The penultimate emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the famous carpenter Emperor Zhu Youxiao, known in history as the Emperor of the Apocalypse, has always been regarded as a typical representative of the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. He was regarded as the "evidence" of the "crime" of Emperor Xia, first, he indulged in carpentry craftsmanship and abandoned the government during his reign, and second, he favored and reused Wei Zhongxian and mutilated Zhongliang. In the "History of Ming", Zhang Tingyu, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, criticized the Emperor of the Apocalypse as worthless, calling him cowardly and incompetent, spoiling and adulterous, "loyal and miserable, billions of centrifuges, although he wants not to die, how can he get it?" Directly put the big hat of the fall of the Ming Dynasty on him and became the object of scorn by posterity.
In people's impressions, during the reign of emperor Tianqi, except for burying his head in carpentry craftsmanship, he did not ask anything else, and was completely toyed with by Wei Zhongxian, allowing Wei Zhongxian to act recklessly. In fact, this impression is very different from historical facts. Because during the reign of Tianqi, the Donglin people who pretended to be Qingliu had a bad luck and could not lift their heads when they were suppressed, they were extremely dissatisfied with both Tianqi and Wei Zhongxian. There are many scholars and scholars in Donglin, and when they write books and make statements, they often deliberately smear and scandalize the apocalypse, which greatly affects the understanding of that period of history by future generations. In fact, there are three things that are enough to confirm that although the Apocalypse is not a Ming Jun, it is by no means a Dark Lord.
The first thing is that he can be kind to his relatives and friends. Since ancient times, it has been said that "the heavenly family has no relatives", and due to the high degree of exclusivity of imperial power, even the recognized holy lord Ming Jun, such as Li Shimin and the Kangxi Emperor, will kill their brothers and children, cold-blooded and ruthless. The Emperor of the Apocalypse, on the other hand, was regarded as a tyrant like the King of Shang, but he was always kind to his relatives. Even for his younger brother Chongzhen, who was most likely to threaten his position, he had no suspicion. When he ascended the throne, he said to his brother, "When I do it for a few years, when I do it with Ru", it can be called a rare moment of warmth among ancient emperors.
The Emperor of the Apocalypse did not like Empress Zhang Yan, but he never considered the idea of disparaging Zhang Yan to create another empress. Until he died of illness, Zhang Yan's position as the lord of the harem was not shaken in the slightest. The Emperor of the Apocalypse lost his mother at a very young age, and was brought up by the nursing mother Keshi, who was always full of respect and affection for the Keshi. Of course, Keshi is also a bad critic, but only from the perspective of emotional morality, he is not wrong to do so. Nursing mothers are also human beings, and when they abandoned their own flesh and blood and brought up the emperor with one hand, it was also appropriate to be treated favorably. As is the usual practice, the nursing mother is immediately expelled from the palace after taking the grand prince, which is the real ruthlessness and extermination of humanity.
The second thing is that his eyes are like a torch, and he can clearly understand the crux of the situation. The great trouble of the last years of the Ming Dynasty, as the later Kangxi Emperor said, "The state affairs of the Ming Dynasty are all damaged by the officials." The officials and ministers of the imperial court, who had no solution to practical problems, were keen to make empty arguments, accuse and attack each other, and were helpless whenever they faced a major matter, but anyone who had the courage to do things was immediately attacked overwhelmingly, resulting in extremely inefficient imperial court machinery, almost to the point of achieving nothing.
As early as the second year of the Apocalypse, the Sixteenth Emperor of the Apocalypse issued orders on many occasions to denounce this vicious habit of the ministers and ministers, believing that they were "repeatedly careless and arrogant, and had no right theory" and that "they were wanton and manic, and had no conspiracy to recover from the truth." This can be described as to the point, believing that the discussions of these people did not solve any practical problems, and clearly put forward that the ministers were required to "really sort things out and do not make empty remarks", and not just talk about useless big words and empty words. Unfortunately, the ministers ignored it and remained the same. Wei Zhongxian's ascension to power was really the emperor's helpless move. The ministers were unreliable and disobedient, the imperial court machine was almost out of control, and the emperor could only cultivate a set of people to support himself.
The third thing is that the Emperor of the Apocalypse has a military strategic vision. At that time, next to the old lair of Nurhaci, the enemy of the Ming Dynasty, there was a base area of Mao Wenlong, the chief soldier of the Ming Dynasty' Phi Dao. If the control is used properly, it can play a great role in pulling on the back gold. At a time when the imperial court ministers were indifferent to Mao Wenlong, the Emperor of The Apocalypse realized Mao Wenlong's important role and repeatedly issued orders to commend Mao Wenlong, "The foundation of the Restoration of Liao, the End is in Sihu", asking the Imperial Court to actively support and cooperate.
What is even more astonishing is that he accurately predicted the offensive line of the Qing Dynasty very early on. Since Nurhaci's rebellion, the direction of attack on the Ming Dynasty has been concentrated in the area of Liaodong Shanhaiguan. Liaodong also became the center of gravity of the Ming Dynasty's defense. However, starting from the second year of Chongzhen, the Qing army shifted the breakthrough point, detoured through the Inner Mongolia area of Shanxi, and chose the Ming army to break through the Great Wall where the defense was weak. As early as the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the Emperor of the Apocalypse issued a decree reminding the courtiers that the Qing army might "take a long drive in a false way, and it is not shallow, and it is not a matter of worrying about the east," and instructed the military department to immediately come up with a plan, requiring them to "carefully defend and be cautious and prepared.", and that the guards at all passes should be strictly vigilant day and night, carefully check the people who enter and leave, and so on, and ask the military department to step up the preparation of money and grain equipment. We must have foresight and foresight, we must have attitudes, we must have measures and measures, and we really can't see where it looks like a dimwitted.
After Wei Zhongxian came to power, he was only a pawn in the hands of the emperor from beginning to end, and the Emperor of Tianqi was only using him to suppress the unruly wenchen clique and use him as a shortcut to handle the government. Of course, Wei Zhongxian was a villain by nature, and he also did a lot of bad things after gaining power. However, the imperial power was always high, and Wei Zhongxian was completely a tame dog for the Apocalypse, and there was no threat to the imperial power. Unfortunately, Chongzhen did not understand this reason, killed Wei Zhongxian, and did not support his own affinity, and finally suffered a big loss.