Since the fifteenth year of Chongzhen's reign (1642), the Western missionary John Tang has been waiting anxiously in the Forbidden City.

A few years earlier, on the orders of Emperor Chongzhen, John Tang had led craftsmen to cast artillery in the city of Beijing to support the Liaodong front against the Manchus (Later Jin). However, in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641), the last elite army of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong 130,000 people went out of Shanhaiguan to rescue Jinzhou, but was defeated by the Qing soldiers, and the life and death of Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, who commanded the troops, was unknown.

Although he had been a missionary in China for many years, John Tang, who had helped the Ming Dynasty officials revise the calendar and cast cannons, understood that the Ming Empire, on which he had high hopes, was now crumbling, and that his days were running out under the double attack of the peasant army inside and the Manchu Qing Dynasty outside.

An agrarian empire that is hard to return to cannot be saved by the most advanced calendars and cannons.

Just as John Tang was anxiously waiting, news came from the front, saying that Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, was unwilling to surrender after the city was broken and had been "martyred". For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen mourned and wept bitterly, and even ordered to set up an altar in front of Chaotian Palace, ready to pay tribute in person, in the court, Chongzhen shed tears and said: "I have never saved Chengchou." ”

But the fact is that after being trapped in Songshan Castle for half a year, in March of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen (1642), Hong Chengchou was captured after the destruction of Songshan Castle. At first, he did go on a hunger strike for several days and refused to surrender, in this regard, Huang Taiji, who had changed the name of the country from Jin (Later Jin) to the Qing Dynasty, sent people to persuade him to surrender many times, but he was scolded back.

Huang Taiji, who was unwilling to give up, sent Fan Wencheng, the secretary of the ministry, to persuade him to surrender. After Fan Wencheng saw Hong Chengchou, he didn't mention the matter of surrendering, but just talked with him about the past and the present. During the conversation, I saw a piece of dust falling from the beam and falling on Hong Chengchou's clothes, Hong Chengchou "wiped it repeatedly" while talking. Fan Wencheng, who was observant of words and expressions, was silent, and said to Huang Taiji after his resignation: "Hong Chengchou will not die." He still cherishes his robe so much, let alone his own life! ”

So Huang Taiji struck while the iron was hot and met Hong Chengchou the next day. Seeing Hong Chengchou standing and not kneeling, Huang Taiji was not angry, but just shh This may have finally moved Hong Chengchou, or perhaps gave Hong Chengchou a step to surrender, and the next day, Hong Chengchou officially surrendered to Huang Taiji.

As early as when the cities of Songshan and Jinzhou were broken, Huang Taiji was very happy and said to the generals: "Taking Beijing is like cutting down a big tree, you must start cutting it from both sides first, so that the big tree will fall down by itself." Now I have taken the four cities outside the Guan, the elite soldiers of the Ming Kingdom have been exhausted, and Beijing can be obtained. ”

After Hong Chengchou surrendered with Zu Dashou and other generals, Huang Taiji was even happier, and personally set up a banquet to entertain these Ming Dynasty generals. ”

The generals replied: "Naturally, it is for the capture of the Central Plains!" ”

Huang Taiji immediately said, that's right, "To seize the Central Plains, it's like walking on the road, we don't know the way, today to get a guide, can I not be happy?" ”

Although Huang Taiji died a year after saying these words, and he himself did not live to see the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Empire had indeed sunset.

Portrait of Huang Taiji (1592-1643). The aggressive Manchu Qing was only a symptom of the fall of the Ming Dynasty. Source: Internet

01

After the complete failure of the Battle of Songjin and the capture of Hong Chengchou, the Ming Dynasty was outside the Shanhai Pass, and only 30,000 remnants of the army followed Wu Sangui to retreat to the isolated city of Ningyuan.

The general trend outside the customs has gone, and in the interior, Li Zicheng led the peasant army to surround the important town of Kaifeng for the third time, the Central Plains was shaken, and the Chongzhen Emperor who was at a loss for internal and external troubles did not know how to be good at this time - he inherited the throne since he was 17 years old (1627), and at the beginning of the throne, he vigorously eradicated the power of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, and once won the applause of the internal and external circles, but the Ming Dynasty has been declining for many years, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty attacked from the northeast and the peasant army from the northwest, which made the Ming Empire tired of coping, and now, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has approached Shanhaiguan, The peasant army moved north and south within the empire, and the beacon fire gradually approached Beijing.

What few people know is that in the last stormy days of the empire, Chongzhen also believed in Catholicism for a time. In the fifth year of Chongzhen (1632), Xu Guangqi, a scholar of the Ministry of Rites and Wenyuange University who believed in Catholicism, recommended Catholicism to Chongzhen, which made Chongzhen who was confused in spirit, once overjoyed, and preached by missionaries Nan Huairen, Tang Ruowang and others, Chongzhen then ordered all the Buddha statues in the Forbidden City to be removed, which means that God can only be allowed to exist, and there can be no other idols.

Not only that, because of the worship of the Catholic God at one time, Chongzhen also ordered all the courtiers to change the name of the word "heaven", such as Chen Liangmo, the official of Dali Temple, whose original name was Chen Tiangong, was forced to change his name because of Chongzhen's order.

But once converted to Catholicism, can not save Chongzhen's heart of confusion and the declining state of the Ming Empire, to 1640, Chongzhen's fifth son Zhu Cihuan died of illness, it is said that Zhu Cihuan before his death, Chongzhen went to visit, did not expect that Zhu Cihuan, who was only five years old at the time, actually pointed to the air to call the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva, and accused Chongzhen of destroying the Buddha statue in the Forbidden City Palace, although the truth of this matter and the course of the incident appeared a variety of theories, but Chongzhen was deeply shocked after Zhu Cihuan's death, and asked back the Buddha statue that had been removed to the palace, Since then, he has not prayed to God again.

He once believed in God, of course, could not save his Ming, so, as early as 1639 before the death of the fifth son of the emperor Zhu Cihuan, he had set up an altar in the Forbidden City to summon heavenly soldiers and generals, and prayed for him to give alms to calm the war. He also summoned Zhang Yingjing, the fifty-second generation heavenly master of the Taoist Zhengyi faction, and ordered him to set up an altar to summon heavenly soldiers and generals, hoping that the immortals could go down to the earth to drive people out of the world and suppress thieves inside.

Praying for the gods to appear is one thing, Chongzhen understands, more still depends on personnel, in desperation, Chongzhen, who has always insisted on not negotiating peace, had to secretly order Chen Xinjia, the secretary of the military department, to negotiate peace with Huang Taiji, but I didn't expect that the peace was carried out at a critical moment, Chen Xinjia and the Manchu Qing Dynasty's peace documents were inadvertently leaked by Chen Xinjia's servants, and reported to various places as a Tang newspaper, which made a lot of noise.

Originally, the peace with the Manchu Qing was carried out in secret, but now the matter has been leaked, Chongzhen, who can't hinder the son, decided to take Chen Xinjia as a scapegoat, Chongzhen fifteen years (1642) July 29, Chen Xinjia was imprisoned, and then, the ministers of the court and China rescued in many ways, and the scholars Zhou Yanru and Chen Yan also wrote and said: "According to the law of the country, the enemy soldiers should not kill the military department if they do not fight to the city." But Chongzhen, who had already made up his mind to kill Chen Xinjia and kill him, replied: "(When Chen Xinjia was the secretary of the military department), my seven princes were killed and humiliated, isn't this more serious than the enemy soldiers hitting the city?" ”

More than a month later, (1642) on September 22, Chen Xinjia was beheaded in the city, so far, the last peace between the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing was completely interrupted, and the Ming Dynasty could only fight with the Manchus on the road to the end, and the Ming Empire, which was already stretched, still had to disperse its limited resources outside the customs to deal with the Manchus, and the situation was even more critical.

Chen Xinjia negotiated peace on behalf of Chongzhen, but he was ordered to be killed because of leaking secrets, and he was loyal to the emperor, but he could be abandoned at any time to protect the car, which made the Manchu civil and military even more silent.

Therefore, from another level, when the Ming Dynasty finally fell, most of the ministers of civil and military affairs abandoned their weapons and surrendered during Li Zicheng's march into Beijing, which can also be understood as a kind of despair and abandonment of Chongzhen.

According to statistics, during Chongzhen's seventeen years of reign (1627-1644), a total of 7 governors and 11 governors were killed. Yan Jizu, the governor of Shandong, was also executed as a scapegoat because the Qing soldiers entered the customs to conquer King De, the king of Jinan; In addition, Chen Xinjia, the secretary of the military department who was killed because he participated in the discussion and leaked secrets, Chongzhen slaughtered the ministers at will and shirked his responsibilities, which also made the military officials under him even more trembling and did not dare to act in the troubled times.

For example, in the year of Chen Xinjia's execution (1642), Xiong Kaiyuan, the deputy of the pedestrian department, and Jiang Yun in the matter were secretly executed by Chongzhen because of their outspoken ramming against Chongzhen.

The state affairs are chaotic, and Chongzhen, who has a narrow personality, hopes to make great efforts, but his ability is limited, and in desperation, Chongzhen, who later boasted that "I am not the king of the country, and the ministers are all ministers of the country", had to often vent his anger on his courtiers, either killing people to vent his anger, or frequently changing ministers - according to statistics, Chongzhen has been in power for 17 years, and only the secretary of the criminal department has changed 17 people; In the entire 276-year history of the Ming Dynasty, there are only more than 160 cabinet ministers, and Chongzhen accounted for 50 people in 17 years of reign, which shows the frequency and suspicion of his courtiers.

The country is declining, and he is anxious, but what he does makes his courtiers even more detached.

Chongzhen's partiality and suspicion aggravated the contradictions between the monarchs and ministers in the Ming Dynasty. Source: Film and television stills

02

In the Ming Dynasty, there were many wonderful emperors, such as Ming Yingzong, who was captured by the Mongols during the indiscriminate Northern Expedition and later successfully restored, as well as Emperor Jiajing who did not go to court for 30 years, Emperor Wanli who did not go to court for 28 years, and Chongzhen's elder brother, Zhu Youxiao, who was keen on carpenter's manual work and favored Wei Zhongxian, but in a series of bastard emperors in the late Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen was a rare clear stream, he eradicated Wei Zhongxian at the beginning of his reign, and then worked hard to save the Ming Empire, which was becoming more and more westward. But why did the Ming Dynasty still irretrievably fall to the end?

In this regard, the widows of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty put forward a point of view when they wrote the "History of the Ming Dynasty": "Therefore, the commentators said that the death of the Ming Dynasty was actually the death of the Shenzong" - they believed that the death of the Ming Dynasty was actually in the period of the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which laid a serious curse, and this view has its profound side, but the rot within the empire is a slow variable, and the fast variable that contributed to the demise of the Ming Empire is the severe climate change and drought, locust plague, famine, plague and other natural disasters after Chongzhen ascended the throne.

As early as a few years before Chongzhen ascended the throne, when the northern part of Shaanxi and Guanzhong region was already drought for many years, the grass and trees were scorched, and the red land was thousands of miles, in the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627) when Ming Xizong died and Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, at that time, the northern Shaanxi region was "exhausted of grass and trees, cannibalism", and the peasants "had exhausted their skin and bones, and did not look forward to saving their lives", and the Ming Dynasty officials not only did not reduce taxes and provide relief to the victims, but instead increased the "new salary" and "both losses" and other servitudes, and strictly ordered the officials to supervise and collect, in this case, the peasant Wang Er led the people to kill Zhang Douyao in Chengcheng, Shaanxi, which opened the prelude to the peasant war at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

In the second year of Wang Er's uprising, the first year of Chongzhen (1628), because of the lack of food, Wang Jiayin, who had been a border soldier, also organized the victims to rise up, after that, Wang Ziyong, Gao Yingxiang, and Li Zicheng also participated in the peasant uprising, and the beacon fire burned all over Shaanxi for a while, and spread to Shanxi, Ningxia, and Gansu, and the peasant uprising gradually became a trend at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Analyzing a series of peasant uprisings before and after Chongzhen's ascension, it can be found that they all have a significant relationship with natural disasters.

According to incomplete statistics, during Chongzhen's 17-year reign, there were 14 major droughts across the country, and the records of "starvation everywhere" and "cannibalism" were very common.

Although droughts are not uncommon in Chinese history, the scope and severity of droughts in the middle and late Ming Dynasty are striking.

The drought in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen (1640) was a once-in-a-millennium drought and the worst drought event in China since the Han Dynasty.

The two drought events around this year were by no means idle: the drought in the twelfth year of Chongzhen (1639) was a once-in-a-century event, and the drought in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641) was a once-in-five-hundred-year drought.

The drought has affected North China and Northwest China, and the affected population is extremely widespread. In many places, disasters have been hit year after year, and the people's production and life have suffered four, five, and even nine consecutive blows.

According to the research of meteorologist Zhang Deer, when the secondary effects caused by the drought disaster in the early days of Chongzhen's reign have not been eliminated, Chongzhen's ten to sixteen years (1637-1643), from north to south, there was a wave of 7-year nationwide drought in the Ming Empire, "its duration is long, the scope of drought is large, it has not been seen in nearly a hundred years...... Successive years of drought have also caused severe famines, accompanied by locust plagues and plague epidemics...... This event coincided with the coldest second cold phase of the Xiaoice Age, and is a typical case of persistent drought in cold climates. ”

At that time, a total of 23 provinces (regions) in the north and south of the country suffered from severe drought one after another, "the main arid area in the north, initially in the northwest, north China, and then expanded to the east and south year by year, and to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the scope of the arid area and the drought reached its peak around 1640, of which Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shandong and other places have been dry for more than 5 years." ”

Historical records record that, for example, in the Lankao area of Henan, there was no rain in the autumn and July of the 11th year (1638) of the 11th year (Chongzhen) to the 12th day of June in the 13th year (1640), which was almost a devastating blow to the agricultural society of a place; And "since the rain in June last year (1638) to November (1639) no rain", it has not rained for five months for a year; Yuncheng, Shanxi, "did not rain in September (1639) until July in July of the thirteenth year (1640)", and there was no rain for nearly ten months.

Under the influence of this widespread drought, at that time, the Zhucheng of Shandong Province "Weishui was cut off", and in 1640, Anxin in Hebei Province "exhausted Baiyangdian Lake and dried up the nine rivers", and Suining in Jiangsu Province "dried up the Yellow River"; According to historical records, in 1641, Chaohu Lake dried up in Chaoxian County, Anhui, Hejin in Shanxi Province "dried up the Fen River in May", and Tongxiang in Zhejiang Province "the river was exhausted"; In 1642, Lankao, Henan Province, "the Yellow River is dry in November, and people can walk"; In 1643, a year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Yucheng in Henan Province had "the Yellow River was cut off from flowing in summer and drought", and Songjiang in Shanghai was "completely drained".

Under the influence of this cruel large-scale, multi-year drought, from the tenth year of Chongzhen (1637) to the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641), there was another outbreak of extremely large locusts for more than five consecutive years.

Scholar Zhang Deer's research pointed out that "from 1639 to 1640, the locust plague reached its peak, and the locust area spread throughout Gansu, Ningxia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan", and the records of "flying locusts covering the sky, eating all the crops" were all over the county annals and records of the people at that time, and the Henan region at that time recorded that the locust plague occurred almost every year after the 40th year of Wanli (1612), "to the 12th year of Chongzhen (1639), the sky was covered by the sky, and its momentum was even more ...... The harvest was gone in an instant. Burn it with fire, cut it with a pit, and eventually it can't be controlled. Wow, there is nothing like the natural disaster so far. ”

In the year of the fall of the Ming Dynasty (1644), the history records that the locust plague in Henan reached its peak, "Henan flying locusts eat folk children." Every time it comes, like a torrential rain of poisonous arrows, it envelops people and eats away at them, and the skin and flesh are all over in an instant. "Against the backdrop of this historical background where locusts have no way to feed and even begin to eat people, the suffering of the people has not ended.

The drought and locust plagues, famines, and plagues that occurred for many years at the end of the Ming Dynasty were a curse that the traditional agricultural society could hardly resist. Source: Film and television stills

Under the influence of the great drought and locust plague in the Chongzhen period, five years before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, "in the autumn of Chongzhen Gengchen (1640), the people of Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, and Jinan ate wood bark, and the people ate each other in winter. Xin Si (1641) in the north and south of the Yangtze River all competed to abandon their children, sell utensils, and flow into congestion. Young women are not worth a thousand dollars" -- in this situation of "cannibalism" everywhere in the North China Plain, the Loess Plateau, and even the south of the capital Beijing, and the "blockage" of the dead bodies of the homeless, there was even a cruel phenomenon of picking up the dead from the grave and eating them, for example, in Yongji County, Shanxi Province in 1640, "deep pits were dug outside the four gates to kill the dead, and people would eat their flesh." In Jiangsu Dantu, "the three Wu are all hungry, the bark is exhausted, and the bark is exhausted, and the scabs are eaten."

According to the records of Jishan County, Shanxi, "(Chongzhen) from the eleventh to the thirteenth year (1638-1640) there were frequent droughts, there was no grass in the wild, the rice was dou in the foreground, the men and women became a city, the grass roots and bark were exhausted, and even people ate each other. There are young children who walk alone and are eaten by others, there are those who steal food from the grave before the funeral, there are those who eat and eat together at night, there are those who eat and eat at night, there are those who die and their parents eat, and those whose parents die and their children eat, and the list goes on and too many miserably. ”

Under the influence of such droughts, locust plagues, and high mortality of people, plagues also followed.

According to historical records, there were two major plagues in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, in 1586-1590 and 1640-1644, respectively, and the second great plague, which coincided with the continuous drought at the end of the Ming Dynasty, was particularly severe. Among these plagues, the plague was very harmful. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, at least 5 million people died of plague in the three provinces of North China.

Reviewing the history books, it can be seen that in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1640), due to a long-term drought, a large number of rats actually bit each other's tails, crossed the rivers in groups, and entered Anhui, Henan, Hebei and other provinces to forage for food, and in the long-term drought and famine, the hungry people fed on rats, which further aggravated the outbreak of plague - at that time, the whole north "plague was rampant, people died five or six out of ten, and the age was fierce", at that time, On the way, Zuo Maodi, who was in charge of the household department in the south to urge Caoyun, told the court that he had arrived in Linqing in Shandong from Jinghai in Tianjin, and "saw that the people died of hunger, the epidemic died of three, and the thieves four." Twenty-four taels of rice, stone and silver, people die to eat".

Just a year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), the plague that spread throughout North China was introduced to Beijing. Due to the large number of deaths from the plague, there was even a tragic situation in Beijing at that time in which all households died, and there were not even people to collect the corpses.

At that time, the population of Beijing was about 1 million people, and in this great plague the year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the estimated death toll in Beijing was as high as more than 200,000, and the rest of the people were also dying. ”

In the year of the fall of the Ming Dynasty, in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Luo Yangxing, the military governor of Tianjin, said, "Last year, the plague in Beijing was great, and the death pillow was empty, and even the households were wiped out, and no one was restrained." ”

In the early spring of 1644, the plague recurred in Beijing.

At this time, Li Zicheng's army also smoothly advanced from Shaanxi to the vicinity of Beijing, at that time, the mortality rate of the population in Beijing because of the plague had reached about 40%, because there were too many dead, many streets and alleys in Beijing at that time had been deserted and no one walked, and the three major battalions of the Ming army in the capital responsible for defending Beijing had 100,000 people in name at that time, but in addition to the lack of extra, most of the remaining tens of thousands of people were also sick. In addition, due to the financial difficulties of the Ming Dynasty and the arrears of salaries for too long, the soldiers at that time had no fighting spirit.

Therefore, when Li Zicheng's army arrived in the third lunar month of 1644, the city of Beijing, which had been tormented by the plague, immediately collapsed.

03

Based on the above historical data, it can be seen that in fact, the biggest factor in the destruction of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the internal factors, its external or fast variables undoubtedly came from cruel continuous large-scale, long-term droughts, locust plagues, famines, plagues and other natural disasters.

According to climate statistical analysis, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when China was in the cold period of the Xiaoice Age, the average winter temperature was about 2 °C lower than now, and at that time, the temperature in the Central Plains and the rainfall in the northern agricultural and pastoral belt also reached the lowest point since the Qin and Han dynasties.

The Xiaoice began in the 13th century and then experienced periods of relative warmth, reaching its peak between the mid-16th and mid-19th centuries.

In China, the cold period from the late 15th century to the end of the 19th century is usually regarded as the Xiaoice Age, and because this period coincides with the Ming and Qing dynasties, it is also called the "Ming and Qing Xiaoice Ages".

Do not underestimate the temperature drop of one or two degrees during the Xiaoice period, which in agricultural societies is enough to destroy the production base of the entire society, greatly weaken the economic power of the country, and at the same time create various social instability factors.

In this regard, as early as when the natural disaster gradually entered the peak, in the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the official Ma Maocai mentioned the situation in northern Shaanxi, which was the most severely affected by the disaster, in the "Preparation for Chen Great Hunger" to Emperor Chongzhen, he said:

"Yan'an Mansion, Chenxiang, has no rain for a year since last year (1628), and the grass and trees are scorched. In August and September, the people compete to pick the grass in the mountains and eat. Its grains are like chaff skin, and its taste is bitter and astringent. If you eat it, you can only prolong immortality. After October, when the canopy is exhausted, the bark is stripped and eaten. The elm tree is not good, and it can be mixed with other bark for food, and it can also delay its death a little.

At the end of the year and the bark of the tree is exhausted, they dig up the rocks in the mountains and eat. Its stone name is green leaves, the taste is fishy and greasy, less food is full, and after a few days, the abdomen is distended and falls to death.

The most wretched, as in the west wing of the city of Ansai, shall abandon one or two babies in it every day. There are those who cry, there are those who call out to their parents, and there are those who eat their dung. By the next morning, the son who had been abandoned had no life, and there were those who had abandoned him.

What's even more strange, children and loners, as soon as they go out of the city, there is no trace. Later, when I saw the people outside the door, I cooked human bones for salary, and cooked human flesh for food, and I knew that the people before me were all eaten by them. And the cannibal man will die of red and swollen eyes and heat in the next few days. So the dead man rested on his pillow, and the stench was terrible. ”

After talking about the tragic situation of cannibalism, Ma Maocai said that among the local people, those who were unwilling to starve to death began to take risks and gather together to become thieves. Even if he was captured by the government, he did not regret it, and publicly said: "Die of hunger and die of thieves!" Rather than sit and starve to death, why die for a thief, but for a full ghost. ”

Because the northern Shaanxi region was the initial place of natural disasters in the late Ming Dynasty, and the northern Shaanxi region experienced thousands of years of deforestation and destructive development by the Chinese ancestors, the ecological environment at this time has become increasingly bad.

Therefore, at the beginning of Chongzhen's accession to the throne in 1627 (the seventh year of the Apocalypse) and 1628 (the first year of Chongzhen), Wang Er, Wang Jiayin, Gao Yingxiang and others successively led the peasants in northern Shaanxi to rise up. Wildfires can't be burned".

According to the statistical analysis of contemporary historical geographer Ge Jianxiong, the population of the late Ming Dynasty should have reached about 160 million at its peak, and the Ming Empire, which had such a huge population resource, was actually able to control and collect taxes with only 50 or 60 million people at its peak.

After entering the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to famine, drought, land annexation, plague, war and other reasons led to the displacement of people, the Ming Dynasty government was able to control the population resources more and more reduced, which also means that the government's tax sources and military resources are constantly being lost, and in the face of the Manchu invasion of the border war and the suppression of internal rebellion, the Ming Dynasty government's expenditure is constantly expanding, on the one hand is the decreasing controllable resources, on the other hand is the expanding state expenditure, which also makes the Ming Dynasty government's living resources and living space continue to be compressed and squeezed dry.

As the most important leader of the peasant army, Li Zicheng, who was born in northern Shaanxi, had to streamline government organs at first because of the internal and external troubles of the Ming Dynasty and the large gap between government revenue and expenditure, which led to the layoff of Li Zicheng, who was a post guard at the post station at that time, and after being laid off from the civil service, Li Zicheng served as a border soldier again, and later participated in the mutiny because the military general deducted military salaries, and since then he has entered the peasant army.

To Chongzhen ten years (1637), Li Zicheng was once defeated by the Ming army Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting, only with 17 subordinates to hide in the Shangluo Mountain in southeast Shaanxi for refuge, at that time, the Ming army suppressed bandits quite effectively, another peasant uprising leader Zhang Xianzhong also surrendered to the official army for a time, but to Chongzhen 12 years (1639), first Zhang Xianzhong took advantage of the drought of that year, rebelled against the Ming Dynasty again, and then, Li Zicheng also killed Shangluo Mountain, due to the three consecutive years of drought from 1639 to 1641, at that time, participated in Li Zicheng's peasant army, "hungry people from near and far are hoeing, and those who respond are like flowing water, day and night, calling for millions, and its momentum is unstoppable." ”

Not only the peasant army, but also the Houjin (Qing army) troops that were constantly moving south at that time were also affected by the climate change of the Xiaoice period in the north at that time, as well as the great drought and the poor ecology of the grasslands.

Although it was also affected by climate change, relatively speaking, in the process of the rise of the Later Jin (Manchu Qing), Nurhachi and Huang Taiji father and son relied on war, while constantly plundering the wealth and population resources of Liaodong and Guannei, they also continued to win over the Mongolian tribes outside the Guan, and repeatedly sent troops to conquer Korea, so that the Mongolian tribes and Korea, which was originally a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, were drawn under the command of the Manchus, and the Manchus continued to win the support of the local Han people in Liaodong, so that the Manchus continued to expand and grow in the process of competing for the world with the Ming Dynasty. became a growing threat to the Ming Dynasty.

is also facing a crisis, but the Manchurians have turned the crisis into an opportunity. Of course, from a practical point of view, the Manchus have a small territory in the northeast, a small population, a small ship and a good turn, coupled with a proper strategy, and gather resources and people's hearts everywhere, which enables the Manchus to keep watching the fire from the other side in the internal turmoil of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty government and Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other peasant armies of the fire, but also let the Manchus, a third party, can enjoy the benefits of the fisherman outside the pass, which is indeed a special advantage that Chongzhen, the "big boss" of the Ming Empire, does not have, and it is enough to make people fatal. Since the fifteenth year of Chongzhen's reign (1642), the Western missionary John Tang has been waiting anxiously in the Forbidden City.

A few years earlier, on the orders of Emperor Chongzhen, John Tang had led craftsmen to cast artillery in the city of Beijing to support the Liaodong front against the Manchus (Later Jin). However, in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641), the last elite army of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong 130,000 people went out of Shanhaiguan to rescue Jinzhou, but was defeated by the Qing soldiers, and the life and death of Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, who commanded the troops, was unknown.

Although he had been a missionary in China for many years, John Tang, who had helped the Ming Dynasty officials revise the calendar and cast cannons, understood that the Ming Empire, on which he had high hopes, was now crumbling, and that his days were running out under the double attack of the peasant army inside and the Manchu Qing Dynasty outside.

An agrarian empire that is hard to return to cannot be saved by the most advanced calendars and cannons.

Just as John Tang was anxiously waiting, news came from the front, saying that Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, was unwilling to surrender after the city was broken and had been "martyred". For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen mourned and wept bitterly, and even ordered to set up an altar in front of Chaotian Palace, ready to pay tribute in person, in the court, Chongzhen shed tears and said: "I have never saved Chengchou." ”

But the fact is that after being trapped in Songshan Castle for half a year, in March of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen (1642), Hong Chengchou was captured after the destruction of Songshan Castle. At first, he did go on a hunger strike for several days and refused to surrender, in this regard, Huang Taiji, who had changed the name of the country from Jin (Later Jin) to the Qing Dynasty, sent people to persuade him to surrender many times, but he was scolded back.

Huang Taiji, who was unwilling to give up, sent Fan Wencheng, the secretary of the ministry, to persuade him to surrender. After Fan Wencheng saw Hong Chengchou, he didn't mention the matter of surrendering, but just talked with him about the past and the present. During the conversation, I saw a piece of dust falling from the beam and falling on Hong Chengchou's clothes, Hong Chengchou "wiped it repeatedly" while talking. Fan Wencheng, who was observant of words and expressions, was silent, and said to Huang Taiji after his resignation: "Hong Chengchou will not die." He still cherishes his robe so much, let alone his own life! ”

So Huang Taiji struck while the iron was hot and met Hong Chengchou the next day. Seeing Hong Chengchou standing and not kneeling, Huang Taiji was not angry, but just shh This may have finally moved Hong Chengchou, or perhaps gave Hong Chengchou a step to surrender, and the next day, Hong Chengchou officially surrendered to Huang Taiji.

As early as when the cities of Songshan and Jinzhou were broken, Huang Taiji was very happy and said to the generals: "Taking Beijing is like cutting down a big tree, you must start cutting it from both sides first, so that the big tree will fall down by itself." Now I have taken the four cities outside the Guan, the elite soldiers of the Ming Kingdom have been exhausted, and Beijing can be obtained. ”

After Hong Chengchou surrendered with Zu Dashou and other generals, Huang Taiji was even happier, and personally set up a banquet to entertain these Ming Dynasty generals. ”

The generals replied: "Naturally, it is for the capture of the Central Plains!" ”

Huang Taiji immediately said, that's right, "To seize the Central Plains, it's like walking on the road, we don't know the way, today to get a guide, can I not be happy?" ”

Although Huang Taiji died a year after saying these words, and he himself did not live to see the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Empire had indeed sunset.

Portrait of Huang Taiji (1592-1643). The aggressive Manchu Qing was only a symptom of the fall of the Ming Dynasty. Source: Internet

01

After the complete failure of the Battle of Songjin and the capture of Hong Chengchou, the Ming Dynasty was outside the Shanhai Pass, and only 30,000 remnants of the army followed Wu Sangui to retreat to the isolated city of Ningyuan.

The general trend outside the customs has gone, and in the interior, Li Zicheng led the peasant army to surround the important town of Kaifeng for the third time, the Central Plains was shaken, and the Chongzhen Emperor who was at a loss for internal and external troubles did not know how to be good at this time - he inherited the throne since he was 17 years old (1627), and at the beginning of the throne, he vigorously eradicated the power of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, and once won the applause of the internal and external circles, but the Ming Dynasty has been declining for many years, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty attacked from the northeast and the peasant army from the northwest, which made the Ming Empire tired of coping, and now, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has approached Shanhaiguan, The peasant army moved north and south within the empire, and the beacon fire gradually approached Beijing.

What few people know is that in the last stormy days of the empire, Chongzhen also believed in Catholicism for a time. In the fifth year of Chongzhen (1632), Xu Guangqi, a scholar of the Ministry of Rites and Wenyuange University who believed in Catholicism, recommended Catholicism to Chongzhen, which made Chongzhen who was confused in spirit, once overjoyed, and preached by missionaries Nan Huairen, Tang Ruowang and others, Chongzhen then ordered all the Buddha statues in the Forbidden City to be removed, which means that God can only be allowed to exist, and there can be no other idols.

Not only that, because of the worship of the Catholic God at one time, Chongzhen also ordered all the courtiers to change the name of the word "heaven", such as Chen Liangmo, the official of Dali Temple, whose original name was Chen Tiangong, was forced to change his name because of Chongzhen's order.

But once converted to Catholicism, can not save Chongzhen's heart of confusion and the declining state of the Ming Empire, to 1640, Chongzhen's fifth son Zhu Cihuan died of illness, it is said that Zhu Cihuan before his death, Chongzhen went to visit, did not expect that Zhu Cihuan, who was only five years old at the time, actually pointed to the air to call the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva, and accused Chongzhen of destroying the Buddha statue in the Forbidden City Palace, although the truth of this matter and the course of the incident appeared a variety of theories, but Chongzhen was deeply shocked after Zhu Cihuan's death, and asked back the Buddha statue that had been removed to the palace, Since then, he has not prayed to God again.

He once believed in God, of course, could not save his Ming, so, as early as 1639 before the death of the fifth son of the emperor Zhu Cihuan, he had set up an altar in the Forbidden City to summon heavenly soldiers and generals, and prayed for him to give alms to calm the war. He also summoned Zhang Yingjing, the fifty-second generation heavenly master of the Taoist Zhengyi faction, and ordered him to set up an altar to summon heavenly soldiers and generals, hoping that the immortals could go down to the earth to drive people out of the world and suppress thieves inside.

Praying for the gods to appear is one thing, Chongzhen understands, more still depends on personnel, in desperation, Chongzhen, who has always insisted on not negotiating peace, had to secretly order Chen Xinjia, the secretary of the military department, to negotiate peace with Huang Taiji, but I didn't expect that the peace was carried out at a critical moment, Chen Xinjia and the Manchu Qing Dynasty's peace documents were inadvertently leaked by Chen Xinjia's servants, and reported to various places as a Tang newspaper, which made a lot of noise.

Originally, the peace with the Manchu Qing was carried out in secret, but now the matter has been leaked, Chongzhen, who can't hinder the son, decided to take Chen Xinjia as a scapegoat, Chongzhen fifteen years (1642) July 29, Chen Xinjia was imprisoned, and then, the ministers of the court and China rescued in many ways, and the scholars Zhou Yanru and Chen Yan also wrote and said: "According to the law of the country, the enemy soldiers should not kill the military department if they do not fight to the city." But Chongzhen, who had already made up his mind to kill Chen Xinjia and kill him, replied: "(When Chen Xinjia was the secretary of the military department), my seven princes were killed and humiliated, isn't this more serious than the enemy soldiers hitting the city?" ”

More than a month later, (1642) on September 22, Chen Xinjia was beheaded in the city, so far, the last peace between the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing was completely interrupted, and the Ming Dynasty could only fight with the Manchus on the road to the end, and the Ming Empire, which was already stretched, still had to disperse its limited resources outside the customs to deal with the Manchus, and the situation was even more critical.

Chen Xinjia negotiated peace on behalf of Chongzhen, but he was ordered to be killed because of leaking secrets, and he was loyal to the emperor, but he could be abandoned at any time to protect the car, which made the Manchu civil and military even more silent.

Therefore, from another level, when the Ming Dynasty finally fell, most of the ministers of civil and military affairs abandoned their weapons and surrendered during Li Zicheng's march into Beijing, which can also be understood as a kind of despair and abandonment of Chongzhen.

According to statistics, during Chongzhen's seventeen years of reign (1627-1644), a total of 7 governors and 11 governors were killed. Yan Jizu, the governor of Shandong, was also executed as a scapegoat because the Qing soldiers entered the customs to conquer King De, the king of Jinan; In addition, Chen Xinjia, the secretary of the military department who was killed because he participated in the discussion and leaked secrets, Chongzhen slaughtered the ministers at will and shirked his responsibilities, which also made the military officials under him even more trembling and did not dare to act in the troubled times.

For example, in the year of Chen Xinjia's execution (1642), Xiong Kaiyuan, the deputy of the pedestrian department, and Jiang Yun in the matter were secretly executed by Chongzhen because of their outspoken ramming against Chongzhen.

The state affairs are chaotic, and Chongzhen, who has a narrow personality, hopes to make great efforts, but his ability is limited, and in desperation, Chongzhen, who later boasted that "I am not the king of the country, and the ministers are all ministers of the country", had to often vent his anger on his courtiers, either killing people to vent his anger, or frequently changing ministers - according to statistics, Chongzhen has been in power for 17 years, and only the secretary of the criminal department has changed 17 people; In the entire 276-year history of the Ming Dynasty, there are only more than 160 cabinet ministers, and Chongzhen accounted for 50 people in 17 years of reign, which shows the frequency and suspicion of his courtiers.

The country is declining, and he is anxious, but what he does makes his courtiers even more detached.

Chongzhen's partiality and suspicion aggravated the contradictions between the monarchs and ministers in the Ming Dynasty. Source: Film and television stills

02

In the Ming Dynasty, there were many wonderful emperors, such as Ming Yingzong, who was captured by the Mongols during the indiscriminate Northern Expedition and later successfully restored, as well as Emperor Jiajing who did not go to court for 30 years, Emperor Wanli who did not go to court for 28 years, and Chongzhen's elder brother, Zhu Youxiao, who was keen on carpenter's manual work and favored Wei Zhongxian, but in a series of bastard emperors in the late Ming Dynasty, Emperor Chongzhen was a rare clear stream, he eradicated Wei Zhongxian at the beginning of his reign, and then worked hard to save the Ming Empire, which was becoming more and more westward. But why did the Ming Dynasty still irretrievably fall to the end?

In this regard, the widows of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty put forward a point of view when they wrote the "History of the Ming Dynasty": "Therefore, the commentators said that the death of the Ming Dynasty was actually the death of the Shenzong" - they believed that the death of the Ming Dynasty was actually in the period of the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which laid a serious curse, and this view has its profound side, but the rot within the empire is a slow variable, and the fast variable that contributed to the demise of the Ming Empire is the severe climate change and drought, locust plague, famine, plague and other natural disasters after Chongzhen ascended the throne.

As early as a few years before Chongzhen ascended the throne, when the northern part of Shaanxi and Guanzhong region was already drought for many years, the grass and trees were scorched, and the red land was thousands of miles, in the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627) when Ming Xizong died and Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, at that time, the northern Shaanxi region was "exhausted of grass and trees, cannibalism", and the peasants "had exhausted their skin and bones, and did not look forward to saving their lives", and the Ming Dynasty officials not only did not reduce taxes and provide relief to the victims, but instead increased the "new salary" and "both losses" and other servitudes, and strictly ordered the officials to supervise and collect, in this case, the peasant Wang Er led the people to kill Zhang Douyao in Chengcheng, Shaanxi, which opened the prelude to the peasant war at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

In the second year of Wang Er's uprising, the first year of Chongzhen (1628), because of the lack of food, Wang Jiayin, who had been a border soldier, also organized the victims to rise up, after that, Wang Ziyong, Gao Yingxiang, and Li Zicheng also participated in the peasant uprising, and the beacon fire burned all over Shaanxi for a while, and spread to Shanxi, Ningxia, and Gansu, and the peasant uprising gradually became a trend at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Analyzing a series of peasant uprisings before and after Chongzhen's ascension, it can be found that they all have a significant relationship with natural disasters.

According to incomplete statistics, during Chongzhen's 17-year reign, there were 14 major droughts across the country, and the records of "starvation everywhere" and "cannibalism" were very common.

Although droughts are not uncommon in Chinese history, the scope and severity of droughts in the middle and late Ming Dynasty are striking.

The drought in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen (1640) was a once-in-a-millennium drought and the worst drought event in China since the Han Dynasty.

The two drought events around this year were by no means idle: the drought in the twelfth year of Chongzhen (1639) was a once-in-a-century event, and the drought in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641) was a once-in-five-hundred-year drought.

The drought has affected North China and Northwest China, and the affected population is extremely widespread. In many places, disasters have been hit year after year, and the people's production and life have suffered four, five, and even nine consecutive blows.

According to the research of meteorologist Zhang Deer, when the secondary effects caused by the drought disaster in the early days of Chongzhen's reign have not been eliminated, Chongzhen's ten to sixteen years (1637-1643), from north to south, there was a wave of 7-year nationwide drought in the Ming Empire, "its duration is long, the scope of drought is large, it has not been seen in nearly a hundred years...... Successive years of drought have also caused severe famines, accompanied by locust plagues and plague epidemics...... This event coincided with the coldest second cold phase of the Xiaoice Age, and is a typical case of persistent drought in cold climates. ”

At that time, a total of 23 provinces (regions) in the north and south of the country suffered from severe drought one after another, "the main arid area in the north, initially in the northwest, north China, and then expanded to the east and south year by year, and to the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the scope of the arid area and the drought reached its peak around 1640, of which Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shandong and other places have been dry for more than 5 years." ”

Historical records record that, for example, in the Lankao area of Henan, there was no rain in the autumn and July of the 11th year (1638) of the 11th year (Chongzhen) to the 12th day of June in the 13th year (1640), which was almost a devastating blow to the agricultural society of a place; And "since the rain in June last year (1638) to November (1639) no rain", it has not rained for five months for a year; Yuncheng, Shanxi, "did not rain in September (1639) until July in July of the thirteenth year (1640)", and there was no rain for nearly ten months.

Under the influence of this widespread drought, at that time, the Zhucheng of Shandong Province "Weishui was cut off", and in 1640, Anxin in Hebei Province "exhausted Baiyangdian Lake and dried up the nine rivers", and Suining in Jiangsu Province "dried up the Yellow River"; According to historical records, in 1641, Chaohu Lake dried up in Chaoxian County, Anhui, Hejin in Shanxi Province "dried up the Fen River in May", and Tongxiang in Zhejiang Province "the river was exhausted"; In 1642, Lankao, Henan Province, "the Yellow River is dry in November, and people can walk"; In 1643, a year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Yucheng in Henan Province had "the Yellow River was cut off from flowing in summer and drought", and Songjiang in Shanghai was "completely drained".

Under the influence of this cruel large-scale, multi-year drought, from the tenth year of Chongzhen (1637) to the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641), there was another outbreak of extremely large locusts for more than five consecutive years.

Scholar Zhang Deer's research pointed out that "from 1639 to 1640, the locust plague reached its peak, and the locust area spread throughout Gansu, Ningxia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, and Hunan", and the records of "flying locusts covering the sky, eating all the crops" were all over the county annals and records of the people at that time, and the Henan region at that time recorded that the locust plague occurred almost every year after the 40th year of Wanli (1612), "to the 12th year of Chongzhen (1639), the sky was covered by the sky, and its momentum was even more ...... The harvest was gone in an instant. Burn it with fire, cut it with a pit, and eventually it can't be controlled. Wow, there is nothing like the natural disaster so far. ”

In the year of the fall of the Ming Dynasty (1644), the history records that the locust plague in Henan reached its peak, "Henan flying locusts eat folk children." Every time it comes, like a torrential rain of poisonous arrows, it envelops people and eats away at them, and the skin and flesh are all over in an instant. "Against the backdrop of this historical background where locusts have no way to feed and even begin to eat people, the suffering of the people has not ended.

The drought and locust plagues, famines, and plagues that occurred for many years at the end of the Ming Dynasty were a curse that the traditional agricultural society could hardly resist. Source: Film and television stills

Under the influence of the great drought and locust plague in the Chongzhen period, five years before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, "in the autumn of Chongzhen Gengchen (1640), the people of Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, and Jinan ate wood bark, and the people ate each other in winter. Xin Si (1641) in the north and south of the Yangtze River all competed to abandon their children, sell utensils, and flow into congestion. Young women are not worth a thousand dollars" -- in this situation of "cannibalism" everywhere in the North China Plain, the Loess Plateau, and even the south of the capital Beijing, and the "blockage" of the dead bodies of the homeless, there was even a cruel phenomenon of picking up the dead from the grave and eating them, for example, in Yongji County, Shanxi Province in 1640, "deep pits were dug outside the four gates to kill the dead, and people would eat their flesh." In Jiangsu Dantu, "the three Wu are all hungry, the bark is exhausted, and the bark is exhausted, and the scabs are eaten."

According to the records of Jishan County, Shanxi, "(Chongzhen) from the eleventh to the thirteenth year (1638-1640) there were frequent droughts, there was no grass in the wild, the rice was dou in the foreground, the men and women became a city, the grass roots and bark were exhausted, and even people ate each other. There are young children who walk alone and are eaten by others, there are those who steal food from the grave before the funeral, there are those who eat and eat together at night, there are those who eat and eat at night, there are those who die and their parents eat, and those whose parents die and their children eat, and the list goes on and too many miserably. ”

Under the influence of such droughts, locust plagues, and high mortality of people, plagues also followed.

According to historical records, there were two major plagues in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, in 1586-1590 and 1640-1644, respectively, and the second great plague, which coincided with the continuous drought at the end of the Ming Dynasty, was particularly severe. Among these plagues, the plague was very harmful. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, at least 5 million people died of plague in the three provinces of North China.

Reviewing the history books, it can be seen that in the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1640), due to a long-term drought, a large number of rats actually bit each other's tails, crossed the rivers in groups, and entered Anhui, Henan, Hebei and other provinces to forage for food, and in the long-term drought and famine, the hungry people fed on rats, which further aggravated the outbreak of plague - at that time, the whole north "plague was rampant, people died five or six out of ten, and the age was fierce", at that time, On the way, Zuo Maodi, who was in charge of the household department in the south to urge Caoyun, told the court that he had arrived in Linqing in Shandong from Jinghai in Tianjin, and "saw that the people died of hunger, the epidemic died of three, and the thieves four." Twenty-four taels of rice, stone and silver, people die to eat".

Just a year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), the plague that spread throughout North China was introduced to Beijing. Due to the large number of deaths from the plague, there was even a tragic situation in Beijing at that time in which all households died, and there were not even people to collect the corpses.

At that time, the population of Beijing was about 1 million people, and in this great plague the year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the estimated death toll in Beijing was as high as more than 200,000, and the rest of the people were also dying. ”

In the year of the fall of the Ming Dynasty, in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Luo Yangxing, the military governor of Tianjin, said, "Last year, the plague in Beijing was great, and the death pillow was empty, and even the households were wiped out, and no one was restrained." ”

In the early spring of 1644, the plague recurred in Beijing.

At this time, Li Zicheng's army also smoothly advanced from Shaanxi to the vicinity of Beijing, at that time, the mortality rate of the population in Beijing because of the plague had reached about 40%, because there were too many dead, many streets and alleys in Beijing at that time had been deserted and no one walked, and the three major battalions of the Ming army in the capital responsible for defending Beijing had 100,000 people in name at that time, but in addition to the lack of extra, most of the remaining tens of thousands of people were also sick. In addition, due to the financial difficulties of the Ming Dynasty and the arrears of salaries for too long, the soldiers at that time had no fighting spirit.

Therefore, when Li Zicheng's army arrived in the third lunar month of 1644, the city of Beijing, which had been tormented by the plague, immediately collapsed.

03

Based on the above historical data, it can be seen that in fact, the biggest factor in the destruction of the Ming Dynasty, in addition to the internal factors, its external or fast variables undoubtedly came from cruel continuous large-scale, long-term droughts, locust plagues, famines, plagues and other natural disasters.

According to climate statistical analysis, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when China was in the cold period of the Xiaoice Age, the average winter temperature was about 2 °C lower than now, and at that time, the temperature in the Central Plains and the rainfall in the northern agricultural and pastoral belt also reached the lowest point since the Qin and Han dynasties.

The Xiaoice began in the 13th century and then experienced periods of relative warmth, reaching its peak between the mid-16th and mid-19th centuries.

In China, the cold period from the late 15th century to the end of the 19th century is usually regarded as the Xiaoice Age, and because this period coincides with the Ming and Qing dynasties, it is also called the "Ming and Qing Xiaoice Ages".

Do not underestimate the temperature drop of one or two degrees during the Xiaoice period, which in agricultural societies is enough to destroy the production base of the entire society, greatly weaken the economic power of the country, and at the same time create various social instability factors.

In this regard, as early as when the natural disaster gradually entered the peak, in the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the official Ma Maocai mentioned the situation in northern Shaanxi, which was the most severely affected by the disaster, in the "Preparation for Chen Great Hunger" to Emperor Chongzhen, he said:

"Yan'an Mansion, Chenxiang, has no rain for a year since last year (1628), and the grass and trees are scorched. In August and September, the people compete to pick the grass in the mountains and eat. Its grains are like chaff skin, and its taste is bitter and astringent. If you eat it, you can only prolong immortality. After October, when the canopy is exhausted, the bark is stripped and eaten. The elm tree is not good, and it can be mixed with other bark for food, and it can also delay its death a little.

At the end of the year and the bark of the tree is exhausted, they dig up the rocks in the mountains and eat. Its stone name is green leaves, the taste is fishy and greasy, less food is full, and after a few days, the abdomen is distended and falls to death.

The most wretched, as in the west wing of the city of Ansai, shall abandon one or two babies in it every day. There are those who cry, there are those who call out to their parents, and there are those who eat their dung. By the next morning, the son who had been abandoned had no life, and there were those who had abandoned him.

What's even more strange, children and loners, as soon as they go out of the city, there is no trace. Later, when I saw the people outside the door, I cooked human bones for salary, and cooked human flesh for food, and I knew that the people before me were all eaten by them. And the cannibal man will die of red and swollen eyes and heat in the next few days. So the dead man rested on his pillow, and the stench was terrible. ”

After talking about the tragic situation of cannibalism, Ma Maocai said that among the local people, those who were unwilling to starve to death began to take risks and gather together to become thieves. Even if he was captured by the government, he did not regret it, and publicly said: "Die of hunger and die of thieves!" Rather than sit and starve to death, why die for a thief, but for a full ghost. ”

Because the northern Shaanxi region was the initial place of natural disasters in the late Ming Dynasty, and the northern Shaanxi region experienced thousands of years of deforestation and destructive development by the Chinese ancestors, the ecological environment at this time has become increasingly bad.

Therefore, at the beginning of Chongzhen's accession to the throne in 1627 (the seventh year of the Apocalypse) and 1628 (the first year of Chongzhen), Wang Er, Wang Jiayin, Gao Yingxiang and others successively led the peasants in northern Shaanxi to rise up. Wildfires can't be burned".

According to the statistical analysis of contemporary historical geographer Ge Jianxiong, the population of the late Ming Dynasty should have reached about 160 million at its peak, and the Ming Empire, which had such a huge population resource, was actually able to control and collect taxes with only 50 or 60 million people at its peak.

After entering the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to famine, drought, land annexation, plague, war and other reasons led to the displacement of people, the Ming Dynasty government was able to control the population resources more and more reduced, which also means that the government's tax sources and military resources are constantly being lost, and in the face of the Manchu invasion of the border war and the suppression of internal rebellion, the Ming Dynasty government's expenditure is constantly expanding, on the one hand is the decreasing controllable resources, on the other hand is the expanding state expenditure, which also makes the Ming Dynasty government's living resources and living space continue to be compressed and squeezed dry.

As the most important leader of the peasant army, Li Zicheng, who was born in northern Shaanxi, had to streamline government organs at first because of the internal and external troubles of the Ming Dynasty and the large gap between government revenue and expenditure, which led to the layoff of Li Zicheng, who was a post guard at the post station at that time, and after being laid off from the civil service, Li Zicheng served as a border soldier again, and later participated in the mutiny because the military general deducted military salaries, and since then he has entered the peasant army.

To Chongzhen ten years (1637), Li Zicheng was once defeated by the Ming army Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting, only with 17 subordinates to hide in the Shangluo Mountain in southeast Shaanxi for refuge, at that time, the Ming army suppressed bandits quite effectively, another peasant uprising leader Zhang Xianzhong also surrendered to the official army for a time, but to Chongzhen 12 years (1639), first Zhang Xianzhong took advantage of the drought of that year, rebelled against the Ming Dynasty again, and then, Li Zicheng also killed Shangluo Mountain, due to the three consecutive years of drought from 1639 to 1641, at that time, participated in Li Zicheng's peasant army, "hungry people from near and far are hoeing, and those who respond are like flowing water, day and night, calling for millions, and its momentum is unstoppable." ”

Not only the peasant army, but also the Houjin (Qing army) troops that were constantly moving south at that time were also affected by the climate change of the Xiaoice period in the north at that time, as well as the great drought and the poor ecology of the grasslands.

Although it was also affected by climate change, relatively speaking, in the process of the rise of the Later Jin (Manchu Qing), Nurhachi and Huang Taiji father and son relied on war, while constantly plundering the wealth and population resources of Liaodong and Guannei, they also continued to win over the Mongolian tribes outside the Guan, and repeatedly sent troops to conquer Korea, so that the Mongolian tribes and Korea, which was originally a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, were drawn under the command of the Manchus, and the Manchus continued to win the support of the local Han people in Liaodong, so that the Manchus continued to expand and grow in the process of competing for the world with the Ming Dynasty. became a growing threat to the Ming Dynasty.

is also facing a crisis, but the Manchurians have turned the crisis into an opportunity. Of course, from a practical point of view, the Manchus have a small territory in the northeast, a small population, a small ship and a good turn, coupled with a proper strategy, and gather resources and people's hearts everywhere, which enables the Manchus to keep watching the fire from the other side in the internal turmoil of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty government and Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other peasant armies of the fire, but also let the Manchus, a third party, can enjoy the benefits of the fisherman outside the pass, which is indeed a special advantage that Chongzhen, the "big boss" of the Ming Empire, does not have, and it is enough to make people fatal.