Speaking of Emperor Chongzhen at the end of the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that everyone in China knows about it, and among the 16 emperors of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen can be regarded as a very well-known emperor (this may be related to the death of the Ming Dynasty). Chongzhen, surnamed Zhu, was born in 1610 and died in 1644 at the age of 34. At the age of 17, he began to officially ascend the throne as a young emperor, and reigned for 17 years, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty (excluding the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty), and an important political figure in Chinese history that is quite controversial. Looking at his 34-year short life, the merits and demerits are commented on by historians. Judging from historical data, Emperor Chongzhen's early life was very unfortunate, his biological mother Liu was from a humble background and died early, resulting in Chongzhen's childhood from the age of 5 to lose his mother's love, and at the same time he did not get much father's love, because his emperor's father did not really like his mother, so Chongzhen was born shortly after, his mother was beaten into the cold palace, Chongzhen was able to be the emperor in the future completely out of chance, which also formed his suspicious and withdrawn personal temperament in the future.

In all fairness, from the perspective of human nature, Chongzhen should be a young scholar emperor with a melancholy personality and a bit of a quick temper. At the same time, he was also very confident and stubborn, and refused to leave Beijing for half a step until the catastrophe came, which shows how attached he was to the Jiangshan Sheji and the subjects of the capital left by his ancestors, and even put on the shelf of the "best policy" in the 36 strategies, which shows that he is very different from the style of the rogue who flows in no order like mercury.

However, compared with other inactive and incompetent monarchs in history, Chongzhen shows the strong personal heroism of the failed monarch - stubbornly preferring to die and not yielding, and the monarch will die with his body. Moreover, what moved future generations seemed to be his benevolent heart from the depths of his heart, he could sacrifice himself heroically without hesitation, but when he was dying, in his last words on the cuffs, he was still worried about the safety of the people in the capital, "My corpse is divided by others, don't hurt one of my people," for an emperor who is about to die, this is by no means hypocrisy, but a heartfelt cry of blood, Beijing City is the first good place under the rule of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen certainly can't bear to see his subjects suffer from external violence brought about by the destruction of lives and broken families. It is no exaggeration to say that he is one of the few martyred kings in Chinese history who "thanked the world with his death". And it is worth mentioning that he did not burn all the jade and stones, and set a torch to burn the Forbidden City again, which shows how deep his affection and love for the Forbidden City are built brick by brick, and he would rather leave it to the enemy who does not share the sky to enjoy, rather than bear to destroy it in his own hands, thus leaving a precious and priceless historical and cultural heritage to future generations. Of course, this also reflects the kindness of Emperor Chongzhen's thoughts, which advocates rationality rather than violence. In fact, Chongzhen's biggest wish in life is that the world is peaceful and the people live and work in peace and contentment. However, the ruthless history has played a big joke on him, since he ascended the throne, the world does not seem to have been peaceful for a day, and the society is becoming increasingly turbulent, the violence at the bottom continues to escalate, and even the disorderly and violent fire that first ignited from the barren loess high slopes in northern Shaanxi has become more and more intense, until half of the Ming court has been burned to ashes and reduced to nothing.

"This is a dedicated person who has unlimited pursuits (and even a little paranoia) for his career as the Son of Heaven," most Ming history experts objectively commented on Chongzhen. As we all know, the many social contradictions and thorny problems faced by the imperial court at the end of the Ming Dynasty were like a pile of messes stirring up many hot dry firewood stacks, frying continuously, rationalizing and chaotic, and once encountering irrational violent fire, it would spread rapidly, so that the mediocre politicians and ministers in the court at that time were helpless and helpless. Therefore, most of the historians lamented that Chongzhen was born at the wrong time, but encountered the chaos of the late Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty at this time has been full of social evils, the government is becoming more and more corrupt, the courtiers are increasingly fierce, the folk etiquette is lost, the court is worried about internal and external troubles, the mob is very bad, the Qing soldiers are eyeing each other, the treasury is empty, and the financial accumulation is difficult to return. In the traditional Chinese monarchy society more than 300 years ago, when the Western democratic constitutional system (which can bring about a peaceful change of regime) had not yet been introduced to China, the fate that awaited him was undoubtedly only death or surrender.

In fact, Chongzhen has had a deep insight into the potential huge crisis of society since his accession to the throne, and he is also one of the few emperors of the Ming Dynasty who had a strong sense of distress. He is often emotional, and his actions are fueled, coupled with his youth, he will inevitably produce a rigid and self-serving temperament, so it leads to the fear of all the ministers of the court, and these small mistakes in Chongzhen's character have occurred one after another, and finally indirectly accelerated the disaster of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, with Chongzhen's personal diligence and dedication, if he was born in a peaceful and prosperous era or a peaceful time, it should make the world peaceful for a long time, and he will also become a generation of Ming monarchs and holy lords, who will be famous for eternity, there should be no doubt about this, but it is a pity that he was born at the wrong time.

Since Chongzhen's accession to the throne, the court seems to have been in a bit hasty in formulating domestic policies, and it has been too eager for the people to demand too much, which has further intensified various social contradictions to a certain extent. Of course, the starting point of the imperial court is definitely good, mainly to protect the family and the country, to avoid the misery of the people of the world, to levy Liao (for the huge military expenditure of the Houjin defensive war), not to compete with the people for profit, but in the practice it shows signs of quick success and impatience. It seems that Chongzhen did not find a better solution until the fall of the country, and he once considered negotiating peace with the Manchu military group to alleviate the huge financial pressure on the imperial court due to the excessive frequency of border wars, but he always had some scruples due to the prestige of the great monarch and the opposition of most pedantic courtiers. Of course, he was also limited by the rigid mindset formed by the "patriotic" concept advocated in the Confucian social tradition, and he seemed to be extremely afraid of leaving behind the infamy of "traitorous state", so in the end he did not really put the plan of peace talks with the Manchus into practice. In order to confess his innocence, he even personally ordered the killing of Chen Xinjia, a military secretary who inadvertently leaked the "peace talks".

However, even if Chongzhen made many stupid tricks and missed tricks, no one can deny that Chongzhen did some wonderful good things during his reign, such as decisively killing Wei Zhongxian and Keshi and other eunuchs at the beginning of his reign, and at the same time rehabilitating Zhaoxue for the Donglin Party, a model and spiritual leader of scholars at that time, and some upright ministers who were persecuted to death by Wei Zhongxian. This series of major righteous actions shows Chongzhen's courage and strategy as a young politician when he was just starting out, and he was not afraid of danger, which can be described as extraordinary, and even turned the tide, thus giving confidence and hope to scholars and scholars all over the world, and everyone thought that a wise monarch had finally appeared in the dim-witted Ming Dynasty. Of course, this series of achievements also brought a certain amount of confidence to Chongzhen, who originally wanted to be the master of the Ming Dynasty, and he hoped to take advantage of this to continue to eliminate the shortcomings.

It's a pity that the good times didn't last long, after all, what Chongzhen inherited was a big mess that had been in ruin for many years since Wanli to the Apocalypse, and there was no outstanding minister like Zhang Juzheng in the court who could not be found in a hundred years to assist Chongzhen. In addition, natural disasters occurred frequently, rogue bandits were everywhere, the Manchu military plunder, and the border wars continued, so that the imperial court soon entered an extremely sinister unfavorable situation of internal and external difficulties, an empty treasury, and an enemy on the back of the abdomen, and there was never any sign or sign of recovery.

In fact, at this time, the Ming Dynasty had gradually entered a period of collapse in which the rule of officials was declining and the situation was out of control with the inertial force of historical change. In addition, in order to cope with the frequent natural and man-made disasters, the financial deficit of the imperial court became increasingly serious, and the country's revenue and expenditure could not make ends meet, but in order to maintain the rule and social stability, the imperial court had to continue to feed a large number of bureaucrats and military systems, which made Chongzhen often in a daze in order to raise huge salaries, so that he was often distressed to the point of anxiety that he could not sleep at night.

However, in the face of a situation full of holes and crises, Chongzhen still did not lose heart, but cheered up, racked his brains, and tried his best, always fantasizing about relying on his personal dedication and sincere attitude of the monarch (including four times to the officials and ordinary people of the world to "sin himself" In the face of the social crisis in the last years of the Ming Dynasty with the general outbreak of irrational violence in poor local areas and the bad situation that may reach the overall situation of the whole country at any time, Chongzhen has never found a panacea to solve the problem (in fact, the chaos of social turmoil at the end of the Ming Dynasty was the violent and disorderly fire that no rational force could resist at that time), and he also failed completely with the failure of the Ming Dynasty's official army to suppress the thief plan, and became the king of the Ming Dynasty who did not want to be the king of the Ming Dynasty。 This is not only the historical reincarnation of the vicious circle of the inevitable collapse of the Ming Dynasty, but also the great personal tragedy of Chongzhen, an extremely diligent and order-advocating literati emperor.

Looking at the barren grass next to the Si Mausoleum, I felt very sad and sighed, a young emperor with a bad fate and his young queen, the bones of the concubine have been buried here for 360 years, let the wind and rain wash and the baptism of the historical years, still stand silently, witnessing the passage of time and the changes of the years. Far away from the hustle and bustle of Beijing and the lights of thousands of homes, nor the majestic and resplendent of the Forbidden City, it is always accompanied by darkness and loneliness at night, and it is indeed not a paradise that makes people nostalgic to go back and forth. However, it is a place where you can calm down and think deeply. It is secluded and inaccessible all year round, silent like an unfathomable pool of stagnant water, occasionally causing a ripple due to the visit of one or two uninvited guests, and then, with the departure of the guests, it quickly regains its former peace and tranquility. Thinking about the 360 years ago, Emperor Chongzhen lived in endless labor, fear, pain, irritability and anxiety every day, but after his death, he enjoyed rare tranquility and protracted peace (of course, the presence of tomb robbers in the past dynasties can only be regarded as an exception), this may be the life fate of the "bitter" emperor who worked hard to revitalize the dynasty during his reign, but in the end it backfired because of repeated ineffective policies, the situation got out of control, fell apart, and was finally forced to hang himself on the coal mountain. Moreover, what is evocative is that not far from the east side of the Siling courtyard is also buried a pile of loyal bones of Wang Chengen, the imperial pen eunuch who was martyred with Chongzhen.

I'm not a fatalist, but I've always believed in fate. Throughout the ages, there are indeed many unscrupulous emperors whose fate and outcome seem to be many times better than that of Emperor Chongzhen, who is diligent and self-disciplined day and night, just like his own grandfather Wanli and his brother Tianqi, who are incompetent and incompetent, and who ignore the government and politics, have escaped the pain of losing the country, and they have exhausted the political resources and social reputation of the Ming Dynasty during their reign, and irresponsibly left the operation of the dead country as a legacy to their children and grandchildren. At the beginning of Chongzhen's accession, the country has begun to slide into the abyss of irrational valleys, even if the eloquent Tang Taizong is alive, I think it will be difficult to escape the catastrophe of the country's fortune, not to mention that the person who led the Ming Dynasty is not outstanding, and there is no governing experience and lacks Wen Taowu's young scholar Emperor Chongzhen? However, in the face of the ruthless impact of various irrational and violent forces, Chongzhen, who advocates rational governance, has been struggling for 17 years, although he has not become the master of Zhongxing, but he is also dragging the Ming Dynasty, a huge chariot that is about to slide into the abyss, and struggling to death, which is not easy.

"Born as a hero, died as a ghost, still thinking of Xiang Yu, unwilling to cross Jiangdong", the Song Dynasty female lyricist Li Qingzhao's famous sentence is not also a true portrayal of Emperor Chongzhen's destiny in life? In fact, Chongzhen's pity and lamentability do not lie in the fact that he was the king of the Ming Dynasty, but in the Wanli at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Compared with the incompetence of the apocalypse and ignoring the government, Chongzhen is indeed an emperor who works hard, an emperor with a strong sense of distress, an emperor who even wants to be the master of Zhongxing when he dreams, an emperor who is far away from the sound of dogs and horses, an emperor who is noisy and well-organized, an emperor who has a flawed personality but never bows to difficulties, an emperor who never compromises and retreats to foreign aggression, and an emperor who has the courage to issue four "guilty edicts" in a row A rational emperor who conducts self-reflection, a dedicated emperor who struggled alone for 17 years in despair and finally ended in failure, and a fierce emperor who hanged himself in desperation and martyred his country.

We find that Chongzhen's short 34-year life was full of confusion, fear, loneliness, stubbornness, contradictions, pain, helplessness, despair, sighs and tears, but we rarely saw greed, miserliness, tyranny, debauchery, shamelessness, compromise, betrayal and surrender. Therefore, Chongzhen's personality is noble, and it can be said that although Chongzhen has Zhu Yuanzhang's ambition to dominate the world, he does not have his brutal nature, his hooligan methods of bullying the weak, and his eloquence and strategy to control war; although Chongzhen has the fate of Qin II, he also does not have his cowardly and incompetent nature and mediocre behavior; although Chongzhen has the luck of Emperor Yang of Sui's country, he does not have his arrogant and lascivious greed. Although Chongzhen had the signs of the demise of Empress Li and Song Huizong, he did not have their leisurely and leisurely interest, gentle and elegant style, indulgence in calligraphy, painting and rhetoric, and drunken dreams and death. Chongzhen is a very rare monarch in Chinese history who is diligent and worried about the people.

Of course, objectively speaking, the main forces that really destroyed the Ming Dynasty in history were the following forces and external forces: the mediocre and wise court officials, the layers of local cool officials who were corrupt and bent the law and exploited the people, the Manchu Eight Banners Regiment that invaded and plundered, and attacked and plundered cities; a group of irrational violent gangs of displaced people from northern Shaanxi who rioted, took advantage of the fire to rob, and were capricious and unrecruited; plus major natural disasters that continued for many years. In the face of all these unfavorable situations, Chongzhen, as a weak scholar who grew up in the courtyard of the deep palace of the Forbidden City since he was a child (this is not the founder of Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di, the martial arts emperor) is indeed helpless, and he has no skills to return to heaven, and finally he can only escape with a death, and all this misfortune finally buried the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, if the hero is not judged by success or failure, Chongzhen is a real tragic historical hero, which is a bit like Shakespeare's many tragic historical figures who struggle with the ending of death, their stubborn character and tragic ending are very close, with the same pain and hatred, and they all end with individual failure and death.

In short, the historical era in which Chongzhen lived was unfortunate, and his personal fate was also unfortunate. Therefore, before he died, he swung his sword and cut off the arm of his own daughter Princess Changping, and sighed: "Why are you unfortunate to be born in the emperor's family?", I believe that this is definitely his heartfelt words! This shows that his character traits also have the complexity and multiplicity of that special historical era, he is the core figure in the whirlpool of contradictions in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the helpless monarch in the sick society, the diligent monarch in helplessness and confusion, and the poor monarch in confusion and despair. A lonely man in desperate anticipation, he is not only a victim of social unrest, but also a witness to the tragedy of the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time, he is also the highest level of sacrifice among the tragic figures in the late Ming Dynasty. In a word, Chongzhen is the general representative of the rational forces that tried to prevent the complete collapse of the imperial court that was crumbling due to the impact of violence in the great historical changes of the late Ming Dynasty, and he is also a tragic representative of the milestone in the historical watershed of the Chinese nation. Therefore, as long as the word Chongzhen is mentioned by future generations, it immediately reminds people of the taste of the lost country. Chongzhen's diligent administration over the past 17 years of his reign always wanted to bring the terminally ill Ming Dynasty back to life, and always wanted to make millions of Li people avoid the endless efforts of their lives, but in the end they did not get any improvement, and were finally ruthlessly swallowed up by irrational storms and landslides and tsunamis, and became the tragic martyrs of the Ming Dynasty.

Rising to the height of history, Emperor Chongzhen's greatest sorrow is that there is no effective solution in the face of irrational disorderly and violent forces, except for Zhao'an is suppression, when this soft and hard tricks do not work, there is only a helpless and dead end, which is the greatest sorrow of traditional Chinese society, Chongzhen of course can not change this traditional pattern of Chinese history. It is difficult for a rational emperor with a good nature but a lack of strategy to steer the ship of the imperial court in this irrational and huge social whirlpool of violent and turbulent history, and sail smoothly through the reef and shoals without touching the reef and sinking. Using modern constitutional theory analysis, the social and political system at that time did not establish a complete set of negotiation and dialogue mechanisms and a regime change system of the leadership, and Chongzhen, as the top leader of a relatively rational government group, was faced with armed interest groups like Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong who advocated violence and disrupted order. More than 300 years ago, it was even more impossible for Chinese society to take turns in power through party elections, and even the idea of a political system with a constitutional monarchy was conceived more than 200 years later in the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty. The competition of various political and military forces in the last years of the Ming Dynasty was, to put it bluntly, the philosophy of life-and-death struggle, the application of the law of jungle violence, the winner was the king, the loser was the villain, and the strongest violence was determined by the country, so it also staged the historical cycle of Li Zicheng who subverted the Ming Dynasty by strong violence, and Dolgon who eliminated Li Zicheng by strong force. In this regard, Mr. Wu Si's strange book "The Law of Blood Reward" has a very profound analysis. What a terrible time of the rules of the game and what a cruel time it is that the future and destiny of the nation should be concentrated in the hands of the strongest of violent means, and not in the hands of truth, the people, reason, democracy, and elections......

If the Chinese want to understand China, they must understand the Ming Dynasty, otherwise all conclusions will be hasty, and all judgments will not stand the test of time!