Jingshi Donghuamen East Investigation Factory, referred to as 'East Factory', as the privileged supervision, spy and secret investigation agency of the Ming Dynasty; Founded in the Yongle period of Ming Chengzu, the emperor's cronies and eunuchs served as the superintendent of Dongchang; Dongchang is a national spy intelligence agency founded by the Ming Dynasty, supervising hundreds of officials and monitoring the people's situation.

In the Battle of Jingyan, Zhu Di seized the throne by force, illegally overthrew the regime of Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunwen, ascended the throne in Nanjing, changed the Yuan Yongle, and became the ancestor Yongle Emperor.

In view of the world's dissent of the legitimacy of the Yongle regime, and rumors that the Ming orthodox Emperor Jianwen was not dead appeared from time to time, some people loyal to Emperor Jianwen have denounced the new Yongle regime; Many ministers in the imperial court secretly did not support the new Yongle regime, and they were passive and slacking off in handling the government affairs.

In order to consolidate the new power, the Yongle Emperor decided to establish a new institution to supervise the courtiers and the people of the world; In the process of Yanjing raising troops to seize the throne, some eunuchs, eunuchs and monks in the court gave him a lot of support; Therefore, in the mind of Emperor Yongle, he always felt that the eunuchs were more intimate and reliable, and the eunuchs were in the palace, so it was more convenient to control.

As a result, Emperor Yongle went against the norm and overthrew Emperor Taizu's ban that eunuchs were not allowed to interfere in political affairs, and began to reuse eunuchs; In order to strengthen the centralization of power and suppress the political opposition, it was decided to set up a new official office of the "East Investigation Factory", and ordered the favored eunuch to serve as the head of the East Factory.

The leader of the East Factory is called the Eunuch of the East Factory, also known as the Princesse of the Factory or the Governor, and is the second person among the eunuchs after the Eunuch of the Celebrant Palm Seal; Usually the second and third eunuchs are the second and third eunuchs, and their full official title is "Governor of Qincha Dongchang Official School Eunuch", referred to as "Admiral Dongchang".

The subordinate officials of the East Factory have one member of each of the 1,000 households and the 100 households, and they are served by the Jinyi Wei 1,000 households and 100 households, and they are called the criminal officers; In addition, there are more than 40 people in charge, foreman, and secretary, who are allocated by the brocade guard, and are divided into 12 sons, and the steward wears a round hat, soap boots, and brown shirts, and the rest of the people have the same boots and hats, but wear a straight body.

The commander is equivalent to the squad leader, also called the "stall head", there are more than 100 people, and there are also 12 ugly people, all wearing pointed hats, white leather boots, and brown clothes tied with small silk.

There are several commanders of the commanders, and the officers are also called "fans" and "officers", and these people are also composed of elite elements selected from the Jinyi Guard.

The East Factory is not only more capable and reasonable in terms of organization and staffing, but also has formulated a fairly strict system in terms of detection operations; For example, on the first day of each month, the East Factory should concentrate on the investigation work of the month, and the factory staff will draw lots in the East Factory to decide the site they are responsible for.

The types of work in the Dongchang factory have special names, such as monitoring officials of various ministries of the DPRK and the Central People's Republic of China, interrogating the prisoners and torture criminals by the Jinyi Guard, which is called "listening"; The person who visited the local government in various places was called "Za Ji", and there was also a certain official's move, or a certain city gate caught a key criminal, and the official recorded and reported to the East Factory was called "Beat Incident".

The function of the East Factory is to "visit and conspire against the evil and evil, etc., and the power of Jinyi Wei", one person is in charge, and he is entrusted with the power of visiting and spying.

At first, Dongchang was only responsible for detecting and arresting people, and did not have the right to interrogate prisoners.

Dongchang monitors various political forces such as ** officials, celebrities, and scholars, and has the right to report the results of surveillance directly to the emperor; According to the information obtained from the surveillance, for those political opponents with lower status, Dongchang can directly arrest and interrogate them without judicial trial;

As for the opposition who held a high-ranking official in the court or had the status of a royal nobleman, Dongchang could also arrest and interrogate them after obtaining the authorization of the emperor.

When the East Factory entered the house, a large portrait of Yue Fei was displayed to remind the East Factory that Tiqi did not need to be in vain to handle the case.

Dongchang's power is above Jinyiwei, and it is only responsible to the emperor, and without the approval of the judicial organs, it can supervise the arrest of subjects at will, thus opening the end of the eunuch interference in the Ming Dynasty.

Dongchang and Jinyiwei are special agencies set up by the imperial court outside the three judicial organs of the Criminal Department, the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Dali Temple, which directly obey the emperor's orders and are in charge of the "edict prison".

Jinyiwei, the emperor's guard organization, formerly known as the imperial guard department set up by Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, as the military institution of the emperor's guard; The leader of the Jinyi Guard is called the commander of the envoy, the commander of the Tongzhi, the commander of the affairs, generally served by the emperor's close confidants, and rarely by the eunuchs, belonging to foreign ministers; And the head of Dongchang was a eunuch, that is, a minister.

In terms of the relationship with Jinyiwei, Dongchang came later, and after the Emperor of the Apocalypse Zhu Youxiao ascended the throne and succeeded to the throne, Wei Zhongxian gradually took control of Dongchang and Jinyiwei; In order to consolidate and strengthen his own rights, Wei Zhongxian juxtaposed Jinyiwei and Dongchang, collectively known as "Changwei", appointed himself as the governor of Dongchang, and appointed his son Tian Ergeng as the governor of Jinyiwei.

Wei Zhongxian arranged for his cronies to serve as the leaders of the Jinyi Guard, and assigned them to various state capitals to supervise local military and government affairs, so that the centralized power of the emperor was strengthened and stabilized.

Because of the close relationship between Wei Zhongxian and the emperor in Dongchang, and being in the palace, it was easier to gain the emperor's trust; Jin Yiwei reported to the emperor that he wanted to play sparsely, and the east factory could be directly spoken; The emperor also gave Wei Zhongxian the power to supervise the personnel of the Jinyi Guard.

Under the leadership of Wei Zhongxian, the relationship between Dongchang and Jinyiwei gradually changed from a horizontal level to a superior-subordinate relationship.

In short, the emperor, out of the internal needs of the autocratic regime, needed a force independent of the bureaucracy for his own use, and Dongchang and Jinyiwei were such institutions.

In the early days of the establishment of Dongchang, it objectively played a deterrent effect on the issue of anti-corruption, and greatly strengthened the imperial power; However, Dongchang's methods of suppression were extremely cruel, and some of them were done because of soliciting merit from the emperor or for his own personal gain;

Therefore, it is easy to create a large number of unjust, false and wrongful cases, and even the Donglin Party members who were in power for a time also collapsed under the joint attack of Dongchang Jinyiwei, and they are still chasing down Donglin Party members throughout the country, so that Dongchang's reputation in the world is extremely poor, and what Dongchang has done is extremely hated and feared.

At this time, in the main hall of the East Factory, Tian Ergeng, the governor of Jinyi Weidu, stood respectfully in front of Wei Zhongxian, groveling, and was reporting to his father-in-law Wei Zhongxian.

"Father-in-law, this time the child is investigating the smuggling case in Datong Mansion, after careful screening, Gao Qiqian really does not know about his son Kaohsiung's smuggling of prohibited military supplies, in view of Gao Qiqian's loyalty to your father-in-law, the child has not been dealt with for the time being, only Kaohsiung and its participants will be arrested, as for how Gao Qiqian and his people should be handled, please decide by the father-in-law!" Tian Ergeng reported truthfully.

When Wei Zhongxian heard this, his face was extremely embarrassed, and his eyes were cold: "Hmph, Gao Qiqian, this bastard thing, his godson is not strict, and his family trusts him so much in vain, our family can forgive him for other things, but the crime of the enemy is unforgivable, if it weren't for Lu Shengxiang's intention to cling to me, if this matter is transmitted to Your Majesty, I will definitely be punished!" ”

"Father-in-law, what do you mean?" Tian Ergeng asked tentatively.

"You deal with the crime of Kaohsiung in private, don't make a noise, as for Gao Qiqian..." Wei Zhongxian pondered: "Remembering that he has followed our family for so many years, there is no merit and hard work, the death penalty can be avoided, and the living crime is unforgivable, so he will be dismissed from his position as the envoy of Jinyi Wei Town, Datong Mansion, and transferred back to the capital!" ”

"Yes!" Tian Ergeng hurriedly bowed down and answered.

After a pause, Wei Zhongxian said: "Lu Shengxiang is in charge of the military affairs of the nine-sided town of Datong Mansion, this person is a rare general, there are not many generals in charge of the army under our command, and there is an urgent need for a general like Lu Shengxiang, since he wants to be attached to me, our family can't treat him badly, Datong Mansion Jinyi Wei will be handed over to Lu Shengxiang for supervision for the time being!" ”

When Tian Ergeng heard this, he was puzzled: "Father-in-law, do you want to investigate for a while?" ”

Wei Zhongxian shook his head and said: "No need, there is no doubt about employing people, no suspicion is needed, handing over Jinyiwei to Lu Shengxiang for supervision, on the one hand, is to affirm his performance in the Kaohsiung smuggling case as a reward; Secondly, Datong Mansion is an important town on the nine borders of the Ming Dynasty, and now the border war is tight, and the imperial court is the time to employ people, delegating power to him, which is more conducive to stabilizing the stability of Datong Mansion's border pass! ”

The reason why Wei Zhongxian handed over the Jinyi Wei of Datong Mansion to Lu Shengxiang had another purpose, he really wanted to try his best to win over Lu Shengxiang for his own use; Although the power of Dongchang Jinyi Wei is all over the world and ubiquitous, there is a lack of senior generals in the army like Lu Shengxiang.

As far as the Jinyi Wei envoy of Datong Mansion is concerned, for Wei Zhongxian, he is still willing to do it, if he can exchange this for the military power of Datong Mansion, an important town on the nine sides, it can be said to be like a tiger with wings.

"Father-in-law, Yang Sisheng and Cai Mao of Xi'an Mansion are about to be escorted to the capital in the near future, do you think it will be tried by our Jinyiwei, or handed over to Dali Temple for trial?" Tian Ergeng asked.

Wei Zhongxian gently put down the teacup in his hand, raised his eyes to Tian Ergeng and said: "Yang Sisheng is Yang Sichang's younger brother, if it is tried by Jinyiwei, it will inevitably cause a backlash from Yan's subordinates, and it seems that our Dongchang Jinyiwei has a personal vendetta, so let's hand it over to the three halls of Dali Temple for trial, and expand the situation, it is best to make trouble in the city, and the world knows it, so as to hit Yan's protégé hard!" ”

"Father-in-law Takami!" Tian Ergeng complimented when he heard this.

Wei Zhongxian snorted coldly: "Hmph, these alone are not enough, since King Xin is involved, then we will be a favor and support Sun Chuanting to replace Yang Sisheng and Cai Mao's position, and take charge of the military and political affairs of Xi'an Mansion, on the one hand, transfer the grudges of Yan's protégés to Xinwangfu, let them go to the trouble of Xinwangfu, on the other hand, the disaster in Xi'an Mansion is severe, and there are many wanderers, so let this scholar Sun Chuanting go to bear the black cauldron!" ”

"The father-in-law strategizes and wins a thousand miles, and the child will learn from your old man in the future!" Tian Ergeng said with a compliment full of reverence.

"Well, you have to continue to hunt down the remnants of the Donglin Party, be sure to cut down the grass and eradicate the roots, and don't leave them a chance to breathe!" Wei Zhongxian's eyes were cold, and his face sank and he commanded.

"Yes, the child has already ordered Jinyiwei everywhere, but anyone who has anything to do with the Donglin Party will be arrested, dealt with strictly, and will not be tolerated!" Tian Ergeng said solemnly.