Saving the Ming Dynasty: I can exchange bodies with Chongzhen

Chapter 2 You'd better be stupid!

"Hello, is it Emperor Chongzhen?" The voice in his ear made Chongzhen's throat roll, "I am, who are you?"

He signaled to the guards around him to be quiet and not to make any noise.

Such means are comparable to those of immortals.

"I am your uncle. As I just left a message to Your Majesty, I came from 400 years later and now I am possessed by Zhu Changgan, the son of Prince Xiang..."

Zhu Changgan briefed Chongzhen on the general situation, including but not limited to Li Zicheng's entry into Beijing seven years later and the Qing army's entry into the Central Plains.

Chongzhen Zhu Youjian was shocked when he heard this, but he suppressed his fear and asked angrily: "You said that the Ming Dynasty will perish in seven years? How can I believe you?"

"You'll know just by looking at this."

Zhu Changgan directly pushed the video of the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

Some things are easier to accept when you see them than when you hear them.

……

Qianqing Palace,
Chongzhen was in a daze when a mechanical voice came again.

"Zhu Changgan sent you a video, please receive it."

With the experience from last time, Chongzhen chose to accept it.

immediately,

A picture appeared before his eyes.
His eyes suddenly widened, "Is this Beijing? How did it become like this?"

in the picture,

It was already past the time for the morning court session, and Chongzhen himself rang the bell in the front hall to summon all the officials. However, none of the ministers who had been so passionate and eloquent in the past came now, as they had all become traitors.

The palace was in chaos. Even the eunuchs and palace maids had already run away and disappeared. Only the eunuch Wang Chengen was still following him.

Chongzhen originally wanted to escape from the city, and wanted to find a relative's house to hide temporarily, but he was turned away everywhere he went. He had to return to the palace, force himself to cheer up, and hold his last family dinner.

A serving of rice dumplings.

After dinner, Chongzhen arranged for his three sons to flee the palace and forced the empress and concubine to hang themselves. He then went to Princess Changping's residence in Ningshou Palace and sighed, "Why were you born in my family?"

He swung his sword with great pain to kill his own daughter. Princess Changping blocked it with her arm. He chopped off Princess Changping's left arm, but he couldn't bear to cut any more.

I staggered up to the Imperial City and looked out at the smoke and dust rising from the city of Beijing, corpses scattered all over the ground, and rivers of blood.

Completely hopeless, accompanied by Wang Chengen, he came to the Shouhuang Pavilion on Wansui Hill (Meishan) in the north of the Forbidden City, bit his finger, and wrote, "I have been on the throne for seventeen years. Although I am of poor virtue and have offended the heaven, it was all my ministers who misled me, allowing the traitors to approach the capital. I will have no face to see my ancestors in the underworld after death, so I will take off my crown and cover my face with my hair. Let the thieves dismember my body, and kill the civil and military officials, but do not rob the imperial tomb and do not hurt any people."

Both she and Wang Chengen hanged themselves...

"This is... this is impossible?" Chongzhen's eyes were bloodshot and his heart was broken. He waved his hands vigorously to try to erase the picture, but the picture followed him wherever he turned his head. Even if he closed his eyes, he could not stop the picture from playing.

"You are a demon... you have ulterior motives. You must be a demon invited by the Later Jin and the bandits to cause cholera in our Ming Dynasty."

The eunuch Wang Chengen, who was standing by, saw Chongzhen start to dance and cry for no reason, and lost his mind, so he hurried forward to support him, "Your Majesty, what's wrong with you?"

He turned to a eunuch and shouted, "What are you still standing there for? Go get the imperial physician."

At this time, Zhu Changgan's voice rang in Chongzhen's ears, "I know you can't accept it, but this is the scene of the fall of the Ming Dynasty in a few years."

"If the Ming Dynasty falls, my fate will not be much better than yours. I will die earlier than you, and our Ming Dynasty clan members will die more miserably than you. They will be almost wiped out."

At this moment, Chongzhen's hair was disheveled, his cheeks were bloodless, and the flames of resentment burned in his eyes. He could not accept all this, and angrily smashed the inkstone away. The veins on his arms were clearly visible, "Why is God so cruel?"

"I work diligently for the public, working eight hours a day until late at night, sleeping less than three hours a day, and never calling in sick even when I was feeling unwell."

"Speaking of frugality, I am more frugal than any other emperor. When my clothes are torn, I patch them up so that the queen can wear them. One piece of clothing has several patches. I dare not walk fast, for fear that the torn clothes inside will fly out. What have I done wrong?"

"What have I done wrong? My ministers have misled me..."

"What's wrong?" Zhu Changgan was a little angry when he heard Chongzhen repeating this sentence like chanting a mantra. "Your sin is great. You are the culprit for the fall of the Ming Dynasty."

"You say you are diligent in your work, but how are you diligent in your work?"

"He is headstrong and self-righteous."

"You have no knowledge of military affairs, nor of commanding generals, yet you are blindly commanding in the palace. Count carefully, have you ever won a single battle under your command?"

“Good opportunities were wasted, resulting in repeated defeats in the war.

After the defeat, he killed good generals. After the defeat, he killed good generals again. He successively killed Wang Qia, the Minister of War, Yuan Chonghuan, the commander of Ji and Liao, Sun Yuanhua, seven governors-general, and 7 provincial governors, destroying his own Great Wall. "

"You don't have any sense of responsibility as an emperor. All the credit is yours, and all the mistakes are others'."

"How effective was Li Banghua in managing the Beijing Camp? But he was criticized by a bunch of nobles just because of a traitor in the Beijing Camp who framed him and accidentally injured Man Gui's army during the Ji Si Incident. Where were you when you were needed to protect the officials? Not only did you not protect them, but you dismissed Li Banghua. What was the result?"

"No officers or soldiers are willing to do real work anymore, so they just do face-saving projects, which makes the Beijing camp like a pile of rags, with no soldiers or generals available."

"If foreign affairs are not resolved, the general will be killed; if internal affairs are not resolved, the minister will be killed."

"In the end, after killing all the capable ministers and betraying all the good generals, how could the Ming Dynasty not perish?"

"Your so-called diligence can only sink the Ming Dynasty faster. You are worse off than Emperor Tianqi. Leave all matters to the cabinet, even to the eunuch party. Maybe you can hold out for a few more years."

"Eunuch party? He is just an illiterate eunuch. Do you think he has the ability to save the collapsing empire?" Chongzhen asked in an angry roar.

Zhu Changgan snorted, "Don't look down on Wei Zhongxian." "He may not have the power to save the world. If he were in power, things might not have collapsed to such an extent. What is the fundamental reason for the decline of the Ming Empire?"

“……” Chongzhen’s eyes flickered and he remained silent.

Zhu Changgan continued: "To put it simply, the Ming Dynasty has no money."

"Is it true that the Ming Dynasty had no money? No, the Jiangnan region had money, a lot of money."

"But the taxes in Jiangnan are getting lower every year. Your Majesty just can't collect them. The people's household registration has disappeared in the government's register. All the wealth has gone to the civil servants and landlords. The people can't make a living."

"The civil servants of the Ming Dynasty always followed the same principle: if His Majesty and I agree, then we will do as His Majesty wishes. If His Majesty and I disagree, then there is a high probability that the Emperor's affairs will not be carried out. This is also the reason why the Jiangnan region is so rich, but tax revenue has decreased instead of increased."

"The government could not collect money, so it had to increase taxes on the people. It coincided with the Little Ice Age, and there was a large-scale grain failure. The people could not survive and had to become refugees, joining the forces of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong and becoming anti-people."

"When Wei Zhongxian was in power, the Liaodong army could at least raise money, because the eunuchs could spare the civil service group and do what they wanted. If anyone disobeyed, they could let the eunuch party kill these helpless old civil servants."

"This is the way Emperor Tianqi governs the country. To put it bluntly, it is to let Wei Zhongxian suppress the Donglin Party and collect the money that should be collected from the gentry in Jiangnan. Your Majesty, compared with Emperor Tianqi, how much money have you collected?"

Zhu Changgan was not trying to overturn Wei Zhongxian's verdict. "Wei Zhongxian was not a good person and deserved to die, but he should not have been killed so early. Even if he was killed, he should not have wantonly expanded the list of eunuchs to show his own wisdom, made a big case against heaven, and killed a large number of court elites. All capable officials were killed, leaving only the Donglin party in the court."

"The tripod is stable only when it is divided into three parts: the emperor, the eunuch party, and the Donglin party, balancing each other."

"When you first ascended the throne, the Ming Dynasty had not yet reached its end. As long as you take the right measures, you can at least continue the dynasty without any problems, even if you can't turn the tide."

"But you cut off one leg right after you came here, and you don't have the ability to repair it. How can the tripod not fall over? How can the court not collapse?"

"No wonder Grand Secretary Xie Zhen shouted in the court: "The emperor is too smart, so things are getting worse."

"This..." Chongzhen's expression changed again and again, his eyebrows raised in anger, his mouth opened, wanting to speak, but he opened and closed his mouth several times, and he didn't know how to refute.

The year before he ascended the throne

430 million shi of wheat, 2149 million shi of grain, 363 million taels of additional taxes, and 148 million taels of miscellaneous income were collected.

From then on, the amount of tax collected decreased year by year.

What Zhu Changgan said was all true.

"How impatient and suspicious are you?" Zhu Changgan said angrily, "Since the eradication of the eunuch party, how many prime ministers have you changed in just ten years? The cabinet of the imperial court is even more like a revolving door. During the Ming Dynasty, starting from Taizu, there were more than 160 cabinet members in total, and you accounted for nearly one-third of them."

"No matter who went up there, it would take some time to do something, and in the end, they were taken down by you before they could even finish their work."

"When Yuan Chonghuan proposed to Emperor Chongzhen that he would pacify Liao within five years, how long did you give him? One year and five months..."

"You want to do something serious?"

"Didn't you deliberately destroy the Ming Dynasty?"

"..." Chongzhen was speechless, and his fingers were clenched so hard that they made a crackling sound.

……

Zhu Changgan kept talking, "The strategic vision is also... timid and short-sighted."

"When Yang Sichang proposed the idea of ​​"pacifying the country before resisting foreign aggression", you hesitated; you did not dare to levy a "mining tax" like Emperor Wanli did, and instead adopted the "four sides and six corners" policy, and only dared to impose "three taxes" on the people, which continued to worsen the situation of the civil unrest."

"Also, when Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng were alone and weak in Yingxiang, you did not learn from the experience of the previous militias who surrendered and rebelled again, and you did not adopt the suggestion of letting the militias consume each other."

"On the contrary, you have weakened the Guanning Army. Guanning originally had 150,000 soldiers and more than 60,000 horses, but you have dismantled them here and there. Now there are less than 10,000 horses. Let alone fighting against the Qing cavalry, they can't even protect themselves."

"An incompetent monarch will only cause the empire to slowly decline, while an ambitious monarch will cause the empire to fall apart."

"You'd be worse off than an incompetent person."

"I...I..." Chongzhen covered his head with his hands, the blue veins on his forehead were visible, and his whole body was trembling.

From the very beginning, I was furious and wanted to kill someone.

I don't want to admit it but I can't refute it...

In the end, self-blame and regret overwhelmed him like a surging tide.

He sat down on the ground, his eyes dizzy and soul-destroying.

Every word Zhu Changgan uttered was like a boning knife, cutting straight into his heart. It was the kind of pain that was like being cut into pieces and then taken out again. He pounded his chest with both hands, tears streaming down his face.

"I have let down the Ming Dynasty and my ancestors. I am a sinner for all eternity!"

"But I have tried my best!"

"Try your best? Haha..." Zhu Changgan was so angry that his liver hurt.

But Chongzhen suddenly stood up, his facial muscles twisted. "How smart is it to claim that you have foresight after the fact? I once regretted killing Yuan Chonghuan, and I also couldn't sleep at night because of deposing Li Banghua. But now the Ming Dynasty is about to sink. What can you do?"

"If the Imperial Uncle can save the Ming Dynasty from collapse, I have nothing to fear from being torn to pieces."

"Why would I want you to be torn to pieces?" Zhu Changgan said in a deep voice, "However, I do have a plan. I can exchange bodies with your majesty during the day, and then switch back at night, and repeat this process over and over again."

"But there is one thing. I will take care of everything. Just watch and don't interfere."

……

(End of this chapter)