The fall of a dynasty often has a lot to do with the ministers.
For the fall of the Ming Dynasty, later experts summed up the four major criminals in the late Ming Dynasty, the first of which was the first of these four people, which was really a heinous crime.
But God still has eyes, and in the end, the head of the four major criminals was tortured for a few days and nights, which is really happy!
So what evil did this head of the criminal minister do, even Li Zicheng can't get used to it?
The Four Great Ming Kingdoms
"Civil and military ministers inside and outside, you are all to blame for delaying me!" This is a sentence that Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, shouted the day before he hanged himself.
In Emperor Chongzhen's opinion, he has tried his best enough, but these civil and military ministers in the court and the central government have dragged their feet too seriously, so the Ming Dynasty is to blame these ministers, is this really the case?
The Ming Dynasty finally fell, many people are responsible, although the civil and military ministers inside and outside are at fault, but Chongzhen himself has no problem?
Nowadays, although many people say that Chongzhen is not the king of the dead country, his own problems are still very big.
For example, the death of Yuan Chonghuan, a general in the late Ming Dynasty, was a major mistake in Chongzhen's life.
The territory of his own country is almost undefended, Chongzhen still cares about the majesty of his emperor, this kind of thinking and behavior is really stupid!
Some people say that Yuan Chonghuan acted beyond his authority for his own sake, so he was killed by Chongzhen.
If this is in a peaceful and prosperous world, you will kill it, and it will not have any bad impact on the country.
But at that time, among the anti-Qing generals in Liaodong, Yuan Chonghuan could be said to be the top, if it weren't for him, the Northeast would have become Huang Taiji long ago.
And Chongzhen didn't take all this into account, and he also took care of his emperor's face.
The land is lost, and the emperor has nowhere to go in the end, is there anything more humiliating than this?
Yuan Chonghuan's behavior is indeed a bit excessive, but at least one thing is certain is that he did not betray his country, and he continued to resist the Qing army, in sharp contrast to the four major criminal ministers in the late Ming Dynasty, each of whom betrayed his country.
First of all, the fourth of the four major criminals was the famous general Zu Dashou at that time, this is really a great talent.
Presumably everyone should have heard of the story of "Smelling the Chicken and Dancing", one of the protagonists named Zu Ti is the distant ancestor of Zu Dashou.
Zu Ti was a great hero back then, but unexpectedly, his descendants became traitors.
Zu Dashou was Yuan Chonghuan's subordinate at the beginning, and there is one thing to say, this person's fighting level is still good, and Yuan Chonghuan has adopted his strategy many times.
But later, with Yuan Chonghuan in prison, Zu Dashou, who was afraid of being implicated, quickly escaped, and finally under the persuasion of his colleagues, he came back.
Afraid of being implicated, I want to go out and join the enemy, it's really hard to explain.
After that, the Qing Dynasty was also very unmartial arts, for example, Huang Taiji often recruited the generals of the Ming Dynasty. As long as they came, they could not only marry a Manchu royal woman, but also obtain a large amount of land and money, and many generals passed because they couldn't resist the temptation.
After losing a war, Zu Dashou ran out of ammunition and food and had no support, so he finally surrendered.
However, this time he surrendered by fraud, and it didn't take long for him to run back again, but a few years later he surrendered to the Qing Dynasty again.
Even though he had already cheated once, Daqing still chose to believe in this talent.
Hong Mo Zizi
In Huang Taiji's view, Zu Dashou's first surrender was loyal to the monarch, and the second surrender was for the safety of his family.
In fact, the first time he surrendered was for his family, because if he really surrendered, he was afraid that Chongzhen would kill his family.
Huang Taiji also said at the time that he was not to blame for the past before Zu Dashou, and he would just do a good job in the Qing Dynasty in the future.
No matter what the purpose of surrendering, in short, after Zu Dashou arrived in the Qing Dynasty, he provided them with a lot of Ming Dynasty military secrets, so the final fall of the Ming Dynasty also had his share of credit.
Then there is the third of the four major criminals, he is the famous general Hong Chengchou who finally surrendered to the Qing Dynasty with Zu Dashou.
Presumably, at this time, someone will ask: "They were all forced to surrender for the sake of their families, is this also wrong?" ”
I don't know if you have heard of a man named Xu Shu, the one who didn't say a word after entering Cao Ying.
Surrender is surrender, but it is a great sin to help the enemy destroy his own country.
We can understand that we have to surrender for the sake of our families, but if we do something detrimental to the interests of the country, we will be a major sin, and this will never change!
Of course, we are not blindly denying them, like Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou, they have indeed made a lot of contributions to the Ming Dynasty before, but they have all taken the last wrong step.
is related to Hong Chengchou, and there is also a story of Hong's mother scolding her son.
After the Qing Dynasty stabilized, Hong Chengchou sent someone to take his mother from his hometown to Beijing, and he said that he would be filial to his mother.
After Hong's mother got out of the car, Hong Chengchou knelt there directly to express his apologies for failing to fulfill his filial piety in recent years.
What everyone didn't expect was that Hong's mother was not happy to see her son, but scolded while beating with a cane: "Beasts who are disloyal and unfilial to the country, I came today to eliminate harm for the people of the world!" ”
This is a real story in history, in Hong Chengchou's eyes, he surrendered perhaps for the sake of his old mother, but he didn't expect the old mother to be so aware of righteousness.
Next is Wu Sangui, the second of the four major criminals, who is Zu Dashou's nephew, and this person is much more guilty than the above two.
After Zu Dashou surrendered, he kept persuading his nephew Wu Sangui to surrender, after all, only Wu Sangui could use the generals of the Ming Dynasty at that time.
Although Wu Sangui did not agree to surrender on the surface, behind his back, he directly paralyzed the Ming Dynasty.
When he learned that Li Zicheng's troops were coming to the city of Beijing, Wu Sangui was not thinking about sending troops to save the master, but thinking about who he should turn to.
In fact, Wu Sangui was not willing to surrender to Li Zicheng, but he was threatened after all.
At that time, it was mainly the favorite concubine Chen Yuanyuan who was arrested by Li Zicheng, so Wu Sangui was forced to temporarily surrender to Li Zicheng.
After the surrender, Wu Sangui has been secretly contacting the Qing army, and finally under their conspiracy, the Qing army finally entered the customs by the way, and the Central Plains officially changed the sky.
Although it is said that even if Wu Sangui does not contact, the Qing army can actually defeat Li Zicheng and them, but the sin of attracting foreign enemies must not be ignored.
After Li Zicheng led his troops into the city of Beijing, he drank and had fun, and directly entered the mode of enjoyment, completely ignoring the military discipline he had established before, which was the limitation of the small peasant thinking.
Li Zicheng and their uprising were actually to make more money while having enough to eat.
The head of the guilty ministers who were tortured to death
Li Zicheng They have no idea about the throne, in their opinion, as long as they can eat and drink enough money to spend, they can only say that everyone has their own ambitions.
Of course, although Wu Sangui's deeds look a little different from the latter two, the essence is actually the same, they are all betraying their own country and helping their former enemies to unify the Central Plains.
It is not difficult to see from their deeds that what Chongzhen said about "the civil and military ministers inside and outside misunderstood me" is not necessarily true. Take Hong Chengchou and Zu Dashou as examples, at least they have worked hard for the security of their country, and they still have credit.
And those who do not have credit are the ministers of the DPRK and China who can only move their mouths.
So the next thing to talk about is the head of the four major criminals in the late Ming Dynasty, his name is Wei Zaode.
In comparison, this Wei Zaode's reputation is not as good as the above three, but what he does is not ordinary stinking.
This person is a champion in the Chongzhen period, although he has the ability but not much, that is, the cultural knowledge is a little stronger.
When Li Zicheng arrived in Beijing, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to raise a little money to defend against foreign enemies.
How to raise it? The ministers can only donate their own money.
At this moment, Wei Zaode, the last cabinet chief assistant of the Ming Dynasty, said: "Our family has no money, so we can't donate a little." ”
Seeing this, other ministers also said that their families had no money. Of course, there are some people who understand the righteousness, and they still donate a lot, and in the end, Chongzhen raised less than one million taels of silver, and if he wants to resist Li Zicheng with this money, it is far from enough.
Moreover, Wei Zaode not only did not donate money at that time, but also opposed Chongzhen asking the ministers for money, who are these people.
He is unwilling to contribute to the country, and he does not let others be loyal, this kind of person is really lacking in morality, and it is estimated that Chongzhen is so angry that he wants to torture him to death.
No wonder Chongzhen said that it was those ministers who delayed him, and having such courtiers was really angry.
After all, the court was already very corrupt in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, and there were many disloyal and unfilial courtiers.
So why is Wei Zaode unwilling to pay? Is he taking pity on his money? Of course not.
Since refusing to donate money, Wei Zaode has been at home leisurely every day, and what he is looking forward to is that Li Zicheng will come in quickly.
In Wei Zaode's view, it is not easy to get Li Zicheng's reuse with his own ingenuity.
And when he comes to the new court, there will be a lot of times when he uses money, so Wei Zaode is reserved for Li Zicheng.
After Li Zicheng came in, Wei Zaode rubbed it over. Li Zicheng asked him why he didn't sacrifice his life for the country, and Wei Zaodetian shamelessly said that he was waiting to serve the new emperor, how could he be willing to donate his life in advance?
But Li Zicheng didn't bother with him at all, and directly let him and other ministers arrest him.
Li Zicheng's request was very simple, that is, to let those ministers hand over their rich family assets.
After undergoing a series of tortures, Wei Zaode was forced to come up with less than 100,000 taels of silver.
This made Li Zicheng dissatisfied: "Why did you save so much money as a cabinet leader?" Aren't you just embezzling millions of taels? ”
So Li Zicheng continued to let people entertain Wei Zaode with punishment, but the surnamed Wei still didn't come up with the money.
After 5 days of high-intensity torture, Wei Zaode finally died tragically, and his son was later killed, which was also deserved!
The wicked have evil retribution, not that they do not repay it, but that the time has not yet come! Justice may be late, but it is basically not absent!