Author 丨 Mu Bingsen
Tomb robberies occur from time to time, and it is not uncommon for imperial tombs to be stolen. Far from it, we will say that during the Republic of China period, the warlord Sun Dianying actually excavated the Qing Tombs in broad daylight, which caused a stir throughout the country and was said to have alarmed Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang government. To this end, posterity made this matter into a film and television drama "The Great Thief of Tanglin".
As a matter of later generations stealing the tombs of the former dynasty, it is not uncommon in Chinese history, such as Wu Zixu, Liu Go, Cao Cao, Dong Zhuo, Wen Tao, etc., and even the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty did the excavation of the tombs of the former dynasty. However, when the emperor acquiesced to the theft of his ancestors' graves, it was rarely heard of. This did not happen during the time of Emperor Zhu Yijun of the Ming Dynasty.
Why did the Wanli Emperor do such an ugly thing that insulted his ancestors and punched himself in the face? It is said to be to amass wealth.
Let's first look at why the Wanli Emperor wanted to amass wealth.
As we all know, because Zhu Yijun reigned for forty-eight years and was the longest-ruling emperor of the Ming Dynasty, there are more records about him in history. Since the TV series "In the Name of the People" hit, the book "Fifteen Years of Wanli" has become popular again. If you read this book, you will have a deeper understanding of the Wanli Dynasty and Zhu Yijun himself.
It may be a bit too much to say that the Wanli Emperor is faint and incompetent, and political corruption may be a bit excessive, but from the perspective of his life, he has not done anything major. His biggest mistake was that he did not go to the court for thirty years, using eunuchs and traitors to gain power and form a party struggle.
The Wanli Emperor not only did not go to the imperial government for a long time, but also persecuted Zhongliang (whipping zhang juzheng). He did not appoint a prince for many years, and he worked against the ministers, which is known in history as the "dispute over the foundation of the country". At the same time, he also coveted pleasure, built a large number of civil engineering, and used a large amount of money to build palaces and temples. The Wanli Emperor not only had to enjoy it when he was alive, but also remembered the happiness after death, and his mausoleum alone was built for six years, spending a lot of money to make the "Dingling Tomb" the most luxurious tomb group in the Ming Tombs.
At that time, the social and economic development of the Ming Dynasty was very slow, and due to the inability to make ends meet, there was a trend of economic decline. Under these circumstances, the Wanli Emperor actually used a large amount of human and financial resources to brazenly launch the "Three Great Marches" to conquer foreign nationalities, making the national treasury even more empty and the people living in deep water.
Because the Wanli Emperor was so tossed, the Ming Dynasty, which was not very rich in the first place, was short of money.
What should I do if I am short of money? The Wanli Emperor had a way to amass wealth. For his own pleasure, he made up his mind on the people under the guise of replenishing the treasury. At that time, it was a drought, and there was no harvest in many places, so the Wanli Emperor not only did not go to the relief of the disaster victims, but instead increased taxes and collected the people's fat and people's ointment. He thought of a way: to make local officials pay regular tribute to him, and also took the amount of money and money paid as the main criterion for evaluating the "political performance" of officials. As soon as this system was introduced, the officials did not hesitate to squeeze the oil and water of the common people and profit from it.
Let's take a look at how the Wanli Emperor acquiesced to others digging their ancestral graves.
The Wanli Emperor instructed officials at all levels to expropriate and use all means, and he did not care about the lives of the people, as long as he collected money. Despite this, Zhu Yijun still felt that it was too slow to rely on "tribute" alone, so he sent a large number of Beijing officials and eunuchs to go deep into various social industries to collect wealth, of which a eunuch named Chen Feng was the most prominent.
Chen Feng was a native of Zhongxiang, Hubei Province, born as a scoundrel in Jing City, and somehow mixed into the palace and became a eunuch. Chen Feng was originally a eight-pin official imperial horse superintendent, but he was alert and intelligent, well-informed, and good at flattery, and soon rose to serve in the inner palace, gaining the emperor's trust. In the 27th year of the Wanli Calendar, Chen Feng was sent to his hometown in Hubei to collect taxes and supervise the development of local copper mines and the minting of coins, with considerable power.
After Chen Feng reached Hubei, he not only arbitrarily collected money and wealth to enrich his own pockets, but also relied on the emperor's favor for him to rape women at will, recklessly kill people, and even cut open the stomach of pregnant women and drown babies. Regarding Chen Feng's evil deeds, the history books recorded this: "Plagiarism and travel, arbitrary threats. ”
The local people hated Chen Feng, and his rampage of innocence in the townships was also accused, but the Wanli Emperor ignored it, which made Chen Feng even more bold and wanton to carry out brutal and wealth-gathering activities.
Chen Feng not only amassed wealth from the living, but he also started the idea of the dead.
Here's the thing: When Chen Feng was thinking about how to make a fortune, he suddenly got a message that someone had dug up the tomb of li Linfu, the former wife of the Tang Dynasty prime minister, and stolen a large amount of gold and silver treasures. This news made Chen Feng's eyes light up, and he came to the spirit, he thought that tomb robbery was a way to get rich quickly, so he led his minions to start digging ancient tombs, and indeed got a large number of treasures. Chen Feng handed over some of the stolen treasures to the emperor for meritorious service and rewards, and the rest were stolen for his own. In this way, he made a windfall on the ground.
Chen Feng's theft of ancient tombs aroused strong opposition from the ministers, who demanded that the tomb robbery be stopped and convicted, but the Wanli Emperor ignored this and instead praised Chen Feng for "serving the public with one heart". This further fueled Chen Feng's evil ambitions, which led to the occurrence of the theft of obvious tombs.
Xianling is the mausoleum of The Wanli Emperor's great-grandfather Zhu Youfu. Although Zhu Youzhuo did not become emperor during his lifetime, he was the biological father of Emperor Mingzong Zhu Houxi (Emperor Jiajing). Zhu Youzhu was the fourth son of Emperor Mingxianzong Zhu Jianshen, and was given the title of "King of Xingxian" in Anlu Prefecture (安陸州, in modern Zhongxiang, Hubei).
After Zhu Houxi succeeded his cousin Zhu Houzhao (Emperor Wuzong of Wuzong as emperor), he fought with his ministers for more than ten years before winning the title of "Emperor Gongruixian" for his biological father, and was buried in the local area after his death, named "Xianling".
Xianling was the tomb of the great-grandfather of the Wanli Emperor, and Chen Feng certainly did not dare to openly excavate it, so he used the development of copper mines as a cover to secretly excavate. Sure enough, he dug up a large amount of gold and silver treasures in Xianling, which made Chen Feng overjoyed, and he handed over a small part of it, and most of it was owned by himself. According to historical records, the treasures that Chen Feng transported when he returned to Beijing were "boats and carts, and there were endless miles." ”
Didn't the Wanli Emperor know that Chen Feng was digging his ancestral grave? There was no impermeable wall, and he had heard about it. Just because he saw so many treasures, the Wanli Emperor who saw the money eyes also acquiesced.
A wicked man is his own hell. Soon, someone accused Chen Feng of digging the emperor's ancestral grave and embezzling a large amount of treasure, and it was true that the Wanli Emperor sent someone to investigate. In order to take care of the royal face and calm the accusations of the ministers against Chen Feng and the anger of the people, the Wanli Emperor finally sentenced Chen Feng to death, and all the treasures were "confiscated". Chen Feng, a shameless grave robber, was duly punished.
It can be seen from the above that Chen Feng dared to dig the emperor's ancestral grave, but in fact, with the acquiescence of the Wanli Emperor. If there is no connivance from the Divine Sect, give him a hundred dares, it can be said that Chen Feng's tomb robbery has the nature of an "official thief".
The Wanli Emperor was so distraught that he ignored his ancestral graves, and in the end he did not curb the development of the Ming Dynasty's decadence, and twenty-four years after his death, the Ming Empire collapsed.