The Last Days of Emperor Chongzhen of Daming

In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, there was a flood in the south of the Yangtze River, a drought locust in the fourteenth year and a drought epidemic in the fifteenth year. The local society is in a very fragile state. Bandits and refugees are in cahoots, and local civil strife continues. In order to suppress bandits, Ming Sizong first caressed Yang He as a general, and then Hong Chengchou, Cao Wenzhao, Chen Qiyu, Hong Chengchou, Lu Xiangsheng, Yang Sichang, Xiong Wencan and Yang Sichang. In the past thirteen years, he has frequently changed the generals of the encirclement and suppression army. Except Xiong Wencan, they all showed outstanding talents. But none of this has been realized. After several disasters, Li Zicheng went to Henan to gather people for development.

At this time, Huang taiji in the north constantly harassed and invaded, and the Ming court was attacked between Scylla and Charybdis. The annual "three-rate" military expenditure is as high as more than 22 million yuan, and the national finance has long been unable to make ends meet. Lack of interest is a common occurrence, which often leads to internal riots and Ming army mutiny. In addition, Ming Sizong was eager to seek treatment, suspicious and headstrong, so he repeatedly made big mistakes in state affairs: eradicating autocratic eunuchs in the early stage and reusing eunuchs in the later stage. "The Remnants of Spring Dreams" records: "In November of the second year of Chongzhen, Shen Liangju, the eunuch of the Imperial Palace, was the magistrate of Jiumen and Huangchengmen, and Li Fengxiang, the eunuch of the Imperial Palace, was the loyal camp"; Kim plotted to kill Yuan Chonghuan.

With the increasingly severe situation, Ming Sizong's indiscriminate killing intensified. Seven vassals were killed, 1 1 vassals were killed. Mingzong also knew that he could not fight both sides and privately agreed to make peace. However, in view of the lessons of the Southern Song Dynasty, Ming literati were ashamed to negotiate with Manchu. Therefore, Ming Sizong was always in a dilemma on the issue of peace. He secretly agreed with Yang Sichang's proposal and proposition, but Lu Xiangsheng immediately said to the emperor, "Your Majesty ordered me to supervise the army, and I only know how to fight!" Ming Sizong can only argue that without peace, Lu Xiangsheng eventually died in battle. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it wandered between the dilemma of peace and war and embarked on the road of extinction.

In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Songshan and Jinzhou fell, and Hong Chengchou fell. Chongzhen wanted to make peace with Manchu, but Chen Xinjia, a minister of the Ministry of War, secretly discussed the plan. Later, Chen Xinjia was executed by Chongzhen for leaking the news of the peace talks, and the opportunity to make peace with the Qing soldiers was also shattered. In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the Ming Dynasty faced a catastrophe. When Ming Sizong summoned the cabinet ministers, he lamented: "I am not an extinct king, you are all extinct ministers. I'm not too thin to learn. Why don't the minister follow it? " Under the opposition and reluctance of Chen Yan and Guang Guangheng, they failed to make up their minds to move their capital to Nanjing. Afterwards, Chongzhen accused Guang Guangheng: "If I was prevented from moving south, I should be beheaded, but I spared this." Later, Chongzhen reconsidered the plan to move south to Zuodu with Li Mingrui and Li Yubanghua, and let college student Chen Yan take on the heavy responsibility. Chen Yan refused and was soon fired. After the failure of the second southward migration plan, Chongzhen asked Xu Gong and Gu Yong to keep the capital and go out of Beijing on the grounds of "southward drive, recruiting troops and asking for help". Ministers were afraid that the emperor would not be in Beijing and become a scapegoat for the peasant army to vent their anger, so they still refused to let Chongzhen leave Beijing.

At this time, the peasant army uprising has been going on for more than ten years, from Beijing in the south to Nanjing in the north, spanning thousands of miles, with bones everywhere, inaccessible and few pedestrians. Emperor Chongzhen called Xu Biao, the prefect of Baoding, to Beijing. Xu Biao said, "I come from Jianghuai thousands of miles away. Even where there is a city, there are only walls around it. At first glance, there are weeds everywhere, and you can't hear the crowing of chickens and dogs. You can't see a person plowing the land.

In the first month of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng was in charge of Xiangyang, Jingzhou, De 'an and Chengtian. Zhang was trapped and Zuo Liangyu fled to Chizhou, Anhui. On March 1, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Datong fell and Beijing was in crisis. On the fourth day, Chongzhen appointed Wu Sangui as Pingxibo, Feiba Sangui as Wei, and Wu Xiang as the prefect of Beijing camp. On the 6th, Li Zicheng was trapped in Fuxuan, and the eunuch Du Xun surrendered. In June of 5438+05, Li Jiantai, a university student, surrendered, and Li Zicheng began to surround Beijing. Eunuch Cao Huachun said: "If Zhong Xian were here, current affairs would not have developed to this point." March 16, Changping fell, March 17, Beijing was besieged. /kloc-in March of 0/8, the peasant army captured the gates of Xizhi, Pingze and Desheng by flying ladders, and the defenders fled or surrendered. In the afternoon, open the door, Li Zicheng army into Beijing. Wang Lian, the eunuch, told the emperor that four cases were drinking in the palace and sighed, "My people are suffering!" Eunuch Zhang Yin persuaded the emperor to surrender and was stabbed to death with a sword. Mingzong ordered the Prince, Wang Yong and Wang Ding to meet their families in Xunqi, Zhou Kui and Tian Hong. Another week later, Yuan Fei, Princess Changping and Princess Akihito were forced to commit suicide.

Then four cases rode out of Donghuamen, holding three guns and dozens of eunuchs. He was shot by random arrows and then ran to Qihuamen. When Cheng Guogong saw that Zhu closed the door, he turned and headed for Andingmen. The defenders are scattered here, the gates are locked, and eunuchs can't cut axes. March 19th, dawn, fire, back to the palace. Outside the city, the fire is already burning. At this time, it was almost dawn. Chongzhen rang the doorbell in the front hall and called the officials, but no one came. Ming Sizong said, "All the ministers blamed me, and your monarch died in the country. Once abandoned, it is the fault of the traitor, nothing more. " Finally, he hanged himself in a crooked-neck tree in Jingshan. When he died, his left foot was bare and his right foot was wearing a red shoe. At the age of 33. Accompanied by only the prefect eunuch Wang Chengen. Before he died, he hanged himself in a blue robe and wrote a big book: "Although I have been in the throne for seventeen years, different people have different opinions, but the rebels pushed the capital." However, all ministers made mistakes. When I died, I was ashamed to see my ancestors underground. I want to cover my face with a crown. Let the thief dismember the body without hurting a person. "On March 2 1 day, after the bodies were found, Dashun Army moved the coffins of Ming Sizong and Zhou Empress out of the palace and displayed them at the east gate." Thirty ministers cry and worship, sixty people worship without crying, and the rest look forward to it. "Zigong is temporarily located by the river in the north of the Forbidden City.

After his death, officials who committed suicide included Shang Shu Ni, Fan, Li Banghua, Shi Bangyao, Lingyiqu, Taichang Temple, Wu, Liu, right assistant minister Meng and so on. Xu Gong's family committed suicide, and hundreds of eunuchs committed suicide, killing more than a thousand people. More than 300 maids committed suicide. More than 700 families including gentry and students committed suicide. On April 4th, Zhao Yigui, an official of Changping Prefecture, and others buried Chongzhen and Empress in Tian Guifei's tomb in Changping County. In the Qing Dynasty, "Emperor changed to mourning, which made his subjects mourn for three days, and Emperor Zhuang Liedi proclaimed himself emperor, and Yue Ling Siling".