Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

At this time, Emperor Chongzhen had been on the throne for more than half a year.He has passed the exciting period when he first took office.And because Emperor Chongzhen wiped out Wei Zhongxian's party like an autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, so the current Emperor Chongzhen is completely in charge of the government.He is also full of confidence and wants to do something big and become the king of Yao and Shun.

Emperor Chongzhen had complicated feelings for his elder brother, Emperor Tianqi, who passed on the throne to him.On the one hand, the brotherhood between him and Emperor Tianqi is quite good.Otherwise, Emperor Apocalypse would not have driven him to the locality and left him in the capital after the then King Xin became an adult.Nor would he readily pass on his throne to Emperor Chongzhen later on.

But what is strange is that all the emperors of the Ming Dynasty had very deep feelings for their family members, and they did not reflect the meaning of the sentence "the most ruthless emperor's family".Some emperors even had "tracheitis" (strict control over their wives).What's even more exaggerated is that some emperors even regarded the eunuchs who served them as relatives.This is also one of the main reasons for the rampant eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty.

On the other hand, Emperor Chongzhen hated Emperor Tianqi's actions from the bottom of his heart.Therefore, Emperor Tianqi reused Wei Zhongxian, and he would kill Wei Zhongxian; Emperor Tianqi was a carpenter and ignored the government, so Emperor Chongzhen had to be diligent in managing government affairs; , Abolition of commercial tax and mining tax.

But Emperor Chongzhen didn't know that what he did was what he heard from the civil officials who taught him to read since he was a child.

Are these civil servants teaching correctly?Logically speaking, both are correct.Moreover, most of the practices they taught Emperor Chongzhen were absolutely correct behaviors.

However, the content that these civil servants and professors gave to Emperor Chongzhen contained part of their own private goods.Because behind these civil servants, they all have their own interest groups.Of course, these interest groups must reflect their political demands through these civil servants.Some policies formulated by the state may be beneficial to these interest groups, but not conducive to the entire country.For example, the collection of commercial tax and mining tax.

Emperor Chongzhen, who had no political experience, didn't know that although some things had to be said in front of the people of the world, he could say one thing and do another.

At this time, Emperor Chongzhen had calmed down.He found that the previous emperors did have many problems left over, and he also encountered many problems after he ascended the throne.But the solution to these problems ultimately requires money.At this time, the financial problems of the Ming court were already very serious.

The financial problems that can be solved by the imperial court are nothing more than two aspects: increasing revenue and reducing expenditure.And the policy proposed by those civil officials not only does not open the source, but also turns off the taps of the water pipes that have been opened up, or even shut them down.

And because of the education he had received since he was a child, and because there were no eunuchs who were familiar with government affairs and reminded him of these civil officials' tricks, Emperor Chongzhen foolishly approved these policies.

Why didn't these eunuchs remind them?Because they didn't dare after seeing Wei Zhongxian's end!This also reflects the evil consequences of Emperor Chongzhen's killing of Wei Zhongxian.

Since the way of increasing revenue is not feasible, the only way is to reduce expenditure.

In the Ming Dynasty court at that time, the largest expenditure was military expenditure, which accounted for more than half of the Ming Dynasty's financial expenditure.In terms of military expenditures, Liaodong's military expenditures accounted for more than half of the entire military expenditures.

Moreover, the military expenditure of Liaodong is increasing almost every year.After the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming army was at a defensive disadvantage in Liaodong. In order to resist the aggressive offensive of the Houjin army, the Ming court spent a lot of money and food, and sent some troops to strengthen the Liaodong army. strength.

In addition, the Ming Dynasty also built a large number of forts in Liaodong.And all of this costs a lot of money.However, even so, the situation in Liaodong still hasn't improved.For the finances of the Ming court, the entire Liaodong region has become a bottomless pit.

At this time, Emperor Chongzhen thought: gather the financial resources of the whole country, sell the pot and sell iron, and gather a large amount of military expenditure.Then send a famous general to Liaodong (because all civil servants led the army in the Ming Dynasty, this famous general must also be a civil servant).Strive to completely reverse the situation in Liaodong within a certain period of time.Even completely wiped out the Houjin army.

If that was the case, as long as he gritted his teeth and survived the past few years, the entire financial problem of the Ming Dynasty would come to life.

It should be said that Emperor Chongzhen's thinking was correct and completely logical.But he did not expect that the implementation of his policy would greatly reduce the money and food for disaster relief after the drought.Therefore, the peasant rebellion team in northern Shaanxi immediately started a prairie fire from a single spark to the entire Shaanxi Province.

Don't talk about these off-topic words anymore.So which civil official should be sent to preside over the military affairs of Liaodong now?At that time, there were only two ministers who were expected by everyone: Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan.

But because Sun Chengzong was already very old at that time, and because Sun Chengzong was once the teacher of Emperor Tianqi, in view of Emperor Chongzhen's complicated feelings for Emperor Tianqi.Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen was unwilling to send Sun Chengzong in his heart.

Then there is only Yuan Chonghuan.

Yuan Chonghuan was indeed lucky at this time.Although in the past, he also belonged to Wei Zhongxian's party.However, because he has been an official in Liaodong, he is far away from the center of the capital.Therefore, he basically did not offend any other civil servants.

Fortunately for Yuan Chonghuan, in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, when Wei Zhongxian launched an attack on civil officials headed by the Donglin Party, he and Xue Lian were in the same group and advocated not expanding the scope of the attack on civil officials.

Therefore, in the struggle for power within Wei Zhongxian's party, Yuan Chonghuan was attacked by another faction and had to resign and go home.In this way, Yuan Chonghuan also vaguely became a victim of Wei Zhongxian's attack on civil officials.In the eyes of those who don't know the situation, Yuan Chonghuan seems to be in opposition to Wei Zhongxian.This is exactly what Emperor Chongzhen thought of Yuan Chonghuan.

Therefore, in April of the first year of Chongzhen, when a minister submitted a memorial to recommend Yuan Chonghuan to Emperor Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't wait to reactivate Yuan Chonghuan.And in July of the first year of Chongzhen, he had an important platform meeting with Yuan Chonghuan.

For the detailed content of the platform summons, you can look at historical materials or Baidu, and there will be no irrigation here.The summary of this meeting is as follows:

Emperor Chongzhen learned about the situation in Liaodong from Yuan Chonghuan in detail, and listened to Yuan Chonghuan's views on solving the situation in Liaodong.When Yuan Chonghuan made many demands to Emperor Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen also satisfied Yuan Chonghuan.In the end, Yuan Chonghuan assured Emperor Chongzhen that as long as the court did meet Yuan Chonghuan's request, he would calm down the situation in Liaodong within five years.

After being summoned, Emperor Chongzhen immediately gave Yuan Chonghuan Shangfang Baojian, and appointed Yuan Chonghuan as the Minister of the Ministry of War and the right deputy capital censor, the supervisor of Ji, Liao, and the military affairs of Deng, Lai, and Tianjin.

After the summoning, Emperor Chongzhen was very happy.He finally started to do the first big thing after he took the throne.Although the current situation in Liaodong is still the same, with Yuan Chonghuan's guarantee and his own support, isn't that a good start half the battle?

That's the end of the platform summoning.But we should look at two scenes that took place during this summons.

The first is: Emperor Chongzhen promised to meet all of Yuan Chonghuan's demands, and Yuan Chonghuan also promised to calm the situation in Liaodong within five years.

Because this summoning is recorded in historical materials, and the records are very complete.In addition, many ministers attended this summons.Therefore, this summoning must be very formal.Therefore, in this summons, the promises made by everyone must also be very serious.The established guidelines and policies will also become national policies.

But in hindsight, Emperor Chongzhen has solidly fulfilled his promises one by one.And how does Yuan Chonghuan, who made the promise, view his promise?

The second is: When a minister who is familiar with the situation in Liaodong and knows that Liaodong will not be pacified in five years anyway, when he privately asked Yuan Chonghuan his questions, Yuan Chonghuan answered him like this.

Yuan Chonghuan's words probably mean that the emperor is still young and doesn't know much about the situation in Liaodong.I saw that the emperor was worried about the situation in Liaodong, so I said that to comfort him.

what happened?Could it be that the promise Yuan Chonghuan made was to make Emperor Chongzhen happy?He regarded this formal summons as a place to coax the kindergarten children!

What is even more incredible is that although in the historical materials, the content of the conversation between the minister and Yuan Chonghuan is recorded very completely.But in hindsight, Emperor Chongzhen obviously didn't know the content of the conversation between them.This can't help but make people miss those secret agents of the East Factory very much!

As for the other protagonist summoned by the platform—Yuan Chonghuan, we will analyze it in detail.Because what he did had an extremely huge influence on the development of the situation in the last years of the Ming Dynasty.