Jiangnan has been connected with the Qing court through sea routes for a long time.
At the beginning of the establishment of the Hongguang court, there was a problem of congenital defects. Although Ma Shiying, the chief minister who controlled the government, had certain military talents and was considered to be relatively outstanding among the Jiangnan ministers in terms of integrity, he did not have enough troops to make decisions.
Therefore, we especially rely on the support of the three towns' honorable ministers Gao Qian, Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo.
If any national government wants to make a difference, it must first maintain internal stability. Internal stability depends to a large extent on the prestige of the court and the concerted efforts of civil and military officials. Looking at the history of the Ming Dynasty, although the power of civil servants and military generals has waxed and waned, the power of the court has
The prestige is supreme.
Generally speaking, in the early Ming Dynasty, military affairs were emphasized over literature, and most princes were founding fathers of the country and those responsible for peace and stability.
However, Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang and Chengzu Zhu Di were both talented and strategic imperial generals. Although their status as ministers was high, they did not pose a threat to the imperial court.
After the mid-Ming Dynasty, there was a long period of peace, and the trend of emphasizing civility over military affairs was hard to come back. That is to say, in terms of military use, the commander-in-chief was all civil servants. This tradition did not change until the Chongzhen period. Although the military commanders were showing signs of self-respect in supporting troops, it was not until the Northern Court of the Ming Dynasty.
After the fall, except for the domineering Zuo Liangyu, most of the generals did not dare to disobey the imperial court's dispatches and the control of the important ministers sent by the imperial court, let alone control the imperial court's military and state affairs.
However, Ma Shiying's decision to support King Fu and proclaim himself emperor in Nanjing was entirely dependent on the military strength of the three towns' ministers. No matter how outstanding his talents and integrity were, Ma Shiying's most fatal weakness was his reliance on military generals.
The military generals regarded the emperor as a puppet, the court only had a false reputation, there were conflicts between civil and military forces, disputes among generals, internal strife was intense, and they had no time to look after others, so there was no way to resume progress.
After King Fu was established, Shi Kefa was controlled by Ma Shiying and Sanzhen, and completely became a political mascot. He was also frequently attacked by the Donglin Party members. He suffered so much that he requested to retire from office many times.
But Ma Shiying, who really controlled the political power in Nanjing, was not much better, because the warlords in the three towns controlled the court. Ma Shiying needed to rely on their military power to overwhelm the Jiangnan gentry; the four towns also relied on their merits, "The emperor was established by our generation." From then on,
Arrogant and domineering, they blindly gathered in the Jiangbei area of South Zhili to compete for "good land" to enrich themselves, and then hijacked the imperial court.
The matter of recovery naturally becomes empty talk.
What's even worse is that, despite the battle over the strategy, the three-town alliance of Ma Shiying, who supported the Welfare faction, won the final victory. However, Li Jiantai, Gao Qiqian, Su Guansheng, and Liu Zeqing, who supported the Tang faction, still retained some of their troops and
In terms of political status, the Donglin Party members who supported the Lu faction also gained the Zheng family of Fujian and Huang Mingjun, the governor of Zhejiang, as military backing, and they also had considerable strength.
This made the situation in the south of the Yangtze River more complicated. Zhejiang and Fujian became the exclusive territories of the Supporting Lu faction. The Supporting Tang faction also relied on the Tianjin and Liao navy brought by Su Guansheng and Liu Zeqing's newly built Shandong town troops to conquer Suzhou, the most prosperous city east of Taihu Lake.
Taicang Prefecture and Songjiang serve as their own flood areas.
Therefore, under Hongguang, it was Ma Shiying who took the lead in the government; under Ma Shiying, it was the warlords of the three towns who controlled the court; outside the three towns, there were the pro-Tang faction and the pro-Lu faction who were responsible for all local killings and arrangements.
, salt tax, commercial tax and official tribute, all can be done cheaply, just like a vassal town.
Huang Degong is a loyal minister of the Yongwei camp left by Emperor Chongzhen. At least he has a little loyalty to the Jiangnan court, but respect is completely out of the question." Huang Degong once knelt down to listen to the edict read out by the envoy, and felt that it did not suit him.
Meaning, he got up before finishing reading and said, "The people gathered around to raise the case, and the big man said: Go! Go quickly! I don't know what the edict is!"
As for Gao Qian and Liu Liangzuo, they were completely opportunistic fence-sitters, with no basic loyalty to the imperial court. They just created mutinies in Huai'an, Yangzhou and other places every day to blackmail the imperial court and demand wages.
Originally, the Hongguang Court established in Nanjing had a very obvious advantage over the Qing Dynasty and the Dashun regime in terms of manpower and material resources. It controlled half of the country, and the wealthy areas south of the Huaihe River were all under the control of the Hongguang Court, and were affected by the war.
Minimal damage.
Before the fall of the Chongzhen court, the central court of the Ming Dynasty collected a large amount of grain, money, cloth and other property from all over the south of the Yangtze River every year to make up for the huge expenses of the Beijing court, many yamen and nine sides. It stands to reason that since various places in the north have been destroyed one after another,
They belong to Dashun and Qing Dynasties respectively. The Hongguang court should have more than enough financial resources, and the burden on the people should at least not be increased.
The actual situation is not like this. Because the pro-Lu faction and the pro-Tang faction separated their respective regions, a large amount of annual tax revenue that should have been handed over to Nanjing was misappropriated and seized. Sichuan was also occupied by Zhang Xianzhong, and transportation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River was inconvenient, so taxes in the Yunnan-Guizhou area were also
It is difficult to deliver to Wu.
In Hunan, because He Tengjiao raised a large number of troops who only knew how to harm the country and the people, they were defeated by the Dashun commanders Chen Xin, Liu Xiyao and others who stayed in Hubei. It was difficult to protect themselves, and there was no way to pay taxes to Jiangnan.
As a result, the finances of the Hongguang court were unable to make ends meet. Among the honorable ministers of the three towns, except for Huang Degong's military discipline, which was slightly better, Gao Qian and Liu Liangzuo sent their troops southward almost every day, advocating the theory of raiding grain, openly raiding the people, and plundering women.
Wives and concubines are taken as slaves.
The quick-thinking Gao Qian was more clever than Liu Liangzuo. He also proposed that the families of the soldiers in this town also needed money and support from the court. However, there were so many family members of the soldiers in Gao Town that there were more than ten or twenty family members for one soldier.
Where could Ma Shiying have the money to support him? In the end, he had to acquiesce to Gao Qian's decision to send troops to collect grain and plunder.
However, when the Jiangnan court was in such financial difficulties, Emperor Hongguang did not think about recovery, but how to repair the Jinling Palace. After more than 200 years of wind, rain, and beetles, the original palace in Nanjing had naturally collapsed and dilapidated, making it difficult to live in.
But it's still much better than an ordinary manor house.
When Zhu Yousong, the emperor of Hongguang, fled from Luoyang to Huai'an, he asked the court for money because his source of livelihood was cut off. At that time, Chongzhen ordered Wu Di, a great scholar, to go to Shaanxi to help the victims of the disaster. The cost was only one hundred thousand taels of silver, and for
To help Zhu Yousong, who was living in Huai'an, Emperor Chongzhen generously took out 30,000 gold to advance his living expenses.
Zhu Yousong was still not satisfied with this. As soon as he ascended the throne, he immediately wanted to live on par with the emperors of the Peace Period. He ordered the construction of palaces for himself and the Queen Mother, purchased jewelry for preparations for the wedding, and purchased songs for the pursuit of pleasure.
Children and dancing girls; some people who had helped him when he was unlucky also flocked to share the wealth.
"Born in sorrow and dying in happiness," this sentence is the most appropriate for the Hongguang court. Since Hongguang's monarchs and ministers were wishful thinking in "borrowing prisoners to suppress the bandits", they had no intention of cheering up and were content to stay in Jiangzuo.
The so-called "clear songs are heard in leaking boats, while drinking and burning houses" is really true.
The court in the south of the Yangtze River became such a smoky mess that people with insight naturally stayed away, and careerists also had different intentions. Ma Shiying was already helpless about the financial situation of the court. He was afraid that he would not be able to pay the salaries of the soldiers in the three towns.
, those arrogant and powerful generals were about to come to Jinling City, so they had no choice but to receive the southern envoy sent by Beijing.
The southern mission was called the mission sent by Zhu Cixiang, Emperor Tongzhi of Beijing. In fact, all the ministers had their heads shaved, and they represented completely the opinions of the Qing court.