Chapter 2 foreword

The Dingjian, Hongwan, and Yigong cases are three related court cases that occurred in the last years of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty.At that time, they were called the Three Cases; after the death of the Ming Dynasty, some historians called them the Three Cases in the Late Ming Dynasty. Although these three cases are court cases, their impact has far exceeded the court, affecting inside and outside the capital, as well as the border and Jiangnan.Because of its long-distance origin and great influence, it has been valued by historians from the very beginning.It was particularly valued by people at that time because it lasted for a long time and involved many people. From the inner court to the outer court, many people were involved in it, and some of them were ruined and died.The reason why later generations attach importance to it is not only the above-mentioned reasons, but also because of the causes and processes of the three cases, it can be clearly seen that the Ming Dynasty has made great efforts to increase the imperial power for many years, and what kind of evils it has produced.

The feudal dynasties of all dynasties have made continuous efforts to increase the imperial power in order to ensure the rule of the family. The rise of each new dynasty roughly sums up the reasons why the previous dynasties lost and came up with Some remedies are the so-called "promoting benefits while eliminating disadvantages".In terms of this revolution, the Ming Dynasty was very prominent.In many places, it made very different reforms from previous generations.These reforms were formed after Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di and subsequent emperors continuously inherited the ancestors' precepts and reformed them.

The most prominent point of Ming Taizu's reform was the abolition of the system of prime ministers inherited from generation to generation.Originally, he had no intention of abolishing this system, and still inherited the old system. Therefore, before the Ming Empire was established and it was still called the State of Wu, he set up the positions of left and right prime ministers; after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the post of prime minister Also kept for more than ten years.However, between the imperial power and the prime minister's power, there has always been a mutual growth and decline, and some conflicts continue to arise.In order to increase his power and establish a solid foundation for his descendants, Zhu Yuanzhang finally got rid of Li Shanchang, Hu Weiyong, Wang Guangyang and other people who had been in the prime minister, and abolished this position.

After abolishing the position of prime minister, Ming Taizu re-divided the affairs that should be in charge of the prime minister: he put the power of custom decision-making and other powers under the control of the emperor's family; the actual government affairs were assigned to six departments, and six ministers were raised. authority.However, as an emperor, he has always been known as "everything is done every day". There are already many affairs, and customized decisions have to be written in books and written into documents. This is beyond his power, so he needs another person to write do it.Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty and even his grandson Zhu Yunwen, who succeeded him as emperor after his death, entrusted these matters to the scholars in the Imperial Academy who studied history and literature in the inner court. There has always been neither fixed positions nor fixed staff, but they have indeed shared part of the work of prime ministers throughout the history.

Dividing the work of the prime minister between the emperor, the six ministries, and ministers with no fixed positions will often inevitably appear scattered and have a temporary appearance.It was Zhu Di, King of Yan who invaded Nanjing with his troops, who later became Ming Chengzu, who made this practice permanent.Zhu Di could well understand his father's desire to disperse power, but he also needed a dedicated person to do the job that had no fixed positions or fixed staff.Since he invaded Nanjing, he established the cabinet minister system that replaced the prime minister in the Ming Dynasty.This system was implemented until the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

The first batch of cabinet ministers included Huang Huai, Hu Guang, Yang Rong, Xie Jin, Yang Shiqi, Jin Youzi, and Hu Yan.With a large number of people, there will be many quarrels and conflicts. As a result, Xie Jin, among the seven, was trapped and died. Huang Huai was also resigned and imprisoned because of being offended.Their rivalry is due to the competition for the position of the first column.The cabinet ministers in the Ming Dynasty were also called Fuchens, and those who ranked first were called Shoufu. Because the Shoufu had the privilege of drafting edicts and had more contact with the emperor, it became the target of competition among cabinet ministers.In the beginning, although the rankings among the cabinet ministers were not fixed, for example, Xie Jin was originally ranked fourth, but later jumped to the first place, overwhelming Huang Huai, which formed the incident of falling into the trap.Soon afterward, the practice of fixed and unchanging rankings was formed among the cabinet ministers. The first assistant will always be the first, and the second assistant who is only second. If you want to obtain the various privileges of the first assistant, you must wait until the first assistant leaves. Only after that can he be promoted, and once the chief assistant returns, he will have to take a back seat and hand over the privileges he already has.In this way, the contention and exclusion among the cabinet ministers, open and secret fights, became more intense, and the chief assistant who was afraid of going back would retaliate, and the methods of falling were more vicious, and it was often safe to put them to death.Therefore, the rivalry between the cabinet ministers in the Ming Dynasty far exceeded those in the previous dynasties when there were only two prime ministers, left and right.This kind of contention was rather welcome to the emperors of the Ming Dynasty.Because Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di's father and son are the so-called masters of guessing, in order to benefit the rule of their descendants, it is a good thing for their subordinates to attack each other.Their descendants understood the will of their "second ancestor" and continued to do something in this regard, and gradually built a political organization with mutual checks and disputes between ministries, making it safer and less labor-intensive to rule.In the Ming Dynasty, many emperors either wanted to be immortals, or indulged in wine and sex, and were often tired of being in court for many years, but their throne and power have been kept very firmly. effectiveness.However, most of the ministers were caught in mutual strife. Although it was beneficial to the safety of the throne, it also played a very bad role in culture, economy, etc. Everything became increasingly corrupt and eventually led to collapse, which they did not expect .

Some of the internal eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty were able to study in the inner library set up by the inner court, and publicly obtained the power to write orders on behalf of the emperor. Empress and prince.Originally, Zhu Yuanzhang had very strict restrictions on the inner eunuchs in view of the troubles of the eunuchs. Not only were they not allowed to discuss political affairs or communicate with foreign officials, but they were also strictly prohibited from knowing how to read.He also ordered people to engrave these prohibitions on the iron plate outside the palace gate, and write them into the book "Hong Wu Bao Xun" that he left to future generations.Regarding these admonitions, in words, although his descendants all claimed that they should be followed, in fact it depends on whether it is beneficial to them or not, and some not only do not follow, but even run counter to it.For example, setting up the inner school and sending great scholars to teach some small eunuchs how to read and write, so that they can practice government, is the most prominent point that violates the so-called ancestral precepts.

With the power of "approving Zhu", the inner supervisor can instruct the cabinet to enter the draft decree on behalf of the emperor, which makes the situation of mutual restraint more complicated, and some things between the court and the outer court are also messed up.The long delay and the great influence of the three cases were formed by this chaotic situation.Therefore, some historians later said after researching the three cases that if they want to understand the chaotic disputes that restricted each other in the Ming Dynasty, starting with the three cases is an excellent shortcut.

The purpose of this book is to start with the shortcut of the three cases, so that readers can have a glimpse of the internal disputes among the ruling class in the Ming Dynasty, and see how they spent most of their time fighting for exclusion, which made the state affairs more and more deserted. .Without a little understanding of the various political forces among the rulers of the Ming Dynasty, it will be difficult to understand the three cases more clearly. Therefore, I will first start with the abolition of the prime minister system to let readers know that the cabinet ministers of the Ming Dynasty—although they were also called As a minister, joining the cabinet is also considered to be a prime minister - but his duties are quite different from those of the previous generation of prime ministers.Knowing this, one can gain some understanding of the disputes that formed later.There are many examples of eunuchs being chaotic in the past dynasties, but the Ming Dynasty is quite different from the previous dynasties. This book chooses to briefly describe it in order to increase readers' knowledge in this regard.Ming Shenzong (Wanli) was the cause of the three cases, so it is natural to have a little description of him, and at the same time, he can also know a little bit about some things in the court of the Ming Dynasty.These are all things that must be explained to understand the inside story of the three cases.