At present, when commerce is not well developed, the total population of Dantu County is only about 20,000.

There were no troops stationed in the county town, and the more than one hundred officers and soldiers were the highest armed force in the county town.

Zhu Ying's three thousand black-armored guards were all cavalry.

Facing a county town like Dantu County, it can be said to be a crushing existence.

This is also why some peasant uprisings seemed to make it very easy to attack a county town. In less than a few days, they captured a certain county town, which seemed very powerful.

However, once the soldiers from the garrisons arrived, the generals with a little fame found it easy to defeat the rebels as if they were cutting melons and vegetables.

This is the root cause.

On the contrary, some large clans may have only a few thousand people, but if the people are tough, they can fight back and forth.

Among the Ti riders, a man with disheveled hair was brought up.

"Your Highness, this man was riding in a carriage with suspicious behavior, trying to leave the county. We happened to meet him and after some questioning, we found out that he was Liu Bingyuan, the magistrate of Dantu County."

Liu Bingyuan was held down by two burly soldiers. He had no strength to struggle and was like a little chicken.

When Liu Bingyuan heard the young man in front of him being called "Your Highness", he immediately knew that he was in trouble.

As he thought about it, he realized that the person in front of him was the legendary Royal Highness the Changsun of the Ming Dynasty.

The black sand above my head is gone.

After being released by the soldiers, Liu Bingyuan knelt on the ground and bowed, saying: "I, the guilty minister Liu Bingyuan, pay my respects to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

Zhu Ying was not surprised that he knew him. Looking at Liu Bingyuan, whose hair was disheveled and looked extremely pitiful, she did not feel any sympathy in her heart.

This kind of parasite has killed countless people and embezzled so much of the people's money in the past. It would be too easy for him to be executed directly.

"Since you call yourself a criminal, then write down the crimes you have committed."

Zhu Ying said calmly.

Liu Bingyuan knew that he could not escape death, so he kowtowed and said, "I obey the order of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

Then he took the pen and ink and started writing.

After finishing writing, Song Zhong took it and prepared to hand it over to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Zhu Ying waved his hands and said, "No need to look. Judging from his appearance, he seems to be more or less repentant. Whether he is acting or really doing it, just push him out and execute him."

Upon hearing this, Liu Bingyuan immediately prostrated himself and said, "Thank you, Your Highness, for your grace."

This was truly a grace. Liu Bingyuan knew very well in his heart that for the crimes he had committed, it was not possible to execute his entire clan, but his entire family would certainly be executed.

Direct execution now can be said to be the best outcome.

In fact, Zhu Ying also knew in his heart that there was a large interest group behind Liu Bingyuan.

But he could no longer investigate further.

The group behind Liu Bingyuan can only be the Liu family clan. If they really want to investigate thoroughly, it will be enough to kill thousands of people.

This is not to say that there is anything to worry about if a few thousand people are killed.

It’s just that there are too many cases like Liu Bingyuan in the entire Ming Dynasty.

If we really want to cleanse the entire Ming Dynasty, it would be unrealistic.

To be honest, the corruption in the garrison was even more exaggerated than that in the county town.

"In compliance with the order of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Liu Bingyuan, the magistrate of Dantu County, has violated the laws of the Ming Dynasty by committing corruption and bribery and taking human lives lightly. These are extremely serious crimes and he shall be executed immediately!"

With a scream, Liu Bingyuan's head fell to the ground.

Those more than one hundred yamen runners just watched helplessly as the former county magistrate lost his life.

…

The events in Dantu County were quickly compiled into intelligence and passed on to Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Yuanzhang smiled happily as he watched his eldest grandson cut the Gordian knot and easily and neatly resolved the issue of the county magistrate in Dantu County.

However, the situation in Dantu County also made Zhu Yuanzhang realize a big problem.

After a moment of hesitation, he summoned the Minister of Personnel, Zhan Hui, to discuss the matter.

Zhan Hui arrived at the Huagai Palace and kowtowed, saying, "Your Majesty."

Zhu Yuanzhang threw the document in his hand to the ground in anger and scolded: "Take a good look at what the Ministry of Personnel is doing. They review officials in this way. Our grandson can make such a mistake wherever he goes."

"Dantu County is not that far away. It is only about a hundred miles away from the capital. It can be said to be at the foot of the imperial city."

"We have been cleaning up corrupt officials for so many years, but there is still a rat lurking under our feet. Who gave him such a blessing? Is it you, Minister Zhan?"

Zhan Hui never expected that as soon as he entered the door, he would be greeted by His Majesty's thundering wrath.

But now I am completely confused by the scolding. Apart from knowing that the problem occurred in Dantu County, I know nothing else.

There are over a thousand counties in the Ming Dynasty, and who can remember so many?

I could only pick up the document and read through it quickly.

As soon as he saw Liu Bingyuan's name, Zhan Hui knew where the problem lay.

He remembered this man clearly. It was he who personally recommended him to be the magistrate of Dantu County.

By the way, I even came to visit him during the Chinese New Year this year.

Looking at the various crimes in the document, Zhan Hui kowtowed repeatedly: "This minister is not good at judging people, please punish me, Your Majesty."

Zhu Yuanzhang said impatiently: "Okay, get up. We asked you to come here not to punish you, but to have a good discussion with you about how to govern these officials."

"We have been very strict in punishing corruption and bribery over the years, but there are still many people who defy the law and commit crimes."

"Many of these people are Jinshi selected by us. Whether from their appearance or their moral character, we feel that they should not be able to do such things."

"But after investigation, it turns out that these people are the ones who have ignored our kindness and become more and more greedy, becoming more and more hateful."

"In some places, three officials in a row were found to be corrupt and executed, but the fourth official who came up ignored the previous lessons and continued to be corrupt."

"The Ming Dynasty has been established for 26 years, and we have been killing people for 26 years, but these guys give us a feeling that we can never kill them all."

"Zhan Hui, please tell me what these people are thinking."

There was resentment, anger, unwillingness and sigh in Zhu Yuanzhang's tone.

In the "Great Ming Code·Criminal Law", Zhu Yuanzhang set up a special chapter on "Accepting Bribes", which consists of eleven articles.

They are "Officials accepting bribes", "Punishment for corruption", "Accepting bribes after the fact", "Requesting bribes for things", and "Demanding money from borrowers while in office", which provide extremely detailed regulations on the phenomenon of officials accepting bribes.

From the royal family to the landlords and wealthy businessmen, if anyone commits a crime, he must be punished according to the law. No criminal can be let off for personal gain, and redemption with money is never allowed.

Those who deserve to be killed should be killed, and those who deserve to be punished should be punished, without any discrimination. After the full facts of the case are investigated, both the briber and the bribe-taker will be punished equally.

Before Zhu Ying entered the palace, Zhu Yuanzhang used torture to punish corrupt officials and to make an example of them, which was also a thundering measure he took.

The corporal punishments for punishing corrupt officials include tattooing, chopping off fingers, cutting off hands, cutting off feet, and pulling out tendons.

The death penalty methods include clan extermination, lingchi, beheading, public execution, and skinning and stuffing with straw.

It can really be said that in terms of anti-corruption, Zhu Yuanzhang has always been around since the founding of the Ming Dynasty.

In order to intensify the fight against corruption, Zhu Yuanzhang established supervisory agencies from the imperial court to the local levels. The strictness of their organization and the magnitude of their power were unprecedented in all previous dynasties.

Zhu Yuanzhang established the highest anti-corruption agency, the Censorate, at the central level, which integrated criminal, procuratorial and judicial functions.

Soon after, six departments of the Imperial Censorate were set up to expose and impeach corrupt officials in the six ministries.

At the local level, in addition to the censors sent by the imperial court, there were also censors in each province who were responsible for supervision.

Later, the "governor" system was established, whereby the court sent trusted and important ministers to tour various places to supervise local officials.

In the eighteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang promulgated the "Great Edict" to the whole country, which included a new regulation: from now on, officials in office and unemployed officials in the provincial administration, prefectures, states, and counties.

If you dare to "manipulate litigation, instigate crimes, frame others, collude with government officials, and endanger the state."

The local virtuous, upright and heroic people can arrest these people, tie them up and send them to the capital. If anyone dares to intercept them on the way, they will be beheaded and displayed to the public.

Zhu Yuanzhang launched a vigorous anti-corruption campaign, which lasted for a long time, took strict measures, used ruthless means, and carried out cruel punishments, killing a large number of people, which was rare in the thousands of years of dynasty history.

Upon hearing this, Zhan Hui immediately replied: "From what I have seen, these former students have bad personalities. After taking office, they find it difficult to control themselves when faced with many pressures."

"That's why I disregarded your majesty's grace and did something that triggered the law."

Zhan Hui didn't dare to simply reply and immediately shut up.

Zhan Hui, who was well versed in the ways of being an official, knew very well in his mind that in His Majesty's current state, the more he spoke, the more mistakes he would make.

Moreover, he himself was the Minister of Personnel, in control of the promotion and appointment of officials throughout the country.

If it weren't for Your Majesty's trust, I would have lost my position long ago.

Zhu Yuanzhang didn't care too much, but said to himself: "My eldest grandson actually raised this question with me before."

"It's just that I haven't taken it too seriously until now. After seeing the situation in Dantu County today, I realized that what my eldest grandson said seems to be very reasonable."

Zhan Hui said at the right moment: "I wonder what kind of brilliant plan His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has come up with."

Zhu Yuanzhang recalled and said, "What the eldest grandson meant is that no matter it is a local county town or a prefectural city or a county town, there is a big drawback, that is, the person in power, above the civil and military officials, is almost under the jurisdiction of one person."

“When you lose the control of others and have power in your hands, many things begin to become completely different.”

"If you have a kind heart, it's fine. But if you have evil thoughts, it will be easier for you to collude with some landlords and businessmen and become corrupt."

"If we want to stop the trend of corruption completely, we must have people to check and control each other, and to be opponents of each other. It would be best if we could divide the power into three parties, so that they can share the power."

"This way, they will be more cautious when breaking the law."

After hearing His Majesty's words, Zhan Hui felt vaguely touched.

Unlike others, Zhan Hui was a cruel official, but because of some relationships, he did not have any clan or faction.

For example, recommending Liu Bingyuan, the magistrate of Dantu County, was because Liu Bingyuan was indeed a talented person.

It is precisely because of this reason that Zhu Yuanzhang has always had great trust in his loyalty.

Zhan Hui himself had a very high level of self-cultivation. Apart from being a bit harsh and sinister in character, he was still a good official.

The father of Minister of Personnel Zhan Hui was named Zhan Tong, who served under Chen Youliang in the late Yuan Dynasty.

Later, after Chen Youliang died, Zhu Yuanzhang recruited him to be a doctor of the Imperial College because there was a severe shortage of talent at that time, and Zhan Tong was a very talented person.

Zhu Yuanzhang appreciated his writing talent, and he was also able to implement some of Zhu Yuanzhang's ideas very well. In many aspects, he made Zhu Yuanzhang very satisfied, so Zhu Yuanzhang always valued and took good care of him.

Even until old age, Zhu Yuanzhang's care for him never diminished.

Both father and son were ministers of the Ministry of Personnel, just like the admirable three generations of the Yuan family in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.

In fact, there were Jinyiwei monitoring Zhan Hui almost twelve hours a day.

Including those servants, maids, and servants, there are countless people who are secret agents of the Jinyiwei.

Even one of Zhan Hui's concubines might have had some private contact with the Jinyiwei.

The main reason is that the position of Minister of Personnel is too important and the power in his hands is too important.

Throughout the dynasties, what emperors were most worried about was the collusion among officials.

The Minister of Personnel is the one most likely to cause this situation.

The future of middle and low-level officials is almost entirely controlled by the Ministry of Personnel. Once the Minister of Personnel has any ulterior motives, the impact can be said to be enormous.

Zhan Hui has served as the Minister of Personnel for many years and he knows the situation of some local officials by heart.

When Zhan Hui heard His Majesty talking about the Crown Prince's ideas, he couldn't help but applaud in his heart.

"I have heard that what your Majesty said is indeed a good medicine to cure corruption."

"I have seen too many students step by step walk down the road of corruption. Your Highness's words almost hit the core."

"However, we still need to think carefully about how to divide power in this place."

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded: "There are some signs of progress. The Public Security Bureau founded by my eldest grandson is aimed at this approach."

"Now that the eldest grandson is on patrol, we can have a look to see if this method is useful or not."

“If corruption is greatly reduced in places where there is a security department, then we can start implementing it.”

“If the corruption has not been reduced even with the intervention of the Public Security Department, then we need to see where the source of corruption is coming from.”

"Well, go write a charter first. It doesn't have to be too high. Just decide on the county first."

"Re-divide and specify in detail the powers held by some county officials."

Zhu Yuanzhang explained.

He wanted to try to carry out a reform on the county officials.

Let’s see if the power of a county magistrate is divided, can it really be effective in curbing corruption?

Moreover, after this reform is introduced, it can be tried out in a large number of county towns first.

If the effect is good, it will be promoted nationwide.