Nine-year-old Zhu Qizhen succeeded to the throne, that is, Ming Yingzong, the era name is orthodox, at this time the eunuch Wang Zhen began to interfere in the government affairs, and after the death of the Empress Dowager Zhang, who curbed Wang Zhen's power, Wang Zhen wantonly seized power. After the death of the patriarch Sanyang, Wang Zhen was domineering and domineering, and removed the iron plate left by Ming Taizu prohibiting eunuchs from interfering in politics, and called him Weng's father in the court, and Yingzong trusted him. Wang Zhen has been in power for seven years, and his family property has more than 60 treasury of gold and silver.

The Ming Dynasty was the largest eunuch empire in Chinese history, and Wang Zhen was the first authoritarian eunuch of the Ming Dynasty. He was originally a failed teacher, but he was eunuchized into the palace, and he was favored by Ming Yingzong, and began to abuse power, form parties for personal gain, interfere in court politics, and unveil the prelude to the eunuch empire. In order to establish the so-called great achievements, he did not know what war was, and instigated the emperor to personally recruit the invading Tile Thorns, but the emperor became a prisoner and took his own life.

Wang Zhen was a native of Ulzhou in the early Ming Dynasty, a little familiar with scriptures, and later became an instructor, but the road to glory and examination was too difficult for him, so he castrated himself into the palace. Wang Zhen has a cunning personality and is good at serving people's opinions, in fact, this is also a prerequisite for all traitorous eunuchs to gain the trust of the mediocre emperor. The minister stands in the court and is appreciated by the master, relying on talent and opportunity, while the shameless villain can only rely on the word cunning.

After Wang Zhen entered the palace, Emperor Xuanzong also liked him very much, so he appointed him as the director of the East Palace and served the crown prince, who was later Emperor Yingzong. There is probably an indescribable fate between the faint king and the traitor, and it is not simply a matter of means.

The British lord and the virtuous ministers are sometimes like this, for example, Tang Taizong is good at accepting advice, but he is only willing to listen to Wei Zheng, and when others give him advice, he will also be angry, and Wei Zheng has to come out to relieve the siege. Wang Zhen is the same, there were many eunuchs in the palace at that time, and he may not be outstanding in terms of treachery and cunning, Xuanzong favored the eunuch Jin Ying and others, and Wang Zhen did not take away Jin Ying's status in Xuanzong's mind. And as soon as he met Yingzong, it was like a fish getting water, and no one could do without anyone. After Yingzong ascended the throne, it was natural to reuse the people he loved, and Wang Zhen bypassed the former eunuch Jin Ying and others to become the most powerful eunuch among the eunuchs.

The celebrant was the most important of the 24 eunuch yamen in the court of the Ming Dynasty, he was in charge of the affairs of the eunuchs in the palace, the commander of the Dongchang and other secret agencies, for the emperor to take charge of all internal and external chapters and documents, on behalf of the emperor's decrees, because of this important matter, has always been the emperor's confidant eunuchs.

Later, with the formation of the voting system, the emperor's final ruling opinion should be written on the chapter by the eunuch with a red pen, which is called the approval of the red, and after the approval of the chapter, it will be submitted to the cabinet to draft an edict for issuance. The eunuchs held the power to criticize the red, and in fact became the emperor's spokesperson. These eunuchs were next to the emperor all day long, and they were good at observing words and expressions to cater to the emperor, and they often took advantage of the emperor's weakness of being simple and having little contact with foreign court officials to deceive superiors and subordinates, and falsely convey or distort or tamper with edicts in order to sell them. Yingzong handed over such an important official position to Wang Zhen, which opened the way for him to abuse power in the future.

Wang Zhen once induced Yingzong to rule the imperial ministers with heavy regulations, and he himself was even more so, those who obey me prosper, and those who oppose me die is his only way. Whoever obeys and abides with him will be immediately promoted and promoted, and whoever disobeys him will be punished and degraded immediately, and for a time the court will be in a miasma. When some bureaucrats saw that Wang Zhen was becoming more and more powerful, they came to bribe one after another in order to be promoted.

There is a Lang Zhong in the Ministry of Works, named Wang You, who is the most adequate. One day, Wang Zhen asked Wang You, "Why don't you have a beard?"

Wang You shamelessly replied: "Master, you don't have a beard, how dare I have a son." ”

Wang Zhen's heart was sweet when he said this, and he was immediately promoted to be the waiter of the Ministry of Works. Xu Xi and Wang Wen were also good at flattery, and were promoted by Wang Zhen to be the secretary of the military department and the imperial envoy of the capital. Wang Zhen also promoted his two nephews, Wang Shan and Wang Lin, to the rank of commander of the Jinyi Guard.

He also attached himself to his henchmen Ma Shun, Guo Jing, Chen Guan, Tang Tong, etc., and placed them in various important departments. Song Zhang, a political officer in Fujian, gave Wang Zhen tens of thousands of official dollars of embezzled money, and was immediately promoted to political envoy, thus rapidly forming a group of friends with Wang Zhen as the core from the central to the localities.

After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, a part of the Mongolian tribe retreated to the Mongolian steppe and northeast China, and after Zhu Yuanzhang's several blows, internal chaos occurred, and gradually split into three parts: Tatar, tile thorn and Uliangha.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the three tribes submitted to the Ming Dynasty and paid tribute to the Ming Dynasty every year. After Yongle, among the three Mongol tribes, the Tile Thorn tribe became more and more powerful, and the Tile Thorn gradually controlled the Tatars, conquered Uliangha, and unified the three Mongolian tribes. After the tile spur unified Mongolia, and then wanted to restore the Great Yuan world and unify the whole country, so the Ming Dynasty was constantly harassed, becoming a serious border trouble in the north of the Ming Dynasty. Wang Zhen abused his power, not only did not arrange to strengthen the northern border defense, but accepted bribes from the tile spurs and carried out smuggling transactions with the tile spur nobles.

In order to make a profit, Wang Zhen asked his sworn friend, Guo Jing, the eunuch who guarded Datong, to privately make a large number of arrows every year and give them to the tile spur, and the tile spur gave Wang Zhen a good horse in return. In order to curry favor with the tile thorns, Wang Zhen also gave his tribute envoys a gift and a thicker reward. Since the establishment of a tributary relationship with the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty has sent tribute envoys to the Ming Dynasty every year to carry good horses and other goods, and the Ming Dynasty government has given corresponding rewards according to the amount of tribute items.

In general, the value of the reward item should slightly exceed the value of the tributary item, and at the same time, a certain reward should be given to the other party's tribute. Therefore, in order to obtain the wealth of the Central Plains, the tile spur is very willing to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, according to the original regulations, the tribute envoy to the Ming Dynasty shall not exceed 50 people every year, and then the tile spur covets the Ming Dynasty's desire to give back is getting bigger and bigger, and the number of tribute envoys is increasing day by day.

The number of tribute envoys often increased to more than 2,000 people, and Wang Zhen increased the number of tribute envoys to the tile spurs, without any restrictions and rewards, so that the appetite of the tile spurs became bigger and bigger. The leader of the tile thorns also sent a group of more than 2,500 tribute envoys, and in order to receive more rewards, he falsely reported that he was 3,000 people.

It was a common thing for the tile spur to receive the reward, because Wang Zhen colluded with the tile spur and accepted the bribe, so he pretended not to know about the tile. This time, however, Wang Zhen was unusual, asking the Ministry of Rites to give rewards according to the actual number of people, and rashly cut the price of the Wara Gong horse by four-fifths, and only paid one-fifth of the goods demanded by the Tile Thorn.

Unsatisfied, the envoy returned angrily, and reported to the first in a hurry. When he heard this, he was furious, and immediately gathered the army, and under the pretext that the Ming Dynasty reduced the rewards, the troops were divided into four routes, attacked the Ming Dynasty in a big way, and personally led a large army to attack Datong.

The iron cavalry of the tile spur came fiercely and quickly advanced to the south, and the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty guarding the northwest lost several battles and hurriedly asked the Beijing division for rescue. Wang Zhen, who didn't understand military affairs at all, didn't have enough understanding of the military attack of the tile spurs, thinking that letting Yingzong personally recruit would scare the tile spurs away. Therefore, in order to win by luck, he took the risk of indiscriminate side work, and when the Ming Dynasty was not fully prepared, he instigated Yingzong's personal conquest, so that Yingzong could follow the example of Song Zhenzong's personal conquest, so as to leave a good name in history.

Yingzong usually obeyed Wang Zhenyan, but this time after listening to Wang Zhen's words, he also thought that the pro-conquest was a good opportunity for him to show his talents, so he did not consult with the ministers, made a rash decision to pro-conscript, and announced that he would leave immediately in two days. As soon as the edict of Yingzong's personal expedition was promulgated, the Manchu civil and military forces were taken aback.

Wang Zhen and Yingzong gathered an army of 500,000 within two days, indiscriminately allocated some grain, grass and weapons, and set off in a hurry. At that time, Yingzong and Wang Zhen were accompanied by more than 100 civil and military officials, including the British official Zhang Fu, the military department secretary Kuang Kun, the household department secretary Wang Zuo, and the cabinet university scholars Cao Nai and Zhang Yi, but Yingzong did not let them participate in military and political affairs, and handed over all military and political power to Wang Zhen alone. Soon after the departure of the army, the army was in turmoil, and before it arrived in Datong, there was a shortage of food in the army, people were constantly dying, and corpses paved the roads.

Coupled with the wind and rain for several days, the people were turbulent, and before they reached the front line, the morale of the army was already unstable. When Wang Zhen heard this, he was very angry, and in order to make an example of him, he specially punished Kuang Kun, the most powerful secretary of the military department, and Wang Zuo, the secretary of the household department, knelt in the grass until it was dark. Later, Wang Zhen's comrade Peng Deqing admonished him with celestial phenomena, but Wang Zhen did not listen, and still forced everyone to continue to move forward.

Wang Zhen and Yingzong successfully entered Datong, and when they saw the Waspur army retreating north, they thought that the Waspur was afraid of Yingzong's personal expedition and insisted on continuing to advance north. Kuang Kun and others felt that it was not a good sign that they did not see a single soldier or arrow on the way, and they were afraid that the tile spurs had tricks, so he asked to return to the army again in the chapter, reminding Wang Zhen not to fall into the ambush of the tile thorns, but Wang Zhen still did not listen.

The next day, Wang Zhen's comrade, Guo Jing, the eunuch who guarded Datong, told Wang Zhen about the fiasco at the front a few days before, and said that if he continued to advance north, he would be in the middle of a thorn's plan. After listening to Guo Jing's words, Wang Zhen became frightened and hurriedly issued an order to withdraw from Datong the next day.

At first, Wang Zhen wanted to withdraw his troops from the northwest of Bauhinia Pass, so that he could pass through his hometown of Ulzhou, so that Yingzong could take advantage of his mansion and show his prestige to his hometown fathers, so Wang Zhen ordered to return to Beijing through Bauhinia Pass. Wang Zhen did not engage in battle with Wara, that is, he retreated in panic, and military discipline became even more chaotic. After walking for forty miles, Wang Zhen suddenly remembered that the brigade passing through Ulzhou would definitely damage the pastoral crops in his hometown, so he changed his mind and quickly ordered a change of route to the east and march in the direction of Xuanfu.

At this time, Warat knew that the Ming army had fled without a fight, and hurriedly organized an army to chase after him, and the situation was very tense. Guo Deng, a general of Datong, and Cao Nai, a scholar, suggested to Wang Zhen: "From here to Zijing Pass, it is only forty miles, and you should return to Beijing from Zijing Pass, and you should not take Xuanfu again, so as not to be chased by the army of Tile Thorns." Wang Zhen didn't listen, insisted on going his own way, and insisted on turning to Xuanfu.

The Ming army made a roundabout run before retreating to Xuanfu, and at this time the Tile Thorn army had already pursued. Yingzong hurriedly sent Gongshun Bo Wu Kezhong and Governor Wu Keqin to lead the troops to break off to cover Yingzong's retreat, but they were all killed on the battlefield. Yingzong also sent Chengguo Gong Zhu Yong and others to lead 30,000 horsemen to intercept, Zhu Yong and others ventured to march to Harrier Ridge, and fell into the heavy encirclement of Wara, although they fought bravely, but they were outnumbered, and all 30,000 troops were annihilated.

The next day, Yingzong wanted to continue the march, but it was too late, and the Wattspur army had already surrounded the Tumu Fort. The ground of the civil fort was high, there was no spring nearby, and there was a river fifteen miles to the south, which was also occupied by the Watt Spur army. Hundreds of thousands of troops in the Ming Dynasty were surrounded for two days, they couldn't get water to drink, they were so thirsty that their throats were smoking, there was no way, Wang Zhen had to let the soldiers dig wells on the spot, but they dug more than two zhang deep, and they didn't see a drop of water.

The soldiers were as anxious as ants on a hot pot, complaining and scolding, and the morale of the army was further weakened. In order to confuse the Ming army, he pretended to retreat, deliberately gave up the river south of Tumubao, and secretly set up an ambush, just waiting for the opportunity of the Ming army to fight for water and chaos, and sent troops to annihilate everything.

Wang Zhen saw the Tile Spur Army retreating backwards, thinking that the Tile Spur Army really wanted to negotiate peace, and without analyzing it, he easily ordered the camp to be moved. When the hungry and thirsty sergeants received the order, they rose up in a hurry, and rushed over the trenches to the river, and the army was in great confusion.

When the Ming army was rushing to run, only a cannon was heard, and the tile spur ambush was in all directions, and the shouts shook the sky, and the tile spur soldiers surged over like a tide. The chaotic Ming army, where could it withstand such an impact, and in an instant, the whole line collapsed. As the swords of the tile spur cavalry flew, rows of Ming troops fell, coupled with the retreating Ming troops trampling on each other, and in a short time, dead bodies covered the ground. There were some soldiers who were lucky enough to not die, and they soon became prisoners of Yexian, including Emperor Yingzong.

Emperor Yingzong was captured, and Fan Zhong, the general of Yingzong's guard, was extremely angry, he grabbed Wang Zhen with one hand, raised the hammer with the other, and shouted: "Today, I will kill this thief for the people of the world!"

After speaking, he condensed all his hatred on the hammer, aimed at Wang Zhen's head, and smashed it hard, Wang Zhen didn't even have time to snort, his brain splashed everywhere, and he fell down like a puddle of mud. Wang Zhen, the evil eunuch who brought disaster to the country and the people, finally ended up with a shameful end that he deserved.

In the Tumubao Incident, Yingzong was captured, almost all the 500,000 troops of the Ming Dynasty were annihilated, and almost all of the more than 100 civil and military generals who were recruited were killed on the battlefield. When the news reached Beijing, the hundred officials were panicked and gathered in the palace to cry, and later the empress dowager held back her tears and ordered Yingzong's younger brother Zhu Qiyu to supervise the country. Chen Jian, the imperial envoy of the capital, also wiped away his tears, and counted Wang Zhen's crimes, and they said with grief and indignation: "Wang Zhen's crimes cannot be punished, and he is innocent of death." ”

After that, Wang Zhen's family was beheaded regardless of age, and Wang Zhen's family property was confiscated. His comrades were also executed one after another, and when his family property was confiscated, there were more than 60 treasury of gold and silver alone, more than 100 jade plates, more than 20 coral trees six or seven feet high, and countless other treasures, which shows the extent of his corruption and bribery.