Decryption in Decryption —— Analysis of the Root Cause of the Ming Dynasty's Death

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhu Yuanzhang is said to have found a fortune teller to calculate Daming's national fortune, and the result is a sentence: "Southeastern prosperity, and finally northwest prosperity."

This story can be regarded as a story adapted by later generations based on the fact of the demise of the Ming Dynasty, which is somewhat wise after the event. Although the demise of the Ming dynasty was indeed caused by the northwest peasant army, the origin of the northwest rebellion actually came from the northeast from a historical point of view.

The history of the Ming Dynasty seems complicated, but on the whole, it is also very simple. From Nanjing as the capital of the Ming Dynasty to Chongzhen hanging himself in Beijing, there was only one financial expenditure of the Ming Dynasty, and that was military expenditure. In the military expenditure, the fiscal expenditure of military expenditure in Hebei and Liaoning is the largest.

The Ming dynasty gained political power from the Mongols, so it has always attached great importance to the Mongolian issue. The root of this attention is the Song Dynasty. It can be said that since the founding of the first emperor, even the Yongjia Rebellion or the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, there have been two major foreign invasions in the history of China. Even crossing the Yangtze River in the south, the Zhengshuo dynasty in the Central Plains still exists. But in the Song Dynasty, under the attack of Mongols, it was completely extinct.

For the first time, the nomadic people in the north completely conquered all the areas and populations in the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins, and the so-called Zhengshuo Dynasty in the Central Plains also disappeared completely for the first time. It is precisely because of this that Japanese scholars have the basis for saying that there is no China behind the cliff.

However, the vitality of the Chinese nation is by no means so fragile, and there is still a big gap between the governance of Mongolia and the governance of the Central Plains Dynasty. In this way, it only lasted for more than 90 years, and the Mongols were driven back to the grassland by Ming Taizu. But the pain of national subjugation has been deeply hidden in the hearts of Ming people. (When the Rebel Army was founded, it was under the banner of restoring the Song Dynasty. )

Therefore, in the face of nomadic people in the north, mainly Mongols, the Ming Dynasty always regarded them as the greatest threat, and ministers and people even dared not say anything about peace talks with Mongols.

Because in this case, people will soon think of the cowardice and incompetence of the Song Dynasty. This is why in the 276th year of the Ming Dynasty, people always felt that they were steel, and they didn't kiss, pay, cut or pay tribute.

Therefore, many scholars have put forward many views on the final demise of the Ming Dynasty, but in general, it boils down to three points.

First, the policy wavers and ignores social contradictions. Second, policy confusion and even persecution of ethnic minorities have deepened ethnic contradictions. Third, the core ideas are not unified.

The civilian constitution of the Ming Dynasty can be said to be the most powerful existence since the Song Dynasty. In the Ming dynasty, it was difficult to get an official position if you were not born in the imperial examination. Such a policy ensures the stability of the government and the country, and also limits the rights of military attache to the maximum extent.

Therefore, throughout the Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, the mutiny of domestic military commanders was almost eliminated, but the play of military commanders was also restricted to the greatest extent. Once the imperial court wants to use its power, it will let people from the imperial examinations serve as the supreme commander.

In the Ming dynasty, there was also a tradition of cabinet university students visiting Jiubian, which shows that almost all military power was delegated to civil servants in the Ming dynasty. If a military commander in a war can meet a good civilian, that is, knowing that he doesn't understand, it is also good to arrange someone who does. But once you meet someone who doesn't know how to pretend to understand, or even be willful and overbearing, it's completely over.

For example, the battle of Salhu, which was related to the survival of the Ming Dynasty, was caused by the command mistakes of generals who did not understand military affairs, such as Levin, which led to the breakup of the Ming army. In addition, this person is narrow-minded and has a deep hatred, which makes the general Liu Ting fall into an ambush and finally the whole army is wiped out.

This disadvantage was not prominent when the Ming Dynasty remained stable, but it was even more prominent after the establishment of Nanming and the Nanjing small government became a weak regime.

That's why, in the end, people were surprised to find that it was Daming's original government army that set up the anti-Qing banner and saw the light again, but attacked Daming, even forcing the last generals and soldiers of Li Yong, Emperor of Nanming. This shows how sharp the contradictions and hatred of the Ming army are.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Jiuliao area was also the place with the greatest pressure of war and military affairs. Therefore, the imperial court also specially set up the post of governor of Jilin and Liao, which was used to supervise the war in this area. This position has been held by three generals, namely Xiong Tingbi, Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan.

These three men are brave and resourceful. Judging from their strategy, as long as the court can continue and give strong support, almost everyone can pacify Liaodong.

However, all three of them were killed and dismissed for some seemingly unimportant problems, and were killed at the end of the year.

The indiscriminate killing of professionals without protection directly leads to no one willing to stand up and share the worries for the court, because even if it is done well, it will be used as a scapegoat by superiors, and once it is not done well, there is no way out.

No one is interested in or even afraid of such a high-risk and difficult job. Can such a system enable generals to fight militarily?

The Ming government has been increasing taxes since Wanli to maintain the huge expenditure of the army. In fact, to put it bluntly, the so-called three expeditions in Wanli, except the Korean War, the other two wars were entirely due to the failure of the Ming government and local officials to handle the relationship with ethnic minorities, which led to civil strife and eventually evolved into huge military operations. The Ming court had to spend a lot of money to cope with such turmoil, and the national treasury was gradually empty. The imperial court was unable to send materials to the people in the disaster area, which caused a large number of people in the northwest to starve to death and finally became enemies with the people.

The reason why Jurchen rose in Liaodong and eventually rebelled against Daming was also because of the arrogance and wanton killing of the Ming Dynasty, which made the Manchu and Mongolian people in Liaodong hate the Han people, and Gao Huai's perverse behavior in Liaodong.

At that time, a guard of Bozhou Battle, Li Hualong, a cabinet college student, was sent to Liaodong area to offer condolences, and people of all ethnic groups in Liaodong area complained in succession:

From this passage, we can see how the rulers of the Ming Dynasty and his people plundered the people's fat for the so-called mining tax and various tax burdens at that time.

So at the beginning of the establishment of the Eight Banners, there were the so-called Han Eight Banners, Manchu Eight Banners and Mongolian Eight Banners. It can be said that Nurhachi was almost the first person to practice the idea of United front and unite all forces that can be United. And integrate the power of these ethnic groups into the blood of their own nation. For example, Kangxi's grandmother is the princess of the most powerful Mongolian tribe in Hulunbeier grassland, and Kangxi's mother is the daughter of the Eight Banners children's family in the Han Dynasty.

On the other hand, Li, the company commander of Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty, fought against Mongolia and Manchu for many times, especially the acts of smashing nests and killing people, which intensified national hatred. For example, Nurhachi's grandfather, the foreign father, was almost killed by the Ming army. As for the others, there are countless.

It can be said that the unification of core ideas is a very critical thing.

As for the tactics in Liaodong area, there has been a constant debate within the Ming Dynasty. Some people suggested that we should gradually, slowly and steadily, recuperate, build forts, accumulate troops, reserve equipment, steadily recover lost ground, and consume the Manchu army bit by bit. After all, the absolute main force of Manchu is about 60 thousand people. As long as this policy is followed, the Manchu Dynasty will certainly be slowly eroded by the Ming Dynasty and restore Daming's rule in Liaodong. This method can be said to be the safest, most reliable and even the most realizable.

However, the court has different opinions on this most reliable approach, and the biggest objection is that it costs too much. The military expenditure in Liaodong area will cost 3.52 million yuan almost every year. Together with other eight parties, the total military expenditure is about 5.5 million. Such expenses are really unbearable for the country.

Therefore, the theory of quick victory became a hot topic at that time.

However, after a long discussion, we found that since the battle of Salhu, the imperial court has been unable to send enough troops to fight. At that time, there were only about 10,000 Ning Guan soldiers in Liaodong. In this way, 3,000 of these 10,000 people were transferred to the northwest to suppress the peasant uprising.

Therefore, there are only about 7,000 troops who can fight with the Eight Banners of Manchu Dynasty. Other troops can only rely on the artillery and ware of the Ming army and rely on the barrier of the city wall to repel the Manchu.

This can also explain why the three governors of Jilin and Liao always take the continuous construction of walls and fortresses as an important task of supervision during their term of office. Because they came to the front, they knew that the Ming army had decayed and could not fight the Manchu cavalry head-on. If you want to change this situation, you can't change it in a day or two.

Yuan Chonghuan, the last capable governor of Hebei and Liao, was actually slowly training new recruits to fight against the invasion of the Qing Dynasty, and the training effect was quite good. This can be fully seen from his victory in Jinning. Because of this war, Yuan Chonghuan actually pulled people out, relying on the cover of artillery, and dared to rush the Manchu cavalry against the bar. I believe that over time, an army like Qi Jiajun will be cultivated.

However, it may be the misfortune of Yuan Chonghuan and Daming. Chongzhen, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, was a man with serious mental illness. His headstrong, reckless command, anxiety and his habit of shirking responsibility finally ruined the last chance of the Ming Dynasty. Yuan Chonghuan was killed and all the land outside the customs was lost.