I admit that Chongzhen was a very industrious emperor, a very kind emperor, and a very responsible emperor. But at the same time he was also a very immature emperor.
Relatively speaking, Chongzhen is more like a lotus flower that comes out of the mud and is not stained, but this lotus flower is placed on the emperor's seat, and the fart is not top.
It is precisely because of this that the Ming Dynasty has Chongzhen is a tragedy of two aspects, on the one hand, the tragedy of the Chongzhen Emperor himself, and on the other hand, it is also the tragedy of the entire Ming Dynasty.
From beginning to end, whether it is internal and external troubles, natural disasters and man-made disasters, or barbarian invasions in the north, all factors are not enough to destroy the Ming Empire, and there are many measures and measures that can save the world.
Unfortunately, the Chongzhen Emperor was all circumvented one by one.
Logically, such an emperor must not be a good emperor, but it turns out that Chongzhen does not seem to be as bad as we think, and before the Chongzhen Emperor died, what was still in mind was the world of Daming and the people of Daming.
When the Chongzhen Emperor faced an irreparable tragedy, he did not willingly go to the ranks as a prisoner like other emperors, but ended the rest of his life by committing suicide.
So for the Chongzhen Emperor, I can only say that I respect him, but he is not a good emperor, why?
There are several reasons for this:
Point 1: The Chongzhen Emperor was too hesitant
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor had two roads to walk in front of him, and no matter which of these two roads he took, he could walk out of a kangzhuang avenue.
But the Chongzhen Emperor went out of his way, and he wanted to go two ways together, the main purpose of which was to protect his reputation. It was precisely because of the back and forth hesitation of the Chongzhen Emperor that it eventually led to an irreparable ending.
As we all know, when Chongzhen was emperor, there were actually two contradictions faced by the whole country, the first contradiction was an external contradiction, and the second contradiction was an internal contradiction.
At that time, the Ming Dynasty said that it had no qi number, it was pure nonsense, no matter which contradiction was resolved, the Ming Dynasty could continue to persist, as for how long it could go, everything could only rely on Providence.
At that time, because of various natural disasters at the end of the Ming Dynasty, many ordinary people in China could not afford to eat. At the same time, the country has to carry out a series of marching operations, and if you want to march and fight, you must have money, where does this money come from?
They could only continue to go to the people for it, so more and more people began to strike.
We ran out of money, and when we asked for it again, we started to turn again. So more and more ordinary people began to put down the tools of their crops, and instead picked up all kinds of iron tools, and began to kill the army of the Ming Empire.
This part of the population, we can collectively call the displaced people.
At the same time, there are also various enemies in the north of the Ming Dynasty, and this part of the enemy we can directly replace with the Manchu Qing, anyway, sooner or later the Manchu Qing will become the Qing Dynasty, and it does not matter what name they give them.
The enemies in the north must fight with the Ming Dynasty, and the enemies in the south must also fight with the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty is caught in the middle of this two sides.
At this time, the Chongzhen Emperor was preparing to negotiate peace, with whom?
It's with the people of the North.
However, at this time, some courtiers of the Ming Dynasty pedanticly believed that even if the people in the north were more powerful in their weapons, they were just barbarians, and negotiating peace with barbarians really hurt the style of the Ming Dynasty.
In addition, all kinds of remarks have emerged, and some people believe that if it is to negotiate peace with the north, it means that the Ming Dynasty has completely lost its backbone and will become the second Southern Song Dynasty.
In fact, it is better to become the second Southern Song Dynasty, because the Ming Dynasty cannot last for several years.
Logically, something like this, the Chongzhen Emperor could just make a decision alone, and he could do whatever he wanted, but the Chongzhen Emperor was also afraid that if he negotiated peace with the north, although the north could temporarily pacify it, how would the officials of the DPRK and the central government think of themselves? What will the people think of themselves?
Therefore, the Chongzhen Emperor secretly instructed Yang Sichang to make this opinion when he was in the upper dynasty.
As a result, at this time, he encountered another person's refusal - Hong Chengyu.
They said it in the right way, and if it were to surrender, I would not agree.
But in fact, as a general, you can clearly express your views, and in the end, only the Chongzhen Emperor is the only one who really makes the decision.
But the Chongzhen Emperor was too frightened and too concerned about his own reputation, so he agreed with the warlord's statement.
Since then, the Ming Dynasty has suffered from two-front combat, with annual military expenditure reaching more than 20 million yuan, and the country has reached a serious economic deficit.
As for the economic deficit during the reign of the feudal dynasty, it almost determined that the entire country was incurable.
Point 2: Messed up
It is reasonable to say that any country will have a time to march and fight, even when the Song Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty have to fight when it is time to fight. When you encounter this situation, you can deal with it as you want.
If you can't deal with the problem, just punish the person who dealt with the problem.
The Chongzhen Emperor thought the same thing, but no one thought that the Chongzhen Emperor had handled a group of people who handled the problem.
Moreover, the group of people dealt with by the Chongzhen Emperor had great official titles and great influence, which directly led to almost no one available in the later period of the Chongzhen Emperor.
Anyone who wants to do something under Chongzhen is not to serve the imperial court, but how to survive.
For example, when the Chongzhen Emperor held power, 7 governors were killed and 11 inspectors were killed.
If you are not familiar with this period of history, or are not familiar with the composition of the official ranks of the Ming Dynasty, it is strongly recommended that you first briefly understand what the governor did.
If nothing else, the governor of any place, in any dynasty, who wants to move, must think left and right, minimize the losses as much as possible, and find replacements at the first time.
Only then is there a certain probability that the governor will be arrested and imprisoned, please note that this is talking about arrest and imprisonment rather than direct murder.
But the Chongzhen Emperor didn't think so at all, in the mind of the Chongzhen Emperor, I saw that you were becoming more and more suspicious, and since it was suspicious, it had to be destroyed.
The most aggrieved of these may be Yuan Chonghuan, because the Chongzhen Emperor killed Yuan Chonghuan because of Hou Jin's counter-plan.
Everyone knows that it is a taboo to change soldiers before war, it is reasonable to say that it is almost time to fight, the country is to the time of life and death, this time you suddenly come with others twice, ordinary people can not stand it.
But the Chongzhen Emperor resisted, and to be precise, he had to resist if he couldn't stand it, and if he couldn't resist it at this time, he would finish the calf.
Therefore, the whole Ming Dynasty fell into an extremely delicate state, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was particularly anxious, the ministers were also particularly anxious, the Ming Emperor was anxious about whether the Ming Dynasty would collapse, and the ministers were anxious about whether the Chongzhen Emperor would kill me.
People on both sides are not on the same line at all, and it is a bit of a fool's dream to expect this war to be won.
Point 3: The heart is not fierce and unstable
If the Chongzhen Emperor had been fierce, the Ming Dynasty would not have been like this.
Why do I say that?
It was because after the Chongzhen Emperor had been in power for 3 to 5 years, the Ming Empire had problems.
The core of this problem is still no money, to put it bluntly, the whole middle and late Ming Dynasty, it has always been in an embarrassing state of asking for money and not asking for a lot of people.
Moreover, Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants can be said to be more and more, and these people still have to let the Chongzhen Emperor feed them.
According to incomplete statistics, when Chongzhen became emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants had already reached as many as 1 million. Of course, it is unknown whether this data is true or false, but it is undoubtedly a great burden for the entire Ming Dynasty.
Soldiers marching in front, and there is no pay for these soldiers in the rear, will the soldiers still fight for your lives?
Therefore, in the late Ming Dynasty, it will be found that more and more soldiers began to surrender and began to defect to the enemy in the north or directly with the displaced people.
In this case, the Chongming Emperor realized that although he had no money, the officials had money. So the Chongzhen Emperor decided to borrow money from some officials in the imperial court, and this line of thinking was no problem.
In fact, if the Chongzhen Emperor could implement this line of thinking at that time, perhaps the Ming Dynasty would still be saved.
But I did not expect that on the second day after the Chongzhen Emperor finished saying this, the Manchu Courtiers of Wenwu were all dressed in patched clothes, knelt on the top of the court, and cried to the Chongzhen Emperor, saying that they did not have a dime.
Incredibly, the Chongzhen Emperor actually believed these officials, believing that they had no money.
It should be known that later the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself, and when the enemy broke into the city of Beijing, he beat these officials one by one, and finally earned countless silver and various rare antiques from them.
If the Chongzhen Emperor realized this at that time, directly closed the door, and did not want to go out alive if he could not come up with money, perhaps tens of millions of taels of silver would be presented immediately.
And these tens of millions of taels of silver are enough to make the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty have a full meal, and there is absolutely no problem in fighting a war for two whole years.
In this way, if we survive natural disasters and then get rid of man-made disasters, turn two-front operations into front-line operations, and finally completely defeat the enemy, then the probability should not be a big problem.
However, the Chongzhen Emperor did not do this, and could only say that the Qi of the Ming Dynasty had been exhausted.
As for the Chongzhen Emperor, we can only say that he is not a good person nor a bad person. You say he's kind, he's really kind, you say he's hardworking, and he's really hardworking.
But no matter what he said, good or bad, in short, he was not fit to be emperor.
Especially when the country is in crisis, it is not suitable to be an emperor.
If it was in ordinary times, perhaps Chongzhen would be a great emperor.