In 1644, Li Zicheng, the king of the Chuang Dynasty, attacked Beijing, and the Ming Dynasty, which had enjoyed more than two hundred years, came to an end. At this time, the old officials of the Ming Dynasty were busy with Li Chuang and wanted to keep their official positions, and there was only one eunuch left beside the Chongzhen Emperor, and the Chongzhen Emperor left a lamentable sentence before his death: "The emperor of the fallen country is not the king of the country, the subjects are the subjects of the country."
In the face of such a situation, the eunuch Wang Chen'en, who had been accompanying the Chongzhen Emperor, said: "If Zhongxian is there, current events will not end here", Zhongxian said that Wei Zhongxian, this sentence his brother Emperor Tianqi also said to Chongzhen before his death, use Wei Zhongxian well, the Ming Dynasty will not lose.
During the apocalyptic period, although Hou Jin was also a big problem, he did not break the king, and although the Ming Dynasty did not occupy an advantage in the northeast at that time, it never retreated on an acre and a third of the land, and it was not until the Chongzhen period that all the territory outside the Guanwai was lost.
So what is the routine of this Wei Zhongxian, who is known as the "castration party" in history, that can make Chongzhen remember his goodness before he dies:
The castration party and the Donglin party are in a state of fire, and it is indispensable to balance the court
For history, we often hear rumors that the Ming Dynasty died in party strife, but we have to ask the question again? Which time in all the dynasties has there not been a party struggle? The scourge of the Han Dynasty, the dispute over the throne in the Western Jin Dynasty, the Niu-Li Party dispute in the Tang Dynasty, and the old and new party struggles in the Song Dynasty are all vividly remembered.
When the ancient dynasties developed to a certain scale, it was bound to cause this phenomenon of party strife, a group of groups with the same interests gathered together to form a friend party, and in the face of this situation, the emperor would not sit idly by, so he would often cultivate another force to fight with it, which was party strife.
However, in the end, there is a degree, the scourge of the ming dynasty's demise is that the Donglin Party was too powerful in the later period, so that the emperor could not sway him, but on the contrary, he was swayed by the Donglin Party.
For example, the Chongzhen Emperor proposed to negotiate peace with Li Zicheng, but the Donglin Party opposed it, saying that the ancestral land could not be abandoned; it wanted to levy taxes on the gentry of Jiangnan, and the Donglin Party opposed it, saying that this was the law of the ancestors.
In short, as long as the emperor is in favor, the Donglin Party is opposed, and on the surface it is a public loyalty to the country, but in fact it has its own "small nine-nine", which is the essence of the Donglin Party.
In the face of this situation, the Emperor of the Apocalypse was very clever, although he was obsessed with carpentry, but the Apocalypse was not a fool, and he could naturally see that the Donglin Party was the only one above the court, so he supported Wei Zhongxian.
For the Donglin Party, Wei Zhongxian was an opponent who did not play according to the routine, he relied on the favor of the Emperor of the Apocalypse at that time, he could really be said to be a mighty blessing, and in ancient times, the handling of cases was conclusive, but Wei Zhongxian did the opposite, to see who did not like him and directly imprisoned him, the Donglin Party Zuo Guangdou and Yang Lian thus entered the frightening "Jinyi Guard".
In the face of this situation, the Donglin Party really had no way to do anything other than really only move its mouth above the court, because on the one hand, he relied on the emperor's thinking to do things, although the Donglin Party was powerful, but it could not fight against the emperor; on the other hand, this was the difference between Wei Zhongxian and the Donglin Party, the Donglin Party was more often in control of the public opinion offensive, and Wei Zhongxian belonged to the type of people who could try not to quarrel.
Therefore, the existence of Wei Zhongxian also belonged more to the balance of the Donglin Party, which the Emperor of The Revelation was very clear, so even though he knew that Wei Zhongxian was doing something wrong outside, he still did not replace Wei Zhongxian, because he needed Wei Zhongxian to balance the Donglin Party, which was the importance of Wei Zhongxian.
However, with the death of Wei Zhongxian, the Chongzhen Emperor was very delicate above the court, the castration party was eliminated overnight, the Donglin party was a pie in the sky, after which Chongzhen's ability could not suppress the Donglin Party, you said that the Ming Dynasty was controlled by a group of people who could only move their mouths, the Donglin Party, could the Ming Dynasty not perish?
Wei Zhongxian increased fiscal taxes and did not play cards according to the routine
Another important factor in the demise of the Ming Dynasty was the lack of money, because it coincided with the Xiaoice River period at that time, which led to a great drought in the world, but it happened that there was Houjin in the north and Li Zicheng's army in the west, and the Chongzhen Emperor had no money to suppress these, and eventually the Ming Dynasty collapsed under the internal and external conditions.
However, in the Apocalypse Dynasty before Chongzhen ascended the throne, although the Ming Dynasty was also in fiscal deficit, the Ming Dynasty never worried because it could not pay military salaries, on the contrary, although Wei Zhongxian acted recklessly, he really had a hand in managing money, and the Ming Dynasty really did not lack money in his hands.
Why did it only take more than ten years, when it came to the Chongzhen Emperor, that the Ming Dynasty had no money?
In the Ming Dynasty, the Donglin Party and the Jiangnan gentry were a group, because many of the Ming Dynasty's jinshi were from the rich places in Jiangnan, and those gentry in Jiangnan would increase their investment in these Donglin parties in order to protect their economic interests, which also made the Donglin Party and the financial merchants in Jiangnan firmly stand together, so the Chongzhen Emperor wanted to levy heavy taxes on the Jiangnan gentry, which was tantamount to cutting the meat of the Donglin Party. This is also the reason why the Donglin Party vigorously opposed the tax levied by the Chongzhen Emperor.
At that time, the Chongzhen Emperor could only rely on the Donglin Party, so in the face of the Donglin Party's public opinion offensive, he could only calm the anger, but Wei Zhongxian could not care about this set, he and the Donglin Party were already in a state of fire, and cutting flesh from the Donglin Party was something he himself was willing to see, because it was equivalent to weakening the strength of the Donglin Party in disguise.
For Wei Zhongxian, he knew that his backstage was the Emperor of the Heavenly Revelation, as long as he could meet the emperor's needs, and assuming that because of the ancestral family law of the Donglin Party, there was no industrial and commercial tax, so where did the huge expenditure of Houjin come from?
Therefore, at that time, Wei Zhongxian began to re-impose taxes on the gentry of Jiangnan in spite of the opposition of the Donglin Party, which directly hit the face of the Donglin Party, because they did not expect that Wei Zhongxian would actually play cards according to the routine, and in the past many emperors would retreat in order to appease the anger of the people and the ancestral family law, but Wei Zhongxian actually dared to oppose them.
Therefore, during the time of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, although Wei Zhongxian acted recklessly above the court, the nine-sided important town in the north never worried about money, which was wei Zhongxian's cleverness.
In order to gain the support of the Donglin Party, the Chongzhen Emperor insisted on killing Wei Zhongxian at that time without heeding the advice of the Emperor of the Apocalypse before his death, resulting in the Donglin Party dominating the court, and he was unable to support a new force to compete with it, and because of the lack of a money-making expert, the Ming Dynasty eventually collapsed.