For the fate of the Ming Dynasty, there is a sentence that is very vivid: "A bowl at the beginning, a rope at the end" . It is true that Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, who was known as the most righteous person in the country, fell to holding a broken bowl and begging for food everywhere when he was most depressed.
As the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youjian, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, took a rope and martyred himself under the crooked neck tree of coal mountain when the country was broken. Before his death, the Chongzhen Emperor, who was diligent and loved the people but had a bumpy fate, left his last words on the costume.
In his last words, while lamenting the reasons for the defeat of the Ming Dynasty, he begged Li Zicheng's rebel army to mistakenly injure the people of the capital. It is worth mentioning that some experts have found that the Ming Dynasty wrote 2 letters to the Portuguese, and these two letters also revealed the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
Bo De's bandit Chongzhen was no match for Shanggan Tian's anger
Chongzhen believes that the biggest reason for the demise of daming is the natural disasters that have been repeated for many years, and he uses "Shanggan Heavenly Anger" as the first reason in his last words.
This objective factor is sufficient and helpless. In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters reached the point where they were everywhere and continued for years. Take the record of the disaster in the Ganshan area in the "Chronicle of the Continuation of The County of Hannan":
In the first year of Chongzhen, the whole Shaanxi sky was as red as blood, five years of great famine, six years of great water, seven years of autumn locusts, great famine, eight years of September drought in Xixiang, slightly Yang waterlogging, all the people's houses were gone, nine years of drought locusts, ten years of autumn grass was nothing, eleven years of summer flying locusts covered the sky. Thirteen years of drought, fourteen years of drought...
The famine caused by natural disasters has made the people unhappy, and there are even tragic scenes of changing children and eating. In this case, the victims began to wander to various places to be thieves and bandits, and they did nothing wrong in order to kill people and goods in one bite.
What's more, the Ming court, which believed that it had more than enough and was insufficient, was extremely incompetent, and only by overthrowing it could the people have a chance to survive. As a result, like Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, peasant rebels who wanted to overthrow the imperial court appeared in many places.
The local people's livelihood was boiling, uprising and rebellion, and the people in the capital also had a very difficult life, because the "apocalyptic explosion" caused countless casualties and heavy losses in the Ming capital, and the reconstruction after the disaster was not completed after Chongzhen succeeded to the throne.
In the face of these exaggerated natural disasters, even the Qin King Han Wu could not help it again, let alone the Chongzhen Emperor. Although the Chongzhen Emperor took the lead in frugality, he ate two meals a day, ate a meal of porridge, and wore torn clothes sewn by the empress, but he had a cup of water and a salary, which did not help.
Chongzhen makes people anxious about the ability to govern, and the poor use of people
In stating the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen aimed the spearhead at the "incompetent" courtiers under his hands, so let's take a look at the sins of these courtiers at home and abroad.
In the face of internal and external troubles, chongzhen attacked the eunuch party headed by Wei Zhongxian as soon as he came to power, and rectified the rule of officials. With the withdrawal of the castration party from the stage of history, the Donglin party held the right to speak in the Ming Dynasty. However, "a hundred useless students are scholars", and the Donglin Party can be described as a collective wisdom and talent in cracking down on the castration party.
But when dealing with imperial politics or proposing effective policies to Chongzhen, they were as amateurish as laymen. As a result, the situation that was originally barely supported by the castration party was broken by this Gang of Donglin Party, which only intimidated the emperor and political enemies by saying nothing, and the country fell into a crisis of defeat.
The Donglin Party not only caused internal troubles in the Ming Dynasty, but also in the process of confrontation with the Manchu Qing in the northeast region, it was also a constant disturbance, and the most ill-caused to future generations should be the murder of Yuan Chonghuan.
In the face of Yuan Chonghuan, who adopted special methods and even exceeded the rules in the face of the special period, this gang of corrupt Confucian Emperor Chongzhen, who also adhered to stereotypes, impeached Yuan Chonghuan. The end result was to slash this outstanding Shubian general with a thousand knives.
Yuan Chonghuan was killed, and a group of anti-Qing generals such as Hong Chengzuo, Cao Wenzhao, Chen Qiyu, and Yang Sichang were implicated, making the situation in the northeast change from passive to uncontrollable, directly promoting the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.
While Chongzhen misused the Donglin Party within the dynasty and brought turmoil to the korean situation, the central government's management of the localities also got out of control. The Daming generals who suppressed bandits in the northwest began to have their own little "nine nines" in the face of the weak and incompetent central government.
The imperial court went all out to allocate grain and wages to support them in suppressing bandits, but they supported the army and respected themselves, and in the name of suppressing bandits, they wantonly levied and extorted violence to expand their strength.
This situation was exaggerated to the point that when Li Zicheng's early uprising failed and faced with the disaster of extinction, the Ming generals were afraid that their strength would decline after cutting down the peasant uprising and eradicating the grass and not getting the support of the central government, so they chose to let Li Zicheng return to the mountains.
This kind of riotous operation led to the Ming Dynasty's national strength being mired in the quagmire of suppressing bandits, and even if Chongzhen tightened his pants and belt to live, he could not avoid the situation of not making ends meet.
The rebel army led by Li Zicheng gradually grew stronger under the disguised protection of these generals, and finally turned into a sharp knife inserted into Daming's chest and killed the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, before Chongzhen died, it was not unreasonable to put the pot of the subjugated country on the heads of the workers who served Daming in those imperial courts. But "one soldier bears one, and one will bear a nest", isn't this group of incompetent ministers who have destroyed the country chosen by you Chongzhen?
In the face of the chaotic world, Chongzhen used the wrong strategy for governing the country, chose the wrong minister to govern the country, and the biggest subjective reason for his defeat was actually himself. But the fall of the Ming Dynasty was all attributed to Chongzhen, which was unfair to Chongzhen.
Throughout Chongzhen's life, he was not as covetous as Wanli, he was not as obsessed with immortality and seeking alchemy as Jiajing was; he was more tyrannical and murderous like the ancestors of Daming.
But his mediocrity and conformism harmed himself and Daming, and we can see this in his later correspondence with Portugal.
2 letters were found in Portugal
In the last century, two letters were found in Portugal, and the content of the letters can well reflect the defeat and fall of the Ming Dynasty and the reasons for its demise, and the content of the letter is roughly as follows:
First: Since Macao is the territory of the Great Emperor, it should serve in this hurry to thank the Emperor for his grace. Second: we have faith in God until, with their coming, the war will soon end. The success of this event will have a positive impact on the spread of Catholicism in Macao and China.
According to the contents of the letter, experts found that the letter was written by Xu Guangqi, a minister at the end of the Ming Dynasty, to the Chongzhen Emperor. In the letter, Xu Guangqi conveyed to the Chongzhen Emperor that the Portuguese who occupied Macau wanted to help Chongzhen suppress the peasant revolt and fight against the Manchu Qing.
At the same time, Xu Guangqi also said that the Portuguese sent troops to help Daming retreat from the enemy, and in return, hoped that the Chongzhen Emperor would cede Macao to Portugal and allow Catholicism to be promoted throughout the country.
Although this letter expresses portugal's willingness to help Daming, it hides the wolf ambitions of colonizing the land, and Xu Guangqi, as a minister of the Ming Dynasty, can certainly see the impure motives of the Portuguese.
However, in the face of the imminent defeat of Daming, preserving daming is the top priority at the moment, and all the details can be slowly resolved after the national difficulties are lifted.
Moreover, Xu Guangqi was a devout Catholic, and his teacher was Matteo Ricci, who had a deep understanding of advanced weapons and combat methods in the West.
If the Chongzhen Emperor had adopted his advice and allowed the Western military to intervene, the Ming Dynasty's war crisis would most likely have been lifted by firearms brought by the Westerners.
However, the outcome of the matter was not as ideal as described in Xu Guangqi's letter, and the Chongzhen Emperor did not take his and the Portuguese advice to let the West intervene in the internal affairs of Daming. In the end, Daming perished in natural and man-made disasters, foreign invasions, and peasant uprisings.
In other words, from the perspective of that time, Chongzhen was very wrong not to let the Western powers meddle in China's affairs, which was unacceptable to many Ming officials. However, from the current point of view, this choice is correct, the Western powers will not help China for no reason, modern people are very respected, Chongzhen did the right thing.
Because what they are thinking in their hearts is absolutely how to colonize China, how to exploit the Chinese people, the invasion of China by the modern powers, and the history of colonization in China is the best proof.
Therefore, no matter what era, Chinese affairs should be resolved by Chinese, and China's internal affairs will never allow interference by other countries, which is also one of the diplomatic principles we now adhere to.