Chapter 16 Chapter 15 Late Ming: A Stagnant but Introspective Age

There were 16 emperors in the Ming Dynasty.The first emperor was buried in Nanjing, but the remains of the second emperor have not been found yet. The seventh emperor Zhu Qiyu mentioned below was buried alone in the western suburbs of Beijing. The other 13 emperors were all buried about 25 miles north of the capital today. The 13 mausoleums surround a cistern roughly in the shape of a horseshoe.Few tourists today have been to Beijing and missed the Ming Tomb. One of the reasons is that the mausoleum of the 13th emperor Zhu Yijun (known both at home and abroad as Emperor Wanli) was excavated in 1958. Since then, millions of people have visited him Visit the underground coffin.

When we refer to historical records, we can see that these emperors have a peculiarity: since Zhu Zhanji, they rarely have the opportunity to make decisions at important junctures that affect the entire empire. Only the last emperor Zhu Youjian can be counted as an exception. it's too late.The so-called peculiarity is that at the juncture of peace and war, the monarch and his officials usually agree, and there is little dispute. Instead, their private life has become a public issue, and the officials quarreled, which usually involved the behavior of the emperor. Disputes with his family, it seems that the most important things in the world do not happen in their ancestral temple, that is, in the palace.

The sixth emperor, Zhu Qizhen, ascended the throne when he was less than 8 years old.He has been influenced by eunuchs since he was a child.In 1449 AD, when he was nearly 22 years old, an eunuch persuaded him to inspect the northern border. During the trip, he was surprised and captured by Esen, the chieftain of the Mongol Oirat tribe. After discussion, the Queen Mother decided to make Zhu Qiyu, Zhu Qizhen's half-brother, the emperor, so as not to hold the current emperor first and gain the upper hand in the negotiations.This strategy succeeded, and Zhu Qizhen was sent back to Beijing the next year. Later, he was called the Supreme Emperor and lived in a remote place within the palace. According to the Chinese tradition of "there is no two suns, and the country has no two masters", he was monitored. It's like being imprisoned.In 1457 AD, six and a half years after such an arrangement, Zhu Qiyu was unable to attend the court due to illness, and the Taishanghuang's subordinates took the opportunity to rebel and restore Zhu Qizhen.They never recognized that Zhu Qiyu had the qualifications to become the Ninth Five-Year Lord, and he was not considered a legitimate emperor, so the remains behind him could not occupy the area of ​​Qianqiu in the northern suburbs.Historians have since admitted that 1449 AD can be regarded as a watershed in the Ming Dynasty, symbolizing the military power of this dynasty from prosperity to decline, but this has little to do with Zhu Qizhen.In addition, there were no other major events worth exaggerating during his two imperial dynasties. Even the mutiny in 1457 was still a private matter between brothers.

The mother of the ninth emperor, Zhu Youtang, was the daughter of the chieftain of Guangxi.Because of the rebellion of the local natives, she was captured by the Ming army and brought to the capital to manage storage chores in the palace.The encounter between her and the eighth emperor gave birth to a son who was kept a secret for the palace. Until he was 5 years old, his origin was still hidden.Soon after his mother died, he was established as the prince. In 1487 AD, Zhu Youtang became a great treasure at the age of 17.Traditional historians unanimously praised him as a good emperor, wise and considerate, but after they read all the records, they could see nothing about this man. It seems that he was just a timid and insecure man. A young man, Feng Yunji will become the emperor in one day, and is arranged to be the nominal head of an integrated civil service group, and he will reign for 18 years.The only event at that time was the diversion of the Yellow River in 1494. This disaster was timely dealt with by Liu Daxia, Minister of the Ministry of War. This person was the model bureaucrat who burned Zheng He's voyage records in the first place, so as not to waste the country's financial resources and manpower in the future.

In terms of personality, the tenth emperor, Zhu Houzhao, was the most flavorful of the Ming monarchs (although not everyone found him the most sympathetic).Also due to fate, he was rarely under the control of traditional parents before he inherited the throne in 1505 AD, when he was not yet 14 years old.Soon after, he moved out of the inner palace, and lived in the "Leopard House" he built in the imperial city. Most of the people he associates with are eunuchs and lamas, and sometimes he has sex with notorious women, and even warlocks from different directions. Join the ranks of his entourage.His pleasure-seeking and adventures are endless. Once Zhu Houxu personally came forward to tame the tiger, he was in danger of being unpredictable.

He did not hold an early court, but gathered with his courtiers in the evening. When the courtiers, scholars of Chinese literature and his teachers persuaded one of them, Zhu Houzhao promoted each of them and sent them to distant positions.In 1517 AD, the little prince Batu Mengku, the leader of Mongolia, invaded the Ming border town from the north of the Great Wall, and the young emperor accepted the challenge.He assigned the defense army to his own command and went to the front to plan in person. After the two armies came into contact, the Mongolian army was repelled, but all the civilian officials did not participate in the conscript. They emphasized that the damage of the Ming army exceeded the number of people killed by the opponent.

In 1518, the emperor went out to search for the enemy again. This time he passed the edge of the desert, but he never met the Mongols.When the group remonstrated that the emperor should not take such a risk because of his honor of ninety-five years, Zhu Houzhao ordered himself to be appointed as the general of the Ming army, and then he made himself a duke, and later he announced himself as a grand master by order, Since then, his own rank has surpassed all civil and military officials. In 1519, when the news came that the emperor would travel to the south of the Yangtze River as a duke, grand master, and general, 146 civil servants went to the palace and wept, begging for their orders to be taken back.The petitioners thought that the emperor's behavior was perverted, and Zhu Houzhao was furious. He ordered all the officials who disobeyed the order and never left the palace gate to receive 30 strokes of the imperial staff, and 11 of them were killed on the spot or later died of serious injuries.

The emperor postponed his southward journey until autumn, and he remained there until the end of 1520.During a fishing trip, the boat that Zhu Houzhao personally wrote capsized. Although he was saved from death, it is said that he never recovered and never fully recovered.He died in the Leopard House the following year without any heirs.The courtiers and the empress dowager secretly discussed and decided to summon the emperor's younger brother Zhu Houcong to enter Beijing from the south, and he became the 11th emperor of the Ming Dynasty. The thinking of the courtiers at that time was that the young prince not only inherited the throne, but he should also regard himself as the son of his uncle, because the royal family's inheritance ability came from the righteous descendants continuously, and there were no side effects during the sacrifice, but Zhu Houcong rejected such an approach. After he ascended the throne, he showed that he still regarded his own parents as his parents, and gave his deceased father the title of emperor, and his mother also obtained the status of empress dowager.The courtiers were divided over the emperor's actions, and the dispute remained unresolved for years.In 1524 AD, a large number of bureaucrats went to the palace to cry, and the emperor imprisoned 134 of them in a rage, and 16 of them died with the imperial staff.And unfortunately, Zhu Houcong, also known as Emperor Jiajing, spent 45 years in Yuyu.

The behavior of the 13th emperor is even more embarrassing.Zhu Yijun, also known as Emperor Wanli, carved his mausoleum for the public to see.He reigned for 48 years, and has a reputation for neglect and waste in history.His greatest fault, according to traditional historians, was allowing his own private life to interfere with public affairs.Not long after his eldest son Chang Luo was born, he fell in love with the mother of his third son Chang Xun.When he tried to pass on to Xun and ignore Chang Luo, the entire court was shocked.The ministers asked him to make the eldest son the crown prince, but he repeatedly postponed the proposal.All parties accused him of violating the traditional habits by judging the elders while the younger ones.He denied it again and again, but the traces were all there, even though he denied it, it was unbelievable.When Changzhi was 4 years old, 7 years old, 10 years old, and nearly 20 years old, the courtiers kept urging him, but the emperor continued to shirk one after another.It wasn't until 1601 AD that there was really no further pushback, and Zhu Yijun forced Zhu Changluo to be the prince under the pressure of public opinion.But that's not to say, there are rumors in the palace that someone is trying to murder the prince. The news is either false or true, or it should be investigated according to the facts, or it should be made small or nothing. In short, it makes all the officials stand in different positions , Stirring their original all kinds of infighting.Zhu Yijun died in 1620 AD.Chang Luo ascended the throne at the age of 38, the 14th and shortest reigning emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and died just a month later with his father.The officials heard that the cause of his death was improper medication, and they wanted to investigate the responsibility. They entangled this suspicious case with previous disputes, and it was like this for 24 years, until the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

When we try to introduce the outline of Chinese history to beginners and Westerners, whether it is oral or written, the above entangled personnel issues make us feel embarrassed.On the one hand, of course we should not avoid these plots. Originally, various anecdotes and secret histories are also part of history. When we mention the Reformation in England, we cannot ignore Henry VIII because he is in love with Anne Boleyn and wants to divorce The failure caused a conflict with the Pope. When talking about the enlightened autocracy of the Russian Empress Catherine, it is inevitable to mention the murder of Peter III to enable her to gain power.From this point of view, similar plots cannot be avoided in Chinese history. Even if these incidents are frivolous and trivial, as long as people at the time regard them as important, it is not convenient for us to dismiss them hundreds of years later.It’s just that the embarrassment we are talking about here is nothing more than the fact that such stories appear one after another in the history of the Ming Dynasty. Sometimes there is almost nothing else to say when looking through the records of ten years, and the whole history is full of frivolous and trivial stories.

After thinking about it for a while, we felt that there was still something to be mentioned later, which was neither mentioned nor could be mentioned by people at that time.When the Ming Dynasty was fixed through the stage of creation, the active part of the court was actually a group of hundreds of bureaucrats rather than the monarch.Civil officials select scholars because of the imperial examination, that is to say, all the procedures for selection and selection have rules to follow, that is, the same is true for general assessment and promotion.Even if Zhu Yuanzhang dismissed the position of prime minister and never restored it in the Ming Dynasty, the subsequent "big scholars" actually filled in this defect.University scholars are experts in writing and writing. At first, they participated in the drafting of various edicts of the emperor, and gradually gained the ability to determine policies and policies through the drafting. Later, their official rank and prestige increased day by day, and they actually became the hosts of the unified civil service organization and their spokespersons. , but their actions and decisions still have to be formally approved by the emperor. This is actually an arrangement that is strange on the surface but reasonable on the inside.A constitutional monarchy cannot become a reality when a country cannot be governed by numbers.But the dictatorship also has places beyond its power.At that time, the imperial court in Beijing believed that countless villages were assembled, and a rare balance was maintained under its control, and the emperor must not be allowed to develop his personal power as much as possible.Although theoretically speaking, there is no limit to this kind of power, the final solution is to reconcile the heavenly imperial power with humanism, or to enforce enlightened autocracy.Before the emperor came to the throne, since he was the prince, there were ministers in charge of literature and education who served as the prince's master, teaching the great benefits of self-restraint and humility to others.Judging from the situation at the end of the fifteenth century, I am afraid that the monarchs at this time have understood that their only real power has been used in punishment, but its use is naturally limited.On the other hand, there is no ambiguity in the imperial court, and various ceremonies have been held continuously to emphasize the mysterious character of the emperor's throne, so that it constitutes a belief that fakes come true.In this way, if there is any dispute where no definite solution can be found, with the above arrangements, the emperor's arbitration will naturally be effective. He neither intervenes in himself nor has any personal interests in the dispute. Has the authority bestowed by Yaozi. From this we can also see why the mischievous Zhu Houzhao gave himself official titles and positions in order to separate himself from the throne, but his officials could not laugh off this frivolous behavior.It is inconvenient for them to rebel openly, and they can only resort to passive non-cooperation.And the other extreme: Zhu Youtang is a mediocre person, and he has no personality. From other stories, it can be seen that the officials paid extreme attention to the succession of the throne, and they insisted on the principle of setting up the elders but not the young, almost with religious piety.This issue is prone to sensitivity because it concerns the safety of the officials themselves.If the throne can be given or taken away by man-made power, its mystery will no longer exist, and the belief of the officials will also be a problem, and the future results will be extremely unpredictable.With this understanding, we can see that the above anecdotes are not all trivial matters. Since so many insightful people are fighting to the death, this is also a clumsy way to deal with it during an embarrassing period. Issues of constitutional crisis. There were two main reasons why the Ming Dynasty could not manage numerically; the military household system it had adopted in the past dynasties declined rapidly; its finance and taxation were too adapted to the habits of the rural economy, and it was not easy to make a comprehensive reorganization. The decline of the military system is not difficult to explain: not all the households that were originally ordered to register as military households were of their own will, and many of them were forced to enter.If they were allotted arable land, their estates were not concentrated in one place, but mixed with other private estates.The registered permanent residences assigned to the fields were prohibited from transferring real estate transactions. After several generations, some died out, some fled, and the military households only continued to decrease.In the border areas, the situation is slightly better. At the beginning of the 16th century, the number of households in many villages could still maintain 40%, and the number of households in the guards in the interior was usually less than one-tenth. Of course, tax revenue has increased compared to Zhu Yuanzhang’s era, but its increase has never been systematically formulated. The basic tax revenue is calculated in terms of grain and stones, and it rarely changes throughout the dynasty. The base amount has remained roughly the same for 276 years, and the increase is the base amount. Extra additions, additional consumption, and shipping costs, etc.Under normal circumstances, there is no control because the upper level requires the lower level government to decide and increase at their own discretion.In the early years of the dynasty, the method of imposing heavy responsibilities on the rich households was no longer used. The next step was to allocate the burden to the middle-class households, and finally it only spread to the whole people.There are few exceptions for unpaid labor service, which has been changed to paid labor service.The period of service is initially 10 years for each household, and changed to 5 years in the middle, and finally paid for every year.This kind of adjustment has the tendency to levy all the obligatory silver on a yearly basis, and also has the tendency to return the land tax and service money to each other.The detailed measures are different in different states and counties, probably depending on the situation of their economic development, but the trend is generally the same.In the 16th century such adjustments were collectively known as the "one-whip method". But in fact, no county has achieved the ideal state, returning all "taxes" and "services" to the well and expropriating them in silver at one time.The practice of making some taxpayers fiscally responsible has not been completely eliminated.Because it does not have a service agency, the central government can only match the tax collection agency with the agency that handles expenditures in pairs.For the central government, revenue and expenditure are thus offset item by item.When taxes were paid in kind, the country was full of criss-crossing short-distance supply lines, and because of the lack of banks and intermediary institutions, the cashier method of its receipts and payments in silver remained largely the same.A frontier military agency may receive payments to more than a dozen counties, and the same state and capital may receive payments to dozens of warehouse warehouses.Except for very few adjustments, this method was also adopted by the Qing Dynasty in the future.The lack of managerial capacity in the middle of the government was a very distinctive feature of the Third Reich. From a modern point of view, although the tax rate has increased, the tax rate is generally still low, and the situation is different in each state and county.Because the tax rate is applied to all taxpayers horizontally, and for households with only 3 or 5 mu of each, the tax revenue can easily reach the saturation point, that is, beyond this step, the taxpayers can no longer afford it.The method of exempting household registration or increasing the amount of progressive taxation to large landlords has never been mentioned. It is likely that transportation and communication are difficult, and the people's wisdom is not yet developed, so it is impossible to monitor accurately in the villages. It is already difficult, but if we want to complicate the taxation procedures, the technical difficulties may be enough to disintegrate the entire system.Few people have noticed that this embarrassment is the greatest difficulty that China has encountered in modern history.Because of this, the empire's resources were not easily collected for effective use, and the efficiency of local government could not be improved.In addition, the surplus accumulated by households is rarely used for investment purposes. If it is not used as the capital of usury, it is used for unnecessary consumption.Because finance itself is closely attached to the countryside, it is also powerless to support the further development of village and town industries and local commerce. The disadvantages are not limited to this. The implementation of finance lacks compulsory control tools, and its account numbers are intricate and impossible to standardize.Although the central government acts with strict standards at the upper end, the pressure it exerts is due to technical difficulties, and the lower the lower end, the more lax it is, and the lower the efficiency of implementation.Such embarrassing situations are like chronic illnesses. In the middle of the 16th century, the graceful and peaceful atmosphere of the Ming Empire was broken by the invasion of the country by "Japanese pirates".Known in Western documents as "Pirates of Japan," the Japanese pirates harassed the coast of China in wave-like movements.In fact, their leaders are Chinese, and there are also Chinese in their ranks.However, in terms of combat, the locals are less effective.Its offensive base is in Japan, and all tactics and equipment are supplied by the Japanese.Strictly speaking, the Japanese pirates were not pirates either. They never fought at sea, but only surrounded and captured cities after they landed. Due to the special circumstances of the organization, the Ming Empire must maintain a state of isolation from the outside world.The rise of Japanese pirates was related to the smuggling trade, and such illegal activities had been going on for a considerable period of time, government officials were contaminated, and local gentry were also involved.China has never had a maritime court, and among those who participated in the trade, the powerful shipowners had a prestige status as the arbitrators of force. Everything was formed naturally, and these people eventually became the leaders of the Japanese pirates. When these strongmen went to land to repair ships more and more without scruple, and issued "subpoenas" privately, ordering villagers to testify in the "court" during their "judgment" procedure, the Ming government suddenly realized that this trend could not last long.Although this maritime authority is still in its infancy, if it is not dealt with in time, it will sooner or later challenge the dynasty that established the country with agriculture.But the more serious the problem became, the more the Ming government exposed its own weaknesses.Some guards have long been neglected and forgotten in history, and there is no way to mobilize them at this time. The soldiers recruited temporarily are unwilling to fight, do not know how to fight, and lack funds to cover emergency expenses.Because of this, since 1553 AD, Japanese pirates have spread poison in the southeast coast for 20 years. It's just that he persisted until the end, and Qi Jiguang, who was rich in imagination, finally wiped it out.He created an army out of thin air, recruiting, training, and reequipping it almost entirely from scratch.His officers were single-handedly selected by him, so he maintained a close friendship among the robes.His soldiers were all recruited from the countryside in the interior, selected for toughness rather than flexibility.He gave the troops tortured drills, and he wanted the troops to live and die together, and he threatened them with the practice of sitting together.The soldier's salary is only slightly higher than the agricultural wages, and his weapons are all made locally.From a political point of view, his Qi family army is completely in line with the rural atmosphere of the Ming Dynasty, and there is no sign of an excellent army.The source of the military expenditure is that an additional tax of "military pay" is added to the existing various taxes, and the collection is limited to the areas infested by Japanese pirates. Only because the additional rate is low, there is not much difficulty in collecting it.It's just that the original tax amount in some counties is close to the maximum limit, and after this surcharge, all tax sources that can be collected will be used up so far, and there is nothing that can be done if you want to increase taxes in the future. In the north, Altan Khan, the Mongolian chieftain, has formed a powerful alliance among various tribes since 1540, starting from the northeast of China today and ending in Qinghai in the west, so he can invest 100,000 soldiers in one battle .Since the 1550s, they have invaded the border every autumn, and sometimes even forced them to the outskirts of Beijing.Fortunately, I Da has no agricultural foundation, and the number of Han Chinese who serve him is very small. In 1570, the grandson of Alda defected to the Ming army. The generals of the Chinese defense area took this opportunity to make peace with Alda and awarded him the title of King of Shunyi. He was allowed to trade with each other every year and gave him subsidies. People are no longer troubled by border defense.In a nutshell, although the Japanese pirates and Alta invaded, although the situation was tense for a while, their troubles were not serious enough to force the Ming Empire to reorganize. We see the end of the Ming Dynasty stagnant and lifeless today, but people’s perceptions at that time could be very different from ours, especially bureaucrats who were local gentlemen. They were used to keeping everything as it was. Among them, personal life is not without pleasing places. Generally speaking, if an individual is proud of the imperial examination field, he has a reputation in society, and if he becomes a landlord above the middle level, his status as an outstanding class is quite guaranteed.In this era, real estate owners often changed hands, reflecting that social mobility still existed.Perhaps the ups and downs of a family and the success or failure of the examination room are external and internal to each other.In addition, no matter whether you are an honest or corrupt official, as long as you are forced to strive for progress until your death like us modern people, then you can retire to the forest after serving as an official for a few years. Although it is not enough to live a luxurious life, at least You can enjoy leisure in comfort. These conditions constitute a universe that focuses on inner thinking, which is fully expressed in prose, poetry and painting, and can also be seen in philosophical discussions.With few exceptions, the artists of the Ming Dynasty belonged to the Jinwai class. This group of leisurely figures escaped the busyness of the world, and the world they saw showed their own spiritual inspiration.The novels written by the Ming people are still appreciated today. Their themes include historical and social backgrounds, as well as pornography and fantasy. They are the most popular novels, and each novel has its own world and its own system.The author confidently presents the characters and things in a very large-scale structure, but usually the organization does not break away from symmetry and balance, creating a large cycle between its evolution.Even the description of reality is shrouded in a universe that originally had outlines.If not, the novelist intersperses each chapter with rhymes and stories, showing the author's wisdom beyond the scope of daily life.In this light, the novelist's art may be compared with the stone-paved garden in Japan. Wang Yangming, the greatest philosopher of the Ming Dynasty.He applied the Buddhist epiphany theory to the Chinese Confucian thought system.However, until the end of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Zhi's tendency to rely on nature was widely quoted, and many schools of Wang Xue were born because of this. This is very different from Wang Yangming's focus on discipline. From the standpoint of the gentry and bureaucratic class, education comes first and wealth comes later.Academic sophistication, literary choice, and demeanor generally outweigh everything else.So when Matteo Ricci came to China in AD 1583, he praised the country as run by a large group of "philosophers."But to show off the common sense of being human, especially the nouveau riche.A gentry family may set up several flagpoles in front of the door to show the number of students who have been admitted to school and donated as supervisors. Local prominent figures also have a large number of entourages in front of the sedan chair; The inside and outside of the house are more particular, which was all the rage in the late Ming Dynasty; collecting artworks has also become a fashion, and antiquities are especially cherished, sometimes an ancient inkstone can be worth 30 to 40 taels of silver, which is enough for the farmer's year-round expenses. However, there is no basis for the so-called capitalists in this era. Although there are occasional businessmen who become very rich, the number is very small.There are also only sporadic examples of agricultural commodification and no evidence of continued operations.Cotton making was still a cottage industry, and spinning by women supplemented family income, especially in the households of poor sharecroppers.Although there are some similarities between this and the "putting-out system" (Putting-out system) at the same time in Europe, such an arrangement alone is not enough to bring about social and economic changes.All in all, the theory of advocating a breakthrough in China's economy in the late Ming Dynasty has its basic weaknesses.Compared with the situation that the business with service nature could not be launched at that time, this statement is self-defeating.At this time, there were no banks, no institutions that issued credit, and the insurance industry had never been mentioned. On the contrary, there were thousands of pawnshops that mainly focused on usury.At this time, there was no proper legal and court organization to promote modern commerce and promote the accumulation of capital.What's more, the legal process that underpins modern commerce is based on private property rights, which is, first of all, contrary to Mencius's moral conception, which is taken for granted by the bureaucracy.As mentioned earlier in this book, the Ming government has been unable to formulate an effective monetary policy since the mid-15th century. How can modern commerce develop in China when so many necessary factors are absent? After the development of science and technology reached its peak in the Song Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty lacked continuous progress.From the weaving of silk to the baking of ceramics, the special mechanical design and processing seem to depend on the vision of the craftsman.Because hydraulic engineering and pharmacology have practical value, the Ming people have made a lot of achievements in these two areas.However, no intention of saving labor and not paying attention to the exploration of knowledge as its own purpose may be the reasons for stagnation.Because the Chinese have already achieved the current stage, if they continue to study, it seems that it is not difficult to lead to the use of higher mathematical tools to learn more profound mysteries in the universe. In terms of agriculture, the Ming is particularly noteworthy for the importation of tobacco leaves, maize, sweet potatoes, and peanuts from the New World.The latter two crops are of special value for solving the food problem because they can be planted in previously uncultivated mountainous areas.However, in terms of agricultural technology, the Ming Dynasty made little progress.The agricultural tools illustrated in the "Nongsang Collection" issued by Kublai Khan in the Yuan Dynasty have not improved after several centuries. It can be seen that traditional agricultural technology has reached its maximum limit a long time ago. However, the Ming Dynasty strived to make China more uniform than any previous dynasty.After the middle period, there were no traces of aliens staying in North China, and there were inter-provincial immigrants in South China, which enabled the population to evacuate to a wider area, and also made the ethnic minorities in the southwest feel more pressure.Historically, estimating China's population has always been somewhat risky.However, Chinese and foreign scholars have a common view that around 1600 AD, China's population was close to 150 million, which was the highest point in history.Although it is stated that the law prohibits people from traveling to sea, in fact, immigration to Southeast Asian countries seems to have never stopped.In 1567, the Ming government unilaterally opened the Moon Harbor in Fujian, which is close to Xiamen.Afterwards, international trade started in Guangzhou and Macau in succession, starting in 1578. Matteo Ricci came to Nanjing in 1595 and Beijing in 1598, leaving an interesting record of the late Ming Dynasty.Looking at it today, we can imagine that China at the end of the sixteenth century was quite like a jade ornament: from the perspective of art, it has its own perfection, but from the perspective of structure, it is really fragile.Because of the restrictions of laws and systems, internal growth has reached its limit.Needless to say, such a country is not easy to mobilize and lacks the strength to resist external pressure. In fact, before Matteo Ricci traveled northward through the Grand Canal, the Ming Empire had already tried its last strength to cheer up.The movement was run by Zhang Juzheng, who was at the time the chief academician and tutor of Zhu Yijun (the Wanli Emperor).When Wanli ascended the throne at the age of 9 in 1572, Zhang Juzheng became the emperor's protector because of the trust of the empress dowager.He has a tacit understanding with the chief eunuch in the palace, so he has considerable prestige when exercising his power, just like a prime minister, but without the title of prime minister.He placed his cronies in secret places inside and outside, and extended his power to the courtiers' supervision and impeachment department and the document education department.Zhang Juzheng worked tirelessly, and often used his personal letters to discuss various issues in state affairs with the governors and governors of various places. Therefore, various guidelines and policies had a tacit understanding beforehand. When the emperor replied, he only concretized the agreed strategy.Since Zhang Juzheng had human rights, he often used the promotion of each person as a bait to win over his subordinates. Zhang Juzheng used this method to monopolize state affairs for 10 years. Until 1582, he died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 57. Zhang Juzheng is resourceful, energetic, and able to use methods, and he is persistent.The biggest difficulty he encountered was that the great empire created by Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, could not be reformed since its establishment.It is not like a country, but like a body shaped by a culture.In some areas, the guard system could not be abolished and a replacement was found, and the financial resources of the state were too fragmented. The Zhangzhi Movement cannot be regarded as an overall reform or a partial reform. It was nothing more than a reform of discipline and a strict pursuit of frugality.Under his planning, all non-urgent expenditures were eased.Budget tightening applies to all departments, and all accounts are strictly checked.Local governments must be forced into savings, with no forgiving.All officials must collect the full amount of tax during their term of office as scheduled, otherwise they cannot be promoted, even retired officials may also be recalled to hold them accountable.At this time, just when the peace talks between the Japanese pirates and Alta were successful, this set of arrangements enabled the Ming Empire to accumulate 12.5 million taels of silver in the treasury within 10 years.Later, in 1592 and 1597, the Ming army was sent to North Korea twice to stop the invasion of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Both sides made tactical and strategic mistakes during the battle. The victory or defeat has not been decided for many years. Only the Ming army can support it. By the time of Hideyoshi's death in 1598, the results had been achieved, though not decisively.One of the main factors that caused this outcome was the use of the stockpile during Zhang Juzheng's administration, which made the military expenditure available. But Zhang Juzheng never attempted to reorganize the government or recreate the civil service organization.The only step he could have led to major reforms, other than tightening the frontiers, was the 1580 survey of the land.However, while the measurement results were still pending review, Zhang himself had passed away, and since then there was no one to preside over it, and his figures did not receive real attention from his successors. Although Zhang Juzheng's fundraising was limited, it had already made all the officials uneasy. Once the leader of the movement died, the opposition and those exiled by him also took the opportunity to make a comeback.Another group of people believed that Zhang had exceeded his authority, and they joined forces to carry out a redress. At this time, the people who supported Zhang and the officials he promoted were excluded, and all the affairs he presided over were also stopped. Emperor Wanli had come of age here, and he accepted the accusation of the opposition that Zhang Juzheng had indeed deceived the imperial court, so he ordered the removal of Zhang Juzheng's various honorary titles during his lifetime.He didn't see clearly that there were various small groups among his subordinates, and they each had interests that could not be disclosed. Instead, they were divided into factions by purges and rehabilitators by supporting and defeating Zhang.In addition, Wanli's own handling of the issue of passing the throne made the situation worse.These two events were originally not related, but each was related to the basic organization of the Ming Empire.From the perspective of people at that time, they were all related to morality, so various issues converged together, and they all contributed to the debate between parties. Around 1587, the ministers began to accuse the imperial court of their faults again because of their admonition to the emperor, saying that Wanli was extravagant and desolate, and favored the mother of the third son of the emperor. At first Wanli was furious, but he realized that punishing those who attacked him would only make them popular heroes in the eyes of other admonishers, so he also adopted the method of passive resistance. , He did not fill important official vacancies. At the same time, he lived in the deep palace, stopped various rituals, and did not appear in front of the public. When he strikes his subordinates, making the officials lack the authority of absolute arbitration, the emperor can no longer inflict greater disasters on them.Later, the officials concentrated on attacking the great scholars, so that promising people could not be satisfied with this position.When the situation was getting worse, a group of younger bureaucrats organized a moral reformation movement to save the situation, because several of them used the Donglin Academy in Wuxi as a forum for discussing government affairs, and their movement was also criticized. Later generations (especially today's Western sinologists) called it the Donglin Movement.But to save the Ming Dynasty, besides this, they can't adopt more means of doing less than failing.In our opinion, the top bureaucracy of the Ming Dynasty has repeatedly abused the name of morality, because ideology has created factions, and the more general and abstract the disputes are, the more they cannot see that the technical problems of the day are beyond their ability to deal with. degree, especially in what we call the "constitutional crisis".When people in Donglin call themselves gentlemen and accuse other people of being villains, those who oppose them are just like them, using narrow eyesight to judge people casually, but the names of gentlemen and villains are reversed, and they should be arbitrated But the emperor was aloof and ignored him. After this period of frustration, Zhu Youxiao, the grandson of Wanli, was also the fifteenth emperor of the Ming Dynasty (he was next to Wanli when he ascended the throne, because the fourteenth emperor Zhu Changluo only reigned for one month), during his reign there was a " "Eunuch Dictator" Wei Zhongxian appeared.He used secret agents to persecute civilian officials, making all parties angry.However, people who study history today carefully examine all the records, only to see that the bureaucratic organization at that time was out of control, and there was no definite goal in the quarrel among civil officials, and they cannot absolve themselves of the blame. In the Wanli era, some things happened that were not noticed.Silver flowed in from overseas, benefiting the southeast but not the northwest. The northwestern provinces relied on subsidies from the central government to the border guards to maintain their balance, and the total amount of silver circulating throughout the country was also limited.例如张居正存积库银时立即引起通货紧缩，重要的商品价格因之下跌。当明帝国用兵于东北，与满洲人作战时，朝代的资源重新安排，实陷西北区域于不利。我们不能忽视此中关系和以后流寇横行于西北的影响，他们终使朝代倾覆。还有一点则是北京政府处在各种争论而且僵化之际，全国各处地方政府之行政效率也都有衰退的情势。 这些隐性因素必须与明朝覆亡的显著因素相提并论，例如万历的懒惰与奢侈。而最值得注意的：此时缺乏任何值得振奋的因素。张居正身后被谪，等于昭告中外明朝已无从改革。 玩世不恭的万历无法逃脱应有的后果。公元1619年4月，去他死期不远，他的10万大军在今日东北被日后庙号称清太祖的努尔哈赤击破，后者最多亦不过率兵6万，却胆敢以骑兵向拥有火器的明军冲锋。现存的文件证实，清朝的创始人将明朝之天命夺取过来之前，已看清对方的各种弱点。 努尔哈赤自己将于下一次的战役中殒身，万历皇帝朱翊钧的生命尚有一年有余。他的皇位终于传给他不愿由之接替的儿子。一个月后他的一个孙子又接替为继承人，也在位不过7年。另外一个孙子再接替而在位17年，终于在朝代覆亡时自缢殉国。可是自1619年战败，朝代的命运已被注定，此后的四分之一世纪只有令人感到颓丧。战场上一时的胜败不足以左右一个基本方向：明帝国今后要两面受敌，西北有农民暴动的流寇，东北有满洲的骑兵，而帝国的财政资源大致在南方，无从有效动员利用，去支持这两面的战争。最后，亦即第16个皇帝朱由检，为人急躁而带不妥协的性格，只向各方表现出命中注定他轮上了一个悲剧性格的角色，却又罄其所有地挣扎，结果，成为一段实足道地的悲剧。