History can't bear to look at the complete collection

Chapter 42 Death of the Emperor 7
The emperor who lost his life by hiding money

In 1627, Ming Sizong Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian was 17 years old and was ordered to inherit the throne.In the early years of his accession to the throne, in order to reduce the expenditure of the treasury, Emperor Chongzhen ordered the substantial abolition of border post stations and the exemption of official taxes.He led the people of the whole country to carry out a vigorous campaign of diligence and thrift.

As an advocate and leader, Emperor Chongzhen played a great leading role. When the clothes were torn, he was reluctant to replace them with new ones, so he asked the court ladies to mend them and wear them again.So one day when he was listening to an official lecture, he felt that the sleeves of his underwear were torn and disrespectful, so he had to tuck the sleeves back from time to time to cover up.The emperor usually ate delicacies from mountains and seas, and drank fine nectar and jade liquid, but the Chongzhen Emperor had a very simple meal.But it is such an emperor who keeps everything simple, the bibliography of the small treasury in his private collection is very amazing.

In the first month of the Jiashen year (January 1644), after Li Zicheng raised his army, he established a political power in Xi'an. Afterwards, countless people flocked to join him, and within a short time, millions of people were mobilized.Li Zicheng took this million troops to capture Pingyang and Taiyuan and then marched towards Beijing.Facing the massive uprising army, Emperor Chongzhen panicked. He hurriedly summoned Wu Sangui's father, Wu Xiang, and other key officials from the Ministry of Household and Military Department to discuss how to transfer Wu Sangui from outside the pass into the pass.

Facing Chongzhen's panic at that time, Wu Xiang first calculated a military account for him: If Wu Sangui was to be transferred to Beijing to protect the safety of the capital, 100 million taels of silver would be needed as military expenses.But the treasury is empty, and the silver shown on the books is only a mere 40 taels, which is far below the demand.Therefore, he begged Chongzhen to donate generously and use part of his small treasury as military expenses to relieve the urgent need.

But what all the ministers didn't expect was that Emperor Chongzhen actually rejected this request. He would rather hide his private money than use it to protect the country and family.At that time, all the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty begged, hoping that Emperor Chongzhen would take out his own imperial money to pay for the army.But Chongzhen cried to the ministers that he was so poor: "The internal funds have been exhausted."

For the frugal Emperor Chongzhen, asking him to use his hard-earned silver as military pay is tantamount to gouging out his flesh and drinking his blood.Military pay was imminent, but the treasury had no money, and Chongzhen was unwilling to pay for it himself. With the huge funding gap of 60 taels of silver, Chongzhen used his brains, and he wanted the ministers to pay the money.

Chongzhen, who is as stingy as an iron rooster, intends to call on ministers to raise donations for this campaign. Although Chongzhen is stingy, he is not stupid. He decided to lead by example.So he sent the eunuch Xu Gao to inform Zhou Kui, the father of Empress Zhou and the head of state Jiadingbo, to donate 10 taels of silver, which means that the royal family has paid for it.

Unexpectedly, the father-in-law saw the danger of his son-in-law, but he refused to lend a helping hand, claiming that he had no money, and the two sides were in a stalemate. In the end, the eunuch Xu Gao stood up and said something fair: "The old royal family is so mean, The imperial court is caught off guard, and major events must not be done. Even if there is a lot of storage and a lot of production, what good will it be later?"

Every eunuch knows that the imperial court is in danger. As the emperor's father-in-law, he should bravely take responsibility. This is not only for the emperor's relief, but also for the great affairs of the world. Once the rebel army invades, no matter how much money there is, it will not help , will not fall into the pockets of the rebel army.

Having said all of this, Zhou Kui had no choice but to agree to take out 1 taels of silver. Everything is difficult at the beginning, but since someone starts it, the next step will be easy.Seeing that the emperor's father-in-law had donated money, the others were too embarrassed not to pay for it, so each family took out hundreds and thousands of taels for military pay.

However, although the military salary was patchworked together, Wu Sangui did not come to rescue Chongzhen for a long time. Instead, he acted as the internal response of the Qing court, which overthrew the Ming Dynasty overnight.Of course, this is all something to say later, let’s just say that after Emperor Chongzhen lost his country and fled to the people, Li Zicheng captured Beijing, and he found a lot of silver from Emperor Chongzhen’s palace.

The specific amount of these silvers was mentioned in the book "Jiashen Chronicle" written by Zhao Shijin, the official title manager of Jieshen Treasury, a member of the Ministry of Industry: "The gold and silver ingots carried by the thieves to Shaanxi have the name of the year, and it is said that it is from the eighth year of Wanli. Afterwards, the silver in the internal treasury has not been moved yet. There are still more than 150 million taels of silver and [-] million taels of gold."

In order to save 150 million silver and lose the country that cannot be estimated in silver, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't even calculate a simple account.Even one year before the fall of the Ming Dynasty, he said with emotion to all civil and military officials: "I am not the king of the subjugated country, but you are all the ministers of the subjugated country. I treat scholars well. So far today, why is there no one in the group of officials?"

Chongzhen, who was smart and studious since he was a child, couldn't figure out why he was not ruthless towards others, but he couldn't win people's hearts. Perhaps we can get a glimpse of it from the fact that he hid private money.

(End of this chapter)