Chapter 88 Section 7 It is better to kill one thousand by mistake than to let one go

From the eighteenth year of Hongwu to the twenty-eighth year of Hongwu, the emperor worked closely with the people to crack down on corruption.At that time, people killed people almost every day.In some yamen, because too many officials were killed and there was no one to work, Zhu Yuanzhang had to implement the method of "wearing death penalty and doing things in vain" and "wearing beheading, hanging, imprisonment, and exile in office". The shackles returned to the court office. He not only used prisons and imposed severe punishments, but also imposed extrajudicial punishments.If the crime is serious, it shall be punished with ink face tattoo, tendon picking, knee picking, finger chopping, hand amputation, foot cutting (yue), scrubbing, rod weighing, intestine pumping, castration into slavery, toe beheading order, yue order, and owl's head , Ling Chi, the whole family was confiscated and sent to a distant place as a slave, clan punishment and other non-criminal punishments.

Being an official in the Hongwu era was really an extremely dangerous business.It is said that when the emperor goes to court every day, if he sticks the jade belt high on his chest, fewer people will be killed that day; The face is earthy.In this terrifying atmosphere, no matter whether they are high or small officials, everyone is terrified, and catastrophe will strike at any time.Legend has it that the Beijing officials at that time would bid farewell to their wives every morning when they entered the court. When they returned home safely in the evening, they would celebrate with their families and rejoice that they had survived another day.

It turns out that the scholars who love being officials the most in the world also regard official careers as fearful at this time.They "lucky that the hun (hun) is unknown, and that they are lucky not to be tarnished", and "they are not happy to be an official".Some families have sons who are eager to learn, and they are afraid that they will be known by the county and become officials, so they ask them to suspend their studies and farm.Some even mutilated their own limbs in order to avoid being forcibly expelled from office. Many people still have lingering fears when they recall the scene of the Hongwu Dynasty after the passage of time.For example, Yan Demin, the deputy minister of the Ministry of Supervision at that time, the censor Zuoqian, asked to resign due to illness in the Hongwu Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang suspected that he was pretending to be sick, and sent him to Nandan, Guangxi with a tattoo.Later, he was pardoned and released, and lived to the Xuande Dynasty. He recalled the experience of those years, saying that the laws of the country were very strict at that time, and officials often couldn't keep their heads. This broken hat is not easy to wear!After finishing speaking, he cupped his hands in the north, saying: "Holy Grace! Holy Grace!"

There are too few people who can get the "Holy Grace".Even many upright officials who had been commended by Zhu Yuanzhang many times died because of their involvement in unnecessary cases of injustice such as the "empty seal case".Fang Keqin, the magistrate of Jining, was a well-known upright official. He had worn a cloth robe for ten years and had not replaced it because he was implicated in the "empty seal case" and was mercilessly killed by Zhu.Teng Demao (mao), the Minister of the Ministry of household affairs, was reported as corrupt, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately executed him, and then cut open Teng's stomach to see what was in the belly of this corrupt official.Unexpectedly, after cutting it open, it was found that it was full of coarse grains, grass and vegetables, so he sighed resentfully: "So he is a very honest official!"

Zhu Yuanzhang clearly knew that there were many innocent people among the people he killed, but his principle was that he would rather kill a thousand by mistake than let one go.What he wants is a pure and pure bureaucratic team that is insulated from corruption, and what he wants is to realize such a miracle on earth that has not been realized in other dynasties at any cost, not fairness and justice.If this goal can be achieved, Zhu Yuanzhang doesn't care how many people died unjustly.