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"Zhu Yuanzhang's life can be said to be a history of constant struggle."

"When I was young, I fought against fate."

"When you were young, you fought against the sky."

"Fight against people, against the great world, against all injustices in the world."

He fought for a great Ming, and fought for the title of a poor emperor.

Daming was established.

A new feudal dynasty was born on the land of China, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who had been a soldier for more than ten years, began a new life of struggle.

The war is gone, but what awaits him is another new life, a new struggle.It is the grand plan of how to consolidate the imperial power and revitalize the Ming Dynasty.

Nearly 20 years of war-torn land is full of thorns and devastated.

The former fertile fields have now become vast wastelands, and the bustling cities have become ruins.

The Mongolian nobles in Mobei are still eyeing, ready to invade the Central Plains at any time.

Zhu Yuanzhang started the difficult business of rebuilding the feudal country in an orderly manner.

Zhu Yuanzhang invited all civil and military officials to his side, and asked everyone a question: Why did the Yuan Dynasty collapse so quickly?No

Liu Ji first said, "Since the Song and Yuan dynasties, we have been lenient for a long time, and Ji Gangzheng should be punished before the New Deal can be implemented."

Zhu Yuanzhang listened carefully, while thinking:

Thinking back to when the Yuan Dynasty unified the country, politics could not be described as unclear.

It was only later that noble relatives took power arbitrarily, treacherous evil was favored, and internal and external collusion led to the relaxation of laws and the tragedy of the emperor leaving Mobei.

Now is the beginning of Daming's founding. To change this situation, the most urgent task is to formulate laws and rule the country by law.

According to Zhu Yuanzhang's order, Li Shanchang began to engage in the formulation of laws, and made detailed regulations on the powers, tasks and matters to be observed of officials at all levels.

"Law of the Ming Dynasty".A total of 460 volumes, divided into six laws of officials, households, rituals, soldiers, punishment, and labor.

"Da Ming Law" is simpler than "Tang Law" and stricter than "Song Law".

"Law of the Ming Dynasty" stipulates that those who "conspire against" and "conspire against great rebellion", regardless of the master or the accomplice, will be killed (thousands of cuts). All will be cut.

The punishment for corruption of officials is also particularly severe.

Officials who committed corruption crimes, once found out, were sent to the northern desert to serve as soldiers.

Officials who embezzled and obtained more than 60 taels of stolen goods were punished with the punishment of showing their heads to the public and peeling the real grass.The earth temple on the left side of the yamen in various prefectures and counties is the execution ground for skinning, called Pichang temple.

Corrupt officials were brought here, their heads were beheaded, hung on poles for public display, their skins were peeled off, stuffed with straw, and placed next to the yamen hall as a warning to succeeding officials.

The Ming Law even severely punishes officials who travel on official livestock, vehicles and boats, and carry personal belongings exceeding the prescribed weight.

In the early Ming Dynasty, officials who took official animals and carried more than 10 catties of personal belongings in addition to their personal clothes would be punished with 5 canes for every 10 catties.

If you take an official boat with more than 30 catties of personal belongings, you will be punished with a cane for every 10 catties, and an additional grade for every 20 catties, up to 70 strokes of the cane.

Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the compilation and publication of "Da Gao" three times, compiling more than 1 cases in total, requiring each household to have a volume.

Zhu Yuanzhang said in the preface that the cases of brutal harm to the people will be made known to the world, and officials at all levels who dare to do business instead of selfishness, corrupt the people, must be pursued to the end and severely punished.

Zhu Yuanzhang was full of confidence in the laws he formulated and took the lead in implementing them, and the enforcement was quite strict, which was rare among feudal emperors in ancient China.

His son-in-law, Ouyang Lun, the captain-in-law, disregarded the court's ban and trafficked private tea from Shaanxi because he was the husband of Empress Ma's own daughter, Princess Anqing.

Zhou Bao, his domestic slave, also asked the local officials to deploy dozens of private vehicles to transport private tea for his family. If he was not satisfied, he would beat and scold these local officials at will.

Later, a small official of the Heqiao Inspection Department could not bear the humiliation and reported the matter to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Yuanzhang immediately ordered Ouyang Lun to be killed and Zhou Bao, a domestic slave, to be killed.

At the same time, he also issued an edict to praise the fighting spirit of the petty official who was not afraid of the powerful.

Zhu Wenzheng, Zhu Yuanzhang's nephew, broke the law and discipline because he was "close to Confucian scholars and harbored resentment".

He mercilessly abolished his official position.The uncle of Tang He, the hero of the founding of the country, thought he had strong relatives, so he concealed the land in Changzhou and refused to pay taxes. Zhu Yuanzhang also executed him according to law.

Despite this, those corrupt officials still have a fluke mentality, they don't pay attention to the law, they arrest money whenever they see it, and make money when they see it.

At that time, there was a grain chief Zhu A still in the west of Zhejiang who was in charge of collecting taxes and grains. In addition to collecting [-] shi of grain and rice, he extorted [-] shi of extra grain and [-] guan of money as fertilizer. private.

During Zhu Yuanzhang's 30 years as emperor, he suppressed several major corruption cases, the biggest being the Guo Huan case.

Guo Huanguan is the servant of the household department.In the 18th year of Hongwu (1385), censor Yu Min and Ding Juting reported Li He and Zhao Quande, officials of Beijing Chengxuan Political Envoy Division and Procuratorial Envoy Division, who, together with Guo Huan and others, had embezzled and embezzled official food.

Zhu Yuanzhang seized the clues and ordered the judicial department to investigate strictly according to law.

This case has been implicated in the Minister of Rites Zhao Mao, the Minister of Punishment Wang Huidi, the minister of the Ministry of War Wang Jie;

When investigating their internal and external collusion, collusion, stealing gold and silver banknotes from the treasury, and stealing and selling grain from the official warehouse, it was discovered that they had also embezzled a large amount of tax grain and fishing salt that had not been put into storage.

The money he embezzled and stolen was converted into food amounting to more than 2400 million shi.After the case was clarified, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Zhao Mao, Wang Huidi and others to be abandoned in the market and executed in the downtown area, with their bodies exposed on the street.Guo Huan and other officials under the six ministers were also executed.

Tens of thousands of officials implicated by various chief envoys were also arrested and imprisoned, and severely punished.Countless officials and wealthy people involved in this case were ransacked and executed.

In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, some literati believed that Zhu Yuanzhang came from a humble background and were unwilling to be his loyal minister and refused to cooperate with him.

Some even took methods such as suicide and living in seclusion in the mountains to avoid Zhu Yuanzhang's call.

Zhu Yuanzhang was also unkind to these literati, and took the severe punishment of "killing his body and losing his family" tit for tat.

Guixi Confucian scholar Xia Boqi's uncle and nephew cut off their fingers and vowed not to be official.

Zhu Yuanzhang took them to Nanjing for interrogation. They kept claiming that the Red Scarf Army was the "Red Crown".

At that time, many landlords and literati who were unwilling to cooperate with Zhu Yuanzhang ended up beheaded and without property.

In order to strengthen the monitoring and control of his subjects, Zhu Yuanzhang established the Inspection Department and Jinyiwei.

In the 15th year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the pro-army Duwei Mansion (formerly the Gongwei Division) in charge of security affairs around him to Jinyiwei.

Taking him as a confidant, he secretly monitored the activities of officials big and small, and reported injustice and lawlessness to Zhu Yuanzhang at any time.

At the same time, Jin Yiwei was also granted all the powers to detect, arrest, judge and punish criminals.

Special courts and prisons were set up in Jinyiwei.

Jinyiwei became an official spy agency.

During the more than 30 years of Zhu Yuanzhang's reign, there were as many spies as a cow's hair, all over the neighborhood, closely monitoring the activities of civil and military officials inside and outside the court.

Wu Lin, Minister of the Ministry of Officials, had retired and returned to his hometown, but Zhu Yuanzhang was still worried about him, so he sent special agents to Wu Lin's hometown to spy on his activities.

When the secret agent came to the rice field, he saw an old man who looked like a farmer stand up from a small stool, and asked, "Is there a Wu Shangshu here?" The old man replied, "Wu Lin is." Very pleased with the report.

University scholar Song Lian once hosted a banquet at home to entertain guests. The next day, Zhu Yuanzhang asked him, "I treated you yesterday, did you drink? What kind of food did you cook?"

Song Lian answered truthfully.Zhu Yuanzhang smiled and said, "You're right, you didn't lie to me."

Guozijian Jijiu Song Na secretly sulked at home one day, and the secret agent who secretly watched him actually drew a picture of him at this time and reported it to the emperor.Zhu Yuanzhang saw Song Na and asked, "Why were you sulking at home yesterday?"

Song Na answered truthfully.He asked Zhu Yuanzhang in surprise how he knew about this?
Zhu Yuanzhang handed him the portrait, and after he showed it, he came to his senses and hurriedly kowtowed to apologize.

Zhu Yuanzhang was afraid of being deceived by his courtiers, so he often changed clothes with his attendants and carried out reconnaissance on them.

Luo Furen, a scholar of the Hongwen Museum, was originally a subordinate of Chen Youliang. After defecting to Zhu Yuanzhang, his nature remained unchanged.

One day, Zhu Yuanzhang came to Luo's house on the outskirts of the city for a private visit.

Unfortunately, Luo Furen and his wife were painting dilapidated walls at home that day.

As soon as he saw the emperor coming, he hurriedly asked his wife to move a small stool for the emperor to sit on.Zhu Yuanzhang looked around at the furniture of Luo's house and was very moved. He said, "How can a wise man live in such a dilapidated house!" Then he ordered to give him a big mansion in the city.

One year on New Year's Eve, Zhu Yuanzhang went on tour in micro-clothes.He suddenly discovered that the answer to the riddle on a lamp had drawn a woman, holding a big watermelon in her hands, sitting peacefully on a horse, and the horseshoe was deliberately drawn too big.Zhu Yuanzhang was furious when he saw this.After returning to the palace, he was ordered to arrest him, but in the end he killed the stick that made the lantern riddle.

After the execution of the sentence, the criminal officer was still baffled, and later realized that Empress Ma was from Huaixi and had a big foot.

Zhu Yuanzhang suspected that the lantern riddle was satirizing Empress Ma, and just like that, a small lantern riddle cost a life.

Zhu Yuanzhang not only established a set of legal system to strictly control people's actions, but also strictly controlled people's thoughts.

During his administration, he personally brewed a series of shocking literary inquisitions.

He is most displeased that people mention his background, and he is even more afraid that his officials will deceive him.

He pays special attention to the words and memorials of his officials, and pays attention to whether there is any place to slander himself.

Because he has been a monk for several years, he is very taboo about the words "monk", "light" and "bald" related to monks.

Even related homonyms cannot appear in the text of the memorial.Xu Yikui, a professor of Hangzhou Fuxue, wrote in the "Congratulatory Table" he drafted, "Under the light of the sky, a sage is born to set an example for the world".

This was originally to praise Zhu Yuanzhang, but after reading "Congratulations", he was furious.

He said, "Guang" is bald, and he said I am a bald man; the sound of "Ze" is close to that of a thief, and he called me a thief." He was ordered to be executed immediately.

Xu Yuan was instructed by Weishi County to write a "Longevity Congratulations Table" for the government.Just because the article contains the words "the body is dry and the law is Kun" and "the decoration is peaceful", he was also beheaded.The reason is very simple, because the sound of "Fa Kun" is the same as "Fa Kun", and the sound of "Zao Shi Tai Ping" is the same as "Zao Shi Tai Ping".

In this way, a terrible situation has been created among the ruling and opposition literati, who are afraid of Jinyiwei when they speak, and afraid of literary prison when they write, and everyone is in danger.

Later, in order not to annoy Zhu Yuanzhang and save the lives of his subjects, the officials of the Ministry of Rites asked Zhu Yuanzhang to lower a standard form for the author to follow.