In Beijing's Jingshan Park, there is an old locust tree called "Sin Locust", next to the tree stands two stone stele, the stone stele is engraved "Ming Sizong Martyrdom Place", and the other stone stele is the "Monument to the Three Hundred Years of the Martyrdom of Ming Sizong" by Fu Zengxiang of the former Qing Dynasty.
It is said that Ming Sizong, the last Chongzhen emperor of the Ming Dynasty, used this tree to hang himself. However, careful people have found that the stone tablet here was originally engraved with "Chongzhen Emperor Himself Hanging", which was changed to "Ming Sizong Martyrdom Office" at some point, the former only explained the Chongzhen Emperor's suicide, while the latter had a strong praise color.
So, did the Chongzhen Emperor hang himself or martyr himself? On March 17, 1644, the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng invaded the capital, and the Chongzhen Emperor and his eunuchs stood on the Jingshan Mountain, looking at the flames outside the city, and could only sigh.
The eunuch Zhang Yin persuaded the emperor to surrender, Chongzhen returned to the palace to write an edict, explained the aftermath, and then ordered Empress Zhou, Yuan Guifei and 3 sons to enter the palace, under his instructions, Empress Zhou and Yuan Guifei successively hanged themselves, in addition, Chongzhen also personally wielded a sword and hacked a princess (Princess Changping had a broken arm but her life was saved) and many concubines.
On March 19, Li Zicheng's rebel army entered the city of Beijing, and Chongzhen rushed out of donghua gate on horseback with a three-eyed gun and dozens of eunuchs, but was unexpectedly stopped by random arrows; then ran to The Qihua Gate, and Zhu Chun, the Duke of Chengguo, closed the door; later turned to the Anding Gate, but saw that the defenders had locked the gate; returned to the palace and rang the bell in the front hall to gather hundreds of officials, but none of them came forward.
In this way, in the desperate situation and isolated and helpless, Chongzhen hanged himself on a crooked neck tree in Jingshan Mountain, and before he died, he wrote in a blue robe: "Since he ascended the throne for seventeen years, the rebel thieves directly approached the Beijing Division, although they were weak and bandits, they were angry, causing the rebels to directly attack the Beijing Division, but all the ministers mistakenly fell into it."
Death, faceless ancestors in the ground, to remove the crown, to cover the face. Let the thief split the corpse, and do not hurt the people. He was 33 years old. The Ming Dynasty, which had lasted for 276 years, also collapsed, and Chongzhen, the sixteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, never expected himself to become the king of the country, although the corruption within the Ming Dynasty before him was quite serious.
The intrusion of external Houjin also gradually escalated, but since the day he ascended the throne, he has worked hard to govern and dispose of the castration party, and he has never slackened off. No matter how hard the country has been accumulating shortcomings for a long time, no matter how hard it tries, it will not be able to turn the tide in the end From Chongzhen's will, we can see Chongzhen's stranglehold, self-blame, and hope that he can rely on his own death to ask for the lives of the people of the world.
Of course, his death had a profound impact on some patriots and doctors of the Ming Dynasty, setting up a "banner" for the Later Jin invasion and defeat of Li Zicheng, and in a sense, it had a positive role in promoting the establishment of the Qing Dynasty and the opening of a new era. Regardless of whether Chongzhen's self-hanging was a martyrdom or not, it has a positive significance of being unscrupulous and stealing, so it has been commemorated by posterity and repeatedly mentioned.