Chapter 24: The Fall of the Ming Dynasty 3

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When the Qing army invaded Shandong at the end of 1642, killed the Lu king Zhu Yipai, and captured 2.2 million taels of silver and 360,000 Han Chinese into slavery, Emperor Chongzhen, who had no available soldiers, had to watch the Qing army come and go freely in the territory.

In Guannei, in order to deal with the peasant army that continued to attack the city and plunder the land, Chongzhen first ordered the release of the famous general Sun Chuanting, who had previously defeated Li Zicheng and was innocently detained for more than three years, but the growing Li Zicheng peasant army was no longer what it used to be, and Sun Chuanting, who had no elite soldiers under his command, was defeated by Li Zicheng in Henan in the second month after the city of Kaifeng (October of the lunar calendar in 1642). Many officials even abandoned the city and fled directly, "easy to obey and hide in the grass".

After defeating Sun Chuanting in Henan, Li Zicheng waved his troops to attack Xiangyang, a major town in Huguang, at that time, Xiangyang was guarded by Zuo Liangyu, who had 200,000 soldiers, which was also the only one or two remaining armies of Chongzhen in the pass that could still be relied on as a pillar, as a result, Zuo Liangyu not only did not defend the city against the enemy, but before Li Zicheng's troops came to the city, he first plundered the people of Xiangyang and Fancheng, and then abandoned the city and fled, causing Li Zicheng to easily occupy Xiangyang.

As soon as Xiangyang was lost, Li Zicheng's army entered the middle reaches of the Yangtze River along the Han River, and successively conquered Zaoyang, Jingmen, Jingzhou and other important towns in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

After entering the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), in the fifth lunar month of that year, another major army of displaced people, Zhang Xianzhong's department captured Wuchang, an important town in central China, and executed Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu - Zhang Xianzhong also learned from Li Zicheng to eat the meat of the king of Fu, chopped and ate Zhu Huakui, the king of Chu, not only that, Zhang Xianzhong also captured Wuchang and other places to plunder more than 6 million taels of silver to gather the displaced people and expand the army.

In Wuchang, Zhang Xianzhong proclaimed himself "King of the Great West", established the Great West regime, at the same time, Li Zicheng also built the title of king in Xiangyang, for Zhang Xianzhong's move to claim the king, Li Zicheng was quite dissatisfied, at that time, the Ming army Zuo Liangyu began to counterattack Zhang Xianzhong's army, in order to avoid fighting with Li Zicheng and the Ming army Zuo Liangyu, Zhang Xianzhong then led the army south to attack Hunan and Jiangxi and other places, to the first month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to Sichuan, and began the battle of the massacre of Shu.

At the same time, Li Zicheng, who was only satisfied with conquering the city and killing people and goods, also began to have the idea of fighting against the Ming Dynasty and competing for the world, and after conquering Huangzhou (now Huanggang, Hubei), Li Zicheng issued a document to denounce Emperor Chongzhen and the Ming Dynasty official, saying:

"The Ming Dynasty was unkind, favored eunuchs, heavy subjects, greedy taxes, heavy punishments, could not save the people, ran out of divisions and brigades, plundered people's property, raped wives and daughters, sucked the marrow and skin."

As for the people in the conquered land, Li Zicheng issued a message to comfort: "The tenth generation of the camp is good at farming, and the teacher of benevolence and righteousness is eager to save the people." Today, Chengtian and De'an will come to Huangzhou in person, send a card to inform the people, and the people should not be frightened, and they will be safe. ”

Not only that, Li Zicheng also publicized everywhere that "three years of exemption from taxation, no one will be killed", which had a huge impact on the northern disaster victims who were close to the limit of survival due to the great drought and the pressure of the Ming Dynasty's official three salaries, so that Li Zicheng's army was "popular" everywhere he went.

Regarding this kind of change of hearts and minds between the peasant army and the official Ming Dynasty, Ma Shiqi, editor of the Hanlin Academy of the Ming Dynasty, pointed out in a dialogue with Chongzhen that in the peasant army, Li Zicheng was more terrible than Zhang Xianzhong, the reason was that Zhang Xianzhong slaughtered everywhere, while Li Zicheng bought people's hearts everywhere: "Today, Xian (Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong) and bear the monstrous rebellion, and the management of Xian is easy, and the treatment is difficult." Cover the fear of people, and the attachment of people. ”

Regarding Li Zicheng's move to scatter wealth to buy the hearts of the people after the siege of the city, Ma Shiqi analyzed: "The thief knows the suffering of the people's hearts, and he uses the excuse of suppressing the soldiers to calm the people. And the thief also distributes wealth to help the poor, and sends corn to relieve hunger, so as to fulfill his ambition, so that he regards the thief as home, and people forget their loyalty. ”

Talking about how to reverse the predicament, Ma Shiqi said: "In fact, how can thieves break through the states and counties? The states and counties are willing to obey the ears of thieves. Therefore, the current victory must start from cleaning up people's hearts. To clean up people's hearts, we must start by supervising the town generals to restrain the troops, so that the soldiers do not abuse the people, and the people do not suffer from the soldiers. ”

But the Ming Dynasty officials who have fallen into the "Chongzhen Death Situation" are obviously powerless on how to reverse the hearts of the people, on the contrary, all the realities are constantly aggravating the vicious circle of "Chongzhen Death", in this regard, Baoding Governor Xu Biao in the dialogue with the Chongzhen Emperor, indignantly stated:

"The minister came from Jianghuai, thousands of miles to see the city fall is empty, even if there is a complete city, there are only four walls of the city god, and the material resources have been exhausted. The ravages are endless, the road is full of basil, the chickens and dogs are silent, and they have never met a cultivator, what kind of world has it become? The emperor has few people and few lands, how can he be governed? ”

With regard to the major turmoil that has been suffered by the peasant army and the Qing army in alternating raids and sweeps with the peasant army and the Qing army, causing major turmoil from Hebei and Shandong in the North China Plain, Henan and Hubei in Central China, Anhui in East China, Hunan and Jiangxi in South China, and Shaanxi in the northwest, Xu Biao said bluntly to Chongzhen with his personal experience: "The emperor has few people and few lands."

After hearing Xu Biao's statement, Chongzhen couldn't help but burst into tears, and he said: "It's all my sin." ”

In response to the official defeat of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Dai (1597-1689), a scholar in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, later analyzed that in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the discipline of the Ming Dynasty officials and troops was lax, and they plundered the people at every turn.

"Since the Ming season, the division has been undisciplined, and the towns it has passed through have been plundered by columns, called 'beating grain', and the wells are ruins. And there is a division to supply military supplies, the governor is very urgent, knocking and suffering, and the people are unbearable. ”

Zhang Dai pointed out from the perspective of people at the time and those who experienced it firsthand that contrary to the official practice of the Ming Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng's peasant army changed the practice of burning, killing, and plundering in the early stage in the later period, "Zicheng ordered that whoever kills one person is like killing my father, and whoever commits adultery with a woman is like adultering my mother." Virtuous and courteous, corrupt officials and rich and wealthy rooms, through their families to reward the army. The people's hearts are happy, the wind is coming, and the people have no fixed will. Therefore, more than 40 prefectures and counties in Nanyang and Runing, Henan Province were slightly determined in one year, and the soldiers did not stay, and the sea was shocked. In addition to the turmoil, the white bones covered the wilderness, the hazel was desolate, and he became a fuss in exile, traded with merchants, recruited people to reclaim fields, and collected their seeds to pay the army. The thief's order is strict, and the generals dare not invade. ”

In addition to being sad, Zhang Dai also objectively pointed out that the reason why Li Zicheng's peasant army was invincible at that time had a lot to do with the people's attachment: "When they were trapped by thieves, they were comfortable, and they sang for it: 'Kill cattle and sheep, prepare wine and syrup, open the city gate to welcome the king, and when the king comes, he will not pay for food. 'From near and far, they are attached to each other, and they no longer look at them as thieves. ”

Under the reverse turn of the people's hearts of "killing cattle and sheep, preparing wine syrup, opening the city gate to welcome the king, and not paying food when the king came", the death of Chongzhen and the Ming Empire is approaching.

Li Zicheng's repeated salted fish turning over and resurrecting were caused by the burning of violent social contradictions in the late Ming Dynasty. Source: Film and television stills

In the face of Li Zicheng's army swept the momentum, Chongzhen became more and more panicked, although he exhausted all his efforts, the Ming Emperor was still full of smoke at home and abroad, for which he had been unwilling to show his heart to the courtiers and said: "I am not the king of the country, everything is the image of the country." ”

On the eve of Li Zicheng's attack on Beijing in 1644, he even sighed and said: "I don't want to be the lord of the country!" ”

In order to protect the Ming Empire, Sun Chuanting, a famous general who was released after being imprisoned for three years, led the new army to a decisive battle with Li Zicheng in Henan in 1642, but due to multiple reasons such as lack of soldiers and salaries, Sun Chuanting's troops were quickly defeated, and Sun Chuanting had to lead his troops into Shaanxi to rest.

At this point, in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), the army within the Ming Empire that was still still capable of fighting was left with the border army of Liaodong, and the Zuo Liangyu Department that fled to Huguang and other places, and the Sun Chuanting Department who retreated to Shaanxi.

In order to avoid increasing the burden on the people, he deliberately focused on the local landlords and wealthy gentry and businessmen in Shaanxi, forcing them to donate money to help the army.

The powerful and wealthy people in Shaanxi hated Sun Chuanting, who did not play unspoken rules, and also forced Sun Chuanting to leave the customs in the name of the people. They even created public opinion, framing Sun Chuanting for not listening to the imperial court's moderation, accusing Sun Chuanting of "playing with the rice and salary" in Shaanxi to raise troops for war and recuperate, and to try to divide Guanzhong, so that "the Qin people were in the soup and fire."

In May of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), Zhu Youzhen appointed Sun Chuanting as the secretary of the military department, and the governor of the seven provinces of Qin, Shu, Jin, Henan, Chu, Jiang and Anhui, and commanded the war in the Central Plains.

Regarding Chongzhen's anxious urging Sun Chuanting to lead the new army into battle, Zhang Fengxiang, a waiter in the military department, repeatedly advised Chongzhen: "Sun Chuanting is all the best soldiers in the world, and the emperor only has this belongings, and he can't be moved lightly." ”

In the face of Zuo Liangyu's cowardice and fear of the enemy, the border army of Liaodong in order to fight against the dilemma of the Manchus and unable to go south, Zhang Fengxiang proceeded from the situation at that time and exhorted Chongzhen to cherish the last new force of the Ming Empire newly trained by Sun Chuanting, but Chongzhen, who was eager to succeed, was unmoved, and strictly ordered Sun Chuanting to fight. "Ya doesn't want to fight quickly, and when he sees the urgency of the intention and the court's interest, he has no choice but to swear."

When he left the customs, he paused and sighed: "What a problem! I know that I will never return. ”

Sun Chuanting, who had no choice but to lead the new army from Shaanxi, then met with Li Zicheng's army in September of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643) in Jiaxian, Henan, because it coincided with heavy rain, grain transportation was not continued, and the grain road was intercepted, Sun Chuanting's department was pursued by Li Zicheng in the process of retreat and defeated, Sun Chuanting had no choice but to lead the army to retreat into Tongguan, Shaanxi, at that time, the general persuaded Sun Chuanting to give up Tongguan and retreat to Xi'an, but Sun Chuanting, who insisted on refusing to retreat, was determined to defend the pass to the death, when Li Zicheng attacked Tongguan, Sun Chuanting led thousands of remnants of the army to wave their swords and leap horses, and rushed to kill, and finally died in the chaos, and even the body could not be found after his death.

Because Sun Chuanting's body could not be found, Chongzhen even suspected that Sun Chuanting had fled for his life at that time, so he was unwilling to issue an order to commend Sun Chuanting, so that Sun Chuanting, who had served the country loyally and bravely all his life, was not fairly evaluated until his death.

Five days after Sun Chuanting's death, in October of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), Li Zicheng's army occupied Xi'an, an important town in the northwest.

Chongzhen, who was suspicious by nature and anxious to succeed, executed Yuan Chonghuan in 1630 after the Zhonghuang Taiji counter-plot, and in 1641 he rushed to urge Hong Chengchou to rush into battle, so that the Ming Dynasty's border army was defeated in the Battle of Songjin, and single-handedly buried the last main force of the Ming army in the northwest, but Chongzhen did not reflect on his mistakes, but shirked all the responsibility to Sun Chuanting: "Sun Chuanting is light and scheming, and the overseers have been repeatedly defeated, and he is very responsible!" ”

In this regard, the late Ming Dynasty elders later commented in the "History of the Ming Dynasty": "The court died, and the Ming died." ”

Many people saw the symbolism of Sun Chuanting's death, but Chongzhen, who was in it, still hated Sun Chuanting, who had died loyally and loyally, failed to turn the tide for him and the Ming Empire.

Until he died, he still couldn't see clearly.

As soon as Sun Chuanting died, the Ming Dynasty had no army in the pass to quell the chaos. Source: Film and television stills

Although his intelligence was limited, among the last four emperors of the late Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen was a very diligent emperor.

Compared with Chongzhen's great-grandfather Emperor Jiajing, who had not been in court for 24 years, and his grandfather Wanli Emperor, who had not been in court for 28 years, and his brother Ming Xizong Zhu Youxiao, who had been playing and playing for a long time, and had a good voice, Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was simply a model worker - since he ascended the throne in 1627 at the age of 17, in the face of the increasingly chaotic national politics since the late Ming Dynasty, he first vigorously eradicated the power eunuch Wei Zhongxian, and then he worked hard to get up early every day to go to the court, and often reviewed the recital until late at night, therefore, During the Chongzhen period, many ministers often stayed in the Wenyuan Pavilion of the Forbidden City at night, in case the emperor summoned them from time to time.

Feeling the internal and external troubles of the Ming Dynasty, the lack of money, compared with the extravagant ancestor Jiajing Emperor and Wanli Emperor, Chongzhen also practiced frugality, after he ascended the throne, he first ordered to stop the weaving of Suzhou and Hangzhou, before that, Suzhou and Hangzhou manufacturing was controlled by the eunuchs in the palace, specifically for the palace to purchase satin silk silk, the harassment of the people is quite heavy, Chongzhen issued an edict saying:

"However, the feudal territory is troubled, the levy and loss are complicated, and there is weaving money and grain, although it is tied to the urgent need, I have been bitterly thinking about it year after year, and the water and drought in the east and west are still frequent, and the business is difficult and the people are not able to make a living, and I am very compassionate...... I can't bear to use the work of embroidering clothes and quilts, and I will be trapped by this people. ”

Chongzhen was thrifty, and continued to wear even when his clothes were torn. Once he participated in the feast day, because the sleeves of his underwear were torn, exposed to the courtiers to see the unsightly, not very comfortable Chongzhen from time to time with his hands to stuff the sleeves of the underwear back to cover, after discovering this detail, the banquet speaker then said: "The Son of Heaven's clothes are torn, although he is too frugal, but this is a virtue, why taboo!" Chongzhen no longer covered his sleeves.

In order to mourn the prince and save the palace expenses, just after the fifth son of the emperor Zhu Cihuan died of illness in 1640, Chongzhen even changed to a vegetarian for a time, Chongzhen's grandmother was very distressed after hearing about it, and later said that she dreamed of Chongzhen's early death of his mother, and asked his grandson Chongzhen to still eat vegetarian, and advised that "medicine is not as good as meat", Chongzhen resumed to eat meat, but he and Queen Zhou in the last four years of their lives, still insisted on eating vegetarian for ten days a month, so as to save dietary expenses.

In addition to reducing expenditure, in order to open up the source, he even ordered his grandfather to take out the wild ginseng that had been treasured for many years during the Wanli Emperor period and sell it for tens of thousands of taels of silver to subsidize the state.

But none of this is even a drop in the bucket to alleviate the Empire's financial woes.

Therefore, at the beginning of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), in the face of Emperor Chongzhen, who had been desperate due to the exhaustion of the treasury due to years of war, he had to issue an appeal to the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty and the relatives of the emperor, hoping that everyone could donate money to raise military salaries to fight against Li Zicheng's peasant army.

After the call for donations was issued, although Zhang Guoji, the father of the empress of Ming Xizong, Taikang Bo, took the lead in donating 20,000 taels of silver, but among the others, except for Wei Zaode, the first assistant of the cabinet, donated 500 taels, almost no one else responded.

The eunuch Xu Gao was then ordered to go to the house of Zhou Kui, the father of Chongzhen's old father-in-law and Empress Zhou, Jiading Bo, and asked him to take the lead and donate 100,000 taels of silver.

Previously, at the beginning of his ascension to the throne, Chongzhen had rewarded a mansion in Suzhou to his old father-in-law Zhou Kui, and once gave him 700 hectares of land and 30 retinue lieutenants. As the reign of the dynasty, Zhou Kui was usually very stingy, and often lent usury to the civilians in Beijing at that time, "the bedroom was always full of money", and he was rich from usury - but he was such a rich man, but he pretended to be poor and stupid when his son-in-law Chongzhen and the country were in danger, and it was useless to let Chongzhen's messenger and eunuch Xu Gao cry and beg several times, before leaving, Xu Gao said to Zhou Kui, "The old emperor, you are so stingy, now the country is in danger, even if you save money in the future, what is the use?" ”

In desperation, Zhou Kui had to reluctantly agree to donate 10,000 taels of silver.

But Emperor Chongzhen thought that his old father-in-law Zhou Kui was too disagreeable, and he had to take out at least 20,000 taels of silver, like the former abbot and Taikang Bo Zhang Guoji, to make a demonstration for the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military affairs, Zhou Kui then ran to the harem to ask his daughter Queen Zhou for help, Queen Zhou had to scrape together 5,000 taels of silver from the palace to give Zhou Kui in order to save face, and Zhou Kui actually embezzled and hid 3,000 taels in private.

So, under the leadership of Zhang Guoji, the reign of Ming Xizong, and the Jiading Bo Zhou Kui, the reign of the dynasty, the great eunuch Wang Zhixin, who was known as the richest man in the capital at that time, donated 10,000 taels, together with other imperial relatives and Manchu Dynasty civil and military affairs, this fundraising activity on the eve of the death of the country, Chongzhen only raised a total of 200,000 taels of silver.

Although it is only a drop in the bucket, for Chongzhen, who burns his eyebrows, this amount of money is better than nothing.

Of course, there is still a later story in this, after Chongzhen hanged himself, Li Zicheng led the army into Beijing City, inspected the treasury of the Ming Dynasty, and found that there were only "more than 2,300 taels of silver, and 800 taels of money, and the country's poverty is so poor that you can laugh." ”

Li Zicheng, who needed money to operate, asked his subordinates to torture the relatives of the former Ming Dynasty emperor and civil and military officials in the city to extract confessions, and Zhou Kui, who once cried poor, finally handed over 520,000 taels of silver to Li Zicheng, and the eunuch Wang Zhixin paid 150,000 taels, Li Zicheng was in Beijing for a few months, and forced more than 70 million taels of silver from these people, compared to Chongzhen's "civilized persuasion" only got 200,000 taels of silver, Li Zicheng lost his official heart, but he got real benefits, which has to be said to be a kind of comparative irony, It can be seen that on the eve of the death of the Ming Dynasty, many people had a mentality of "waiting for the company to go bankrupt, change the boss, and change jobs".

In this regard, scholar Liu Shougang pointed out, "It can be seen from the donation incident that when the monarch is likely to lose the country, the bureaucrats with their own independent status and sources of power are resolute and ruthless when they turn their backs on the monarch." Even the nobles and eunuchs, who were consciously supported by the monarch, did not become the force to protect the power of the family and the surname.

A sentence by Huang Zongxi, a thinker in the late Ming Dynasty, expressed the thoughts of these bureaucrats more clearly, that is, 'the world is the master, and the monarch is the guest'; the monarch is not the master of the world, but only a guest who can be replaced, and anyone's throne is an object that can be revoked, and bureaucrats can also serve different monarchs. ”

To put it simply, the building is about to fall, and many people are ready to change companies and bosses.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the bureaucracy was watching the situation develop, and many people were preparing to change jobs. Source: Film and television stills

Just when Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong and other exiled armies were sweeping everywhere, Chongzhen, who was in internal and external difficulties, unexpectedly got the news that the Qing emperor Huang Taiji had died violently on the ninth day of the eighth lunar month of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (September 21, 1643) - according to records, Huang Taiji, who may have died of a stroke, was still dealing with government affairs during the day of his death, and died suddenly at night, which made Dolgon, Haoge and others in the Qing court temporarily fall into chaos in order to seize power.

Although the Liaodong battlefield temporarily took a breath, Li Zicheng did not stop, and after capturing Xi'an in October of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643) and then occupying the whole province of Shaanxi, Li Zicheng decided to officially proclaim himself emperor.

Previously, in the third lunar month of 1643, Li Zicheng called himself "King Xinshun" after capturing Xiangyang, but he was obviously not satisfied with this, and in the first lunar month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Li Zicheng officially proclaimed himself emperor in Xi'an, and announced that the capital was Xi'an, and the founding name was "Dashun", and the yuan was changed to "Yongchang" - so far, in the land of China in 1644, three era names appeared at the same time, which are: the seventeenth year of Chongzhen of the Ming Empire, and the first year of Shunzhi of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in Liaodong (Dolgon and Haoge compromised, In the end, the ninth son of Huang Taiji, the 6-year-old Fu Lin, was the emperor of Shunzhi, and was changed to Shunzhi in 1644), as well as the first year of Yongchang of the Great Shun Kingdom founded by Li Zicheng.

In the second lunar month, Li Zicheng successively waved his troops to conquer Shanxi Fenzhou (now Fenyang), Yangcheng, Puzhou and Taiyuan, except in Daizhou (now Xinzhou) and Ningwuguan (now Ningwujing, Shanxi) encountered the stubborn resistance of the general soldier Zhou Yuji, and the peasant army suffered more than 70,000 casualties, other places did not encounter decent resistance.

The fall of Ningwuguan was on the first day of March in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), at this time, there were still 18 days before Li Zicheng's peasant army conquered Beijing and Chongzhen hanged himself.

As the gateway to Datong, a military town of Gongwei, Ningwuguan fell, Datong was also in danger, due to the stubborn resistance encountered in Ningwuguan, heavy casualties, because Li Zicheng ordered the slaughter of Ningwuguan - "infants and children are not left behind", this cruel slaughter policy, so that the general army of Datong Jiang Hao was extremely shocked, seeing that the general trend has gone, Jiang Hao immediately switched to surrender, and then, Xuanfu general soldier Wang Chengyin also handed Li Zicheng a table of surrender, on March 11 of that year, Li Zicheng's Dashun army drove into Xuanfu Town, "the city was in an uproar, and the incense was burned to welcome" The soldiers and civilians of the city were glad that they had not suffered the scourge of war and were spared the disaster of slaughter.

Just when Li Zicheng took Shanxi and was about to come to the city of Beijing, Chongzhen once again remembered the plan to move the capital to Nanjing, for this reason, he and Zuo Zhongyun Li Mingrui secretly negotiated the southward move many times, but Chongzhen was worried that he would encounter opposition from the ministers like the previous plan to move the capital, so he did not dare to make the matter public, until the first day of the third lunar month after Ningwuguan and Datong fell on the same day, Chongzhen, who was close to desperation, decided to publicly summon hundreds of officials to discuss the plan to move south.

Unexpectedly, Guang Shiheng was the first to stand up against the incident, and Guang Shiheng said excitedly that if he didn't kill Li Mingrui, who advocated moving south, "It's not enough to reassure people!" As a result, the other ministers did not dare to discuss the matter publicly, and Chongzhen, who wanted to save face, had no choice but to pretend to say: "The monarch is dead, what will I do?" ”

Seeing that the ministers did not dare to seconded the move to the south, Chongzhen had no choice but to say against his will that he would stick to the capital and live and die with Kyoto: "If things are unknowable, the monarch will die, and righteousness will be righteous." I'm determined! ”

Interestingly, Guang Shiheng, who fiercely opposed the southward migration, took the lead in surrendering the peasant army after Li Zicheng entered the city of Beijing, and at the last moment of the empire's life and death, Guang Shiheng showed fierce generosity, but when the city of Beijing was broken, he surrendered without backbone.

In the face of such a courtier who does not dare to take responsibility or even is hypocritical and shameless, to a certain extent, it is no wonder that Chongzhen sighed, "I am not the king of the dead country, and all the ministers are the ministers of the dead country." ”

Because in the final analysis, Jingguan has his own little abacus.

They are unwilling to give up their immediate interests, and they can't take away the good land and beautiful house, and when the new dynasty is established, they will jump to a new company, which is easier than the road to the south.

In addition, the ministers were also a little afraid of Chongzhen. Emperor Chongzhen reigned for 17 years, although he was busy, this emperor was like a paranoid personality disorder, he didn't trust others easily, and liked to kill ministers.

For such an emperor, it is difficult for the ministers to have the same heart with him.

Historian Wei Feide believes that Chongzhen's final decision to abandon the relocation of the capital before his death allowed the Qing Dynasty to inherit the complete central institutions of the Ming Dynasty after defeating Li Zicheng, and to take over almost all the Han high-ranking officials in the Ming Dynasty's capital, and rely on this system to further unify the south.

The failure of this capital relocation plan and the death of Chongzhen also weakened the cohesion of the Ming Dynasty royal family in the south.

Later, the Southern Ming regime established in the south, including the Hongguang court established by the Fu King Zhu Yousong in Nanjing, and later the small courts such as Longwu in Fujian and Yongli in Guangdong, due to the lack of the status of the co-lord of the world, factions were tilted, and internal friction was serious, and the resistance to the Qing Dynasty finally failed.

If Chongzhen had successfully moved south, even if the north was captured by the invasion army or the Qing Dynasty, at least a unified military order could be implemented in the south. Such a Nanming regime, maybe there is still the possibility of ZTE.

Of course, history has no ifs. When the Qing army invaded Shandong at the end of 1642, killed the Lu king Zhu Yipai, and captured 2.2 million taels of silver and 360,000 Han Chinese into slavery, Emperor Chongzhen, who had no available soldiers, had to watch the Qing army come and go freely in the territory.