In the eyes of most people, Wei Zhongxian was a complete traitor. The Chongzhen Emperor also thought so when he first took office, but he regretted it when he hanged Coal Mountain, why is this? To truly understand the reasons for this, it is necessary to mention the Brother of the Chongzhen Emperor, the Emperor tianqi. The Emperor of the Apocalypse is also a strange emperor, who is in a high position but does not do anything, but thinks about being a carpenter all day long. Wei Zhongxian, as the personal eunuch of the Heavenly Revelation Emperor, could also be regarded as the person who knew him best. Since the emperor is blessed and must become a carpenter, he can't stop him, right? The emperor refused to take the government personally, and all the power in his hands was delegated to Wei Zhongxian, a eunuch. Although Wei Zhongxian had done a lot of bad things after he had gained power, it was not only bad things. He was very good at business, and made a lot of money for the emperor while embezzling. Therefore, although the Emperor of the Apocalypse also had wars during his reign, he never lacked money. Moreover, Wei Zhongxian was absolutely loyal to the Emperor of the Apocalypse, because he knew that only by loyally defending the Emperor of the Apocalypse could the power in his hands not be transferred by others, and he could always live so smoothly.
Emperor Zhu Youxiao of the Apocalypse knew of the eunuch's abilities, but Emperor Chongzhen only saw that he had embezzled both the silver in the treasury and was bent on letting Wei Zhongxian die. Moreover, the biggest difference between the Chongzhen Emperor and the Tianqi Emperor is that the desire for power is different. The Emperor of the Apocalypse was bent on being a carpenter, and even if he became emperor, he still tinkered with wood all day. However, the Chongzhen Emperor wanted to be an emperor with real talent and practical learning, hoping to be able to enlarge the Ming Dynasty, and did not want the power in his hands to be distributed to the eunuchs.
The Chongzhen Emperor had a lot of theories of governance in his mind, but he had no practical experience, and felt that Wei Zhongxian, as a eunuch, had seized the power of the emperor in his hands, and he was even more unaccustomed to Wei Zhongxian's behavior, but instead believed in those scholars and masters in the court. In fact, those scholars and masters would only criticize Wei Zhongxian, but their abilities could not be compared with Wei Zhongxian, and the Chongzhen Emperor wanted to kill Wei Zhongxian even more after listening to the rumors of those people. The Chongzhen Emperor did kill Wei Zhongxian as he wished, but no one else in the dynasty would make as much money as Wei Zhongxian, so the Ming Dynasty began to get poorer and poorer during the Chongzhen Emperor's time, until finally the imperial court could no longer function normally, and the emperor of a country was hanged on coal mountain.
In fact, the Chongzhen Emperor still had a lot of silver in his private treasury, and even if the treasury was empty, he could still use the money in the private treasury to subsidize the state. However, because the Brain Capacity of the Chongzhen Emperor was not large enough, when the imperial court was short of money, he only wanted to let the ministers donate money, but did not think of other methods, resulting in the death of the Ming Dynasty due to lack of money. Before the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself, he finally understood that although Wei Zhongxian was a eunuch, he was loyal to the emperor, and although there were some minor mistakes, the merit was definitely greater than that, so why did the Emperor of the Apocalypse use him so much, because Wei Zhongxian was much better than the so-called loyal and righteous soldiers who could only talk big!
Article author: Dahui
The entire graphic is exclusively originally produced by the team of the big coffee storytelling studio!