In August 1627, the entire upper echelons of the Ming Dynasty were in chaos. Zhu Youxiao, the Emperor of the Apocalypse who ruled China for only eight years, died in Beijing as in history. What followed was that because the Emperor of the Apocalypse had no children, his younger brother Xinwang Zhu Youzhen succeeded to the throne.

The so-called once a son of heaven and a courtier. Although on his deathbed, the Emperor of the Apocalypse, who was very proficient in the politics of the Ming Dynasty, taught the next emperor Zhu Youzhen the secret of being able to control the politics of the Ming Dynasty although he was able to do carpenter work every day. ”）。 But the new emperor Zhu Youzhen, who is not yet eighteen years old, obviously has his own ideas.

From the perspective of later generations, Wang Shuhui believes that if Zhu Youxiao and Zhu Youzhen are compared with the brothers, the carpenter emperor Zhu Youxiao is obviously much more politically intelligent than the Qinzheng emperor Zhu Youzhen.

Zhu Youxiao seems to be doing carpenter work every day, but he, like his grandfather Emperor Wanli and his grandfather's grandfather Emperor Jiajing, are very proficient in the politics of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Jiajing, Emperor Wanli and Emperor Tianqi, the three of them knew very clearly that to be a qualified leader of the Ming Dynasty, they must grasp the money with one hand and the soldiers with the other.

Emperor Jiajing reused eunuchs and brocade guards, and at the same time used Yan Song, an unlucky guy, as a shield to suppress civil officials, but on the one hand, he tightly controlled the economic power of the Ming Dynasty, and held on to the household department, so that a group of ministers such as Yan Shifan and Yan Maoqing helped him sort out taxes in various places. On the other hand, he also supported Hu Zongxian in fighting against the Japanese in the southeast region and ensuring the smooth foreign trade routes of the Ming Dynasty.

It is precisely for this reason that Emperor Jiajing was able to firmly control the supreme power of the Ming Dynasty. Some historians of later generations believe that although he has left a notoriety in the history books, the Jiajing Emperor, who ascended to the throne as a descendant of the collateral line, can almost be compared with Ming Taizu and Ming Chengzu in terms of his grasp of political power.

The Wanli Emperor may not have had the same grasp of government as his grandfather. In the early Wanli period, Zhang Juzheng, Feng Bao and Empress Dowager Li formed a powerful political alliance. Emperor Wanli was relatively helpless at that time. However, after Zhang Juzheng's death, the Wanli Emperor did not abolish a very effective whip law, and he reused eunuchs to carry out a state monopoly on the minerals of the Ming Dynasty, which greatly enriched the financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty.

It is precisely because of such sufficient financial support that the three major expeditions of Wanli have been realized. For the same reason, in the late Wanli period, although the Ming army suffered a great military defeat in the eastern Liaodong region. However, the Ming Dynasty can barely maintain the dominant state of the Dongyu Nuzhen.

In the generation of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, although the Emperor of the Apocalypse mistakenly reused the Donglin Party at the beginning of his succession, he soon inherited the political wisdom of his grandfather and his grandfather's grandfather, and used the reuse of Wei Zhongxian as an effective means to combat and suppress the arrogance of the bureaucracy, and sent tax eunuchs to ensure financial revenue.

Summing up the political experience of the three Ming emperors, Jiajing, Wanli and Tianqi, we can see that in fact, whether it is Jiajing, Wanli or Tianqi, these three emperors were faced with a strong civilian bureaucracy at the beginning of their succession to the throne, which endangered the interests of the state.

At the beginning of Jiajing's succession, he was faced with Yang Tinghe, Mao Cheng and other former ministers who represented the interests of the civilian bureaucracy.

At the beginning of his succession, the Wanli Emperor faced a civil bureaucracy represented by the powerful minister Zhang Juzheng.

At the beginning of his succession, the Emperor of the Apocalypse faced a civilian bureaucracy represented by the Donglin Party.

Within the feudal ruling class, in fact the relationship between the emperor and the civilian bureaucracy was absolutely combative. Both of them also benefit from the exploitation of the masses of the people of the ruled class, but unlike the emperor, who is active and passive in maintaining the interests of the state. As a vested interest group, the civilian bureaucracy, like all vested interest groups in ancient and modern times, seeks the benefit of their own group by plundering and destroying the interests of the state.

There is a passage in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" that says it very clearly. At that time, the local forces of Eastern Wu, which were representatives of vested interests in the southeast, all persuaded Sun Quan to surrender to Cao Cao in the face of Cao Cao's military pressure. But Lu Su clearly told Sun Quan that anyone could surrender, but Sun Quan couldn't surrender.

Although "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is a book, this content about surrender clearly points out the relationship between the feudal monarch who represents the interests of the state and the civilian-bureaucratic group that represents the interests of vested interest groups.

It was only when the Jiajing, Wanli, and Tianqi Emperors saw clearly the relationship between the emperor and the civilian bureaucracy that they adopted powerful measures to crack down on and suppress the civilian bureaucracy through eunuchs, spies, and so on, thus ensuring the stability of the imperial power on the one hand, and objectively safeguarding the interests of the state on the other.

Although the emperor is supreme, the emperor also needs political allies. The civil bureaucracy, which was the absolute object of struggle, was unreliable, and this was the law summed up by all the clever Ming emperors.

When the Emperor of the Apocalypse was dying, he handed over Wei Zhongxian to Zhu Youzhen out of such considerations. However, the young Zhu Youzhen, who had no political experience, did not have a correct understanding of this law. He was very dissatisfied with Wei Zhongxian and the eunuch clique represented by Wei Zhongxian.

is different from Zhu Youzhen, who is weak and does not have any reliable helpers. The civilian-bureaucratic clique, especially the Donglin Party clique, which had long made it clear where its interests were, was very sensitive to Zhu Youzhen's attitude toward Wei Zhongxian.

From August 1627, when Zhu Youzhen succeeded to the throne, the Donglin Party began to organize manpower to impeach and attack Wei Zhongxian. Although Zhu Youzhen still has not taken any action at this stage, Wei Zhongxian also obviously feels that Zhu Youzhen's distrust of him has become more and more obvious.

However, like all the great eunuchs who once held great power and leaned towards the government and the opposition, Wei Zhongxian, whose power came from the emperor's trust, lacked the means to restrain the new emperor. The eunuch clique, whose source of power came from Wei Zhongxian himself, was unable to effectively counter the attack of the Donglin party without the support of the emperor.

After all, as long as there was no way for Wei Zhongxian to even issue any orders without the emperor's approval.

At the end of August 1627, under the manipulation of the Donglin Party, Jiaxing Gongsheng Qian Jiazheng impeached Wei Zhongxian for ten crimes: one was tied with the emperor, two was contemptuous of the queen, three was to manipulate military power, four had no two ancestors, five were knighted by the vassal king, six were no saints, seven were indiscriminately rewarded, eight covered up the border work, nine exploited the people, and ten traffic joints.

After the recital was submitted, Zhu Youzhen summoned Wei Zhongxian and asked the internal officials to read it to him. Wei Zhongxian was very frightened, and hurriedly bribed Xu Yingyuan, the eunuch of the Xindi, with a heavy treasure, and begged him to save him. Xu Yingyuan is Wei Zhongxian's former gambling friend. Zhu Youzhen knew about this, so he reprimanded Xu Yingyuan.

By this time, the desperate Wei Zhongxian had clearly known that his end was coming