I have to say that the Chongzhen Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty is indeed a dynasty of all people, and the ministers have "generously donated" when the country is in danger.

According to the calculation of Wang Chengen, the eunuch of the celebrant and the pen, in addition to Xue Guoguan who took the initiative to donate 8,000 taels of silver, more than 1,200 officials in Beijing donated a total of about 140,000 taels of silver, which is not only the difference between the two million taels required by Chongzhen.

Shoufu Xue Guoguan once again suggested: "Outside the bureaucrats, ministers are responsible for urging donations, and relatives and nobles at home need to be determined by His Majesty personally." ”

Xue Guoguan's meaning is very simple, he is in charge of the court officials, and as for the nobles, it can only be handled by Chongzhen himself.

In the two hundred and seventy years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen did not know how much food the nobles had, but he could guess a rough idea, so he recognized Xue Guoguan's suggestion.

However, he also knew what kind of virtue these relatives and nobles of the country were, and if he wanted them to take out money from their pockets and give it to the court, it would be more uncomfortable than killing them.

But the Liaodong army is like fire, if there is not enough money and food to transfer troops, then you can only sit back and watch Jinzhou be broken by the Eastern captives, in desperation, Chongzhen's eyes looked at Li Guorui, the Marquis of Wuqing.

The reason why Li Guorui, Marquis of Wuqing, was chosen? It turned out that this Li Guorui was the nephew of the Empress Dowager Xiaoding, and he was Chongzhen's cousin. The family relied on the power of the Queen Mother to save a large area of fertile land and countless assets.

In order to share the family property with his brother, Li Guorui also sued the court last year, saying that his father left an inheritance of 400,000 taels of silver, and if he inherited half of it, he was willing to donate it to the court.

Since Li Guorui promised to donate 200,000 taels, Chongzhen naturally found Li Guorui.

Li Guorui was stunned, let's say donate to the imperial court, it's just to compete for family property, you still take it seriously, but the emperor has made an order, and he has promised, if he doesn't take the silver, I'm afraid he can't say it, take it, and he can't bear it.

He is also a ruthless person, in order to show that his family has no money to spare, he simply took his title deed and the tables, chairs and furniture in the house to the street and sold it, and it was sold with great fanfare, Li Guorui just wanted to use his tragic experience to tell the nobles in Beijing, you see, now it is Lao Tzu, and the next one will fall to you.

The nobles naturally will not sit still, Jiading Bo Zhou Kui, Chengguo Duke Zhu Chunchen, Dingguo Duke Xu Yunzhen and other nobles in Beijing have written to the emperor, asking the emperor to withdraw the order, if the matter of Wuqing Marquis selling his property is spread, will the Ming Dynasty still be decent?

Chongzhen was completely angry, the national disaster was at the head, the emperor's relatives not only did not share the hardships with him, but they actually joined hands to disobey his holy decree. This time, he had to kill the chicken to show the monkey, and he had to make an example of it, so he decreed that the donation must be paid, otherwise Li Guorui would be deprived of his marquis.

If this matter is spread on other nobles, it is impossible to say that he really can't withstand the pressure of Chongzhen and donate the 200,000 taels, but Li Guorui, the Marquis of Wuqing, is a short-lived ghost, and after Chongzhen's holy decree was issued, he died in a few days.

There are different opinions on this matter, some say that Li Guorui was forced to die by Chongzhen's will, some say that Li Guorui died of his own illness, and of course some say that Li Guorui was killed by the Xungui group, in an attempt to force the imperial court to change the national policy of donation.

But Li Guorui's death has obviously become the best opportunity for the nobles to refuse to donate.

Seven days after Li Guorui's death, just after Li Guorui's first seven days, after Jiading Bo Zhoukui finished his funeral at Li's house, he invited Zhu Chunchen, Duke of Dingguo, Xu Yunzhen, Duke of Dingguo, Li Guozhen, Bo of Xiangcheng and other nobles in Beijing to serve tea in Bofu.

Of course, serving tea is fake, and it is Zhou Kui's real intention to use Li Guorui's death to prompt Chongzhen to change the holy decree of donation.

Zhu Chunchen, Xu Yunzhen and others knew Zhou Kui's intentions, but Zhou Kui was the biological father of Queen Zhou, so after entering the flower hall, he just drank tea and chatted, waiting for Zhou Kui to speak, after all, the emperor is your son-in-law, if you take the lead, we will talk better.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are not the only nobles and nobles in the Jingshi, those civil officials have made a lot of money in the name of begging thieves, but the emperor is staring at us, although there is some money and food in our house, but our family has a big business, if this silver is donated to the imperial court, we must not drink the northwest wind, and now the Marquis of Wuqing has been forced to death by the emperor, what regulations may you come up with."

Zhou Kui also knew the thoughts of the nobles, so he simply put the donation on the table straight to the point.

Taikang Bo Zhang Guoji said hesitantly: "The emperor wants to raise two million taels of silver for the war in Liaodong, and we are the same relatives as the country, so naturally we have to donate generously, so many of us, each of us will take twenty or thirty thousand taels, and the silver will be gathered, so why negotiate." ”

Zhang Guoji is the father of Zhang Yan, the queen of the Apocalypse, and he is quite loyal, in his opinion, since the lord and the country are closely related, it is natural to be prosperous and lossy, and the country is in trouble, so it is natural to give some silver to the country.

"Emperor Zhang, those civil officials donated 140,000 taels, but they asked us to donate 1.8 million taels, what does this mean, it's so difficult that our honors are easy to bully, Wuqinghou has been forced to die, let's donate the silver, do we still want to have the face of our honorables?"

Zhou Kui is a well-known iron rooster, he doesn't want to pay a penny of silver, the emperor is rich all over the world, and he actually takes money from his ministers, isn't this a big joke?

"If the skin does not exist, the hair will be attached! You are not willing to donate, Ben Bo is willing, this tea does not taste good, and Ben Bo cannot accompany him. ”

Without speculating for more than half a sentence, Taikang Bo Zhang Guoji faced the nobles who were seated, hugged his fists slightly, got up and left the flower hall, and went straight out of the mansion.

Xinle Hou Liu Wenjiao and more than a dozen other nobles saw Zhang Guoji slamming the door and left, and they also got up and saluted everyone casually, and followed Zhang Guoji out of the mansion.

Regarding the departure of Zhang Guoji and Liu Wenshan, Zhou Kui didn't care, it's your business that you are willing to donate, anyway, the old man has no money to donate.

After everyone left, Jiading Bo Zhou Kui looked around at everyone: "The palace believes in the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva, if we can borrow the mouth of the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva, we will definitely be able to prevent the emperor from donating." ”

The Nine Lotus Bodhisattva Temple is built in the palace by the Empress Dowager Li, the biological mother of the Wanli Emperor, a statue of the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva is enshrined in the temple, the Bodhisattva's face is shaped according to the appearance of the Empress Dowager Li, and the folk rumor is that "the Queen Mother, the Bodhisattva is also the body".

After the death of Empress Dowager Li, she was respected as the protector of the Ming Dynasty royal family "Nine Lotus Bodhisattva", accepted the worship of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, and there were many eunuchs and palace maids in the palace.

"Old Emperor, how can you use the matter of ghosts and gods to induce Your Majesty to take back your life?"

Xu Yunzhen, the Duke of Dingguo, was also after Xu Da, and when Ming Chengzu was martyred, Xu Zengshou, the second son of Xu Da, was killed by Emperor Jianwen for supporting Zhu Di.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, he thanked Xu Zengshou for his loyalty, so he awarded his son Xu Jingchang the title of Dingguo Gong, and it was already the ninth generation when it was passed to the Chongzhen Dynasty, which can be said to be a real share of honor and disgrace with the Zhu family, but Xu Yunzhen did not want to give the silver to Chongzhen.