The story of Zhu Yuanzhang’s fight against corruption

Zhu Yuanzhang? Afraid? Someone is richer than him

The story of Shen Wansan is widely circulated among the people in our country. It can be seen quite typical of Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude towards these wealthy families.

This man's name is Shen Fu, also known as Zhongrong, and he is known as the richest man in the world. In various records, there are few bad deeds about him. He was probably a business genius in the international and domestic trade who was extremely active in the Yuan Dynasty. Because people couldn't figure out how this man became so rich, it was said that he had a cornucopia in his hand, which could continuously accumulate wealth. It is said that half of the city walls, government offices, streets, and bridges in Nanjing, the capital of the empire, were built with donations from this person. This made Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang feel very uncomfortable. At this time, in order to save money and avoid disaster and please Zhu Yuanzhang, Shen Wansan made an application, saying that he was willing to donate a large sum of money for the emperor to reward the army. As a result, the flattery landed on the horse's hooves. Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and said: "A commoner who wants to reward the emperor's troops must be a treacherous citizen who has committed crimes, and his crime should be punished." Later, thanks to Queen Ma's intercession, she believed that people who gave gifts and money had good intentions and should not be beheaded. Moreover, it is an unlucky thing for a commoner to be as wealthy as his country. Sooner or later, he will be punished by God. So the emperor finally showed mercy and exempted him from death penalty, and moved his family to Yunnan. (Volume 1 of "Nine Dynasties Talks", quoted from "Jinfeng Wenlue")

Since then, Zhu Yuanzhang also brought wealthy people from all over the world to Nanjing, the imperial capital, several times. This kind of forced migration and immigration policies of different natures continued until the Yongle period, and it is said that the population involved reached a cumulative scale of at least one million people. It has been warmly praised by contemporary and historical scholars until today.

At the same time, the empire implemented a "grain chief" system. It is stipulated that every 10,000 stones of tax grains is a tax zone, and the richest local household serves as the grain director, responsible for the collection and transmission of tax grains. This is an alternative plan after implementing the policy of allowing the removal of township officials, cutting off government officials from using taxes, food, fish and meat to the common people. Zhu Yuanzhang was very proud of this invention, saying that it was a brilliant method of "ruling good people with good people" ("Records of Ming Taizu" Volume 68), and he gave these grain chiefs what should be considered very good preferential treatment, until he directly selected imperial officials from them. Even senior officials. So many years later, the great scholar Gu Yanwu still recorded in his famous "Book of Benefits and Diseases of Prefectures and Countries in the World": At that time, fathers and brothers often taught their children that being a grain chief was better than taking the imperial examination. ?

Zhu Yuanzhang severely punished officials who dared to take advantage of his loopholes

Who knows, some wealthy and powerful grain chiefs are not satisfied with this, they hope to get more quickly Greater wealth and power. The ideas they came up with are quite Chinese-style. For example, they would distribute the taxes and grains that they and their relatives and friends should pay among everyone in the tax-paying area; for example, in addition to the regular grains that should be paid, various additional These surcharges can have as many as eighteen types, usually several times more than the regular grain; for example, the collected tax grains are used as loan sharks and then applied for deferred payment, etc. At the same time, supplemented by means of "beating him up at the last minute", demolishing the house and forcing the seller to sell the property, he showed extremely high IQ level and amoral courage.

Zhu Yuanzhang's general approach to such people was to kill them and ransack their homes. In his "Da Gao San Bian", we can read his record of beheading and confiscating 160 grain chiefs at one time. There was a grain manager surnamed Yang, who was known as the richest man in Jinhua, Zhejiang, and made wild claims, saying that the emperor's tens of thousands of grain levies were not as much as his income from a farm. As a result, when Xie Liang came to Beijing, Zhu Yuanzhang summoned him and asked him: "Where is the food?" He replied: "It will be there in an instant." Zhu Yuanzhang hummed and said, "Is it time to kill?" He was ordered to be taken out and beheaded. When the news spread, his family fled and their property was looted by locals. It is said that Zhu Yuanzhang once dreamed that 100 headless people were kneeling at the foot of the steps. Ten days later, 100 grain chiefs arrived in Beijing to deliver grain, but none of them happened to pay in full and on time. Zhu Yuanzhang ordered to kill without mercy (Volume 1 of "Nine Dynasties Tan Zhuan", quoted from "Yecheng Ke Lun").

During the thirty-one years that Zhu Yuanzhang was in power, he launched at least six large-scale campaigns to purge imperial officials and wealthy households. Some scholars believe that during these great purges, approximately 100,000 to 150,000 imperial officials and wealthy families were killed. Therefore, some domestic and foreign scholars call it a "planned massacre".

Killed 1,300 top leaders at once regardless of good or bad

The circumstances of these massacres were different. Their motivations and goals can be roughly divided into two categories.

One type of targets targets corrupt officials, such as the screening of officials from all over the world in the fourth year of Hongwu, the "Kongyin Case" in the fifteenth year of Hongwu, the "Guo Huan Case" in the eighteenth year of Hongwu, and the "Guo Huan Case" in the eighteenth year of Hongwu. Nine years of "arresting officials who have been harming the people for many years" can probably be classified into this category. Zhu Yuanzhang used to call such convicted persons "unworthy and unlucky persons".

The other category mainly targets those founding heroes who may threaten his throne, or who may threaten the throne of his successor. This category basically falls under political murder. Including the "Hu Lan Party Case" that lasted from the 13th year of Hongwu to the 26th year of Hongwu and the "Criminal False Talkers" in the 23rd year of Hongwu. Zhu Yuanzhang called such people "traitors".

On the battlefield against the first type of targets, Zhu Yuanzhang's victory was short and ambiguous.

When attacking these so-called "unworthy and unlucky people", Zhu Yuanzhang seemed to do whatever he wanted, but he had a very eye-catching feature, which was to expand the area of ??attack as much as possible, preferably those wealthy and wealthy households. They climbed in, and at the same time, they did not hesitate to use the most cruel methods. The "Kongyin Case" was an unjust case known to almost everyone at the time. It occurred in the fifteenth year of Hongwu, that is, 1382 AD. Its origin is quite simple to describe in today's language. The general idea can be expressed as follows: The Ministry of Revenue, the highest financial agency in the empire, has strict requirements when reviewing the routine financial statements of various places every year. They must be accurate to a few digits after the decimal point. If there is a slight discrepancy, they will be immediately invalidated and re-reported. Therefore, in order to avoid unnecessary mistakes, financial personnel from various places who go to Beijing to file statements bring blank statements with local official seals when they enter Beijing, so that they can check the figures with the central agency or report them on the spot when they encounter difficulties. Refill. An obvious reason is that there were no emails, express mail, etc. at that time. A round trip to the farthest province would take several months, not counting time, energy, expenses, etc. The situation was quite distressing. Logically speaking, it is impossible to create securities using this kind of report, and it is difficult for people to engage in fraud for personal gain based on the numbers here.

Therefore, this approach has been widely used and is tacitly accepted by all parties. Unexpectedly, after Zhu Yuanzhang accidentally learned of this situation, he believed that he had discovered a major case of official collusion and fraud. Therefore, the emperor, who lacked financial knowledge, immediately became furious and ordered that all the chief seal officers, that is, the top leaders of government departments at all levels across the country, be executed, and officials below the deputy level were beaten with a hundred sticks and sent to the frontier.

At that time, there were 13 chief ministers in the country, which are equivalent to our provinces today; 141 prefectures, which are equivalent to today's prefecture-level cities; and 192 states, which are equivalent to today's small prefecture-level cities and Large county-level cities; 1,013 counties. These more than 1,300 officials, good or bad, were all killed. Moreover, he was killed after someone had explained the reason clearly to Zhu Yuanzhang.

As a result, some of the good officials who were deeply loved by the people were killed inexplicably. For example, Fang Xiaoru's father, Fang Keqin, was the prefect of Jining, Shandong Province at the time. This gentleman has been wearing a cloth robe for more than ten years. He has three meals a day, two of which are served with a plate of vegetarian dishes. The local people were said to be prosperous during his tenure. Therefore, the people did not want the magistrate to be transferred, and spontaneously composed songs and sang to persuade him to stay. The song goes: "Please don't go, my people's parents." ?As a result, such a good official and good man was killed by Zhu Yuanzhang without explanation ("History of the Ming Dynasty" Volume 281, Biography of Fang Keqin). More than twenty years later, his son Fang Xiaoru also became a famous figure in Chinese history. The reason was that he refused to cater to the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di who had usurped the throne from his nephew, and as a result he became the only person in Chinese history who had ten clans exterminated. This is a later story.

The largest corruption case in the Hongwu Dynasty killed tens of thousands of officials

The Guo Huan case is known as the largest corruption case in the Hongwu Dynasty. It occurred in the eighteenth year of Hongwu, that is, 1385 AD. . This Guo Huan was the Minister of Household Affairs at the time, equivalent to the second-in-command of the country's highest financial and economic department today. It is said that in this major corruption case involving official collusion and fraud, the total amount of property embezzled can be equivalent to more than 24 million koku of polished rice. It was almost equivalent to the national tax and grain revenue for one year at that time.

Zhu Yuanzhang demanded that the case be pursued to the end. That is to say, starting from the central department, all criminal terminals must be traced level by level.

The final result was that all six central ministries and most officials from all over the country and at all levels were implicated. Zhu Yuanzhang himself said that in this case, all the officials in the world were guilty of stealing stolen goods, and tens of thousands of people were imprisoned, all of whom were guilty of conspiracy. The "Criminal Law Chronicles" of "History of the Ming Dynasty" records: From the left and right ministers of the six ministries, that is, the following officials starting from the two deputy ministers of each of the six central ministries were all executed, and officials at all levels across the country executed tens of thousands of people. Because the stolen goods were sent all over the world, most of the middle-class homes of the common people were ruined. In other words, Zhu Yuanzhang accomplished his feat in one battle and wiped out all the corrupt officials and wealthy families in the world. It is basically impossible to determine how many innocent souls and resentful ghosts there are.