The penultimate emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Mingxizong, died of illness and medicine, and because he had no heirs to inherit the throne, he was finally succeeded by his younger brother Zhu Youjian with the title of Chongzhen. A year before Zhu Youguan became emperor, nurhaci, the later jin tyrant in the north, died, and his eighth son, Emperor Taiji, succeeded to the throne and began to take over his father's weapons and continue to attack the Ming Dynasty. And Zhu Youjian, the Chongzhen Emperor, he was not idle, and at the beginning of his ascension to the throne, he began a drastic reform, hoping to save the Ming Dynasty, which was already in decline, with the strength of the emperor.
However, the problem faced by the Chongzhen Emperor can be described as the most difficult problem in history, and the Chongzhen Emperor himself was also honored as the most difficult emperor among the emperors of all the dynasties. When he first came to power, it coincided with China's fifth Xiaoice Sichuan period, and there was a long-term drought. Just after the great drought, before the people could catch their breath, a nationwide plague broke out, which lasted until the Qing Dynasty established imperial power. At the same time, the Imperial Taiji Offensive in the north intensified, and the peasant army led by Li Zicheng in the southwest also became more and more powerful. It can be said that the dynasty that the Chongzhen Emperor took over was a dynasty full of drawbacks and the general trend had gone.
And the poor Chongzhen Emperor, although he had been serious about governing the country all his life, eventually fell under the attack of danger everywhere. Next, let's walk into the Chongzhen years together and take a look at the huge problems faced by the Chongzhen Emperor in that era. The first is intra-State issues. The famous Wei Zhongxian dictatorship incident, the repeated mutilation of loyal subjects, the continuous unjust, false and wrongly decided cases, and the corruption of the entire imperial court are heinous. In this environment, even if the Chongzhen Emperor wanted to make a bold move, he was blocked step by step by the ministers below, and the final harvest was minimal, and the problem of corruption and corruption intensified.
In addition to the internal affairs of the imperial court, the problems that most made the Chongzhen Emperor feel haggard were the following four. First, as soon as Chongzhen ascended to the throne, China entered the Xiaoice River period, a period in which natural disasters are recorded in various history books, and this natural disaster, which lasted for a full decade, caused more harm than any other period of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. In other words, the Chongzhen Emperor alone took all the tribulations on his own head. If we only talk about ten years, we may only think of this concept of natural disasters that lasted for a very long time, but it should be known that this decade accounted for 58.8% of the Chongzhen years, that is, after Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, the country was basically suffering disasters, or repairing disasters. The natural disasters in the past ten years have had a huge impact on the lives of ordinary people, taking the locust plague as an example, directly causing the people to eat the soil and swell to death in the end, and there are ordinary people who starve to death everywhere in the people.
This has also caused a series of chain reactions, such as the growing peasant army of Li Zicheng. The common people know that there is only one way out of starvation in this way, so it is better to follow the peasant uprising. It was in this situation that Li Zicheng's power grew larger and larger, becoming a force that seriously threatened the throne. Second, the natural disaster showed signs of improvement, and then the fierce plague began, and the people did not have time to recover their lives, and continued a new round of suffering, especially in Hebei Province. According to the historical records, the whole of Hebei Province fell into the panic of the plague, and at that time, the locust plague in Hebei had not yet passed, and the double fatal blow directly caused all the people to hover on the brink of life and death. A few months later, the fierce plague in Hebei even spread to the capital, and even countless people died in the capital. In general, the mortality rate of the Ming Dynasty people in this plague exceeded 40%, and the whole was a purgatory on earth.
This plague also brought ruin to the Ming army, and even the sentries on the walls of the capital city, which were originally guarded by three posts and one person, were replaced by one person. And the most important thing that makes people lose their teeth is that these natural disasters and plagues are all over when the Qing Dynasty has just entered the customs. Third, the great threat exerted by Huang Taiji in the northeast. When the Ming Dynasty suffered natural disasters, the Houjin in the north were frantically developing their own power, and during the Imperial Taiji period, the Houjin was changed to "Great Qing" and officially began to invade Daming.
Emperor Taiji not only occupied Korea as a vassal state in the north to solve the troubles in the rear, but also launched a large-scale attack on the northern border of the Ming Dynasty, causing Chongzhen to have to shift the strength of the brigade from the battlefield against the peasant army to the battlefield against the Qing army. In the Songjin War, which determined the fate of the Ming Dynasty, the Qing army eliminated the last strong army of the Ming Dynasty in one fell swoop, and the entire defense line of the Ming Dynasty was completely destroyed. After that, the Ming Dynasty faced the Qing army and was almost defeated in battle.
Fourth, the continuous development of Li Zicheng's rebel army. After Li Zicheng was laid off, he began a peasant uprising, rose rapidly by virtue of the advantages brought by natural disasters, and even declared himself emperor in Xi'an, fighting against the Ming army for many years, and destroying the agriculture of the Ming Dynasty. Li Zicheng entered the pass before the Qing army, and finally forced the Chongzhen Emperor to hang himself for the sake of dignity. The Chongzhen Emperor was not a emperor, but unfortunately, the dangers he faced during his reign were too many, and eventually forced the Ming Dynasty to die in a corner.