The confusion of indulgence Looking back at those years, Qilou and Huage were full of glory.Playing the Yao and the silver zither at night, the singers and dancers are chic.A self-market change. Dark ecstasy, prosperity is hard to come by.Twelve gold hairpins, three thousand treasures, a thousand years of desolation! This beautiful poem "Candle Shadow Shaking Red" is a time-sensitive and sad work by Xia Wanchun, a beautiful young man in Songjiang when the southern capital of the Ming Dynasty fell.The prosperity of Qilou and the prosperity of the empire all become dreams in an instant, which cannot but make people sigh with regret.

The Ming Dynasty was an era in which desires were inflated from beginning to end.In fact, desire is by no means a derogatory term.The reason why people are human is that desire is the basic primitive driving force.Chinese society, generally speaking from historical experience, has always adopted a generous attitude towards "human desires".Thinking back to the sage Confucius, he once said with eloquence: "Eating and drinking men and women, people's great desires exist", affirming the basic desires of life.Even Zhu Xi, the master of Neo-Confucianism who gave the impression of rigid preaching to the later generations, his so-called "preserving the principles of nature and destroying human desires", originally pointed to asking the emperor to respect principles and restrain desires, not to reprimand ordinary scholars and people to suppress basic desires .Moreover, since the Ming Dynasty, "childlike innocence theory"

Philosophical trends such as "Spirituality Theory", "Spiritual Theory", and "Emotional Teaching Theory" constantly call on people to break the shackles of abstinence, encourage all beings to pursue the joy of life, and try their best to respect the emotional will of human beings.It is a pity that, regardless of the progressive significance of the late Ming Dynasty's thought of non-monarchism and respect, the society of the Ming Dynasty, from top to bottom, from the beginning to the end, was full of love and hatred, arrogance and madness, wild self-adaptation, joy and greed, In the end, they all merged into an infinite indulgence of individual desires and group desires.

The infinite expansion and indulgence of individual and social desires eventually led to the demise of the Ming Dynasty——Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang’s desire to rule, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di’s appalling desire to kill, Ming Yingzong Zhu Qizhen, Ming Wuzong Zhu Houzhao The irresponsible desire for pleasure, the lust for greed and grabbing by Sun Cai of Ming Shizong Zhu Houcong and Ming Shenzong Zhu Yijun, the laissez-faire lust of Ming Xizong Zhu Youxiao, and the Ming Sizong Zhu Youjian's self-willed desire for control. In the sea of ​​desires of these crazy emperors, Li Shanchang desires to run the party, Zhu Gaoxu desires usurpation, Wang Zhen desires vanity, Liu Jin desires control, Yan Song and Zhang Juzheng desire power, Wei Zhongxian desires perversion, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong desire cruelty, Wu Sangui, with his selfish desires, unconcealed, unrestrained and unrestrained, has been violently agitating for nearly three hundred years, overflowing and overflowing, and there is no end to it.In the end, desire annihilated everything, the family collapsed and the country perished, and they all died together.

The style of "indulgence" in the Ming Dynasty was completely the indulgence of "the rich and the slut".This kind of indulgence and condescension is neither universal love nor self-respect.All kinds of people, while pursuing their own interests, gather together and form a tide, and eventually become a great evil that drowns everything in the world.Moreover, in this era of indulgence, the value of people is not sublimated by pursuit, but the lack of individuality has become a common feature of human nature throughout the era.Looking at the "social conscience" of the scholar-bureaucrat class, negativity, rigidity, temper, boastfulness, aloofness, and impetuousness have become the most prominent character traits.Even in their lyrical poems, we see more hostility than domineering, arrogance and willfulness rather than flamboyant personality, impetuousness and viciousness rather than bright chivalry, indulgence rather than frankness and truth-seeking.

So, after the eruption of indulgence and pleasure, confusion, loneliness, bitterness, loss, melancholy, and misery surge up, rationality and restraint become a vacuum, and moral sense is almost completely removed from the social crowd.In the midst of internal and external troubles, under the trap of exaggeration, among the drunken and rich, the crisis is getting worse and worse, until death. The social phenomenon of people's desires and extravagance described in "Shun Tian Fu Zhi" in the Wanli period is very alarming even for today: "The trend of the wind will be the trend, and the return of human feelings, (beginning) is not a bad thing. Pumao. Then it gradually became limp, and its flow became more and more beneficial. (Society) most of them are thin-skinned and value friendship, hate old age and prefer to be light-hearted. Carrying stones (storage) and eating and drinking are planned for the imperial family, and if the bag is exhausted, the wife and son offer incense to the Buddha. (What's more) the remains have not been collected, that is, trees, banners and drums, gathered in worship. Alas, What's your heart! Virtuous transformation is slow, and folk customs are not perfect."

The Ming Dynasty, from 1368 to 1644, has a total history of 277 years (there are many ways to calculate the Ming Dynasty. After the death of Emperor Chongzhen, the Nanming Youfu King, Lu Jianguo, Tang Wang, Gui Wang and other regimes continued until 1662.If the Taiwan Zheng regime of Fengming Zhengshuo is included, it can be extended to 683.But looking at the Ming Dynasty from the perspective of "great unification", the end date should be 1644).In the past three hundred years, the Ming Dynasty, which was in the era of late feudal society evolution, still had its own fateful process of prosperity and decline: from the first year of Hongwu (1368) to the "Civil Change"

(1449) was a period of social and economic restructuring for more than 80 years; since the 14th year of orthodox "civil engineering changes" The more than 70 years to the end of Zhengde was a period of self-repair and adjustment of the ruling economy of the Ming Dynasty; from the intersection of Zhengde and Jiajing to the early and middle period of Wanli, it was a period of new changes in the commercial economy and a relatively stable society; from the middle and late Wanli to Chongzhen The half century of the last year (1644) was a period of collapse in which society fell apart step by step.

Generally speaking, apart from Zhu Di's "Jing Nan" usurpation civil war and the two periods of diplomatic difficulties in the last ten years, the external armed conflicts and domestic rebellions during the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years were not serious and did not last long.Observing from the "big picture", the society of the Ming Empire was stable and developing steadily for most of the time period.The central government of the Ming Dynasty was active and effective in the management of the border minority areas, and the implementation of internal government orders was smooth, the commodity economy developed rapidly, and the cultural traditions were extremely comprehensive and inherited unprecedentedly.

However, if the political, cultural, and economic development of the Ming Empire were observed on the grand stage of the world at that time, it would inevitably appear inferior.Especially in the fields of firearms production, astronomy and geography, calendar calculations and other natural sciences, the Ming Dynasty has fallen behind the times due to the central empire's complacent awareness.Moreover, the world in the 15th and 16th centuries was a world-wide era of great discovery of the earth and great voyages.When Zheng He's glorious voyages were deliberately dusted off as an excessive expenditure of state funds, the Chinese people's sense of adventure and enterprising spirit were gradually overshadowed by the mentality of a great power and imperial examination venues.The vulgar desire of indulgence and pleasure has replaced the noble germ that was originally vigorously expanded.

The collapse of mature civilizations is not due to the insensitivity of society and individuals in a state of indulgence.Moreover, the so-called cycle of dynastic fate is only a metaphor of helplessness.The demise of the Ming Dynasty was also a continuous and gradual process.But it didn't last long on the edge of being motionless. The sudden and unexpected internal collapse and the barbarian external force ended the solitary walk in the old era: the huge consumption of the peasant war and the astonishing sudden rise of the Jurchen barbarians finally put the The Ming Dynasty pushed into the historical chasm in a very short period of time. A civilization that has been developing steadily for a long time has finally turned into an apocalypse full of violence and self-destruction.This not-so-evil old era was finally brought to an end by the dragon-slaying knights between the white mountains and the black waters with their swords. It is worth noting that the Ming Empire did not even enjoy a breathless period of reflection before its demise, but it also did not experience the long "end of the world" period as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.The rulers of the Qing Dynasty learned from the failure experience of the Mongolian rulers. After using a short and terrifying sea of ​​blood to intimidate their heroes, they held the guise of Confucian traditions and started the deliberate management of a huge empire. Sadly, the fire of civilization of the Ming Dynasty has not been moved to a wider space. This kind of translation and replacement without any new ideas has brought the Central Plains Dynasty to a stage that seems to be brilliant but is actually standing still. The road to stagnation. The ancient Chinese civilization did not achieve phoenix nirvana under the influence of "heterogeneous culture" during the change of dynasty, but fell into a suffocating atmosphere where the new ruler had a planned and purposeful spiritual circle.The "flexibility" of big braids On the surface, it seems that the rift between the geography and culture of the ruler and the ruled has been cemented. In fact, for the Han people, this kind of destruction is corrosive to the core values ​​of China and the resulting The dreadful nature of the national decline, more than ten "Ten Days of Yangzhou". With thousands of horses in silence and under endless pressure, our national character tends to become depressed, dull, and cumbersome. The people who used to be innocent, straightforward, and highly civilized and creative are increasingly becoming cowardly and patient "obedient citizens." This negative influence has continued to this day and has not completely dissipated. After the death knell of the Ming Dynasty sounded, China entered into a long sleepy period of drowsiness.The sad thing is that after the fall of the Ming Dynasty, after another nearly three hundred years of reincarnation, what followed was destined to be more serious divisions and chaos, as well as barbaric aggression by barbarians similar to Western "civilization".The subjects of the illustrious Central Empire, in the eyes of foreign soldiers armed with bayonets and new weapons, turned out to be absurd "natives" with pigtails behind their heads. Sadly, almost a century has passed since the Dragon Banner of the Qing Dynasty was torn down in the twilight of the Forbidden City, and the "braids" in many of us are still stubbornly hanging behind our heads. The illustrious figures of the Ming Dynasty are certainly not mechanically rigid "parts" in the rolling wheel of history, nor are they dull and flat figures in textbooks.Wipe off the greasy paint of folk artists and drama romances, wipe away the dusty historical deposits, and we will suddenly find that the faces that have been formatted and gradually disappeared in the tunnel of history are so novel and strange: Zhu Yuanzhang seems to be a violent and ruthless emperor, but in fact he is beyond reproach on the level of "morality" in founding the country, and he is the most righteous in the country; Worry; the "civil changes" that Wang Zhen Gonggong seems to have wronged the country and the people led to the capture of Emperor Yingzong. , In fact, there have been acts of charity to relieve disasters and exempt gifts; Yan Song's seemingly "sinful" life is actually all his mistakes in his sang and elm years, and Yan Song was originally a studious and motivated scholar in his youth ; During the Jiajing period, the seemingly noisy coastal "Japanese invasion" was actually the real culprits of the Portuguese and Chinese pirates; The huge expenses caused by this); Wei Zhongxian seemed to be an eunuch who covered the sky with his hands and was insidious, but in fact he secretly assisted many court officials and scholar-bureaucrats with despicable natures. Huang Taiji's "majestic general plan" to dominate the Central Plains, but after careful deduction, it was found that most of them came from the instigation of slaves who surrendered to the Han people; The resentment of the soldiers who abandoned the army; Wu Sangui and Li Chengdong seem to be "beautiful in anger", but they each have their own unspeakable secrets... Tang Chuanying wrote in his "Xianzabihua": "The world can't bear to look back There are five: mourning the passing away of the old travel place, pity the nonsense about peace, the old man recalls the newly married, the flower hair bids farewell to the street, and comes to find the adventure in the dream... But it is the most painful thing to say, it is not good The old man mourns the mountains and rivers of his home country, and the businessman's wife talks about the horses and horses in those days, which is especially pitiful." In the midst of pain and mourning, looking back at the Ming Dynasty, the romance is like a dream, and the splendor is empty. In addition to the bitterness, I only express my feelings with Chen Zilong's poem: Leaning on the railing alone to face Xiaofeng, Manxi Perfume Bridge East.Only then did I know that in the dream of Red Mansions last night, I was among the peach blossoms and thousands of trees. It is for sequence. King Helianbo