In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, due to factors such as corruption in the administration of officials and frequent natural disasters, the peasant uprising movement broke out on a large scale. At the same time, the Later Jin Dynasty in the north also began to invade the borders of the Ming Dynasty, and for a time, the Ming Dynasty, which had lasted for more than two hundred years, fell into turmoil. In the process of the gradual collapse of the Ming Dynasty, there were four people who were most difficult to blame, and they were also known as the "Four Great Sinners", namely Hong Chengzu, Wu Sangui, Zu Dashou and Wei Zaode.
Of these four, perhaps the most famous was Wu Sangui, who led the Qing army into the customs, was crowned the King of Pingxi after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, and later opened the San Francisco Rebellion. In addition to him, Zu Dashou and Hong Chengzu were both famous generals at the end of the Ming Dynasty, who had made great achievements for the Ming Dynasty, but chose to surrender after the defeat and served the Qing since then. However, the first of the four major criminal ministers was the relatively least well-known Wei Zaode, who was extremely responsible for the demise of the Ming Dynasty and was eventually tortured for five days, and his death was very tragic.
In the thirty-third year of the Wanli Calendar (1605), Wei Zaode was born in Tongzhou, Suncheon Province, which is now tongzhou district of Beijing. In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen (1640), he took the imperial examination and went to high school. During the temple examination, in order to select outstanding talents, the Chongzhen Emperor wrote the following question:
"Today's internal and external strife, how can we avenge the shame?"
In this regard, Wei Zaode not only gave the answer of "knowing shame", but also mentioned in passing that he had participated in the battle to defend Tongzhou two years ago.
The Chongzhen Emperor was very satisfied with Wei Zaode's answer and his experience, so he rated him as the first and granted him the post of revision. Because of his sharp teeth and good at guessing the intentions, Wei Zaode was continuously promoted, first as the Right Attendant of the Rebbe and the Scholar of Dongge University, and two years later he was transferred to the Shangshu of the Bingbu and the Shangshu of the Ministry of Works, and the Scholar of Wenyuange University. Soon after, Chen Yan, the first assistant in the cabinet, was deposed, and Wei Zaode became his successor.
However, Daming at that time was already on the verge of extinction, so Wei Zaode became the last cabinet chief of the Ming Dynasty with the capital being attacked by Li Zicheng shortly after taking office. Some people may wonder when they see this, compared to Wu Sangui and others who are directly loyal to the enemy, Wei Zaode does not seem to have done anything harmful to nature and reason, so why did he become the head of the four major criminals? Don't worry, let's take a look at what this Wei Zaode, who originally replied to the Chongzhen Emperor with "knowing shame", did when the country was in danger.
As we all know, during the reign of the Chongzhen Emperor, the Ming Dynasty suffered several major natural disasters, coupled with the continuous use of troops, the financial situation can be described as extremely bad. As an official of the imperial court, Wei Zaode not only did not want to help solve the financial crisis of the imperial court, but also amassed a lot of gold and silver treasures. According to the Jiashen Chuanxin Records, the Chongzhen Emperor had called on his ministers to donate money to raise military salaries, but Wei Zaode, as a heavy minister, was only
"Donate 500 silver"
。
After Li Zicheng invaded the capital, he sent liu Zongmin to force the chancellor to hand over his family wealth by torture, and the Ming Shi records:
"The thief ordered the cabinet to be 100,000 gold, jingqing and jinyi 70,000, or 50,000 or 30,000, to give the affairs, imperial history, officials, and Hanlin a difference of 50,000 to 10,000, and the number of caos was thousands, and there was no definite number of Xun Qi."
As the former first assistant of the cabinet, Wei Zaode was "treated with emphasis" by Liu Zongmin, and the result was this
"Zaode loses all gold"
。 When the country was in danger, Wei Zaode was only willing to donate a mere five hundred silver, but in fact, the family's surplus wealth exceeded ten thousand gold, which was really shameless.
In fact, Wei Zaode may have planned his own way back early, that is, after the rebels captured the capital, he sacrificed his family wealth in exchange for peace or even reuse. However, what he did not expect was that Li Zicheng did not mean to use him at all. Yang Shicong once recorded in the "Jiashen Nuclear True Strategy" that after Wei Zaode was imprisoned, he also said incomprehensibly:
"If you want to use me, you don't care how to use it, what is the solution to the locking?"
It can be seen that he is indeed a little overconfident.
In addition, the Ming Dynasty Northern Sketch also records a conversation between Wei Zaode and Liu Zongmin. At that time, Liu Zongmin rebuked Wei Zaode as the first assistant but sat by and watched the ming dynasty fall, while Wei Zaode was unashamedly stated:
"The courtiers were not familiar with political affairs, and they were also the first emperors who had no way, so they came to this."
In his mouth, it was the Chongzhen Emperor's inability to lead to the demise of the country, and he himself was "ice clean and jade clean" and did not seem to have any responsibility.
For Wei Zaode's cunning argument, even Liu Zongmin couldn't help but scold:
"Ru was promoted to chancellor by a scholar, and within three years he was the prime minister, and Chongzhen had no negative ru, and denigrated him as a no-way."
After the scolding, Liu Zongmin directly sent someone to slap Wei Zaode to show his disgust for his shameless remarks. And what is very gratifying is that such a person who has no loyalty to the country and is extremely selfish and selfish will end up in a very miserable end.
According to the History of Ming, Wei Zaode was considered to have paid too little after handing over wanjin, after all, the above-mentioned Yang Shicong was once only the prince's teacher, and he paid enough 20,000 taels after being imprisoned, so that he was safe. As a result, the jailers tortured Wei Zaode for five full days. In the end, the former cabinet chief was tortured to death by a brain split, ironically less than five years before he took the exam with the answer of "knowing shame".