The people are the most important, the country is the second most important, and the king is the least important. I wonder how many emperors have truly achieved this from ancient times to the present. Ming Dynasty is a special era. Open and pedantic. When the king is not in court, the parties will never stop fighting.
The last glory of the Ming Dynasty dissipated little by little, followed by endless night. The demise of the Ming Dynasty did not happen in a day. The entire court was full of corruption from top to bottom. How could such a dynasty survive?
In the late Ming Dynasty, in addition to the eunuchs who controlled the power of the government, there was also a party called the "Donglin Party" by later generations. In fact, there is no precise record of the "Donglin Party" in the Ming Dynasty.
The eunuch party headed by Wei Zhongxian dominates the court. In order to eradicate dissidents, he gave the name "Donglin Party" to the group of people who disagreed with him.
At that time, the Ming Dynasty was suffering from internal and external troubles. How could a minister who really wanted to make a difference single-handedly start the Donglin Party? However, the "Donglin Party" still appeared. No one dared to start from the source and could only repair the dilapidated Ming Dynasty.
The derogatory term "Donglin Party"
The Donglin Party was a bureaucratic political faction mainly composed of Jiangnan scholar-bureaucrats in the late Ming Dynasty. The name comes from Donglin Academy . The beginning of the establishment of everything in is full of ambition.
His original intention was to establish an academy similar to " Jixia Academy" to ideologically change the thinking of scholars and officials all over the world.
If you want to save the crumbling Ming Dynasty, you must reform. If you want to change the filthy atmosphere in the court, you must cultivate a group of people who are honest, honest, and dare to fight against the eunuchs.
But it is impossible for new ideas to integrate into a decadent environment without being polluted. There were many reasons for the decline of the Ming Dynasty. A monarch who is not enterprising, an eunuch who covers the sky with one hand, imperfect national policies, and a disregard for the current situation of the people.
Wanting to save a declining dynasty cannot be changed by party struggle alone. Gu Xiancheng is a person who dares to accept advice, but what can he do if the emperor doesn't want to listen?
But his attitude of daring to challenge the eunuchs attracted a group of people with lofty ideals. It was this group of people with lofty ideals who initiated half a century of political activities in the Ming Dynasty.
Most of these literati came from Jiangnan, so even the wealthy people in Jiangnan bet their money on these officials, hoping to profit from them. This group of people, who were both powerful and wealthy, quickly became united in the court.
This group of people was very powerful in the court, clamoring for reform every day, but nothing the emperor wanted to do was satisfactory. I was annoyed by the noise, but I couldn't punish the court officials at will. At this time, the emperor began to promote eunuchs to check and balance these people.
The eunuch who was promoted was Wei Zhongxian. Of course, there cannot be only two hostile forces in the court. But the Eunuch Party and the Donglin Party have become the two largest forces that can check and balance each other.
Talking on paper can harm the country and the people.
Sometimes, reading too many books may not be a good thing. There is more than one person who reads books too pedantically. The Donglin Party has been criticized because they originally had good intentions but ended up doing bad things.
They reject ideologues. Pursue the concept of seeking truth from facts, open up the road of speech, and oppose eunuchs. They also form cliques for personal gain and do not allow voices different from theirs to appear. Many officials were killed by them.
The Donglin Party is a group of contradictory people . They strive to change the status quo of the country and do so by any means. They fight against traditional concepts and stand on the highest point of morality to demand and criticize everyone .
Being in the political whirlpool, they gradually became like the people they wanted to eradicate. Hypocrisy, killing, and blood that should not appear in the court also overflowed from their hands.
The original ideal of clarity in my heart was twisted into paranoia. The party struggle is getting more and more intense. No one wants to stop, and it can't stop. They gradually became the second Wei Zhongxian.
Because of the industrial and commercial tax issue, the two factions have reached the point where they are fighting to the death.Wei Zhongxian once wanted to retire and return to his hometown, but reality did not allow him to retire intact.
The Ming Dynasty implemented the policies of the ancestors in a satisfactory manner. The most important decision was to emphasize agriculture and suppress business, but it was turned into a mess by the Donglin Party.
After Emperor Chongzhen came to power, he particularly hated the eunuch party, so he united with the Donglin Party to get rid of Wei Zhongxian. Since the Donglin Party has no opponents, it can naturally let go.
But what did they do after Wei Zhongxian died? First, they stopped collecting industrial and commercial taxes . This makes the already hard-working people even more miserable.
The wealthy businessmen in Jiangnan are getting richer and richer, but the people are getting poorer and poorer. This led to a big loophole in the finances of the Ming Dynasty. But businessmen will never be dissatisfied with having too much money. The Ming Dynasty was gradually eroded by the wealthy gentry and court officials in the south of the Yangtze River.
What's more, the one who supports them is the Donglin Party. The Donglin Party after Wei Zhongxian's death could even shake the imperial power. The promotion and dismissal of officials are at their discretion.
The most ironic thing is that all the so-called clear people are wealthy. Once upon a time, an emperor tried to raise one million taels of silver from the private sector but was unable to collect it. However, when he confiscated the property of his ministers, tens of millions of taels of silver were found. The most honest official in the Ming Dynasty was only Hai Rui.
The end of the Donglin Party
After the Qing army entered the customs , the helpless Emperor Chongzhen could only hang himself, and the Donglin Party who shouted every day to revive the Ming Dynasty had already knelt at the feet of the Qing army and surrendered. The so-called Qingliu is just a joke.
The Ming Dynasty was imperfect from its roots, and future generations could not change it no matter how hard they tried. Zhang Juzheng , which once held the banner of reform, has not changed anything. After his death, the gold, silver and jewelry found in his home were not the wealth he could possess at his level.
The Donglin Party single-handedly accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty. A group of civil servants who talk eloquently have not implemented any substantive reforms that are truly useful to the country. All they can think about is how to get rid of political opponents.
After the establishment of in the Qing Dynasty, the Donglin Party never appeared again. Of course, the Qing Dynasty abandoned these stubborn scholars. The regime established by the Manchus was not in the hands of officials from the previous dynasty to dictate.
These wealthy gentry in Jiangnan are accustomed to controlling the rules of the game themselves. They tried to compete with the Qing Dynasty and negotiate terms with the Qing Dynasty. But they forgot that the Manchus were not the incompetent rulers of the Ming Dynasty.
People in the Qing Dynasty have never had a good impression of Han people . Apart from the financial resources of the wealthy gentry in Jiangnan, what else could attract the Qing government? The Qing Dynasty carried out a large-scale purge of these forces.
The wealthy merchants and gentry in Jiangnan suffered a devastating blow. Most of these people were killed by the Qing army. Those officials who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty were not reused at that time. Not only would they not reuse you, they would also laugh at you and beat you from time to time.
There is no doubt that the Donglin Party harmed the country. Any policy that does not put the interests of the people first is a chronic poison. The demise of the Ming Dynasty was the butterfly effect brought about by party strife.
