In 1644, the seventeenth day of the third month of the lunar calendar, the capital of the Ming Dynasty at this time, Beijing, lit a towering fire, and waited until the next night, when the Chongzhen Emperor and the eunuch Wang Cheng'en climbed the coal mountain, the reinforcements of Wu Sangui who were waiting for him did not arrive, at this time the peasant army had attacked the area around The Zhangyi Gate, for which Chongzhen could only sigh and sigh, that night he returned to the imperial palace, gave the death of Empress Zhou and Yuan Guifei and other concubines, on the 19th, Li Zicheng officially entered Beijing, Chongzhen rang the bell in the front hall to gather hundreds of officials, but none of them came, before he died, He couldn't help but sigh, "The ministers have mistakenly degenerated, the kingdom has died and the monarch has died, and the world of two hundred and seventy-seven years, once abandoned, is mistaken by the traitors, so that this is the case." Eventually, he and Wang Cheng'en came to Coal Mountain, and then hanged themselves until they committed suicide, ending their lives.
Up to now, it is still difficult to evaluate Chongzhen in the history books, some people believe that during his reign, the Ming Dynasty has been unable to return to heaven, and some people believe that various wrong practices during his reign have led to more terrible diligence than lazy government, which has contributed to the demise of the Ming Dynasty. However, what few people know is that although Chongzhen died, the big locust tree he hanged was also affected by the storm and was tied by chains for 200 years.
This has to be reviewed later in the story.
Li Zicheng entered Beijing, the first thing was to find the whereabouts of Chongzhen: "the emperor, the bounty, the earl; the hidden, the extermination", after 4 days of Hanging Chongzhen, the Dashun army found the corpse on the coal mountain, the initial practice was to remove it from the palace gate and put it in the Donghua Gate for public display, but Li Zi became a comforter to the people, and finally decided to bury it "with ceremonies", the coffin was placed on the river north of the Forbidden City, and then placed in the tomb of Tian Guifei by the residents of the city.
Li Zicheng did not stay in Beijing for many days, and then was defeated by Wu Sangui's Qing army, which is somewhat ironic that the Qing army, which was originally the opponent of the Ming Dynasty, entered the capital under the name of revenge for the Chongzhen Emperor.
The Shunzhi Emperor then ordered that the tomb of Tian Guifei, where the Chongzhen Emperor was buried, be rebuilt, that is, the later Siling, when he heard that Chongzhen was hanged on the big locust tree on the coal mountain, Shunzhi also had some feelings of "rabbit death and fox sorrow", in the spirit of enveloping the Han people, he immediately ordered it to be chained and called "sin locust", which means nothing more than to punish the sin of hanging the emperor by the locust tree, although this is somewhat far-fetched, but the "sin locust" was also properly dealt with by the Qing court, so that it still survived for 200 years. It became a famous landmark at that time.
In "Kangxi Dynasty", Kangxi angrily rebuked the courtiers with such a line: "Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian, hanged in coal mountains for only a few years?" That old crooked neck tree is still standing behind the palace, staring at you every day! "It's not out of thin air, but what is the fate of this locust tree in the end?"
In 1900, the Eight-Nation Alliance entered the city, and at the same time saw this crooked neck tree bound by iron chains, and for a while foreigners were puzzled. But considering that the chain may be a cultural relic, it was taken away, which made the tree a lot easier.
After that, the old locust tree still survived, and in 1956, the cultural relics department demolished the tree circle and changed it into a railing as a tourist attraction, unfortunately, in the special period of 1966, the young people who entered Beijing were stripped off as souvenirs, and the old locust tree died and became dead wood, until 1981, the staff transplanted a small locust tree to the same place, and waited until 1996, an ancient locust tree with a lifespan of more than 150 years became a replacement for newly transplanted saplings, and here, It will continue to witness the vicissitudes of history.