Chapter 350: The Judicial Surveillance Sub-Commission

Since crossing over, Zhu Youjian had focused all his attention on the great matters of suppressing bandits and pacifying the people, conducting trade to make money, and confiscating estates to enrich the treasury. He had never paid much attention to the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicial Review—he only remembered these two departments existed each year during the autumn executions when he issued the red endorsement. It was not until Feng Ying spoke just now that Zhu Youjian realized he had once again committed the error of an imbalanced approach to governance.

"Your Majesty, the first matter this old minister wishes to raise is to gradually extend the judicial surveillance and inspection system down to the prefectures and counties, so as to better maintain and strengthen the authority of Your Majesty and the imperial court. When Grand Ancestor founded the dynasty, he established Provincial Surveillance Commissions in each province, with the intent of examining the good and evil of local officials and commoners, rectifying wrongdoing and correcting errors, washing away the foul and promoting the pure, punishing the wicked and rewarding the virtuous. Since the establishment of the provincial surveillance commissions, their effectiveness has been evident to all, and this old minister need not elaborate further today. Moreover, in the fifteenth year of Hongwu, Grand Ancestor issued an edict establishing special judicial surveillance sub-commissions in the prefectures and counties throughout the realm. Although they were abolished six months later due to various circumstances, Grand Ancestor's extraordinary vision and talent remain rare in this age!"

In order to achieve comprehensive oversight of local officials, Zhu Yuanzhang had originally established surveillance sub-commissions in every prefecture and county of the Great Ming, staffing them with over five hundred scholars to serve as surveillance sub-commission assistants, granting them the authority to impeach and examine whether local officials were upright and incorruptible.

Needless to say, Grand Ancestor's original intentions and designs were good, but he overestimated the moral integrity of these so-called scholars.

After these several hundred surveillance assistants descended upon the prefectures and counties, some of them relied on their special privileges to try to place themselves above the local chief officials. While throwing their official weight around, they also used their authority to forcibly extort bribes from local gentry and rural notables, and interfered with the chief officials' administration. Within a short period, they threw countless prefectures and counties into chaos, and both gentry and common folk were filled with complaints.

Upon learning of this situation, Zhu Yuanzhang decisively ordered the abolition of the local surveillance sub-commissions, and had all the scholars and Confucians who had committed offenses beheaded. This new policy, which had lasted only half a year, came to an ignominious end.

Zhu Youjian had not studied this very brief new policy in much depth. Now that the Censors and the Embroidered Uniform Guard already possessed the capability to monitor the localities, he had not paid much attention to the Provincial Surveillance Commissions, which were under the dual leadership of the Ministry of Justice and the Censorate. He had not expected that today Feng Ying would bring up this old matter and actually suggest re-establishing surveillance sub-commissions in the local prefectures and counties.

"Minister Feng, since you know that Grand Ancestor established and then abolished this institution, why do you harbor this notion again today?"

"Your Majesty, the reason this old minister raises this old matter today is that times have changed. The Great Ming of today is vastly different from what it was over two hundred years ago. The conditions for re-establishing the surveillance sub-commissions now far surpass those at the founding of the dynasty, and moreover, they are even more in line with what Grand Ancestor originally desired!"

"Oh? Tell me then, what are the differences, and what benefits would come from re-establishing the surveillance sub-commissions?"

"Your Majesty, the greatest difference between the present and the founding of the dynasty is that the realm is no longer in its initial chaos. As literary culture flourishes day by day, countless scholars possess talent yet remain idle. The gentry and literati are for the most part living comfortably, and their capacity for self-discipline is even greater. The various laws and regulations of the court have also grown increasingly complete. Moreover, the officials responsible for pacifying the people and their deputies should maintain clear distinctions of primary and secondary roles, each bearing their own public responsibilities, governing their jurisdictions through their specific duties—this way, related matters can be undertaken by those skilled and experienced in the work, making it easier to prevent and control the occurrence of miscarriages of justice in criminal cases! The establishment of surveillance sub-commissions also has another benefit: together with the Censorate and the Centurion Offices of the Imperial Guard, when impeaching local wrongdoing, they can also supervise one another mutually, preventing the emergence of corruption and malpractice!"

This final point was Feng Ying's ultimate purpose: to divide power with the Censorate and the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and to expand the influence and authority of the Ministry of Justice.

Although the Provincial Surveillance Commissions in each province were departments under the joint jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice and the Censorate, their primary responsibility remained the adjudication of criminal cases, and therefore the appointment and dismissal of their chief officials took the opinions of the Ministry of Justice's senior directors as an important reference basis.

With the emergence of local Regional Inspectors from the Censorate, the surveillance commissions' original functions of impeaching and recommending local officials had gradually disappeared. Accepting criminal appeals, correcting erroneous cases, reviewing prefecture and county documents and archives, and auditing their judgments had become the legitimate business of the Provincial Surveillance Commissions.

The Ministry of Justice had always been deeply dissatisfied with the loss of such an extremely important power. Now that they saw the Emperor's intention to extend imperial authority down to the grassroots level, several senior directors secretly deliberated and decided to seize the opportunity to submit a memorial, using the banner of reducing wrongful cases and supervising and preventing Censors and the Embroidered Uniform Guard from abusing power to disrupt governance, in order to reclaim the power they had lost.

Zhu Youjian did not delve deeply into the Ministry of Justice's motive of seizing power, but rather found the feasibility and effectiveness of what Feng Ying had proposed quite intriguing.

Dividing power was itself one of the governance strategies he planned to implement in the future. He had intended to introduce a decision to disperse the responsibilities and authority of local officials in the second half of next year after careful deliberation. He had not expected that someone would beat him to it today.

"What Minister Feng has proposed is quite important. I will decide after reviewing the routine memorial! The Ministry of Justice should also produce corresponding detailed regulations. Minister Feng, you may now present the other two matters one by one. If they are proper, compliant, and reasonable, I will naturally accept and implement them!"

This matter was broadly feasible, but the specific details still required careful consideration. Once the rules were fully formulated, several prefectures and counties in the capital region would be selected for trial implementation. After one year, the results would be known, and then improvements could be made based on the pros and cons, gradually extending the system throughout the territory of the Great Ming.

The latter two matters Feng Ying presented were quite specific, and were also basic-level situations that had been reported up through the layers of the hierarchy.

He proposed changing the current method of escorting criminals sentenced to penal servitude, from a single responsible local government to a segmented relay system of escort.

In the Great Ming's criminal code, apart from death-row prisoners awaiting execution, the most commonly carried out punishment was penal servitude.

Under the laws of the Great Ming, according to the crimes committed, those sentenced to penal servitude ranging from several hundred li to several thousand li constituted a very large proportion of the criminal population.

For example, among those nobles and civil officials whose families had been confiscated in recent years, apart from the principal offenders who lost their heads, their family members were all exiled to desolate places several thousand li away. There were also many other similar situations.

These criminals or the families of disgraced officials being exiled to distant places required armed escorts from beginning to end to prevent the prisoners from escaping midway, and the yamen runners in each local government office were the primary personnel responsible for long-distance escort duty.

In an era of extremely backward transportation conditions, escorting prisoners over long distances was a bitter task, because no matter how far the journey, the entire way had to be traveled on foot.

Lacking corresponding medical care, food and lodging, and safety guarantees, encountering extreme harsh weather during the long trek was common, let alone unexpected situations such as insects, snakes, wild beasts, miasmic vapors, and virulent diseases. Even a minor case of wind-cold or damp-heat illness could easily cost the escorts their lives.

Over a journey of several thousand li, it was impossible to always walk near densely populated towns and villages. The places where criminals were exiled were all desolate locations with no official roads to travel. Crossing mountains and ridges and sleeping in the open wilderness were commonplace. Although the government did not stipulate how long the escort should take to arrive, the journey was nevertheless extraordinarily arduous, and many yamen runners lost their lives along the way.

But this duty was also a lucrative good assignment, because fearing that the runners would mistreat the prisoners on the road, many prisoners' relatives would give the escorting runners some favor money in advance. The yamen would also provide fixed allowances and expenses based on the distance of the journey, so many runners competed to take on such assignments.

Some compassionate local officials, unable to bear seeing their subordinates die on official duty, reported their opinions to the Provincial Surveillance Commission offices. After enough such opinions accumulated, the Provincial Surveillance Commissioners of some provinces submitted reports to the senior directors of the Ministry of Justice.

After deliberation among the senior directors, they felt that having a single responsible party escort criminals from the place of the crime to the place of penal servitude was indeed somewhat inhumane, and so Feng Ying's memorial today came to be.

According to Feng Ying's suggestion, the escort duty for penal servitude prisoners would henceforth be changed to a relay method along the prefectures and counties on the route, thus sparing the yamen runners at the place of origin the hardship of long-distance travel and reducing the occurrence of runners dying on the road from injury or illness.

"Minister Feng's proposal accords with reality. I approve it. The Grand Secretariat may draft the provisions based on Minister Feng's proposal and issue them to the Provincial Surveillance Commissions of each province for implementation accordingly! The memorial concerning improving prison conditions should also be submitted to the Grand Secretariat for deliberation! Do you ministers have anything else to present?"

"Your Majesty, this minister has a memorial to present!"