Why couldn't the 75-kilometer city wall stop the peasant army, and why couldn't the army of King Qinwang of the Fourth Route save Chongzhen from danger? Emperor Chongzhen's meticulously planned plan to move the capital was stillborn under the opposition of the ministers, and Emperor Chongzhen was dumb and couldn't say what he was suffering from eating the yellow lotus. I can't run, I have to stick to this road.

From the city butterfly of the city wall, that is, the battlements, it can be deduced that the city of Beijing at this time has been expanded by 14 emperors of the Ming Dynasty in turn, and in the current generation of Chongzhen, the pheasant moats built on the inner and outer city walls alone have reached more than 154,000, and the distance between each two pheasant moats is about five meters, so the total length of the inner and outer city walls of Beijing has reached 75 kilometers. However, the total number of the three battalions guarding the capital was only 30,000, and many of the walls were not guarded by soldiers at all.

In order to recruit soldiers, Emperor Chongzhen once collected donations among his ministers, and he sent the eunuch Xu Gao to find his father-in-law, Jiading Bo Zhou Kui, and let him set an example. Zhou Kui replied quite simply: "Where do I have money? I am very poor." ”

Xu Gao repeatedly explained that this was the emperor's meaning, but Zhou Kui still didn't let go, Xu Gao was forced to be anxious, crying and saying that the queen's father was still like this, and Daming was finished. Zhou Kui saw that he had said this, so he had to agree to donate 10,000 taels. The other ministers were also as reluctant as Zhou Kui, and in the end, this huge fundraising only raised 200,000 taels.

After Li Zicheng broke through Beijing, many ministers had their huge family fortunes copied, and the emperor's father-in-law, Zhou Kui, had 520,000 yuan copied out of cash alone, and there were countless treasures in his family.

Since there is no money and no one, there is no way, in mid-January, Emperor Chongzhen summoned Wu Xiang, the father of Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Ningyuan, at that time Wu Sangui had 30,000 elite soldiers, and was the most important and the most sophisticated army in the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen intended to transfer Wu Sangui's army into the pass to deal with the peasant army, Wu Xiang listened to Chongzhen's plan, and generously stated that Li Zicheng was definitely not Wu Sangui's opponent, which made Emperor Chongzhen very happy.

But the situation at that time was that once Wu Sangui's troops entered the customs, outside the Shanhai Pass was equivalent to giving it to the Qing army, and Emperor Chongzhen really didn't want to propose it himself to transfer Wu Sangui back to Beijing, so Chongzhen convened the ministers to discuss politics collectively, hoping that someone would cooperate with him to put forward this proposal.

So why did the ministers still oppose it? Because Emperor Chongzhen's ideas were unclear, the ministers did not dare to assume the responsibility of transferring heavy troops from all directions, so the matter of transferring troops to King Qin was put on hold again due to the opposition of the ministers.

This dragged on until March, when Li Zicheng's peasant army had already captured Datong and was about to arrive at Xuanfu, which was only two or three hundred kilometers away from Beijing. At this time, Emperor Chongzhen finally made the decision to give up Ning Yuan and recruit Wu Sangui, Wang Yongji, Tang Tong, and Liu Zeqing into King Qin. But at this time, Chongzhen had lost control of his subordinates, and only Tang Tong led 8,000 reinforcements to arrive in time, and the other three generals either complained of illness or postponed.

In early March, a city defense army composed of nearly 4,000 eunuchs marched up the walls of Beijing. The eunuchs had never learned to shoot guns and fire, so three days before Li Zicheng captured the city of Beijing, the eunuchs were still learning the techniques of aiming and firing artillery.

What is more interesting is that at the beginning of March, the plan to move the capital that Emperor Chongzhen had hoped for was turned out by the ministers, and the statement was changed at this time, saying that Emperor Chongzhen was allowed to stick to the capital, but the prince went to Nanjing to supervise the country, once the situation changed, the Ming Dynasty could attack and retreat. The ministers also volunteered to escort the prince on the trip, but at this time, Chongzhen was already the same as in January.

An emperor who had hesitated to make a decisive decision actually made a decisive decision? A suicide note left in a hurry, but did not accuse Li Zicheng, who was seeking power and usurping the throne?

Changyi Gate, which is now Guang'an Gate, is full of cigarette smoke, has been spread out on the yellow carpet, put on the dragon chair, Li Zicheng sat down contentedly, surrounded by the two princes of the Ming clan who were reduced to prisoners, the King of Qin and the King of Jin. He had already sent his subordinates to pretend to be merchants in the capital, and he had found it clearly. Now that the officers and troops in the suburbs have surrendered or fled, Beijing is already an isolated city at your fingertips.

After Li Zicheng besieged Beijing, he did not order an immediate attack on the city of Beijing, but sent the surrendered eunuch Du Xun as an envoy to negotiate peace with Chongzhen, but Chongzhen, who had missed the relocation of the capital because of conceit and delayed the transfer of reinforcements because of hesitation, refused to surrender without hesitation this time.

Emperor Chongzhen refused to surrender and there is a hidden situation, a few years ago, when Li Zicheng's peasant armament was in full swing, Emperor Chongzhen had specially sent people to Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province to destroy Li Zicheng's ancestral tomb, the ancient Chinese had a tradition, generally respect the bones of the ancestors and the temple, but Emperor Chongzhen first broke this case, and later Li Zicheng hit Beijing through the Ming Dynasty Emperor's Twelve Tombs when he did not hesitate to burn down the Twelve Tombs of the Twelve Tombs, Chongzhen Emperor heard the news that the ancestral tomb was burned and cried, in Chongzhen's heart may still be a little worried that Li Zicheng will continue to retaliate against him in the future for destroying the ancestral tomb of the Li family。

After the failure of persuasion, the peasant army began to attack the city, and for a moment the artillery was deafening. The Dashun army had already prepared the ladder, and swarmed up in the shout, the front row was several teams of ladders, and the back row was an attack team with shields and knives, the front row fell, the back row followed, and charged continuously. Soon Xizhimen, Pingzemen, and Deshengmen were captured in one fell swoop, and the eunuch Cao Huachun opened the Zhangyi Gate to surrender, and by the afternoon the outer city was all captured.

At this time, Chongzhen climbed to the highest point of the Forbidden City, saw that the outer city of Beijing was in flames, and the peasants were attacking the city, but he could not see the shadow of any reinforcements, knowing that the general trend had gone, and it was a matter of time before the Dashun army attacked the inner city, he returned to the Ganqing Palace and said to the queen: "The big thing is going to go." Then began to arrange the funeral, Chongzhen first asked the princes to change into civilian clothes and send them to the royal family's house in preparation for a comeback.

Sent away the prince, Chongzhen came to the harem, he ordered the queen and the concubines and daughters to commit suicide, Queen Zhou committed suicide by hanging the beam, Yuan Guifei committed suicide unsuccessfully, Chongzhen slashed with a knife, and then he cut several concubines who were usually favored in a row. But in the face of his favorite fifteen-year-old Princess Changping, Emperor Chongzhen was a little soft-hearted, and even cut two swords off, Princess Changping lost an arm and fainted to the ground, and his youngest daughter Princess Zhaoren was hacked to death by him with a sword.

Emperor Chongzhen is a total of three sons and two daughters, three escaped, the prince later surrendered Li Zicheng, and then disappeared, the slashed Princess Changping slept for five days and finally miraculously came back to life, Princess Changping after this catastrophe, got depression, Shunzhi two years when she had asked Shunzhi to allow herself to become a monk, but Shunzhi did not agree, and also married Princess Changping to the original Chongzhen selected horse Zhou Xian, but the happy event aggravated the depression of Princess Changping, the next year she died of illness, the year of death she was only eighteen years old。

After Chongzhen killed his relatives, he took a dozen eunuchs around the capital, he was dressed in civilian clothes, with dozens of eunuchs with sharp axes, and ran to Chaoyang Gate on horseback, but when he approached the city gate, there were eunuchs on the city wall who fired cannons at him, Chongzhen and his group had to drill the alley to go to Zhengyangmen, which is now the front door, but three white lanterns have been hung on the tower of Zhengyangmen to indicate that the situation is urgent, Chongzhen had to give up, but he still did not give up, and went to the Andingmen in the north, but the city gate could not be opened, and Emperor Chongzhen saw that he really could not go out of the city and had to return to the palace。

At midnight on this day, in fact, the Dashun army had already invaded the inner city, but Chongzhen did not know that after the breakthrough failed, Chongzhen returned to the Forbidden City, rang the bell and began to gather the ministers, and he muttered to himself that it was time to go to court, and the ministers should go to court, but he rang for a while, but no one came.

At this time, five drums were beaten, and only the eunuch Wang Chengen was left alone by Emperor Chongzhen's side, and the two walked hand in hand on the coal mountain, and arrived at the Shouhuang Pavilion on the top of the mountain. Looking around, Emperor Chongzhen's heart probably only had two words left: "Despair." ”

In the early morning of March 18, when the east had just revealed a touch of morning light, Zhu Youzhen, the sixteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, committed suicide in a begonia tree next to the Shouhuang Pavilion, and he left such a last word on the placket of Emperor Chongzhen.

"It's not that I'm incompetent, it's because the ministers around me have delayed me, and everyone still has to follow my son's instructions when I'm dead. ”

Since then, the Ming Dynasty has been completely finished, and no one knows the whereabouts of Chongzhen's sons since then, as for Chongzhen himself, he is indeed unlucky enough, although he has also worked hard and been diligent in political affairs, but he has been called the king of the dead country since then.