From the perspective of world history, when global silver poured into the Ming Empire, the Ming Dynasty was definitely one of the richest countries in the world.
However, it is inconceivable that in this rich dynasty, Chongzhen, who is the king of a country, was killed by poverty. In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the greatest danger to foreign military affairs was not the deified post-gold iron horse, but the unsolvable problem of military salaries. In the first year of Chongzhen, the imperial court said that there were 3.26 million taels of silver, but even if all this money was used to pay military salaries, there were still many holes of 10,000 taels. In order to prevent the mutiny, the imperial court began to raise taxes and entrench the people, and the mutiny had just been resolved. In this almost dead cycle, the Chongzhen Emperor sold the royal business tools and even gave up his dignity in order to seek the Dao. The point of borrowing money from ministers.
However, at this time, the Ming Dynasty was not without money, but could not collect money, and a major reason for this situation was that the Donglin Party, which ran rampant at the end of the Ming Dynasty, added all the natural disasters in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, was not comparable to the people of the Donglin Party. Or how hateful this group of readers is, starting with Zheng He's trip to the West. In fact, Zheng He's trip to the West is definitely not a matter of labor and money. On the contrary, the big ocean economy has allowed Zhu Di, who has made a lot of money, to do a lot of great things that benefit the country and the people. But Zheng He's trip to the West belongs to state-run income, and this huge profit cake makes the civil officials who represent the fashion economy red-eyed and black-hearted. Therefore, they began to arrange all kinds of black materials about Zheng He's voyage to the West, the purpose of which was to let the imperial court go near. However, after the official announcement of the Quiet Sea Order, these powerful civil servants began to collude with businessmen and conduct business in private.
During the Jiajing period, the huge demand for marine trade promoted the development of manufacturing in the Jiangnan area. As a result, countless wealthy business celebrities quickly rose in the Jiangnan area. It was also at this time that Gu Xiancheng, who had been deposed, returned to his hometown to run a Donglin Academy. This Gu Xiancheng, who talks about morality and benevolence every day, is actually a party master. Therefore, he used Donglin Academy as a base and lectured, and gradually formed a huge interest group with Jiangnan, and began to monopolize the ten major strata of the Ming Dynasty. According to statistics, the amount of silver flowing into Daming at that time was 900 million taels. Chongzhen's fiscal revenue was only about three million taels a year, which was only 0.3 percent of the inflow of silver. However, these civil servants are hateful and hateful, and when they make money, they are not willing to pay even a little tax. As soon as the poor Chongzhen Emperor proposed to levy a little tax, the Donglin Party stood at the highest moral point, and the big households wanted to hide their wealth for the people. Let's take a more shocking example, when the warriors of Liaodong were covered in devastation, not to mention the daimyo border warriors, in fact, they were no different when they encountered beggars. On the other hand, in the Jiangnan area, the factual fate of those found in different ways is confiscated. Waiting for the point of never starting work, while the water is hot, and the warbler sings and dances.
Why the Chongzhen Emperor couldn't collect taxes was nothing more than that Shang had been welded together. These competitors are either addicted to land annexation or get through with higher-level officials. And the Donglin Party itself comes from the Jiangnan business class, and they demand not to compete with the people. But this name is not the people of Li, but the old courtyard of Jiangnan. You can say that Chongzhen's political level is not high, but it must be admitted that the problems Chongzhen faces are indeed very difficult. You know, by the Yongzheng period a hundred years later, the evidence had stabilized at this time. But despite this situation, Iron-Blooded Yongzheng still thought that the price of sudden death was barely able to achieve the pressure of the God Group.
When Cao Cao attacked Eastern Wu, Sun Quan was hesitant by the two factions, while Lu Su said that it was human. He said, we want to be confused with Cao Cao as an official and a half-post, but Sun Quan, if you want to ask for it, you will definitely die. The Dongying Party gang was the same as the main faction of Eastern Wu at that time, they were the only dynastic law for dynasty change, and they were already ready for the next master, Jin Dong.
In 1644, Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself on the coal mountain, carrying out the promise of the Son of Heaven to guard the country. The Dongming Party and the hundred officials were already dressed neatly and walked to the Golden Luang Hall to welcome a new career of great work. However, it is extremely ironic that scholars are always scholars, and their self-righteous logic and rules. Li Zicheng's rebel army did not recognize it, nor did the Eight Banner Army of the late Qing Dynasty. Daming. On the eve of the collapse, Chongzhen begged the officials for donations, but only received 20,000 taels of silver. Under the severe torture of the peasant army, three million taels of silver were taken out of the cellar in nearly a week, which was enough for a year's tax revenue. After a month of details, these civil servants were knocked out alive by Li Zicheng's big knife and knocked out more than 70 million pieces of silver.
In the same year, Qian Qianyi, a representative of the Donglin Party in Jiangnan, married a female Confucian who was thirty-six years younger than him. For four years, Qian Qianyi knelt in the heavy rain of Puntuo, waiting for the arrival of the Qing army. At this time, how ironic the words restrained by Donglin Academy were, the sound of the wind, the rain, and the sound of reading, the sound was in the ears. Family affairs, state affairs, world affairs, everything is concerned. This means that you can't just look at what he says, but how he actually does. No matter how much the Donglin Party flaunts as a gentleman, they want to survive on their knees, but after all, they underestimate the brutality of the Qing army. These shrewd people to the bone have been calculating all their lives.
At this point, I can't imagine that the Chongzhen Emperor, who fled everywhere like a pitiful worm, although his qualifications were mediocre and his congenital inadequacy was insufficient, he did give everything for the safety of this dynasty. And who coldly rejected him back then, and made himself clever, thinking that he had nothing to do with the safety of this dynasty. By now, it was too late to say anything. The machetes of the Qing army and the past of the rebels will give them a lesson that will last a lifetime.