corruption cases he handled, the most prominent one was the Guo Huan case. Guo Huan became the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and collected autumn grain in western Zhejiang and was corrupt and abused the law. In the 18th year of Hongwu (1385), the incident occurred, and seven million stones of stolen grain were recovered. The six officials left and right ministers were all executed. The confession implicated officials in various governors, and tens of thousands of people were killed. The recovery of stolen stolen households also implicated many wealthy households across the country, resulting in the majority of middle-class families going bankrupt. Using severe punishments and so on like this to punish corrupt officials and such large-scale killings can be said to have never been seen since ancient times. Zhu Yuanzhang made great efforts to punish corrupt officials with great decisive actions, which did play a certain role in killing and reducing corruption and improving the administration of officials.

However, it should be pointed out that Zhu Yuanzhang could not completely eliminate the phenomenon of corruption. On the one hand, Zhu Yuanzhang kept killing corrupt officials; on the other hand, corrupt and abuse of power occurred at all times, which eventually made Zhu Yuanzhang very distressed and sighed endlessly.

In addition, it should also be pointed out that Zhu Yuanzhang used corrupt officials too strictly, torture and killing many people, and even launched a large prison and killed people at will, in order to establish the authority of an autocratic monarch, showing the extreme cruelty of feudal autocracy. For example, the so-called empty seal case is an example of Zhu Yuanzhang's autocratic power. At that time, every year, the governors and prefectures and counties had to send officials to the Ministry of Revenue to report local money, grain, military supplies, etc. The number of money and grain reported in the registration must be completely consistent with the numbers set by the Ministry. If there is a division, tiny, liters, and the combination is not correct, the entire registration will be rejected, and the re-creation of the registration requires stamping. The officials who are on the registration will often have to go back and forth for years.

In this case, the officials of the Supreme Court held empty seals (i.e., blank seals with official seals). If they encountered a ministry, they would fill them out at any time. This practice was common. However, in the ninth year of Hongwu (1376), Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly discovered this and thought that officials must use empty seals to commit fraud. He ordered that all the chief seals of the local governments be executed and the officials of the seals were sent to the border. In fact, the officials of the Supreme Court carried empty seals and seals were sealed, which could not be used for other purposes, and could not be compared with one seal and one paper. This truth is well known. After this case, someone risked his life to write a letter to explain the truth, but Zhu Yuanzhang ignored it completely and still killed people arbitrarily.

Among all the emperors of China, Zhu Yuanzhang should be one of those who are willing to work hard to punish corruption. He was born in poverty and started his family in rebellion. He experienced the exploitation and bullying of Yuan Dynasty officials since childhood, and hated corrupt officials. Based on this, after ascending the throne and taking power, he immediately took drastic measures and took multiple measures to purify the administration to prevent the corruption of the new dynasty.

First, he was given a lecture. Before local officials took office, Zhu Yuanzhang always talked to them, talking about how to treat low income correctly and how to resist the temptation of corruption and bribery. He said that keeping one's salary and living a life is like guarding a spring at the bottom of a well. Although the well is not satisfied, he can draw water every day, and the spring water will not dry up. He plunders the people's wealth, causing resentment. Once the incident occurs, he will be sentenced to prison, the suffering of labor, and even the family will be destroyed and the people will be greedy.

The money obtained from corruption and bribery is not my own. Therefore, unclean money is of no use. He warned officials: "I teach you first and then punish you, not to be punished without teaching. If you are disobedient and insist on greed, then you will have to die." He also spent two years compiling the book "Great Edict", which compiled a large number of regulations to punish corruption and bribery, and required extensive publicity. In the 25th year of Hongwu, he compiled the "A Brief Record of Enlightenment" and promulgated the whole country to warn officials.

Second, he rewarded the innocent officials. Fu Baolang Qisi, the envoy who was envoyed to Goryeo, did not accept gifts from the country during his tenure. Zhu Yuanzhang wrote an inscription for him: "I am willing to disgrace my mission, and integrity can be honest." This encouraged him. The prefect of Suzhou Wang Xingzong and the prefect of Hangzhou Wang Xingfu were both commended by Zhu Yuanzhang for his integrity and dedication.

Third, supervision and assessment. In the 15th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the central supervision agency Censorate to the Censorate, which had thirteen supervisory officials. The power of the Censorate was to pick up all officials. The thirteen supervisory officials supervised all bureaucratic institutions in the court, represented the emperor on patrols, made decisions on small matters, and directly submitted to the emperor for rulings for major matters. In addition, the central government also had six department offices, responsible for supervising officials of the six ministries, and in conflict with the Censorate. Supervision is irregular inspection, and assessment is regular inspection. Zhu Yuanzhang personally organized and formulated the "Instructions for Attendance", "Responsibility Regulations", "Securities and Positions" for officials at all levels, and stipulated the tasks and responsibilities of officials at all levels one by one, and was regularly assessed as a basis for rewarding and punishing officials.

Fourth, encourage reporting. Zhu Yuanzhang informed the whole country, encouraging the people to report local officials who had committed corruption, and even capture corrupt officials to go to Beijing for suing them. Chen Shouliu, a county citizen in Changshu County, captured corrupt county officials to Beijing. Zhu Yuanzhang praised the heavy rewards and specifically warned that he would not retaliate against Chen Shouliu.

Fifth, severe punishment. Zhu Yuanzhang was determined to eliminate corruption and bribery. He stipulated that all officials who had 60 pounds of corruption would be executed. Corrupt officials were severely punished by tortures such as picking tendons, cutting their fingers, cutting their knees, and cutting their hands. He even introduced the extreme punishment of "skinning and solid grass", and took those corrupt officials sentenced to death to peel them to the "Skin Field Temple" to peel them alive. After peeling them off, they filled them with straw and lime, and made them into a "stinky skin regime" and hung them next to the throne of corrupt officials to warn successor officials. Hongwu was the period when the feudal regime fought against corruption the most fiercely and killed corrupt officials the most.

It should be said that Zhu Yuanzhang took a multi-pronged approach to eliminate corruption and pursuing the administration. His intentions were not bad, his determination was firm, his ideas were not thorough, and his punishments were harsh. Although Zhu Yuanzhang did achieve certain results when he was alive, he failed to fundamentally curb the spread of corruption and bribery. Zhu Yuanzhang's bitter admonition to officials only played a role in the new officials, and it became a fuss in his ears after serving as a long time. The longer the officials were an official, the weaker their self-discipline ability was until they fell completely. In the 18th year of Hongwu (1386), Zhu Yuanzhang sighed: "Since I ascended the throne, I have appointed an official in ancient times and listed the "Braves". How could I hope to promote it

At that time, he was loyal to the good, and was appointed for a long time, and was corrupt." Zhu Yuanzhang implemented a supervision and assessment system for other officials, which should be said to be a relatively good system. It was effective at the beginning, but later, it gradually became superficial and mere formalities. What made Zhu Yuanzhang very worried was that the imperial officials of the Censorate, which he specially set up to supervise the behavior of officials at all levels, and the officials in the six departments of the six departments did not like themselves, and there were bad records of corruption and bribery to varying degrees. Zhu Yuanzhang used heavy punishments to punish illegal officials. Although he killed tens of thousands of people, the effect was not great. Corrupt officials were still one after another, and they could not be killed or killed. Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he beat his chest and stamped his feet, saying: "I want to eliminate corrupt officials, but why did I kill them in the morning and commit crimes in the evening?"
Chapter completed!