There were many reasons for the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

First of all, in the era of the Apocalypse and Chongzhen, during the period of the Xiaoice River, droughts, floods, locust plagues, and plagues continued one after another, and grain production was reduced or even extinct.

Secondly, there was the rise of Manchuria's Jiannu outside, which invaded the Central Plains from time to time, and there were thieves such as Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong who became bigger, which further aggravated the process of the demise of the Ming Empire.

Of course, in Lu Fan's view, the fundamental reason for the fall of the Ming Dynasty was the financial bankruptcy of the Ming Empire!

It takes money to resist the Liaodong Emperor Taiji, to suppress the uprising of the displaced people, and to provide disaster relief, but on the contrary, the Ming treasury has no money at all, and even the queen is so poor that she has to do some manual work to fill the harem.

And the reason why the Ming Dynasty went bankrupt is inseparable from the reigning Emperor Chongzhen.

An emperor, you can not be smart enough, you can be suspicious, you can be stubborn, but you can't be ignorant of politics and the way of checks and balances.

Like the carpenter emperor Tianqi Emperor, he can devote himself to carpenter work, but he also knows that cultivating Wei Zhongxian as an eagle dog bites people and looks after the house, so that the court will not be completely controlled by the civil official group and lose its restraint.

For example, the Jiajing Emperor who cultivated immortals and asked about the Emperor Jiajing, who had not been in court for twenty years, sat firmly in the harem and cultivated immortals, but he played the way of checks and balances of power to perfection, no matter how civil officials fought and tossed, he could sit firmly on Diaoyutai and be the arbiter on the ground!

But Chongzhen is different, full of enthusiasm, and he is prosperous in his heart, but he doesn't understand any political concepts, and he doesn't understand the slightest way of checks and balances, and all his hopes are pinned on the conduct and ethics of the Donglin Party.

It's a pity that facts have proved that the civil ethics in the court in the late Ming Dynasty are really rotten to the bone.

The first thing the Donglin Party did when it came to power was to eliminate the eunuch forces, and the second thing was to urgently abolish the commercial and mining taxes and safeguard the interests of the gentry, merchants, big landowners, urban bourgeoisie, and mining owners behind them.

Is there really no money in the Ming Dynasty, in fact, this is not the case, but the wealth of the entire Ming Dynasty is controlled by the above-mentioned forces nine times out of ten, and these forces, during the reign of the Donglin Party, do not have to pay taxes at all.

In other words, the ordinary peasant people of the Ming Dynasty only occupy one-tenth of the wealth of the world, but they have to feed the entire Ming Dynasty, how can they maintain the normal operation of the entire empire with their little tax alone?

As a last resort, Chongzhen and the Donglin Party had to continue to raise taxes on the peasant people.

If it is just in normal times, the people can barely survive without starvation, but during the period of the Xiaoice River, natural disasters continued, there were foreign races outside, and there were displaced people like locusts crossing the border to rob everything, in this case, Daming did not collapse, it is really unreasonable!

Sometimes, Lu Fan even felt that even if Chongzhen stayed in the harem to play in the mud after ascending the throne, he didn't care about anything, and let Wei Zhongxian and the Donglin party fight was better than his diligent and honest foolish toss!

"Da Ming, is it really hopeless?"

After feeling angry with emotion, Wei Zhongxian asked again, and it could be seen that he still had some worries in his heart about the Ming Dynasty that he had once ruled and managed.

"This, I really can't save it!" Lu Fan shook his head, "Do you know who Your Majesty is going to hand over the Liaodong Defense Line and other commanding matters to?"

"Who?"

Wei Zhongxian pondered for a moment, and asked with some uncertainty: "Could it be Yuan Chonghuan's talented and talented person?"

"Haha, Grandpa Wei guessed accurately, it's really him!"

"Oh, that Da Ming, it seems that he is really hopeless!"

Wei Zhongxian shook his head in complete disappointment, "Yuan Chonghuan, if you talk about ability, you naturally have some ability, but this person's ability to do things is far less than his ability to fool people with empty words!"

"If Your Majesty uses Sun Chengzong, the Liaodong defense line will be worry-free within a few years, but if Yuan Chonghuan is used as a selfish man, our family dares to conclude that within three years, the Jiannu Iron Cavalry will have to enter the pass!"

Lu Fan nodded in approval and said: "Father-in-law Wei is worthy of being nine thousand years old who once ruled the Ming Dynasty, although he is completely bad, but his vision is also sharp, and he is still very good at seeing people!"

"What's the use of that?" Wei Zhongxian shook his head decadently, "Our family has seen people all their lives, but they have lost their eyes on Zhu Youzhen's body. Since the day he ascended the throne, our family has tried many times openly and secretly, but they have all been dissolved by him lightly. ”

"I thought he was an emperor with a ravine, and he would focus on the overall situation, who would have thought ........"

Who would have thought that he was a dumbfounded person with no heart!

He didn't say the last sentence, but the meaning of it was very clear to Lu Fan.

Sighing a few times in succession, Wei Zhongxian looked at Lu Fan with regret, "Thinking about our family for a lifetime, everyone in the world says that I, Wei Zhongxian, have caused trouble in the court and made the people's lives miserable, who would have thought that at the moment of death, the one who knows me best and understands me and recognizes the merits of our family is a young Jinyi Wei Qianhu like you!"

As he spoke, he pointed to a package on the table and said, "There are some golden beans in it, not much, but there are also a few hundred taels, Lu Qianhu accepted it, it can be regarded as a thank you gift for chatting with me, a dying person." ”

Lu Fan shook his head and said, "You and I are both smart people, we should understand the purpose of this official to abandon the left and right to come here alone, and I don't see that little bit of golden beans in my eyes!"

Wei Zhongxian smiled, "I know what you want, but I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you."

I have only been in power for three years, and most of the commercial taxes and mining taxes collected have gone into the treasury.

Moreover, when the Liaodong defense line was tight, our family also donated money to the state and used their private property to fund Liaodong war weapons, horses and other items, which were all money-burning things and consumed a lot. ”

Lu Fan frowned, and said with a smile: "So what does Father-in-law Wei mean, you are old and dedicated to the country, except for the more than forty cars of property outside, there is no other property left? This is not your nine-thousand-year-old style of doing things!"

"I can't talk about serving the country wholeheartedly, what our family is doing is just trying to protect ourselves, after all, the Ming Dynasty is dead, and we, the eunuchs, have to be buried with us, right?"

The words had already been spoken, and Wei Zhongxian no longer concealed it, and said in a deep voice: "Don't hide it, our family does have a wealth that was hidden in advance a year ago. It's not much, but it's worth nearly three million taels of silver, I don't know if this money is enough to buy our family's lives?"

Lu Fan shook his head, "Silver is a good thing, but it's too risky for you to live." If I can't see your corpse, the princes of the court and even Your Majesty will have trouble sleeping and eating, and those who are unlucky will have to be the officials!"