In 1644, on March 19, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng led the newborn Dashun army into the city of Beijing, and the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian was unwilling to surrender and be humiliated, and before the Shun army invaded the Forbidden City, he went to Coal Mountain to martyr himself, and the only person who accompanied him to martyrdom was Wang Cheng'en, a close eunuch.
As for the Hundred Officials of Wenwu and the Jinyi Guards of the Heavenly Son's Army, there was no one around Chongzhen at that time, and naturally there was no one to accompany him to martyrdom, it is said that Chongzhen also rang a bell next to the main hall of the Forbidden City on the morning of the nineteenth to summon hundreds of officials to come, but none of them responded, and the desperate Chongzhen could only take Wang Cheng'en alone to hang himself.
During the seventeen years of the chongzhen emperor's reign, although the relationship with the civil and military officials was relatively tense, and there was only one eunuch waiting for him before his death, it was not very accurate to say that no one was willing to accompany him to martyrdom, after all, the Ming Dynasty had been established for nearly three hundred years, and it was impossible to have no loyal servants and filial pieties.
According to the Biography of the Ming Dynasty, when Li Zicheng's army entered Beijing, "Wenchen from Fan Jingwen and Xun Qi from Liu Wenbing, more than forty martyrs. The palace maid Wei Shi threw herself into the river, with more than two hundred followers. "The number of officials and noble martyrs is not much, there are not as many palace women as in the palace, but in Beijing, the overall number of officials is not weaker than the number of palace women."
Therefore, after the destruction of the city of Beijing, although there were dozens of civilian officials and xungui (plus their families, there could be hundreds of people) who followed Chongzhen after he was martyred, the overall number was slightly less than the huge number of officials in the city.
In addition, in documents such as the Ming Tongjian and the Records of Martyrdom, in addition to the wenchen and Xungui, there were dozens of people in Beijing who were military ministers in Beijing, as well as non-official readers (students, juren, students of the Guozijian, etc.), and their families who were martyred. However, this number is still relatively small, even if it is added up with the number of martyred courtiers and nobles, if they are not counted as their families, it is still not as much as the palace women.
There are many articles saying that after the destruction of Beijing, thousands of people were martyred, and this statistical number is estimated to be added to the number of families of all martyred officials, as well as the number of martyred officials and their families in towns around Beijing such as Baoding, there are really not so many martyrs in Beijing, among several cabinet ministers, only Fan Jingwen was martyred, how many people can be expected to follow?
Let's talk about the Jinyiwei, the Jinyiwei is a unique secret service agency of the Ming Dynasty, its power and responsibilities rank first in the comparison of the secret service agencies of the dynasties and dynasties, the power of the Jinyiwei is given by the Ming Emperor, and its identity also belongs to the "Tianzi Pro-Army", according to common sense, the Jinyiwei is one of the groups that should accompany the Chongzhen Emperor to resist to the end and martyr the country with his body.
However, at that time, Luo Yangsheng, the biggest leader of the Jinyi Guard, directly surrendered to Li Zicheng after the city was destroyed, and he surrendered with the jinyi guard, and naturally also surrendered with a large number of Jinyi wei brothers. In the Jinyi wei system, the highest-ranking official of martyrdom was Li Ruolian, the commander of the Nantang Commander Tongzhi (jinyiwei second in command, tongzhi generally set up two).
Li Ruolian was the defender of Chongwen Gate at that time, and after Chongwen Gate was breached, he committed suicide, leaving a last word before dying: "Death! That's what it is today. Pathetic! Why should it be known. The martyrdom of the second in command of the Jinyi Guard has left some face for the loyalty of the Jinyi Guard. There was also a Jinyi guard, Gao Wencai, who was martyred with seventeen members of his family.
Like Li Ruolian and Gao Wencai, such as the Jinyi guards (the non-real hereditary Jinyi guards are not counted, such as the martyrdom of the New City Hou Wang guoxing, who hung the position of jinyiwei commander), after the destruction of beijing, the martyrdom was a very small minority, there were Luo Yangsheng taking the lead, the majority surrendered, and the number of Jinyi guards martyrs and their status as "tianzi pro-army" did not quite match.
Many of the Jinyi guards who surrendered to Li Zicheng actually did not fall well, and many of them were killed in the "torture" campaign launched by Liu Zongmin later, and liu Zongmin's indicators for the Jinyi guards who surrendered at that time were at least thirty thousand two silver, and the cap was seventy thousand two silver, and the money was saved from death. Say no money? Liu Zongmin did not believe it at all, so he could only survive the punishment until he died.
Fortunately, the capitulation faction, including Jinyiwei, did not last long, and a month and a half later, Li Zicheng was defeated by the Qing army and Wu Sangui, and the Qing army entered Beijing, and they had a new dynasty to be loyal to, but for Jinyiwei, they really survived to the end, because the Qing Dynasty wanted to show differences from the Ming Dynasty, so Jinyiwei only existed in the Qing Dynasty for one year, and it was changed to "Luan Yiwei".
From this name, we can see the difference in nature and duties, and the Jinyi guards have become a simple honor guard. Did the Qing Emperor Need a Secret Service? It is definitely necessary that the famous "sticky pole office" is a secret service agency, but the Qing Dynasty is more likely to adopt the surveillance method of exposing each other among officials, calling it "secret folding", and entrusting most of the functions of the Jinyi guard to the officials themselves, at least nominally, the Qing Dynasty did not have the Jinyi guard, and it could also promote the elimination of the tyranny of the Ming Dynasty.
To sum up, after the fall of the Chongzhen Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, as far as the situation in Beijing is concerned, including the "Tianzi Pro-Army" such as Jinyiwei, there are not many civil and military officials, Xun Gui, etc., who accompanied the Chongzhen Emperor to martyrdom, perhaps because Chongzhen has always had a tense relationship with the official clique, or perhaps because as early as the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the wise people already knew that the Ming Dynasty was not long, and they had made psychological preparations in advance, and when they came to the fall of the country, they were still afraid of death.