On March 18, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Chongzhen hanged himself on coal mountain, staging a tragic scene of the monarch's death. For more than three hundred years, people have responded with deep sympathy for Chongzhen, believing that the responsibility for the demise of the Ming Dynasty is not Chongzhen, but someone else. For a long time, there was a saying that Zhu Yijun, the Ming Emperor of Wanli, was responsible for the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
The claim that the Ming died in Wanli is not unique in modern times. In the "Ming Shi Shenzong Benji", it is commented, "The death of Ming is actually the death of Shenzong." The Qianlong Emperor once said, "The death of Ming is not due to the exiles, but to the absurdity of the Divine Sect." Later, the Jiaqing Emperor also said something similar, "The death of Ming is not due to the loss of virtue of Chongzhen, but to the laziness of Wanli." ”
What did the Wanli Emperor do so badly that people labeled him as the culprit of the ming dynasty's demise? The most important thing that later generations criticized the Wanli Emperor was "Wanli's slack administration", that is, he ignored the government for a long time during his reign. In the tenth year of the Wanli Dynasty (1582), Zhang Juzheng died, and the Wanli Emperor finally took the throne.
Just four years later, the Wanli Emperor began a serious act of sabotage, and for 30 years he did not go to the court. For 30 years, the Wanli Emperor was extremely extravagant and spent money like dirt, as if he had treated the Treasury of Daming as a private treasury. When he was just pro-government, the Treasury of daming was "full of treasures, and the country was the richest", and only the grain in the Taicang granary could be used for 10 years.
Wanli reigned for 48 years, but in the middle and late period, there was a serious financial crisis. At that time, the national treasury was empty, and even the border town could not be paid. Unbridled profligacy, he tried his best to plunder money and loot the ministers' family property directly into the imperial treasury, rather than handing it over to the state treasury.
Do you know the difference? This is actually "turning the country into a home", don't underestimate these four words, just let Daming embark on the road of no return. In this regard, the Wanli Emperor also had a word, "Become the Son of Heaven, rich in the four seas." Under the whole world, there is no royal land, and the wealth of the world is the wealth of the world. Beginning with the twenty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar, in view of the emptiness of the national treasury, the Wanli Emperor turned his attention to the mining tax. Wanli sent a large number of eunuchs to serve as mining supervisors and tax collectors to collect mining taxes throughout the country.
It shows that from the above point of view, the mining supervisor supervises the mining of minerals in various places and ensures the collection of mining taxes. In fact, the main task of the mining superintendent was to extort and enrich the emperor's personal money bag. For example, the local rich gentry often become the most important target of extortion, on the grounds that there are minerals under the mansion and the good land, forcing the owner to hand over a large amount of silver, otherwise the land will be destroyed and the house will be demolished.
Such a frenzied plunder of money, the people are miserable, coupled with frequent natural disasters, so that "the official warehouse is empty and the treasury is exhausted, and the people have ten rooms and nine empty." "What's worse is that the soldiers guarding the frontier are not paid, and mutinies occur repeatedly. Originally the richest country in the world, the Wanli Emperor was messed up and seriously injured.
Only seven years after Wanli's death, a major uprising broke out that swept through the Guanzhong region, and the Ming Dynasty mansion was in jeopardy. Seventeen years later, the Ming Dynasty mansion collapsed and Chongzhen hanged himself. Therefore, "the death of the Ming Dynasty was actually due to the Divine Sect", which did not discredit the Wanli Emperor in the slightest.
References: "Ming Shi, Shenzong Benji", "Unveiling the Secret of Wanli's Slack Administration"