What is the difference between the East Factory and the West Factory in the Ming Dynasty and the Insider Factory?
The factory guard system is a unique system in the Ming Dynasty"Guard"Refers to the gentleman's guard,"plant"Refers to the east and west factories, in fact, the inner factories did not exist for a long time. In fact, the main functions of the eastern, western, and inner factories are to investigate, arrest, and prosecute, and the difference is mainly in the size of the power, and interestingly, the shorter the existence of the three, the greater the power.
Dongchang: It has a long history and is mainly responsible for the identification of hundreds of officials in the imperial court.
After Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ascended the throne, he was worried about the existence of Zhu Yunwen's remnants and the people's doubts about the legitimacy of the Yongle regime, so he first restored Jinyiwei, but he felt that it was not appropriate to use the Jinyiwei liaison office outside the palace, and decided to establish a new organization.
In the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420), Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, decided to set up the East Factory to suppress dissent. Because some eunuchs had made great achievements during Zhu Di's reign, and the eunuchs were more accessible in the palace, Zhu Di appointed his favorite eunuch as the head of the East Factory.
As the name suggests, Dongchang's initial main responsibilities were to investigate and arrest, monitor judicial and civil dynamics at all levels, give priority to justice (the gentry were in charge of civil affairs), and report directly to the emperor. Those with lower status can be directly arrested by Dongchang, but Dongchang was initially only responsible for investigation and arrest, without the right of interrogation, once the suspect **, must be handed over to the gentry of the Beizhen Fusi trial, to the end of the Ming Dynasty, Dongchang also has its own prison.
The scope of investigation in the East Factory is very wide, when the imperial court wants to deal with major cases, when the Emperor of Jin Wai Beizhen Fu Si tortures the prisoners, the East Factory will send people to observe, and the personnel of the East Factory sit in the office of the imperial court and monitor every move of the **. Since Dongchang has the power to control the copper guard, it has established the first authority of the copper guard.
Unlike the West Factory and the Inner Factory, which existed for a short time, the East Factory was built from the 18th year of Yongle (1420) to the fall of the Ming Dynasty, which lasted for more than 200 years.
Western Factory: Existed for a shorter period of time and had much more power than Eastern Factory.
In the twelfth year of Chenghua (1476), the capital took place"The demon fox appears at night"The mysterious event followed by the demon Li Zilong entering the inner palace"Kill the king"of events. Seeing that there was a danger lurking inside and outside the palace, Emperor Zhu Jianshen decided to set up a new intelligence department to prevent such incidents from happening again, and wanted to know the movements of his subjects inside and outside the palace.
Under the instruction of Emperor Zhu Jianshen of Chenghua, the great eunuch Wang Zhi selected personnel from the gentry and disguised himself to the people to conduct an investigation, Wang Zhi seized the opportunity to catch wind and shadows, and showed his influence to Emperor Chenghua, but due to the small scale of the investigation, in the thirteenth year of Chenghua (1477), Wang Zhi established a new imperial court institution - Xizhuchang, referred to as Xichang, and served as governor. Wang Zhi once again selected a large number of personnel from among the gentry, and his power soon surpassed that of Dongchang.
However, Wang Zhi's authoritarian rule created a large number of unjust, false and wrongful convictions in just five months, which made the villagers panic, and the Xichang was dissolved in May of that year. However, after the closure of the West Factory, Xianzong always felt insecure, so after Wang Zhi's failure to fight for power, he withdrew from the West Factory and reopened the West Factory a month later, but Xianzong's grandson, Emperor Zhengde, reopened the West Factory because of his love for the eunuch Liu Jin and his accession to the throne, and it was not until five years later that the West Factory was completely closed.
Compared with the East Factory, the personnel of the West Factory are doubled, and the scope of investigation is also very wide, from the palace to the border town, there are commanders of the West Factory everywhere; From the whereabouts of ** to the minutiae of the people, there is nothing that Xichang can't detect. Moreover, Xichang was free to arrest ministers without reporting them to the emperor, which resulted in a large number of unjust cases. Although the West Factory existed for a shorter time than the East Factory, its power far exceeded that of the East Factory.
Indoor plants: the shortest to exist, but the most powerful.
As mentioned earlier, the shorter the plant protection time, the stronger the plant protection effect. As one of the shortest-lived plant covers, the inside of the plant is also the strongest and therefore the most damaged.
Ming Dynasty - Wu Zongji"(In the third year) in August, Liu Jin led the establishment of an internal factory"。In fact, the establishment of the inner factory is more interesting. After Zhu Houzhao ascended the throne of Ming Wuzong, the governors of East and West Factory, and the later governors of Qiu Ju and Gu Dayou were the same"Eight Tigers", but because the great eunuch Liu Jin was the most favored, the East Factory and the West Factory were actually in charge of Liu Jin.
Although the West Factory and the East Factory were both under the command of Liu Jin, the struggle between them was extremely fierce. Faced with this situation, Liu Jin set up his own factory internally, whose functions were the same as those of the East and West Factories, but with a wider scope, under his direct command, direct command and control of the East and West Factories and the Red Aristocrats.
In April of the fifth year of Zhengde (1510), Yang Yiqing, the imperial historian, took advantage of the contradiction between Zhang Yong and Liu Jin and colluded with Zhang Yong to convict Liu Jin of Li Dongyang University. The factory only existed for five years, but the damage was extremely serious, according to the "History of the Ming Dynasty - Criminal Law Chronicle"."Criminals kill people, break into people's houses, and thieves kill good"。
To sum up, the Ming Dynasty had four major secret agencies, the East Factory had the power to control the Red Nobles, the West Factory had the power to control the East Factory and the Red Nobles, and the Inner Factory had the power to control the West Factory, the East Factory and the Red Nobles.