When it comes to the demise of the Ming Dynasty, one theory is that the Ming Dynasty's finances could not make ends meet, and even the military salaries of the soldiers guarding the border had no money to pay, but the Chongzhen Emperor sat on tens of millions of taels of silver private money (internal money) and was unwilling to take it out, and eventually lost his life because of stinginess. So what is the truth? Was the Ming Dynasty really poor and dead?
I. Who moved the Chongzhen Emperor's private money?
The inner chamber was the emperor's private money, and its source was gold and silver, that is, it relied on the income of the fields in the southern zhili region. During the Wanli Period, the internal treasury of the inner treasury was increased by collecting mineral taxes and silver from various places. However, in addition to being used for court meals, many internal funds were used for state expenditures, such as the twenty years of the Wanli Calendar (1592), because of the use of troops on the frontier, the internal funds were allocated. Therefore, the inner chamber is not just in and out.
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Li Zicheng's rebel army invaded Beijing, set up twenty-four money bureaus, issued Yongchang Tongbao, expelled eunuchs, and took over the Chongzhen Emperor's internal treasury, which seemed to be ready for a long stay. Zhao Shijin, a Ming Dynasty official who surrendered, once said: "Eight years after the Wanli Calendar, the silver of the Xienei Treasury has not yet moved, and the silver still has more than 30 million taels and 1.5 million gold." Yang Shicong, another official with the same experience, also said: "Thieves enter the great interior, including a total of 37 million taels of silver and tens of thousands of gold." Both of them were Ming Dynasty officials, and it seemed that what they said was not false. Therefore, even later history books such as the "Ming Dynasty Northern Sketch" have also accepted this statement.
But a little scrutiny shows that this argument does not hold water.
1. Would the Chongzhen Emperor really be stupid enough to want to be a scrooge rather than a scrooge?
When the country is defeated, the courtiers can still surrender, but the emperor has no way to retreat. Chongzhen is frugal by nature, and when he was a child, he imitated the shadow and practiced writing, and he must write the paper full before giving up. After succeeding to the throne, he reduced his food and music, clothed and vegetables, and even sold the high-class Liao ginseng in the palace to make up for the use of the country. One day, when listening to the lecturer's lecture, because the sleeve of the inner coat was damaged, it hindered the emperor's face, and from time to time he tucked it in to cover up. Would such an emperor who reigned for seventeen years and was not a good woman and did not covet enjoyment be a scrooge? Totally illogical.
After Wanli's death, the total amount of internal funds left to his descendants was about 7 million taels, which was also the result of his accumulation of more than 40 years of reign. In the late Ming Dynasty, wars and natural disasters continued, and Tianqi reigned for 7 years, and he was profligate, so when Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, how many internal servants could he inherit? In the financial situation of not being able to make ends meet, Chongzhen could not have gathered more than 30 million taels of silver wealth no matter what.
Another thing can also illustrate this point. Wu Xuanshan, a servant of the household department, once asked the Chongzhen Emperor to send an emergency response, and the Chongzhen Emperor replied that "the inner treasury has nothing to do, so he falls into tears", and Chongzhen falls into tears in front of his subordinates with the respect of the Ninth Five, and the situation can be imagined.
2. How reliable is the claim that Chongzhen has 37 million taels?
Zhao Shijin and Yang Shicong, who put forward this statement, were both officials below the level of five pins, and they usually had no access to the emperor, let alone their understanding of the internal servants. On the contrary, wang Shide, who was the Jinyi Weiyou at that time, said more crediblely, "Emperor Xizong reigned for seven years, and the accumulation of more than forty years of Shenzong was exhausted, and since the rise of the army, the treasure has been empty", he criticized the wild history record for being untrue: those who say that the Ten Libraries of the Great Inner Accumulation Are Not even clear what the Ten Libraries are doing. When the city was destroyed, only the Dongyu Treasury had treasures stored in the second ear, how could there be the so-called more than ten libraries of accumulated funds?
Another historical record occurred a month before Li Zicheng entered Beijing, Chongzhen intended to transfer Wu Sangui to the King of Jingqin, and asked his father Wu Xiang, Wu Xiang replied that it would take a million troops to mobilize Wu Sangui to enter Beijing, while Chongzhen said that "only seventy thousand taels of silver were stored in the inner treasury", coupled with the warm and ignorant opposition attitude of some ministers, the matter of transferring Wu Sangui was delayed again and again. Obviously, in the context of life and death, the Chongzhen Emperor had no need to make up the figure of 70,000.
Was the Ming Dynasty really poor?
The Chongzhen Emperor's private money had long been exhausted, so what about the state treasury? The "Chronicle of Jiashen" records the author's personal experience: "When the prudent treasury was given to supervise the festival, it was on the fifteenth day of The third month of Jiashen, and the chief miao Shen exchanged plates, and the treasury suspended more than 2,300 silver." A country's treasury is so poor that it is only more than 2,300 taels of silver. During the martial law period in the Beijing Division, even the Beijing camp was already in arrears for eight months, the soldiers guarding the city were all providing their own dry food, and the imperial court could only send hundreds of yuan a day.
What about taxes? The Ming Dynasty was faced with two fronts of internal and external warfare, and the military expenditure alone was astronomical, although it was levied and trained, but in fact it was a blank piece of paper. In the fourth year of Chongzhen (1632), more than one-third of the counties in the country owed more than half of the taxes, and more than a hundred counties in the country were in arrears. The Ming Dynasty was on the verge of financial collapse. The impatient Chongzhen Emperor had to ask ministers and eunuchs to donate money to pay for the army, but the effect was not satisfactory. After much effort, only 200,000 taels were collected, and even so, the courtiers cried that they could not live.
It seems that the Ming Dynasty is really poor. But, it's relative. Why? Because after Li Zicheng entered Beijing, he severely tortured and plundered the ministers and eunuchs, and even plundered tens of millions of taels of silver. Among them, Jiading Bo Zhou Kui 530,000 taels, university scholar Chen Yan chased 40,000 stolen goods and then confiscated tens of thousands, and even the heart of the eunuch Wang Had 150,000 taels of silver.
Third, why did Li Zicheng have such a big contrast after entering Beijing?
When Li Zicheng first entered Beijing, the merchants were in business, the street market was as usual, and Li Zicheng also screened and hired 92 old Ming Dynasty officials and listed Anmin, obviously ready to take over the Ming Dynasty. Soon after, however, a "Fusi Division for The Town of Biju" was set up, and with great fanfare began the act of torturing and chasing after the stolen goods, and in order to plunder the money, many officials were beaten to death, and even robbed along the streets. The contrast between before and after is so great, what happened to Li Zicheng's army? If Li Zicheng really got the Chongzhen Emperor's internal currency of tens of millions of taels of silver, why did he have to mobilize the masses to loot in the capital?
The low-level civil servants of the Ming Dynasty all seemed to have an illusion about the emperor's private money, believing that it was inexhaustible, and asked for internal money at every turn. And Li Zicheng was a peasant rebel, and he was even more convinced that the emperor must be the richest in the world, but the actual situation disappointed him to the extreme, not only did he have no money in the treasury, but even the emperor's internal security was pitiful, the rich and noble promised to his subordinates could not be realized, and the huge shortage of military salaries forced him to extend his hand to the hundred officials in the capital. After several days of torture, Li Zicheng was not disappointed. Li Zicheng only had more than 40 days in Beijing, and he actually received more than 30 million taels of silver, which was enough for several years of expenditure.
The results of the raid made Li Zicheng happy, but also made him suddenly think of the words that Chongzhen left on the imperial case before his death: "Wen Chen can be killed." This also made Li Zicheng convinced that these Ming Dynasty civil officials were indeed unreliable, and if they continued to be retained, wouldn't they also end up hanging themselves? So the order to kill was issued. Those officials who originally held the intention of joining the new dynasty actually ended up with a tragic death because of Chongzhen's "plan to kill people with a knife" before his death.
Of course, in order to publicize to the people the legitimacy of Da Shun's replacement of Daming, Li Zicheng fabricated a lie that these tens of millions of taels of silver were taken from the internal treasury to increase the people's hatred for Daming. Peng Sunyi broke a sentence in the "Pingkou Zhi": "The palace has long been like a wash ... Neinu has countless treasures. The proceeds of the thief's adulterous punishment are threatened to be obtained by the Great Interior, and the knowers hate it. ”
Mao Qiling also said in the "Later Records": Three-tenths of these silver two and three-tenths came from the Hou family, four-tenths came from eunuchs, and the others were palace dependents and estimators. Not a single bit comes from within. Li Zicheng put all the valuable utensils in the palace, including "Ding'er door knocker uranium wire embedded, stripped and stripped all over", all of which added up to "less than 100,000".