If one were to delve into the reasons for these officials' growing audacity, one could trace it back to the Song Dynasty, or even further to the Han and Tang dynasties. However, genuine decline truly began with the Song Dynasty, following Wen Yanbo's infamous statement, "We govern the realm with the scholar-officials, not with the common people." From that point, the officials of the Central Plains began a headlong rush towards self-indulgence.
During the Song Dynasty, Kou Zhun could forcefully pull the Song Emperor's sleeve to the front lines, and Baozi Hei could directly spit in the Song Emperor's face. The so-called enlightened governance and governing the realm with scholar-officials was, in reality, a complete erosion of imperial authority.
If the example of Zhu Yuanzhang and the deaths of certain Ming emperors were not enough to illustrate the problem, then...
How did the Ming army gradually become crippled?
Don't say that Zhu Yuanzhang's establishment of the military household system from the outset sowed the seeds of disaster, because for Zhu Yuanzhang, or anyone in his position as emperor, the military household system was the most suitable military system for the Ming Dynasty at the time; in fact, no other system could compare.
Before establishing the military system, one had to first consider the situation of the Ming Dynasty at that time – continuous warfare for years, a drastic decline in population, vast tracts of barren land with few people, and large amounts of gold and silver leaving the Central Plains. These jumbled factors combined to create an air of destitution throughout the Ming court, from top to bottom.
The court was as poor as a beggar, and Zhu Chongba was constantly eager to fight the Northern Yuan. Naturally, the army could not be left unfed. At this time, the Ming Dynasty was also in a state of reclaiming wasteland with a scarcity of people, so the revenue collected in money and grain was naturally not much.
Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang was a man so resolute that he would promote community schools even if he had to go hungry, which further tightened the Ming court's finances and made it impossible to support such a large army.
The Wei Suo (military garrisons) and military household systems thus emerged in this context.
To put it plainly, it was required that the Wei Suo, in the form of garrison and cultivation corps, solve their own financial and grain problems. On one hand, this would alleviate the court's financial pressure; on the other hand, it would maintain a large army. Zhu Yuanzhang was so pleased with this that he boasted, "I raise a million soldiers, without consuming a single grain of rice from the common people."
Of course, the military household system also had its drawbacks. As the realm gradually stabilized, and there was no concept of equal status between officials and soldiers at that time, commanders and nobles began to oppress the military households, embezzle funds, and exploit the soldiers. The burden on military households thus gradually became apparent.
After ascending the throne, Emperor Zhu IV also issued decrees to address the corruption within the Wei Suo system and introduced the Jing Cao (Capital Training) system.
The so-called Jing Cao meant that the local authorities had to select half of their troops to come to the capital for training and review. This strengthened the connection between the Ming court and the local armies, and also maintained the army's combat effectiveness, allowing the Ming court to effectively implement a strategy of strengthening the core and decentralizing power.
The Jing Cao system also had its drawbacks.
First, some regions were far from the capital, making it very inconvenient to undergo review. Many soldiers and officers were dissatisfied with this and lacked enthusiasm for participation.
Second, the funds allocated by the court were often embezzled or misappropriated. Some soldiers were stationed on the frontiers, and guarding the frontiers was already arduous. Traveling to the capital for review was even more difficult, yet the allocated funds for the review did not reach them. Over time, this naturally led to widespread discontent.
In the early years of Emperor Yingzong Zhu Qizhen's reign, due to the Ming court's misjudgment of the strategic situation, the Jing Cao for inland troops was halted, and only border troops were retained for border training. Furthermore, to further reduce financial pressure, the Imperial Guards, also known as the Shangzhi Twenty-Six Guards, were also engaged in garrison cultivation.
Therefore, by the time Zhu Qizhen led his troops to confront the enemy, the Ming army at that time was already largely incapacitated. Moreover, Esen Taishi was more familiar with the terrain of the Ming Dynasty than Zhu Qizhen, the Ming Emperor...
The defense of the capital after Zhu Qizhen's capture involved mobilizing the Beizhi and Nanzhi garrison troops and the Shandong Maritime Defense Army, which was actually a form of border training.
After the defense of the capital, the Ying Bing (camp soldiers), characterized by their recruitment nature, began to emerge and became the main force of the Ming army in the following century. During this period, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army fluctuated, but the trend was that the Ying Bing selected from the Wei Suo soldiers, whether the Tuan Ying (battalion camps) or the Xuanfeng Ying (elite camps), were leading the Ming army towards professionalization. During this period, the combat effectiveness of the Ming army recovered somewhat, and some notable achievements were made.
During the era of the benevolent Emperor Xiaozong, the issue of nobles enslaving the capital camps became prominent, and the combat effectiveness of the capital camps completely collapsed. However, the young scholar Zhu created an innovative approach by again selecting elites from the Twelve Tuan Ying, along with warriors selected from the Tengxiang Four Guards and the Four Guards, establishing the Eastern and Western Official Halls.
Later, when the young scholar Zhu met with misfortune, the Jiajing Emperor, whose family was "clean" in every way, ascended the throne. The Ming military system began to experiment with the Provincial Garrison Camp Soldier system, clearly defining the camp soldiers as the main combat force and the Wei Suo as the defensive force, leading to the complete marginalization of the Wei Suo.
Even in the early years of Tianqi, when eighteen thousand elite Ming troops gathered in Liaodong were annihilated in the battles of Liaoyang and Shenyang due to strategic errors, forcing the Ming court to create the peculiar Guan Ning Army, the true core elites of the Ming were still the camp soldiers – whether it was Man Gui's contingent in the defense of the capital or the Xuanda Biao Battalion in the Song-Jin battles, they relied on the camp soldiers rather than the Guan Ning Army.
Once the changes in the Ming military system are clarified, it becomes easy to understand how the Ming military system became crippled.
The deterioration of the Wei Suo system was partly due to factors like embezzlement and exploiting soldiers, but there was also another extremely problematic issue: military households were considered a lowly profession.
That's right, a lowly profession. At this time, no one in the Ming Dynasty wanted to voluntarily enlist; most people were thinking about how to avoid military service.
During the Jiajing era, Xia Yan, the Minister of Rites, gained the emperor's favor for sponsoring Emperor Shizong's cultivation of Taoism. However, Xia Yan's family was registered under the Left Imperial Guard military registry and was supposed to perform military service. As the able-bodied man in Xia Yan's family who was supposed to perform the duty was ill and unable to do so, and there was no other able-bodied son in the capital garrisons or their original jurisdiction in Jiangxi to take over the duty.
As a result, Xia Yan's family truly had no one to perform military duties. Xia Yan specifically petitioned the emperor, and was approved by Emperor Shizong to be exempted from the military registry – this was already considered a great imperial favor. Xia Yan even wrote a poem to commemorate this grand event.
What should an ordinary person do to escape military household status? The only way was to first pass the Jinshi examination before joining the army. Only then might the Minister of War, out of consideration for "one of their own," show mercy.
The question then arises:
What kind of reasons caused the military household to be considered a lowly profession?
It is likely that Prime Minister Han Qi, who uttered the famous saying, "Only those who emerge as Zhuangyuan from outside Donghua Gate are good men," bore some responsibility, as did all the high officials in the Ming court.
The abandonment of the Jing Cao system was also related to this. The fundamental reason for the abandonment of Jing Cao was the frequent embezzlement and misappropriation of funds allocated by the court. The soldiers who went to the capital for review and training did not receive their due provisions – this issue cannot be blamed on Prime Minister Han Qi; one must primarily ask what those civil officials and noble generals in the Ming court were doing.
Of course, what they were doing is not important; what is important is that they gradually crippled the Ming army and gradually transferred military power into the hands of civil officials.
The reason these Ming officials are still obedient now is not that they don't want to act otherwise. The deeper reason is similar to how the ministers of Zhu Yuanzhang's era could work while wearing shackles – they were afraid.
And for Zhu Jinsong, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, if he could not solve these problems from the root, it is likely that after Zhu Jinsong's death, these Ming officials would once again follow the old path of the Ming Dynasty.
To put it more bluntly, it's as if the art of dragon-slaying can only buy the first four volumes – six months ago, one could still buy the fifth volume.
Thus, thinking about these jumbled problems made Zhu Jinsong's head ache. He even wished he could transmigrate again, preferably into Di Wuxiang, to first kill Prime Minister Han with a single blow, and then kill those cowardly fellows of the Song Dynasty.
After a considerable while, Zhu Jinsong tapped his fingers on the table again and said, "From now on, the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary will not be responsible to the Grand Secretariat, but will be directly responsible to the Emperor. Funds will be allocated from the Imperial Treasury. The Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple will also cooperate with the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary. Intelligence gathered by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot on officials will be open and shared with the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary."
After Zhu Jinsong finished speaking, the high officials present were all somewhat displeased.
What did this mean?
It was understandable that the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot were responsible for monitoring officials, as this was a tradition of the Ming Dynasty since the founding emperor, and no one could object to the current emperor reviving it.
But was it really appropriate to state this so openly?
Furthermore, even if it were stated, was it also necessary to split the Office of the Supervising Secretary and the Censorate into separate entities directly responsible to the Emperor?
If this were all, then everyone could have grudgingly accepted it. But why did the Emperor also want the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple to cooperate with the Censorate? And even to share intelligence gathered by the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot on officials with the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary?
Did this mean that they, the upright gentlemen, were not trusted by His Majesty at all?
Thinking of this, Zeng Cheng and the other high officials couldn't help but feel wronged.
Wronged, they felt utterly wronged!
After a long silence, Zeng Cheng tentatively said, "Your Majesty, it's not really an issue for the Office of the Supervising Secretary and the Censorate to be split off, but for the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple to also cooperate with the Censorate, this..."
Zhu Jinsong let out a scoffing laugh and said, "What's wrong with that? If the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary were still under the Grand Secretariat, and if officials were appointed by the Ministry of Personnel and funds were allocated by the Ministry of Revenue as before, then I would like to ask Minister Zeng, can you guarantee that the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary will not be influenced by the officials in the court?"
Being asked this by Zhu Jinsong, Zeng Cheng and the other high officials were immediately silenced.
What was the situation of the Censorate in the past? On the surface, the Censorate was responsible to the Emperor, and the Grand Secretariat and the Six Ministries indeed could not interfere with the affairs of the Censorate. The censors of the Censorate could even reprimand the high officials of the Grand Secretariat and the Six Ministries in court.
But in reality?
In reality, before Chongzhen's seventeenth year, those censors only reprimanded the high officials for minor matters such as their attire, speech, and manners. Impeachments against the high officials were also more like impeaching for the sake of impeaching.
This was because the Ming censors had performance evaluations; if the number of impeachments was insufficient, it would directly affect their performance and thus their promotion and enrichment.
This was almost an unspoken rule in the Ming court before Chongzhen's seventeenth year. The censors impeached as they should, and the high officials did not take these impeachments seriously, as they were all trivial matters.
It was even possible that the Emperor himself might not carefully read the impeachment memorials he received.
As for Zhu Jinsong's question, could he guarantee that the Censorate would not be influenced by the Grand Secretariat and the Six Ministries and other high officials... one could tell the answer even by using their toes to think about it.
Because the censors also hoped to be promoted and enriched, the Censorate before Chongzhen's seventeenth year was actually more like a decorative mascot, completely unable to fulfill its true supervisory role.
Zhu Jinsong tapped his fingers on the table again and said, "The salaries of our Ming officials are among the highest in all dynasties. They are even much higher than those of officials in the Song Dynasty, which was known for its prosperity.
"However, in the past year alone, there were more than ten corrupt officials who embezzled over six hundred yuan, and more than two hundred who embezzled less than six hundred yuan – so, Minister Zeng, can you tell me, if supervision is lost, how much can they embezzle?
"If a discovered official happens to have a complex relationship with a certain high official in the court, can the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary still handle the case impartially?
"Don't tell me 'yes.' When you want to say 'yes,' first ask yourselves, do you believe it yourselves?"
Zeng Cheng and the other high officials were once again speechless.
As Zhu Jinsong said, if a corrupt official embezzled tens or hundreds of yuan, and happened to have connections with high officials in the court, could the Censorate and the Office of the Supervising Secretary truly guarantee that they would not be influenced in the slightest?
Putting himself in their shoes, Zeng Cheng felt that if he were a censor in the Office of the Supervising Secretary or the Censorate, it would be difficult to say for sure that he would not be influenced – the Ministry of Personnel controlled official hats, and the Ministry of Revenue controlled moneybags. Which one dared the Office of the Supervising Secretary and the Censorate to provoke? Did they not want to be promoted and enriched in the future?
Even if there were truly stubborn individuals who didn't care about promotion and enrichment, wouldn't they fear retaliation in the future?
How many upright officials like Hai Rui, who dared to point at Emperor Jiajing and say, "Jiajing, Jiajing, every family is clean," were there? And was Hai Rui truly scolding Jiajing?
No, he was scolding Xu Jue!
Moreover, the fate of upright officials was usually not good!
To be frank, what is the officialdom?
Officialdom is not about fighting and killing; officialdom is about human relationships and experiences!