Chapter 18: Sweep Away All Corrupt Elements!

  Among all the evil deeds, Zhu Yuanzhang hated corruption the most. This is also understandable. Every time he thought of the relief food that should have been given to his parents being embezzled by officials, leading to their starvation and death, he couldn't help but grit his teeth in anger. These people deserved to be killed!

  He wanted to create a truly pure dynasty, a dynasty where officials were all clean and the people lived in peace and happiness. So he did his best to make this dream come true.

  But dreams don't necessarily come true

  In the second year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang once said to his ministers with deep feeling: "In the past when I was an ordinary people, I saw corrupt officials ignoring the suffering of the people, and I hated them deeply. From now on, we will establish laws to strictly prohibit such behavior, and if there are officials who dare to harm the people, they will be punished without mercy!"

  Zhu Yuanzhang was a man of his word, and he issued the most severe anti-corruption decree in history: those who embezzled more than 60 taels of silver would be executed on the spot!

  Even at the beginning of the country, 60 taels of silver was not a large sum, this order showed Zhu Yuanzhang's determination to be severe with corruption.

  In order to increase the deterrent effect, Zhu Yuanzhang also set up a shocking policy.

  Since the Tang and Song dynasties, the political system and institutional settings have been different, but the layout of the county government office is roughly the same, all with a main gate, a warning stone, a drum tower, and a second gate. However, during the Ming dynasty, a land temple was often added between the main gate and the second gate. This land temple should not be visited at night, it's really scary.

  This land temple is used for what? Don't be surprised, this place is for peeling skin, and the skin that's peeled is human skin.

  Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that after corrupt officials were put to death for corruption, their skin would be flayed off and stuffed with straw to make a straw man, which would then be hung beside the public seat for all to see. This straw man was not used to scare away birds, but rather to intimidate corrupt officials.

  Earlier to enjoy this high-level treatment was Zhu Yuanzhang's old subordinate Zhu Liangzu, who was a famous founding general with great merits and was enfeoffed as the Marquis of Yongjia, garrisoning Guangzhou, which can be said to be powerful. However, this person had a fatal flaw, arrogance.

  At that time, the county magistrate of Panyu County (now Panyu District, Guangzhou) was called Dao Tong, a very clean official. Due to his strict law enforcement, he had conflicts with local tyrants and villains. These tyrants suffered losses and couldn't do anything to Dao Tong, so they colluded with Zhu Liangzu, hoping that he would take the lead for them. The simple-minded Zhu Liangzu accepted bribes and actually agreed.

  After that, Zhu Liangzu had many conflicts with Dao Tong, interfering with his normal law enforcement and even sending underworld figures to ambush him. However, Dao Tong did not yield and continued to fight against Zhu Liangzu relentlessly.

  The contradictions between the two sides escalated step by step, finally reaching a climax. Dao Tong seized the evil tyrant Luo brothers, and Zhu Liangzu even dared to use troops to surround the county government office, forcibly snatching the prisoners away. Moreover, he also submitted a memorial to the emperor, impeaching Dao Tong with a multitude of crimes.

  Dao Tong finally could no longer bear it and also submitted a memorial to the emperor explaining the situation, but he forgot that Zhu Liangzu had an advantage he didn't possess - fast horses.

  The horse that Da Tong sent to present the memorial was a relay station horse, while Zhu Liangzu used a military horse. Zhu Liangzu also expected that Da Tong would inform against him, so he sent someone to select the best horses and rushed to the capital as quickly as possible to severely accuse Da Tong. Zhu Yuanzhang was a hot-headed person, and after reading Zhu Liangzu's accusation letter, he immediately dispatched someone to behead Da Tong.

  Soon after Zhu Yuanzhang issued the order, Dao Tong's memorial arrived. Upon comparing them, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately discovered the problem and hastily sent someone to chase after him, but it was too late. Thus, Zhu Liangzu killed Dao Tong.

  Dao and his fellow officials were known for their integrity, but he had no money at home. Before his death, what he worried about most was that there would be no one to support his mother, so he entrusted a good friend to take care of her, then died peacefully.

  When he was killed, countless people came to see him off

  Justice is in people's hearts

  Zhu Liangzu was overjoyed and triumphant, having finally defeated Dao Tong. He and the local tyrants could now rest easy.

  Although so, Zhu Liangzu still felt somewhat uneasy. He had followed Zhu Yuanzhang to fight battles and deeply knew that this person was either not doing anything or doing it absolutely. However, Dao Tong was just a small county magistrate, while he himself was a founding general, enfeoffed as a marquis, thinking that Zhu Yuanzhang would not take action against him for the sake of a minor official.

  Zhu Liangzu's estimate seemed to be correct. After a period of time, Zhu Yuanzhang still had no reaction, and he finally felt at ease.

  It was for this reason that when the officials from the Imperial Court arrived with Zhu Yuanzhang's edict to arrest him, Zhu Liangzu was so shocked. Although he had troops under his command, he had not yet become deranged enough to dare resist Zhu Yuanzhang. He very obediently handed over his military authority and accompanied the officials from the Imperial Court to the capital to plead guilty.

  However, the officials of Dali Temple were in no hurry to set off and instead asked him: "What about your son Zhu Zan?"

  Zhu Liangzu was stunned, and he understood the meaning of this sentence.

  Because Zhu Yuanzhang's philosophy of life is: either don't do it, or do it thoroughly.

  All the way, Zhu Liangzu still had illusions. He thought that he had worked hard and achieved great things, and that killing a county magistrate was just a minor offense. At most, Zhu Yuanzhang would scold him, but not kill him.

  But reality and imagination always have a gap.

  In the thirteenth year of Hongwu (1380), on September 3, Zhu Liangzu and his eldest son Zhu Zhen were brought before Zhu Yuanzhang. Without saying a word, Zhu Yuanzhang fully demonstrated his spirit of taking action himself, and immediately whipped Zhu Liangzu with a whip. The guards saw the emperor take the lead, morale greatly boosted, after getting Zhu Yuanzhang's tacit consent, they began to take action one after another. Zhu Liangzu and his son Zhu Zhen were thus beaten to death.

  The two words "whipped to death" are truly chilling when savored carefully.

  After killing Zhu Liangzu and Zhu Zhan, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the execution of all the evil tyrants involved in the matter. He remembered that Zhu Liangzu had made contributions, so he left his body intact, but others were not so lucky. The skins of Zhu Zhan and others were peeled off and hung in the market for people to see, as a warning to later generations.

  Zhu Yuanzhang's handling of the matter made many officials tremble with fear. Zhu Liangzu also inadvertently created a record: he was the first minister to be beaten to death in court.

  However, he was not the last one. After that, the phenomenon of the emperor beating his ministers to death, which was unique to the Ming dynasty, continued. In the late Ming dynasty, many outspoken ministers were killed by this extreme punishment.

  After that, Zhu Yuanzhang's attitude towards corrupt officials became increasingly severe. He created a policy that previous feudal rulers dared not think of, which stipulated that ordinary people could bind up corrupt officials and send them to the capital for punishment. Moreover, all checkpoints along the way had to let them pass, and if anyone dared to block them, they would be put to death and their entire family would be implicated! This is unprecedented in Chinese legal history.

  However, this policy was not strongly operational and there were not many implementers in the Ming Dynasty.

  Compared with the mass reporting and exposure, Zhu Yuanzhang's main clue to suppressing corruption came from his informants, or the inspectors we mentioned above. These people were scattered all over the country, and once they found that officials had problems such as corruption and lawlessness, they could report to the emperor. Zhu Yuanzhang also showed a spirit of risking his life, even if the intelligence was sent to the capital at midnight, he would get up immediately to meet with them.

  Some corrupt officials received red envelopes today and were caught by disciplinary inspectors tomorrow, and they will be brought to justice. The efficiency is not bad at all.

  Zhu Yuanzhang used so many means and fully cooperated himself, it should be said that corrupt behavior should disappear, but the situation was far from being as simple as he imagined.

  Zhu Yuanzhang formulated laws, stipulating that the punishments at that time were limited to flogging, caning, penal servitude, exile and death. From a literal perspective, these five punishments are also easy to understand. Objectively speaking, in feudal society, these punishments were not considered heavy. This was also Zhu Yuanzhang's consideration of the previous dynasty's punishment being too severe, making an improvement.

  But Zhu Yuanzhang was not a man who played by the rules, and in dealing with corrupt officials and opposing ministers, he did not use these few tricks.

  In the punishments he implemented, the most famous one was Ling Chi, where a person is tied to a pillar and slowly cut with a knife. If the executioner's technique is good, the person being punished will suffer even more. It is said that the highest record was cutting over 3,000 times, and the flesh was all cut off but the person still hadn't died.

  In addition, there are so-called extraction of intestines (as the name suggests), washing (pouring boiling water on people and then brushing with an iron brush), wind drying with a steelyard (hanging people up to dry with an iron hook), castration, digging knee covers, etc.

  However, in the face of these terrifying death arts, officials still came forward one after another, like a group of daredevils, walking to Zhu Yuanzhang's execution grounds in droves.

  Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, corruption has continued unabated. Zhu Yuanzhang killed but could not kill all, and according to statistics, tens of thousands of officials were killed for corruption and bribery. By the 19th year of Hongwu (1386), it was rare for officials from provinces to counties to serve a full term, and most were killed. At that time, being an official was not necessarily a good thing, and being able to live safely until retirement was already quite remarkable, and one could proudly say "Amitabha".

  Zhu Yuanzhang was extremely perplexed as to why these people, who had extensively read classical literature and took "hearing the Way in the morning and being able to die in the evening" as their life motto, became "morning officials and evening corrupt officials" after taking office.

  He couldn't understand no matter how hard he tried, but one thing was clear: kill them!

  But after killing one batch, another batch came, Zhu Yuanzhang was furious, so he issued a more severe decree: "I wanted to kill corrupt officials, but I didn't expect that after finishing the morning killings, you would offend again in the evening. Don't blame me then! From now on, those who are corrupt and accept bribes will not be limited to sixty taels, all will be killed!"

  It was like this, but it couldn't stop, and the officials became fewer and fewer. As a result, there appeared such a ridiculous record in the historical materials at that time: In the same year, 364 officials were dispatched, all of whom were promoted scholars, and six people were killed a year later.

  It seems this number is not many, don't worry, there are more: 358 people who handled the affairs of those sentenced to death and exile.

  Everyone understands now, these over 300 people didn't miss a single one, let's talk about this death penalty and life exile.

  What is meant by "wearing a dead crime, exile and flow crime" when handling affairs? This was indeed a peculiar scene in the Ming Dynasty. Many criminals who had been brought to trial would only discover when they arrived at the government office that the officials were also wearing handcuffs, just like themselves, with someone watching from behind. Apart from their clothes being official attire, they were exactly like prisoners.

  This situation arose because too many officials were killed, and no one was working. Although Zhu Yuanzhang was diligent, he couldn't replace all the officials. So he created a system where officials who committed crimes and were sentenced to death would be taken away to be beaten with dozens of boards, just as they were applying medicine to their wounds and thought their lives were not guaranteed. Suddenly, someone came to the prison, regardless of whether they were dead or alive, pulled out the punished official, stuffed them into a horse-drawn carriage, and sent them to various government offices to handle official business.

  Want to die? You're lucky, you haven't finished living yet!

  The result was that the officials who were sentenced to death would sentence the kneeling prisoners to death, and then go to Zhu Yuanzhang to receive their own death.

  It's all done, whether you want to kill or chop me up is up to you now.

  Kill those who should be killed, and execute those who should be sentenced to death or exile. Stop bothering with them anymore.

  From the above text, we can see that Zhu Yuanzhang made great efforts to eliminate corruption, but the effect was not very good. This is worth analyzing. Generally speaking, in the early days of a feudal dynasty, officials were relatively clean and honest. It is abnormal for such a large number of officials to be killed for corruption during the Hongwu period.

  It should be said that some of Zhu Yuanzhang's policy-making and implementation had problems. The main reason for the corruption of officials was their own illegal behavior, but the low treatment of officials and Zhu Yuanzhang's haste in punishing corruption were also important reasons.

  The two cases we are going to talk about below can illustrate some problems. These are the Empty Stamp Case and the Guo Huai Case, which were known as the Four Major Cases of the Hongwu Period.