Author: Zhao Xinfang
(Chongzhen Emperor)
The Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty commented on the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty to the effect that: from the inside of the court, the emperor was incompetent, the dynasty was corrupt, and the eunuchs were monopolistic; from the perspective of external factors, natural and man-made disasters, peasant uprisings were raging, and the Manchu Qing was becoming more and more powerful... The Kangxi Emperor commented on it as a whole.
In my opinion, the above comments are good, but they also have a great direct relationship with the Chongzhen Emperor himself. Here we talk about it to help readers understand the history of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
(1) The first person in office wants to do something
Emperor Mingguangzong Zhu Changluo originally had 5 sons (another said 6), but most of them died prematurely, leaving only zhu youxiao and Zhu Youjian two brothers. Emperor Mingxi Zhu Youxiao was a famous "carpenter Tianzi" in history, with an absurd and strange personality, partial belief in fainting, and abandoned the government, before his death in the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627), due to the lack of heirs, he designated his younger brother Zhu Youguan to succeed him, which was for Ming Sizong, and the era name was changed to Chongzhen. History also refers to Emperor Mingsizong Zhu Youjian as the Chongzhen Emperor.
Keshi was the wet nurse of Emperor Mingxi, Wei Zhongxian was a eunuch in the palace, and the two of them were married to each other. "Food" is the relationship between eunuch palace women that resembles husband and wife. The two tried every means to coax Emperor Mingxi to have fun, thus manipulating the emperor and swaying the power of the dynasty. The two were fierce in their hearts, and repeatedly caused the trick to abort the pregnant empress and other concubines, leaving Emperor Mingxi without descendants.
(Wei Zhongxian and the Chongzhen Emperor)
The Chongzhen Emperor was only 17 years old when he ascended the throne, and he was well aware of the chaotic situation at that time, first of all, to get rid of the angry And Wei clique. He was very cautious, and on the day of his stay in the palace, he carried dry food with him, did not dare to touch any food in the palace, and slept with his sword at night, always ready to fight.
In the days that followed, while quietly inserting his own people into the palace, he did not show any silence at all, and continued to give preferential treatment to the two Wei people, so that they could not figure out their own details. When he took advantage of Keshi's leave of absence to go out of the palace to test his attitude, he immediately approved and took the opportunity to drive Keshi away. At the same time, other eunuchs were used to confront Wei Zhongxian. When there is infighting within the Wei group, the plan is eliminated in one fell swoop. The Chongzhen Emperor claimed that the emperor had only been emperor for more than a year, and he had eliminated the Kewei clique that had been doing evil for many years, and it could not be said that he had great strategy and means of governance.
In the face of the country's financial difficulties, he has always been frugal, reducing the expenses of the royal family many times, wearing old clothes for himself and the people in the palace, and the queen also washes her own clothes, melts the gold and silver in the palace and uses them as military pay. He was not amused or feminine, and dismissed a large number of palace eunuchs from the palace. It can be said that he surpassed any emperor in political affairs. He worked day and night, and sometimes when he was hungry late at night, he ordered the eunuch to take a few change to buy some simple supper to supplement it. There were more than 400 emperors in ancient China, who could do that?
(2) Self-destruction of the Great Wall
Although the Chongzhen Emperor was diligent and thrifty, and had great strategy and means of governance, he was very rigid and self-conscious, and constantly made big mistakes. At the beginning of his reign, he used the famous general Yuan Chonghuan to resist the invasion of Later Jin (Qing). Yuan Chonghuan strengthened his armaments outside Shanhaiguan, leaving emperor Taiji of Jin without opportunity. The resourceful Emperor Taiji led 100,000 elite soldiers to bypass Yuan Chonghuan's Army's Tongzhou and march directly towards Beijing.
Wei Zhongxian's Yu Party spread rumors that Yuan Chonghuan had attracted Jin Bing to invade Beijing. Emperor Taiji also took advantage of this opportunity to deliberately release the two eunuchs he had captured, and also deliberately let them hear rumors that Hou Jin and Yuan Chonghuan had already made an appointment.
After the two eunuchs fled back to Beijing, they informed the Chongzhen Emperor of the rumors. The Chongzhen Emperor did not make any investigation and analysis, and believed in the eunuch's words, not only ordered the removal of Yuan Chonghuan, but also later put him to death, causing the Liaodong defensive line to almost collapse and self-destructing the Great Wall alive.
(Yuan Chonghuan)
The Chongzhen Emperor did not learn his lesson after wrongfully killing Yuan Chonghuan, and he was always anxious to succeed in the face of the Ming Dynasty at sunset. The ministers were slightly less than he wanted, and were either deposed or killed. During the seventeen years of the reign of the Chongzhen Emperor, 50 people were rotated by the cabinet scholars alone, which made the court unstable, the people's minds changed, and there were fewer and fewer upright and promising people in the court, and the Manchu Dynasty formed a party and a private relationship, and did not care about the fate of the dynasty at all.
At this time, the peasant revolt was in full swing, the scale was getting bigger and bigger, and the Chongzhen Emperor hurriedly sent Hong Chengzu to suppress it, and due to insufficient military expenditure, he raised it by increasing taxes, which caused more dissatisfaction among the common people and made the uprising more powerful. In the winter of the sixth year of Chongzhen (1633), the peasant revolt developed from a local problem to a problem for his confidants. He believed that he had failed to live up to his brother's instructions, was sorry for his ancestors, and his personality gradually twisted, becoming irritable and suspicious, and almost becoming neurotic.
The Chongzhen Emperor twice issued the "Edict of Sin himself", saying that he would bear all the responsibility, but at this time the empty cheque had no effect. On March 18, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), the peasant army attacked the city in a big way, the eunuch Cao Huachun surrendered Kaesong, and Li Zicheng occupied the outer city. The Chongzhen Emperor saw that the fall of the country was a foregone conclusion, and after crying bitterly, he began to arrange the aftermath...
(Li Zicheng's Dashun Army)
(3) The causes of the fall of the Ming Dynasty are newly examined
There were a variety of objective and subjective factors in the demise of the Ming Dynasty, and one theory is that the Chongzhen Emperor was reluctant to use his own private money to serve as a military salary.
When Li Zicheng led a large army into Beijing, the Chongzhen Emperor panicked and hurriedly summoned Wu Sangui's father Wu Xiang and other important members of the household and military departments to discuss how to transfer Wu Sangui outside guanwai back to the Beijing Division.
Wu Xiang calculated an account, saying that the troops transferred back to Wu Sangui needed 1 million taels of silver, and the treasury's books showed only 400,000 taels. As the saying goes, there is gold and silver in the house and a scale next door. Although the Chongzhen Emperor was a very frugal emperor, the ministers knew that he was "a turtle with flesh in his belly" and implored him to give generously and take some of it from the Imperial Silver Inner Treasury (the small royal treasury) to solve the urgent need. But he cried to his ministers: "The internal debt has been exhausted." ”
He called on the ministers to donate, but knew that no one would take the lead in donating. He had the opportunity to ask the empress's father, his father-in-law, Jiading BoZhou Kui, to take the lead. Helpless Zhou Kui had to donate 10,000 taels of silver, and the others were not embarrassed not to pay out of their pockets, and the east family slowly put together hundreds of thousands of west families. It is said that when the military salary was not enough, Wu Sangui not only did not come to rescue the emperor in time, but instead made an internal response to the Qing court, causing the Ming Dynasty to collapse overnight.
This does not seem to be a blind ordination.
Zhao Shijin, who managed the Jieshen Library, later wrote in the "Chronicle of Jiashen": "The thief carried to Shaanxi gold and silver ingots with the name of the calendar year, and since the eighth year of the Wanli calendar, the silver of the Xienei Treasury has not yet moved, and the silver still has more than 30 million taels and 1.5 million taels of gold." "Hey! In history, there were monarchs in foreign countries who "did not love the country and the mountains and loved the beautiful people", and China also had emperors who "did not love the country and the mountains and loved money"! Of course, it is not that if you collect a million and two military salaries in time, you can rescue Daming, at least it will not collapse so quickly, and if you can find the opportunity to turn the tables in time.
Comment at the end of the article: People's impression of the Chongzhen Emperor is not very bad, most of them have sympathy for him, and it is generally believed that he has worked hard all his life, but it is a pity that "he was not born at the right time". However, a comprehensive historical analysis shows that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was indeed directly related to the Chongzhen Emperor himself.
【About the author】Zhao Xinfang, pen name Zhao Shi, is a member of the Chongqing Nan'an District Writers Association and vice president of the Huangjue Literary Society.
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