(A corner of the Forbidden City) The fourteenth year of Wanli, 1586 AD. According to China’s unique chronological system of stems and branches, it is the year of Bingxu, and it belongs to the dog year. From this year onwards, Ming Shenzong Zhu Yijun began to stay in the Sixth Pal

(A corner of the Forbidden City)

The fourteenth year of Wanli, 1586 AD.

According to China's unique stem and branch chronology , it is the year of Bingxu and belongs to the dog.

Starting from this year, Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty Zhu Yijun began to stay in the West Sixth Palace of the Forbidden City for decades.

He no longer met any minister, read any memorial, or handled any government affairs of the Ming Dynasty.

Two famous otakus in the history of Ming Dynasty , one is Ming Shizong Zhu Houcong ( Jiajing ), and the other is our Wanli comrade.

The same thing is that both emperors chose to give up their duties as emperors and began to close the door and live their own small lives quietly.

But the difference is that Jiajing’s hobby is practicing Taoism, while Wanli’s hobby is sleeping.

Moreover, Comrade Jiajing practiced Taoism during the day and stayed up late at night to criticize memorials, while Emperor Wanli completely gave up work, spent the whole day sleeping, completely let go, and didn't care about anything.

In fact, in essence, it is better for the emperor to do nothing than for the emperor to mess around.

Firstly, Emperor Wanli was not a womanizer, secondly, he had no desire to spend money, and thirdly, he did not like to go out to stir up troubles or engage in militaristic national policies, so even if the emperor chose to take negative actions such as hanging up in the game , in fact, the impact on the country is not very big.

Although the emperor does not work, the cabinet does, and the Director of Ceremonies also works. The Sixth Ministry and the Three Law Departments are not just for free. Even if the emperor does not work, the civil and military officials can still do their jobs smoothly. .

(Cabinet)

The functional institutions in the capital are very complete. There are governors, governors, prefects, and county magistrates in the local area, which are closely linked, so even if the emperor goes on strike, their work will not be delayed.

But even so, the ministers were still very anxious.

The reason is that since the Ming Dynasty, the emperor has been sitting in the court, and the ministers have bowed to the ground and worshiped. Now the emperor often misses him for three to five years, and the ministers are really a little anxious.

You don’t have to work, you don’t have to work, but your people must be rewarded. If nothing else, there must be a sense of ceremony.

As a result, the civil servants tried their best. Some ministers were filled with righteous indignation and expressed strong condemnation and criticism of the emperor. Some ministers burst into tears and begged the emperor to see them. Some ministers said they would butt their heads. Zhu, if the emperor doesn't go to court again, then his blood will be splashed in the court and he will risk his life with the emperor.

But no matter how the ministers criticized, begged and threatened, Emperor Wanli remained unmoved.

The emperor is like a pea that cannot be broken by a hammer, cannot be boiled, or cannot be steamed. He will never compromise and will never change.

While expressing their deep disappointment to the emperor, the ministers also began to gradually discover that it was no problem for the emperor to miss work for one day, no problem for him to miss work for a month, and no problem for him to miss work for a year, but the emperor's current absence from work was no problem. It has lasted for five or ten years, which has caused a lot of troubles in the originally peaceful Ming Dynasty.

(Chaotang)

The most serious of these chaos is that "people are stagnant in officials, and officials are empty", that is, there is a large-scale paralysis in the appointment and removal of officials.

Ministers can help the emperor handle many things. The Ministry of Etiquette can handle sacrificial activities, the Ministry of Military War and War can be responsible for command, and the Ministry of Social Affairs and People's Livelihood can help mediate. If there are some big things that are very difficult and difficult to solve, they can still There are senior bachelors in the cabinet who help as advisers.

The Ming Dynasty lacked everything except people with lofty ideals.

But even if the ministers can handle all the work for the emperor, there is still one task that must be completed by the emperor himself, and that is the appointment and removal of officials.

Whoever takes office, who gets promoted, who gets transferred, who resigns, from the chief minister of the cabinet to the magistrate of Zhizhi County, all need to be personally appointed by the emperor. However, now Emperor Wanli has disappeared like a ghost in the Forbidden City, and wants the emperor to be there Signing a signature on a personnel document is really difficult.

The emperor was unable to sign, which resulted in a situation where officials who were supposed to retire couldn't hold on any longer and resigned one after another, which immediately led to a large number of official positions being vacant, and those freshmen who had obtained the title and should have entered the Ming Dynasty's political arena Blood, but because they were not appointed by the emperor, they could only stare blankly. The existing officials in the court also felt uncomfortable. Those who were promoted could not be promoted, and those who were transferred could not be transferred. Some officials even had to hold multiple positions in one person, and the work pressure The sudden increase caused officials to be unable to continue their work, so a large number of resignations occurred, which in turn caused official positions to become vacant again. Such a vicious cycle was all about getting out but not getting in. Soon, the number of officials in the entire Ming Dynasty began to go crazy. It has dropped to an unbelievable level.

(Image of the Metropolitan Procuratorate)

About the forty-seventh year of Wanli, that is, around 1619 AD, among the six departments of the imperial court, only the Ministry of Husbandry had a minister (Shang Shu). And if you want to go to the three departments of the Ministry of Personnel, the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of War to do things, you will find that there is not a single staff member in these three departments from the inside out. There is only the official seal used for doing things on the table. Who would want to Just pick it up and stamp it.

The situation of only having the official seal but no one is already very miserable, but what is even worse is yet to come. Not only are there no people in the Metropolitan Procuratorate and Dali Temple, but they have even lost their official seals. The entire department is in name only, and the government affairs under its jurisdiction are completely paralyzed.

But even so, Emperor Wanli was still unwilling to go to court.

Of course, Wanli's failure to go to court was not because he was lazy, but because of his resentment towards the civil servant group.

Wanli was only ten years old when he ascended the throne.

The little emperor was young and the ruler of the country was suspicious, so in the ten years from when he was ten to twenty, government affairs were always presided over by Zhang Juzheng, the chief minister of the cabinet.

Zhang Juzheng lived in the emperor's home, acted as the emperor's master, and made detailed decisions on all matters of the dynasty for the emperor. Basically, he had made the emperor an empty figure.

(Zhang Juzheng’s image)

It is true that the prerequisite for Zhang Juzheng to initiate the vigorous and vigorous " Zhang Juzheng's reform of " that once saved the Ming Dynasty that was in a decadent situation must be to have absolute power, because only in this way can he Unimpeded, he mobilized all the resources of the Ming Dynasty to realize his own ideas, but Zhang Juzheng's monopolization of power represented the loss of power of Emperor Wanli.

Emperor Wanli, who had suffered from the pain of losing power for ten years, had no self-confidence and no self-esteem in front of his first assistant Zhang Juzheng. It was not until Zhang Juzheng's death that he removed all the fame he had gained during his lifetime and dared to liquidate Zhang Juzheng.

It can be seen that Wanli has lived in the shadow of Zhang Juzheng from beginning to end, and he has never been able to climb the mountain of Zhang Juzheng.

Fortunately, I am still young, but Zhang Juzheng is already dead.

Due to the bad experience of being deprived of power when he was a boy, Emperor Wanli immediately became a dominant emperor after taking office. He was very sensitive to power and was afraid that he would lose control of the empire again, but he was very Soon I discovered that although Zhang Juzheng was dead, the civil servants in the court were still extremely vicious.

Civil servants are in charge of the sky above, the earth below, and the air in the middle. They have to control what the emperor eats, what the emperor says in court, and which concubines the emperor sleeps with in the harem.

As an emperor, Emperor Wanli not only had no autonomy at all, but was constantly constrained by civilian officials.

Every word he said must be carefully considered, because even if he said a wrong word, the ministers would find it out, nag him endlessly, and criticize him.

He has to pay attention to his actions and appearance 24 hours a day. He is afraid that if there is any mistake, the censor and civil officials will seize the opportunity to criticize him, criticize him, or be included in the history books. Got a bad debt.

(image of King Fu Zhu Changxun)

Not only was he walking on thin ice on the throne, but Emperor Wanli was often unable to decide even his own household affairs. Since the Wanli Emperor had no legitimate son, his crown prince could only be selected from the sons of concubines. However, even if he was a concubine, the emperor had to follow the eldest son succession system and make the eldest son of a concubine the prince. However, the emperor did not like the eldest son of a concubine. Zhu Changluo, but preferred the third concubine Zhu Changxun, so the emperor always wanted to make Zhu Changxun the prince.

In the eyes of the emperor, Da Ming belonged to the old Zhu family. He could make whoever he wanted to be the prince, but in the eyes of the ministers, this matter was far more than just a family matter.

The emperor is the master of the empire, so the emperor needs to abide by the ancestral system. The eldest son inheritance system set by the ancestors, what is so special about you, Emperor Wanli? Why do you violate it?

They collectively resisted the emperor's wrong behavior of abolishing the elders and establishing the younger ones, and therefore had a long-term struggle with the emperor.

During this period, Emperor Wanli tried many ways to reverse the direction of things. He criticized the ministers, educated the ministers, begged the ministers, and threatened the ministers. Just like those kneeling outside the door at this moment, they tried all kinds of methods. Like the ministers who asked him to go to court, the emperor had exhausted all his efforts to suck milk, but to no avail.

(image of ministers of the Ming Dynasty)

The emperor even forced out four chief ministers of the cabinet and more than ten ministers of the six ministries. There were more than a hundred capital and local officials who were dismissed due to the dispute over the prince.

Despite paying such a heavy price, Emperor Wanli finally succumbed to the power of the civil servant group. He reluctantly gave up Zhu Changxun and made Zhu Changluo the prince.

The political failure made Emperor Wanli want to retire, and made him extremely disappointed with the political environment he was in, because the emperor finally understood a truth, that is:

When Zhang Juzheng fell, thousands of people But Zhang Juzheng stood up.

I feel sorry for myself as an emperor, but this magnificent Forbidden City has become my lifelong prison.

Therefore, under such an emotional trend, Emperor Wanli began to go on strike.

To sum up, it’s all forced by civil servants.

(Portrait of Emperor Wanli)

Don’t you want to be the master of the country? Okay, I will not go to work from now on, and you will take over all government affairs.

Don’t you want me to be obedient? Okay, I won’t care about anything from now on and let you decide everything.

Don’t you have to take care of everything and be responsible for everything? Okay, from now on I will disappear from the political arena of the Ming Dynasty, and you will have the final say in everything.

You want face, you want power, you want to prove that you are more important than the emperor, you want to make Ming unable to change without you, you can do it, you are really good!

Don’t you, the civil service group, like to stir up trouble the most?

stir it up! Stir it up! Just stir it up!

has caused panic among the people, has caused the loss of imperial power, has caused chaos in the world, and has caused the death of the Ming Dynasty. I, Wanli, am just risking my life with you!

Now, Emperor Wanli can no longer hear the pleadings of civil and military officials to him, asking him to come out and take charge of the work. He will only laugh at them in his heart, mocking them for knowing this, why did they bother to cover their heads with quilts in the first place? , spending day and night after day in the huge Forbidden City.