At that time, the Ming Dynasty was weakening day by day, the state finances were on the verge of crisis, and the Chongzhen Emperor was originally a self-respecting and self-respecting figure, but at this time of turmoil, he could only pull down his face to ask for donations from the group of imperial relatives and ministers of culture and military affairs that he despised, but in the end they got only two words in their mouths, no. So much so that in the end, Chongzhen Fang sighed: "The king is not an army of the subjugated country, and the subjects are all the subjects of the subjugated country!" ”。
Chongzhen firmly believed until his death that it was the group of ministers who had defeated daming, and the long years of false public welfare and private interests had made the ministers of the Daming Dynasty rich and oily, and if these ministers had no money, it would be a joke. So why were these ministers reluctant to donate some of their wealth in the autumn of the ming dynasty's crisis? This embodies something called human nature.
At that time, after a long period of profligacy, the Ming Dynasty had accumulated more and more shortcomings in the bureaucratic system, and the whole system was a mixture of fish and dragons, and everyone had it. And among the Ming dynasty ministers, they also gradually developed a kind of off-track value, that is, the money of the government is my money, and my money is still my money. Therefore, when Chongzhen proposed to everyone to donate silver to go to the country together, most of the thoughts in this group of people were, Daming Jiangshan is the Daming Jiangshan of your Zhu surname, what does it have to do with me? Then what the relatives of the emperor and the state think is that these money are all money obtained by their own hard work and conscience, so why give it to you Chongzhen?
Take Chongzhen's father-in-law Zhou Kui, for example, Chongzhen knew that his father-in-law had money, so he first gave him a marquis, and then told him to take out a hundred thousand taels of silver to be an example (no one was really willing to donate at that time), but at this time Zhou Kui cried and died, saying, "Where do I have so much money?" (Old Minister Andojin?) Then he said a lot of some of them were not, said that the family ate moldy rice, there was really no money to take it out, and finally he took out ten thousand taels in tears and did not give up. Chongzhen also refused, this discount was too low, so he bargained for twenty thousand taels, and Zhou Kui showed a kind of inability to come out. Later, his daughter, Chongzhen's empress, really couldn't stand it, so he took out five thousand taels for his father to donate to the country, but Zhou Kui first swallowed two thousand taels and then gave the remaining three thousand taels to Chongzhen.
Zhou Kui was just a very ordinary representative, when Chongzhen asked the minister of culture and military affairs of the imperial court to donate money, for a while, the ministers who were originally dressed in fine clothes and jade food became beggars, their clothes were full of patches, and the words for sale of the house were posted in front of the door, and the high-ranking officials and nobles disappeared and were replaced by the clerks who were vegetarians.
It is ironic that after Chongzhen issued a call for donations, an old man in his 60s came to the household department and tearfully donated his life savings of 500 taels to the state. After Chongzhen heard this, he immediately sealed the old man as a thousand households in jinyi. However, after all, such people are only a minority, and at the time of the country's peril, ordinary people who have little to do with their own interests understand the truth that the country will not be a country, but the ministers do not know.
Zhumen wine smells of flesh, and there are frozen bones on the road. Can such a Ming Dynasty not die?
After Li Zicheng entered the city of Beijing, he sentenced some Ming ministers to death and forced them to donate their wealth, and for a while, the wailing of Ming officials resounded in the city. In the end, Li Zicheng collected a total of more than 7,000 taels of silver, of which the abbot Zhou Kui's mansion confiscated dozens of cars of treasure, and there were as many as 530,000 taels of silver alone. If the skin does not exist, the hair will be attached? These officials have read so many books at a loss that they have not even understood the reason for the coldness of their lips.