Chapter 79 Section 3 Sensitive Words in Hongwu Dynasty

The third stage is to appoint and kill at the same time. In the early days of his rule, Zhu Yuanzhang rarely killed civil servants.In the mid-Hongwu period, the world was as peaceful as a rock, and Zhu Yuanzhang no longer deliberately suppressed his hooligan nature.For civil servants, on the one hand, he wants to appoint them to govern the country; on the other hand, because intellectuals are everywhere, they can't be used, and if they are not happy, they will be killed casually, without regret. In December of the ninth year of Hongwu, Ru Taisu, the head of the Ministry of Justice, wrote a ten-thousand-word book to state current affairs. Zhu Yuanzhang asked Zhongshu Lang Wang Min to read the ten-thousand-word book to him. At the beginning, Ru Taisu said a lot of clichés, which made Zhu Yuanzhang very annoying , called Ru Taisu into the palace, pressed him to the ground and beat him up.The next night, I asked someone to continue reading Ru Taisu's Wanyan book. After hearing that there were four things that could be done later, I released Ru Taisu, saying that your mistake was that the article was too long. One word is enough.

A few years later, when Ru Taisu became Minister of the Household Department, he still liked to give opinions, so he was "on the verge of crime repeatedly". One day, Zhu Yuanzhang invited Ru Taisu to a banquet in the banquet hall, poured a glass of wine for Ru Taisu, and chanted a poem: "Drink the golden cup with you, and the white blade will not spare you." Serve the country without avoiding the burning of the Sacred Heart." Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help feeling sorry for him when he heard this.But soon, he still found an excuse to execute Ru Taisu. In April of the 15th year of Hongwu (1382 A.D.), Zhu Yuanzhang set up a monk office to worship Buddha vigorously.Li Shilu, Minister of Dali Temple, was a well-known Neo-Confucianist of Cheng and Zhu. He disapproved of the emperor's advocacy of Buddhism and urged Zhu Yuanzhang to uphold Confucianism and avoid Buddhism.Zhu Yuanzhang was furious and asked the warrior to throw him to death under the steps on the spot.

Tongzhou Jinshi Wang Pu has an upright personality and loves to be outspoken and extremely admonishing. Sometimes seeing that his admonitions are not accepted, he would debate with Zhu Yuanzhang face to face.Zhu Yuanzhang expressed appreciation for his outspokenness several times at the beginning, but later he became so annoying that he beheaded him.Wang Pu didn't understand the insignificant status of intellectuals like himself in the emperor's heart. Passing by the history museum, he shouted loudly: "Bachelor Liu Sanwu Zhizhi: On a certain date, the emperor killed the innocent Yushi Puye!"

In addition to those who died because of contradicting and admonishing, more intellectuals died in Zhu Yuanzhang's literary prison.Although Zhu Yuanzhang looked down on intellectuals more and more, he did not relax his guard against intellectuals at all. In the early years of Hongwu, because he was dissatisfied with Zhu Yuanzhang's emphasis on literature over military affairs, a military official told Zhu Yuanzhang about the disadvantages of intellectuals.He said that these people are narrow-minded and mean-spirited, and they often swear in different ways: "Scholars have vicious intentions and are good at ridiculing. If you are not vigilant, you will be fooled by them. For example, Zhang Jiusi (Zhang Shicheng's original name) Youli literati, please invite them Changing his name, I never thought they would name him 'Shicheng'."

Zhu Yuanzhang said, is this name very good?What's wrong? Wu Chen said: "The problem is serious."My staff told me that "Mencius" said that a scholar is an honest villain.This is calling Zhang Shicheng a villain! After hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately found a copy of "Mencius" to check, and he found this sentence.He couldn't help being surprised: Zhang Shicheng is also considered half a king, and he was called a villain for half his life, and he didn't know it until he died. It's really pitiful.This is nothing more than scholars bullying him as a salt dealer and looking down on him, so they teased him like this.And Zhu Yuanzhang, who was born as a monk and beggar, must be looked down upon by them even more.From then on, Zhu Yuanzhang began to be suspicious of civil servants, and read the memorials more carefully.

Zhu Yuanzhang kept claiming that he was a "Huaiyou commoner", "Jiangzuo commoner", "from the fields", and "from a humble background", which seemed very forthright and frank.But these words can only be said by himself, and others must never say them.In fact, being a beggar and a monk has always been the biggest scar in Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, but any words related to monks such as "light", "bald" and "monk" will violate his taboo.Because it started from an uprising, I also hate people mentioning "thieves" and "bandits".

In fact, none of the subjects of the Ming Dynasty had the courage to mention this pot of water in front of Zhu Yuanzhang, nor were they interested in mentioning this pot of water, so these words were not used in the memorial, but Zhu Yuanzhang was even more worried. Expanded to an extremely ridiculous level.For example, the word "Sheng", because it is close to the word "Monk", has bad intentions in his opinion.The word "Ze" is also very dangerous, because "Ze" is pronounced the same as "thief" in Huaixi dialect. According to the custom in the early Ming Dynasty, the ministers of civil and military affairs would present their congratulations on festivals and the emperor's birthday.As usual, the school instructors will do the writing on the form.Although the notes are full of clichés without nutrition, Zhu Yuanzhang likes to read them because they are all praises of himself.But after reading and reading, more and more sensitive words popped up, and the sensitive word that appeared most frequently was the word "Ze".

For example, Lin Yuanliang, a professor of Zhejiang Fuxue University, was killed because of the sentence "Let the rules and hang down the constitution" in the "Xie Zengfeng Biao";Zhao Boning was instructed by the Beiping Prefecture School to compose the "Wan Shou Biao" for the capital, and he was executed because of the sentence "Let the children and grandchildren lead the way" in the list; The world" sentence and was executed. Secondly, if there are words such as "sheng" (nearly "monk") and "fakun" (nearly "fakun") in the note, it is also considered by him to be a satire on his being a monk.Changzhou prefectural school taught Jiang Zhen, who was killed because of the sentence "sharpness produces knowledge" in "Zhengdan Hebiao".Jia Zhu (zhu) of Xiangfu County wrote "Zhengdan Hebiao" for this county, in which there is a sentence "take the law like Wei", because "take the law" sounds the same as "go to send", Jia Zhu also died.Xu Yuan, the school teacher of Weishi County, made the "Longevity Congratulations Table" for the government. In the table, there is a sentence "the body is dry and Fakun, and the algae is decorated with Taiping". The sound is the same as "early lost peace", Xu Yuan lost his life.

In addition, there are many examples, of all kinds and varieties.Zhu Yuanzhang's imagination is really astonishing, and the literary prison he created is also shocking and appalling.Lin Yun, the teacher of Bozhou, wrote "Xie Donggong's Banquet Note" in which there is a sentence "Shi Junfu is a class leader". Zhu Yuanzhang thought that "Shi Junfu" was a hidden word for "Killing the King", and Lin Yun was killed because of this. In "He Li Taisun Biao" written by Wu Xian, the teacher of De'an Prefecture School, there is a sentence "Yong Shao Wannian, the world has a way, and I hope to worship Qingmen". Because of this, he was decapitated.Lu Rui, a teacher of the Huaiqing Mansion, wrote "Horse Biao Xie Ci" with the words "Looking at the Emperor's Door". Zhu Yuanzhang thought that "Emperor's Door" implied the ridicule of "Emperor is not", and Lu Rui was also beheaded.In addition, Zhou Mian, a student of Chenzhou Prefecture, made the "Longevity Table" for Benzhou. He was killed because of the sentence "Shouyu Qianqiu" in the table. No matter how people think about it, they can't understand why. It sounds the same as the word "beast".

In addition to picking faults in the table and chapters, Zhu Yuanzhang also extended the literary prison to literary works. When he saw who wrote poems that made him uncomfortable, he arrested and killed the author. Lang Ying's "Seven Revised Class Drafts" records that during the Hongwu period, Shouren, a monk of the Siming Dynasty, came to Beijing in response to the imperial edict. If you are tired enough, you can live in the autumn forest.” After Zhu Yuanzhang read it, he said to Shouren, “Don’t you want to see me and tell me that I am a secret?” So he was executed for slander.

Gu Gongxie's Excerpt from "Xiaxia Leisure Records" records that a monk named Laifu wrote two lines of "Jin Pan Su Helai Special Domain" and "Self-ashamed Wude Song Tao Tang" in a thank-you poem to Zhu Yuanzhang. Furious, he said: "You use the word 'special' in your poems, which means that I am an evil Zhu Ye. You also say that I have no virtue to praise Tao Tang, which means that I have no virtue. Although I want to use Tao Tang to praise me, I can't." beheaded. Gao Qi, the head of the "Four Heroes of Wuzhong" in the early Ming Dynasty, was an important figure in the history of Chinese literature.In the seventh year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang read the "Shangliang Wen" written by Gao Qi, and used the word "dragon pan and tiger crouch" to describe Wei Guan's government.Zhu Yuanzhang thought that this phrase could only be used to describe the emperor's residence, and not for others, so he cut Gao Qi in half.