Wanli Emperor: The ringer of the ming dynasty's death knell
In 1589, the Wanli Emperor announced that the promotion officials would no longer face the emperor, beginning a period of more than twenty years of neglect of the dynasty.
According to the custom, the officials who are promoted and promoted must meet the emperor once before going to office, one is to be a courtier and the emperor to thank the emperor, and the other is that the emperor encourages the new officials, which is an important ceremony between the monarch and the courtiers.
There were always five days in a week when I didn't want to go to work, and the emperor was no exception. Wanli is a typical of a typical. He told the minister that I was seriously ill, dizzy, and had been taking medicine, so I could not see outsiders. As a result, he gradually did not go to the court, did not enjoy the temple, did not receive university scholars, and stayed in the palace he was incomparably attached to to "recuperate". The chancellor sent in wave after wave of requests, but there was basically no news. These desperate officials beat their chests in anger and sighed that "it is difficult to pull up the mountain if you are invited to do one thing." And Wan Li was calm and indifferent in the face of the heartbroken Manchu Dynasty Wenwu and the song documents that flew into the palace like snowflakes. Therefore, everyone set a sense of righteousness for his long warp behavior and made it "slack government."
Wanli Emperor
The ministers of the DPRK and China immediately wrote a letter of opposition, and they clearly understood that the emperor was not ill, but impatient, and the hundred officials were not even willing to say polite words, and the seeds of contradictions between the monarchs and the courtiers were sown.
But in fact, not going to the dprk and not paying attention to government are two concepts. Although Wan Li did not come out from the saliva of the ministers, he was also quietly paying attention to the every move of the former dynasty, pointing out decision-making instructions at the key points of major events, and he also drew the lifeblood of the country in his heart. To say that Wanli's approach to government is somewhat similar to the small-scale, irregular policy meetings implemented by our current government or enterprises. Omitted the daily morning meeting, in fact, it is only less of the opportunity for the minister to play the newspaper and quarrel, some regular receptions, many of them have no substantive effect, Wanli relies on not going, only from time to time to give a maximum instruction, but improves a lot of work efficiency. For him not to criticize the omission, not to see the minister - hey, the officials at that time, like some comrades in some units now, from time to time wanted to show their faces in front of the leaders, saying something that was not written. I have verified some of the Ming Dynasty's sonatas, many of which are nonsense that officials have nothing to do, and even more idiotic ideas and suggestions are full of them. Major matters, the Wanli Emperor will still deal with.
For example, in Yaoliang Qingshi's "Three Great Signs of Wanli", Wanli's performance is more like a remote remote controller with a strategic plan, winning thousands of miles away. The achievements of the Three Great Expeditions have also become the most important evidence to support the view that "Wanli's slack administration is actually not faint, it is actually very powerful". From this, some people will say that Wanli's behavior of skipping the shift is not "slacking the government" but a very advanced taiji method, he hides behind the scenes to manipulate the lifeline of the Ming court, using a policy similar to the Taoist "rule by doing nothing", he is a very clever and powerful king, and even "meritorious Kangqian".
The Three Signs of Wanli
Wanli is clever, this must be admitted, but to judge him as a wise man in this regard is to go to the other extreme. Because his slackness in government really poked a lot of holes in Zhu Mingsheji. The most immediate point is the absence of officials. The emperor is irresponsible in power, the central government is weak, the personnel allocation will naturally have problems, we said before, the Ming Dynasty's strong temperament of these ministers made them disappointed in the emperor of this straw bag, many chose to resign, plus they were fired by Wanli, the emperor did not care about the new work of the officials, and the result was that the new members could not be replenished. By the forty-first year of the Wanli Calendar, there were already fourteen senior executives such as Shangshu and Shilang in the North and South Erjing. Fortunately, the firmly fast-fast civilian official system established by the old ancestor Zhu Yuanzhang ensured that the state system would not completely collapse.
However, due to the wanli emperor's long-term absence from the dynasty, which caused a very serious negative impact, the lack of officials in the imperial court could not be immediately and timely supplemented, and many official positions were not filled for a long time, which also led to the rebellion of the Jurchens in the northeast region against the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming government could not respond quickly, resulting in the increase in the power of the Jurchens, laying a hidden danger for the collapse of the Ming Dynasty in later generations.
And the Wanli Emperor himself, also because of long-term closures, long-term lying, warm feet and lust, addiction to wine (may be the main reason) and other reasons, did cause physical health problems in the later stage, the symptoms were manifested as weakness of the body, eye disease and foot pain, and the situation became more and more serious, to the later stage has been mental trance, difficult steps, ears can not hear clearly, which further strengthened his desire not to go to the court, forming a negative closed loop.
Just when the Wanli Emperor Zhu Yijun Zong yan was in the deep palace, "ignoring everything", resulting in a quarrel from the inner court to the outer court, Liaodong Houjin rose rapidly, constantly sent troops to the south, launched an attack on the Ming army, and the Liaodong War broke out. On the first day of the first lunar month in the forty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar (1616), the Later Jin regime was officially established and finally became a major threat to the Ming Dynasty. Since then, the situation in Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty has also deteriorated. Especially after the War of the Eastern Expedition to Aid Korea and the mineral tax caused Gaohuai to chaos, the liaodong side of the country was empty of air defense, the military and the people were in difficulty, the supply was difficult, and the Ming Emperor improperly employed people, and the Ming army repeatedly lost the north.
Jurchens
In March of the forty-seventh year of the Wanli Calendar (1619), the Battle of Salhu, the Ming army of the four roads, the three roads of the entire army was destroyed, 90,000 divisions were lost, and the defeat was completed. The Liaodong War required about 4 million taels of silver per year,[39] In order to cope with this huge military expenditure, Zhu Yijun ordered three times from September 46 of the Wanli Calendar to increase the national field endowment, then called "Liao Salary". At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the three salaries (Liao, Suppressed, and Lian) were added to the sect. Instead of helping, Jia Pai aroused strong dissatisfaction among the people of the whole country and threw themselves into the revolutionary torrent against the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yijun himself was depressed and frowned.
In March of the forty-eighth year of the Wanli Dynasty (1620), the Wanli Emperor finally fell seriously ill due to his long-term drunkenness, coupled with the fiasco of Liaodong and the troubles of state affairs. On July 21, Shinjong died at the Hongdeok-den Temple at the age of fifty-eight.