The six-dimensional pictures of emperors of all dynasties were exposed, and the ancestors panicked

Chapter 659: Northwest Civil Rebellion: The End of the Ming Dynasty
On the canopy.

In front of the temple of Feng'an Huangkao God.

All the ministers were standing outside the door, all in plain clothes.

Zhu Youjian came out of the temple in deep mourning.

"Wang Chengen, tell the ministers how much damage the imperial mausoleum has suffered."

The eunuch stepped forward, bowed and said:
"The imperial mausoleum was damaged, and the thieves burned down the Fu'anfu Office and the Liaison Office, a total of 594 rooms."

"Burn down the Drum Tower and 67 rooms of Longxing Temple."

"There were 22,652 civilian houses, 6 officials, 66 students, 2,284 mausoleum wall soldiers, 196 high wall soldiers, 755 elite soldiers, and more than 800 drill soldiers."

Zhu Youjian waved his hand wearily:

"The country is declining day by day, and the ancestral tomb was destroyed. It's all my fault."

"Proclaim the decree."

Upon hearing this, all the ministers knelt down.

The eunuch took a step forward and unfolded the imperial edict:

"The Edict of Confession"

……

[On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in the eighth year of Chongzhen (1635), the rebel army attacked Fengyang. The Ming army in Fengyang collapsed without a fight. The rebel army then looted for three days and dug up the imperial tomb.]

[In October, Emperor Chongzhen issued an edict of self-blame for the tomb robbery and civil unrest, moved to Wuying Palace, reduced meals and stopped music, to show that he shared the hardships with the soldiers.]

……

Ming dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang pointed at the sky as if he had the hiccups.

Looking at Queen Ma, he said with trembling lips:
"Ancestral tomb..."

"he……"

Before he could utter the word "mother", he fainted.

Before I completely lost consciousness, there was only one thought in my mind.

Huang Chao?

……

[When a dynasty is about to fall, various problems will emerge one after another, and they will not be affected by people’s subjective will.]

[In the court, after the retreat of the Later Jin army, no one from the emperor to the court officials seriously summed up the experience and lessons, but instead took the opportunity to fight against each other, engage in factional struggles, and kill each other.]

[On the border, the severity of the Liaodong strategic crisis was fully exposed during the Jisi Incident.]

[And in the Loess Plateau of Shaanxi, which is located in a corner with Liaodong, tens of thousands of Ming Dynasty people who were forced to make a living quietly ignited the flames of rebellion.]

[Since the outbreak of the Liaodong War during the Wanli period, the troops in the three border areas of Shaanxi have been frequently mobilized and often fail to receive their salaries. As time goes by, the arrears of military pay have become increasingly serious.]

[As of the seventh year of the Tianqi reign, the four towns of Yansui, Ningxia, Gansu, and Guyuan had arrears of 2.44 million taels of silver in military pay. There were often months or even a year without pay. By the beginning of the Chongzhen reign, some places had arrears of up to 36 months.]

[The soldiers had no means of living, and had no other way out except to rebel, so they "deprived themselves of their salaries and rioted", "fled to the mountains and hills, and instigated the hungry people to riot".]

[At the same time, there were successive severe droughts in northern Shaanxi, and hungry people frequently looted granaries.]

[In order to save money, Chongzhen abolished the post stations, resulting in a large number of postmen having no livelihood. ]

[Eventually, an uprising broke out in Shaanxi and quickly expanded to cover the entire province and the three border areas.]

【And here, there is a gravedigger from the Ming Dynasty. 】

【Li Zicheng.】

……

On the canopy.

A group of ragged cavalrymen walked along the narrow path.

The leader wore an old felt hat and a half-worn sheepskin robe over his iron armor.

He had a bow slung across his back, a sword and a red lacquered and gold-painted cowhide quiver hanging from his waist, with a dozen carved-feather arrows in it.

The man adjusted his felt hat.

A pair of bright eyes stared ahead.

……

[Li Zicheng, a native of Mizhi, Shaanxi, was born on August 21, 1907 in Shuangquanbao, Mizhi County, Yan'an Prefecture.]

[Because their home was in Li Jiqian Village in Huaiyuan Fort (now Hengshan County, Shaanxi Province), they were also called Huaiyuan people. ]

[My great-grandfather Li Shifu, grandfather Li Hai, and father Li Shouzhong were all horse breeders for generations.]

[After his father died, Li Zicheng went to herd sheep for Ai Wannian, a wealthy man from the same village, to pay off his debts.]

[After that, unable to bear the humiliation, he volunteered to be a postman at Yinchuan Post Station, serving as a groom. He took time out to practice riding and shooting with a bow and arrow, and developed good martial arts.]

[It was the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, and he was twenty-one years old.]

[In the second year of Chongzhen, the imperial court ordered the abolition of post stations.] [At the end of that year, Yinchuan Post Station was abolished. Li Zicheng had no means of living and encountered famine, so he led his accomplices to rebel.]

……

{Li Zicheng was also a wealthy man whose family fell into poverty.}
{The "Ming Ji Bei Lue", "Ping Kou Zhi" and "Jia Shen Chuan Xin Lu" say that he "was quite wealthy from farming", "his family was quite wealthy due to his farming heritage".}
{Considering that he went to a private school with his nephew when he was eight years old, the above statement is credible.}
{His family was not poor, he was not illiterate, and he had a "good memory" for what he read.}
{The basic masses of the rebel army are still the hungry people and refugees, but the backbone forces are rebels, deserters, postmen, and bandits.}
{The transformation of these six types of people into rebels was the result of the intensification of various social contradictions, natural disasters and man-made disasters in Shaanxi.}
{At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the land tax was increased and distributed according to the acreage. Shaanxi suffered more than other places. Because the land in Shaanxi was barren, the people were poor, and coupled with the successive years of famine, the people were already starving and cold, but the government still exploited them and did not care about their lives.}
{In the second year of Chongzhen, Ma Maocai, a courier from the Ministry of Rites, reported the famine in northern Shaanxi to the court:
For example, there is a place called "Dung City" to the west of Ansai City. Every day, one or two babies are abandoned there. Some of them cry, some call for their parents, and some eat feces.

By the next morning, all the abandoned children were dead, and more were abandoned.

What is even more strange is that once children or people walking alone leave the city, they disappear without a trace.

Later, he saw people outside the door cooking human bones as firewood and boiling human flesh for food. Only then did he realize that the people before him were all eaten by them.

The cannibal will inevitably suffer from red and swollen eyes, internal heat and death after a few days.
{In addition to the successive years of famine, there was also the government's demand for taxes.}
{Although Chongzhen regarded famine relief as his top priority, he did not take corresponding measures, nor did he urge local officials to make every effort to relieve the famine, causing the situation to deteriorate and become unmanageable.}
……

Great Sui.

When Yang Jian saw the tragedy of cannibalism, he knew that this "uprising" would not end well.

"So... the core force of these rebel groups is a large number of mutinous soldiers..."

Dugu Jialuo twisted the needle and thread in her hand and lowered her head and said:
"Escapers, traitors..."

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"After proper training, with weapons in hand."

“They are very different from ordinary hungry people and refugees.”

"This is a group of soldiers who know each other well..."

Yang Jian stroked the table and sighed.

"Once again, he knows me, but I don't know him..."

"Just as Huang Taiji left, here comes Li Zicheng..."

"The destiny is lost."

……

[Wu Zhiwang, the left assistant minister of the Nanjing Ministry of Justice, had applied for retirement due to his advanced age and held an idle position in Nanjing. However, because he was familiar with border affairs, he was transferred to the post of governor-general of three borders. As a result, he was unable to suppress the rebels and committed suicide at the age of 77.]

[The court was in an uproar and urgently needed someone to clean up the situation in Shaanxi.]

[However, everyone regarded Shaanxi as a daunting task and was unwilling to step forward to take over the position left by Wu Zhiwang.]

[This dragged on for several months, and no senior official was willing to go to Shaanxi to take on this responsibility, because it was difficult, dangerous, and thankless.]

[The Ministry of Personnel had no other choice but to recommend Yang He, the Left Censor-in-Chief, who was quite capable of considering the overall situation and knew nothing about military affairs, to serve as the Governor-General of the Three Borders of Shaanxi.]

【Chongzhen summoned Yang He to ask for advice. Yang He believed that the reason for the uprising was famine, and said that it would be easy to quell the rebellion by "both suppressing and appeasing, with appeasing as the main approach."】

[Chongzhen was overjoyed and allocated 100,000 taels of silver from the inner treasury and 50,000 taels of silver and 20,000 shi of grain donated by the princes to suppress the rebellion.]

……

Period of Jihan and Emperor Huai

Zhuge Liang thought this was a good case and a classic question.

"Your Majesty, should we pacify or suppress this sentence?"

Liu Chan thought he should be appeased.

Because he felt that using 100,000 taels to quell the rebellion in the northwest was simply crazy and unreasonable!
Zhuge Liang understood the expression on Liu Chan's face and said with a smile:

"The desperate criminals have taken up arms and are now spreading like wildfire, making it impossible to approach them."

"If you want to suppress the bandits, you must first arrest the troops who have left the army."

"If you want to inspect the army, you must first pay the accumulated wages."

"If the rations are insufficient, the soldiers will not have enough food to sleep on, and the horses will have no fodder left. Even a loving father cannot protect his son if he carries a weapon with an empty stomach."

"How can the governor control these fierce and arrogant soldiers?"

Liu Chan only half understood what he said, and said cautiously:

"What the Prime Minister meant...is to suppress the enemy?"

Zhuge Liang smiled and sighed:

"Hungry people follow the bandits; famine is the cause of that."

"It is not easy to suppress them, we must appease them."

Liu Chan stared blankly with his eyes wide open.

Is that suppression? Or appeasement?

Zhuge Liang did not say whether to suppress or appease, but simply changed the subject and said:
“The best doctor treats illness before it occurs, not after it has occurred. This is what it means.”

"If Guanzhong changes, Sichuan, Shu, Jin, and Chu will all be shaken, and the situation in the world will be unimaginable."

"When they suppressed the enemy, they captured only the hungry people, while the real bandits went away after looting their fill."

"It is not that they do not surrender, but they gather their people together without food and still go out to plunder. They surrender in name but not in reality."

"But in the end, it still depends on whether the emperor is resolute."

After hearing all this, Liu Chan still looked stupid.

What is the father-in-law saying?
(End of this chapter)