People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 702 The fundamental logic behind Zhu Yuanzhang's launching of the four major cases
Everyone thinks that Hu Weiyong was killed because Zhu Yuanzhang had a particularly strong desire for power as emperor. Many people also think that Hu Weiyong was killed because he wanted to rebel, and they attribute many things to a moral concept.

Without considering what the conditions were at the time, we can actually see from these two that it is not as simple as most people imagine.

The first reason is why people like Hu Weiyong had to be eliminated. First of all, the first reason was that Hu Weiyong and his people had inertia in their governing ideas, because they had been using the prime minister system of the Yuan Dynasty.

This image of Hu Weiyong can actually be said to be a reflection of the great power of the Secretariat. In the Yuan Dynasty, the Secretariat had the power to manage all matters involving taxation, military affairs, national affairs, etc.

So after Hu Weiyong became the prime minister, he still felt that he was qualified to manage these matters, which was why he was so bold in intercepting the flow of memorials. Even up to two-thirds of the memorials coming in from various places were intercepted by the Secretariat and not shown to the emperor.

This point completely touched Zhu Yuanzhang's nerves, as Zhu Yuanzhang himself had a very strong desire for power.

The power of the Secretariat is so great, how could he not be suspicious of it?

In fact, many problems had already arisen at the beginning when Li Shangzeng and Xu Da were jointly in charge of the Secretariat. The personnel of the noble group or the Huaixi group occupied more than 70% of the Secretariat.

In this way, it was equivalent to completely sidelining the emperor. These Huaixi nobles or the Huaixi faction not only controlled power in the Secretariat, but more importantly, they controlled the imperial examination at that time.

In fact, many people don’t know why the imperial examination was opened in the third year of Hongwu. However, Zhu Yuanzhang was very dissatisfied with the imperial examination in the third year of Hongwu, so he cancelled it. It was not until the thirteenth year of Hongwu that it was reopened for a full ten years without the imperial examination.

What is the reason? The reason is that the Zhongshu Province was infiltrated by the Huaixi Group. The Zhongshu Province handled a large number of government affairs and also controlled the list of admissions to the imperial examinations.

So these people all recruited the students and disciples from their hometowns into the official team.

After so many Huaixi people entered the imperial court, they huddled together for warmth and further infiltrated the imperial power.

At that time, Li Shanchang and his group did the same thing, and they didn't even think it was wrong.

Zhu Yuanzhang actually tolerated this situation to a certain extent, as it can be seen from the subsequent events that in order to balance the control of the Secretariat over the government, he established the Four Assistant Officials System.

The form of the Four Assistant Officials is similar to that of the Cabinet, except that the officials of the Four Assistant Officials cannot be permanent staff like the Cabinet. Instead, they take turns on duty to assist the emperor in handling government affairs.

Many people say that the cabinet system was created by Zhu Di, but in fact, the system of four assistant officials started by Zhu Yuanzhang was the predecessor of the cabinet system. But why did Zhu Yuanzhang finally abandon the system of four assistant officials?

The reason is very simple, because the Secretariat at that time was infiltrated by the Huaixi noble group. After the establishment of the Four Auxiliary Officials, everything was fine at the beginning, but later Lao Zhou sadly discovered that the Four Auxiliary Officials were actually infiltrated by the Zhejiang East faction.

Therefore, the system of four assistant officials could only be declared bankrupt. That is to say, Zhu Yuanzhang had already discovered that if he followed the prime minister system of the Yuan Dynasty, in which the Secretariat held a large amount of military and political power, he would be equivalent to a commander without troops.

However, after the establishment of the Four Assistant Officials, other officials began to fight against the Huaxi noble group by infiltrating the Four Assistant Officials. In particular, how did the Zhejiang East faction fight against Li Shanchang? Many TV dramas only cover the surface of the story, and there is no systematic account of how they fought.

They always stay on the surface of personal grudges instead of gaining a deep understanding of similar institutional struggles.

There are even many people who have not explained clearly the operating mechanism of the Four Auxiliary Officials and the Secretariat, which led to everyone being very confused and always feeling that the struggle in the court is just a personal grudge.

In fact, the root cause lies in the old age. After Zhu founded the Ming Dynasty, many systems inherited the systems of the Yuan Dynasty. Many officials' governing ideas were also based on the inertia of the Yuan Dynasty, which made them unconsciously infiltrate the imperial power, which led to the peasants like Zhu Yuanzhang who grew up under the influence of Han culture being very wary of this.

Zhu Yuanzhang did not take up the butcher knife to kill these officials at the beginning. He had been tolerating them, such as the Secretariat.

When Li Shanchang was in charge of the Secretariat, he had great power in his hands. He also had some military power. You must know that although Li Shanchang was a civil servant, he was also a member of the noble group.

At that time, Li Shanchang and the noble group reached a political alliance through mutual marriage. Li Shanchang united with the nobles in the Secretariat, which was equivalent to having both civil and military power, and he was very powerful in both hands.

So at that time, Zhu Yuanzhang had no choice but to endure, because the military power was in the hands of the nobles.

But Zhu was not blindly tolerant. First of all, what should he do to break the monopoly of military power in the hands of those nobles? He had to enfeoff his sons to guard the hotel, which was actually to take back the military power from the army.

This was a helpless attempt to break the military power of the Secretariat, so it can be seen that there was a fierce struggle when these princes were first divided.

Of course, the brothers in the Secretariat were unwilling to do so. They were unwilling not only because they did not want to lose Juncun, but more importantly, they were not stupid and understood why the emperor did so. In fact, it was a plan to break the military power of the Secretariat.

But the most important reason why Zhu Yuanzhang was able to succeed even though these nobles were obviously unwilling was that he established the system of four assistant officials, and the system of four assistant officials used a group of civil servants who were incompatible with his brothers, namely the civil servants headed by the Zhejiang East faction.

The confrontation between the Four Assistant Officials and the Secretariat is similar to the confrontation between the East Factory and the West Factory. That's why we can see that in the early Ming Dynasty, Liu Bowen, the think tank who assisted Zhu Yuanzhang in conquering the world, and Li Shanchang, the first meritorious minister, were fighting each other to the death.

The reason why they fought like this was not just personal grudges, nor was it because they were dissatisfied with the rewards for their contributions. In fact, it was a conspiracy by Zhu Yuanzhang to break the control of the military and political power of the Secretariat.

Zhu Yuanzhang used the civil servants of the Four Auxiliary Officials to enfeoff his sons in the nine frontier regions. These civil servants of the Four Auxiliary Officials also used the power granted by the emperor to take away the military power from the hands of the nobles in the Secretariat.

It can be said that this was a case of very good understanding and success between Zhu Yuanzhang and the civil servants of the Zhejiang East faction.

Then we can see that after Zhu Yuanzhang used the four civil officials of the auxiliary officials to take away the military power from Li Shancheng, Li Shancheng stepped down and was replaced by Hu Weiyong.

But in fact, the real master of the house is still Li Shan, who is good at controlling things behind the scenes, and the power of the Secretariat is still very large.

But Hu Weiyong didn't see it at that time, or his political awareness was not as high as that of Li Shanchang. Hu Weiyong was very capable, but he was also easily arrogant. After he took control of the power of the Secretariat, he dared to bypass Zhu Yuanzhang and start to be the master of his own house. So we can see that in historical records, Hu Weiyong dared to intercept more than 70% of the memorials from all over the world in the Secretariat, including the memorials submitted by the Champa envoys, which he did not show to Zhu Yuanzhang.

On the one hand, Hu Weiyong grew up in the Yuan Dynasty and saw the inertia of the Yuan Dynasty's Zhongshu Province administration. So after he had this power, he expanded on the one hand, and on the other hand, he implemented the conventions of the Yuan Dynasty's Zhongshu Province. He bypassed Zhu Yuanzhang and handled the world's affairs himself, because the Yuan Dynasty's Zhongshu Province had such power.

However, Hu Weiyong's situation was different from Li Shanchang's. Zhu Yuanzhang had already used the civil officials in the afternoon, that is, the Zhejiang East faction, to seize a large part of the military power of the Secretariat. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang no longer needed to worry about the military power in the hands of the Huaixi noble group.

So Zhu, who had tolerated the Huaixi noble group for more than ten years, finally took advantage of Hu Weiyong's so-called rebellion case to launch the first major case in the early Ming Dynasty - the Hu Weiyong case.

In fact, most people can see that Hu Weiyong rebelled, which is simply ridiculous. But many people don't know what the deeper reason is. In fact, Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to purge the excessive power of the Secretariat and the infiltration of the Huaixi noble group into power.

The underlying logic is that Zhu Yuanzhang had completely mastered the military power that was superior to the Secretariat, so he abolished the prime minister system and completely eliminated the power of the Huaixi noble group.

So we can see that even Li Shangcheng, who was already over 70 years old, was dragged away to be beheaded. Many people said that they were afraid of him. He was old, but he still had a thief in his heart and was afraid that he would rebel again. Some also said that it was because Hu Weiyong had a so-called master-disciple relationship with him. In fact, none of these are accurate.

The real reason was that Zhu Yuanzhang had already tolerated enough. Ever since Li Shangchang took control of the Secretariat, he had been trying to take control of the imperial power step by step. Now there was no need to tolerate them anymore. He could certainly use the power in his hands to cut them all off.

This may be a deep-seated reason for the Hu Weiyong case, and the real reason why the Hu Weiyong case was bound to break out. In fact, it was because the Secretariat was a trauma left over from the grassland tribes of the Yuan Dynasty.

If Zhu Yuanzhang wants to centralize power, he must eradicate this cancer.

After dealing with the Secretariat, the only things left were the four auxiliary officials.

It is said that without competition, the dragon slayer will turn into an evil dragon. The same is true for the Four Assistants, although the Four Assistants are only a temporary department that serves as a staff team for the emperor.

However, this department helped Lao Zhou, who divided his sons into nine frontier states and seized military power.

As a result, this department began to expand, and they also started to seek benefits for their own faction like the Secretariat.

As a result, a large number of civil servants from the Zhejiang East faction entered the Four Auxiliary Officials and began to participate in the action of infiltrating the imperial power.

Otherwise, why do people say that these civil servants are naive? Zhu Yuanzhang tolerated the Secretariat because it had military power in its hands at the beginning and he had to be wary of it.

But those civil servants of the Zhejiang East faction among the four assistant officials are all powerless. You are just a temporary agency of my emperor.

But you are so bold and presumptuous that you even dare to infiltrate.

This infiltration even involved the economic level, because a large number of civil servants made a lot of money by cultivating Jiangnan forces, so it can be said that their families made a lot of money.

This also touched Zhu Yuanzhang's sensitive nerves, so in the 18th year of Hongwu, a typical case of Zhu Yuanzhang's sting operation broke out, namely the Guo Huan case.

The National Defense Case was actually caused on the one hand by the fact that Zhu Yuanzhang needed military funds for the Northern Expedition, and on the other hand by the fact that a large number of civilian factions had infiltrated his staff team, and he wanted to use this opportunity to purge these people.

So we can see that the most people who died in the Guo Huan case were senior officials from the six ministries. It is said that the Ministry of Revenue was killed so much that only the Minister of Revenue was left, and the position below him was empty.

On the other hand, where did the most people die? The wealthy people in Jiangnan, who were the roots of the Zhejiang East faction.

In particular, the most deaths occurred among deputy ministers from Suzhou and Zhejiang, because this group of people had very close ties with the Zhejiang East faction and with the officials of the Four Auxiliary Officials team.

Therefore, the history books only recorded that every family was in mourning and the whole country seemed to be plundered. It seemed as if Zhu was just trying to take their money.

This kind of record is actually quite irresponsible because it does not explain the fundamental logic clearly at all.

What is going on here is essentially a dynamic process of factional struggle and power game, but the cold and bleak record in history books makes it seem like Zhu Yuanzhang has personal moral problems.

In fact, this is all related to the various problems left over from the struggle between the two factions of the Four Auxiliary Officials and the Secretariat in the early Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang used his own methods to gradually make up for the institutional innovations left over from the Yuan Dynasty.

This was the only way to truly ensure that the Ming Dynasty he founded was a dynasty ruled purely by the Han people, because what Zhu wanted to restore was the system of the Han and Tang dynasties.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang did not overthrow the Yuan Dynasty by using the slogan of expelling foreigners at the beginning, because the people's lives were already very poor at that time, they did not care whether the emperor above them was a foreigner or a member of their own nation, so this slogan did not make sense.

So the slogan that Zhu Yuanzhang put forward at that time was to save the dawn from the water and fire, which was able to move the people.

But once he succeeded, Zhu Yuanzhang's disgust for the four-class system of the Yuan Dynasty arose. He was determined to establish a dynasty of pure Han people. So how could he learn from it? That was the system of the Han and Tang dynasties, two unparalleled dynasties in the world.

This is why Zhu Yuanzhang created so many major cases. It was to cleanse the nomadic peoples of the Yuan Dynasty...

(End of this chapter)