During the Ming Dynasty's apocalypse, Wei Zhongxian's power was not insignificant, almost to the point where he wanted to kill whomever he wanted. However, the Emperor of the Apocalypse died, the 17-year-old Chongzhen came to power, and within a few months, Wei Zhongxian died tragically and the Wei clique collapsed. Many people are amazed, why is 17-year-old Chongzhen so powerful? The reasons given on the Internet are various, all praising Chongzhen's wisdom and boldness. In fact, Wei Zhongxian did not fight with Chongzhen at all, the two could not fight at all, wei Zhongxian's failure was caused by the system, and it could not prove how capable Chongzhen was.
First, how noble the "nine thousand years old" is, it will disappear in an instant
Let's first look at how much power Wei Zhongxian has.
Wei Zhongxian was a native of Cangzhou, Hebei Province, who often lost money because of gambling, hated himself in the palace, and became a eunuch. Because of his hookup with Ming Xizong Zhu You's nursing mother Keshi, he became a red person of Ming Xi Zong. Although Wei Zhongxian did not have much culture, he was very good at talking, exquisite in all aspects, and was particularly good at fighting. During the reign of Emperor Mingxi, the Donglin Party was powerful, but Emperor Mingxi was disgusted but helpless, and Wei Zhongxian spent six years helping Emperor Mingxi to defeat the Donglin Party step by step, which was sincerely appreciated by Emperor Mingxi. In the course of the struggle against the Donglin Party, Wei Zhongxian was good at dancing with long sleeves and recruiting many forces, forming a multi-level and all-round bureaucratic clique with him as the core. The outermost layer of the group is the fierce East Factory thugs, performing specific tasks. Within the East Factory, there are the "Five Tigers" and "Five Biao", the Five Tigers are the civilian ministers, the main strategists, and the five Biao are the martial ministers, the main murderer. Within the "Five Tigers and Five Biao", there are the "Ten Dogs", "Ten Children", and "Forty Grandchildren" who are loyal to Wei Zhongxian, the so-called filial piety and grandsons. Further in, there are 30 castrated officials and henchmen such as Wang Tiqian, Wang Chaofu, Wang Guotai, and Li Chaoqing.
Finally, above the core cloud top of the group was Wei Zhongxian himself, whose original position was Si Li Supervisor Bingbi, The Viceroy of the East Factory, and in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, he was crowned as the Shanggong by Emperor Mingxi, called "Nine thousand nine hundred years old", only one hundred years away from The Ten Thousand Years. Coupled with Wei Zhongxian's ostentatious and domineering work, his prestige surpassed that of the emperor.
However, such a powerful Wei Zhongxian was wiped out 3 months after the seventeen-year-old Chongzhen Emperor came to power. In August of the seventh year of the Apocalypse, Emperor Mingxi died and Chongzhen came to power, and three months later, in November, Chongzhen ordered that Wei Zhongxian be demoted to the imperial tomb of Fengyang in Anhui. Wei Zhongxian had not yet arrived in Fengyang, Chongzhen ordered Jinyi Wei to arrest him and return him to Beijing, Wei Zhongxian did not dare to return to Beijing, hanged himself, Chongzhen had his head cut off and hung at the city gate to show the public...
Wei Wei Hehe, known as the nine-thousand-year-old Wei Zhongxian, died so quickly!
(Chongzhen Emperor)
Second, Wei Zhongxian is just a temporary worker, or just "a knife"
Why did Wei Zhongxian lose so quickly and die so miserably? There was not a single decent resistance. The main reason for this is that Wei Zhongxian was basically a "temporary worker", and he had no foothold in Daming's civil and military bureaucracy, and all the powers he carried as a "temporary worker" were like palaces built on quicksand.
So why would the Emperor of the Apocalypse give so much power to a temporary worker? This must start from the internal and external dynastic system that strengthened imperial power during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty.
After the Qin Dynasty established the "Three Dukes and Nine Secretaries System", the excessive power of the prime minister caused dissatisfaction among the emperors. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, in order to weaken the power of the prime minister, the three dukes and nine secretaries represented by the prime minister were set as the outer dynasty, and the close attendants around the emperor were set as the inner dynasty. From then on, the emperor only consulted with the loyal attendants of the inner dynasty and not with the foreign prime ministers, so he used his cronies and attendants to empty the power of the prime minister. Because most of the cronies and attendants were not officials of the imperial court, but temporary workers outside the official establishment, the power on their bodies was the "temporary power" temporarily given by the emperor, not the institutional power. This kind of power, the emperor trusts, the emperor does not trust, will not pose a threat to the emperor.
(Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty restricted the power of the prime minister within the inner dynasty)
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the emperor not only relied on his close attendants to divide the power of the prime minister, but also used eunuchs to divide the power of the prime minister, and the power of eunuchs rose, forming a disaster for eunuchs in the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty. By the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang did not want to restrict the prime minister, and it was too troublesome to restrict it, so he simply abolished the prime minister and replaced him with a scholar of the Imperial Pavilion University. However, the "civilian official clique" of the Ming Dynasty formed later made the emperor feel more "constrained", so the emperor reused eunuchs against the civilian clique with the eunuch clique. This is the background of Wei Zhongxian's rise.
It can be seen that Wei Zhongxian's power was temporarily ceded to him by the Emperor of the Heavenly Revelation, and he was not given for a long time or enjoyed for life. Those who have held a certain power for a long time are the officials in the system.
In other words, Wei Zhongxian was just a knife in the hands of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, and the Emperor of the Apocalypse used it if he wanted to use it, and discarded it if he did not want to use it. The bad things that Wei Zhongxian did to kill the Donglin Party were actually done by the Emperor of The Apocalypse, because a person killed someone, and you can't blame him for the knife he took? The person with the knife should be blamed.
Later, when the Emperor of the Apocalypse died and Chongzhen took the throne, would Chongzhen use Wei Zhongxian's sword? Chongzhen did not want to use it, and Chongzhen abandoned Wei Zhongxian. In this situation, wei Zhongxian, as a knife and a temporary worker, what ability did he have to resist? Don't look at Wei Zhongxian's great power, those are all the emperor's people, the emperor's resources, the emperor does not give him use, he immediately instigated.
Third, Chongzhen disposed of Wei Zhongxian, and there was no resistance in the whole process, and the two did not fight at all
Chongzhen's handling of Wei Zhongxian was very calm, and Wei Zhongxian did not resist the whole time.
In the first step, Wei Zhongxian tested whether Chongzhen would reuse him, and sent Chongzhen some beautiful women to see Chongzhen's reaction. Chongzhen accepted the beautiful woman, but did not say a word, which at least showed that Chongzhen was not enthusiastic about Wei Zhongxian. Wei Zhongxian was a little flustered, but there was nothing he could do but wait for Chongzhen's next arrangement.
In the second step, someone accused Wei Zhongxian of the Ten Great Crimes, and Chongzhen summoned Wei Zhongxian and asked the internal officials to read out the Ten Great Sins in front of him. This showed that Chongzhen knew Wei Zhongxian's sins and would not use him even if he did not kill him. If Wei Zhongxian really had strength, it would be the best time to strike back at this time, but Wei Zhongxian did nothing.
In the third step, Wei Zhongxian found Xu Yingyuan, a eunuch who had been serving Hou Chongzhen, for advice, and Xu Yingyuan said to Wei Zhongxian, If you want to avoid trouble, you should resign your title. Wei Zhongxian asked Chongzhen to resign his title the next day, and Chongzhen agreed with his mouth, but did not say anything politely. Wei Zhongxian was helpless. Immediately afterward, Chongzhen punished Wei Zhongxian to go to Fengyang to guard the imperial tomb, which was tantamount to removing Wei Zhongxian from all his posts and exiled him, and Wei Zhongxian obediently went. When he went there, there was a big battle, a thousand guards, dozens of large cars, but he did not dare to resist at all.
In the fourth step, Chongzhen felt that Wei Zhongxian had sent a thousand people off, and there was a suspicion of demonstration, so he ordered Wei Zhongxian to be arrested and returned to Beijing for trial. Wei Zhongxian still did not resist, but was very scared, and after crying and crying for a while, he hanged himself.
The whole process was not alarming, and the nine-thousand-year-old Wei Zhongxian was almost killed by the neck, without any ability to fight back. Just think, how did he fight with the emperor? He usually uses the emperor's resources, and now the emperor has withdrawn his resources with a word, he has no family power, no military support, how to fight back? How to fight with Chongzhen? One might say, didn't he have a large number of men? You can ask them to help! In fact, Wei Zhongxian's subordinates, as soon as they saw that Wei Zhongxian's patron Ming Xizong was dead, began to choose a side. For example, Huang Liji, the first assistant of the cabinet, was usually very attached to Wei Zhongxian, and as soon as Emperor Mingxi died, he sided with Chongzhen, and even the name Chongzhen was given by him!
Therefore, Wei Zhongxian seemed to be powerful, but in fact he was small, as long as the emperor did not trust him, he was nothing.