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The Embroidered Uniform Guards are the spy organization that set by Ming Taizu in 1360.They are the secret polices who are the body guards of the emperor. They have the right to capture and interrogate any officials or emperor’s relatives without judicial proceedings. They take the order directly from the emperor and are only loyal to the emperor. They were granted golden-yeallow uniform with tablet worn, and special blade weapon called xiuchundao(绣春刀). The Embroidered Uniform Guards did not need to pass the national examination. Many guards were born in hereditary military families, and some were directly chosen by yhe emperor. The sons of the Embroidered Uniform Guard can still have this job once they become adults (Pang,24).They were required to be sinlessness and absolutely loyal to the emperor. Once an Embroidered Uniform Guard dead yet has no offspring, The origanzation will directly find the person who fits those requirment, so there will be no job vacancy in this occupation. They were trainned by the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guards in order to learn how to fight when the suspects is trying to flee. They will also have to know how to use instruments of torture during interrogation. The Embroidered Uniform Guards have multiple tasks. Besides to be the spies who watch and report the bureaucrats who committed crimes, they also have to be the Honor guard during ceremonies. Specificly, their jobs include preparing the equipments for the rituals, protecting the emperor from possible assassinations, and feeding the elephants for ceremony uses. As secrect polices, they have to investigate and collect the evidences to declare the officials who commited corruption and made the offense to emperor guilty, and to manage the special jail called Zhaoyu(诏狱). They are also responsible to caputure the people accoriding to the emperor’s will, and to torture the prisoners until they confess. During wars, they were sometime assigned as political sommissars for the Ming armies. Before Tianqi emperor, the Embroidered Uniform Guards worked with the eunuchs from Eastern Depot. They cooperate and counterbalence the power of each other. During late Ming era, the Embroidered Uniform Guards were controlled by the Eastern Depot under the permition of Wei Zhongxian. They were used to persecute the gentries in Dongling Party, and started to commit corruption. Their activities are regulated mainly in Collected Statutes of the Ming Dynasty（大明会典）. It set up the duties and the structure for the Embroidered Uniform Guards. According to the code, the organization has three sub-systems. The Jinli department is responsible for managing the writs; the North department is responsible for spying the high level officals and the princes from loyal family, and managing the jail; The South Department is responsible for detecting works for low rank bureaucrats and managing the intelligence. The code also regualates uniforms and the weapons for Embroidered Uniform Guards from different ranks. The number of Embroidered Uniform Guards is from 2,500 to 5,600. They can receive around 750g or 1000g sliver a year as their wage.

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