Once a ruler has selfish intentions, then many things that were originally taken for granted will also become inexplicable and unreasonable. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

So don't the emperors of the Ming Dynasty have a little selfishness?!

Of course there are. For example, on the issue of the treasury and the internal treasury, of course, there will be some selfish motives.

Many emperors in the middle and late Ming Dynasty liked gold, silver and money, and they made no secret of this, and the most obvious one of them was, of course, the Wanli Emperor.

In order to enrich the royal treasury, the Wanli Emperor sent many eunuchs from the inner court to serve as mine supervisors and tax envoys all over the country, competing with the local government for tax benefits.

Of course, it also includes letting the eunuchs of the inner court open imperial shops under the banner of the emperor, and make a big deal similar to the "official downfall" in later generations, in order to seek "huge profits".

It is true that the silver is not less collected, nor is it earned, but it has also attracted countless infamy.

However, in the end, the Wanli Emperor tried his best to get the silver, but not all of it was squandered by the Wanli Emperor himself, and a considerable part of it was taken out for the military expenses of the three major expeditions in the Wanli period.

Including when Emperor Taichang Zhu Changluo ascended the throne, a large amount of arrears to the nine-sided army were used to carry countless black pots of silver accumulated during the reign of Emperor Wanli.

So is this selfishness, or is it public? Of course, there are selfish intentions, but they do business.

In the final analysis, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty is a Han Chinese, a serious Chinese orthodoxy, and such a royal and national is the real isomorphism of the family and the country, and the family and the country are of the same species.

They may have selfishness as individuals or royal clans, but they will not have selfishness at the national level, nor will they have any selfishness that is not conducive to the Chinese nation when they consider the interests of the country and their own race.

The number of princes and brothers of the Ming Dynasty was indeed a bit too much, and the annual allowance for them alone accounted for one-third or even more than half of the local income, which caused a great burden on the finances of the imperial court.

This problem has been trying to solve since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, first reducing the prince's annual salary from 50,000 stone to 10,000 stone, and later from 10,000 stone to 5,000 stone.

By the time of the Apocalypse and Chongzhen dynasties, the imperial court was in financial difficulties, and in addition to the highest-ranking one-character king in the clan, the children of the distant clans of various Zhenguo generals and Fengguo lieutenants could not receive any money at all, and many people relied on the help of the kings from all over the country to make a living, and some were even poor and difficult to continue with three meals.

This problem was caused by the clan system of the Ming Dynasty, although there were royal selfishness, but it was understandable.

Compared with the Eight Banners system of the later Manchu Qing Dynasty, the economic burden brought by it was somewhat similar, but it did not include the kind of ethnic exploitation and racial oppression of the Han people by the children of the Eight Banners of the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

Simply drawing a line between high and low based on differences in ethnic origins would only occur during the reigns of the Mongol Yuan and Manchu dynasties.

Hundreds of millions of people of the entire Chinese nation came to worship millions of people in the Manchu Eight Banners, and only the descendants of wild boar skins made it.

Although the national issues of later generations were artificially complicated, in the Ming Dynasty, all those who considered themselves to be members of the Chinese nation were undoubtedly fighting for the interests of the Chinese nation.

This point, from the emperor to the common people, is highly recognized.

Even Tujia scholars like Yang He and Yang Sichang, who were not from Han nationality, and Qin Liangyu, who were not from Han nationality, were Tusi generals in the southwest, all had no objection to this.

Of course, this is true of naturalized Mongolians like Man Gui and Wu Weiying, as well as Hui Hui like Heiyunlong and Heiyunhe brothers.

If you enter China, you will be in China, not to enter China, but to identify and naturalize China, that is, your language, food, clothing, clothing and customs, etc., all follow the etiquette system of China, which is called Yihua is China.

Like the Manchu Qing Dynasty in later generations, he not only did not follow the Chinese dress customs and etiquette system as orthodox, but instead enslaved the Chinese nation as a slave, and worshiped hundreds of thousands of Manchurian Eight Banners with the entire Chinese nation, and kept the barbarian customs unchanged, how could the Chinese nation regard it as Huaxia?

Later, it was overthrown by the Han people again, which was also inevitable.

Historically, seeing that the city of Beijing was broken and the building was about to collapse, why would Emperor Chongzhen rather hang himself than flee south?

No matter how many of these unspeakable secrets are unknown to future generations, the choice itself alone has already embodied a very rare sense of responsibility and national integrity.

The so-called Xianfeng Emperor of the later Manchu Qing Dynasty, as soon as he heard that the British and French troops were going north to Tianjin, he immediately fled to Rehe.

And what about the Empress Dowager Cixi, who ruled China for nearly half a century, when the Eight-Nation Coalition Army landed, didn't she flee to Xi'an in one go?!

All kinds of unequal treaties that humiliate the country and cede land and pay compensation have been signed softly, and they have been signed very justifiably.

In the final analysis, he still did not regard himself as a member of the Chinese nation, did not regard the Chinese as his own people, but regarded the land of China as a private property that the Manchurian aristocracy could dispose of at will and discard at any time.

This point can be said to be in stark contrast to the emperors of the Ming Dynasty.

The Mongols went south to attack the border, what to do, fight!

What should I do, fight!

The Jurchens occupy my Liaodong, what should I do, or fight!

The Dutch infested the coast, what to do, keep fighting!

Even on the eve of the death of the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese and Spaniards successively made various non-sub-demands to the Ming Dynasty, and the reply given to them by the Ming Emperor was still the same thing, if you want to fight, you will fight, and if you don't accept it, you will fight!

This point is exactly the same as the reply given to the Warat people by the Ming Jingshi Junchen after Ming Yingzong was captured by the Warat people two hundred years ago.

In short, in the two or three hundred years since the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Emperor has never signed any treaty with any enemy of the Chinese nation to lose power and humiliate the country or compromise the country.

Even at the last moment when the wind and rain were shaking and the building was about to collapse, it was still trying to maintain the little national dignity that was no longer available in the Chinese Celestial Empire.

This point is also what Emperor Chongzhen must always remember, that is, we must always adhere to the supremacy of national interests, and always and everywhere must be based on the interests of the Chinese nation.

As for the surrounding tribal populations that are outside the Chinese nation, it is the words of Emperor Taizu Gao, those who belong to me will always be in peace with China, and those who carry me will run outside the fortress!

Those who are willing to assimilate can naturally be accepted as part of the Chinese nation, but those who are unwilling to assimilate can not blame Lao Tzu for being polite.

In the vicinity of China, these peoples, who were isolated from the Chinese nation, either fled outside the fortress or more distant places to make room for the Chinese nation to live, or they were wiped out or driven away.

Today's Emperor Chongzhen is already consciously instilling such nationalist ideas into his attendants, military attachés, Zhongshu scholars, and even military ministers.

On the one hand, let them better understand and implement some of their own decisions and deployments, at least be able to understand, and not blindly oppose them.

On the other hand, those attendants and military attachés and military aircraft guards will sooner or later be sent out to serve, even if they are military ministers, they may have to be sent out to serve as governors of several provinces, if they do not know the emperor's position on these vital issues, then with the communication conditions of this era, I am afraid that I don't know when to delay the big thing.