Dealing with the problems of the late Ming Dynasty requires a high degree of political wisdom.
Chongzhen ascended the throne at the age of 17, although he was young, he was quite scheming. At that time, inside and outside the imperial court, it was still the sphere of influence of the "nine-thousand-year-old" Wei Zhongxian. 
Wei Zhongxian was appointed as the eunuch of the ceremonial supervisor Bingbi to supervise the Dongchang, his confidant Tian Jianxiu was the commander of the Jinyi Guard, and Cui Chengxiu was the secretary of the military department. The armed forces in the capital are all under the control of Wei Zhongxian. Zhu Youzhen got his brother's last order, entered the palace at night, and waited to ascend the throne. He stayed up all night, took a sword from the eunuch to defend himself, did not eat the things in the palace, only ate the wheat cake hidden in his sleeve, and lasted until dawn, and finally successfully ascended the throne. At the beginning of Emperor Chongzhen's ascension to the throne, the first thing to consider was to deal with Wei Zhongxian. He adopted the strategy of keeping his head in obscurity, and he still revered itPreferential treatmentWei Zhongxian, as well as the nurse of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, Hakka,Paralysistheir precautions. But he also slowly placed the eunuchs and palace maids in the palace of King Xin, and slowly replaced Wei Zhongxian's peopleTime for space。Of course, Wei Zhongxian realized that the crisis was approaching, and he also took a series of measures against Emperor Chongzhen, such as offering beauties to Emperor Chongzhen, and sewing "** into the skirt of the beauty" is to lure Chongzhen to covet beauty. But Emperor Chongzhen knew how his father died, saw through the trick, and was unmoved. Wei Zhongxian instructed the eunuch henchmen to go up one after another, singing praises to Wei Zhongxian, and testing the attitude of the new emperor. Emperor Chongzhen pushed the boat down the river and rewarded Wei Zhongxian and the eunuch ministers. In this delicately balanced situation, the first thing to break the deadlock was the rift within the eunuch party. Cui Chengxiu, one of the "Five Tigers of the Eunuch Party", Emperor Chongzhen smelled an opportunity, so he dismissed Cui Chengxiu from his official position and forced him to retire. Yang Weiyuan is a eunuch general, and he repeatedly attacked Xiong Tingbi back then, and finally asked Xiong Tingbi to "pass the head to the nine sides". This person has no ethics at all, and this time he was the first to go to the top, obviously not out of justice, but a kind of political speculation. As soon as Choi Chengxiu fell, the ministers of the DPRK and China keenly felt the change in the direction of the political wind, so Wei Zhongxian's recitals were reported one after another, and Wei Zhongxian couldn't hold it back. Emperor Chongzhen was silent for a while, and then suddenly attacked. In October, Qian Jiazheng, a Gongsheng of Haiyan County, wrote a book, listing Wei Zhongxian's ten major crimes. Chongzhen summoned Wei Zhongxian and asked the eunuch to read the note in front of him, and Wei Zhongxian was directly paralyzed. The next day, Wei Zhongxian resigned due to illness, which was approved by Emperor Chongzhen. Soon, Chongzhen demoted Wei Zhongxian to Fengyang to guard the mausoleum, and sent Jinyi guards to arrest him on the road, Wei Zhongxian was forced to be helpless and hanged himself. The liquidation of Wei Zhongxian and the eunuch party, and the rehabilitation of the Donglin party Zhaoxue, were all completed within three or five months of Chongzhen's accession to the throne. From the very beginning of his succession to the throne, this seventeen-year-old young man showed the demeanor of a mature politician, which could not help but dazzle everyone's eyes. It's just a pity that this has also become the only highlight moment of Emperor Chongzhen's life.
2 The hidden dangers within the imperial court were lifted, and Emperor Chongzhen could monopolize power. But the empire that Chongzhen received in his hands was already full of holes. The peasant uprising of the Apocalypse Dynasty was already in full swing. By the early years of the Chongzhen Dynasty, peasant uprisings were already surging everywhere and became the main enemy of the Ming Empire. In the second year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng raised troops; In the third year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong raised troops. These two leaders of the peasant uprising were not the first to revolt and were not the most powerful at the beginning, but they were the real gravediggers of the Ming Empire. We will not analyze in detail the reasons for the uprisings of the peasant armies of all stripes, such as the policy of dismantling the post stations that forced Li Zicheng to rebel. But through the above description, we can know that the chaos in the world has long been inevitable, and without Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, the Ming Empire will collapse. The Later Jin in the Northeast is also gradually growing, and the threat to the Ming Empire is increasing. In the last years of the Apocalypse, Yuan Chonghuan finally won a great victory in Ningyuan, and wounded Nurhachi with artillery, and finally Nurhachi died of serious injuries. However, the successor Huang Taiji was more strategic than his father, leading the Later Jin to further develop strongly, constantly invading the Ming Empire. The seventeen years of Chongzhen's reign were the seventeen years of continuous warfare against the two major internal and external enemies. Zhu Youzhen is an emperor with great ambitions, he is not willing to be a king of the country, he is thrifty, diligent and hardworking, and desperate. But in the face of the general trend, individual effort is the least valuable. When he was in his twenties, his hair turned white, "the rooster crowed, he couldn't sleep at night, he became ill from hard work, and there was no feast in the palace". But his abilities are very average, and his character flaws are too obvious. From a strategic and tactical point of view, he was not even as effective as his brother, who loved carpenters. One of his biggest problems is that he is too impatient, and whenever the slightest progress goes wrong, he will immediately have a violent attack. In terms of the internal and external difficulties faced by the Chongzhen Dynasty, even if Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di were dug out of the coffin, it was very difficult to turn the tide, let alone a young man without any military and political experience. Governing a big country is like cooking a small meal, especially in dealing with such a thorny political situation, we must have superb strategic vision, a high degree of determination, patience, and peel back the cocoon. But as long as Chongzhen encounters adversity, he immediately kills people and changes generals, changes the order every day, employs people and kills people as he wants, and finally the ministers of the Manchu Dynasty are silent like cicadas, leading their necks and waiting for death. During his seventeen-year reign, Emperor Chongzhen changed fifty cabinet scholars, and the first and second assistants of the cabinet rotated like a marquee, and the generals who commanded the army also sent troops today and were killed tomorrow. The peasant army is suppressed today, and tomorrow is soothed, and then soothed, and then soothed. Heroes from all walks of life surrendered today, and tomorrow they raised troops again, making the court very happy. Yuan Chonghuan killed Mao Wenlong, Chongzhen killed Yuan Chonghuan, and the last battle was sent to Hong Chengchou, and it was completely over. Of course, at the technical level, Emperor Chongzhen was also lackluster, and he did not find a good way to save the country at all. He is a headache doctor, a foot pain doctor, and his medical skills are still very lame. Many of the displaced people rebelled, so more soldiers were needed to suppress it. However, there were too many soldiers and not enough food and wages, so they could only continue to raise heavy taxes and force the remaining peasants who had not rebelled into the ranks of the uprising. Although Emperor Chongzhen also knew that the princes and generals had huge sums of money, there was no way to take it out of their mouths, so he could only issue edicts over and over again. He was reluctant to take out his own internal money to lead by example, and blindly asked his subordinates to contribute, so naturally no one listened to him. As a result, every time the peasant army captured a city, they immediately tortured the gentry, chased the stolen goods, and all the silver was robbed by the peasant army. The last monarch of the Ming Dynasty sat on the top of the golden mountain and asked for food for seventeen years. Under the bloody collapse of the country, Emperor Chongzhen issued six edicts of guilt, and after the sixth edict was completed, he hanged himself in a coal mountain. 3
Let's first let the anxious Emperor Chongzhen take a break and introduce the outstanding leader of the peasant army, the gravedigger of the Ming Empire, and the general Li Zicheng. When Li Zicheng was a teenager, Shaanxi suffered from famine for many years, coupled with the tyranny of the imperial court, and he also became a bankrupt peasant. At the age of twenty-one, in order to make a living, he went to Yinchuan Post to become a post man, and Li Zicheng was originally a member of the system. In the first year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen ordered the post station to be streamlined and the post guards to be abolished. In the late Ming Dynasty, the post station also became a corrupt ATM, and the state paid money and fattened private individuals. But the money saved by streamlining the post station is also a drop in the bucket compared to the private wealth of the princes and generals. The reform refused to move the knife on himself, picked the soft persimmon and pinched it, and in the end it was himself who was unlucky. Because of this policy, Li Zicheng lost his job again, and he had no choice but to join the army. In the army, the officers are also fat, the soldiers are not happy, and the polarization is very serious. Therefore, this army mutinied under the deduction of military salaries, and the army mutinies at the end of the Ming Dynasty were simply commonplace, and the officers drank the blood of the soldiers, ate empty salaries, deducted military salaries, and enslaved soldiers, so they often mutinied. After the army mutinied, Li Zicheng and his brothers simply voted for the peasant army king's left hanging department. Slowly, Li Zicheng created a world, nicknamed "Breaking General", and pulled up one of his own teams. There is a common misconception that needs to be explained. Li Zicheng's nickname is not "King Chuang", "King Chuang" is Gao Yingxiang's nickname. Li Zicheng did not defect to Gao Yingxiang and became his subordinate, nor did he inherit the title of "King Chuang" after Gao Yingxiang's death. These peasant armies were basically fighting on their own, sometimes acting in concert. Gao Yingxiang organized thirteen rebel armies and became the leader of the alliance, but this alliance was actually very loose. Most of the leaders of the peasant army at the end of the Ming Dynasty were nicknamed. For example, "Chuang General" Li Zicheng, "Eight Kings" Zhang Xianzhong, "Chuang Wang" Gao Yingxiang, "Cao Cao" Luo Rucai, "Lao Huihui" Ma Shouying, and a lot of earthy and domineering "Zuo Jin King", "Shooting the Sky", "Nine Dragons" and the like. As an aside, among the peasant leaders in the late Ming Dynasty, the most stupid and cute was Hu Chenglong from Zhejiang, who claimed to be"General Tianmeng Guoda".。The answer to the mystery is on the riddle, the word "Tianmeng" is obviously to suppress the "Da Ming", and the stupid cuteness chases Xu Shouhui to suppress the country name "Tianwan" of the "Da Yuan". The leader of the peasant army gave a nickname, not to be prestigious, but not to show his true face, so as not to know his true identity, take revenge on his family, and kill the village. Later, the peasant army became more powerful, and they no longer hid their real names.
Li Zicheng's road to rebellion was also very bumpy, he was defeated by the Ming Dynasty officials and troops several times, and he escaped only after hiding in the mountains, and he really succeeded ten years later. But he was indomitable, always fighting on the front line against the Ming, and became more and more courageous and grew in strength. Li Zicheng really became powerful in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, when he had been in trouble for ten years. When Chongzhen was ten years old, Li Zicheng suffered a major setback, was defeated by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting, and fled to hide in the Shangluo Mountains. From the eleventh to the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng struggled to survive in the border areas of Hubei, Sichuan, and Shaanxi. In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai first surrendered to the Ming court, and then rebelled again. Taking advantage of the opportunity when the main force of the Ming army pursued Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai, Li Zicheng broke into Henan and formed a trend of responding to all calls, developing into the scale of tens of thousands of troops. The thirteenth year of Chongzhen was a particularly serious famine, and the entire north suffered heavy losses. Henan is also the area with the deepest class oppression, and the victims are everywhere, and there is no way to survive without rebellion, which provides Li Zicheng with an endless source of soldiers. Li Zicheng successively captured Lushan, Yiyang, Yongning, Yanshi, Lingbao and other counties, and the army gathered under the city of Luoyang. As the power grew, some of the localIntellectuals, and also began to join the peasant army. For example, the two major strategists under Li Zicheng, Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance, all defected to Li Zicheng during this period. With the addition of intellectuals, Li Zicheng's army gradually broke away from the "rogue doctrine" and formed a base area, laying a theoretical foundation for the real overthrow of the Ming Empire. During Li Zicheng's activities in Henan, he also formed a public case in history. is whether there is a general named Li Yan under Li Zicheng's account. This Li Yan is still very famous, and Guo Moruo's masterpiece "Jiashen Three Hundred Years Sacrifice" describes Li Yan's deeds in rich and colorful colors. This "Li Gongzi" was born an intellectual, and unlike the big man under Li Zicheng, he is a gentle and elegant son who is both civil and military. He, like Niu Jinxing and Song Xiance, was a hero who promoted Li Zicheng to establish power. This figure can be seen in many historical materials in the late Ming Dynasty, and he is also recorded in the official "History of the Ming Dynasty". An article "Li Yan Questioning" by Gu Cheng proves that this character is a fictional character, and it does not exist at all in history. As soon as this article came out, it shocked everyone, and many historians agreed with Gu Cheng's conclusion. For example, Yao Xueyin, who wrote the history ** "Li Zicheng", at first thought that Li Yan was indeed a person, but then he was also Gu Lao**. But this matter is still inconclusive, and there are still many historians, such as Professor Chen Shengxi of Nankai University, who firmly believe that Li Yan does exist, and Gu Cheng's assertion is not valid. I have read some of these articles, and to be honest, the research is too complicated, and I can't figure it out after reading it, and I can't finish reading the historical materials they quote. But this kind of debate is very meaningful, and this is the real academic debate, and both sides deserve respect. Both sides can be written so that I can't understand it, so I can only be convinced, so in my heart, Li Yan is still in a quantum superposition state. Li Zicheng fought in the Central Plains, conquered the important town of Luoyang, and executed those who enjoyed all the blessings of the worldFu Wang Zhu Changxunand wrapped a dumpling with his meat and venison, and the soldiers ate it."Feast of Fortune”。He also broke through Tongguan, killed Sun Chuanting, and built the capital in Xi'an, with the country name "Dashun". The Dashun army was divided into three routes, besieging Beijing, except for a battle in Ningwu, the basic soldiers were bloodless, invincible, and broke through Beijing. Emperor Chongzhen had no choice but to hang himself in Coal Mountain (now Jingshan) and was martyred. The story after that is a tragedy, Wu Sangui colluded with the Manchus and defeated Li Zicheng at Shanhaiguan. The Manchus occupied Beijing, pursued them all the way, eliminated the Dashun regime, and Li Zicheng was killed by local militia at Jiugong Mountain in Hubei. 4
Although Li Zicheng is like a bamboo, a dead horse must also be a live horse doctor, and Emperor Chongzhen is still making the last effort. Militarily, Chongzhen appointed Li Taijian, a scholar, as a superintendent, nominally calledOn behalf of my relativesAt this time, I didn't know how many troops Li Taijian could muster, but the last time he went out, he even made a mistake in the direction of defense. The Dashun army is a three-way march, the main force is led by Li Zicheng personally, after arriving in Taiyuan, take the northern line, Ningwu, Datong, Xuanfu, Juyongguan, Changping, Beijing, this marching route. The monarchs and ministers of the Ming Dynasty all believed that it was impossible for Li Zicheng to take the northern line, because Datong, Xuanfu, and Juyong Pass were all heavily guarded, and the passes were heavy, and it was impossible for the peasant army to defeat the rabble. Therefore, Li Tai built out of Beijing, took the southern route, and attacked the Dashun army from Baoding, Handan, and Henan. A partial division of the Dashun Army, led by Liu Fangliang, also took the southern route. When Li Taijian arrived in Handan, he heard that Liu Fangliang's troops were in the front, and before they could engage in battle, they directly "ran to the north, and the troops were defeated". In the end, he retreated in Baoding, and as soon as Liu Fangliang's troops arrived, they surrendered immediately. At the same time as sending Li Taijian to the expedition, Emperor Chongzhen decided to transfer back the last trump card in his hand, which was the troops of Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Liaodong, who was guarding Ningyuan. 
Wu Sangui's Guanning Iron Cavalry was the last trump card force of the Ming Empire in the northeast against the Manchus. Transferring Wu Sangui into the customs is equivalent to giving up all the territory outside Shanhaiguan to the Manchu Qing Dynasty. But at this time, there is really no other way, drink to quench your thirst, and you can only do it hard. But at this time, Emperor Chongzhen once again carried forward the fine tradition of "throwing the pot". Emperor Chongzhen obviously wanted to transfer Wu Sangui, but he did not bear the responsibility of "abandoning the land" and wanted the ministers to make suggestions. The ministers are well aware of Emperor Chongzhen's temperament, no matter whether it is right or wrong, they will settle accounts after the autumn. Therefore, while the ministers chanted "My Emperor Shengming", they also said that the Guanning Iron Cavalry was related to the safety of Liaodong. After a long and long talk, the final conclusion was "Don't dare to decide, beg for the holy judgment." ”The monarch and the minister fought Tai Chi for more than a month, but the strategy of transferring troops was not implemented. By the beginning of March, Datong was lost, Xuanfu was lost, and Juyongguan was also lost. The Dashun army was approaching the capital, so he finally ordered Wu Sangui to enter the king of Guanqin. By the time Wu Sangui walked to Shanhaiguan, the Dashun army had already arrived in the city. Under the prevarication of Chongzhen's monarchs and ministers, the plan to transfer troops to the king also failed. Thirty-six plans, only the last one remains. Emperor Chongzhen also knew in his heart that sending troops to resist was purely a false story, and the last way out was to escape. The strategy of "moving south to save the picture" was that the emperor went to Nanjing, re-established his power, and emulated the Southern Song Dynasty. For the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing and Beijing have always been called the "two capitals", and there is a complete set of imperial court teams. Although the Nanjing Imperial Court has no actual government affairs in normal times, at this critical moment, there is a set of backup imperial courts, which is actually conducive to moving. But what Emperor Chongzhen wanted was to flee south by himself, leaving the prince and his courtiers to stick to Beijing. Some courtiers proposed to let the crown prince go south to supervise the country, and the emperor "the son of heaven guards the society". Of course, more courtiers are still "Tai Chi" kung fu, only promised, noncommittal. The proposal to move south has been dragged down in this way. When the Dashun army approached Beijing, and at the same time, Liu Fangliang's army on the south road had been outflanked to Zhending and Baoding in Hebei, in fact, the success rate of fleeing south was very low, and Emperor Chongzhen could only lament that "I can't defend Sheji, but I can die Sheji". Li Zicheng's main force on the North Road was only resisted by Zhou Yuji in Ningwu, and it was easily overcome. The other important towns, without the slightest resistance, all opened their doors and surrendered. On March 17, the Dashun army approached the city of Beijing and bombarded Xizhimen. That night, Cao Huachun, the eunuch guarding the city, opened the Guangning Gate and gave the outer city away. On 18 March, Li Zicheng also sent people into the city to secretly negotiate with Emperor Chongzhen, on the condition that Henan and Northwest China would be ceded to Dashun and that he would be rewarded with a million troops before he could withdraw his troops. At the last moment, Emperor Chongzhen also lay flat and refused to negotiate peace. In the early morning of March 19, Zhang Jinyan, the secretary of the military department, opened the Zhengyang Gate, and the Dashun army entered the inner city. Emperor Chongzhen, accompanied by the eunuch Wang Chengen, went to the coal mountain to hang himself and martyr, and said before he died: The ministers are mistaken. Another era has come to an end. Chongzhen worked hard all his life, trying to save the country from peril, and finally became the emperor of the dead country. But compared to the suffering people, the death of Emperor Chongzhen is not important.