klisemfg Chapter 322: Shameless Scholars
Chapter 322: Shameless Scholars
Chapter 322: Shameless Scholars
Everything makes sense.
If he doesn't succeed, Chongzhen will choose to hang himself on Coal Hill.
As an emperor, he didn't even have an army loyal to him.
At least we can protect him and let him run back to Nanjing to survive.
With an army in hand, Zhu Yuanzhang didn't believe that he couldn't collect taxes in the Jiangnan region even with a knife in hand.
As long as there is a group of people loyal to the emperor, they don't need too many, just ten thousand people.
With money, food and people, there is no place in the world that we cannot go.
Zhu Yuanzhang felt that at least he wouldn't lose so badly.
According to the situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty could accumulate strength in the south, win over the people's hearts, and train for war.
Watch the war between Li Zicheng and the Jurchen Tatars, and then make a judgment based on the actual situation on how to win over one side or how to fight the other.
We must not fight on two fronts at the same time, as this would be disadvantageous to the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang shook his head again, considering that Chongzhen was so obsessed with official documents that he was deceived by the ministers below.
Even if an army loyal to the emperor was handed over to him, perhaps he would only die a little later.
He also had to die with 10,000 soldiers who were loyal to him.
In the late Wanli period, the political influence of the Donglin Party began to emerge.
They made their voices heard on many major state affairs.
Due to the political situation at that time, only the Donglin Party formed their own basic political ideas.
Other factions are motivated by the desire to seize power and influence, and engage in pragmatic tactics and opportunistic politics.
In comparison, the Donglin Party members seemed to be very principled, persistent, disobedient, and idealistic, always playing the role of critics and opponents of reality.
This made Wanli very angry, and he suppressed it severely. On the contrary, the Donglin Party gained a good reputation among ordinary scholars and the public and was regarded as "upright people."
This reputation is a huge political capital.
As Wanli died and Taichang ascended the throne, the Donglin Party became the mainstream faction.
A new emperor appoints his own ministers. At the beginning, the Donglin Party, based on the standpoint of maintaining the "foundation of the country", firmly supported the crown prince and prevented Wanli from favoring Concubine Zheng and Prince Fu.
Now that the prince has finally come to the fore, he must of course express his trust in the Donglin Party.
He began to use members of the Donglin Party. Although he died of illness after only one month in office, members of the Donglin Party accounted for a considerable proportion of the ministers he designated for regents.
In the "Palace Move Case", it was thanks to these people that Zhu Youxiao was able to break away from Li Xianshi's control and achieve a smooth transition of power.
The Donglin Party tried their best to protect the prince and his son, resist Concubine Zheng, and attack other political forces.
As a result, at the beginning of the Tianqi period, the Donglin Party members were present in the court and controlled the government.
Because of this relationship, the newly crowned Emperor Tianqi not only had no conflicts with the Donglin Party, but also relied heavily on them.
That is, the so-called situation of many righteous people filling the court emerged.
But the "honeymoon" was short-lived, and Emperor Tianqi would sooner or later fall out with the Donglin Party.
It is because the Donglin Party members regarded themselves as "upright people" and tried to use "publicity" to uphold some of the ideas they had recognized in ideological and theoretical terms in political practice.
In contrast, Emperor Tianqi became emperor at a young age, so he naturally used the word "private" as the first priority to understand, use and control power.
There will definitely be conflicts between the two, and contradictions will definitely break out.
For example, Tianqi found that he had no money and wanted to find a way to make money.
But after all, the Ming court was full of upright people both inside and outside.
Everyone talks about morality, so why talk about something as vulgar as money?
So the Donglin Party took advantage of the opportunity to support the two emperors Taichang and Tianqi to ascend the throne, and after gaining power, they began to control important local powers.
However, due to the three major expeditions of the Wanli period and the defeat in the Battle of Sarhu, the cost of strengthening the defensive force was incurred.
Repair the Grand Canal, reinforce certain parts of the Great Wall, and rebuild several palaces that had been destroyed by fire.
In short, all the silver that Zhang Juzheng had hoarded was spent, but Wanli was still not satisfied and often embezzled the national treasury, so that after Tianqi came to power, there was not much money left and he had no money to build the three main halls.
The Donglin Party represented the interests of merchants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang and the landlords. At this time, they did not try to raise money for the court. Instead, they used their power to cancel or reduce overseas trade taxes, mining taxes, salt taxes, tea taxes and other taxes.
This made the Ming Dynasty's tax collection source more single, and it mainly relied on ordinary farmers.
The richer people are, the less tax they have to pay.
The poorer you are, the more heavily you will be taxed!
In addition, during the Little Ice Age, natural disasters continued, a large number of farmers went bankrupt, and a large number of refugees were formed.
There were large-scale riots in Zhejiang, Fujian, Nanjing and Shandong.
It was not until the famine-stricken people rioted in Cheng County, Shaanxi that the prelude to the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty was marked.
Zhu Biao frowned. It turned out that all these parties claimed to work for the court, but in fact they were just trying to extort money and gain benefits for themselves.
This has been the case since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty and has not changed until the end of the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty fell, they could still become ministers of other dynasties.
"Dad, why was there so much disaster in the late Ming Dynasty?"
Zhu Biao saw that many places were burned and there were major earthquakes.
The Yellow River in the northern part of Southern Zhili broke through its dikes, flooding Xuzhou and a large area of surrounding land.
"There's nothing to be surprised about. The Yuan Dynasty also saw the same natural and man-made disasters."
Zhu Yuanzhang did not have too many feelings.
Because he had experienced it himself, and it was much worse than what he saw with his own eyes.
Perhaps every dynasty will experience various natural disasters at the end of its life.
This shows everyone that the dynasty has come to an end, giving everyone courage.
Not only that, there were isolated peasant uprisings, urban unrest, attacks by bandits and pirates, and military mutinies. It was difficult to maintain order.
"The White Lotus has reappeared."
Zhu Yuanzhang was very confused about this sect. No matter how much you guard against it, it will always appear.
Refugees from Liaodong poured into northern Zhili and Shandong to escape the Manchu advance, and the ensuing unrest gave the remaining White Lotus leaders the opportunity they had long awaited.
At this time, the economic recession had reduced commercial activities on the Grand Canal, causing difficulties for those who relied on the canal for their livelihood. Perhaps this was a good thing.
This Bailian unrest is the most serious internal threat to the stability of the Ming Dynasty since the Ning Wang Rebellion.
But before Tianqi had time to deal with the problem of the government having no money to mobilize the army to quell the rebellion, the ministers in the court hoped that the emperor would take out the treasury to provide subsidies and order the country to be exempted from taxation for two years.
In this way, allocating troops to quell the rebellion can also undermine the morale of the White Lotus Army.
So in the first year of the Tianqi reign, because the war in Liaodong was urgent, the young Tianqi Emperor, under the advice of his teachers, distributed 5.3 million taels of silver four times.
So the money was paid by the emperor, and the fame was gained by the Donglin Party.
This is no different from the previous practice of ministers using the emperor's court weapons to enhance their own reputation.
But with so much silver scattered in Liaodong, and actually reaching the hands of tens of thousands of soldiers, I wonder if the total amount was 500,000 taels of silver.
A lot of money was spent, but before the work was done, party disputes arose.
Keshi colluded with Wei Zhongxian and, relying on the emperor's favor, directly killed the eunuch Wang An, thus establishing Wei Zhongxian's position in the palace that no one dared to challenge.
Wang An showed his good relations with Donglin, and the Donglin Party members had not yet resolved their old grudges with Wei Zhongxian.
So the leaders of the Donglin Party joined forces and conspired to kill Wei Zhongxian. However, their discussion did not lead to the goal of unification, and those who hesitated were instead taken advantage of by Wei Zhongxian.
As time went on, Emperor Tianqi became increasingly displeased with the actions of the Donglin Party, and believed that the literati were most obedient during the reign of Emperor Shizong Jiajing.
Both Tianqi and Wei Zhongxian hoped to see such a situation, but the Donglin Party obviously did not want to go down the old path, and the confrontation between the two sides became increasingly obvious.
"I really look down upon these scholars."
Zhu Yuanzhang pointed at the screen and taught his son: "This group of Donglin Party still wants to hide their heads and lower their eyebrows for the time being, maybe they can escape the disaster, but I can be sure that there is no such possibility."
"The struggle for power is like a contest between two people who have their hands on each other's throats. There is no way out. Whoever lets go first will lose his life immediately."
Zhu Biao also agreed with his father's words. He actually put his fate on the "kindness" of the enemy. If they didn't die, who would die?
Capitulationism is unacceptable.
Zhu Biao actually liked reading the book Water Margin very much. To others, it seemed like heroes were killing people to seek amnesty, but to him, it meant more than that.
Song Jiang still wants to become a high official by surrendering. How naive!
However, Zhu Biao could also understand that how could a minor clerk in a county government office understand the intrigues among the core powers within the court?
You were already rushing along the track of rebellion, but you had to take the official road that others were already familiar with. Wouldn't that mean you, Song Jiang, would be crushed to death?
Standing on the moral high ground, the Donglin Party found it difficult to unite the majority. When they promoted "upright people", they never forgot to strike down those they considered villains.
They took advantage of the opportunity of the imperial examination to eliminate dissidents, causing fierce conflicts in the Ming Dynasty's political arena.
When morality is paramount, it is inevitable that there will be no fish in clear water.
Their deep-seated party views made them successful, but also blocked their path to self-reform.
Some officials who originally had no major conflicts with the Donglin Party also defected to the Eunuch Party in order to compete with the Donglin.
In the seven years after the death of Emperor Wanshi, everyone had a strong sense of history and remembered how the Donglin Party members settled accounts with them after they came to power.
"Evil party members" were purged in this struggle, and the Donglin Party occupied almost all power fortresses in the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, the early period of Tianqi was also the period when the "Donglin Party" was at its peak.
With Yang Lian's attack, the anti-Wei movement officially began.
One of Wei Zhongxian's eunuchs was extremely frightened and thought he was doomed, so he went to his lover Keshi to express his sorrow, and the two of them cried together beside Emperor Tianqi.
Tianqi no longer had much good feelings towards the Donglin Party, and his trust in them had been completely lost. Between the two, he firmly chose Wei Zhongxian.
Then this massive anti-Wei movement just disappeared into thin air.
In a very short period of time, some of the Ming Dynasty's civil officials gathered around Wei Zhongxian by "recognizing blood kinship", and a snowball effect was formed, with more and more people gathering.
In a small peasant society, the basis of trust between people mainly comes from blood relations, and only one's own family members and relatives are the most reliable.
This is what Zhu Yuanzhang thought.
Wei Zhongxian thought the same way.
The main players in Wei Zhongxian's power group were basically his adopted sons and grandsons, and he could use them with confidence.
The cabinet of the Ming Dynasty, the ministers of the six ministries, and even the provincial governors were all proud to be Wei Zhongxian's adopted sons. This group of people was not small in number.
Seeing this scene, Zhu Biao laughed out loud.
A bunch of civil officials are so shameless that they are vying to become the eunuch's sons and grandsons.
Even though the chief minister of the cabinet had a white beard, he still said that he was afraid that Wei Zhongxian would not like him with a white beard, so he let his son become Wei Zhongxian's grandson.