Be the emperor from the postman

Following the actions of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, Daming's initiative in the war became even more desolate.

At the same time, the seemingly powerful but actually weak nature of Daming was exposed more and more, and the supreme ruler of Ming Dynasty had fallen into great distress.

Although Chongzhen was sick, he tried his best to defend Yang Sichang to a group of cabinet members.

However, the ministers of various ministries and the censor officials have filed complaints one after another, demanding that Yang Sichang be held accountable.

"Yang Sichang rallied troops to defend himself, but he was unsuccessful."

"If Xiangyang is lost, Jingnan will be in danger of being skinned; if Luoyang is lost, Kaifeng will be in danger of laying eggs."

"Yang Sichang has six crimes that can be punished: one is to lose the vassal title and fall into the prefecture; the other is to evade his own responsibility by the counselor; the third is to kill locusts and chanting curses to eliminate thieves in the "Hua Yan Jing";

The fourth is that Zhang Xianzhong entered Sichuan and let him escape alone; the fifth is to bribe the supervising army; the sixth is to make friends with cronies. "

"Yang Sichang raped and deceived the country, please use Yuan Chonghuan's example, cut him into pieces, and passed on the first nine sides."

Because Zhu Youjian was the one who overcame the opinions of all the people, Yang Sichang was specially entrusted with a heavy responsibility. The large and small ministers and workers criticized him, which damaged his image as a "Master".

Therefore, he summoned the officials of the Six Departments, Jiuqing, Kedao and other officials into the palace, and declared:

"Yang Sichang is simply used by me. Supporting troops is not effective. I judge and judge myself. There are still talents to be taken."

Then he reprimanded the ministers and workers of Shangshu, "You deliberately rejected him and wanted to gain fame. You should have rehabilitated him. You also said that I will protect Sichang. Please forgive your experience. I have sent Jingliaohou to help you. Good news, don't mention this matter again."

Not only did Chongzhen fail to hold Yang Sichang accountable for his crimes, but he promoted him as Prince Shaobao backhandedly, hoping that he would make persistent efforts.

The officials, big and small, saw that the emperor was so defensive, so they had no choice but to keep silent.

Whether it is the supervisor sent by Chongzhen, or the fifty assistant ministers in one dynasty, no one can gain his unconditional trust and support like Yang Sichang.

No matter what you say about him, I will not punish him.

Chongzhen sent Wu Guojun, Fu Zonglong and others to Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng respectively.

As for He Jinzhao, the hammer bandit entrenched in the northwest, he did not need to pay too much attention to reaching a peace agreement with him for the time being.

Because if you want to pay attention, you don't have much strength.

On the contrary, the Liaodong Tartars sent people to garrison in Yizhou, plowed and fought, set up camps and dug trenches, and surrounded Jinzhou.

Coupled with Jin Guofeng's death in battle, Chongzhen became more and more worried.

For this reason, the banner "Destroying Bandits and Replacing Shame" inscribed by him was passed on to the officials, showing his firm confidence.

The ministers are well aware of the weight of the four characters "destroying the bandits and avenging shame" in the imperial pen of the emperor, and they dare not play it right rashly.

Only the new right servant of the Ministry of Rites, Jiang Dejing, seems to have a plan in mind, and he kneels out of class and plays:
"Your Majesty, "exterminate the bandits and avenge the shame" means that ZTE has great potential!

Every time the minister sees His Majesty sending orders to the various ministries of the household soldiers, and to ordering the governors and other officials from all sides, they are thoughtful and meticulous, and they are all thorough.

It's just that all parties have not done their best! "

Hearing this, Chongzhen agreed repeatedly on his face.

I have thought so hard and thought it through.

The passive situation from the Ming Dynasty to the present is all due to the failure of all parties to implement my plan faithfully.

"Your Majesty, it's like the training of soldiers, and you have to repeat it again and again, but how did you actually practice soldiers?
It's just a matter of checking the name book, spending knives and guns, nothing real.

Every time I read the "Hui Dian", I saw that Emperor Taizu Gao taught the discipline of soldiers, tested them with bows, crossbows, knives and guns, and rewarded and punished them. This is the method of training soldiers.

The small banner of the general guard of the Fanwei Station makes up for the service, and the victory and defeat of the fight are the promotion and promotion.

All contestants in the official house must be good at riding and shooting to be able to attack. This is the way to practice generals.

At that time, all battles were victorious, but the soldiers were trained well. Could it be that there have been no soldiers for two or three hundred years, and the emperor only needs to set up troops?
Could it be that there is no salary at all, and you have to pay more when you come to His Majesty? "

Chongzhen listened to Jiang Dejing citing scriptures and talking eloquently, and couldn't help standing up in a daze, interrupting his topic and commenting:
"What you said is really unheard of."

Jiang Dejing was praised by the emperor, and further developed his ideas on military training:

"Army is soldiers, and there are a total of more than three million soldiers in the internal and external guards, which are fully used, and there are a lot of salt and grain to support the army.

In the past 300 years, there has been no additional distribution, and the salary is fully used.

Now we only promote the ancestral system, and do everything in practice, so that we can destroy the enemy. "

Jiang Dejing obviously advocated restoring the Weisuo garrison system in the early Ming Dynasty, but it was actually empty talk with little feasibility.

Soldiers and peasants are united, and the guards stationed in the farms have long lost the soil on which they depend. Attempts to "enhance" the ancestral system are tantamount to painting cakes to satisfy the hunger.

Chongzhen thought that what Jiang Dejing said was unheard of, and might be able to make up for the current situation, so he couldn't wait to say:
"Play it again, Qing, play it calmly!"

Jiang Dejing then talked about stepping up military training by following the example of Yu Daxian's "Jian Jing" and Qi Jiguang's "Military Training Book".

After listening to a great article about military training, Chongzhen changed the topic to the topic of today's discussion and asked:
"Now the enemy is in Yizhou, what's the plan?"

Jiang Dejing replied: "Yizhou is ninety miles away from Jinzhou, Jinzhou is sixty miles away from Ningyuan, and Ningyuan enters Shanhaiguan and is nearly a thousand miles away from the capital.

Beiqi is far away from Shenyang, and they will never come from within the pass.

I'm afraid that if you occupy Yizhou, you can invade Ji (town) and Xuan (Da) only 260 miles away from Daning (on the border of Inner Mongolia and Liaoning today), but it is worrying. "

Jiang Dejing's analysis is not unreasonable, but he denied that the Qing army's strategic intention of attacking Yizhou was to capture Jinzhou and its nearby Songshan, Tashan, and Xingshan fortresses, and then threaten Ningyuan, which is too arbitrary.

After all, according to the Qing army's previous raids and plunders, they all acted like this.

Chongzhen was confused by his place name and mileage, and corrected him: "The mileage is not allowed to be counted, just the current essentials."

Jiang Dejing didn't seem to be able to mention any "current essentials", and he again mentioned military training, which generally means that the soldiers must be good, the salary must be sufficient, and the generals must be strong.

This imperial meeting reflected that the courtiers were helpless about the military operations of the Qing army in Uiju.

Although Jiang Dejing's general talk touched the current situation, it was difficult to operate and could not solve the actual problems in Liaodong.

Compared with Yang Sichang's ability to propose specific solutions to Chongzhen, these ministers all talked about it on a grand scale without any specific actions, which really made Chongzhen unhappy with them.

The performance of the cabinet members was not very good, which made Chongzhen extremely dissatisfied.

Since Wen Tiren was dismissed from office, the position of chief assistant of the cabinet has been successively held by his cronies Zhang Zhifa and Xue Guoguan.

What they pursued were warm and benevolent policies without warmth and benevolence, flattering superiors and jealousy, and repelling dissidents. Many people were convicted and left, and the government became more and more chaotic.

Zhang Zhifa's previous cabinet ministers left one after another before he was promoted to the first place and became the elder of the cabinet.

This is not because the emperor has a soft spot for him, but because there has always been a so-called tradition of "passing on the mantle" in the political arena.

Similar to the meaning of master-student inheritance.

Everything was done in accordance with the established policy of the predecessor, and it was expected that Zhang Zhifa would inherit Wen Tiren's mantle.

As Wen Tiren's confidant, he doesn't have any political opinions of his own, he just cooperates with Wen Tiren.

When Wen Tiren was impeached, he stood up to defend him, but Zhang Zhifa himself was treacherous and incapable, and his wit and wit were not as good as Wen Tiren's.

Of course, Zhang Zhifa's resignation was due to the pig teammates.

Tian Weijia, Minister of the Ministry of Officials, was exposed for corrupting the law and selling officials and nobles.

When Zhang Zhifa saw this booklet, he immediately made a secret copy and gave it to Tian Weijia so that he could prepare in advance.

Unexpectedly, Tian Weijia was self-defeating, and before the emperor passed Yang Shicong's memorial to the cabinet, he couldn't wait to go to the cabinet to defend himself, which immediately showed his flaws.

Chongzhen, who was very careful about the memorials, immediately saw the clues of the collusion and cheating between the cabinet and the officials, and ordered Tian Weijia to report the facts and not to cover up.

After Chongzhen found out the situation, he not only dismissed Tian Weijia as an official, but also transferred his anger to Zhang Zhifa.

Zhang Zhifa's resignation was not just because of this incident. According to Cao Quan, the deputy of Dali Temple, Zhang Zhifa was all implicated in various scandals in which Huang Yingen, the secretary of the cabinet, accepted bribes.

Zhang Zhifa continued to defend himself and Huang Yingen, but Chongzhen still sent Huang Yingen to prison.

At this point, Zhang Zhifa had realized that the emperor had lost trust in him, so he resigned three times in self-deprecation, and Chongzhen followed suit and agreed.

Although Zhang Zhifa's resignation memorial did not mention any physical discomfort, the Chongzhen government approved him to "return to his hometown for recuperation" and let him suffer from political illness in a decent way.

This anecdote in the political arena was passed on as a joke for a while, and many people satirized Zhang Zhifa as "sick of Zunzhi".

Zhang Zhifa served as the chief assistant of the cabinet for less than a year, and the first assistant Kong Zhenyun who replaced him was replaced by Liu Yuliang within two months of taking charge of the government.

Liu Yuliang was also dismissed because of his dereliction of duty as a supervisor, and was replaced by Xue Guoguan.

Chongzhen treated Xue Guoguan as the shadow of Wen Tiren, Xue Guoguan really lived up to Wen Tiren's expectations, and fully pursued the policy of Wen Tiren without Wen Tiren.

Although Xue Guoguan is Wen Tiren's shadow, his intelligence and integrity are far inferior to Wen Tiren's. Chongzhen gradually became suspicious of him and found out that he was treacherous.

Chongzhen meets Xue Guoguan and talks about the greed of courtiers. Xue Guoguan shirks responsibility and puts all the responsibility for a clean government on the factory guards. If the factory guards supervise effectively, how dare the courtiers do this?

The Dongchang eunuch Wang Huamin, who was standing next to him, was sweating profusely. He was so instigated and hated by His Majesty, so he specially investigated his private affairs.

Xue Guoguan is extremely greedy and despicable, and it is easy to investigate his dirty affairs.

Through the mouth of Dongchang eunuch Wang Huamin, these dirty things reached Chongzhen's ears, and Chongzhen's favor for Xue Guoguan gradually changed.

At this time, there was another incident that angered Chongzhen. Because the financial people could not make ends meet, Xue Guoguan proposed to the emperor to "leverage", that is, to donate money to bureaucrats and relatives in the name of "borrowing".

He claimed that "outside ministers are enslaved by ministers, and internal relatives must be decided by the emperor.

He cited Li Guorui, Marquis of Wuqing as an example. If Li Guorui (the grandnephew of the current emperor's great-grandmother Li Shilang, the birth mother of Shenzong Xiaoding, the empress dowager Li Shilang) can open this barrier, it will not be difficult for other royal relatives to follow suit.

So Xue Guoguan proposed to "borrow" 40 taels of silver from the family of Li Guorui, Marquis of Wuqing. Li was forced to pretend to be poor because of formalities.

They demolished their own houses and put their miscellaneous utensils on the street for sale, making the city full of wind and rain.

Chongzhen was furious, and decreed to deprive Li Guorui of Marquis, and the elderly Li Guorui died in panic.

The relevant yamen are still chasing money, making everyone in the royal family feel insecure and spreading rumors.

Empress Dowager Xiaoding has become a bodhisattva, accusing the emperor of being mean to his relatives in the sky, and the princes are about to die, and they have descended on the five sons of the emperor.

Such an accurate rumor was very strange, before he could investigate it carefully, Chongzhen's favorite fifth son, Cihuan, died as expected.

As for whether he was killed by someone, the factory guards couldn't find out.

The Ming Emperor's control over the imperial palace became weaker and weaker. Not to mention his own life, he couldn't even save his son's life.

This unexpected blow made Chongzhen so regretful that he immediately made Li Guorui's seven-year-old son Cunshan the Marquis of Wuqing, and returned all the gold and silver handed in by the Li family.

Chongzhen hated Xue Guoguan because of this, but it was inconvenient to attack.

But Xue Guoguan was finally caught by him.

Wu Changshi, an official of the Department of Pedestrians, happened to be selected for the examination. He was afraid that Xue Guoguan would block him and open up joints through his disciples.

After all, Wu Changshi is not an idle person who can be played around at will, determined to take revenge, so he contacted his close friend Dongchang to punish Wu Daozheng, and exposed Ding You's servant, Cai Yichen, for bribing Xue Guoguan.

Chongzhen ordered the officials of the Five Houses and Nine Ministers to review the case, and Xu Yunzhen, Duke Wei of Wei, who was in charge of the governor of the Five Armies.

Please let Xue Guoguan become an official or stay idle.

Chongzhen predicted that the officials of the Ministry of Education would be strict in rectification, but the officials of the Ministry of Education were afraid that Xue Guoguan was the chief assistant of the cabinet and kept silent.

This is tantamount to scratching the surface.

Chongzhen was very dissatisfied, threw the memorial to the ground, and cursed: "Why do you correct it!"

However, he had to follow Xu Yunzhen and Fu Yongchun's "request" to seize Xue Guoguan's position and return him to his hometown.

Xue Guoguan's calculations were too clever, thinking that the emperor still cared for him, and he was still the same when he came out of Beijing-the deputy prime minister's style, vehicles full of gold, silver and treasures flocked through the market in an endless stream.

After Dongchang found out, it immediately arrested Xue Guoguan's confidant Wang Biyan and forced him to confess the fact that Xue Guoguan accepted bribes, implicating 11 people including Fu Yongchun and Cai Yichen.

Chongzhen thought that there was evidence for accepting bribes, so he ordered Wang Biyan to be executed and sent envoys to arrest Xue Guoguan.

After Xue Guoguan returned to Beijing, he thought that he would not be executed. When the prison officer came in at night, he was still sleeping soundly.

Seeing that everyone who came here was wearing scarlet clothes, he suddenly realized that he must die.

I couldn't find a small hat in a hurry, so I took the servant's hat and put it on, and received the order in a panic.

After the imperial decree of "death" was read, he was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground, he could only kowtow subconsciously, and he could no longer speak.

On his deathbed, he sighed: "Wu Changshi kill me!"

Xue Guoguan obeyed the order and hanged himself.

Two days after hanging the beam, Chongzhen allowed the family to collect the body.

Although Wen Tiren was not in the court, his shadow was everywhere.

The power of a person labeled "lonely official" to form a party behind the scenes is by no means what Chongzhen can imagine.

In fact, after Wen Tiren, Sizong was deeply dissatisfied with the fact that the cabinet ministers could not divide the merits for him and turn the tide, but were keen to form cliques for personal gain.

Xue Guoguan is ignorant of current affairs, and still repeats the same mistakes and follows the doctrine of warmth and benevolence, and follows the same trend, making the political situation even more chaotic. His death is entirely his own fault.

The emperor could justifiably convict him of abusing power and messing with government, instead of suspending him for corruption (a fine of 9000 taels of stolen silver and [-] acres of uninhabited land), so that he left his party with excuses to complain about his grievances.

Therefore, after deliberation, Chongzhen decided to re-promote Zhou Yanru, who had been dismissed, to the cabinet.