Jinyiwei, a famous spy agency in the Ming Dynasty, was formerly known as the "Gongwei Division" established by Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, and was later renamed the "Pro-Army Governor's Mansion", which governed the Yiluan Division and was in charge of the emperor's honor guard and guards. In the fifteenth year of Hongwu (1382), the pro-army Governor's Mansion and Yiluan Division were abolished, and the Jinyi Guard was replaced. As a military institution of the emperor's bodyguard, Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to strengthen the centralized rule, specially ordered him to take charge of the prison, gave him the right to inspect and arrest, and set up a pacification department to engage in reconnaissance, arrest, interrogation and other activities.

"At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the arch was placed in the guard, the rank was seven products, the captain was in charge, and it belonged to the governor's mansion. Later, it was changed to the commander of the Gong Guard, and the rank was three products. Xun was changed to the Commander Division. In the third year of Hongwu, it was changed to the pro-army governor's office, which was in charge of the left, right, middle, front and rear five guard sergeants, and set up the Yiluan Division to be subordinate. For four years, Dingyi Luan Division was the fifth product, with one ambassador and two deputy envoys. In the fifteenth year, he dismissed the Yiluan Division, changed the Jinyi Guard, and the rank was from the three grades ......" (from the "History of the Ming Dynasty")

Jinyiwei is the exclusive military and political spy agency of the Ming Dynasty, its predecessor was the "Gongwei Division" established by Zhu Yuanzhang, and later renamed the "Pro-Army Governor's Mansion". The main function of the Jinyi Guard is to "take charge of the guards, patrol and arrest", and its leader is called the commander of the Jinyi Guard, which is generally served by the emperor's cronies and generals, and is directly responsible to the emperor. In the twentieth year of Hongwu (1387), Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the burning of Jinyiwei's torture equipment, and the prisoners were transferred to the Criminal Department for trial; At the same time, he ordered that all the inner and outer prisons should be tried by the three legal divisions, and the Jinyiwei was abolished. When the Ming Dynasty became the ancestor, the Jinyi Wei was restored again, and the Beizhen Fusi specially dealt with the edict. In the Ming generation, Jinyiwei has always existed.

They were directly subordinate to the emperor and could arrest anyone, including relatives of the emperor, and conduct closed interrogations. He also participated in the work of collecting military information and plotting against enemy generals, such as collecting a large amount of Japanese military information in the Wanli Korean War. It was not until 1661 that the commander of the Jinyi Guard of the Yongli Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty, Ma Jixiang and Ren Zixin, the head of the guard, were killed in the difficulty of the cursed water, which can be said to be the official end of the 290-year history.

After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, it imitated the system of the Ming Dynasty and still set up Jinyi Guard. In the second year of Shunzhi (1645), it was renamed Luan Yiwei. The brocade guards of the Qing Dynasty only existed for one year.

Zhu Yuanzhang set up Jinyiwei for the purpose of eliminating heroes, fabricating accusations and putting the innocent to death. Zhu Yuanzhang was worried that after his death, the next generation of emperors would not be able to control the civil and military warriors, so he set up several prisons, under the pretext of a number of excuses, and slaughtered the civil and military warriors who assisted him in fighting the world. "You can see how fierce it is. At the beginning of the figurine, it was the product of the emperor's improper mental skills, so its sequelae were also particularly serious.

In the twentieth year of Hongwu (1387), Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the burning of Jinyiwei's torture equipment, and the prisoners were transferred to the Criminal Department for trial; At the same time, he ordered that all the inner and outer prisons should be tried by the three legal divisions, and the Jinyiwei was abolished. However, it is difficult to break the root of the maladministration caused by the bad mind at the beginning of the game, and when Zhu Di, the king of Yan, raised troops to seize the throne, Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, restored the Jinyi Guard in order to consolidate his rule. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the two generations of emperors reused the brocade guard, and after that, there was a Ming generation, and this disadvantage was difficult to get rid of.

The Jinyi Guard was first and foremost the emperor's bodyguards and honor guards, consisting of generals, captains, and wrestlers. The general's initial name was "Tianwu", and he was renamed "General of the Han Dynasty" in Yongle, and selected those with majestic appearance and courage to serve as palace guards. On weekdays, when there is no court meeting, the guards are on duty at the four gates of the imperial city, but the general of the Jinyi Guard guards outside the noon gate day and night, a total of 100 people. The noon gate is the main gate of the palace city, which shows the high status of the brocade guard.

When the emperor listened to the government at the imperial gate of Fengtianmen (now Taihemen of the Forbidden City), a member of the Jinyi Guard Hall stood on the west side of the throne and was responsible for delivering the decree. One hundred and twenty-nine generals of Jinyiwei, two thousand households, and four hundred households, respectively guarded in front of the gates of Danma, Yudao, Jinshui Bridge and Fengtianmen Square. In addition, there are 500 captains of the Jinyi Guard, lined up inside and outside the noon gate, responsible for sounding the whip and holding the guard of honor.

Every year, there are three major court meetings on New Year's Day, Winter Solstice, and Wanshou Festival, and Jinyiwei and other pro-soldiers assume the duties of guards and honor guards. There were more than 4,000 people in the honor guard, including 1,500 Jinyi guards. During the court meeting, the closest to the emperor is the Jinyi Guard, who serves left and right at any time and is at the disposal of the emperor.

Whenever the emperor left the palace for sacrifices or parades, the brocade guards also had to obey before driving. Some of them were responsible for patrolling along the way, some were responsible for transmitting news between Luanjiao and the capital, and some were riding beside the car, passing on the ups and downs of the imperial chariot.

Because of the function of the honor guard, the costumes of the brocade guards are unusually gorgeous. The official uniform worn by the captain is based on the style of the Yuan Dynasty dress, and it is called "goose hat brocade coat" in "Chang'an Hakka", that is, hats decorated with goose feathers and brightly colored clothes. Whenever the emperor sacrificed or paraded, the captain of the Jinyi Guard, as an attendant, had to wear a flying fish suit and an embroidered spring knife at his waist. The flying fish suit is a grand dress second only to the python robe, and it can only be worn by officials when they reach a certain level. The embroidered spring knife is light and short, and cannot be worn without authorization unless it is given by the emperor. During the Jingtai period, the commander of the Jinyi guard and the guards on duty were allowed to wear unicorn suits, which were only qualified to be worn by dukes, marquis, uncles, and horses. When on duty, the general of the Jinyi Wei Han Dynasty wore a helmet decorated with a small flag and a placket armor. Armor comes in various colors such as gold armor, red armor, red armor, and red armor and blue armor. The palace ban gold medal and saber should be hung on the waist, and the golden gourd or axe should be held. Now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the "Picture of the Police Entering and Entering" can clearly see the brocade guards and soldiers accompanying the driver.

"Inspection and arrest" is the special feature of Jinyiwei that distinguishes it from the Praetorian Guards of other dynasties, and the Jinyiwei agency responsible for criminal investigation is the South and North Town Fu Division, of which the North Town Fu Division was added in the fifteenth year of Hongwu and specializes in the cases approved by the emperor. In the first year of Chenghua, the seal of the Fusi of Beizhen was added, and all prisons did not have to be closed to Bai Benwei. The Beizhen Fusi has its own edict and can arrest, torture, and execute on its own without going through the general judiciary. There are five guards under the Fusi Division of the South and North Towns, and their commanders are called Thousand Households, Hundred Households, General Banner, and Small Banner, and ordinary sergeants are called Captains and Lux.

The court staff is to drag the ministers who anger the emperor out of the noon gate and beat them. The person in charge of the execution was the captain of the Jinyi Guard, and the prisoner was the celebrant eunuch. The officers who received the cane were stripped of their official uniforms, tied with straw ropes, lying on the ground, and received 80 canes, and the execution captain changed every 5 sticks, sharing 16 people. The execution captain used the expression and movement of the celebrant and the eunuch as the basis for the severity of the cane: if the eunuch's feet were spread outward, the tortured person could still leave a life; If the eunuch's toes are close together, the person being tortured will be killed by the rod. In the Ming Dynasty, the court staff was performed more than 500 times, and more than 50 ministers were killed with the cane.

As the emperor's personal guard, in order to ensure the emperor's safety, the brocade guard must take precautions. They were then constantly dispatched to spy on acts and statements that might threaten the imperial power and endanger the imperial court, and to arrest and interrogate suspects. This task of theirs was granted by the emperor and gradually evolved into the functions of military spies.

During the Hongwu period, because of Jinyiwei's illegal behavior and abuse of prisoners, Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict to burn Jinyiwei's torture equipment and abolished their function. After Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ascended the throne, he restored all the power of Jinyiwei and strengthened it. He set up the Beizhen Fu Division, which was in charge of the "edict prison", which could directly arrest and torture prisoners, and the judicial organs such as the Criminal Department, Dali Temple, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate had no right to interrogate. During the Chenghua period of Emperor Ming Xianzong, the seal letter of the Beizhen Fusi was added, and all the prisons were presented to the emperor without being conveyed through the command, so that the Jinyi Weibei Zhenfu Division became a judicial institution directly under the emperor's jurisdiction, and the power reached the extreme. The Jinyi Guard Officer School responsible for reconnaissance and arrest is called "Ti Cai". Due to the lack of restrictions on their powers, they fabricated charges in order to solicit merit and rewards, unscrupulously expanded the scope of involvement, and created numerous unjust, false and wrongly decided cases.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the military system was "guard" and "place", each guard governed about 5,000 regular sergeants, and its subordinate offices were divided into 1,000 households and 100 households, and the guards under the jurisdiction of the Praetorian Guard in the capital were 48 places. In the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang reformed the Praetorian Guard and established twelve pro-military guards, the most important of which was the "Jinyi Guard".

Its official rank is: one commander, three grades; Command the same two people, from the three products; Commanding two servants, four products; Pacify the two people, from the four products; Fourteen thousand households and fourteen people, five products; Vice thousands of households, from the five products; 100 households, six products; Try 100 households, from six products; General flag, is the seventh product; Small flags, from the seven pins. His subordinates include generals, captains, and wrestlers, and there are foreign counselors and school orders, as well as translators who are proficient in many Chinese languages (such as Zhang Miaozheng of the Xianzong Dynasty).

There are three types of costumes for the senior officials of the Jinyi Guard: python suits, flying fish suits, and bullfighting suits.

Since Jinyiwei was under the direct jurisdiction of the emperor, other officials in the court could not interfere with them at all, so Jinyiwei could handle major cases involving court officials and submit them directly to the emperor. Therefore, the officials of the DPRK and China are afraid of Jinyiwei. However, the scope of Jinyiwei's torture was only for officials and doctors, so they generally did not interrogate and arrest ordinary people. Ordinary people's criminal and civil cases are handled only through the normal administration of justice.

During the Hongwu period, because of Jinyiwei's illegal behavior and abuse of prisoners, Zhu Yuanzhang issued an edict to burn Jinyiwei's torture equipment and abolished their function. After Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ascended the throne, he restored all the power of Jinyiwei and strengthened it. He set up the Beizhen Fu Division, which was in charge of the "edict prison", which could directly arrest and torture prisoners, and the judicial organs such as the Criminal Department, Dali Temple, and the Metropolitan Procuratorate had no right to interrogate. During the Chenghua period of Emperor Ming Xianzong, the seal letter of the Beizhen Fusi was added, and all the prisons were presented to the emperor without being conveyed through the command, so that the Jinyi Weibei Zhenfu Division became a judicial institution directly under the emperor's jurisdiction, and the power reached the extreme.

The Jinyi Guard Officer School responsible for reconnaissance and arrest is called "Ti Cai". Due to the lack of restrictions on their powers, they fabricated charges in order to solicit merit and rewards, unscrupulously expanded the scope of involvement, and created numerous unjust, false and wrongly decided cases.

In addition, the Jinyi guards had privileges, which invisibly allowed them to act arbitrarily and pervert the law, but they were protected by the emperor's "barrier", causing chaos in society. Therefore, the death of the Ming Dynasty in the factory guard was one of the reasons for the fall of the Ming Dynasty.