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.

The last plan to move the capital was put on hold, and Chongzhen had no way out. Source: Film and television stills

05

With the termination of the last plan to move the capital, Chongzhen had to decide that the dead horse should be a live horse doctor, and ordered to send Ningyuan's general soldier Wu Sangui to lead the last tens of thousands of Guan Ning Tie cavalry into the Weijing Division, but nevertheless, it was equivalent to giving up Ningyuan, the last important town of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong, to the Manchu Qing, but Chongzhen was desperate at this time, and it was a last resort, so he had to order Wu Sangui to abandon the city and enter the customs.

However, in a hurry, Wu Sangui and his party, who led tens of thousands of Guanning iron cavalry and 500,000 soldiers and civilians to the south, could not arrive quickly, so when Li Zicheng's peasant army broke through Beijing on March 19 of the 17th year of Chongzhen (1644), the Guanning iron cavalry who entered the king of Beijing had just reached Zhili Fengrun (now Tangshan, Hebei), and there were still several hundred miles away from Beijing.

On March 16 of that year (1644), Chongzhen convened hundreds of civil and military officials to discuss countermeasures, and in front of all the courtiers, Chongzhen burst into tears, and the civil and military officials also cried together. At this time, there are still three days before Beijing broke and Chongzhen committed suicide.

But Chongzhen was still making the final breakthrough plan, on March 17 of that year (1644), Li Zicheng's peasant army came to the city of Beijing, and the powerless Chongzhen had to walk around the main hall in the Forbidden City, shouting loudly: "The ministers inside and outside misunderstand me!" Mistake me! ”

In order to preserve the fire, Chongzhen decided to send the prince out of the palace to the south at this time, and then he summoned his brother-in-law, Gong Yonggu, the commander of the horses, and asked him to escort the prince Zhu Cihong to the south with his family. According to historical records, Gong Yonggu, who is a bold personality and "generous and generous", has won Chongzhen's trust, and he had suggested that Chongzhen move south, and at the last moment, the desperate Chongzhen remembered this brother-in-law, hoping that he could keep the last fire for the Ming Empire, but Gong Yonggu kowtowed and knelt down and said: "Relatives are not allowed to hide armor, how dare I keep my family privately?" ”

The two monarchs and ministers wept opposite each other, and Gong Yonggu continued: "The ministers have accumulated salaries, and they should be burned to death in order to repay the emperor!" Chongzhen was also moved and said: "I can't keep the community, I can die the community!" ”

Chongzhen's eighth sister Princess Le'an died of illness in the Ming Dynasty in the first year (1643), due to the chaos of state affairs, still did not bury the spirit of the family, just two days after Gong Yonggu and Chongzhen monarchs and ministers talked to each other, on March 19, Beijing City was broken, Gong Yonggu fulfilled his promise, and gathered himself and several children in front of Princess Le'an's coffin, before he died, he said to the children: "You are all the emperor's nephews, can not fall into the hands of the enemy and be humiliated", and then he set fire to the whole family, and he also killed himself in front of the spirit of Princess Le'an, Fulfilled the promise of life and death with Chongzhen's monarchs and ministers.

On the night of the second day after Chongzhen and his brother-in-law Gong Yonggu talked, on the night of March 18 in the 17th year of Chongzhen (1644), which was also the last night before the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the last night of Emperor Chongzhen's life.

That night, Li Zicheng's peasant army set up a ladder and began to attack the city of Beijing, seeing that the city was about to be broken, at about nine o'clock that night, Chongzhen called his three children: 16-year-old prince Zhu Cihong, 13-year-old Yongwang Zhu Cizhao, and 9-year-old Dingwang Zhu Cijiong to himself, he wanted to see the children for the last time.

When he saw the three princes, still wearing Qi Chu's bright crown and belt robes, appear in front of him, Chongzhen's heart was suddenly shocked, because that night, Li Zicheng's peasant army had already broken through the outer city of Beijing and was rapidly advancing towards the inner city of Beijing and the Forbidden City.

Like all loving fathers in the world, Chongzhen said to the children in surprise and reproach:

"When have you been dressed like this? Hurry up and change your clothes! ”

After speaking, the 34-year-old father, the emperor of the Ming Empire, took matters into his own hands, helped the three children change into ordinary people's clothes, and then tied their belts one by one, he said with a sad voice:

"Today you are still the emperor's son, tomorrow you will be the common people... In this kind of troubled times, you have to be incognito, and when you see the elderly, you have to call the old man; When you see a younger elder, call it an uncle or uncle! ”

He then instructed:

"The overthrow of the society has made the heavens and the earth and our ancestors angry, and these are the sins of your father and me. But I have already done my best, how can the ministers of civil and military affairs, each with their own selfish intentions, refuse to put the country before the family, so that the country is corrupted like this. Nowadays, there is no need to ask whether it is good or bad, just do it reasonably. I have nothing to worry about. ”

The 33-year-old Empress Zhou decided to fulfill her last duty as a mother in the world. That night, Empress Zhou "held the festival" and went around the entire Forbidden City, while shedding tears, while exhorting from palace to palace, palace by palace, and said to the palace people and eunuchs who did not know how to be good in panic:

"The natural disaster has fallen, the catastrophe is coming, you have a way, hurry up and escape!"

Worried that some palace people were still hesitant and refused to leave, the dutiful Empress Zhou walked around the Forbidden City twice, and advised the palace people to flee for their lives quickly.

After returning to the palace to say goodbye to Chongzhen, before dying, Empress Zhou said to Chongzhen with tears in her eyes: "I have served the emperor for 18 years, and you have never listened to a word from others, so you are where you are today." ”

After saying these words, Empress Zhou committed suicide by hanging herself.

Chongzhen, who was disgraced, didn't have time to grieve too much, and he came to Yuan Guifei's residence with his sword again.

After drinking a few glasses of desperate wine with Yuan Guifei, Chongzhen ordered Yuan Guifei to hang herself, Yuan Guifei had to hang herself, but she didn't expect the rope to break, Yuan Guifei fell to the ground, and after standing up, she began to run away, Chongzhen chased after her, and stabbed Yuan Guifei in the shoulder with a sword.

Subsequently, Chongzhen swung his sword again and stabbed several concubines.

In his opinion, the empire is dying, and as his woman, in order to save her name, she can't fall into the hands of the traitors.

Immediately after, he came to Shouning Palace, where he met his eldest daughter, Princess Changping, who was 15 years old. At that time, Princess Changping pulled Chongzhen's shirt and cried bitterly. Chongzhen said with tears in his eyes: "Child, why were you born in our emperor's family!" ”

Then, Chongzhen covered his face with his left sleeve, and waved his sword with his right hand to kill his daughter, but he missed it, he only cut off Princess Changping's left arm, looking at his daughter who fell in a pool of blood, Chongzhen trembled so much that he couldn't do it anymore.

He turned to leave, and in the Zhaoren Palace, he personally killed his 6-year-old daughter, Princess Zhaoren.

Although his life was in his last moments, he still had a desire to survive.

After killing his daughter, Princess Zhaoren, Chongzhen asked the eunuch Wang Chengen to sit in front of him and drank a few glasses of wine with him.

At the third watch in the middle of the night, he asked people to change him into civilian clothes, and then took dozens of eunuchs out of the Forbidden City together, trying to break through, but they ran through a few city gates, either being shelled by the garrison and retreating, or they couldn't open the gate at all, and they tossed until it was close to dawn, and Chongzhen completely lost his heart and retreated to the Forbidden City.

At this time, the time was already in the early morning of the 19th day of the third lunar month of the 17th year of Chongzhen (1644), the day when the Ming Dynasty was about to die.

In the Forbidden City, Chongzhen ordered the officials to ring the bell to summon the hundred officials, and the bell rang again and again, but the front hall was always empty:

None of the courtiers came.

At this time, Li Zicheng's peasant army also broke through the inner city of Beijing, and began to advance rapidly towards the Forbidden City in the face of the dawn of dawn.

In a panic, Chongzhen took the eunuch Wang Chengen to the Shouhuang Pavilion of Wansui Mountain (Coal Mountain) behind the Forbidden City, and because he ran too quickly, his left shoe was also lost.

Under a tree, he finally chose to hang himself, saying goodbye to his 17-year imperial career and 34-year-old life.

Accompanying him was the eunuch Wang Chengen.

After Chongzhen's death, Wang Chengen also committed suicide and chose to die for Chongzhen.

The last martyr of the empire was a eunuch who made the emperors of the Ming Empire love and hate.

After his death, people found his edict on Chongzhen:

"I despised Liangde, and I was to blame the heavens, causing the traitors to approach the Jingshi, and all the ministers were mistaken. I died, I saw my ancestors without a face, I took off my crown, covered my face with my hair, let the thieves split, and did not hurt the people. ”

Until his death, he did not forget to complain that the courtiers had misled the country, and before, he had told the eunuchs that he had just used himself...... Wenchen can be killed one by one. ”

However, he expressed deep sympathy for the Li people in Beijing, and begged Li Zicheng in his suicide note not to slaughter the city for revenge, hoping that Li Zicheng could give the people a way to live.

He has tried and struggled, but he has no power to return to heaven except death.

Chongzhen's suicide and the separation of his children prevented Nanming from forming an appealing center of resistance. Source: Film and television stills

06

Although Chongzhen hanged himself, at that time, due to the chaos in Beijing, the peasant army did not find Chongzhen's body until two days after Chongzhen hanged himself, and then Li Zicheng ordered Chongzhen's body to be carried out of the Banzai Mountain and parked next to the Donghua Gate in Beijing; Under Li Zicheng's instructions, the bodies of Chongzhen and Empress Zhou were able to be decorated and put into willow coffins.

Emperor Daming died, in addition to the eunuch Wang Chengen, more than 40 people, including Fan Jingwen, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty, and Ni Yuanlu, the secretary of the Ministry of Households, also committed suicide with Emperor Chongzhen; However, for these old ministers who "do not know the times", most of the relatives and civil and military officials who are anxious to take refuge in Li Zicheng and the Dashun regime, there is no time to pay attention to them.

During the period when Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou were suspended, Zhou Zhong, a concubine of the Hanlin Academy, rode directly by the coffin when he passed by the coffin, and he was not even willing to go to worship and make a show; At the beginning, the ministers who were promoted by Chongzhen also knelt outside the Forbidden City gate, waiting for the new master, Emperor Dashun Li Zicheng's reception.

Almost no one went to mourn Emperor Chongzhen, but some passers-by stopped and sighed.

Later, Zhao Yigui, an official of Changping Prefecture, told the story of his participation in the burial of Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou in "Zhuangzhongzhou".

Zhao Yigui said that although Li Zicheng ordered Chongzhen to be buried, he did not allocate funds at all.

Because Chongzhen did not have a mausoleum during his lifetime, in this case, Zhao Yigui and the scholars and villagers finally scraped together "three hundred and forty thousand yuan", and finally "supervised the work for four days and nights", until the fourth day of the fourth lunar month in 1644, after Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself for half a month, they finally buried the bones of Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou in the tomb of Chongzhen's concubine and Tian Guifei, who had died first.

Chongzhen, Queen Zhou, and Tian Guifei, the three of them were scribbled together, and this is the last mausoleum in the Ming Tombs: Siling.

Portrait of Emperor Chongzhen. Source: Internet

After Chongzhen committed suicide, his children also experienced displacement and suffering.

In order to protect the bloodline of Emperor Chongzhen, the eunuchs hurriedly sent the 16-year-old prince Zhu Cihong and the 9-year-old Dingwang Zhu Cijiong to the palace of Zhou Kui, the father of Empress Zhou and the Marquis of Jiading.

Chongzhen's desperate three sons were finally sacrificed by the eunuchs and fell into the hands of Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng personally interrogated the crown prince Zhu Cihong and ordered him to kneel, but he didn't expect the 16-year-old prince to stubbornly say:

"I will never give in to you!"

Li Zicheng asked Zhu Cihong sternly: "Do you know why your family lost the world? ”

Zhu Cihong replied: "How do I know! The officials are naturally very clear. ”

He then asked Li Zicheng in turn:

"Why don't you kill me?"

To this question, Li Zicheng also showed his strength, and he replied: You are an innocent person, I will not kill you!

So, the crown prince Zhu Cihong immediately made three suggestions to Li Zicheng:

"The first is not to disturb the tombs of my fathers; The second is the funeral of my parents; The third is that you shall not kill my people. ”

Li Zicheng agreed one by one, and then Chongzhen's three sons were taken into custody.

However, in 1644, after the defeat of the Shanhaiguan Battle at the end of the fourth lunar month, Chongzhen's three sons: Prince Zhu Cihong, Yongwang Zhu Cizhao, and Dingwang Zhu Cijiong all disappeared in the chaos.

Two years later, Princess Changping, who escaped by luck after having her arm cut off, finally died of illness in the melancholy of missing her parents and her homeland. After her death, in the martial arts novels written by later generations, she incarnated as a one-armed god and nun with strong martial arts, and fought unremittingly for the great cause of opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty all her life.

But in real history, she is just the last princess who died forever at the age of 17, fading the romantic legend of high martial arts in the novel, in real history, what accompanies her is a bloody and eternal nightmare.

In the forty-seventh year of Kangxi (1708), Zhu Cizhao, the son of Chongzhen and Yongwang, who disappeared after the Battle of Shanhaiguan, was finally arrested at the age of 76 after being found and reported.

At this point, the family of Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, completely disappeared in the smoke and clouds of history.

A year later (1645), Li Zicheng was killed in Jiugong Mountain, Tongshan, Hubei, and Dolgon led the Qing army to follow him into the customs and occupy Beijing, and then the Qing army successively defeated the armies of the Southern Ming Dynasty and the tributaries of the people, and finally unified the country.

Looking back on 1642-1644, the people and events of the Ming Empire in the last three years, people can find that when the empire accumulated deep evils, all struggles, it seems that there is no power to return to the sky, although some of the details are accidental, but the wheel of history is still on an inevitable track zigzag forward, but the rise and fall of the world, it is inevitable that the common people will suffer.

At that time, history will stagger forward in the dark night for nearly 40 years, until the 22nd year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1683), Shi Lang led the Qing army to recover Taiwan, and this historical drama derived from the late Ming Empire finally came to an end.

An empire is destroyed, an empire is reborn, but after changing its skin, has the empire transformed into a butterfly? Chongzhen didn't know the answer, Li Zicheng didn't know the answer, and Kangxi didn't know the answer.

References:

Liu Shougang, "Why Empire: Revisiting Chinese History from a Financial Perspective", Zhejiang People's Publishing House, 2022

Fang Zhiyuan: Why the Ming Dynasty Said to Die, Shanxi People's Publishing House, 2023

Zhang Deer: Research on the Recovery of Extreme Climate Events in China's History, Commercial Press, 2023

Wang Xingya, The Change of Jiashen, China Social Sciences Press, 2011

Sun Wenliang and Zhang Jie: Jiashen Fengyunlu, Palace Publishing House, 2013

Wang Tianyou: "The Sixteen Emperors of the Ming Dynasty", Palace Museum Publishing House, 2010 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 suddenly died of illness 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.

The last plan to move the capital was put on hold, and Chongzhen had no way out. Source: Film and television stills

05

With the termination of the last plan to move the capital, Chongzhen had to decide that the dead horse should be a live horse doctor, and ordered to send Ningyuan's general soldier Wu Sangui to lead the last tens of thousands of Guan Ning Tie cavalry into the Weijing Division, but nevertheless, it was equivalent to giving up Ningyuan, the last important town of the Ming Dynasty in Liaodong, to the Manchu Qing, but Chongzhen was desperate at this time, and it was a last resort, so he had to order Wu Sangui to abandon the city and enter the customs.

However, in a hurry, Wu Sangui and his party, who led tens of thousands of Guanning iron cavalry and 500,000 soldiers and civilians to the south, could not arrive quickly, so when Li Zicheng's peasant army broke through Beijing on March 19 of the 17th year of Chongzhen (1644), the Guanning iron cavalry who entered the king of Beijing had just reached Zhili Fengrun (now Tangshan, Hebei), and there were still several hundred miles away from Beijing.

On March 16 of that year (1644), Chongzhen convened hundreds of civil and military officials to discuss countermeasures, and in front of all the courtiers, Chongzhen burst into tears, and the civil and military officials also cried together. At this time, there are still three days before Beijing broke and Chongzhen committed suicide.

But Chongzhen was still making the final breakthrough plan, on March 17 of that year (1644), Li Zicheng's peasant army came to the city of Beijing, and the powerless Chongzhen had to walk around the main hall in the Forbidden City, shouting loudly: "The ministers inside and outside misunderstand me!" Mistake me! ”

In order to preserve the fire, Chongzhen decided to send the prince out of the palace to the south at this time, and then he summoned his brother-in-law, Gong Yonggu, the commander of the horses, and asked him to escort the prince Zhu Cihong to the south with his family. According to historical records, Gong Yonggu, who is a bold personality and "generous and generous", has won Chongzhen's trust, and he had suggested that Chongzhen move south, and at the last moment, the desperate Chongzhen remembered this brother-in-law, hoping that he could keep the last fire for the Ming Empire, but Gong Yonggu kowtowed and knelt down and said: "Relatives are not allowed to hide armor, how dare I keep my family privately?" ”

The two monarchs and ministers wept opposite each other, and Gong Yonggu continued: "The ministers have accumulated salaries, and they should be burned to death in order to repay the emperor!" Chongzhen was also moved and said: "I can't keep the community, I can die the community!" ”

Chongzhen's eighth sister Princess Le'an died of illness in the Ming Dynasty in the first year (1643), due to the chaos of state affairs, still did not bury the spirit of the family, just two days after Gong Yonggu and Chongzhen monarchs and ministers talked to each other, on March 19, Beijing City was broken, Gong Yonggu fulfilled his promise, and gathered himself and several children in front of Princess Le'an's coffin, before he died, he said to the children: "You are all the emperor's nephews, can not fall into the hands of the enemy and be humiliated", and then he set fire to the whole family, and he also killed himself in front of the spirit of Princess Le'an, Fulfilled the promise of life and death with Chongzhen's monarchs and ministers.

On the night of the second day after Chongzhen and his brother-in-law Gong Yonggu talked, on the night of March 18 in the 17th year of Chongzhen (1644), which was also the last night before the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the last night of Emperor Chongzhen's life.

That night, Li Zicheng's peasant army set up a ladder and began to attack the city of Beijing, seeing that the city was about to be broken, at about nine o'clock that night, Chongzhen called his three children: 16-year-old prince Zhu Cihong, 13-year-old Yongwang Zhu Cizhao, and 9-year-old Dingwang Zhu Cijiong to himself, he wanted to see the children for the last time.

When he saw the three princes, still wearing Qi Chu's bright crown and belt robes, appear in front of him, Chongzhen's heart was suddenly shocked, because that night, Li Zicheng's peasant army had already broken through the outer city of Beijing and was rapidly advancing towards the inner city of Beijing and the Forbidden City.

Like all loving fathers in the world, Chongzhen said to the children in surprise and reproach:

"When have you been dressed like this? Hurry up and change your clothes! ”

After speaking, the 34-year-old father, the emperor of the Ming Empire, took matters into his own hands, helped the three children change into ordinary people's clothes, and then tied their belts one by one, he said with a sad voice:

"Today you are still the emperor's son, tomorrow you will be the common people... In this kind of troubled times, you have to be incognito, and when you see the elderly, you have to call the old man; When you see a younger elder, call it an uncle or uncle! ”

He then instructed:

"The overthrow of the society has made the heavens and the earth and our ancestors angry, and these are the sins of your father and me. But I have already done my best, how can the ministers of civil and military affairs, each with their own selfish intentions, refuse to put the country before the family, so that the country is corrupted like this. Nowadays, there is no need to ask whether it is good or bad, just do it reasonably. I have nothing to worry about. ”

The 33-year-old Empress Zhou decided to fulfill her last duty as a mother in the world. That night, Empress Zhou "held the festival" and went around the entire Forbidden City, while shedding tears, while exhorting from palace to palace, palace by palace, and said to the palace people and eunuchs who did not know how to be good in panic:

"The natural disaster has fallen, the catastrophe is coming, you have a way, hurry up and escape!"

Worried that some palace people were still hesitant and refused to leave, the dutiful Empress Zhou walked around the Forbidden City twice, and advised the palace people to flee for their lives quickly.

After returning to the palace to say goodbye to Chongzhen, before dying, Empress Zhou said to Chongzhen with tears in her eyes: "I have served the emperor for 18 years, and you have never listened to a word from others, so you are where you are today." ”

After saying these words, Empress Zhou committed suicide by hanging herself.

Chongzhen, who was disgraced, didn't have time to grieve too much, and he came to Yuan Guifei's residence with his sword again.

After drinking a few glasses of desperate wine with Yuan Guifei, Chongzhen ordered Yuan Guifei to hang herself, Yuan Guifei had to hang herself, but she didn't expect the rope to break, Yuan Guifei fell to the ground, and after standing up, she began to run away, Chongzhen chased after her, and stabbed Yuan Guifei in the shoulder with a sword.

Subsequently, Chongzhen swung his sword again and stabbed several concubines.

In his opinion, the empire is dying, and as his woman, in order to save her name, she can't fall into the hands of the traitors.

Immediately after, he came to Shouning Palace, where he met his eldest daughter, Princess Changping, who was 15 years old. At that time, Princess Changping pulled Chongzhen's shirt and cried bitterly. Chongzhen said with tears in his eyes: "Child, why were you born in our emperor's family!" ”

Then, Chongzhen covered his face with his left sleeve, and waved his sword with his right hand to kill his daughter, but he missed it, he only cut off Princess Changping's left arm, looking at his daughter who fell in a pool of blood, Chongzhen trembled so much that he couldn't do it anymore.

He turned to leave, and in the Zhaoren Palace, he personally killed his 6-year-old daughter, Princess Zhaoren.

Although his life was in his last moments, he still had a desire to survive.

After killing his daughter, Princess Zhaoren, Chongzhen asked the eunuch Wang Chengen to sit in front of him and drank a few glasses of wine with him.

At the third watch in the middle of the night, he asked people to change him into civilian clothes, and then took dozens of eunuchs out of the Forbidden City together, trying to break through, but they ran through a few city gates, either being shelled by the garrison and retreating, or they couldn't open the gate at all, and they tossed until it was close to dawn, and Chongzhen completely lost his heart and retreated to the Forbidden City.

At this time, the time was already in the early morning of the 19th day of the third lunar month of the 17th year of Chongzhen (1644), the day when the Ming Dynasty was about to die.

In the Forbidden City, Chongzhen ordered the officials to ring the bell to summon the hundred officials, and the bell rang again and again, but the front hall was always empty:

None of the courtiers came.

At this time, Li Zicheng's peasant army also broke through the inner city of Beijing, and began to advance rapidly towards the Forbidden City in the face of the dawn of dawn.

In a panic, Chongzhen took the eunuch Wang Chengen to the Shouhuang Pavilion of Wansui Mountain (Coal Mountain) behind the Forbidden City, and because he ran too quickly, his left shoe was also lost.

Under a tree, he finally chose to hang himself, saying goodbye to his 17-year imperial career and 34-year-old life.

Accompanying him was the eunuch Wang Chengen.

After Chongzhen's death, Wang Chengen also committed suicide and chose to die for Chongzhen.

The last martyr of the empire was a eunuch who made the emperors of the Ming Empire love and hate.

After his death, people found his edict on Chongzhen:

"I despised Liangde, and I was to blame the heavens, causing the traitors to approach the Jingshi, and all the ministers were mistaken. I died, I saw my ancestors without a face, I took off my crown, covered my face with my hair, let the thieves split, and did not hurt the people. ”

Until his death, he did not forget to complain that the courtiers had misled the country, and before, he had told the eunuchs that he had just used himself...... Wenchen can be killed one by one. ”

However, he expressed deep sympathy for the Li people in Beijing, and begged Li Zicheng in his suicide note not to slaughter the city for revenge, hoping that Li Zicheng could give the people a way to live.

He has tried and struggled, but he has no power to return to heaven except death.

Chongzhen's suicide and the separation of his children prevented Nanming from forming an appealing center of resistance. Source: Film and television stills

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Although Chongzhen hanged himself, at that time, due to the chaos in Beijing, the peasant army did not find Chongzhen's body until two days after Chongzhen hanged himself, and then Li Zicheng ordered Chongzhen's body to be carried out of the Banzai Mountain and parked next to the Donghua Gate in Beijing; Under Li Zicheng's instructions, the bodies of Chongzhen and Empress Zhou were able to be decorated and put into willow coffins.

Emperor Daming died, in addition to the eunuch Wang Chengen, more than 40 people, including Fan Jingwen, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry of the Ming Dynasty, and Ni Yuanlu, the secretary of the Ministry of Households, also committed suicide with Emperor Chongzhen; However, for these old ministers who "do not know the times", most of the relatives and civil and military officials who are anxious to take refuge in Li Zicheng and the Dashun regime, there is no time to pay attention to them.

During the period when Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou were suspended, Zhou Zhong, a concubine of the Hanlin Academy, rode directly by the coffin when he passed by the coffin, and he was not even willing to go to worship and make a show; At the beginning, the ministers who were promoted by Chongzhen also knelt outside the Forbidden City gate, waiting for the new master, Emperor Dashun Li Zicheng's reception.

Almost no one went to mourn Emperor Chongzhen, but some passers-by stopped and sighed.

Later, Zhao Yigui, an official of Changping Prefecture, told the story of his participation in the burial of Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou in "Zhuangzhongzhou".

Zhao Yigui said that although Li Zicheng ordered Chongzhen to be buried, he did not allocate funds at all.

Because Chongzhen did not have a mausoleum during his lifetime, in this case, Zhao Yigui and the scholars and villagers finally scraped together "three hundred and forty thousand yuan", and finally "supervised the work for four days and nights", until the fourth day of the fourth lunar month in 1644, after Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself for half a month, they finally buried the bones of Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou in the tomb of Chongzhen's concubine and Tian Guifei, who had died first.

Chongzhen, Queen Zhou, and Tian Guifei, the three of them were scribbled together, and this is the last mausoleum in the Ming Tombs: Siling.

Portrait of Emperor Chongzhen. Source: Internet

After Chongzhen committed suicide, his children also experienced displacement and suffering.

In order to protect the bloodline of Emperor Chongzhen, the eunuchs hurriedly sent the 16-year-old prince Zhu Cihong and the 9-year-old Dingwang Zhu Cijiong to the palace of Zhou Kui, the father of Empress Zhou and the Marquis of Jiading.

Chongzhen's desperate three sons were finally sacrificed by the eunuchs and fell into the hands of Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng personally interrogated the crown prince Zhu Cihong and ordered him to kneel, but he didn't expect the 16-year-old prince to stubbornly say:

"I will never give in to you!"

Li Zicheng asked Zhu Cihong sternly: "Do you know why your family lost the world? ”

Zhu Cihong replied: "How do I know! The officials are naturally very clear. ”

He then asked Li Zicheng in turn:

"Why don't you kill me?"

To this question, Li Zicheng also showed his strength, and he replied: You are an innocent person, I will not kill you!

So, the crown prince Zhu Cihong immediately made three suggestions to Li Zicheng:

"The first is not to disturb the tombs of my fathers; The second is the funeral of my parents; The third is that you shall not kill my people. ”

Li Zicheng agreed one by one, and then Chongzhen's three sons were taken into custody.

However, in 1644, after the defeat of the Shanhaiguan Battle at the end of the fourth lunar month, Chongzhen's three sons: Prince Zhu Cihong, Yongwang Zhu Cizhao, and Dingwang Zhu Cijiong all disappeared in the chaos.

Two years later, Princess Changping, who escaped by luck after having her arm cut off, finally died of illness in the melancholy of missing her parents and her homeland. After her death, in the martial arts novels written by later generations, she incarnated as a one-armed god and nun with strong martial arts, and fought unremittingly for the great cause of opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty all her life.

But in real history, she is just the last princess who died forever at the age of 17, fading the romantic legend of high martial arts in the novel, in real history, what accompanies her is a bloody and eternal nightmare.

In the forty-seventh year of Kangxi (1708), Zhu Cizhao, the son of Chongzhen and Yongwang, who disappeared after the Battle of Shanhaiguan, was finally arrested at the age of 76 after being found and reported.

At this point, the family of Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, completely disappeared in the smoke and clouds of history.

A year later (1645), Li Zicheng was killed in Jiugong Mountain, Tongshan, Hubei, and Dolgon led the Qing army to follow him into the customs and occupy Beijing, and then the Qing army successively defeated the armies of the Southern Ming Dynasty and the tributaries of the people, and finally unified the country.

Looking back on 1642-1644, the people and events of the Ming Empire in the last three years, people can find that when the empire accumulated deep evils, all struggles, it seems that there is no power to return to the sky, although some of the details are accidental, but the wheel of history is still on an inevitable track zigzag forward, but the rise and fall of the world, it is inevitable that the common people will suffer.

At that time, history will stagger forward in the dark night for nearly 40 years, until the 22nd year of Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1683), Shi Lang led the Qing army to recover Taiwan, and this historical drama derived from the late Ming Empire finally came to an end.

An empire is destroyed, an empire is reborn, but after changing its skin, has the empire transformed into a butterfly? Chongzhen didn't know the answer, Li Zicheng didn't know the answer, and Kangxi didn't know the answer.