At the end of the Ming Chronicle, it is said: "He who is self-made is not a special talent, but a cunning and good at riding and shooting ears." "In the last year of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng led a large rebel army to overthrow the rule of Daming, but after he ascended to the throne, he was forced to a dead end because of three decisions, and finally fell into disgrace.
In the process of the development of ancient Chinese history, there have been many emperors, some emperors can reign for decades, leaving a strong mark in the tide of history, but some emperors can only reign for a very short time, and their enthronement experience has become a joke in the eyes of posterity.
In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng led an uprising and eventually ascended to the throne and established the Dashun regime. However, Li Zicheng's reign lasted only forty-two days. In these forty-two days, he did three things that sent himself to the brink of extinction. Why was Li Zicheng's reign so short? What three more things did he do that sent him to the brink of extinction?
Li Zicheng was born in 1606. In the early years, due to the outbreak of drought in northern Shaanxi for many years, the life of the Li family was extremely difficult, and when Li Zicheng was young, he was sent to the temple as a monk, and after that, he also helped the landlord herd sheep to maintain his livelihood.
When Li Zicheng was a teenager, he lost his mother and father one after another, and since then, in order to maintain his livelihood, Li Zicheng has worked as a pawn. However, this job did not last long, and in the later period, Li Zicheng fled to the Gansu region as a soldier.
During this period, Li Zicheng's quality of life did not improve, but became worse and worse due to the harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes of the imperial court, and finally, in 1629, Li Zicheng could not bear such a humiliating life, so he chose to lead an army to revolt. Because the Chongzhen Emperor implemented a heavy tax policy in the social context at that time, in the process of the uprising, Li Zicheng proposed "equalization of fields and exemptions" to attract more people to participate in the rebel army.
Although Li Zicheng experienced ups and downs during the uprising, Li Zicheng, who was popular with the people, successfully overthrew the Ming Dynasty and established the Dashun regime in 1644. After the establishment of the new regime, Li Zicheng had a brilliant future, but during this period, Li Zicheng did not exert himself to govern and be diligent in government affairs, but instead did three absurd things, which also made Li Zicheng withdraw from the stage of history just forty-two days after he took the throne.
First of all, the first thing Li Shimin did after he took the throne was to prepare for the enthronement ceremony. For Li Zicheng, who came from a poor background, he was extremely yearning for the throne, and when he entered the city of Beijing, he eagerly moved into the Forbidden City to live, planning to hold a luxurious enthronement ceremony for himself.
However, in the society at that time, due to the common influence of natural disasters and wars, the country was in ruins and waiting to be revived, and it was not easy to set up an enthronement ceremony, which also made Li Zicheng's decision directly lead to the dissatisfaction of his followers around him.
Secondly, after ascending to the throne, Li Zicheng did not immediately reward the founding heroes for their merits, not only that, the Ming Dynasty officials who had defected to Li Zicheng were even more oppressed and plundered by Li Zicheng.
If Li Zicheng could use the gold and silver treasures looted from officials for national construction, perhaps his behavior would not be criticized. However, after snatching out the gold and silver treasures, Li Zicheng did not reward his subordinates, but instead indulged in pleasure and ignored the government.
When Li Zicheng's generals saw Li Zicheng's approach, they were extremely dissatisfied with Li Zicheng in their hearts, after all, in the course of the previous uprising, Li Zicheng had said that he would lead the people of the world to strive for a better life and overthrow the decadent dynasty, but now Li Zicheng did not fulfill his promise, but only cared for his own pleasure, and what he did was no different from that of a faint monarch.
In the end, after Li Zicheng ascended to the throne, instead of being able to win over the generals, Wu Sangui's concubines were appropriated for himself. For Wu Sangui, he had wanted to surrender to Li Zicheng at that time, but Li Zicheng's actions made him humiliated. For this reason, Wu Sangui no longer intended to surrender to Li Zicheng, which also dealt a heavy blow to Li Zicheng's forces.
Under the joint influence of the above three things, Li Zicheng's failure has become a foregone conclusion, and the reason why Li Zicheng will be so short-sighted and eager to make quick gains after he ascends to the throne is also because he was born in a peasant family and has not received systematic education. This also makes Li Zicheng's political planning ability relatively poor, and he is doomed to fail to establish a stable regime.
epilogue
It can be seen from the various measures taken by Li Zicheng after he took office that not all the generals who successfully revolted were able to lead the country and the people to achieve better development. Based on the understanding of Li Zicheng's experience after he ascended to the throne, the world has been able to recognize the shortcomings of short-sightedness, and avoid repeating the mistakes of history and making wrong moves to affect the construction and development of New China
Nowadays, with the improvement of the level of social development, people's vision of everything has become more long-term, which also makes the road to national construction more and more bright. It is believed that with the joint efforts of the people of the world, the great cause of the rejuvenation of Chinese society will be realized at an early date.