Smuggling Daming

Zhou Zhong punished several ministers who opposed the most fiercely by means of thunder, and the attack was very heavy. According to the charges found by Jin Yiwei, even if these officials survived, they would not even think about messing around in the officialdom in the end. This made those who opposed the reform All the officials shuddered in unison. After all, they also knew that they could not stand the investigation. If they continued to oppose it, Zhou Zhong would probably continue the investigation. In the end, it was unknown how many people would fall into the same position. end.

People are selfish, especially officials in the officialdom. Most of them have studied hard for many years, and then worked hard in the officialdom to earn their qualifications. Finally, they finally got their fame and status today. They will not take it easy Give up, so when they saw those early birds being knocked out by Zhou Zhong, they all retracted their heads. It's just that although they didn't object on the surface, they still stubbornly obstructed the implementation of several reforms in secret, especially It is the fact that local taxation is stripped from the functions of the local government and then taken over by the Taxation Department, which is completely free from the control of the local government, has been obstructed by countless local officials.

Zhou Zhong had expected the reaction in the official circles of Ming Dynasty, so he was not moved at all. First, he started from the fact that the official salary was completely distributed by the bank, which was the easiest thing for Zhou Zhong to prepare for. In addition, the salaries of officials have been greatly increased, so a considerable number of officials are still very welcome. After all, not everyone in the officialdom wants to be a corrupt official. Most of them are forced by the meager salary and the atmosphere in the officialdom. , now Zhou Zhong gave them a new choice, so many people welcomed this policy very much.

Of course, there are officials who do not want to receive salaries from banks.Although their salaries have increased a lot, their income has become open and transparent. There is a fixed amount of income every month, and Zhou Zhong has secretly ordered all officials to be vaccinated against corruption and bribery in the officialdom. Forget it, he won't pursue it anymore, but if he still has to do those corruption and bribery things with a generous new salary, then don't blame Zhou Zhong for being cruel.The Jinyiwei of the Ming Dynasty has been dispatched everywhere, and the Jinyiwei, which has received sufficient financial support, has regained its vitality in the early Ming Dynasty. Now it is waiting for the officials to make mistakes so that they can make meritorious deeds.

Zhou Zhong's strategy of overt one dark one soft one hard has indeed played a lot of role, especially Jin Yiwei's notoriety is still very deterrent in official circles.After all, during the Taizu and Chengzu dynasties, Jin Yiwei's minions were everywhere, and all the ministers in the court were precarious. They were afraid that Jin Yiwei would rush to their homes one day. Jin Yiwei at that time was simply synonymous with death. Get involved.In the end it sure didn't end well.

Although Jin Yiwei in recent years has lost the prestige of the past, the lustful prestige of the past has not been eliminated.Now Zhou Zhong obviously wants to restore the strength of Jin Yiwei again, so as to deter the official circles, coupled with the increase in salary, with such equal emphasis on kindness and power, except for a small number of people, most officials have begun to be officials honestly , Naturally, I dare not take what I shouldn't have taken before.Of course, this does not mean that they will be clean officials in the future, everything depends on whether Zhou Zhong can continue this kind of supervision.Otherwise, if no one supervises, these people will quickly relapse.

In contrast, the matter of the bank's payment of officials' salaries is only minor, and the other several reforms are becoming more and more difficult one by one. Zhou Zhong is a person who likes to make things easier before difficult ones, so after solving the matter of officials' salaries , the next step is to enhance the functions of the Metropolitan Procuratorate and make it the main institution for the supervision of officials and localities in the Ming Dynasty.

It is worth mentioning that Zhu Yuanzhang, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, also distrusted the officials below him, especially hated corruption and corruption. Therefore, among the official institutions of the Ming Dynasty, the Metropolitan Procuratorate, which has the function of supervising all officials, He was assigned a very important task, which can be seen from the number of censors. For example, in the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were only a few to a dozen censors, but the censors of the Ming Dynasty reached an astonishing number. There are more than 100 people in the country, and the country is divided into thirteen departments, and each department has a department to supervise the censors. Although the rank of these censors is only the seventh rank, their power is very great, and their duties are far more arduous than before. many.

However, although the Metropolitan Procuratorate in the Ming Dynasty was larger than that in the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was far from large enough for Zhou Zhong, a person who traveled through later generations. After all, according to the political structure of the separation of powers in later generations, the Procuratorate is In charge of the judicial power, the political status is very special, at least it must be parallel to the cabinet. Now the cabinet is in charge of legislation and administration, Zhou Zhong has no ability at all, and he does not plan to separate it for the time being, but the judicial power with supervisory functions must come from Ming Dynasty. The court is independent, only in this way can the execution of the judiciary not be interfered by the administration, and corruption can be avoided as much as possible.

It is precisely because of this that Zhou Zhong's first thing to do after he finished his official salary was to promote the status of the Metropolitan Procuratorate. Originally, there were two highest promotions in the Metropolitan Procuratorate. They are all of the third rank, which is much worse than the first rank of the Cabinet University Scholars, so Zhou Zhong is above the left and right capital censors, and he has set up a general capital censor, becoming the chief official of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and his rank is the same as that of the Cabinet University. The Censor of the Capital is the same, and the censor of the capital can only be appointed and dismissed by the emperor, and no one else has the right to criticize the censor of the capital. In addition, the grades of the censors of the left and right capitals and the deputy capital have also been improved, which makes the officials of the Metropolitan Procuratorate Suddenly rose a step.

However, in order to improve the status of a government agency, it is far from enough to just increase the rank of officials. It must also have corresponding real power. Zhou Zhong formally placed Dali Temple and the Ministry of Punishment under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Procuratorate in accordance with the political structure of the Ming Dynasty. , these two institutions are the most important criminal institutions in Ming Dynasty.

In the past, together with the Metropolitan Procuratorate, it was called the Sanfa Department. Among them, the Ministry of Punishment mainly judges the trials of cases in the world, and Dali Temple is mainly responsible for refuting and rehabilitating some unjust, false and wrong cases. The case has arbitrary power, which is equivalent to the Supreme Court of Ming Dynasty. Generally, the cases decided by the Procuratorate are almost impossible to reverse the case.

In the past, the Metropolitan Procuratorate had no direct subordinate relationship with Dali Temple and the Ministry of Punishment, but now Zhou Zhong has directly promoted the Metropolitan Procuratorate to become the superior institution of Dali Temple and the Ministry of Criminal Justice. In the future, Dali Temple and the Ministry of Criminal Justice will also be independent from the administrative organs of Daming Go out, and no longer be subject to any jurisdiction except the Metropolitan Procuratorate.

In addition, in order to allow the Metropolitan Procuratorate to better monitor all officials across the country, Zhou Zhong deliberately put Jinyiwei under the management of the Metropolitan Procuratorate temporarily. For the hospital, the energy generated by the cooperation of the two supervisory agencies, the bright one and the dark one, can be described as terrifying. It is not an exaggeration to say that as long as Zhou Zhong is willing, he can check the details of an official in the shortest possible time. He was so clear, he even knew exactly what the other party ate the day before yesterday.

Of course, Jin Yiwei is under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Procuratorate. With a plan, it is to build Jinyiwei into a professional intelligence agency, which is only responsible for the acquisition and collection of intelligence, but it cannot have the power to arrest and torture people like before.

In a short period of time, the Metropolitan Procuratorate already had the power to match it. Under this huge power, the censors in the capital and around the world also began to change their roles and exercise their own powers.Especially the local supervisory censors, they want to snatch the judiciary from the local government. After all, this is the responsibility of their procuratorate. Of course, those local officials are definitely unwilling to see the power loss in their hands, so This caused a lot of fights, but the supervisory censor is relatively strong, and with the help of Jin Yiwei, it is rare for officials from all over the country to fight against the supervisory censor. The procuratorate will not let them go, so it is better to hand them over obediently.

However, in the process of the transformation of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, there were also many problems. The most important thing was that the censors of the Metropolitan Procuratorate were not capable enough to follow the transformation of the Metropolitan Procuratorate. Chong had no choice but to transfer him away from the Metropolitan Procuratorate, and then recruited capable people from Dali Temple and the Ministry of Criminal Justice to supplement them. In addition, there were also some local censors who were in collusion with local officials. Serving the imperial court, Zhou Zhong was naturally merciless towards these people. Even at the beginning of the rectification of the official administration, the first batch of officials to be killed were these censors.

It will definitely take quite a while for the Metropolitan Procuratorate to completely transform into the independent judiciary that Zhou Zhong hoped for, but after Zhou Zhong transferred the Ministry of Punishment, Dali Temple, and the local judiciary to the Metropolitan Procuratorate, the entire The Metropolitan Procuratorate already has a certain degree of independence, plus they already have the function of supervising all officials. In this way, an institution that independently supervises the administrative power of the Ming Dynasty has been completed and is exercising its functions. Zhou Zhong rectified the administration of officials and laid a solid foundation.

Although the change of the Metropolitan Procuratorate involves the power organs of the entire Ming Dynasty, it is relatively easy. First, the power of the Metropolitan Procuratorate is relatively large, and secondly, the Metropolitan Procuratorate itself also benefits from it, so the Metropolitan Procuratorate The officials in the central government are all extremely supportive of Zhou Zhong. With the support of these people, it will be much easier to promote this reform. This reform is very troublesome, and even Zhou Zhong is very troubled by it. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation.)