At the end of book 245 of the History of Ming, it is said: "When the kingdom is about to perish, it will first kill its goodness, and the water and drought thieves will take advantage of it." Therefore, at the end of the disaster, the gentleman was poisoned by it. Although these words come from the book of "Imperial Determination" and cannot be generalized, they truly reflect the chaotic situation inside and outside the imperial court at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The "good kind" and "gentleman" mentioned here refer to a large number of people who can be called the "backbone" of the Ming Dynasty, such as Zuo Guangdou, Yang Lian, Zhou Shunchang, and Zhao Nanxing.
Zuo Guangdou (左光斗字) was a Tongcheng native of Tongcheng and a jinshi in the 35th year of the Wanli Calendar of the Ming Dynasty (1607 AD). At the beginning of Zuo Guangdou's career, he became an official of the central government, and soon became the official who was most likely to offend people- Yushi. When he was doing imperial history, he was ordered to inspect Zhongcheng and do something that shook the capital. He began to straighten out the bureaucracy and seized more than seventy fake seals and more than a hundred fake officials. From this incident, we can see his upright character of not being afraid of the powerful and powerful.
Zuo Guangdou, like Yang Lian, was framed by Wei Zhongxian first of the case of moving the palace, and then of being bribed by Xiong Tingbi. At the time of Emperor Guangzong's death, Zuo Guangdou's official position was not high, but he actively and resolutely participated in the palace transfer case, and even urged Yang Lian to use spit to urge him because of his slight delay.
In the case that the elected servant Li Shi refused to move out of the Qianqing Palace, Zuo Guangdou gave it to the crown prince, indicating that the Qianqing Palace was a symbol of imperial power. The inner court has the Qianqing Palace, just as the outer court has the Imperial Pole Hall, only the emperor can live, only the empress can live together, which is a symbol of the difference between honor and inferiority. He also stressed that the prince was sixteen years old, and that he was assisted by an old man inside and outside, and that he would not need a noble concubine to discipline him, and warned: "If you do not make up your mind today so that [Li Shi] can practice despotism in the name of raising, the disaster of Wu Zetian will repeat itself today." "At that time, it takes a kind of courage to dare to say such things. Therefore, within a few days, there were rumors in the palace that Li Shi wanted to bow to the government and arrest Zuo Guangdou.
At that time, there was a lot of rush, although finally the imperial power was able to stay out of the hands of the concubines, but Zuo Guangdou and other people who contributed to the force left Wei Zhongxian with an excuse to frame.
Zuo Guangdou's eyes were like a torch, and he was very discerning, and he had defended Xiong Tingbi when he offended the Yan officials. However, when the struggle between good and evil was fierce, he promoted a Ruan Dacheng who later proved to be a traitorous minister, laying the foundation for himself.
In the second month of the fourth year of the Ming Dynasty (1624 CE), Zuo Guangdou was promoted to Zuo Youdu Yushi (左佥都御史) (都察院次官, Zuo Zhi 'an inspector of hundreds of officials, discerning wrongs, supervising the imperial history of various provinces, and serving as a minister of the emperor's eyes and ears, and a courtier of the emperor's eyes and ears, Zheng Sipin). Zuo Guangdou and other upright and noble people were in important positions at this time, controlling the atmosphere of the imperial court, but this was also the beginning of the decline of the Ming Dynasty. It was at this delicate moment that Zuo Guangdou promoted his fellow countryman Ruan Dacheng. Ruan Dacheng is a pure villain, he only starts from his own interests in people and things, it is impossible to get along well with Zhao Nanxing and other upright people, and it is also impossible not to live in the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain, and it is impossible not to retaliate against those who are slightly incompatible with him.
After Ruan Dacheng was recruited to Beijing, he was in time for the vacancy of the official Kedu, and the candidate was Zhou Shipu first, followed by Ruan Dacheng, and the third was Wei Dazhong. Ruan Dacheng made Ji exclude Zhou Shi servants so that he could fill the vacancies, which caused the disgust of the official Shangshu Zhao Nanxing, and he wanted to convert him to another official. Ruan Dacheng thought that Zuo Guangdou knew of his plan to make Zhao Nanxing do this, and he held a grudge. The contradictions between other people and Zuo Guangdou and others made Ruan Dacheng accomplice.
Xiong Mingyu and Xu Liangyan both wanted to get the position of Yu Du Yushi, but Zhao Nanxing asked Zuo Guangdou to do it, and both of them hated Zuo Guangdou. Wei Dazhong befriended Zuo Guangdou and others, and the Jiangxi bureaucrats hated Wei Dazhong for some reason, so these people gathered together and instigated Fu Huan to impeach Zuo Guangdou, Wei Dazhong, and Wang Wenyan for adultery. Zuo Guangdou then impeached Bo Xun for colluding with the people of the East Factory, and Fu Huan went on to impeach Zuo Guangdou, and Zuo Guangdou resigned in a fit of anger, and this small struggle was over. However, a greater and more brutal struggle ensued, and that was the struggle between good and evil against the castrated party headed by Wei Zhongxian.
When Yang Lian impeached Wei Zhongxian for the twenty-four major crimes, he consulted with Zuo Guangdou, who in turn worked with Gao Panlong to expose the corruption and bribery of Wei Zhongxian's henchman Cui Chengxiu, thus angering Wei Zhongxian and his large number of minions. After Wei Zhongxian gradually removed Zhao Nanxing, Gao Panlong, and Wei Dazhong from their posts, he plotted to drive Zuo Guangdou out of the court. Zuo Guangdou was furious as he watched his upright colleagues being ousted by Wei Zhongxian and his gang one by one, so he wrote a song to impeach Wei Zhongxian and his helper Wei Guangwei for the thirty-two beheadings, and prepared to give it to Emperor Mingxi on November 2 (December 1, 1624) in the fourth year of the Apocalypse (1624). Zuo Guangdou was prepared to be deposed or even arrested this time, and before Shangshu, he sent his wife and children back to his hometown in the south so that he could fight with confidence. However, this news was learned of by Wei Zhongxian again, and he used cunning to stop Zuo Guangdou's ascension.
Two days before Zuo Guangdou was preparing to go to shangshou, Wei Zhongxian took advantage of the fact that Zuo Guangdou and Yang Lian were dismissed at the same time, so that Zuo Guangdou was not qualified to report to the emperor again. Then, Wei Zhongxian and his gang re-woven the unjust imprisonment and worked Wang Wenyan to attack their opponents on a large scale.
Wang Wenyan had been imprisoned by Wei Zhongxian when Fu Huan impeached Zuo Guangdou and Wei Dazhong, and used to frame courtiers who did not meet his wishes. However, Wang Wenyan would rather die than cooperate, and Huang Zunsu and Liu Qiao tried their best to cover up, so that they did not become a big prison, but only cut Wang Wenyan from his post. This time, Wei Zhongxian made up his mind to use Wang Wenyan to eliminate dissidents, so he re-arrested Wang Wenyan. However, although Wang Wenyan was tortured and tortured, he refused to frame Zuo Guangdou and others in the end. When he couldn't stand the torture, he said to the interrogator Xu Xianchun: "My mouth is not as eloquent as your heart, let you say whatever you want, I admit it." But when he heard that he was going to frame Zuo Guangdou and Wei Dazhong for taking bribes, he stood up and sighed, "Heaven! Wronged! To frame a man of incorruptibility in this way, I will not admit it to death! Although Wang Wenyan could not get a false accusation, but the confession could be forged, Wei Zhongxian finally arrested Zuo Guangdou and imprisoned him with a forged Confession of Wang Wenyan.
When Zuo Guangdou was arrested, his father and fellow villagers stopped the horse's head and prevented him from being taken away, and even the Jinyi guards who arrested him were moved to tears. Wei Zhongxian originally wanted to frame Zuo Guangdou with the case of moving the palace or forming a party, but just in time for Wang Huazhen and Xiong Tingbi to be defeated, and Xiong Tingbi offended most of the courtiers and magnates, he turned to using Xiong Tingbi's bribe to frame Zuo Guangdou in order to kill him. Since Zuo Guangdou was imprisoned, he was severely tortured and forced to admit to accepting a bribe of 20,000 taels of silver from Yang Hao and Xiong Tingbi. If Zuo Guangdou did not admit it at this time, he would be assassinated or tortured to death, so he suggested that Yang Lian and others who were arrested together temporarily admit it, and retract the confession at the time of the review, so as to get a way to live. But in doing so, he was still not spared from death, and he almost ruined his life's innocence.
Seeing that Zuo Guangdou and the others had confessed to their "crimes", Wei Zhongxian just had an excuse to kill them, but he was probably also afraid that they would retract their confessions, "The correction still ordered (Xu) Xianchun to pursue the five days and chase after them, and not to go to the fa. (Ming Shi Zuo Guangdou Biography) The insults and tortures that occur every five days have made Zuo Guangdou and others deeply remorseful, but they are beyond remorse.
Wei Zhongxian did this because he was afraid that they would not be killed after handing over the so-called stolen money. Although these people are poor, there are many people who sympathize with and love them, and can help them pay the "stolen silver". At that time, there were really people who donated money for them, and Sun Qifeng and Lu Zheng proposed to donate money to them. Therefore, Wei Zhongxian could not wait for the prison guards to kill Zuo Guangdou in prison on July 26 of the Fifth Year of the Apocalypse (August 28, 1625 in the Gregorian calendar).
After Zuo Guangdou died, the castration party still forced his family to hand over the "stolen silver" and put his family in prison. Zuo Guangdou's older brother Zuo Guangji died in prison, his mother also cried to death because both of his sons were lost, and his younger brother Zuo Guangxian survived. Although Zuo Guangdou's family was forced to die by Wei Zhongxian, Wei Zhongxian was still not satisfied, and later when he tracked down the case of moving the palace, he believed that Zuo Guangdou and Yang Lian were the "culprits" and wanted to open their coffins and kill them, thanks to some persuasion, they were saved from violent corpses.
During the Chongzhen period, for Zuo Guangdou Zhaoxue's unjust case, he posthumously gave the right capital Yushi and the crown prince Shaobao. When he was king of Fu, he pursued Zuo Guangdou as a loyal yi.