The Relationship Between The Secret Police Agencies And The Three Laws Departments Of The Ming Dynasty

In order to restore the damage to the judicial system of the Han regime in the Yuan Dynasty,the Ming Dynasty inherited the old system of the Tang and Song Dynasties and established Three Laws Departments in the central government to oversaw the trial,reviewed and supervised jobs of major and important cases throughout the country and around the capital.With the stability of the ruling order in the Ming Dynasty,Three Laws Departments became an important part of the judicial system in the Ming Dynasty.However,judicial power is constrained by various forces in actual operation,and officials of the Three Laws Departments are often unable to handle cases.The emperors of the past dynasties took the strengthening of the feudal monarchy as their main focus of work,and they inevitably had to maintain a certain state of opposition with other officials in the court.In the Ming Dynasty,feudal autocratic centralization was unprecedentedly strengthened,and the relationship between the imperial power group and the civil official group became more tense,so the emperors used the guards and eunuchs belonging to him to intervene in political affairs in an attempt to control the power of the civil official group,and the Secret Police Agencies was born.Secret Police Agencies in the Ming Dynasty are in charge of investigation,prison and torture.The main objects of investigation and arrests are the deceitful and unruly criminals who instigate rebellion.When the Secret Police Agencies was founded,it was in a cooperative relationship with the Three Laws Departments.The emperors had absolute control power over the factory sanitation agency,strictly limited the scope of its powers,and made sure that the Three Laws Division could restrict its power.At the same time,Embroidered-Uniform Guards and the eunuchs group are highly self-disciplined and play an extremely important role in solving certain major and complex cases,and to a certain extent ensure the stable operation and development of the country’s politics,economy,and society.With the passage of time,after the middle of the Ming Dynasty,the development of Secret Police Agencies gradually became deformed.With the authorization of emperors,the Secret Police Agencies extended their power to all aspects of the country’s political life.The most notable manifestation was the infringement of the judicial power held by the Three Laws Departments.Due to the monarchs’ slack in politics,the power fell beside Embroidered-Uniform Guards and spy agencies with eunuchs.The eunuchs group used the center agency of ceremony to intervene in the cases involved in the law department and gradually controlled the judicial power of the Ministry of Criminal Justice and the case review power and judicial administrative power of Dali Temple.They also struggled with the Central Supervision Agency in terms of supervisory power.The Secret Police Agencies used arbitrary punishment for officials and people.It resulted in a series of decrees promulgated in the early Ming Dynasty becoming a dead letter.The judicial authority was severely trampled.The original clear and orderly ruling order was once again hit hard.As a result,the development of the legal system gradually lagged behind the western world.The Secret Police Agencies became one of the reasons for the gradual decline and even demise of the Ming Dynasty.As a characteristic of the history of the development of the judicial system in ancient China,the Secret Police Agencies became the focus of modern scholars in studying the political,economic,and social development of the Ming Dynasty.Secret Police Agencies are often defined as special agencies used by feudal emperors to rule the ruled class with terror.Their existence violates the laws of social development,disrupts normal judicial order.The Secret police Agencies are obstacle to suppressing the normal exercise of judicial power by the Three Laws Departments.However,the Secret Police Agencies existing throughout the Ming Dynasty,their existence must have its rationality and progress.It is necessary to clarify the relationship between the Secret Police Agencies and the Three Laws Departments to jointly build the central judicial system in the Ming Dynasty.We should take a comprehensive and objective view of the judicial influence of the Secret Police Agencies,learn from history,strengthen and improve the power restriction mechanism of various agencies.Only to make the operation of power open and transparent,we can actively get historical warnings for the construction of modern systems.