At this time, Emperor Chongzhen had been on the throne for more than half a year. He had passed the excitement period when he first ascended the throne. And because Emperor Chongzhen swept away Wei Zhongxian's party like autumn leaves, the current Emperor Chongzhen was completely in charge of the government. He
He also wanted to do great things with great confidence and become the king of Yao and Shun.
Emperor Chongzhen's feelings towards his elder brother, Emperor Tianqi, who passed the throne to him, were very complicated. On the one hand, the brotherly relationship between him and Emperor Tianqi was quite good. Otherwise, Emperor Apocalypse would not have grown up when King Xin came of age at that time.
In the future, instead of driving him to the local area to become a vassal, he would stay in the capital. Nor would he happily pass his throne to Emperor Chongzhen later.
But what is very strange is that all the emperors of the Ming Dynasty had very deep feelings for their families, and they did not reflect at all the meaning of the sentence "the most ruthless emperor's family". Some emperors even said "
"Tracheitis" (strict control over wives). What's even more exaggerated is that some emperors even treated the eunuchs who served them as their relatives. This was also a major reason for the rampant eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty.
On the other hand, Emperor Chongzhen hated Emperor Tianqi's actions from the bottom of his heart. Therefore, if Emperor Tianqi reused Wei Zhongxian, he would kill Wei Zhongxian; if Emperor Tianqi was a carpenter and ignored the government's affairs, Emperor Chongzhen would be diligent.
To manage government affairs; Emperor Tianqi sent eunuchs to collect commercial taxes and mining taxes, and Emperor Chongzhen would recall these eunuchs and cancel commercial taxes and mining taxes.
But Emperor Chongzhen didn't know that all the things he did were what he heard from the civil servants who taught him how to read since he was a child.
Are the teachings of these civil servants correct? From a theoretical point of view, they are correct. And most of the practices they taught Emperor Chongzhen are absolutely correct behaviors.
However, the content taught by these civil servants to Emperor Chongzhen contained some of their own private goods. Because behind these civil servants, they all had their own interest groups. Of course, these interest groups must reflect their own politics through these civil servants.
certain policies formulated by the state may be beneficial to these interest groups and not beneficial to the country as a whole. For example, the collection of commercial taxes and mining taxes.
Emperor Chongzhen, who had no political experience, did not know that although some things had to be said righteously in front of the people of the world, he could say one thing and do another.
At this time, Emperor Chongzhen had calmed down. He found that the previous emperors had indeed left many problems, and he also encountered many problems after he ascended the throne. But in the final analysis, the solutions to these problems all required money. At this time, the Ming Dynasty
The imperial court's financial problems were already serious.
The only way to solve the imperial court's financial problems is to increase revenue and reduce expenditure. The policies proposed by the civil servants not only do not increase revenue, but also turn down the water pipe faucets that have already increased revenue, or even shut them down.
Because of the education he had received since childhood, and because there were no eunuchs around him who were also familiar with government affairs and knew the tricks of these civil servants, Emperor Chongzhen foolishly approved these policies.
Why didn't these eunuchs remind him? Because after seeing Wei Zhongxian's fate, they didn't dare! This also reflects the consequences of Emperor Chongzhen's execution of Wei Zhongxian.
Since the road of increasing revenue is unavailable, the only option is to take the road of reducing expenditure.
At that time, the largest expenditure in the Ming Dynasty court was military expenditure, which accounted for more than half of the Ming Dynasty's fiscal expenditure. Among military expenditures, Liaodong's military expenditure accounted for more than half of the entire military expenditure.
Moreover, military expenditures in Liaodong increased almost every year. After the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming Dynasty army was at a defensive disadvantage in Liaodong. In order to resist the aggressive offensive of the Later Jin army, the Ming Dynasty court spent a large amount of money.
money and grain, and dispatched part of the army to strengthen the strength of the Liaodong army.
In addition, the Ming Dynasty also built a large number of fortresses in Liaodong. All of these required a lot of money and food. However, even so, the situation in Liaodong still did not improve. For the finances of the Ming Dynasty court,
The entire Liaodong region has become a bottomless pit.
At this time, Emperor Chongzhen wanted to gather all the financial resources of the country, sell iron, and collect a large amount of military expenditure. Then send a famous general to Liaodong (because the Ming Dynasty was led by civilian officials, this famous general must also be a civilian official). Try to win in the Ming Dynasty.
Within a certain period of time, the situation in Liaodong was completely reversed. Even the Hou Jin army was completely eliminated.
If that's the case, as long as we grit our teeth and survive the past few years, the entire financial problem of the Ming Dynasty will be completely revived.
It should be said that Emperor Chongzhen's idea was correct and completely logical. But he never thought that the implementation of his policy would greatly reduce the money and food for disaster relief after the drought. Therefore, now in northern Shaanxi,
The peasant rebellion team spread from a single spark to the entire Shaanxi Province.
Let’s not go into these digressions. Which civilian official should be sent to take charge of military affairs in Liaodong now? At that time, there were only two ministers who were favored by the public: Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan.
But because Sun Chengzong was already very old at that time, and because Sun Chengzong had been Emperor Tianqi's teacher, and in view of Emperor Chongzhen's complicated feelings for Emperor Tianqi, Emperor Chongzhen was unwilling to send Sun Chengzong from the bottom of his heart.
Then there is only Yuan Chonghuan.
Yuan Chonghuan was indeed relatively lucky at this time. Although he was also a member of Wei Zhongxian's party before. However, because he had been an official in Liaodong and was far away from the center of the capital, he basically did not offend any other civil servants.
What was even more fortunate for Yuan Chonghuan was that in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, when Wei Zhongxian launched an attack on civil servants led by the Donglin Party, he and Xue Lian were of the same faction and advocated not expanding the scope of the attack on civil servants.
Therefore, in the subsequent struggle for power within Wei Zhongxian's party, Yuan Chonghuan was attacked by another faction and had to resign and go home. In this way, Yuan Chonghuan also vaguely became a victim of Wei Zhongxian's attack on civil servants. In the eyes of those who do not know the situation,
Later, Yuan Chonghuan seemed to be on the same side as Wei Zhongxian. This was exactly how Emperor Chongzhen viewed Yuan Chonghuan.
Therefore, in April of the first year of Chongzhen, when a minister submitted a memorial to recommend Yuan Chonghuan to Emperor Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't wait to re-appoint Yuan Chonghuan. In July of the first year of Chongzhen, he held an important platform summons with Yuan Chonghuan.
For the detailed content of the platform’s summons, you can check historical materials or Baidu, so I won’t go into details here. The general content of this summons is:
Emperor Chongzhen learned about the situation in Liaodong in detail from Yuan Chonghuan and listened to Yuan Chonghuan's views on resolving the situation in Liaodong. When Yuan Chonghuan made many requests to Emperor Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen also satisfied Yuan Chonghuan. In the end, Yuan Chonghuan assured Emperor Chongzhen:
As long as the imperial court does meet Yuan Chonghuan's requirements, he will calm down the situation in Liaodong within five years.
After the summons, Emperor Chongzhen immediately gave Yuan Chonghuan the Shangfang Sword, and appointed Yuan Chonghuan as Minister of the Ministry of War and Right Deputy Capital Censor, Supervisor of Ji, Liao, and Military Affairs of Deng, Lai, and Tianjin.
After the summons, Emperor Chongzhen was very happy. He finally started to do the first major thing after taking the throne. Although the current situation in Liaodong is still the same, with Yuan Chonghuan's guarantee and his own support, it is a good start.
Isn’t that half the battle?
The platform summons ends like this. But we should look at the two scenes that happened in this summons.
The first one is: Emperor Chongzhen promised to meet all Yuan Chonghuan's demands, and Yuan Chonghuan also promised to calm the situation in Liaodong within five years.
Because this summons is recorded in historical materials, and the records are very complete. In addition, this summons was also attended by many ministers. Therefore, this summons must be very formal. Therefore, in this summons, everyone
The commitments made by people must also be very serious. The principles and policies set will also become national policies.
But in hindsight, Emperor Chongzhen realized all his promises in a down-to-earth manner. And how did Yuan Chonghuan, who made the promise, view his promise?
The second one is: when a minister who was familiar with the situation in Liaodong and knew that Liaodong could not be pacified within five years, privately asked Yuan Chonghuan his questions, Yuan Chonghuan answered him like this.
The general meaning of Yuan Chonghuan's words is: The emperor is still young now, and he doesn't know much about the situation in Liaodong. I saw that the emperor was anxious about the situation in Liaodong, so I said this to comfort him.
What's going on? Could it be that the promise made by Yuan Chonghuan was to make Emperor Chongzhen happy? He regarded this formal summons as a place to coax the kindergarten children!
What’s even more incredible is that although the conversation between the minister and Yuan Chonghuan is very completely recorded in historical materials, looking back in hindsight, Emperor Chongzhen obviously did not know the content of the conversation between them. This is
I can’t help but miss those Dongchang spies!
As for the other protagonist summoned by the platform, Yuan Chonghuan, we will analyze it in detail. Because what he did had an extremely huge impact on the development of the situation in the late Ming Dynasty.