Both the Western Jin Dynasty and the Northern Song Dynasty were able to settle south of the Yangtze River after the fall of the Central Plains. Why didn't the Ming Dynasty clan successfully settle down? Although there are voices on the Internet overturning the verdict of the eunu

Ruan Dacheng, the initiator of the Shun case, both the Western Jin and the Northern Song dynasty were able to settle in the south of the Yangtze River after the fall of the Central Plains. Why didn't the Ming Dynasty clan succeed in settling down? The big reason for

is that Nanming inherited the party struggle tradition of Ming Dynasty . Even if the enemy is present, party struggle will still be carried out. Although there are voices on the Internet overturning the verdict of the Eunuch Party, if the demise of the Chongzhen Dynasty is entirely attributed to Donglin, then the complete demise of the Ming Dynasty will be entirely attributed to the Eunuch Party. The coup launched by the eunuch party consumed the last vitality of the Ming Dynasty and led to the demise of Nanming.

1. What is Shun'an

Shun'an is a major historical event in the late Ming Dynasty. Because the occurrence of this case directly caused the disintegration of Nanjing's ministers, leading to the rapid demise of the Hongguang Dynasty. What is a smooth case? There are currently two opinions.

The first is the theory of hoeing rape. This view believes that following the case was Hong Guangchao's method to unite people's hearts in order to preserve loyal ministers, punish traitors, and unite to resist the enemy. Li Qing's "Nandu Lu" said: In May 1644, after the Jiashen national disaster, the capital of Nanjing supported Zhu Yousong, the King of Fortune, who was the Hongguang Emperor. In June, Emperor Hongguang issued an edict asking Nanjing to investigate the "conforming and rebellious ministers". Under the auspices of Emperor Hongguang's favorite Ma Shiying and Ma's right-hand man Ruan Dacheng, the "Shun Case" was launched. The targets of the attack were those who "were known as gentlemen, and were the chief culprits" after Li broke into Beijing. Because Li Chuang's national title was "Shun", he was called "Shun Case". Those who were included in the investigation, such as Zhongguang Shiheng, the military officer who prevented Chongzhen from moving south, and Li broke into the capital and became the first traitors; Gong Dingzi said that I wanted to die, but my concubine refused, so she Surrender the thieves; and Zhou Zhong, a commoner of the Chongzhen Dynasty who drafted the edict for Li Zicheng to ascend the throne. "History of the Ming Dynasty·Ma Shiying's Biography" also believes that the main targets of the attack on Shun'an are the obedient ministers, because these people are mainly members of the Donglin Party, so it gives people the impression that the eunuchs are attacking Donglin.

Donglin Party

The second is the theory of party struggle, which believes that Shunyan is the continuation of the struggle between Apocalypse , Donglin and the Eunuch Party in the second dynasty of Chongzhen. Because the Donglin Party made "reverse crimes" against the Eunuch Party in the early days of Chongzhen, Ruan Dacheng was among those attacked. Therefore, after the rise of Ruan Dacheng in the Hongguang Dynasty, he made a plan to fight back against the Donglin Party. Ruan Dacheng said clearly: "He (Donglin Party) attacks the counterattack, and I respond to the favorable case." However, except for Ruan Dacheng who said the term "Shun An" himself, no one in the Hongguang Dynasty publicly quoted it from beginning to end.

The author tends to believe that the case started with the liquidation of traitors and rebellious ministers, and was later used by Ruan Dacheng. It became Ruan Dacheng's tool to attack the Donglin Party and take personal revenge. In the end, the Hongguang Dynasty fell apart and people lost their hearts. Ruan Dacheng and the eunuchs had unshirkable responsibility for the demise of the Hongguang Dynasty.

Ma Shiying, Ruan Dacheng

2. The public disclosure incident - the trigger of the Shun case

Speaking of the trigger of the Shun case, we must first talk about the public disclosure incident. This incident directly caused Ruan Dacheng to hate the Nanjing scholars.

In the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), Yang Sichang, who was highly valued by Chongzhen and had goodwill towards the eunuchs, was about to enter the cabinet. Ruan Dacheng, the eunuch who lived in Nanjing, made many friends in Nanjing and publicly declared, "I will overturn the verdict. It's about to be put into use", which means a great revival. Members of Nanjing Fushe, known as Xiao Donglin, Chen Zhenhui , Gu Gao, Wu Yingji , launched a movement to expel Ruan. The three wrote an article "Remaining in the capital to prevent chaos and public exposure", denounced Ruan Dacheng's crimes. The public announcement caused an uproar in Nanjing, with more than a hundred scholars signing their names, turning Ruan Dacheng into a street rat with no hope of comeback.

Fushe Gongzi

Regarding the impact of the public disclosure incident, the words of the national hero Xia Wanchun who later died are the most classic. He said that the public disclosure of the incident was "too harsh, which led to strange disasters." He believed that the scholars who restored society spoke too sharply, which made Ruan Dacheng feel resentful; and the so-called strange disaster was just the case.

As far as the content of the public disclosure is concerned, according to the research of Dr. Hu Gengtian of Nankai University , Ruan's crimes described in the "Public Exposure" are basically true.

3. The Beginning and Expansion of the Shun Plan

In early May after the fall of Beijing, King Fu Zhu Yousong, who was still called the supervisor of the country in Nanjing, received the "Eight Important Things for Chen's New Government" from Gao Hongtu, the Minister of Rites. The first item is Investigate traitors and rebels.That's when the smooth sailing began. Later, Ma Shiying, the eunuch party, won over the general soldiers of the four towns in Jiangbei and supported Prince Fu as the emperor on May 15. By virtue of his support, Ma Shiying became the confidant of Emperor Hongguang, and the task of tracking down the traitors was transferred to Horse's hands.

It should be said that in the early stage of the investigation of the traitors, it was quite popular. Both the eunuchs and Donglin agreed to the investigation. As mentioned above, Guang Shiheng and Gong Dingzi are both sanctimonious people. But since July, Ma Shiying promoted Ruan Dacheng, a comrade of the eunuch party and the famous playwright, and the investigation work has gradually changed.

Ma Shiying

Ma Shiying almost obeyed Ruan Dacheng, so Ruan was actually in charge of the investigation work. Ruan Dacheng thought of the suppression by Dong Lin many years ago, especially the public exposure incident that left Nanjing with almost no other place to stay, and Ruan Suiqi took revenge.

The expansion of the case began with the reflection on the case against the Chongzhen Dynasty. Because of the moral flaws of the eunuchs, especially during the Chongzhen Dynasty, the eunuchs were mostly designated as criminals in "reverse cases" by Chongzhen. The blacklist of the eunuchs was always a sharp sword weighing on the eunuchs. For example, Gao Hongtu, the chief assistant at the time, opposed Ruan Dacheng's comeback, but Ma Shiying said "I will appoint him myself", so Ma Shiying voted for him, and Ruan Dacheng came back successfully. In order to expand their power, members of the eunuch party launched a campaign to overturn the verdict.

Zhang Jie, the minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, publicly stated that counter-cases should be reviewed and "those who have been really wronged will be punished, or recorded, and sympathized with." In the end, Emperor Hongguang revised Chongzhen's "Qin Ding Counter Case" and deleted Ruan Dacheng and others from the blacklist of counter case. Since then, Ruan Dacheng has been cleared.

Chongzhen

Since then, under the planning of Ruan Dacheng, the scope of the attack on Shun Case has continued to expand. In June, Ruan Dacheng used Zhou Zhong's incident to implicate his cousin Zhou Biao and his friend Lei Yan. Zhou Biao and Lei Yan were active members in the public disclosure of the incident, so they were hated by Ruan Dacheng. Zhou Biao and Lei Yan became the first victims of the expansion of the case. They were first imprisoned and eventually killed.

After that, Ruan Dacheng wrote "Locust Records". Donglin called them locusts, and Fushe called them locusts. This is Ruan Dacheng's revenge list, which contains all Ruan Dacheng's enemies. In August, Ruan Dacheng made his public appearance as Minister of War, and was soon promoted to Minister of War. With his official status, Ruan Dacheng began to arrest people according to the list. The first one on the list was Chen Zhenhui, and the second one was Wu Yingji. Zhou Biao and Jiang Riguang, the minister of the Ministry of Rites and the assistant minister, were comrades. They had tried to support King Lu of . Using Zhou Biao as a clue, Ruan Dacheng implicated Jiang Riguang and others in it and called them cronies. For a time, everyone in Nanjing Self-danger.

Scholars of the Ming Dynasty

4. The End of Shun Case, The Three Nandu Cases and the Destruction of the Ming Dynasty

In a narrow sense, Shun Case ended after Zhou and Lei were killed, but the aftermath of Shun Case continued to ferment, and Ruan Dacheng Taking advantage of the Nandu Three Cases, Shun'an was extended indefinitely, and it was not until the eve of the demise of Hongguang Dynasty that Shun'an was truly ended.

The so-called "Three Southern Crossing Cases" refer to the fact that after the Ming Dynasty moved south, some people with ulterior motives falsely claimed that the Ming Dynasty clan took advantage of the opportunity to make profits. However, Ruan Dacheng attributed the three cases to the conspiracy of the Donglin Party members, so Ruan Dacheng wrote the sequel to "The Record of Locusts" and "The Record of Flying Gnomes", and included all the people in Donglin. The celebrities in Donglin were crowned the Eighteen Arhats, Five Thirteen ginseng and seventy-two names of Bodhisattvas, " Da Cheng wants to kill everyone in Donglin and Fushe". Under this situation, Hubei general Zuo Liangyu, who was very close to Donglin, rebelled in Wuchang, , and raised troops in the name of opposing Ma Ruan. Ruan Dacheng hurriedly mobilized the officers and soldiers of the four towns in Jiangbei who were guarding the north to go south to Qinwang. Because the order was too extensive, the chief minister Ma Shiying felt it was too much, so he stopped it, and the order was finally concluded.

Mingjun

Although the case was stopped, the consequences of the case have been fully revealed. First of all, the original intention of Shunping was to clear up the dirt, ensure the purity of the Hongguang Dynasty, and unite to resist the enemy. However, it was exploited by people with malicious intentions and became a tool of party struggle, causing the disintegration of the regime. Shi Kefa , Gao Hongtu, and Jiang Riguang, known as the three sage prime ministers, were excluded and did not play their role at all, resulting in Hongguang Chao being occupied by some people with low abilities.Ruan Dacheng is an outstanding playwright. A playwright eventually became the Minister of Defense and presided over the Anti-Japanese War, just like a comedian became the president and presided over the country. Can this win?

The second was to trigger Zuo Liangyu's rebellion, which consumed Hong Guangchao's limited power. The main military forces of the Hongguang Dynasty were the four towns in Jiangbei and Zuoliangyu in Hubei. Because of the expansion of the case, Zuo Liangyu felt in danger, so he rebelled, triggering internal strife in the Ming army. The main forces of the four towns in Jiangbei moved south, leaving the northern defense line empty. But Zuo Liangyu died of illness halfway, and his son Zuo Mengeng directly became a traitor after his rebellion failed, and told the Qing army that Hongguang Chao's power was empty, so the Qing army's march south went surprisingly smoothly. Nanjing fell immediately, and without the Jianghuai defense line, the Qing army easily wiped out the Ming Dynasty clans in the south one by one, and the revival of the Ming Dynasty was completely hopeless. This shows the bad impact of Shun'an.

Wen Shijun said

Why the Ming Dynasty clan did not establish a peaceful regime in the south like the Song Dynasty . The main reason was that party struggle consumed internal energy. Through the case, we can clearly see that both the Donglin Party and the Eunuch Party fight for personal gain. If according to the opinions on the Internet, Donglin was mainly responsible for the demise of the Chongzhen Dynasty, then the main responsibility for the failure of the Ming Dynasty to be peaceful lies with the Eunuch Party. This cannot be washed away.

References

Mao Peiqi: "A Study of Shun'an", "Research on Ming History", May 1997.

Hu Gengtian: "New Discussion on the Incident of Restoring Society and Staying in the Capital to Prevent Rebellion and Public Disclosure in the Late Ming Dynasty", "Historical Monthly", Issue 8, 2001.

Zang Shougang: "Examination of Hou Fangyu's imprisonment as a member of the Ming Dynasty", "Journal of Luohe Vocational and Technical College", Issue 6, 2015.

(Author: Haoran Literature and History·Zi Ju)

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