Chapter 84 Section 3 "Great Law"

Zhu Yuanzhang made an overly serious estimate of the situation.He believes that his bureaucratic system is basically rotten.In his edicts, the targets of his accusations are often all officials. "Since the founding of our country, most officials have used seasoned officials. After they have been used, they are all old, treacherous and cunning, and they will never tire of committing crimes." His secretary wrote on his behalf in the "Preface to the Great Proclamation": "The Japanese are Chinese and foreign ministers. Disregarding the body and sacred heart, wantonly greedy for ink..."

In the nineteenth year of Hongwu, he himself said: I set up officials at all levels, originally to govern the people.However, the officials appointed in the past were all incompetent and without record. Once they took office, they colluded with local officials, government officials, and local evil forces to harm our good people. ("Third Parts Thirty-Four Officials Should Be Taken by the People and Harm the People") Zhu Yuanzhang, while being shocked, also thought hard about the reason why officials were so scrambling to go to the French Open.He thought over and over again, but he didn't find anything wrong with his measures.He has repeatedly said, "The affairs I set up are not unstable, and everything is right", "The law has been established, and the law has been good."Therefore, he attributed the reason to the difficulty of cultivating stubborn people:

Yu play!There are traitors and stubbornness in the world, and they will eventually be unconscious, if there is a case!And like my subjects, there are traitors and stubborn people, I think about it day and month, and plan thousands of times, so I must spend my life so that I can honor my ancestors, show off my parents, honor my wife, honor myself, and bring peace to the people of the world.The affairs I have set up are not unstable, and everything is in order.Its incompetent subjects and people destroy in every possible way, do not follow what is right, intentionally mess up the government and break the law, and bring about their own destruction. This is often the case, hundreds of thousands!

That means: "Oh! These treacherous people can't be educated well, I can't imagine it! I racked my brains to make these officials become officials smoothly, and create conditions for them so that they can honor their ancestors and shadow their ancestors. Children and grandchildren. None of the regulations and policies I have formulated are inappropriate, and they are all very appropriate. I hate these incompetent subjects and people, who destroy them in every possible way! They do not follow the right path, but do bad things, and they are self-defeating. It is difficult to count.” He also said: “ Alas, the poor greedy one, confused his nature, and did these evil things, even if he wants to survive, how can he get it!"

After all the calculations, he still put the blame on others. He believes that during the 100-year rule of the Yuan Dynasty, "the customs of the world have changed", and the people's hearts have not been old, resulting in "there are many subjects in the world who do not follow the teachings."They have been "tempted by treacherous people" for a long time.This is especially true of officials. "In the past, the Yuan Dynasty ruled China. During the ninety-three years of rule, Huafeng was destroyed and Yi Dao collapsed. Scholars only knew how to endorse books, but did not use any force to purify their thoughts. Therefore, when doing things, selfishness prevailed over publicity, and often committed crimes. A serious crime." These people were "polluted" by the bad atmosphere of the "previous generation", "greedy arose, and lost their true nature", so they "knowledgefully committed crimes", committed corruption on a large scale, and "finally failed to understand" (no matter how educated ).

Go ahead to dangers.In the final analysis, the method is to carry out ideological education.He still believes that "from ancient times to the present, there is no unchangeable custom, and no unchangeable people".Although it was "difficult to process", he still couldn't just watch these people being swallowed up by wrong thoughts.Since gentle education did not work, he decided to launch a mandatory and in-depth ideological education campaign across the country, using a large number of bloody cases to warn officials and the people.This activity must be done thoroughly. By touching the depths of the people's souls, we hope that they will "learn from their wrongdoings and change their minds", so as to eliminate the soil of corruption and crime.

For this reason, he personally produced "Da Gao", which is an ancient and strange text juxtaposed with Yongzheng's "Da Yi Jue Mi Lu", as a learning material for this campaign.The "Da Gao", compiled by the emperor himself, is simply a collection of bloody cases.Zhu Yuanzhang compiled the major and important cases he punished into a volume, mixed with a lot of preaching.Since Zhu wrote it himself, the diction is vulgar, the style is messy, and many sentences do not make sense, so the only thing he can do is to preach and scare.Let's take a look at two of them—"First Edition·Forty-eighth Counterfeit Banknote" tells how he punished a counterfeit banknote case:

Treasure banknotes are circulated all over the world, originally for the convenience of common people's transactions.There are counterfeiters in Zhejiang, Jiangdong, and Jiangxi, the most serious of which is Jurong County.Yang Mantou of the county himself initiated it, and many people in the county conspired with each other. The silversmiths secretly carved tin plates with clear styles;If the criminals are captured and captured, I will kill them all. From the capital to Jurong, the journey is ninety miles, and the corpses of the owls will look at each other. The punishment is severe.I don't think it will happen again.Unexpectedly, within a few years, villagers in this county also forged banknotes, and even neighbors knew each other and went secretly, and died.Alas!You say such a foolish person, how can we govern well?

"Part Three Delivering Pan Fu No. 18" triumphantly told how he killed 170 families because of one escaped prisoner: Zao Li Pan Fu fled illegally, and more than 200 families along the way knew about it, and some of them even provided board and lodging.The pursuers played back and copied and voted the nobles Zhao Zhen, Sheng Nu and more than two hundred families, and killed all the stick holders.The 17 households who delivered the deliveries along the way carried out the owl's orders and confiscated their homes.Woohoo: Seeing the evil and not taking it, the intention is to help the evil together, so that the accident happens, the death and the family are destroyed, so why hate it?The good people where I live, promote this to guard against madness, and listen to my words to catch evil.Not only will the people's harm be removed, but the wealth will be safe.

In Dajiao, he vividly described the dying plight of corrupt officials: "When they are about to go to the law, they are in a panic, looking up to the sky and looking around, it's too late, it's too late to regret." Don't dare to do anything wrong again. At the same time, there are also a lot of outdated dogmas in the "Da Gao".For example, it is said in "Sequel: Affirming the First Five Constants": Now that the "Proclamation" comes out, in the family of subjects, father and son must be related; people who lead the land must know the righteousness of the monarch and ministers, and must be different from husband and wife; relatives in the neighborhood must be orderly, and friends have trust... If There are those who are not as good as I say, father and son are not close, do not know the righteousness of the monarch and ministers, husband and wife are indistinguishable, humiliate the respect, friends are dishonest, old people in the village and strong heroes, they will be disciplined at the meeting.All these three times to five times, adding to seven times, those who do not follow the teaching, the elderly, heroic and strong, will be taken to Yousi, just like the rule of law.There are laws and regulations for those who are not allowed by the secretary.Be cautious, and the people follow it.

Zhu Yuanzhang's way of thinking like a village head is too chaotic. In his brain, morality and law have never been clearly distinguished.For example, how does this "Statement of the Five Constants" work?How to define?How to quantify?How can it not lead to a large number of unjust, false and wrongly decided cases by Zhou Na? There are many such unmanageable clauses, such as: the imperial court, where there is a department, must uphold the moral people, help me from the top, and bless the people from the bottom.Seeing this, those who have no excuse will leave early. After seeing this document, why did the "people without debt" retreat obediently? It is such a chaotic and miscellaneous collection of documents that has become a spiritual wealth that people all over the country must learn from.