Nanjing Imperial City
1421, Yongle Emperor Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, leaving behind a set of imperial institutions in Nanjing, and even the internal officials who specialize in serving the emperor were retained. Logically speaking, eunuchs serve the royal family specifically, and now there is no royal family in Nanjing. What are the uses of these eunuchs? Therefore, like the six ministries of Nanjing, the twenty-four yamen in Nanjing, have long been considered as the place for retirement for eunuchs who are unsuccessful. But this is not the case. Nanjing's status is always above the provinces during the Ming Dynasty. The 24th yamen of Nanjing's internal officials were not simply a place for retirement. Ming Dynasty later added the position of internal garrison in Nanjing. The inner garrison manages the Nanjing Imperial City, and manages the 24th Nanjing Yamen and the Nanjing army. In the Nanjing Forbidden City without an emperor, the inner garrison is like a local emperor.
1. Establishment of Nanjing Inner Guard
Nanjing Inner Guard, also known as Nanjing Inner Guard eunuchs and Nanjing Inner Guard. At first, there were one member of the chief and deputy eunuchs, but later the number of people increased slightly, and the number of people was uncertain. The eunuch holds a large seal of "guarding and defense". The responsibilities of the inner garrison are: (1) to protect Liudu, " is the relative minister of the emperor three thousand miles away." (2) Obey the Nanjing Imperial City, the Twenty-Fourth Yamen, and the Ming Xiaoling . (3) Pay tribute to the emperor of Beijing.
The current Ming Xiaoling Scenic Area
is generally believed to have appeared in the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Renzong of Ming once wanted to move the capital back to Nanjing, so he temporarily appointed eunuch Wang Guitong to lead his army south to guard Nanjing, preparing to return to the palace. Renzong gave Wang Guitong great authority. After arriving in Nanjing, the eunuchs in Nanjing need to discuss matters inside the palace; the officials in Nanjing also need to discuss matters outside the palace. Any resolution can only be implemented if Wang Guitong nods. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, Emperor Xuanzong gave the title of inner garrison to Zheng He , allowing Zheng He and the generals guarding Nanjing to take charge of military power. This was the beginning of the inner garrison in Nanjing taking charge of military power.
Luo Jialiang version Zheng He
2. The local emperor of Nanjing
Don’t think that Nanjing was just a capital in the Ming Dynasty and had no power, but in fact, Nanjing has a very important position. The southeastern money and grain tax was the main income of the Ming Dynasty's taxes. The money and grain from several southern provinces had to be delivered to Nanjing first and then transferred to Beijing. It can be said that Nanjing controlled the financial lifeline of the Ming Dynasty. In Nanjing without an emperor, the real master is not the bureaucrats in Nanjing, but the garrison in Nanjing! They mainly control Nanjing through the following three means:
1. Control the military power. Military power is the support of all power. After the Ming Dynasty moved the capital, there were still the personal army of the Seventeen Emperors of the Emperor in Nanjing, including the Nanjing Jinyiwei and the rumored Xiaolingwei. Among them, the Jinyiwei was responsible for spies, the Xiaoling Guard was responsible for guarding the imperial tomb, and the Jianghuai Guard and Jichuan Guard were the naval troops patrolling the river. The remaining thirteen guards had a total of 6,179 people, divided into two squads to defend the Nanjing Zhucheng Gate. These guards were under the jurisdiction of the Nanjing Central Army Governor's Office. However, one of the responsibilities of the internal garrison in Nanjing is to guard the capital and control the military power of Nanjing together with the military generals and ministers of Nanjing. Because the emperor was worried that the military generals and ministers would become powerful and dominate the local area, the Seventeen Guards were actually controlled by the internal garrison in Nanjing. The central military governor who was born as military generals and ministers was only named. With the military power of Nanjing, the internal garrison in Nanjing has a great say in Nanjing.
Jinyiwei
2. Affiliated to Nanjing Silijian. The 24th Inner Office in Nanjing are exactly the same as the 24th Inner Office in Beijing, both are , twelve supervisors, , 4th Divisions, and 8th Bureaus. There is one official in each yamen, who is the fourth rank, and is called eunuch; there are two deputy officials, who are from the fourth rank, and are called the left and right rank. From the perspective of official positions alone, the twenty-four internal officials each have their own responsibilities and are not affiliated with each other. The eunuchs of the Silijian and the other twenty-three yamen are not related to superiors and subordinates, but are on par, and their superiors are the emperor. But in fact, the other twenty-three yamen obeyed the ritual supervision. This is not a system arrangement, but because the eunuch of the Silijian holds the power to criticize the dividends and can divide the imperial power, which greatly increases his authority.
eunuch Yang Jinshui in "Ming Dynasty 1566"
Normally, if there is no emperor in Nanjing, the status of Nanjing Silijian in the twenty-four yamen in Nanjing will inevitably not be as good as that of Beijing Silijian.However, due to the establishment of the internal garrison, the eunuch of the Nanjing Silijian is still the pinnacle of the 24th yamen in Nanjing. The inner guard is originally a dispatched agency of the inner guard, and is a temporary authority and has no rank. Therefore, for those who are Nanjing inner guards, they must be entitled to the eunuch of the Nanjing Silijian in order to maintain the power of the inner guards from a legal perspective. Therefore, it can be said that the authority of the Nanjing Silijian is improved by relying on the real power of the internal garrison, and the internal garrison relies on the professional title of the Silijian to obtain the legal principles. Therefore, the internal garrison in Nanjing is above the twenty-four yamen, taking overall charge of the situation, just like the local emperor of Nanjing.
3. Financial rights. Because Nanjing has no emperor, two important tasks of the 24th yamen in Nanjing are to maintain the Nanjing palace and pay specialties to Beijing.
The craftsmen who maintained the imperial court in the Ming Dynasty were divided into three types: professional craftsmen (sitting craftsmen), temporary workers ( ward ), and assistants (civilian corvee labor). These people were collectively called craftsmen in the inner court. According to the old system of Hongwu , these craftsmen can be exempted from taxes when they are engaged in labor, and civilian corvee also requires government salaries. The eunuchs in Nanjing adopted the method of falsely reporting the number of craftsmen and exaggerating the difficulty of house repair in Nanjing. In this way, they can earn a vacant salary on the one hand, evade taxes on the other hand, and get maintenance silver issued by Beijing. By the time of Jiajing , these craftsmen who served the royal family were stolen and converted into private craftsmen who served eunuchs. At that time, the Nanjing Military Affairs Office reported to Jiajing that " eunuchs occupying the service became popular", and the Nanjing Ministry of Revenue also reported that " military craftsmen in various supervision bureaus in Nanjing, the number of horses and cattle, the amount of money and grain, and the expenses of expenditure and nonsense". It can be seen how corrupt the eunuchs have reached.
Jiajing: My money
In addition, Nanjing eunuchs are also responsible for purchasing local specialties to pay tribute to Beijing, but purchasing itself has great room for operation, and the amount of tribute paid in Nanjing is particularly huge. Silk, tea, local local products, etc. are all calculated by ships. During the purchasing process, these eunuchs not only needed to seek out multiple parties, but also took kickbacks, so they were called " the most victim of the people, and the rate was the official ".
The service process of Nanjing Inner Government is " internal approval to conduct the Nanjing garrison, and the yamen of the Commission and other government offices will change their business and take the ". As the leader of the eunuchs in Nanjing, he needs his approval for anything, so no matter how the eunuchs in Nanjing embezzle, the stolen silver must be distributed to the inner garrison. The inner garrison is really rich.
It can be believed that the inner garrison in Nanjing is actually the local emperor sitting in the Forbidden City in Nanjing.
Wenshijun said:
The inner garrison in Nanjing was a special position in the Ming Dynasty, because the eunuchs were the emperor's slaves and were most trusted by the emperor. They were in Nanjing, where the institutions were complete. In order to prevent the emergence of separatist regimes, the emperor's confidants must come to take charge. In a certain way, the reason why inner garrison became the local emperor of Nanjing was also the result of the indulgence of the real emperor of Beijing. There were many storms in the Ming Dynasty that there were eunuchs abolished. The most famous one was the removal of eunuchs in the early years of Jiajing. However, the internal garrison in Nanjing remained unmoved, which shows the importance of the position of garrison in Nanjing.
Because of the great power of garrison in Nanjing, it is easy to harm local areas. The eunuchs in Nanjing only know corruption and have not played a role in consolidating and maintaining the capital and strengthening vigilance. The corruption of the actual controller of Liudu was also one of the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. In the late Ming Dynasty, Beijing fell, and Zhu Yousong established the capital of Nanjing. As a foreign emperor, Emperor Hongguang's control over Nanjing was actually carried out through these eunuchs, but Nanjing could no longer organize effective resistance at that time, resulting in the loss of Yangtze River . The Qing people took it as a warning, "After Hongxi, the ancestor system was changed, and the internal ministers were garrisoned together. This is how the Ming government was not outlined.
References
1, Zhang Tingyu et al.: "History of Ming Dynasty", Zhonghua Book Company, 1974.
2. Liu Ruoyu: "Zhuo Zhongzhi", Beijing Ancient Books Publishing House, 1994.
3. Wang Huiming: "A preliminary study on the management system of the palace in Nanjing, Mingliudu", "Forbidden City Academic Journal" No. 1, 2016.
(Author: Haoran Literature and History·Ziju)
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