Dongchang (full name: Dongzhi Factory), official signature. During the Ming Dynasty in China, it was a privileged supervision and intelligence agency run by eunuchs.

Dongchang created a large number of unjust cases against officials, scholars and even ordinary people, which was quite disgusted by scholars at that time. When performing official duties, he is the same as Jinyiwei, holding a "driver's post" to prove that he is acting on behalf of the Son of Heaven, and is given a "signature" by the Criminal Division.

Dongchang is the earliest national secret intelligence agency established in the history of the world, and its branches are as far as the Korean Peninsula. The location is located in the north of Dong'anmen Gate in Jingshi (now Beijing) (next to Donghua Gate). In the late Ming Dynasty, Jinyiwei and the East and West factories were juxtaposed, and the activities were strengthened, and they were often called "factory guards". 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.

The founder of the East Factory is Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty. After the "Battle of Jingyan", Zhu Di ascended the throne. On the one hand, rumors appeared from time to time that Emperor Jianwen was not dead, and on the other hand, many ministers in the imperial court were not very supportive of the new regime. And Zhu Di also distrusted the ministers of the imperial court.

He felt that the Jinyi Guard, which was located outside the palace, was not very convenient to use, so he decided to establish a new institution. In the process of Zhu Di's army, some eunuchs and monks have made great efforts (such as the famous Zheng He and Daoyan), so in his mind, he still feels that eunuchs are more reliable, and they are in the palace, and it is more convenient to connect. So Zhu Di went against Taizu's ban that eunuchs were not allowed to interfere in political affairs and reused eunuchs.

In December of the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420), in order to suppress the political opposition, Zhu Di, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, decided to set up a new official office called "Dongzhi Factory", referred to as "Dongchang", and ordered the favored eunuch to serve as the leader. The purpose is threefold:

1. In order to consolidate his power, Zhu Di urgently needed a strong authoritarian institution.

2. The establishment of the East Factory also has the intention of monitoring Jinyiwei.

3. The deeper background of the establishment of Dongchang is the strengthening of centralized power in the Ming Dynasty.

The leader of the East Factory is called the East Factory Palm Seal Eunuch, also known as the Factory Gong or Governor, and is the second person among the eunuchs after the Celebrant Palm Seal Eunuch. 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".

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 stewards wear round hats, soap boots, and brown shirts. The rest of the people have the same boot cap but wear a straight fit.

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, brown clothes, and small tapestry. 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 investigation 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. In the literature, it can be found that the types of work in the East Factory have special names. For example, those who monitor the interrogation of criminals by officials of various ministries of the DPRK and the Central Committee and the torture of criminals by Jinyiwei are called "Tingji", and those who visit local government offices are called "Zaoji".

The first owner of the East Factory has been unexaminable, and the "History of the Ming Dynasty, Chengzu III" records that "it was the year when the East Factory was set up, and the official was killed." "The great eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Zhen, Liu Jin, Feng Bao, and Wei Zhongxian, all commanded the East Factory. By the end of the Ming Dynasty, Dongchang also had its own prison.

The function of the East Factory is to "visit and conspire against the evil and evil, and equalize the power with Jinyiwei". One person is in charge, and he is entrusted with the power of visiting and spying.

At first, Dongchang was only responsible for investigating and arresting people, and did not have the right to interrogate prisoners. But by the end of the Ming Dynasty, Dongchang also had its own prison.

Dongchang monitored various political forces, such as government officials, celebrities, and scholars, and had the right to report the results of the 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 are high-ranking government officials or have the status of royalty and aristocrats, Dongchang can also arrest and interrogate them with the authorization of the emperor.

"History of the Ming Dynasty and Criminal Law": "The criminal law is created and has its own Ming, and those who are not interested in the ancient system are already the court staff, the east and west factories, the brocade clothes guard, and the pacification of the prison." It is a number of people, who kill people to the worst, and do not obey the law. Follow on the heels, until you don't create them. Raise the life of the court and the field, and listen to the martial arts and eunuchs' hands, which is good and lamentable. "Again" the establishment of the East Factory began with Chengzu. The prison of Jinyiwei, Taizu tasted it, and then it was banned, and its reuse was also since Yongle. The factory and the guard rely on each other, so the speaker is called the factory guard. "

The scope of detection in the East Factory is very wide. The information obtained by Dongchang can be reported directly to the emperor, which is much more convenient than Jinyiwei, which must be reported in the form of a chapter. When the imperial court tried major cases and the Fusi of Jinyi Weibei Town tortured repeat offenders, the Dongchang had to send people to hear the trials; all the yamen of the imperial court had Dongchang personnel on duty to monitor the officials' every move.

The chief executive of the East Factory is the Eunuch of the Seal of the Seal of the Qincha, and the full title is: The Governor of the Governor of the East Factory, referred to as the Admiral of the East Factory, is called "the prince of the factory" or "the lord of the superintendent". At the beginning of the establishment, the eunuch who held the seal of the celebrant concurrently served as the eunuch, and later due to the complexity of affairs, it was changed to the second and third eunuchs in the eunuch of the celebrant and the pen. 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. Officers such as subordinate officers (called the head of the class, foreman, and secretary, a total of more than 40 people), and the detective (called the chief and the officer) were allocated by the Jinyi Guard.

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.

The leader of the Jinyi Guard was called the commander (or commander of the Tongzhi, the commander of the servant), and was generally served by the emperor's close confidant generals, and rarely by eunuchs. Belong to the foreign minister. The leaders of the East Factory and the West Factory were eunuchs, that is, ministers.

In terms of the relationship with Jinyiwei, the East Factory came from behind. Due to the close relationship between the owner of the Dongchang factory and the emperor, 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 the governor of Dongchang the power to supervise the personnel of the Jinyi Guard. The relationship between Dongchang and Jinyiwei has gradually changed from a horizontal level to a subordinate relationship. In the era when the eunuchs were in power, the Jinyi Wei commanded the envoy to meet the owner of the East Factory and even knelt and kowtowed.

In the late Ming Dynasty, class contradictions, national contradictions, and internal contradictions within the ruling group became increasingly intensified, and the imperial power of feudal autocracy faced a serious crisis. Wei Zhongxian, who was born as a scoundrel, was a eunuch in Wanli and served the emperor's grandson Zhu Youxiao, and was very pampered. Wei Zhongxian, who was illiterate, was promoted to the position of eunuch of the master of ceremonies and the eunuch of Bingbi! He selected eunuchs who knew martial arts in the palace to form an armed contingent of 10,000 people as wings, and recruited a large number of shameless officials to serve as righteous sons and pawns, known as "eunuchs." Wenchen has Cui Chengxiu and other "five tigers", military generals such as Tian Ergeng and other "five biao", as well as "ten children", "forty grandchildren", etc., "from the cabinet, the six ministries to the governor and governor of the four directions, and put the dead party" ("Ming History: The Biography of Wei Zhongxian"). He criticized the red with his pen, mastered the government and government, from the first assistant to the hundred bureaucrats, all of which were arbitrarily promoted and taken by him; He held military power, and could appoint and dismiss governors and ministers at will; He also held great economic power, and sent his cronies to the eunuch governor Jingshi and Tongzhou warehouse, the governor of the Cao Canal Road, and sent tax supervisors to search for people's wealth. "The internal and external power belongs to the loyal and virtuous" ("Ming History, Wei Zhongxian Biography"). The chariot he went out was like an emperor, and everywhere he passed, the scholars and doctors knelt on the side of the road and shouted nine thousand years old. Eunuchs and shameless officials also compete to build shrines for him in various places, a shrine costs tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, after the ancestral hall is completed, the local officials want to enjoy the spring and autumn sacrifices, and the officials and people who do not worship in the shrine will die. When Wei Zhongxian was in power, the factory guards were even more arrogant.

In the third year of Xizong's Apocalypse (1623), he appointed himself as the governor of Dongchang; The governor of Jinyiwei is his godson Tian Ergeng. The factory guards colluded, set up unjust prisons, brutalized dissident officials, extorted money, and tyrannized the people. "Folk puppets, or touching Zhongxian, were captured, and even skinned, tongue-shutting, killed innumerable, the road to the eye" ("Ming History, Wei Zhongxian Biography") Once, four civilians in the capital drank at night in the secret room, one was drunk and hot, scolded Wei Zhongxian, and the other three did not dare to speak out. Before the scolder could finish speaking, several people suddenly rushed in, arrested four people to meet Wei Zhongxian, and Wei ordered the scolder to be skinned on the spot, and the other three were rewarded and put back. The survivors were so frightened that they were on the verge of madness. Wei Zhongxian wreaked havoc on the dictatorship for seven years, which further intensified various social contradictions in the late Ming Dynasty and accelerated the collapse of the Ming Dynasty. After Sizong ascended the throne, although he arrested Wei Zhongxian and expelled the eunuchs, it was difficult to return, he still served as a eunuch and relied on the factory guard, and he also complained to the ministers with eloquence: "Gou Qunchen is dedicated to the country, and I have nothing to do with the ministers" ("History of the Ming Dynasty: Biography of the Eunuch"), so until the fall of the Ming Dynasty.