Chapter 21 Chapter VII Internal Contradictions of the Ruling Class II. The Kongyin Case and the Guo Huan Case

Corruption is a normal phenomenon of bureaucratic politics in feudal society. Read and write, do stereotyped writing, and take part in imperial examinations. If you are lucky enough to be an official, you will do everything possible to get money, buy land, and raise domestic slaves. The bigger the official, the more money you get. , Getting promoted and getting rich is the life philosophy of intellectuals in feudal society. Everything is inferior, and only reading is high.These two sentences have their deep social roots. On the other hand, officials are corrupt and exploit endlessly, so they have to force the hungry and cold people to rebel. The officials forced the people to rebel. Since entering the feudal society, there have been hundreds of peasant uprisings. The corruption and exploitation of officials is one of the reasons.

In order to ease the contradiction between the feudal ruling class and the broad masses of the people and consolidate the ruling foundation.Zhu Yuanzhang used extremely severe means to punish local officials who corrupted and harmed the people, and waged a long and brutal struggle. Zhu Yuanzhang concentrated his strength and ruthlessly attacked the imperial court and local bureaucrats who seriously damaged the interests of the imperial court on a large scale. In the two cases, 70,000 to 80,000 people were killed, mainly officials at all levels. Many big landlords in various places were implicated in the recovery of stolen goods, and their families and properties were ruined. The power of the old landlord class was further weakened.

According to the regulations, every year, the chief ministers, governments, prefectures, and counties have to send accountants to the household department to report the local financial revenue and expenditure accounts. Reported layer by layer, until the Ministry of Households audited the number completely in line and approved the reimbursement, the procedure was considered complete and the case was closed.If there are points, milliliters, liters and inconsistencies in the money valley figures, the entire reimbursement book will be rejected and refilled.The chief envoy is six or seven thousand miles away from the capital, and the ones that are close are also thousands of miles away. It doesn't matter if the booklet is remade. The problem is that the remade booklet must be stamped with the seal of the original yamen to be considered legal, because it is necessary to stamp the seal. It will take a month or even several months.In order to avoid being picky by the household department and reduce the trouble of running back and forth, the officials of the accounting department usually have a blank booklet with the official seal that has been prepared in advance.This method was originally an open secret, and everyone thought it was reasonable, convenient and trouble-free.

Unexpectedly, in the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang suddenly discovered this secret and became furious. He thought that there must be a serious problem and must be dealt with strictly.In fact, the blank booklets carried by the planners are stamped with the seam seal and cannot be used for other purposes, and they may not be used if they are prepared.People in local government offices all over the country understand this truth, and even the officials of the household department have acquiesced as usual, and it has become a common method unanimously agreed by the top and bottom.But after the incident, when the Hu Weiyong party case was very tense, and no one in the court dared to argue, a commoner desperately wrote a letter to explain the matter, but it was useless, and the local officials were killed and killed. null.Keqin, the most famous good official at that time (father of Fang Xiaoru, minister of the Jianwen Dynasty), also died in this case, and the petitioner was also punished to do hard labor.

Guo Huan is the minister of the household department.In the eighteenth year of Hongwu, it was reported that the officials of the Second Department of Beiping and Guo Huantong had committed fraud, and they were all sentenced to death from the left and right servants of the household department.Seven million stones of stolen food were recovered, the confessions were implicated in the officials of the chief ministers, and tens of thousands of people were killed.The recovery of stolen goods has also implicated many large landlords across the country, and countless landlords above the middle class have ruined their homes.The declared charges are:

Guo Huan, an official of the household department, received autumn grain from western Zhejiang and closed the warehouse with 4.5 million stones.Among them, Guo Huan and others only received (delivered) 600,000 shi to the warehouse, and 800,000 ingots to put in the warehouse. Based on the conversion at that time, it could be worth 2 million shi, and the remaining 1.9 million shi had not been put into the warehouse.Qi Huan and others received 500,000 guan banknotes from western Zhejiang and other governments, causing the government, prefecture, and county officials Huang Wentong and others to cheat with the stubborn officials Bian Yuan and others, and divided them into themselves;

In Yingtian and other five prefectures, hundreds of thousands of counties have no official land for summer tax and autumn grain. Official Zhang Qin and others cheated, and none of them went to the warehouse. They shared it with Guo Huan, an official of the same household department; The grain he stole from the storehouses was sold short in the words of the military guards for three years.If you want to write everything on the former list, I am afraid that the people will not believe it, but just write seven million ears.If the rest of the warehouses are divided into twelve chief secretaries, they will be stolen and sold together to see the grain in the warehouse, and accept 500,000 banknotes from western Zhejiang and other governments, and sell rice for 1.9 million without going to the warehouse. Fan Chaozong, the treasury officer of the same carrier, stole gold and silver, and Zhang Yu, the treasury official of Guanghui, mishandled 6 million banknotes. Except for the gold and silver banknotes found in the stolen warehouse, the taxable grain and the taxable grain and fish salt that were sold in the warehouse All kinds of items are converted into rice, and more than 24 million (stone) refined grains were wasted (swallowed).

etc.According to the records of some contemporaries and descendants of landlords, in the Sanwu area, the rich families in the east and west of Zhejiang either committed crimes, or they were wealthy and powerful families, who were exterminated.Although these records are somewhat exaggerated, there is no doubt that they reflect the fact that some elements of the old landlord class were eliminated.Such a serious blow will of course cause panic and dissatisfaction among the landlord class and bureaucrats. Of course, they dare not say that the serious crime of buying and selling official grain is legal and should be done. Shi and judges, the discussion is boiling, and the situation is serious.Zhu Yuanzhang also felt that if this contradiction continued to develop, it would be very detrimental to his own rule, so he announced the crimes of Guo Huan and others by hand, analyzed right and wrong, and killed the original judge as a concession to the landlord class and bureaucrats. , ended the big case.

In addition to the two massacres of the Kongyin case and the Guo Huan case, there were also officials recorded (screened) in the four years of Hongwu; Those who were killed four times in a planned way. In the past forty years, according to the statistics of Zhu Yuanzhang's works: "Dagao", "Dagao Continuation", "Dagao Sanbian", and "Dagao Military Officials", there are thousands of cases of Lingchi, Xiaoshi, and Zhongzhu listed. , There are more than 10,000 cases of abandonment (decapitation). The cases stipulated in the "Three Books" are considered the most lenient. For example, there are 364 Jinshi supervisors, who become more and more greedy and finally refuse to obey their orders. Among them, there were 30 incumbents who committed crimes of beheading, strangulation, and exile, and three hundred and twenty-eight persons who committed crimes of death and exile.It is Zhu Yuanzhang's new method to handle affairs with death penalty and exile.Dai means sentencing.The main reason why he created this method is that if all these officials are killed, no one will work for him, and they will be sentenced and let them go back to work. The feudal law has been established, and various affairs will not be abolished due to lack of officials.

Ling Chi is the most barbaric and cruel criminal law.Xiaoshi is also called Xiaoling.Genocide is family punishment, and if one person commits a crime, he will be killed according to the family.In addition, there are brushing, weighing poles, gut pumping, skinning, tattooing, stinging, castration, knee picking, and tin snake swimming.The degree of brutality surpassed any emperor in history.All kinds of torture created an atmosphere of extreme terror among the court officials, and everyone was on tenterhooks.It is said that it was easy to see whether Zhu Yuanzhang was determined to kill people in large numbers during the court.If he was wearing the jade belt under his belly that day, it would be a signal of a big storm, and a large number of officials would be killed. , probably not many kills.According to the system, court officials have to go to court at dawn every day, and get up before dawn to wash and dress.After several major cases broke out, many court officials bid farewell to their wives before going out, and ordered the funeral. If they returned home alive, the whole family would congratulate them. It was regarded as another day of life.

Severe punishments are used to punish law-breaking bureaucrats, although tens of thousands of people have been killed, the effect is still not great.In the eighteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang sighed and said: Since I came to the throne, I have ordered officials from the ancient times, Brehua and Yi.It is expected that when weir is used, he will be loyal and chaste, and if he has been appointed for a long time, he will be raped and corrupted.I understand the charter, but the criminal responsibility is unforgivable.As well as internal and external bureaucrats, it is difficult to keep their posts, and those who are good and capable are few, and there are many who kill their wealth.After Guo Huan's case was discovered, he said: "His greedy people, Wen Huan's treachery, went down like water, and in half a year, there were many evils, and countless people killed their families."Five punishments are given to treat it, picking tendons, chopping fingers, cutting off feet, shaving hair, tattooing, the worst crimes will be punished!He did not and could not understand the oligarchic dictatorship of feudal autocracy, the cruel rule of the dictatorship of the landlord class, bureaucracy and corruption are inseparable, feudal rule is based on the exploitation of the people, and the feudal rule and the feudal system cannot be overthrown. It is impossible to use severe punishments and bloodshed to eradicate corruption. It is impossible to have any effect. In addition to killing, officials who committed minor crimes were punished to do hard work. In the ninth year of Hongwu, more than 10,000 officials were sent to Fengyang to farm for crimes such as flogging. There are records of the killing of court officials, such as Zhang Wei, the governor of Zuo Si of the Ministry of Zhongshu, Zhu Tong and Zhang Heng, ministers of the Ministry of Rites, Zhao Mian, Minister of the Ministry of household affairs, Yu Yu, minister of the Ministry of officials, Xue Xiang, Qin Kui, minister of the Ministry of industry, Li Zhi, Kaiji, Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, Ru Taisu, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, Wang Ben of Chunguan, Xu Cunren of Jijiu, Yang Jing of Zuodu Yushi, Li Shilu of Dali Temple, Chen Wenhui of Shaoqing, Wang Pu of Yushi, Zhang Laishuo of Yuanwailang , Li Yinbing, Ji Shanbai Xindao, etc.Foreign officials include Wei Guan, the prefect of Suzhou, Fang Keqin, the prefect of Jining, Daotong, the magistrate of Panyu County, Ye Boju, the tutor, and Tao Kai, the left minister of Jin Wangfu. Ru Taisu has an upright personality and loves to tell the truth. He was beaten, demoted, and even fettered several times in order not to speculate.One day, when giving a banquet in the hall, Yuan Zhang wrote a poem saying: "Drink the golden cup with you, and you will not forgive each other with a white knife."Taisu kowtowed, and continued to chant: "Dan sincerely wants to serve the country, and does not avoid the burning of the sacred heart."Yuan Zhang was also very moved when he heard this.Not long after, he was killed for something.Li Shilu was a scholar of Zhu Xi's school. He advised Yuanzhang not to respect monks and Taoists too much, and wanted to learn from Han Wengong to uphold Buddhism and carry forward Zhu's theory.Yuanzhang ignored it, and Shilu was in a hurry, so he became pedantic and handed it back to Chaohu in person, telling him to go home.Yuan Zhang was furious and asked the warriors to beat him to death under the steps.Tao Kai was a literati for the imperial court. He wrote most of the edicts, seals, and epitaphs for a while.Yuanzhang hated him just because he had an alias called Naijiu Taoist: since he lost his name of Juelu, he called him Naijiu Taoist strangely, which is because he is self-deprecating.This unlucky reminder, if the year is not due, the criminal will be unfair.He also said: forget the king and enjoy the beauty of the mountains and fields, forget the king and make the book durable.Kill him on the subject.Yuanwailang Zhang Laisho advised against taking a betrothed girl to be a palace man, saying that it was unreasonable, and he was chopped to death.Counselor Li Yinbing was cut off and died. Zhu Yuanzhang's cruel killing and punishment of internal and external bureaucrats aroused opposition from the bureaucratic group. In the seventh year of Hongwu, some people protested, saying that the killing was too much, too much, and there were only one survivors in the past few years.In the ninth year, Ye Boju wrote a letter with the star transformation, saying that the punishment was too harsh: I observe that the founding monarchs of the past dynasties have never failed to build the hearts of the people with benevolence and morality, and have lost the hearts of the people with punishment. The length of the country is due to this.The discussants said that in the Song Dynasty and the middle of the Yuan Dynasty, they were dedicated to appeasement, and the rewards and punishments were disorderly, so that they perished.The master punishes its disadvantages severely, so it controls the punishment that is not forgiven, and the law of changing the power of the gods makes people fearful and unpredictable.The minister thought otherwise.The master who established the foundation, set an example for all generations, and every movement and stillness will make the descendants stick to it.What's more, the punisher is the commander of the country, but he can't be careless!Flogging, staff, imprisonment, flow, and death are the five punishments today.With these five punishments, there is no false loan, and it is okay to go beyond the Dagong.When punishment is used, most of them are judged from the sacred heart, so that the officials in charge of the prison must strive for will. Those who are profound will do more work.Those who have recently made a special purpose to commit capital crimes so as not to die in the army, and to delete the old laws and regulations, so that there is a difference in the reduction.However, I have never heard of a rule that those who govern prisons must follow the rules of forgiveness, so the judiciary still follows the old practice. Although they have heard the name of forgiveness, they have not seen the reality of forgiveness.The so-called truth, sincerity lies in the master, not in the subordinates.Therefore, there must be a slight suspicion of guilt, and then the virtue of living a good life will be in harmony with the hearts of the people. This is not something that can be superficial.How to understand it? Scholars in ancient times were proud of becoming an official and dismissed as a disgrace. Today's scholars regard it as a blessing to be ignorant, to be defiled and not to be recorded as a blessing, and to work in the fields as a crime that must be punished, and to beat them with whips. Chu is an ordinary disgrace.At the beginning, the imperial court took the people from all over the world and recruited them, and there was nothing left to do. Some officials forced them to go to the Tao, such as arresting heavy prisoners, compared to going to the capital, and removing officials. what he has learned.As an official, if there is a fall, if you want to avoid being slaughtered, you must be in the field of labor in the field. The rate is normal and there is a lot of care.This is what His Majesty would like to do!I sincerely want people to fear and dare not commit crimes.Over the past few years, I have seen that there have been many punishments and killings, and the offenders follow each other, the good reasons are unclear, the good and the evil are the same, the law of judging the good and the capable has been abolished, and those who do good without self-motivation are almost dead.There are some people here, honest as Yi and Qi, knowledge as good and flat, less violent than the law, will the general record the good and discard the short and use it?Is it the law to abandon its strengths and harshen its weaknesses?If one chooses its strengths and discards its weaknesses, then the mediocre talents will strive for self-improvement and honesty; if they are harsh on their shortcomings and discard their strengths, then good people will say that if someone is honest, if someone knows it, the court will lend him a lot. What is there to accommodate?As a result, those who do not plan for the night, abandon their integrity, or restrain themselves, in order to prepare for the labor of the farm, the rate is also the same.If so, is it not the trouble of torture?The Han Dynasty moved the big clan to the mountain mausoleum, but it is not known that it was a sinner. Today, where the Fengyang Imperial Mausoleum is located, in the land of Longxing, the rate is to live in sinners. The voices of complaints and sorrows fill the garden. meaning also. Yuanzhang was so angry that his voice trembled, and he kept saying that this kid dared to be so presumptuous!Catch him quickly, I'll shoot him with my own hands!A few days later, when he was happy, the provincial official of Zhongshu sent Ye Boju to the prison of the Ministry of punishment, and soon died in prison.Xie Jin, Yuan Zhang's favorite young talent in his later years, was ordered to tell the truth, writing tens of thousands of words, and also said: If the ministers hear that the number of orders is changed, the people will be suspicious, and if the punishment is too complicated, the people will play.Twenty years have passed since the beginning of the country, and there is no law that will not change for a long time, and there is no person who is invulnerable every day.I have heard that His Majesty was furious, hoeing the roots and cutting the vines, punishing the treacherous and rebellious, but I have never heard of the one who praised a great good, rewarded it throughout the world, and returned to his hometown, which is always the same.Your Majesty enters people without choosing talents, assigns positions regardless of their importance, and establishes laws that are not used by the emperor.Jiansheng Jinshi practiced Ming and practiced, but they often succumbed to subordinates; filial and honest talents went blind, and might be distributed in the court and province.Bury the arrogant husband, and the foolish generation, donate knives and tweezers at the court, and embrace the crown at night; abandon the basket on the left, and form the talisman on the right.That's why the sages are ashamed to be ranked among them, and the mediocre people are accustomed to their demeanor, using greed and obscurity as a plan for gain, and using honesty and punishment as an excuse.Those who came from the Ministry of Officials were not judged as virtuous or not, and those who entered the Ministry of Punishment were not judged in vain.All the people in the world say that your majesty let his joy and anger be his life and death, but he doesn't know that all his ministers lack loyalty and goodness.Husbands and sinners don’t have children, and punishments don’t extend to heirs. They even sit up in the Qin law, and the killing of children is based on fake books. Today, the wife of a good man may not be honored. The provision of rationing, listen to the injustice, so how can you take the husband's righteousness!The reason for this weathering is also. The words were very explicit and carried a lot of weight, but he blamed all this on the lack of loyalty of his ministers, which was not the emperor's original intention. Yuan Zhang read it very comfortably, and even said: genius!wit! In the horrific atmosphere of flogging, hard labor, skinning, muscle picking, and even family and family extermination, all officials, no matter how big or small, close to or far away, will encounter unexpected disasters anytime, anywhere, and everyone is panicked and nervous. live.Some people couldn't stand it, so they had to resign and go home to be ordinary people.But in this way, it stabbed Yuanzhang's sore spot again, saying that these people were unwilling to do things for the court: rape, greed and no blessing, so they slandered, all saying that the court officials were difficult to do.Disrespectful, must be killed.Nor is it left, nor is it right, which really makes the bureaucrats fearful and unpredictable. There are also a few offended bureaucrats and nobles who survived by pretending to be crazy. One is Yushi Yuan Kai.Once Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to kill many people and asked Yuan Kai to send the case file to the crown prince for interrogation. The crown prince advocated leniency.When Yuan Kai reported back, Yuan Zhang asked him: I want to kill people, but the crown prince wants to reduce them. Who do you think is right?Yuan Kai couldn't say who was wrong, so he had to answer: Your Majesty wants to kill because he abides by the law, and the crown prince wants to pardon because of compassion.Yuan Zhang was furious, thinking that Yuan Kai was playing tricks and playing tricks on both sides, which was undesirable.Yuan Kai was frightened to death, fearing that he would be killed, so he pretended to be crazy.Yuan Zhang said that a lunatic is not afraid of pain, so he asked someone to prick his skin with an auger. Yuan Kai gritted his teeth and tried not to scream.After returning home, he locked his neck with an iron chain.Unkempt and full of crazy words.Yuan Zhang still didn't believe it, so he sent an envoy to summon him to be an official. Yuan Kai sang Yueer Gao's song to the envoy with staring eyes, and crawled by the fence to eat dog arrows.This time Yuanzhang was deceived. It turned out that Yuan Kai knew that the emperor was going to send people to investigate. He asked people to mix fried noodles with syrup in advance, knead them into pieces, and scattered them under the fence. After eating them, he saved a life. How could Zhu Yuanzhang know .Another example is the relative Guo Decheng, the older brother of Concubine Guo Ning.One day he accompanied Yuanzhang to drink in the back garden, and when he was drunk, he crawled on the ground to crown his head and kowtow to thank him, revealing a few sparse hairs.Decheng said: These few roots are too much, and I will be happy after cutting them all out.Yuanzhang raised his face and remained silent.After Decheng woke up, he knew that he had caused a catastrophe, so he simply pretended to be crazy, shaved his head, put on a monk's clothes, and chanted Buddha's name all day long.Yuan Zhang believed it was true, and told Concubine Ning: I thought your brother was joking, but now it's really like this, what a madman.don't care anymore.After the party case was raised, Decheng unexpectedly slipped through the net. Yan Demin, a native of Wu, was promoted from censor to Zuoqian capital censor. He resigned due to illness and violated Yuanzhang's taboo. He was exiled to Nandan (now Guangxi) with his face tattooed.One day, he was arrested by the censor because of something, and he knelt down in the hall, and confessed that he had also engaged in official business in Taiwan, and he was quite familiar with the three-foot law.The censor asked what official it was, and said that Yan Demin, the head of Hongwuzhong, was the old man.The censor was shocked and apologized.I went to visit the next day, but I had already picked up my bedding and left.A professor drank with him, saw his face tattooed and wore a broken hat, and asked the old man what crime he had committed. Demin told the details, and said that in the past, the laws of the country were very strict, and most officials could not keep their heads. Cupping his hands in the north, he kept saying: Holy Grace!Holy Grace! There is a popular folk legend that Zhu Yuanzhang went out for a private visit one day, and when he went to a ruined temple, there was no one there. Take it in and let it go, so why not relax a little bit!The ink is still fresh.Immediately send people to search for the person who wrote the painting and wrote the poem, but he has disappeared.This legend is of course fictitious, but it truly reflects the dissatisfaction of the bureaucrats of the Hongwu Dynasty with the actual political struggle. Zhu Yuanzhang ruled the country with violence and dealt with the internal struggle of the ruling class with severe punishment. He was convinced that he was right.But he did not allow future generations to follow his example. In May of the 28th year of Hongwu, he issued an order: I have been in charge of the world's common affairs for more than forty years since I started the army.Among them, those who are treacherous and treacherous, who are serious crimes of love, and who are beyond doubt, are ordered to be punished extrajudicially, in order to make people know and fear, and dare not break the law easily.However, when dealing with this privilege, it is not a long-term method used by a successful king.In the future, the successor will rule the world, and he will only abide by the "Law" and "Dagao", and the punishment of tattooing, stabbing, cutting, and castration is not allowed.Those who dare to use this punishment will be impeached immediately by civil and military officials and sentenced to severe punishment.