Zhu Yuanzhang can see my dreams

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. To others, it was just heroes killing people to seek amnesty, but he saw it as something more than that. Song Jiang still wanted 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.

He tried to be Wei Zhongxian's son in a roundabout way.

Zhu Yuanzhang clearly understood the rampant behavior of this emperor-seeker and was extremely unhappy with Tianqi for letting him do what he wanted.

Just because he can find money to build a palace for you and say nice things to you?
Of course, Zhu Yuanzhang didn’t think there were many good ministers in the court at that time.

Many people began to unite for their own interests, completely disregarding the interests of the Ming Dynasty.

"Biao'er, the Ming Dynasty has reached this point. Do you think this is because Emperor Wanli confiscated Zhang Juzheng's property?"

"Hard to say."

Zhu Biao shook his head slightly, it was hard for him to judge.

It would be terrible if Wang Buli assisted his son Xiongying like this, and then was settled by Xiongying after his death.

Zhu Biao then said seriously: "Even if Tianqi restores Zhang Juzheng's reputation, it will be difficult to adjust it back."

Therefore, under the crazy attack of the eunuch party headed by Wei Zhongxian, the Donglin Party, which used to hold important positions in the court:
Some were resigned, some were dismissed, some were demoted, and almost all of them were cleared out.

Most of the eunuchs were educated scholars. After defeating the Donglin Party under the name of Wei Zhongxian, they wanted to step on it again.

Everyone has a strong understanding of the fact that he will never be able to turn things around.

This is to prevent them from turning the tables in the future and trampling us under their feet.

Things like the Donglin Generals' Record produced by the eunuch party were later turned into a unified list approved by the Emperor Tianqi.

As a result, Yang Lian and others all died tragically, and were labeled as traitors by the emperor.

Confucianism divides all people in the world into two camps: gentlemen and villains. In fact, this division is not rigorous.

But things in the world are so wonderful.

Since the distinction between gentlemen and villains was established, scholars with power naturally divided into two groups: gentlemen and villains.

A gentleman has his own open and magnanimous way of living, and a villain has his own vicious and deadly tactics.

Compared with other periods in history, the literati of the Ming Dynasty were a special group that emphasized morality and advocated integrity.

But at the same time, there were more Ming Dynasty scholars and officials who had shed all moral burdens and had no sense of shame than in previous dynasties.

These people hold high the banner of morality, but live a crooked life. They are truly "good examples" of judging by actions rather than heart.

As the power of the eunuch party continued to grow, a shrine was built to venerate Wei Zhongxian.

"I didn't know that a living person could be enshrined, let alone a eunuch."

Zhu Yuanzhang was completely led astray by this group of people in the court. Faced with internal and external troubles, no matter how hard he fought, there was no way out.

"Dad, I think the smart people in the eunuch party should retreat while the tide is still."

Zhu Biao felt that many people who joined the Eunuch Party were forced by the Donglin Party to seek shelter.

Zhu Yuanzhang listened to his son's analysis and watched as high-ranking officials of the eunuch party gradually left Wei Zhongxian starting from the seventh year of the Tianqi reign.

Although they left one after another for different reasons, they had one thing in common, that is, they were forced by the situation.

As Wei Zhongxian's power expanded rapidly, the officials who followed him were under tremendous practical and mental pressure.

The eunuch party's attacks were becoming more and more extensive, and the number of people they offended was increasing.

Those officials who followed Wei Zhongxian to seek refuge found it increasingly difficult to bear the pressure, as many of them were well aware of the rules of survival in officialdom.

The empire's bureaucracy is like a giant spring; the lower it is pressed, the greater the rebound force will be.

Even though they were members of the eunuch party, they did not want to become sacrifices on Wei Zhongxian's power altar in the future.

When the backlash becomes too strong to bear, they have no choice but to leave.

However, the villain Wei Zhongxian suddenly became successful and was surrounded by a group of people who flattered him, so it was difficult for him to notice this.

Up to the time when the Ming Dynasty was developing, it was generally impossible for the civil and military officials under the emperor to gain more power than the emperor.

The group that Wei Zhongxian worked so hard to build up, his main source of power was still the emperor.

Unfortunately, things did not go as planned. Emperor Tianqi went on a boat trip in the Western Garden and ended up falling into the water.

The two young eunuchs drowned, but he was fortunately rescued, but his body was injured.

"I remember that Zhengde fell into the water and got sick, and died at a young age."

Zhu Yuanzhang remembered that Jiajing became emperor when he was just a teenager.

"It's just as Wang Buli said. The imperial physician cannot be trusted."

Zhu Biao didn't say anything. He remembered that his father had taught him to be careful with cooks, doctors and the like and not to get angry easily.

So as to avoid being harmed by people like them who are easy to take advantage of.

"There is no need to say much about Zhengde, but the factions in the Tianqi court are fighting each other, and it is inevitable that some people want to take advantage of the opportunity to make the emperor die early. Then Wei Zhongxian will have no power at all."

Zhu Yuanzhang found it difficult to trust others, so the first thing he thought of was that someone was trying to assassinate the emperor.

What is there that these officials dare not do?
Especially for the imperial physician, it would be too easy for him to do something, since no one knows medical skills.

As Tianqi's health was deteriorating, the Minister of War presented him with a "magic dew" that tasted sweet and delicious.

Emperor Tianqi drank it every day, but the more he drank, the weaker he became, and eventually he couldn't even get out of bed.

Snapped.

Zhu Yuanzhang slapped the armrest fiercely and said, "I knew that whoever offered the immortal dew or something like that had no good intentions. How many emperors died from taking the immortal elixir since ancient times?

Jiajing took elixirs to cultivate himself, which showed that he had some skills. Taichang took elixirs to have happiness in bed.

Don’t you know how his father died?
Now Tianqi actually believes that there is a magic dew in the world that can cure his illness. He must have been murdered by this group of imperial doctors."

Zhu Biao was very puzzled as to why his father came to such a conclusion. Why wasn't it Tianqi who left behind the disease after falling into the water?
According to Ming Dynasty medical technology, many minor illnesses could be fatal.

"Dad, you have no basis for your judgment. This elixir was also offered by the eunuch party."

(End of this chapter)