In the seventeenth year of Ming Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, the "king of chuang", led an army to invade Beijing and break through the city of Beijing, and the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian, who felt that he had "no face to see his ancestors underground", fled to Coal Mountain with his personal eunuch Wang Cheng'en, "with his hair covered, hanged himself". On his deathbed, Wang Cheng'en sighed:
If the faithful are there, the current affairs will not end here!
Before Wang Cheng'en, Emperor Chongzhen's brother, Emperor Tianqi' Zhu Youxiao, had a similar instruction when he handed over the Ming Dynasty to Zhu Youjian:
"Faithful and loyal, they can count great things."
As a famous "traitor" in Chinese history, Wei Zhongxian really possessed such divine power that he could even change the outcome of the Ming Dynasty?
Before answering this question, let's first clarify the question: Wei Zhongxian, is he a traitor in the end?
The so-called "traitorous subjects" refer to "ministers who are not loyal to the monarch and use power to deceive the country."
During the Apocalypse Years, was there anyone more loyal to emperor Zhu Youxian than Wei Zhongxian?
During the apocalypse years, it was a fact that Wei Zhongxian "cheated on power" and "harmed Zhongliang", but during Wei Zhongxian's reign, the imperial court did not lack money, the localities did not dare to oppose, and even the Manchu Qing regime in the northeast never took advantage.
Then, why did Wei Zhongxian become a great traitor who had been left behind for thousands of years?
Who is Wei Zhongxian's opponent? The bureaucratic class political group represented by the "Jiangnan Shi Dafu" is the so-called "Donglin Party". To put it bluntly, Wei Zhongxian, like the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, offended the gentry who held the "pen pole" and "public opinion dissemination power" at that time. After the Chongzhen Emperor succeeded to the throne, he quickly liquidated the "castration party clique" represented by Wei Zhongxian, and it is conceivable how these "Donglin Party members" who had been suppressed by Wei Zhongxian for a long time would retaliate madly.
Understanding this premise, let's look at how Wei Zhongxian would affect the outcome of the Ming Dynasty.
During the reign of the Wanli Emperor, he quarreled with the cabinet for more than ten years over the "matter of the prince", and finally simply did not leave the palace for nearly thirty years and ignored the government, and the Ming Dynasty began to move towards a period of chaos. However, after all, this Daming Jiangshan was the inheritance handed down by the ancestors, and the Wanli Emperor did not want to be destroyed in his own hands, but he did not want to compromise with the ministers, so the eunuchs began to enter the power center and became the messengers of the Ming Emperor.
Then, as the eunuchs gained more and more power, the officials in the imperial court began to enter a passive situation, or were excluded or liquidated, coupled with the large-scale purges during Wei Zhongxian's reign, the remaining ministers in the imperial court almost became the winners in the process of "natural selection", and it is conceivable to what extent their conduct and integrity fell.
The Chongzhen Emperor, young and vigorous, was determined to revive the Ming Dynasty, so the first thing he did after he ascended the throne was to liquidate the "castration party group" represented by Wei Zhongxian, and the Ming Dynasty Hall was once again in the hands of the "Donglin Party".
Before the Chongzhen Dynasty, the eunuchs confronted the Donglin Party, and the Emperor sat behind the scenes to reap the benefits of the fishermen; during the Chongzhen Dynasty, the Donglin Party members no longer had a natural enemy of the "castration party clique", had no confrontational strength, and began to directly confront the Chongzhen Emperor. Don't forget, at this time, the Donglin Party members were all the winners who had escaped Wei Zhongxian's suppression, and they were all human spirits who had cultivated to a certain extent; and they should not forget that all the Donglin Party members who could stand in the court were high-level intellectuals, and their ability to watch over the family was the "mouth" that was enough to reverse black and white.
Imagine what would be the situation of the Chongzhen Emperor, who was in his teens and twenties and had no political experience, and without the help of the old and treacherous eunuchs, he would face this group of Donglin Party members who "rely on reasoning to eat" alone?
Wei Zhongxian, why can you suppress the Donglin Party? Because he is unreasonable, he uses all brute force, withdraws if he does not listen, and kills if he does not obey!
Under these circumstances, the Ming Dynasty's governing policy and financial policy began to undergo fundamental changes, the most significant of which was that the Chongzhen Emperor actually ordered the abolition of the most important financial revenues of the imperial court, such as commercial taxes and mining taxes, and instead transferred the huge imperial court expenses to the poor people who were already struggling on the line of life and death.
Why was the Chongzhen Emperor stupid enough to cancel the imperial court's largest financial revenue?
Because the Donglin Party members in the court are almost all representatives of the Jiangnan family, the abolition of the commercial tax can bring huge benefits to them and even the families behind them! Obviously, the Chongzhen Emperor had been fooled by these Donglin Party members.
But what if Wei Zhongxian was alive?
There is no family behind it, no class, only a heart that swears allegiance to emperor Daming to the death. Because he knew that only if the emperor was good and the Ming Dynasty was good, he could have supreme power and have endless glory and wealth. Therefore, he would do everything in his power to carry out all the policies and policies that would help the income of the imperial court, and he would try his best to withhold silver from these gentry.
Now that Wei Zhongxian was dead, the Chongzhen Emperor could not resist the entire Donglin Party clique, so he could only face a cruel situation: the imperial court, the treasury was empty, and the army was short of food and pay.
The imperial court had no money, and the Chongzhen Emperor decided to streamline the organization and reduce the number of personnel, which directly caused the unemployment of Li Zicheng, the "postmaster", and provided sufficient reasons for him to expose the uprising; the army was short of pay, and the Daming army was naturally unable to resist the Eight Banner Army outside Guanwai and the peasant uprising inside.
Later, when Li Zicheng came to the city of Beijing and demanded that the Ming court pay millions of taels of silver and then withdraw his troops to truce, the Chongzhen Emperor, who had an empty treasury and no money in his private treasury, wanted to cry without tears, and the ministers of the DPRK and China also cried poorly. But after Li Zicheng attacked the city of Beijing, he actually snatched tens of millions of taels of silver from the hands of these courtiers.
If Wei Zhongxian is still alive, a fundraising order, which Donglin Party dare not follow! Don't donate? Killed you, do you donate or not?
Unfortunately, Wei Zhongxian, the only one who could charge for the Chongzhen Emperor, died; unfortunately, these Donglin party members, who had been influenced by the idea of "loyalty to the king and patriotism" since childhood, turned around and became the shunmin of Li Zicheng and the Manchu Qing regime after the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself and the Ming Dynasty fell, and continued to be officials and continue to be prominent.
Therefore, how should loyal and traitorous subjects be judged?