The author | our special guest author Zhu Yingyuejiang
"Asahisha" (formerly "We Love History") is the headline number signed group media
Word count: 2249, Reading time: 6 minutes
On March 18, 1777, Li Zicheng led the Dashun army to capture the city of Beijing, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself with grief and indignation, and the Ming regime fell into the darkest hour.
Under the chaos of the war, the publication of the newspaper was interrupted. The news of Chongzhen's martyrdom could only be spread along the canal line in the most primitive way, until between April 12 and 14 of that year, when the courtiers in Nanjing were shocked to hear the bad news of Tianzi.
The country could not be without a monarch for a day, and the officials of the six ministries, after consultation, jointly supported Zhu Yousong, the prince of Fu, as emperor, with the era name "Hongguang".
At this time, although the city of Beijing had been lost, the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty still had many advantages. In terms of economy, Jiangnan has always been the land of fish and rice, and taxes account for half of the country, and the Southern Ming regime does not have to worry about "money" at all; geographically, the Southern Ming regime is in a corner, while most of the wars at the end of the Ming Dynasty occurred in the north, and the southeast region controlled by the Southern Ming regime was relatively stable; militarily, according to the "Notes of the Three Walls", there were 800,000 people in Wuhan Zuo Liangyu, and Zheng Zhilong, the father of Zheng Chenggong, also had 200,000 troops on the southeast coast, in addition to 60,000 people in Nanjing Capital, 120,000 people in the four towns of Jiangbei, and 120,000 troops in the eight towns in the south.
Under various advantages, the Southern Ming regime could have fought a war with the enemy to restore the country, and even if it was not good, it could also rule by drawing the river. But no one expected that the Hongguang Emperor, who was supported by the courtiers, was too strange. When the enemy army hit the city, the Hongguang Emperor was still concerned about the concubines, the regime was about to collapse, and the Hongguang Emperor was only worried about whether the toad he let the palace people catch was caught.
A series of strange riotous operations, life and death let the Southern Ming small court in the case of taking advantage of the time and place, as soon as the start of the game let people explode. So, how many strange things did the Hongguang Emperor, who indirectly promoted the collapse of the regime, do?
01 Strange loser
Someone once said: "The small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty is not small, but it is a pity that it has met a strange loser." ”
When Hongguang ascended the throne, he held half of the world's taxes, and the capital of the Southern Ming Dynasty, Nanjing, had the Yangtze River Graben as a stronghold. The Hongguang Emperor only needed to take out some taxes to arm a few elite troops and lay out several lines of defense between the Huai River and the Yangtze River, and it would be difficult for anyone who wanted to conquer the city of Nanjing.
But Hongguang seems to have perfectly inherited the shortcomings of the Ming rulers. Organizing an army to kill the enemy is not enough, but he is very good at building a palace. As a result, a strange scene appeared in the city of Nanjing, the war outside the city was raging, the soldiers were bloodied in hundreds of battles, but there was a lively scene inside the city, and countless people were building the Xingning Palace and the Cixi Hall for the Hongguang Emperor and the Empress.
With a gorgeous palace, the Hongguang Emperor wanted to emulate the happy life of the ming rulers of the three palaces and six courtyards. To this end, on the one hand, he sent eunuchs to search for beautiful women and enrich the harem, on the other hand, he stepped up the search for the people's fat and people's ointment to create his own nest of comfort.
In addition to running errands, officials and officials of all sizes took advantage of the opportunity to amass wealth under the banner of Hongguang, forcing the people to suffer unspeakable. Many people have no money to bribe, and do not want their daughters to be spoiled, so they have to rush to the street to find people to match, and for a time in the Jiangnan area " day and night marriage, rich and poor, good and lowly, beautiful and ugly, old and young are wrong, the city is crazy, the road is crowded."
There are happy events every day, and there are cave houses everywhere. At that time, as long as it was a man, walking on the street at any time had the risk of "losing himself". Many girls who did not grab their husbands slowly would rather commit suicide than enter the palace, resulting in a sharp rise in the female suicide rate in a short period of time.
The girls' blood and tears were mixed with the sound of golden revolution on the battlefield, the lights in the city of Nanjing were colorful, the iron horses of the Qing army outside the city had broken through Yangzhou, the general Shi Kefa refused to surrender, the soldiers were defeated and killed, and the city of Nanjing was destroyed sooner or later.
When the news came, the officials of the six ministries panicked, and you and I discussed the strategy of resisting the enemy without saying a word. Speaking of excitement, the courtiers could not help but blame each other. Some people complained about the ineffective command of the military, some people rebuked the garrisons everywhere for sitting and watching the defeat of the imperial court soldiers but not rescuing them, and some courtiers simply moved their hands to beat each other in court, and for a time the sounds of fighting, anger, and persuasion became one.
In the midst of all the disturbances, the Hongguang Emperor suddenly shouted, "Stop! ”
The hall was silent. All the courtiers looked at the Hongguang Emperor together, full of thought that the emperor must have a good strategy to retreat from the enemy.
Who expected the Hongguang Emperor to say leisurely, "You Aiqing don't move, how is the matter of choosing concubines going?" ”
02 Toad Tianzi
It is no wonder that Zhang Dai once commented that he was "weak in Han Xian, demented by Liu Chan, and absurd in Yang Guang, merged into one person."
While keen on choosing a concubine, the Hongguang Emperor did not forget to make a "tonic" for himself. He ordered the beggars in Nanjing to catch the toad en masse, so that they could use the toad crisp on the toad to dispense medicine. Because beggars often wore lanterns when they caught toads, and the lanterns were written "Hunting Toads by Order", the Hongguang Emperor became the "Toad Heavenly Son" in the mouths of the common people.
Of course, the absurdity of the Hongguang Emperor was not only reflected in the selection of concubines, but also in the inability to distinguish between loyalty and adultery, and the reuse of Ma Shiying, Ruan Dacheng and other courtiers. After these traitors and petty men had great power in their hands, they wantonly sold officials and knights, and whoever bid high bid was made an official, and they did not care at all about the future of the country and the well-being of the people.
According to the "Luqiao Chronicle", under the chaotic government of Ma Shiying and others, the Hongguang regime appeared: "Zhongshu was everywhere, all of them were walking all over the streets, the discipline supervisors were like sheep, and the officials were as cheap as dogs." The strange phenomenon that the talent selection mechanism of the entire imperial court completely collapsed
There were many ills in the DPRK, but the Hongguang Emperor did not pay any attention to it, but instead fantasized about making friends with the Qing army. In the view of the Hongguang Emperor, the Chongzhen Emperor was forced to die by Li Zicheng, the Qing army was against Li Zicheng, and the enemy of the enemy was a friend.
Therefore, the Hongguang regime gorgeously launched the national policy of "borrowing the prisoners to destroy the Kou", that is, borrowing the strength of the Qing army to deal with the number one enemy, Li Zicheng.
Such a strange approach made the Qing commander Dolgun unable to look at it. On July 27, 177, Chongzhen, Dorgon asked General Nanming to write a letter to Shi Kefa, telling him not to take the Qing army as a friendly army, but to take the Qing army as the master.
Rao was so, the Hongguang Emperor still did not realize the seriousness of the problem. On the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve of the first year of Hongguang, the Hongguang Emperor looked thoughtfully at the sky. The eunuch next to him saw this and couldn't help but whisper to Emperor Hongguang: "Your Majesty, you seem to have something in mind, are you thinking of Lao Fu Wang and Emperor Chongzhen?" ”
Hongguang was stunned and replied, "I didn't think about them, I was thinking, the pear garden children in the palace don't have any outstanding people, or we have to quickly send someone to the sea to select new people." ”
With such a strange monarch, there is no reason why the Southern Ming regime will not perish. In the words of xia Wanchun, an anti-Qing righteous soldier, it is "the government of nandu (Nanjing), the smaller the size, the larger the officials, the fewer the counties, the more officials, the poorer the wealth, the richer the officials. Three anti-governments, wuhu does not die? ”
In the end, the Hongguang regime, which had taken advantage of the time and place, collapsed only a year after its establishment. The Hongguang Emperor himself was escorted to Beijing by the Qing army and executed the following year, leaving a mess in the land, wordlessly telling the rise and fall of the Southern Ming.
References: "Ming Dynasty Southern Sketch", "Southern Ming History", "Notes on Sanyuan", "Luqiao Chronicle", Liu Shu's "Attack on the Iron Horse: The Historical Moment of the Founding of the Great Qing Dynasty"
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