Comrade | Guevara
The emperor's father-in-law, because of the relationship between their daughters, has been glorified and wealthy or consolidated power, and their fate is naturally in solidarity with the emperor, and once the empire is in a situation of life and death, it should be rescued. However, Zhou Kui, the father-in-law of the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian, was an "alternative", and the family wealth was not willing to spend a penny to save the country, and he also dedicated the prince to the Qing Dynasty, which was the most shameless ruler of the Ming Dynasty. So, why did Zhou Kui do this? How did he end up?
From fortune teller to abbot
Zhou Kui, born year and origin are unknown, south directly subordinate to Suzhou Province Wu County, later moved to the north directly subordinate to Daxing County, Shuntian Province, relying on face fortune telling to make a living, often set up stalls on Qianmen Street, but lived quite poorly. Fortunately, Zhou Kui has a good daughter, this girl is not only beautiful and gentle in temperament, but also studied with the famous Confucian Chen Renxi, and when she grew up, she knew the book and was quite literate, and she was a well-known intellectual beauty. In the end, Zhou Kui successfully turned over with his daughter.
Empress Zhou
In the sixth year of the Apocalypse (1626), Zhu Youjian, who was then the King of Xin, had reached the age of marriage, and because his parents had died of illness and his brother Ming Xizong was addicted to carpentry, Empress Zhang Yan presided over the selection of princesses as the eldest sister-in-law' surrogate mother. In the end, Empress Zhang chose Zhou Kui's daughter Zhou Kui among the many candidates, who was only 16 years old at the time. After Zhou became the Princess of Xin, Zhou Kui was rewarded by the imperial court and was appointed deputy commander of the Nancheng Terracotta Division, although it was only a fictitious position, but after all, he had a status.
In the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627), emperor Mingxizong, who had no heirs, died, and his brother Zhu Youjian succeeded to the throne, and only after one year did he become a princess of the Zhou clan and became an empress. After Zhou became empress, his father Zhou Kui was promoted to the position of state abbot, and his treatment and status were naturally promoted. Because Empress Wen Liang was virtuous and had a good position in governing the harem, the Chongzhen Emperor also took good care of the Zhou family, and in only two or three years, he promoted Zhou Kui to the position of Right Governor and Feng Jia Dingbo, and Zhou Kui's son was also promoted to DuDu Tongzhi.
Zhou Kui, as the head of the country, amassed a huge fortune
During the Ming Dynasty, the status of the Right Governor was second only to that of the Left Governor, and he was responsible for commanding the capitals and the outer capitals and the Guards, and was one of the highest military commanders of the Empire. However, Zhou Kui had no military talent, so the appointment was only a formality, and he really had no real power. Despite this, Zhou Kui was after all a member of the Zhengyipin And was the emperor's elder brother-in-law, and his influence in the official arena was still very large. Because of this, there were many high-ranking officials and nobles who had seduced and bribed him, and in just a few years, Zhou Kui had amassed an astonishing wealth.
2. Refusal to save the country
The reason why Zhou Kui was able to become a powerful and wealthy state official in just a few years from an anonymous fortune teller was all thanks to his son-in-law, Emperor Chongzhen. If Zhou Kui had a conscience, he should have helped the Chongzhen Emperor when he was facing a desperate situation, because only by keeping the "patron" from falling could the Zhou family not lose its glory and wealth. However, Zhou Kui was an "iron rooster" with a blind eye and a wealth as his destiny, because of a series of stupid actions, he brought ruin to the empire and the family.
Chongzhen Emperor
In January of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Li Zicheng proclaimed himself emperor in Xi'an, established the Dashun regime, and immediately led his army north, and it took only more than two months to reach the city of Beijing. During this period, in order to stop Li Zicheng, the Chongzhen Emperor ordered the emperor's relatives and princes and ministers to donate silver for military expenses, and assigned the eunuch Gao Ding to the Zhou Kui mansion to "borrow money". However, in front of Gao Ding, Zhou Kui played the trick of "one cry, two troubles, three tricks", claiming that there was no surplus money in the family, and was stunned that he would not pay a penny to save the country.
When Empress Zhou saw that her father was so miserly, she personally summoned him to reprimand him fiercely, but Zhou Kui still played lai, like a "dead pig" who was not afraid of boiling water. Empress Zhou had no choice but to secretly sell her gold and silver jewelry, and then ordered someone to take the five thousand taels of silver exchanged and give it to Zhou Kui, asking him to donate in his own name, so as not to let other imperial relatives and princes and ministers see the joke. Unexpectedly, after Zhou Kui received the silver two sent by his daughter, he privately withheld two thousand taels of them and only handed over three thousand taels to the imperial court.
Map of the situation of the peasant war at the end of the Ming Dynasty
In order to show that there was indeed no surplus money in the family, Zhou Kui also messed up the bricks and tiles on the house, and deliberately posted the news of selling the property at the door, but secretly hid the property. Not only that, Zhou Kui deliberately put on the most worn clothes when he went to the court, and abandoned the palanquin instead of walking, which can be described as extremely shameless. Other relatives of the emperor and the princes and ministers saw that the emperor had done this, and they also followed suit, playing tricks and acting in front of the emperor, and when they had no choice, they were willing to give donations ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 taels.
Three, there is more than enough to die
The Chongzhen Emperor was busy, and finally only raised 130,000 taels of silver, of which a considerable part came from the imperial palace, which was tantamount to a drop in the bucket for the military operation against Li Zicheng. Unable to receive sufficient salaries, the Ming generals were distraught, and surrendered or collapsed as soon as they came into contact with the Dashun army, causing the latter to attack Beijing almost without bloodshed, on March 18 of that year. After Li Zicheng entered the capital, Empress Zhou and the Chongzhen Emperor knew that there was no way back, and they were not spared from being humiliated after being captured, so they committed suicide and martyrdom one after another, and the Ming Dynasty fell to this point.
Liu Zongmin
After Li Zicheng entered Beijing, he ordered the general Liu Zongmin to imprison and torture the Ming dynasty's widows in order to recover the stolen goods and demand wages. At first, Zhou Kui, like the Chongzhen Emperor, claimed in front of Liu Zongmin that the imperial court had not paid a salary for half a year, and that the family was already poor and could not come up with a single penny. Liu Zongmin did not eat this set, and since Zhou Kui refused to obediently take the money, he tortured and humiliated his wife and daughter-in-law, and eventually forced the two to hang themselves, and then killed Zhou Kui's son. Immediately afterward, Liu Zongmin tortured Zhou Kui and forced him to hand over a huge amount of property.
Under severe torture, In order to save the dog's life, Zhou Kui could only hand over his family property to the Dashun regime. According to historical records, among the family property handed over by Zhou Kui, there were as many as 520,000 taels of silver alone, in addition to hundreds of thousands of treasures and treasures, and the total value was really amazing ("Zhou Kui copied 520,000 silver, and the precious coins were hundreds of thousands, and everyone was fast. See Ming Dynasty North Blok, Vol. XX). Relying on this huge donation, Zhou Kui was lucky to save his life, but since then he has broken his production and become the laughing stock of the world.
Dolgun
Soon after, Li Zicheng was expelled from Beijing, and zhou kui, who was at the helm of the wind, surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, and handed over zhu Cixiu, the crown prince whom the Chongzhen Emperor had sent to the Zhou family for refuge, as a "meeting gift" for loyalty. At first, Dorgon was quite good to Zhou Kui, and rewarded him with a hundred horses of satin and a hundred silver in the name of the emperor. However, the good times did not last long, and the Qing court soon claimed that the Ming prince was a "fake" and used this as an excuse to execute Zhou Kui (for details, see "Records of the Emperor of the Great Qing Dynasty (Shunzhi) Volume VII"). This extremely shameless ruler finally ended up like this, and he deserved it.
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