Ming Chengzu Zhu Di was the fourth son of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, and Shi Zai's biological mother was Empress Ma. Zhu Di was the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty, with the era name Yongle, so posterity called him Yongle The Great. Zhu Di was born in Yingtianfu (present-day Nanjing), and was created the King of Yan after the establishment of the Ming Dynasty.
At that time, after Emperor Jianwen ascended the throne, he adopted a policy of cutting off the domain, and Zhu Di launched the Battle of Jingnan to achieve victory and proclaimed himself emperor in Nanjing.
In the nineteenth year of Yongle (1421 AD), Zhu Di moved his capital to Beijing.
During Zhu Di's reign, the Ming Dynasty was economically prosperous, the national strength was strong, and the martial arts of Wenzhi were greatly improved, and the history is called Yongle Prosperous.
1. Zhu Yunjiao succeeded to the throne and implemented a policy of cutting down the domain
In the leap May of the thirty-first year of Ming Hongwu (1398 AD), Zhu Yuanzhang died. The emperor's grandson Zhu Yunjiao succeeded to the throne with the era name Jianwen. When Emperor Jianwen came to power, he was 21 years old and appointed Fang Xiaoru and others to carry out political reforms.
In dealing with the emperor's many imperial uncles, Fang Xiaoru and others proposed that the power of these clan kings should be gradually limited, forming a strong and weak branch in order to ensure the authority of the Son of Heaven. So Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng began to preside over the affairs of cutting the domain.
In terms of cutting the domain, the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao chose to strike first and be strong. But it took a contradictory step, that is, to weaken the domain first. Within a few months, he slashed the five kings in a row, either abolished or put under house arrest, and even forced Zhu Bai, the king of Xiang, to set himself on fire and die. Finally, he slashed Zhu Di, the King of Yan, again. However, during Zhu Di's reign, he had prepared a response early on.
II. Zhu Di was dissatisfied with the cutting of the domain and launched the "Battle of Jingnan"
Originally, after the death of Crown Prince Zhu Biao, Zhu Di was the oldest of Zhu Yuanzhang's remaining sons, and he was also the most militarily powerful, and it can be said that he was very promising to inherit the throne. However, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang actually crossed him and passed the throne to his grandson Zhu Yunjiao. This made Zhu Di very dissatisfied, and he was grumpy about it.
Although Zhu Di disobeyed his nephew as emperor, he did not think at first of all to start a rebellion and push down Zhu Yunjiao, who was a mighty man. It was not until Emperor Jianwen, at the suggestion of his trusted ministers Qi Tai and Huang Zicheng and others, took a series of measures to cut the domain and prepared to cut the domain against Zhu Di. In order to save his life, Zhu Di had no choice but to rebel and launched the "Battle of Jingnan". In the course of the "Battle of Jingnan", Zhu Di finally succeeded in defeating Zhu Yunjiao through arduous struggle. Thus ascending the throne as emperor, he became the third emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
It can be said that Zhu Di's rebellion was actually forced by the Jianwen Emperor Zhu Yunjiao. It was also Emperor Jianwen's policy of cutting down the domain that nominally gave Zhu Di a reason to raise an army.
3. Zhu Di said that the empress moved the capital to Beijing and set the city of Nanjing as the capital
After Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ascended the throne, he temporarily closed people's mouths with killing. But his feat of "perverse behavior and seizure of power and usurpation of power" has always been impossible to get on the table. For this reason, many people have a bad evaluation and impression of Zhu Di's so-called "Qing Jun's side", and even Zhu Di himself sometimes feels weak-hearted, feeling that he is an emperor who deserves a bit of "improper name and bad speech".
Coupled with the fact that the subordinate Jingqing wanted to assassinate Zhu Di, Zhu Di always thought that there were many pairs of eyes staring at him, and felt that Nanjing was an ominous place for him. Therefore, in September of the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420 AD), Zhu Di issued an edict to change the capital to Beijing and Nanjing to the capital. That is, Beijing will be the capital of the country, and Nanjing will be the capital of the country. A year later, Zhu Di moved his capital to Beijing.
Zhu Di's move was to implement the "two capital system", and he himself sat in Beijing and retained the six departments of officials, households, ceremonies, soldiers, criminals, and workers in Nanjing. At the same time, it continued to set up institutions such as the Metropolitan Inspection Bureau, the Department of Communications and Political Affairs, the Governor's Office of the Five Armed Forces, the Hanlin Yuan, and the GuoziJian. Thus he can be far north and powerfully remote control the south. In fact, this has become a structure of two sets of government teams.
As Qiu Mao said, "With the wealth of the southeast, the horses of the northwest are invincible to the world." In fact, Zhu Di's intention in doing so was that once the north was lost, he could return to the city of Nanjing and defend the south, which was also a strategy he left for posterity to save the crisis. Unfortunately, his descendant, the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian, did not use it, which led to the demise of Daming.
Fourth, the Chongzhen Emperor faced Li Zicheng, did not use the strategy of retreating to Nanjing, and eventually hanged himself
In the Chongzhen period of the late Ming Dynasty, there were peasant uprisings inside and Manchu Qing invasions outside. The Ming Dynasty struggled with two fronts, and the annual military expenditure was as high as 20 million or more. As a result, the state finances have long been unable to make ends meet, and the lack of pay is widespread, which often leads to riots and mutinies within the Ming army.
Moreover, Chongzhen was eager to cure, suspicious by nature, and self-conscious, so he repeatedly made big mistakes in the government of the dynasty: in the early stage, he eradicated the eunuchs of dictatorship, and then reused the eunuchs in the later stage. The "Aftermath of the Dream of Chunming" records: "In November of the second year of Chongzhen, Shen Liang, the eunuch of Si Li, lived in the Ninth Gate and the Imperial City Gate, and the eunuch Li Fengxiang of Si Li was in charge of zhongyong camp."
In August of the third year of Chongzhen (1630 AD), Yuan Chonghuan, the governor of Jiliao, was executed by Ling Chi, and the Ming Dynasty lost the last general who could resist the Manchu Qing. As the situation became more and more severe, Chongzhen's indiscriminate killing became more and more serious, with the governor being killed 7 people and the inspector executing 11 people. It is also Chongzhen's self-digging corners that brew the tragedy of self-digging graves.
In the first month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641 AD), Li Zicheng conquered Luoyang.
In March of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644 AD), the peasant rebel army besieged the capital, and the Ming Dynasty faced a disaster of no top, and under the opposition and unwillingness of Chen Yan and Guang Shiheng, it failed to make up its mind to move the capital to Nanjing. Chongzhen also demanded that the heavy subjects guard the capital division, and left the capital on the grounds of "the holy driving tour of the south, conscripting the soldiers to discuss", and the ministers were afraid that because the emperor was not in the capital, they would become the ghosts of the peasant army to vent their anger, and still did not let Chongzhen leave the capital.
In the early morning of March 19 of the same year, Li Zicheng's rebel army entered from The Gate of Zhangyi. The Chongzhen Emperor said, "The ministers have mistakenly fallen, and the monarch has died in the society." The two hundred and seventy-seven years of the world, once abandoned, are all mistaken by the traitors, so that this is it. He finally hanged himself on a crooked neck tree in Jingshan at the age of 33.
So the question is, since Zhu Di has left Chongzhen with a plan to save the crisis, why does Chongzhen not use it and lead to the demise of Daming? In fact, Chongzhen is also very helpless, for the following reasons:
1. Chongzhen was arrogant and underestimated the strength of Li Zicheng's peasant army
In the later period of Chongzhen, bandits and displaced people rose up together, and civil unrest broke out in various places. In order to suppress Liu Kou, Chongzhen first used Yang He as the main caretaker, then Hong Chengzuo, then Cao Wenzhao, then Chen Qiyu, reused Hong Chengyu, then used Lu Xiangsheng, then used Yang Sichang, then used Xiong Wencan, and then used Yang Sichang. In the past thirteen years, the generals who surrounded and suppressed the invading army were frequently changed, but they all failed.
All this stems from the fact that in the early days, Chongzhen underestimated Li Zicheng's vitality, which caused the rebel army to die several times, and then had the opportunity to go to Henan to gather the masses to develop.
One of the reasons for Li Zicheng's comeback was because of the two-front war, and Chongzhen did not handle the relationship between "outside the country must first be inside". The Ming court was fully capable of dealing with either Li Zicheng or the Manchu Qing, but there was a dilemma of going to war on both fronts at the same time.
Earlier, the general Sun Chuanting beat Li Zicheng to the point where he had only 18 horses left and fled. However, because the Manchu Qing broke into the Great Wall, they had to transfer their troops to the defense, which gave Li Zicheng a chance to breathe. As a result, Later, King Li Chuang revived, sparked fire, besieged Beijing, and destroyed the Ming Dynasty.
2. The tension between Chongzhen and his courtiers led to the inability to relocate
When Li Zicheng's army invaded Shanxi, Chongzhen had already hinted at Hubu Shangshu, Zuo Du Yushi Li Banghua, Hanlin scholar Li Mingrui, Shaozhan Yiyu and others to prepare for the southward migration. It can be said that Chongzhen could have borrowed a donkey from the slope and moved south. However, due to the opposition of many northern officials at that time, they did not want to go south and leave their hometown. Therefore, he directly took out the excuse of "abandoning the land and abandoning the north" to prevent the relocation of the capital.
After Li Zicheng attacked Taiyuan, Chongzhen organized a second imperial meeting. In the face of the monstrous situation of the peasant army, Li Banghua proposed that the prince return to Yugoslavia and organize resistance. As a result, the Chongzhen Emperor did not want to hold out and also wanted to go south. However, the minister did not cooperate and opposed this plan. In the face of the support of the first assistant Chen Yan and others, the Military Department stood up against the matter. In this way, the second southward migration plan also ended in failure.
When Faced with The arrival of Li Zicheng's army, the Chongzhen Emperor had no choice but to organize a third imperial meeting and summoned Wu Sangui to qin wang. At this time, Bing Ke jumped out of the matter and retorted: "Prince Feng is going south, what is the intention of the ministers?" Will you want to be tang su zong lingwu story? Does this sentence mean that the crown prince wants to emulate Tang Suzong Li Heng's self-reliance, and as soon as his sensitive words come out, who dares to speak again?
What has to be said is that the so-called gains and losses have also been reversed in these three dpron meetings. Personal interests and national interests, and the shameless greed of the scholar-doctor class are also vividly reflected. With such a spoiler, will there still be hope for Chongzhen to move south?
3. Chongzhen was an emperor with strong self-esteem, who was determined to uphold Zhu Di's testament
In addition, the reason why Chongzhen did not have the strength to exclude public opinion and directly ordered the southward move was actually related to his self-esteem. The reason why Chongzhen's self-esteem is strong is inseparable from his childhood life. Thus forming the spirit of indomitable death, perhaps there is no word "escape" in his dictionary at all.
Coupled with Ming Chengzu Zhu Di's testament, "When foreign enemies invade, Daming does not call himself a vassal, does not make peace, does not pay tribute, the Son of Heaven guards the gate of the country, and the gentleman dies in the society." It is also this majestic ancestral precept, coupled with Chongzhen's self-esteem. Therefore, he resolutely made a move to fight the anti-thief to the end in Beijing. After Chongzhen did this, he ended up being a very backbone of the king of the country.
Overall:
Chongzhen was a self-absorbed emperor. During his reign, he killed heroes out of jealousy, and finally when Li Zicheng rebelled, he had no talent available. Can he be undefeated in such a situation? At the same time, Chongzhen was also an emperor with strong self-esteem, and he preferred to uphold Zhu Di's testament rather than move the capital, and finally could only accept the reality calmly. But Chongzhen was an emperor with a backbone, and his spirit of not surrendering was commendable to people at that time. So, what do you think of Chongzhen?
For more wonderful historical stories, welcome to pay attention to [Bear Boy on Ancient and Modern]