? Zhu Yuanzhang is the emperor who used the most allusions to fight corruption in history. In a letter, he told the world that "all officials who take bribes of more than 620 yuan will be put to death and will never be soft." "And monkey stressed, from the central to the local, no matter who, once found graft, will enforce the law impartially, check to the end, will not be tolerated. How much is the local equivalent of 60 taels of silver now? By comparison, the purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver in Hongwu period was 1 stone rice, while 1 stone rice was about 94.4 Jin. Now the price of rice is about 5 yuan, 4.4×60×5=28320. Then 60 taels of silver is about 28,320 yuan now. In other words, if you take more than 28,000 bribes, you will be executed. Now it sounds really chilling. This is the legislation that corrupt officials are executed in the history of China, and the starting point of bribery is relatively low.
? Zhu Yuanzhang is the emperor with the most anti-corruption tactics in history. Zhu Yuanzhang won the world by force, and the emperor who grew up in the smoke was very powerful. Zhu Yuanzhang believes that all officials who take bribes of more than 60 taels shall be put to death. "Can't deter corrupt officials, so he adopted traditional torture such as year-end, castration and strain, and also created and invented new torture such as peeling the last grass, picking tendons, cutting fingers, cutting hands and cutting knees. You will understand the rest at a glance. Let me talk about "Peeling the Last Grass". The so-called stripping the last straw is to peel off the skin of a corrupt official after he is executed, fill the skin with straw and lime, and make a "specimen" according to the image of the corrupt official. After the "specimen" is made, it is hung on the court wall of the corrupt official before his death to alert the next official and always remind him not to make the same mistake.
Zhu Yuanzhang is the emperor with the greatest efforts to deal with corruption in history. Whether it is royalty, founding fathers, central officials or government officials, as long as corruption is involved, Zhu Yuanzhang will never relent, impose heavy fines and kill them all. There are too many such examples in history books, so I won't list them one by one, just give a simple example. In the 13th year of Hongwu (1380), Zhu Liangzu, the marquis of Yongjia who left Guangdong, was recalled by Zhu Yuanzhang, and his son Zhu Xian was whipped alive. Zhu Liangzu is brave and good at fighting, and he has made great contributions to the elimination of Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng. Such a founding father with outstanding military achievements took bribes when he was away from Guangdong, acting as an umbrella for bullies and local tyrants. "In the end, Zhu Yuanzhang was angered, but it was still difficult to escape.
Zhu Yuanzhang was the emperor with the largest number of people controlling corruption in the history of China. In the 18th year of Hongwu (1385), Guo Huan, assistant minister of the Ministry of Finance, and officials from six ministries and commissions from the central government to the local government formed a huge corruption gang, and used such means as overcharging and underpaying, squeezing the newspaper and bullying the weak and fearing the strong, etc., and embezzled treasury materials equivalent to 24 million stones of grain. Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that he ordered a thorough investigation and executed all the corrupt officials involved. According to the criminal law of the Ming Dynasty, more than 30,000 officials were executed in the Guo Huan case. Personally, I think Guo Huan may be an unjust case. Because Zhu Yuanzhang's anti-corruption measures were so strict during the Hongwu period, how could such a big corruption case be exposed, with a greedy grain of 24 million stones and more than 30,000 people involved? Personally, I think there should be nothing wrong with Guo Huan's personal corruption, but Zhu Yuanzhang deliberately made a big fuss about it, and he was suspected of taking this opportunity to punish those who contributed to it.
Zhu Yuanzhang was the emperor who was convicted and executed the most in the history of anti-corruption. There is no direct record in the history books of how many people Zhu Yuanzhang killed in his life to fight corruption, so I naturally can't count them. But what I want to say is that the "empty seal case" and the "Guo Huan case" among the four major cases of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty are all corruption cases. According to historical records, these two cases together killed 70,000 to 80,000 people. Based on these two cases alone, Zhu Yuanzhang was the emperor who was convicted and executed the most in the history of anti-corruption.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang vigorously rectified corruption, the effect was not good. Finally, even Zhu Yuanzhang himself lamented: "I was bent on understanding corruption, but I killed it in the morning and committed it at night?" Of course, there are many reasons for this result, but I think one of the important reasons is that the treatment of Ming officials is too low. I have checked the historical notes, and the treatment of Ming officials is the lowest in history. According to historical records, when Hai Rui was appointed as the magistrate of Chun 'an County, his salary was 20% to 20%, and he got rice 12 stone, 27.49 taels of silver and 360 bills. Money is worthless and can be ignored. One tael of silver can buy a stone of rice, which is equal to 94.4 kilograms, which is converted into RMB 18408. Harry supports his family on a small salary. Harry's family has a large population and often has difficulties in life. According to historical records, Harry still grows vegetables in the fields on weekdays, so as to barely solve the problem of food and clothing and have a meal on holidays. The salary of the county magistrate is too low to solve the problem of food and clothing for the whole family. It is conceivable that other officials are naturally not much better.
Objectively, Zhu Yuanzhang played a positive role in controlling corruption, purified the atmosphere of officialdom, made the official administration in the early Ming Dynasty far clearer than that in the Yuan Dynasty, and played an important role in the stable development of the whole Ming Dynasty.