Introduction: Before the Chongzhen Emperor took the throne, he was very opposed to the eunuchs taking power, and he was even more resentful of the "eunuch" forces led by Wei Zhongxian. Therefore, chongzhen eliminated the "eunuchs" four or five months after he came to power. But after that, the Chongzhen Emperor trusted and reused eunuchs more and more, and how he considered it politically was a real "great wisdom"! The author expresses his personal opinion on the "contradictory" thinking of the Chongzhen Emperor, explores the truth of Ming history, traces the cause of the Ming Dynasty's death, and hopes that the king will read the benefits.
Chongzhen Emperor film and television image
Chongzhen was afraid of Wei Zhongxian
On September 19, 1627, Emperor Mingxi died, and because he had no sons, he was succeeded by his younger brother Zhu Youjian the Prince of Xin, who later became the Chongzhen Emperor. At that time, the affairs of the imperial government and the imperial palace were controlled by the "eunuch" Wei Zhongxian, and the Chongzhen Emperor was very afraid of Wei Zhongxian. According to History: When he first entered the palace, he did not even dare to eat the food in the palace, and put two steamed buns in his sleeve every day, and when no one was around, he took them out and nibbled on them twice.
Therefore, Chongzhen was cautious and silent after coming to power, because the imperial palace at that time was full of Wei Zhongxian's minions, and he could not find a close minister to discuss, nor did he dare to consult with people casually. This is a political necessity, the helplessness of Chongzhen!
The powerful Wei Zhongxian
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Wei Zhongxian, who took advantage of Emperor Xizong's daze and drunkenness in the carpenter's life during the Apocalypse period, seized the power of the state, and the government and the public called him "nine thousand years old". Although Wei Zhongxian was a man who was "illiterate" and was semi-illiterate, he had quite courage and means, and relied on flattery to gain the emperor's trust, and did all the bad things.
Wei Zhongxian and Chongzhen
Because Wei Zhongxian was in a position of great power, officials in various places spent a lot of money and grain on him to build "ancestral shrines" throughout the country in order to please him. This made the decaying bureaucracy of the late Ming Dynasty even more corrupt.
According to the "Little Knowledge of the Emperor lie", "Against the wise and the wise, the demonstration of the shackles, and the thousands of people who were killed before and after ... Hundreds of secretaries of state, not flattering the Son of Heaven but flattering the adulterous courtiers. ”
Because Of Wei Zhongxian's power, Chongzhen was very kind to him where he came to power, giving wei party cadres a knighthood, and giving Wei Liangqing, the Duke of Ningguo, and Wei Pengyi," an ordinary master Anping. This move was actually Chongzhen's strategy to slow down the army, and after four or five months in power, he felt that the time was ripe, and Chongzhen began to attack the "castration party".
He first expelled Keshi, who was in cahoots with Wei Zhongxian, from the palace, and then ordered the soldier Shangshu Cui Chengxiu to return to his original hometown to guard the system, and then he took action against Wei Zhongxian, asking Wei Yu fengyang to guard the imperial tomb, and soon plundered the Keshi, and Wei Zhongxian committed suicide. Chongzhen ordered Wei Zhongxian and Keshi to be thrown to ashes.
As for the remnants of the Wei Party, the ones who should be killed and the ones who should be killed were dealt with, and a total of 260 people were dealt with, so that Wei Zhongxian's party was completely eradicated, and at the same time, Chongzhen also strengthened the central imperial power in his hands.
Chongzhen prevented eunuchs from interfering in government affairs
After eradicating Wei Zhongxian, Chongzhen did indeed think about reforming the eunuchs' abuses in government, and put it into action, and Chongzhen issued an edict in the spring of the first year: "The internal ministers are not allowed to leave the forbidden door unless they are ordered." ”
The Chongzhen Emperor did this in order to centralize power and improve the efficiency of government organs. Second, it also shows that at that time, he did not trust eunuchs at all, and realized the harm caused to the country by eunuchs interfering in politics.
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It is worth mentioning that although Chongzhen is an emperor, his control over the palace is far less than that of Wei Zhongxian, and one thing is the most telling.
According to the "History of Ming", after Li Zicheng attacked the Forbidden City, he "excavated yellow and white ingots from the old treasury without counting, and each ingot weighed three or four hundred gold. Yes! ”
There was so much money in the palace, Chongzhen really didn't know it, so he couldn't understand the situation in the palace at that time, so he didn't dare to boldly appoint these eunuchs.
Reuse too much to supervise the military and government
In the second year of Chongzhen, the Later Jin army bypassed the city of Ningyuan, where Yuan Chonghuan was stationed, entered the pass from XifengKou, and forced the Jing Division. Chongzhen began to send eunuchs to monitor the army. The reason why Chongzhen changed his view of eunuchs was attributed to Chongzhen's belief that "scholars and doctors are responsible for the country, civilian officials are greedy for money and do not want to die, and military generals love money and are afraid of death." Chongzhen unilaterally believed that Yuan Chonghuan intended to let the Qing army enter the customs in order to respect himself.
Through the Yuan Chonghuan incident, Chongzhen came to a conclusion: foreign officials are not enough to hold.
This prompted Chongzhen to begin reusing eunuchs in order to strengthen his control over the political situation. By August of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the number of eunuchs used by Chongzhen had reached 100,000, covering every corner of the military and government units.
The undesirable consequences of reusing eunuchs
First, the taijian government has long been infamous, and the fish and flesh people and the flying posture are disgusting.
Second, most of the eunuchs were in the capital, they knew very little about the situation in the outside world, and handling affairs was nothing more than blind command in the name of the emperor. In terms of marching and fighting and organizing, they are mostly "laymen". Letting the "layman" command the "insider" will surely achieve more with less and cause dissatisfaction among local units.
Third, the concept of hierarchy in feudal society was very strong, and the eunuchs who were "purified" belonged to the inferior class. Many local officials, especially military generals, were very reluctant to be the leaders of the central airborne eunuchs, and refused to perform subordinate salutes to the eunuchs. However, the emperor must raise them to a very high position and give them a lot of power, which makes the feudal officials very dissatisfied.
"Rigidity and self-use" was a major character trait of the Chongzhen Emperor, and the things he decided must be implemented in place.
Yushi Jinguang Chen once said, "The Internal Minister Overseers are contemptuous of the Law!" Chongzhen was about to kill him, but fortunately, Jin Guangchen's popularity was not bad, and everyone helped to intercede, so as to avoid death, Chongzhen remembered his old age and let him go home to farm.
Inspector Zhending said according to Li Moshangshu: "The overseers are greedy and unscrupulous, the eunuch Chen Zhenyi is greedy and tyrannical, and the soldiers and civilians are cold. Just because he said bad things about the eunuch Chen Zhenyi, Li Mo was demoted to the third level and retained.
There are many things like this, and the ridiculous thing is that whoever wants to say that "too much supervision of government" is not good will be punished. It can be seen that the reason why the Chongzhen Emperor used coercive means to be stubborn and establish the authority of the eunuchs was to centralize power on himself.
However, the use of eunuchs to monitor military and political affairs was a huge centrifugal force for the Ming regime, which led to the separation of the central and local governments from Germany. As a leader, you don't trust others, how can others trust you? Therefore, by the last moment of the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor had already commanded the local governors and general soldiers.
Eunuchs are not useless at all
If the eunuchs are all rice buckets and are useless, this is also wrong. Eunuchs are still a bit useful sometimes.
For example, in July of the eighth year of Chongzhen, "With Zhang Yuanzuo as the right attendant of the military department, Zhen Shou Changping, and the admiral tianshou mountain of the inner minister are all on the same day, the shangyu cabinet minister said: The inner minister will arrive on the same day, and the waiter has not come out for three days. ”
This means that the emperor asked the right attendant of the army to go to the town to guard Changping together with the eunuch, and the eunuch arrived at work on the same day, and the waiter did not go out until the third day. Indeed, the eunuchs had no family members, and they were in the palace, carefree, and moved faster than the officials who dragged their families and mouths.
In addition to running fast, eunuchs have also made some achievements. For example, in April of the tenth year of Chongzhen, the eunuch Yang Xianming served as the premier of the two Huai Salt Classes, and just after arriving at his post, he found out that the previous two had embezzled hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.
Film and television image of a eunuch
In the late Ming Dynasty, officials were corrupt, no officials were not greedy, and officials and officials protected each other, and in terms of discipline inspection, officials often shielded each other because of intricate social relations. But eunuchs are different, their social background is not complicated, and the possibility of bending the law for personal gain is slightly lower. But in general, too much supervision of the government still does more harm than good.
And eunuchs are not necessarily more loyal than ordinary officials. On the eve of Li Zicheng's attack on Beijing, Chongzhen sent a large number of eunuchs to monitor the defense of Beijing, but these eunuchs instead opened the city gates to meet Li Zicheng. Such as "Du Zhi rank to welcome the landing", "Cao Hua Chun opened the Guangning Gate to welcome thieves" and so on, these records are many.
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The Chongzhen Emperor treated eunuchs from the initial distrust to the later use of eunuchs everywhere, and even when the peasant army and soldiers came to the city, they listened to the eunuchs' opinions, and the ministers were not allowed to interfere. The main reason for this was the change in Chongzhen's political ideology and the objective social conditions at that time prompted him to do so.
First of all, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, social turmoil, frequent wars, corruption of officials, the organization of the eunuch team was relatively stable and obedient, and the emperor could directly command, relatively speaking, with absolute command!
Secondly, the eunuchs did not need to drag the family, moved more quickly, and had relatively few concerns, and Chongzhen considered them more loyal.
Finally, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the central government's political control over the localities had completely lost control, and Wu Sangui, Liu Zeqing, and other general soldiers with heavy troops had completely ignored the central government, daring to openly resist and disobey the edicts.
The uncontrolled general of the late Ming Dynasty
I would like to say that the Chongzhen Emperor's reuse of eunuchs was not the main reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. In other words, if Chongzhen does not reuse eunuchs, the Ming Dynasty will perish, which is the inevitable of history. Eunuchs were merely pawns for the emperor to consolidate and strengthen his own power, and in order to save the Ming Dynasty, only by giving full play to the role of the entire landlord class regime could he turn the tide.
It's a pity that history doesn't have ifs!
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