Zhongxian is a rogue in the market. He was cleansed in middle age. Even though he entered the mainland, he still mistook Xiaozhong and Xiaoxin for his gratitude, but then he dared to be a great traitor and a great evil to disrupt the government. —— Yang Lian
As we all know, there are many treacherous officials and eunuchs in the history of the Ming Dynasty , and the most famous of them is "9,000-year-old " Wei Zhongxian . At its peak, Wei Zhongxian controlled the government and framed the loyal and kind-hearted, and even had to give him enough face.
Perhaps it was because of this. Chongzhen The emperor ordered him to be expelled as soon as he came to power, and then forced him to death halfway. Wei Zhongxian ended his life by hanging himself. After Wei Zhongxian's death, Emperor Chongzhen began to govern the country conscientiously, hoping to revive the glory of the Ming Dynasty.
Unfortunately, not only did he not revive the Ming Dynasty , but also made the world even more chaotic, so that in 1644 AD, he was defeated by Li Zicheng , and he chose to commit suicide in the same way as Wei Zhongxian in Coal Mountain.
Before his death, Emperor Chongzhen shouted, "All ministers have misled me." At this moment, the eunuch beside him, Wang Chengen, responded to "Where is Zhongxian here?" Why did Wang Chengen say such things? Today we will talk about the story.
Wei Zhongxian's development history
Wei Zhongxian was born in Hebei in 1568 AD. He has been a rogue in the market since he was a child and also likes to gambling. Unfortunately, gamblers lost nine out of ten gambling, and Wei Zhongxian, who had poor gambling luck, was often humiliated and owed a lot of debts.
There was no way out, so he cleaned himself into the palace. It happened to be Wanli html for 2 years. After entering the palace, Wei Zhongxian met three noble people, the first one was the eunuch of Sili. Thanks to his help, he made a lot of money with this job.
The second place is the eunuch of the prince's uterus Wang An . As the saying goes, "Money can make the devil push the mill." Wei Zhongxian often gives gifts to Wang An and has a good relationship with the two. Through him, Wei Zhongxian got on the line " Keshi ".
Keshi is not conspicuous in terms of identity. He is just a nurse in the prince Zhu Youxiao . But later one thing happened after another, causing the status of this nurse to rise sharply, and Wei Zhongxian also got on this express train.
Mingguangzong Zhu Changluo died after only one month of emperor, and the eldest son of the emperor Zhu Youxiao naturally became the heir. For the sake of the overall situation, ministers Zuo Guangdou , Yang Lian and others forcibly expelled their concubine Li from Zhu Youxiao.
so that Zhu You proofreaded the civil and military officials and began to be disgusted, so he transferred this "dependence" to Keshi. Tianqi After the emperor ascended the throne, Keshi was named Fengsheng Lady , and Wei Zhongxian also became the Silijian Eunuch around the emperor,
Tianqi is called the "carpenter emperor". He does not like to manage the government affairs and only likes to do some carpenter work every day. Wei Zhongxian took what he likes and gradually took control of the government power in his own hands and began his legendary life.
In those years, Wei Zhongxian successively eliminated many people who were unfavorable to him, and the struggle with Donglin Party never stopped, but he was a close minister of the emperor. As the saying goes, "The moon will be the first to get close to the water", so that he can always win in every struggle.
As time goes by, Wei Zhongxian was already the second in Zhao Gao in the late reign of Emperor Tianqi. No one in civil and military officials dared to go against his wishes. Even Zhu Youjian, who had not yet become emperor, had to succumb to his deterrence.
7th year, Zhu Youxiao died of illness, and his younger brother Zhu Youjian ascended the throne. At first, Wei Zhongxian wanted to control Emperor Chongzhen, but in the end he failed. The new emperor succeeded to the throne for three fires, and Emperor Chongzhen's first fire was to burn Wei Zhongxian.
In October of the same year, a memorial impeachment of Wei Zhongxian appeared on the table of Emperor Chongzhen. Taking advantage of this opportunity, he first removed Wei Zhongxian from his post, and then expelled him from Fengyang, Beijing urban area to guard the ancestral tomb.
This tentative action did not cause riots, so Zhu Youjian simply stopped pretending and directly ordered the Jinyiwei to capture Wei Zhongxian and punish him. Wei Zhongxian, who learned the news, knew that he could not escape death. He did not want to suffer again before he died, so he chose to hang himself on the way to Fengyang.
Emperor Chongzhen and the scholars and officials jointly govern the world
Eliminated Wei Zhongxian and others eunuch party , Emperor Chongzhen began to let go of his hands and steps to do major tasks. He solicited people's hearts with the slogan "Governing the world with the scholars and officials" and wanted to revive the Ming Dynasty, but he wanted to govern the world with the scholars and officials, but the scholars and officials were unwilling to be on the same boat with Emperor Chongzhen.
During the Chongzhen period, it was praised by later generations as " Little Ice Age ". During this period, the north was drought and the land was barren for thousands of miles. This phenomenon lasted from the Chongzhen year to the fourteenth year. Historical records: "The north and the south are wilderness... the dead are abandoned, and the rivers are blocked by the road."
Calamity is not the end. After the Chongzhen thirteenth year, various epidemics were prevalent in the Ming Dynasty. Historical records: "The plague in the capital was a huge disaster, and death was lost, nine out of ten households were empty, and even the households were gone, and no one was restrained."
How did Emperor Chongzhen manage this matter? During the Ming Dynasty, , the budding capitalism began to appear in the south. The industrial and commercial taxes in the south have always occupied the majority of fiscal revenue during the Wanli and Tianqi periods, but after Emperor Chongzhen came to power, it was exempted.
The reason is very simple. Many industries and commerce in the south are the sources of interests of the Donglin Party members. In order to increase their income, they simply wrote to Emperor Chongzhen: "The merchants are all poor people, why should the court compete for profit with the people?"
When Emperor Chongzhen heard this was the case, he waving his business tax. As a result, the Ming Dynasty's fiscal revenue was getting worse every year, and the fiscal deficit became more serious. This part of the deficit could only fall on the heads of the people.
Originally, Emperor Chongzhen thought about "I have a hard time for a year", but it ended up suffering for a full seventeen years. The people continued to revolt under such oppression. Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng rose at this time and became a major concern of the Ming Dynasty.
Once upon a time, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to restore the commercial tax in the south again, but the Donglin Party unanimously left the matter to the outside world. In desperation, it increased the taxes of the people, which led to the impact of the peasant uprising.
In 1644 AD, Li Zicheng's peasant uprising army continued to march towards Beijing, and finally surrounded the Ming Dynasty's capital. At that time, the military and civilians in Beijing were already exhausted due to famine and plague, and were unable to resist Li Zicheng's army at all.
Emperor Chongzhen also wanted to raise some money from civil and military officials to quell the rebellion, but all the ministers cried to him and refused to donate money no matter what. A few days later, Beijing was captured by Li Zicheng's army, and Emperor Chongzhen came to the coal mountain in despair and hanged himself.
Before his death, he looked at the capital of Beijing, which was filled with wars and smoke. Emperor Chongzhen said: "Since I ascended the throne for seventeen years, although I have been poor in virtue and have been angry with the heavens, all the ministers have misled me and caused the traitor to go straight to the capital..."
The personal eunuch Wang Cheng'en happened to be next to Emperor Chongzhen. When he heard the emperor say this, he silently replied, "Where is Ruo Zhongxian?", and then chose to hang himself and go with Emperor Chongzhen.
It is not difficult to find from Wang Chengen's words before his death that he seemed to be optimistic about Wei Zhongxian. If Wei Zhongxian was still alive, Emperor Chongzhen would not have been forced into a desperate situation. So, why did he say so? What other things did Wei Zhongxian do?
What did Wei Zhongxian do in those years?
During the feudal dynasty, Agricultural tax was an important source of income for the court. During the Ming Dynasty, there was a system that "no taxes were collected from literati", which means that the land planted by officials did not need to be paid taxes, and this part of the tax naturally weighed on ordinary people.
In the long run, this phenomenon is naturally not conducive to the stability of the court. Around 2 years of Longqing html, the court relaxed the maritime trade, and the era of Ming Dynasty closing the country ended. Against the background of the germination of capitalism, the maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty continued to increase, and this part of the tax revenue was a big cake.
However, although this piece of cake is very big, it is difficult to collect taxes, because many marine traders on the southeast coast colluded with officials. Once the court collects commercial taxes, the ministers will boycott each other, saying that they cannot compete for profit with the people.
Perhaps Emperor Tianqi was also very upset about this matter, so he simply ignored it and handed it over to his personal eunuch Wei Zhongxian. The emperor may care about face and is unwilling to have conflicts with the civil servant group, but Wei Zhongxian does not play according to the routine.
did not care about the obstruction of civil servants when he performed imperial power. He began to impose commercial tax on trade in the southeast coast. As mentioned above, this is a big cake. The super high commercial taxation greatly linked the financial pressure of the Ming Dynasty and further alleviated the pressure of the people.
This has caused a very interesting phenomenon. Although Wei Zhongxian, a "traitorous minister", rarely rebelled among the people. Although there was no Wei Zhongxian during the Chongzhen period, the rebellion incidents of the people were not strong, and in the final analysis, they were all caused by lack of money.
After saying this, let’s take a look at the next interesting thing! Although the military power of the Later Jin during the Apocalypse Period was strong, it was difficult for the Eight Banners Army to break through the Guanjin defense line, and it was even more difficult to get a bargain in the hands of Guanning Iron Cavalry .
or even Nurhaci was hit by the Ming army's cannon and died. The Guanjin defense line during this period was as stable as a rock. What's interesting is that the establishment of the Guanning Iron Cavalry is also related to the commercial tax collected by Wei Zhongxian. After all, only money can create better equipment.
Let’s take a look at the military forces during the Chongzhen period. If the increase of agricultural tax on civil and military officials to the people is an "open source" of finance, then they also have a "reduce money" measure, which is to lay off some soldiers from the post station.
Originally, the military power of the Ming Dynasty was already insufficient, and in order to save money, they continued to disarmament. As a result, these layoffs lost their source of income and had no choice but to join the uprising army, forming a vicious cycle.
Generally speaking, although Wei Zhongxian has a lot of bad records and his crimes are hard to write, and history has basically negative evaluations of him, it has to be admitted that he dared to compete with the Donglin Party members in terms of "making money" for the Ming Dynasty's finances.
If Chongzhen did not kill Wei Zhongxian and continued to let him check and balance with the Donglin Party members, perhaps the tax pressure on the people in the late Ming Dynasty would not be so great, and they would not be desperate and rebelled, and the post station soldiers would not be laid off, and it would be even more difficult for Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong to rise (the two were also post station soldiers who were laid off).
Follow the Tathagata, what Wang Chengen said before his death makes sense. What do you think about this?
