The Ming Dynasty died in the hooligan culture, and the intellectuals' lack of morality was a symptom
In the early morning of March 19, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, as the Zhengyang Gate was pushed open by Zhang Jinyan, the secretary of the military department, the historical chapter of the Ming Dynasty officially turned over. Subsequently, Li Zicheng secretly gave Liu Zongmin the position of "chief torturer" and assigned him to carry out a special task - to torture and plunder the former ministers of the former Ming Dynasty.
In other words, Liu Zongmin was asked to torture them to hand over their family's private wealth. Although Liu Zongmin's moral essays cannot be compared with the clear streams of the Ming Dynasty, he has a unique skill in dealing with these clear streams that are famous for their moral essays.
The mission of this task coincided with his own professional expertise, and he quickly took out 5,000 pairs of clamping sticks, and in order to increase the experience of the clamping sticks, he specially installed nails on the clamping sticks.
Then, he quickly sent the more than 2,500 captured Ming ministers to prison, and set a standard of pay for them according to their official positions. Those who are unable to meet the demand for money can only experience the pain of the stick.
Wu Sangui's father, Wu Xiang, was once bound by the general military service in Liaodong and was forced to take out 200,000 taels ** to temporarily save his life. And Emperor Chongzhen's father-in-law, Zhou Kui, who cried poverty with the emperor's son-in-law all day long, declared that he was indifferent and wrote moral articles, and at the invitation of Liu Zongmin, generously took out 600,000 taels**.
These are all big heads, plus other small officials and officials, Liu Zongmin has a total of 75 million taels from the hands of the old ministers of the Ming Dynasty, and other jade agate cannot be calculated.
In order to facilitate the carrying of these gold and silver treasures, Liu Zongmin melted all the real gold ** and made 500 taels of gold and silver lumps, weighing more than 3,000 tons. The imperial court in the middle and late Ming Dynasty was very poor, and the annual treasury income did not exceed three or four million taels.
But he never understood "where the money went". In the end, Liu Zongmin gave the answer: it turned out that the wealth of the Ming Dynasty was hidden in the hands of the emperor's people. 75 million taels ** is equivalent to the income of the Ming Dynasty for 20 years, and Liu Zongmin has also created a miracle of GDP growth in feudal society.
In feudal society, the magnates had more wealth, but it did not cause discontent. In the Ming Dynasty, the officials thought they were Qingliu, but when the court was short of money, they refused to use their family property to help the emperor.
They shouted loyalty to the monarch and served the country, but they could not come up with a solution to the problem, and only used the usual tricks such as moral articles to play tricks with the emperor. In the end, when the Ming Dynasty fell, they couldn't wait to even pour dirty water on the first emperor Chongzhen.
For example, Wei Zaode, the last champion of the Ming Dynasty and the last chief assistant of the cabinet, was such a person.
Wei Zaode took the initiative to come to Li Zicheng to ask for guilt, and Li Zicheng denounced his betrayal. Wei Zaode brazenly said that he needed to do things for the new dynasty, and although Li Zicheng was speechless, he still handed it over to Liu Zongmin.
Wei Zaode scolded Emperor Chongzhen in front of Liu Zongmin, saying that he had been wronged.
Wei Zaode was tortured to death by Liu Zongmin for his brazenness and backlash against the emperor, and the reason why he was nailed to the pillar of shame in history was not mainly because he surrendered to Li Zicheng.
It is rumored that when Li Zicheng approached Chongzhen, someone suggested that Chongzhen and Li Zicheng negotiate peace and rule the world together. Emperor Chongzhen asked Wei Zaode to discuss the matter, but Wei Zaode refused after hearing this, and could not propose a strategy to retreat from the enemy.
Seeing this, Chongzhen directly flipped the dragon chair and left. As a result, the imperial court collapsed, but Wei Zaode accused Chongzhen of being incompetent and mediocre, how shameless it was! The shamelessness of the Ming Dynasty scholars is far more than Wei Zaode.
Although Wei Zaode is the first assistant, he is not the emperor's relative after all. Zhou Kui, the father-in-law of Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou, was even more shameless.
In the last year of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen faced a serious financial crisis. He asked the ministers to find a way to raise money, but the Manchu Dynasty civil and military only took out three or five hundred taels of silver to make a show, claiming that he was a Qing official.
Emperor Chongzhen had no choice but to ask his old father-in-law Zhou Kui for help, suggesting that he would take the lead in donating more, and telling him that Jiangshan Sheji was in danger. However, Zhou Kui pretended to be stupid and cried that he had no money.
Even the emperor's daughter, Empress Zhou, couldn't stand it, secretly found her father, knew the benefits, and handed over her 5,000 taels of private money to Zhou Kui, and asked him to take out another 100,000 taels to take the lead.
Zhou Kui's behavior shocked everyone. After he got the 5,000 taels given by the queen's daughter, he actually deducted 2,000 taels privately and only donated 13,000 taels to the emperor.
When Xu Gao, the eunuch beside the queen, heard about this, he said with emotion: "The old emperor is so stingy, the court is in a hurry, and major things must not be done." ”
Chongzhen's son-in-law is in turmoil, and Zhou Kui, as the emperor's father-in-law, still does not forget his old job and takes the opportunity to get kickbacks. These people who preach benevolence, righteousness and morality have never thought that they are the ones that Chongzhen relies on, and whether there are better dynasties and emperors than the Ming Dynasty and Chongzhen?
After Chongzhen's death, Li Zicheng plundered the Forbidden City, and only 200,000 taels were found in the emperor's house, while Zhou Kui alone contributed 600,000 taels, plus 1.2 million taels of other plundered, totaling nearly two million taels.
The tragedy of Chongzhen's death makes people feel sad, but the performance of the literati of the Ming Dynasty is expected. There is an opinion that the literati of the Ming Dynasty had the attribute of hooliganism, which has been established since the time of Zhu Yuanzhang.
The so-called hooliganization does not refer to the indiscriminate behavior between men and women, but the fact that some people do not hesitate to give up the moral bottom line in order to pursue their own interests.
The phenomenon of hooliganization in the Ming Dynasty, according to Qing Dynasty scholar Zhao Yi, was decided by Zhu Yuanzhang. He once commented that Ming Taizu was a combination of sages, heroes, and thieves.
This is actually saying that the emperor is a thief and a rogue, and a thief and a rogue is also an emperor. Therefore, when this "hooligan" atmosphere developed into Chongzhen's dynasty, it was not surprising that all kinds of strange phenomena appeared.
But the appearance of Li Zicheng completely tore off the last fig leaf covering benevolence, righteousness and morality.