When the north and south roads of the Dashun army, from Xuanfu and Baoding, were attacking the Beijing division together, Chongzhen's performance could be described as an ant on a hot pot.

Well, Li Jiantai, a highly trusted scholar of Dongge University, who was personally promoted, only had a face-to-face with the Liukou, and disregarded the grace of the king, and shamelessly led 50,000 elite soldiers of the Beijing battalion, all of whom surrendered to the thieves, such a shameless act was simply a loud slap in the ears of the emperor, and it was an unspeakable great shame for the Ming Dynasty!

As if expecting that Chongzhen would definitely start looking for a scapegoat next, Feng Yuanbiao, the secretary of the Ministry of War, who had only been in office for less than two months, urgently resigned, saying that he was old and incompetent, and had mistaken state affairs, and hereby wrote a letter to ask the old man to return to his hometown.

However, out of the remaining little public interest, Feng Yuanbiao recommended Li Banghua to replace himself as the secretary of the military department and asked the emperor for permission.

This emperor was on fire, and when he saw this old and sick fellow, at such a critical juncture, he actually wrote a letter to ask for his resignation, and he was suddenly angry, where could he still listen to his half suggestion.

He immediately summoned and ordered his relatives to rush to Feng Yuanbiao's mansion with the eunuch, reprimanded Feng Yuanbiao in person, and then asked him to go home in disgrace.

After being humiliated by Chongzhen like this, Feng Yuanbiao was ashamed in his heart, but he understood that saving his life was the most important thing now, so after he returned home, he quickly packed his luggage and took his family to flee south from Tianjin to his hometown in Zhejiang by sea boat, avoiding the eye of the storm in the capital.

After Feng Yuanbiao resigned, Chongzhen had no choice but to serve as Zhang Jinyan in the Ministry of War and serve as the secretary of the Ministry of War.

Zhang Jinyan is a person who is immoral and incompetent, and his talent is mediocre, he is purely a chaotic existence in the military department, so that his colleagues look down on him, and now he is promoted to the secretary of the military department by Chongzhen in anger, which is completely another Li Jiantai-style tragedy, and it is another heavy blow to the dying Ming Dynasty, which has suffered many disasters and difficulties.

In real history, after Li Zicheng captured Beijing, Zhang Jinyan and Wei Zaode, a scholar, and other former officials of the Ming Dynasty were extremely shameless in leading hundreds of officials to congratulate them, and even the eunuch Wang Dehua couldn't stand it, and angrily denounced him for being shameless in misleading the country and betraying the lord to seek glory.

In April of that year, after the Qing army entered the customs, Zhang Jinyan fled back to his hometown. Later, according to Jiangning, in order to win military merits, the later Hongguang Emperor lied to him, saying that he wanted to gather the righteous army, so he was appointed as the governor of Hebei, Shanxi, and Henan military affairs.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Jinyan had not had time to be beautiful for a few days, and Prince Duoduo of Yu led the Qing army to pacify Henan and take Jiangnan directly, Zhang Jinyan was terrified, so he fled in Shangma Mountain in Lu'an Prefecture, pretending to be a hermit, but in fact he was waiting for the price to sell.

In the third year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the commander-in-chief Huang Ding led Hong Chengchou to order, and entered Mashan to recruit Zhang Jinyan, Zhang Jinyan surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, because after the surrender of Cheng was pacified in Jiangnan, the Qing court did not use it.

In order to be an official, Zhang Jinyan worked hard to drill camps and pull relationships everywhere, and finally in the ninth year of Shunzhi, Zhang Jinyan successively served as the political envoy of Shandong Youbu and the political envoy of Zhejiang Zuobu, and finally had a while.

It's just that this unethical traitor, a few years later, good luck came to an end, and in June of the seventeenth year of Shunzhi, he was reported by someone who said that his article was ridiculous and satirical to the saint, and he was suspected of remembering the Ming Dynasty, and was arrested and imprisoned for the crime of "literary prison"; In November, all his family property was confiscated and he was exiled to Ningguta.

In the end, this traitor died in Ningguta and never returned to Guannai for the rest of his life, ending a sad and shameful life.

Emperor Chongzhen, who was panicked, in addition to promoting Zhang Jinyan, the secretary of the military department, to be the secretary of the military department, immediately summoned Wu Sangui, the chief soldier of Liaodong, Wang Yongji, the governor of Jiliao, Tang Tong, the chief soldier of Changping, and Liu Liangzuo, the chief soldier of Xuzhou, to enter the defense of the capital.

It can be said that the emperor's most helpless move to save his life was to help his relatives, eunuchs and hundreds of officials.

Because, at this time, the treasury of the Ming Dynasty had already been empty, and the limited external solution could not be transported at all because the Beijing division was militarily surrounded.

Chongzhen is not a fool, of course he knows the truth that the emperor is not a hungry soldier. In order to transfer so many troops and horses from other places into the city, the cost of military salaries must be guaranteed. Otherwise, if the soldiers do not do their best to resist the enemy, there is a very high risk of mutiny.

It's just that he was so anxious that he soon cruel the reality and gave him a series of heavy blows.

The emperor first issued a holy decree, instructing the relatives, eunuchs and hundreds of officials to report the money, and to pay 30,000 taels of silver as the superior. The emperor's soft decree made the dignitaries and nobles in the capital scoff and wait and see.

Seeing that no one was donating, the emperor wanted to move these selfish and numb bureaucrats by setting a model and example.

He sent Xu Gao, an internal official, to secretly inform Zhou Hou's father, Jiading Bo Zhoukui, and asked him to pay 120,000 taels of silver to set an example for other ministers. Unexpectedly, although Zhou Kui was rich, he refused to agree, but just asked Xu Gao to return to the emperor, saying "The old minister is poor, and he has a lot of money?" ”。 And he insisted that he could only donate 1,000 taels, and he couldn't do more.

When the emperor heard that his most trusted ruler was only willing to donate 1,000 taels of silver, he was very dissatisfied, thinking that he had donated too little.

So, the emperor personally issued an edict asking him to come up with at least 20,000 taels, a request that made Zhou Kui, who regarded wealth as his life, bitter.

Zhou Kui then sent someone to ask his daughter Queen Zhou for help, although Queen Zhou despised her father's personality very much, but she couldn't erase the father-daughter relationship, so she could only secretly send someone to send Zhou Kui 5,000 taels. However, in order to wake up this greedy father, Zhou Hou told him that his own silver was not to help him make up the amount, but to beg him to hand it over to the emperor on his behalf to make him look better.

However, Queen Zhou's words, Zhou Kui didn't listen to a word, after receiving the silver, Zhou Kui not only did not add a copper himself, but deducted two thousand of the silver sent by Zhou Hou, and only responded to the order with three thousand taels.

Zhou Kui's stingy and greedy attitude made Chongzhen furious, but because of Queen Zhou's affection, he was not able to punish her substantively. So, he thought about it and decided to humiliate the ruler of the dynasty.

So, he sent the eunuch Xu Gao to the Zhou Mansion to announce that Zhou Kui donated silver to the country, and his hard work was high, and Zhou Kui was specially named the Marquis of Jiading.

Seeing the emperor humiliating himself like this, Zhou Kui also felt ashamed, and he had no choice but to do so, so he pretended to be mobilized by many parties before he made up 5,000 taels of silver and donated it to the imperial court very reluctantly.

Seeing how stingy Zhou Kui was, the eunuch Xu Gao couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "The old emperor is so stingy, the court is in a hurry, and big things must not be done!"

And Queen Zhou couldn't help but lament after knowing that Zhou Kui, who was as good as his life, only donated 5,000 taels of silver in the end, and also deducted 2,000 taels from his own donated silver: "My father Zhou Kui is usually deeply favored and trusted by His Majesty by the Ming Dynasty, but he didn't expect that he would be so stingy!" You know, once the city is broken, how long can he keep his wealth? “

In real history, that is, on the twenty-second day of March in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, after Li Zicheng's army broke the city, he quickly found Zhou Kui and all the princes and ministers of the Ming Dynasty and all the civil and military officials.

In the end, Liu Zongmin was ruthless, forcing Zhou Kui's wife and daughter-in-law to commit suicide, and killed Zhou Kui's son, but Zhou Kui, a miser, was still unwilling to come out with a tael of silver, insisting that the court had not paid wages for half a year, and he had no money.

Liu Zongmin had no choice but to report to Li Zicheng, Li Zicheng never believed that Zhou Kuigui had no family wealth for being the head of the dynasty, so he interrogated him personally.

After Li Zicheng personally interrogated Zhou Kui, he determined that Zhou Kui was lying from Zhou Kui's words, so he ordered someone to tie him to a pillar and beat him with a leather whip continuously.

Zhou Kui suffered from this Tartar attack, and at first he was forced to endure it, but Li Zicheng became more and more heavy, and when he was beaten to the point of dying, Zhou Kui really couldn't stand such pain, so he had to shout to stop, and agreed to personally lead Li Zicheng back home to take out the deposited silver.

In the end, from a very secret cellar in the Zhou Mansion, Li Zicheng copied 530,000 taels of silver, and other belongings were worth hundreds of thousands of taels.

Zhou Kui had no choice but to take out his private collection of silver and hand over his family wealth, and finally gained precious freedom, but now, he is empty, destitute, and soon after, Zhou Kui died of anger and finished his sad and ridiculous life.

Having said that, there is a typical example of Zhou Kui, the ruler of the dynasty, who is stingy, and the officials below are self-effacing and downward, and they have called the poor and complained bitterly, and refused to donate.

Many relatives and officials have made the bricks and tiles on their houses crooked and disorganized, and they look very dilapidated, and all the valuable things in the houses are kept private, and then they pretend to post notices on the doors of their houses that they are selling cheaply.

In order to pretend to be poor and more realistic, in the early dynasty, Zhou Kui and the ministers of the court deliberately wore the most shabby clothes to go to the court, and many officials who used to take a sedan chair to go to the court also changed to go to the court on foot, in order to show that they were thrifty and silverless, honest and self-controlled.

What is speechless is that even many rich eunuchs began to pretend to be poor one by one, some wrote "This house is urgently sold" on the door of the house, and some sent antique toys to the market for sale, posing as a broken family to relieve difficulties.

Among these eunuchs, Wang Zhixin was the richest, and it is said that he had as much as 300,000 taels of silver in his house. Chongzhen once asked him to donate generously to his face, but Wang Zhixin pretended to be embarrassed and prevaricated: "The slave family is very poor, and the family has been lacking for many years, and there is silver." In the end, only 10,000 taels of silver were offered.

Ironically, in real history, Wang Zhixin was later recovered by the Dashun army, and spit out 150,000 taels of silver, and the value of gold and silver artifacts is equivalent to this, which is really ridiculous and sad.

In the end, in this farce of donations, among the relatives, only Taikang Bo Zhang Guoji lost 20,000 taels of silver, the largest amount, and was promoted to marquis. The rest of the civil and military officials donated only a few dozen taels or a few hundred taels, just to meet the situation.

Chongzhen saw that he had gained very little from this, and he was very annoyed in his heart, so he simply implemented apportionment.

He first stipulated that each yamen must donate a certain amount, and later set the number of donations from Shijing bureaucrats in each province according to the place of origin of the officials, such as 8,000 in Jiangnan, 4,000 in Jiangbei, 6,000 in Zhejiang, 5,000 in Huguang, 4,000 in Shaanxi, and 4,000 in Shandong.

As a result, the gentry were exempted one after another, and they resisted the soft and hard, which made Chongzhen's desire to hold money come to naught.

Zhu Youzhen failed to make another plan, and he knew that many bureaucrats were corrupt and became rich, so he ordered the ministers to nominate "those who can be defeated in all provinces," and the local governments came forward to extort officials and rich households into giving money.

It's just that Rao is so enthusiastic that according to historical records, Zhu Youzhen's large-scale donation is only 200,000 taels. Compared with the real history, after the Dashun army entered the city, it confiscated the royal treasury and recovered the stolen goods and salaries of the relatives, eunuchs, and hundreds of officials, and got a total of more than 70 million taels of silver.

And just when Chongzhen was angry and helpless in order to force donation, there was a more realistic problem in front of him, then, when the Daqi army was surrounded on both sides and was about to launch a general attack on the capital, he was now, where to go.

Although the emperor had illusions about sending Wu Sangui and other external troops and horses into Beijing to defend against the rogues, the increasingly unfavorable news from the front made him feel more and more bleak about his future.

What's more, even if Wu Sangui's army was withdrawn from Ningyuan and moved to be the main force to defend against the Liukou, the Manchu army outside the pass would take advantage of the situation to enter, and the Beijing division would be equally difficult to protect. At this time of internal and external difficulties, an idea came to the emperor's heart.

Chongzhen secretly thought, why can't he follow the example of Jin Yuan, Song Gao and others, and escape south before the Dashun army came to the city of Beijing, relying on half of the country to survive.

The emperor's thoughts, after being implicitly proposed to the courtiers, were quickly figured out by an official.

This official is Zuo Zhongyun Li Mingrui.

He secretly wrote a letter to Chongzhen, asking the emperor to leave Beijing as soon as possible, go south to Jinling, and rely on Jiangnan to revitalize the current decadent Tang situation in the Ming Dynasty.

When he read what Li Mingrui wrote in the recital: "The destiny of heaven is subtle, and the sacred heart should be cut off internally, so as not to cause the worry of devouring the umbilicus." When he waited for the words, he couldn't help but sigh and sigh.

After some careful consideration, Chongzhen decided to summon Li Mingrui in the East Nuan Pavilion to discuss the matter of moving south in detail.

After receiving the eunuch's decree, Li Mingrui immediately hurriedly went to the Dongnuan Pavilion to ask for a meeting with Emperor Chongzhen.

As soon as he entered the palace, Li Mingrui was just about to bow three times and bow nine times, but was immediately stopped by Chongzhen.

Chongzhen waited for him to stand up from the ground, and immediately said in a deep voice: "Taixu, I have the intention of moving south for a long time, and I only hate no one to praise it, so it is too late." Thou art and I are together, I am very relieved, and now I am determined, but the ministers do not obey, so what can I do? ”

Li Mingrui's eyes were scorching, and he bowed his hand and said: "Your Majesty, with all due respect, now the enemy is pressing, the people's hearts are in turmoil, the elite of the Beijing camp is lost, and the foreign army is being transferred indefinitely. The imperial court already has no unscrupulous generals and elite soldiers, and there is no effective aid outside, if you don't leave the capital quickly and move south to Jinling, what way is there to go! ”（）