What led to the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1642?
In 1642, just over a year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, a group of Ming people gathered here to see the city today by the standards of the Ming Dynasty in 1642.
01 Beijing.
In 1642, the Great Plague broke out in Beijing. The plague was introduced to Beijing from abroad.
Zuo Maodi must supervise the transportation, record what he saw and heard, and report to Chongzhen. Jinghai said:'I came from Linqing, stopped to look at the people, the people are very bitter, the third ** is starving, the third ** died of the plague, and the fourth ** is a thief. The price of rice rose to twenty-four taels.
What we call the plague is the plague.
In July of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641), an epidemic that lasted from the Hebei region to Beijing was called"Measles rash"。The so-called measles rash is actually a plague infection with swollen lymph nodes, hence the name.
In the summer and autumn, the puppets are swollen, the name is pimple, and they die in a few minutes, and there are fourteen or fifteen patients in all patients. In the spring, one person**, or several people in a family died.
At that time, the plague epidemic was so severe that the death toll in Beijing was so high that no one even collected the corpses.
There were so many dead that the ten rooms were empty, and even the servants were so exhausted that no one put them in coffins.
Thousands of people die every day in Peiping, so the city gates are blocked by coffins carried outside. Five or six out of ten people living in small houses on the street died, most of them at the gates of the city, and there were no children to play in the streets. According to one statistic, the plague claimed the lives of 200,000 Pekingese dogs, while the population of Beijing at the time was about 1 million, meaning that one in five Pekingese dogs died from the plague. In the end, not only did the soldiers, officials and hired men die en masse, but not a single beggar could be found on the streets.
02 Unseal.
In 1642, Li attacked Kaifeng for the third time.
In view of the experience of the first two defeats, Li Zicheng decided to besiege the city for a long time, leading hundreds of thousands of troops to besiege Kaifeng. The prolonged siege meant that conditions inside the city became increasingly difficult, and when food ran out, cannibalism began to appear. In September, human flesh could be sold for five taels of silver, and a horse could be sold for a thousand taels. More and more human bones are piling up in the city.
Seeing that the city was about to be broken, the Ming Dynasty in Kaifeng and the king of Zhou in the city discussed and decided to dredge the Yellow River and drown the peasant army. The Ming army dug up the embankment of Zhujiazhai, the crack was about two miles wide, and the turbulent Yellow River rushed down, pulling out Li Zicheng's army of more than 10,000. Li Zicheng was unwilling to accept such a loss, and dug a big gap about one mile wide in Majiakou, and the two streams of the Yellow River rushed down together, destroying the entire Central Plains in one fell swoop.
Earlier, when the Ming army excavated the Yellow River, it wanted to block the water of the Yellow River with the city wall, and sent a large number of manpower to strengthen the waterproofing measures at various parts of the city gate. But manpower can not stop the Yellow River water, the big water broke through the north gate, flowing out from the south gate, the whole Kaifeng city was flooded, the water depth is three meters, only the bell tower, the drum tower and the roof of the palace are still above the water. According to records at the time.
The river flows into Biancheng, enters through the north gate, passes through the southeast gate, flows into Bianshui, and all the people of Biancheng are drowned. At the beginning of the siege, the officials of the city guarded the millions of people in the capital, and after the siege, two out of ten people died of plague and starvation, but there were still 800,000 people in the capital. On the water, after the king fled down the mountain, the governor Hou Sui sent the general Bu Congshan to lead the boat division to resist, with less than 20,000 people. The river dried up, Qi County returned to Huai, Qi County and Tang County moved to Bozhou, and the thieves retreated to the southwest.
Of the 1 million people in Kaifeng, 200,000 died of plague and famine, and less than 20,000 of the remaining 800,000 were rescued by the king and some of the city's dignitaries, totaling about 800,000 people who died from this man-made disaster.
The Yellow River was dug and diverted to flow into the Huai River, flooding the plains and, of course, killing countless people.
03 Nanjing.
First, let's look at a small part of the literature:
On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Qinhuai, the friends of the Quartet, because of the custom of wine peach leaves in the water pavilion, Ji Zhi felt Yu, did not avoid thieves, and the danger of wind and rain. Mrs. Gu in Meilou, Mrs. Li in Hanxiu Zhai, are all close relatives of the Ji family, and the beauty is Yu, and they are clear. Xinyan paper looks like a day, when the song is perfect. Hua and Ji cried, and Gu and Li also cried. The talented and beautiful people of the time, the show of building smoke and water crescent moon, are all hundreds of years. Even today, it is tantamount to contemplating the gods, cushioning daydreams.
This text describes the literati who came to Nanjing with their concubine Dong Xiaowan to pack their bags. On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a group of friends celebrated the festival together, and the beauties sang and danced. The song "Paper Swallow" is full of meaning, and the beauty does not feel sad and crying. Once upon a time, talented and beautiful people gathered together, the smoke and waves were vast, and the new songs and bright moons were beautiful. Today, looking back, it is really a fairytale dream world!
Unfortunately, in 1642, at a time of great chaos and famine, such a drunken scene took place in Nanjing.
Daring Xiang lived in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, was kind and personable, and had a relationship with more than a dozen famous prostitutes at that time, such as Dong Xiaowan, Chen Yuanyuan, and Li Xiangzhen.
Jiangnan has a long history of extravagance.
According to statistics, from the 16th to the 17th centuries, 300 million taels of ** flowed into the Ming Dynasty, and so much money was not in the palace, but in the people. Of course, money and life are different.
The famous missionary Matteo Ricci witnessed the banquet in Jiangsu and Zhejiang and wrote the following words:
Sometimes, the table is filled with large and small plates with different dishes. When it comes to serving fish and meat, they don't follow a specific order like we do. After the plate is placed on the table, it is not cleaned up until the meal is finished, so that the table creaks before the meal is finished; Plates and crockery were piled high to make one think they were building a small castle.
When it comes to party food, eating it at home can be a bit monotonous, so Matteo Ricci recorded the event as a feast on board:
The officers' yachts are large enough to comfortably accommodate the whole family, as if they were in their own home. The yacht was all paid for by the state, with a kitchen, bedrooms and living rooms, furnished more like a yacht than a rich man's house. Sometimes, they eat, drink, and be merry on yachts and sail on lakes or rivers.