Why did Zhu Yuanzhang fail to curb corruption?

Zhu Yuanzhang used thunderous means to deal with corrupt officials, but why could he not curb the trend of corruption?

Due to his background, Zhu Yuanzhang was well aware of the poverty of the people at the bottom, so after he came to power, he implemented "ruling the country with violence" and launched a vigorous "anti-corruption" campaign across the country, and even did not hesitate to "snatch people's skin as a warning" However, even with this thunderous method, corruption in the Ming Dynasty still failed to be curbed. Why is this? Next, I will introduce it to you.

Zhu Yuanzhang vigorously punished corrupt officials, but still failed to stop the trend of corruption

Zhu Yuanzhang, who came from a lower class background, suffered from corrupt officials in his early years. It can be said that we hate corrupt officials to the core. Therefore, after becoming emperor, we were extremely disgusted with official corruption, so we adopted various means to vigorously combat corruption.

Zhu Yuanzhang can be said to have zero tolerance for corruption. From local counties and prefectures to the six central ministries and Zhongshu Province, as long as corruption is discovered, no matter who is involved, we will resolutely investigate it to the end, even if it is the founding hero or the emperor's relative. Relatives of the state were never merciful. The Guo Huan case, one of the "four major cases" in the early Ming Dynasty, was a typical example. The prince-in-law Ouyang Lun was also executed for corruption.

Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang also encouraged people to complain to the officials. Even when people from other places came to Beijing to complain, he not only asked local officials not to stop them, but even helped solve the toll problem. Those who are not accepted will be severely punished by Zhu Yuanzhang. In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang set up a "grievance drum" outside the Meridian Gate. If the people had grievances and could not seek justice locally, they could go to Beijing to beat the drum and complain directly to the emperor. At the same time, Zhu Yuanzhang also allowed the people to directly deliver unjust officials.

Once a corruption incident occurs, Zhu Yuanzhang is often punished severely. As long as it is verified, the lightest case is to be sent to the frontier and exiled to the army. Anyone who embezzles more than 60 taels of silver will be shown to the public, and he will even resort to "peeling skin and passing it off as grass". ", torture such as picking tendons, amputating fingers, amputating hands, cutting off knees, etc., in order to achieve a deterrent effect.

In addition, Zhu Yuanzhang also vigorously carried out anti-corruption education work. Not only did he formulate the "Da Gao" and "A Brief Summary of Corruption Awakening" containing a large number of corruption cases for officials to learn, he also set up specialized anti-corruption education institutions at all levels of yamen. The skinning field and the long pole specially used to pick out the heads of corrupt officials have served as a warning to officials at all levels.

Zhu Yuanzhang reigned for thirty-one years and executed more than 100,000 corrupt officials. However, even though Zhu Yuanzhang acted so vigorously and resolutely, he still could not completely eradicate corruption. In his later years, he could only issue "Chao Dynasty" "It is the same with treatment at dusk and crime in the evening; treatment at dusk and crime in the morning; the corpse has not been removed but people are here to take over it; the cure is severe but the crime is more and more."

Why corruption in the Ming Dynasty cannot be cured, institutional defects may be the root cause

As for the corruption in the Ming Dynasty, Chen Bangyan, the anti-Qing hero in the late Ming Dynasty, once said, "Jia, Before the Longqing Dynasty, scholar-bureaucrats valued fame and honor. That is to say, before Jiajing and Longqing, officials still valued honor and honor. However, after Jiajing and Longqing, officials "regarded official titles as their livelihood, took drilling and stabbing as their custom, and took bribery as their communication. The extent to which "entrustment is taken as a matter of course" shows the seriousness of corruption in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.

So, why can’t corruption in the Ming Dynasty be cured? I think it is mainly due to the following reasons:

1. Official salaries are too low. In Zhu Yuanzhang's view, since officials have obtained power, they should serve the people wholeheartedly and should not think about making money, so there are strict restrictions on officials' salaries. Zhu Yuanzhang calculated the salary based on officials' daily expenses. Although it was enough for officials to live, he forgot that in addition to supporting their families, officials also needed to bear other expenses such as entertainment, hiring officials, and so on. As a result, official salaries have reached the point where they are lower than normal. For example, Hai Rui, a second-grade official, made news because he bought two kilograms of meat for his mother's birthday. After his death, he only left 8 taels of silver and some shabby clothes. , and the phenomenon that officials in the Ming Dynasty were unable to pay for funeral expenses after their death is more common in historical data. Although Zhu Yuanzhang adjusted the salaries of officials three times during his reign, which resulted in a certain increase in the salaries of officials, the salaries of officials in the Ming Dynasty were still the lowest among all dynasties. What's even more terrible is that Zhu Yuanzhang also engraved the salary standards. On the stone tablet, form customization.

Therefore, even if not for wealth but for normal life, officials have to engage in corruption.

2. The supervision mechanism has lost its function. In order to severely crack down on corruption, Zhu Yuanzhang not only set up Kedao officials (the Sixth Section for Shizhong and the Thirteenth Supervisory Censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate) to supervise central and local officials at all levels, but he also briefly used a well-known intelligence agency "Jinyiwei", the monitoring system is supposed to be quite complete, but what he didn't expect was that both systems actually lost their function in the end. However, starting from the mid-Ming Dynasty, as the party struggle became more and more serious, the contradiction between the eunuch group and the civil servant group became more and more prominent. Under this situation, Jin Yiwei was attached to the Dongchang, and Ke Dao was attached to the cabinet, and thus became the main source of the party struggle. A tool for criticizing each other. In order to attack political opponents, they have long lost their sense of impartiality, and instead wantonly abused their power of supervision and impeachment. Under such circumstances, the entire supervision system has naturally lost its original role, and it can no longer curb corruption.

3. The official atmosphere is extremely bad. As mentioned above, the official atmosphere before Jiajing and Longqing was acceptable. However, after Jiajing came to power, the official atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty suddenly changed. "Today, from the top officials to the hundreds of bureaucrats, there is a lot of business, and it is open to the public." Not only did the officials have a weak voice in Fei Que's music, but "on the day when they were established, or when they returned with their bags hanging down, everyone would laugh at each other, thinking they were incompetent." The officialdom of the Ming Dynasty was formed at this time, and whoever was greedy proved to be capable, and joked about being incorruptible. Officials are incompetent. In such an officialdom, even if there are more honest officials, it is impossible to survive. For example, Wei Dazhong, who was involved in the official affairs, reported anyone who gave him gifts. As a result, no one dared to come to visit him. As a result, he was arrested and imprisoned by Wei Zhongxian, and eventually died tragically. In prison.

4. Corruption is inevitable under human rule. The ancient imperial society has always adhered to the idea of ??rule of man. For example, Confucius said, "Politics must be upright, and the commander-in-chief must be upright. Who dares to be unjust?" ("The Analects of Confucius: Yan Yuan"). Mencius also said: "Every king is benevolent. Benevolence means that the ruler is righteous and never is unjust, and the ruler is upright and never is unjust. Once the ruler is upright, the country will be settled." ("Mencius. Li Lou Shang"). The so-called rule of man relies on the individual wisdom of the ruler. However, "no one is a saint, and no one can make mistakes." When faced with temptation, not everyone can resist it like a saint. Therefore, corruption is unavoidable under human rule. For example, Zhang Juzheng, as a famous capable official in the Ming Dynasty, still found it difficult to refuse bribes. Yin Zhengmao, who was the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment in Nanjing at the time, once gave Zhang Juzheng two gold plates. There are corals up to three feet high.

As mentioned above, the reason why serious corruption occurred in the middle and later stages of the Ming Dynasty was mainly due to institutional flaws. Power was highly concentrated under human rule and there was a lack of effective supervision methods. This naturally leads to the emergence of corruption, and once corruption becomes a trend, it is difficult to stop it.