What kind of existence was the Donglin Party in the Ming Dynasty? This issue has been discussed for hundreds of years since the late Ming Dynasty, but there are still endless disputes, some people think that they are hypocrites who bring disaster to the country and the people, and some praise them as capable ministers who are loyal to the monarch and patriotic.
In fact, the Donglin Party is not a black and white political group, as a great wonder in the Ming Dynasty, it is far from being a good or bad can be summarized. Aside from those who wear the cloak of the Donglin Party, the real Donglin Party people often have two attributes, virtuous and mediocre.
This seems to be very contradictory, but in fact, taking Yuan Yingtai, a member of the Donglin Party, as an example, put him in a different position, and his role is also completely different.
Yuan Yingtai was famous for his water control in the first half of his life. Water control is often regarded as a trivial matter, which cannot be compared with Jin Ge Iron Horse and generals who have made military exploits, but in fact, as an internal affair related to the survival of tens of millions of people, water control can test the ability of a leader.
Yuan Yingtai was a jinshi in the Wanli period, but when he was only a county governor, he mobilized migrant workers to build more than 40 miles of river embankments to prevent the river from flooding. After being transferred to Hanoi, in order to alleviate the drought, Yuan Yingtai organized the masses to dig through the Taihang Mountains and irrigate tens of thousands of acres of fields with Qinshui water.
In order to complete this big project, Yuan Yingtai personally supervised the work and worked hard. Due to the difficulty of digging the mountain and the fatigue of the craftsmen, Yuan Yingtai donated three years of official furniture for construction. When other ** filled their own pockets, Yuan Yingtai was"Within 6 years, cloth clothes are vegetarian, and I have not heard of the worship of meat and tired silk".。Driven by Yuan Yingtai, the local ** and the gentry have contributed money and efforts to support the construction. Under Yuan's leadership, the water diversion project was completed, benefiting people in several counties from floods and droughts.
Due to his outstanding water control and outstanding political achievements, Yuan Yingtai was promoted to the director of the Water Division of the Ministry of Industry and the military selection of Langzhong of the Ministry of War. As soon as Yuan Yingtai took office, he eliminated all the hundreds of people who had pretended to be in the world and appointed capable people. Later, Yuan Yingtai was transferred to Huaixu, when Shandong and other places were affected by disasters and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.
On the one hand, he set up a porridge factory to relieve the victims, and on the other hand, he mobilized them to repair the city wall and dredge the dredging river, so that they could receive money and food, so that they would not become displaced people. After the finance was exhausted, Yuan Yingtai took out tens of thousands of taels of taxes and silver to help the victims and saved many people. Because of this incident, Yuan Yingtai was ** used official money without authorization and was degraded, Yuan Yingtai was angry and resigned and returned to his hometown.
Up to now, Yuan Yingtai is completely a good official, a virtuous official who loves the people like a son and is honest and honest. If it had not been reactivated later, and without the occurrence of Liaodong, Yuan Yingtai might have become a parent official who was not well-known but was deeply loved by the local people.
It's a pity that there is no if, Yuan Yingtai re-embarked on his official career a few years later, and this time he is no longer facing a surging flood, but a wolf-like Jurchen.
At the beginning, Yuan Yingtai's position was still to control the water, he just watched the border pass in danger, and took the training and repair by the way. However, Yuan Yingtai's conscientiousness and conscientiousness, and the transportation of grain and grass in a very timely manner, made him appreciated by Xiong Tingbi, the economic strategy of Liaodong.
The Ming Dynasty Liaodong border customs were frequent, ** change was very fast, Xiong Tingbi was deposed soon after, and it was Yuan Yingtai who replaced him. The imperial court believed that although Yuan Yingtai did not command the army, he was diligent in government and loved the people, did his best, and was a person trusted by Xiong Tingbi, so he was put in charge of managing the military in Liaodong.
Yuan Yingtai was determined to die to serve the country, and he said"The ministers are willing to end with the Liao minister, and they would like the civil and military ministers to have no two hearts and end with the ministers.", ("History of the Ming Dynasty") Ming Xizong was overjoyed and gave him a sword of Shangfang. Yuan Yingtai was determined to make a career, he took the sword of Shang Fang given by the emperor and beheaded He Guangxian and several others, and dismissed the dereliction of duty generals.
However, although Yuan Yingtai has a desire to serve the country, he is a civil servant after all, and he was good at water control in the past, and military affairs were not his forte. Xiong Tingbi was strict in law enforcement and strict military discipline at the border gates, and Yuan Yingtai took office as a new official with three fires and killed a few **, he began to treat his subordinates with leniency, and changed many past rules and regulations, resulting in negligence in border defense.
When Yuan Yingtai passed through Liaodong, the Mongolian tribes suffered a catastrophe, many victims went to the pass to beg, the generals thought that the Mongols were capricious, but Yuan Yingtai to"If I don't give first aid, he will return to the enemy, and he will be a soldier of benefit."For this reason, it was ordered to take in the Mongols as soldiers.
Yuan Yingtai's recruitment of rebels was ostensibly to expand the army, but in fact it reduced the quality of the army, and these people secretly burned, killed and looted, harmed the people, and some even took refuge in the Jurchens as spies.
Many generals thought that the Mongols might be used by the enemy, but Yuan Yingtai was smug and believed that his methods had expanded his forces and allowed the Mongols to be the vanguard in future battles. But Yuan Yingtai's wishful fortune-telling was wrong, and as soon as the Battle of Shenyang in the first year of the Apocalypse began, the situation was immediately unfavorable to the Ming army. As soon as the Mongol army saw that the Ming army was not going well, they defected as an internal commander and killed two generals.
After Shenyang was conquered, reinforcements composed of the elite of the three Ming armies, the Baipole Army, the Zhejiang Army, and the Liao Army, fought a bloody battle with the Eight Banners Army in the Hunhe River. The White Pole Army and the Zhejiang Army had strong combat effectiveness and dealt heavy losses to the Eight Banners Army, but there was a huge disparity between their strength and the enemy, and the general Chen Ce and others urgently asked Yuan Yingtai for help, but Yuan Yingtai was frightened and refused to support, resulting in the annihilation of the White Pole Army and the Zhejiang Army.
In this way, Liaoyang became an isolated city. Yuan Yingtai abandoned all outlying strongholds and ordered the whole army to withdraw into Liaoyang. However, Yuan Yingtai was not good at military affairs, and he did not have courage at critical moments, so the Ming army could only be beaten passively.
Yuan Yingtai's defeat is almost inevitable, the Ming Dynasty's court political pattern of emphasizing literature over military force made him extremely lacking in professional generals, and the ** who commanded Liaodong were mainly civilian officials, and Yuan Yingtai was even the ** who controlled the water. Although Yuan Yingtai was diligent in government and loved the people, it was still difficult to make up for his lack of military capabilities.
Yuan Yingtai was responsible for the defeat of the Liaoshen Campaign, and he himself knew this, so when the army was defeated and the Eight Banners Army attacked the city fiercely, Yuan Yingtai still stood on the city wall to supervise the battle. After the city was broken, Yuan Yingtai hanged himself, and his people followed him to commit suicide. In order to prevent Yuan Yingtai's body from being humiliated, the servants set fire to the city tower.
In the raging fire, it was not only Yuan Yingtai's body that burned, but also his past dreams and the hopes of the Ming Dynasty. Yuan Yingtai is very able to represent the Donglin Party**, some of them are diligent and love the people, loyal to the monarch and patriotic, and have the determination to serve the country with death, but due to lack of ability, they often become straw bales and mediocre talents, leaving infamy in later generations.