The history of China is shocking and fascinating.
Yang Yang Huaxia
Five thousand years, a long history, there are too many stories in this. There are high mountain flowing water
The joy of knowing the sound
There are also the mighty heroes who have broken the boundaries, and there are also the mighty ones
Baume & Mercier
......
However, when it is really explored, the main content of Chinese history should still be the feudal dynasty
History of rise and fall
。 There are those who covet beauty and misuse the country, there are those who build a large number of civil engineering projects and disregard the people's livelihood, and there are foreign enemies who invade and destroy the country.
But when it comes to dynasties that were destroyed by poor death, the emperor asked the ministers to borrow money to fight wars, and the ministers: If you die, you will die.
This dynasty is the Ming Dynasty.
First, the accumulated shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty
In order to strengthen military power, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang abolished Zhongshu Province in the central government.
Establish three divisions
, this behavior can be said to be extremely effective. again
Zhu Yuanzhang also added a rule that internal ministers could not interfere in the affairs of the court, and also erected an iron plate at the entrance of the imperial palace, and those who violated this rule were beheaded.
Unfortunately, he shouldn't have let it at the time
Zhu Di
There is military power.
Zhu Di forced Zhu Yunwen to abdicate, and also founded the East Factory, which opened the history of the Ming Dynasty's reuse of eunuchs.
Although he was for better overseers, eunuchs were not so controlled.
Until the Chongzhen Emperor ascended the throne at the age of 16 and vigorously eliminated the castration party,
Bearing the burden of humiliation, he seized the opportunity to eliminate the then high-powered 9,000-year-old Wei Zhongxian and his henchmen, re-straightened out the unjust case, and reappointed the deposed officials. Unfortunately, Chongzhen finally had no one to use because of the official struggle
Re-enable
eunuch.
The eunuchs disturbed the environment of the Ming court, of course, this is one aspect, but it is not the root cause.
In the end, it is because of the alliance of the party for personal gain, the ministers hugging each other, resulting in a power struggle based on the group, and the power controlled by the officials is very strong, and the rights of some officials even exceed the emperor
And therefore, they were to the emperor
There is no reverence at all
。
External pressure is also not small, during the reign of the Chongzhen Emperor, droughts, locust plagues, floods and so on
Disasters are frequent
，
The people have no food, even the weeds on the mountain must be rushed to eat, after eating the weeds, eating the bark, eating the bark, can only eat the Guanyin soil, and finally bloat and die,
So farmers
Uprisings are frequent
, crazy consumption of the power of the Ming court.
In 1644, Li Zicheng attacked the capital, and the momentum was extremely strong, and he was invincible.
Li Zicheng was through hundreds of battles, and was suppressed by the Ming court more and more prosperous, so the situation continued, which led to the crisis faced by the Ming Dynasty getting bigger and bigger.
The capital city is in jeopardy, and it is time for life and death.
Compared with the grand Li Zicheng, the Ming Dynasty is already
The wind and rain are shaky
Externally, there was a Jurchen invasion, and internally there was a peasant uprising, and the Chongzhen Emperor was
Burned
。 However, this is not the biggest problem.
The biggest problem is the economic problem,
After years of attrition to pacify the chaos of war, the Treasury of the Ming Dynasty was empty, and there was no money to support officers and soldiers, and it was impossible to continue fighting. however
The threat posed by Li Zicheng is already imminent.
Second, all the courtiers refused
In order to
Raising salaries
The Chongzhen Emperor tried everything he could, such as reducing the use of the palace and reducing the number of palace people; his dragon robe was broken, and he only repaired it to continue to wear; and put the gold, silver and copper items in the palace
Act as a pay pawn
; to change the objects used by the canonized relatives of the emperor from pure gold to gilded.
All these things, do your best, but still
Bucket
。 The Chongzhen Emperor did not feel that he had set his sights on the family wealth of the princes and ministers, and at the same time,
Xue Guoguan, the first assistant of the Practical Faction, offered him a message proposing that he could borrow money from the magnates and encourage them to donate to the army.
Saying goes
It is better to be a peaceful dog than to mess with the world
。 This is especially true for the powerful, whose lives and property will be greatly affected by the chaos of the country
effect
。 At such a time, in principle, it is only right to be generous and dedicate oneself to the country.
The reality is that it was rejected miserably,
The Chongzhen Emperor demanded that the magnates and ministers donate materials to the state treasury to support the front-line army, and stipulated that the amount of more than 30,000 taels was superior.
But the magnates and ministers cried bitterly and said that they had no money, and even if they could donate, they would not be able to donate much.
Thirty thousand taels is not a big deal of money for these people.
However, no one even donated this number, the highest is only 20,000, most of them are dozens of hundreds, this time
The donation initiated by the emperor ended up raising only 200,000 taels.
In order not to donate, the group of ministers frequently came out in a variety of ways, pretending to be poor and bitter.
There are those who deliberately write about selling houses on the door wall of houses, there are also those who pretend to bring antiques to the market for sale, and even more,
For example, zhou kui, the abbot of the state, and the Chongzhen Emperor, in order to persuade him, first promoted him to the rank of marquis, and also specially sent the eunuch Xu Gao to convey the holy will, intending to exchange this as an exchange, so that he could donate 100,000 taels.
Zhou Kui cried bitterly, crying that his family was poor, and could only buy moldy rice to eat, and was only willing to donate 10,000 yuan.
Zhu Youjian asked him to donate 20,000 yuan, and he complained to his daughter for help.
Empress Zhou
Believing it to be true, he handed him five thousand taels of silver that he had saved for many years, and persuaded his father to set an example, who expected,
Zhou Kui coveted two thousand taels and handed over the remaining three thousand taels, which was extremely ugly!
The operation of the group of ministers, Chongzhen naturally saw it in his eyes and began to force.
Wu Qinghou was forced to die by Chongzhen for refusing to donate silver, and for a time everyone was in danger. So they colluded with the eunuchs, took advantage of the illness of the fifth prince, pretended to be a ghost, scared him to death, and threatened to kill all the princes. Chongzhen saw the weakness of the imperial power and had to swallow his anger.
From this, it can also be seen that the ministers did not care about the demise of the Ming court at all, and could even say that death is death.
Ironically, the people who had no money at this time were arrested after Li Zicheng attacked the capital.
A large amount of silver money was copied.
Third, the feasibility of borrowing money
Strictly speaking, it is absurd that this happened.
Not only was the emperor borrowing money from his courtiers, but the courtiers not only did not borrow, but also dared to
Murder of the Crown Prince
。 The emperor knew the truth, but did not dare to punish the ministers, which was unbelievable.
On closer inspection, there are indeed traces to follow. For the matter of borrowing money, it is actually enforceable. Principle
The salaries of Ming officials were not high, but the system formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang, the ming emperor, was still essentially biased towards scholars.
Partial bribery became a semi-legal procedure
For example, the "ice respect" dedicated by the subordinate to the superior in the summer and the "carbon respect" in the winter. In addition, the taxes paid by merchants are extremely low, and with the tax exemptions brought by the imperial examination and the donation of land, the officials are simply full of money.
4. Summary
In contrast, the country was poor and had to increase
Three new taxes
But the money and grain received went into the hands of the soldiers.
The people were already poor, their taxes were heavier, and they had to rebel.
In this way, borrowing money is not incomprehensible.
In general, the demise of the Ming Dynasty was the trend of the times.
Geographically encountered
Xiaoice River period
Institutionally,
Zhu Yuanzhang formulated a system favorable to the scholars and the tide of eunuchs initiated by Zhu Di; coupled with the fact that the Chongzhen Emperor himself was diligent in his administration, he was suspicious and self-conscious, and the Ming Dynasty was really powerless to return to heaven.