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On a certain day in June of the eighth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1375), Taicang, the household department of the Ming Dynasty should be Tianfu (Nanjing).
The accountant of the household branch was checking the money and grain handed over by Jining Prefecture in Shandong Province this year, while on the other side, Jining**, who was in charge of escorting, was chatting with a household department director diligently, telling about the hardships of traveling thousands of miles.
The principal didn't talk, and endured the other party's chatter with a cold face. After a long time, the accountant finished the inventory. While listening to the accountant's report, the director checked the difference between the inventory amount and the account book, and then said to the Jining ** with a blank face: "There is an error in the amount of money and grain in the account book, come back after correction." ”
Jining** immediately smiled, but the principal ignored it and went straight to the hall. In desperation, Jining had no choice but to give up.
On the second day, Jining** came to the household department again and presented the re-filled account book. And the head of the household department took the account book after checking the number and the seal of the house. So far, Jining Prefecture's summer tax collection task this year has been successfully completed. The two sides tacitly agreed that they were overjoyed.
However, such a seemingly ordinary little thing inadvertently triggered a mass murder that caused a sensation across the country.
Ming Dynasty Cao Yun map.
The Ming Dynasty followed the Yuan system, and levied money and grain to fill the field, twice a year, respectively, summer tax and autumn grain. Therefore, every year, all political departments (i.e., provinces) and state capitals need to collect the full amount of money and grain in advance, and send special personnel to send them to the household department of Yingtianfu after counting and making a book.
The household department also has its own procedures for receiving money, and the money and grain in various localities must be carefully checked by the household department and checked with the local account books before it can be put into the treasury for verification. Once there is a discrepancy in the amount, the household department will not accept it, and the local government will remake the account books and use them to seal them before making a declaration until the account books are completely consistent with the physical goods.
Zhu Yuanzhang thinks that such a policy is very rigorous and there is nothing wrong with it, but it will make the magistrate suffer.
In ancient times, the traffic was extremely blocked, even if it was necessary to go back and forth to the state capitals around Tianfu, it would take a lot of time, not to mention the Yunnan-Guizhou, Shaanxi-Gansu, Jiliao and other places thousands of miles away, once it was necessary to re-make the book and use the seal, it was estimated that it would take about half a year to go back and forth. Not only is there a huge loss of people eating horses and chewing, but also the mountains and rivers are dangerous and thieves are infested, and no one wants to do this drudgery.
As the saying goes, there are policies and countermeasures, and such a complex equation is not difficult for the capable officials of the empire, because the previous dynasty had a ready-made method to crack it - the empty seal.
As early as the Yuan Dynasty, in order to avoid tossing himself, the local governor would prepare some blank account books for the money and grain escort team before it set off, and first stamped the local seal in case of emergency. The Ming Dynasty ** concocted the same method, and it has always been operated in this way, and the household department, as a referee, also understands the difficulties of the magistrates, so they turn a blind eye, and the financial machinery of the empire operates normally with the tacit cooperation of everyone, and there has never been a mistake.
However, anyone can choose to acquiesce, but there is only one person who can't stand it, and that is Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang.
Example of an empty printed document.
On a certain day in July of the ninth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1376), Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, learned of this matter by chance, and was shocked and hurriedly ordered the pro-army Duweifu (the predecessor of Jinyiwei) to go to the household department to verify.
When he was holding a piece of white paper with a large seal in his hand, Lao Zhu's inner anger could be imagined, he was from a bitter background, and he couldn't see the deception of officials and masters. So, Lao Zhu made up his mind to wave the iron fist of Daming to blast this group of ** who don't know whether to live or die.
A bloody storm of Ming officialdom began.
After a thorough investigation, Zhu Yuanzhang focused the spearhead on the political secretary, the state government, and the household department, which had the right to review and seal the money and grain account books. Therefore, the head of the household department's audit, the local ** palm seal officer, and the deputy ** who signed the empty seal account book have all become the targets of this case.
Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the Criminal Department to punish all the local palm seal chiefs involved in the case, and all the local palm seal chiefs involved in the case were beheaded, and the deputy ** and other staff were 100 to fill the army, and those who committed minor crimes were detained. According to statistics, hundreds of chief officials were killed, and no less than 1,000 were detained in the army.
Among them, the famous ones include Fang Xiaoru's father, Fang Keqin, the prefect of Jining, Fang Keqin is an honest official, with a good official reputation, and he has been convicted at the time of the crime, but he was still convicted of the crime, and there are countless more honest victims like this.
Fang Xiaoru: A bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, he was razed by the Ten Clans for refusing to draft the edict of enthronement for Ming Chengzu Zhu Di.
For a time, Ying Tianfu cried and shouted, and the heads were rolling, and the Ming officialdom was shaken. Although the ** at all levels, including the prime minister, believed that the ** involved in the case had died unjustly, no one dared to defend it.
In the same year, coinciding with the change of the stars, Qin Tianjian said that it was a great omen, and Zhu Yuanzhang asked for advice from the world.
Taking this as an opportunity, Haining scholar Zheng Shili dared to write to Zhu Yuanzhang, almost without mentioning the astrological signs in the whole article, but focusing on the empty seal case, directly reprimanding Lao Zhu for being mean and unkind, and the sentence was too heavy.
So who is this Zheng Shili?
Zheng Shili's elder brother is Zheng Shiyuan, the Hubei Provincial Prosecutor involved in the case, as the deputy who is less involved in the case, Zheng Shiyuan has been released after being detained. But Zheng Shili, as an eyewitness to the case, felt that Lao Zhu was too cruel and he had to seek justice for the victims.
So, Zheng Shili hit his head once, but unexpectedly, this head hit Zhu Yuanzhang's steel plate, not only his brother was imprisoned again, but even he got in.
Zheng Shili's arguments are actually very sufficient.
First of all, "Today's test is a comparison of book strategies, which is a combination of two stitches, not one print and one paper." Even if you can get it, you can't do it, and you can't get it? "A blank piece of paper stamped with a seal cannot be used for any other purpose, let alone almost impossible to fall into the hands of others.
Second, "the provincial government goes to the far away department for six or seven thousand miles, and the nearest is three or four thousand miles, and the book is completed and then sealed, and it is necessary to go back and forth for a year." "Your old Zhu should think of a way, how to solve this long journey? You can't help it.
Furthermore, "since the founding of the country, there has never been a law of empty seals." There is a division to inherit, but they do not know their crimes. "As the saying goes, if the law does not prohibit it, it can be done, and the empty seal is not illegal, so which crime are you convicted?
In the end, "it is very difficult for the imperial court to seek a wise man and place a throne." From the county guard to the county guard, it has been achieved for decades. "I feel sorry for you for the innocent killing of these local cadres who have been painstakingly selected and trained by the imperial court.
The reason is good, but the reality is brutal. After Zhu Yuanzhang finished reading, he was furious, thinking that my old Zhu Zhiguo would still have your turn to be pointed out by a scholar. As a result, the brothers Zheng Shili and Zheng Shiyuan were both exiled to the army.
Of course, Zheng Shili's book is not without effect. Zhu Yuanzhang immediately added an article to the "Da Ming Law": "Those who are fraudulent generals, chief military officers, the governor's office of the five armies, the six departments, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the commander of the envoys, the internal and external guards commanding the envoys, and guarding the documents of the thousands of households in the critical passes, the set of painting and the words, the theft of the seal letter and the use of the seal on empty paper, are all hanged; The procuratorate, the political secretary, the judge, and the yamen of Fuzhou County shall have a hundred rods and a flow of three thousand miles; and the rest of the yamen shall have a hundred rods and three years' imprisonment. Those who have not implemented it shall be reduced by one level each. If there is a person who avoids the seriousness of the matter, it will be dealt with severely. ”
So far, no one dares to mention the empty seal case.
Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang seated statue.
After this case, the household department became the busiest yamen in the Ming Empire, and the original seasonal work became year-round, and the busier were the local tax officials, who ran between two points and one line all year round, and were miserable.
The empty seal case is indeed suspected of overkill, but Zhu Yuanzhang also has his own calculations. Since the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang has always taken it as his responsibility to eliminate the maladministration of the previous dynasty, but whether it is the household department or the local officials, they are still secretly using the old system of the previous dynasty, and this kind of practice of yang and yin is intolerable to Zhu Yuanzhang. The imperial power of the Ming Dynasty will never allow anyone to blaspheme.
Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang also believes that the fall of the Yuan Dynasty has a lot to do with the mismatch of power between the late Yuan Dynasty and the localities. What does the centralization of power in the Ming Dynasty rely on to achieve? Lao Zhu has two magic weapons in his eyes: taking power and killing people.
I have to say that Zhu Yuanzhang's iron-fisted politics has indeed achieved miraculous results, and the turbidity of officialdom left over from the previous dynasty has been swept away, "abiding by orders and fearing the law for a while, purifying oneself and loving the people, and clarifying the rule of officials for more than a hundred years."
However, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, bizarre phenomena such as forging official documents, tampering with texts, and privately engraved seals reappeared, and their severity was even worse than that of the previous dynasty.
In the thirteenth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1656), when a Qing Dynasty household ** was sorting out the yellow book of the household registration of the former Ming Dynasty, he accidentally turned to a yellow book of the twenty-fourth year of Chongzhen compiled in advance by the officials of the household department of the Ming Dynasty, which is incredible.
If Lao Zhu is aware of the spring, he is afraid that the coffin board of Xiaoling will not be able to cover it.