The Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty was extremely rebellious

Chapter 5 Who was responsible for the fall of the Ming Dynasty?

Wanli was very angry.

Empress Dowager Li didn't take him seriously at all.

He was the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and he would often punish people by forcing them to kneel, and if they refused, he would order others to do it.

Throughout the dynasties, who dared to humiliate the emperor like this?
He was still gasping for breath after returning to the imperial study.

At this moment, he had no intention of reviewing the memorials at all.

Feng Bao stood aside with a look of worry on his face, his brows almost furrowed into a ball.

Empress Dowager Li is the mistress of the harem. She helped the powerless little emperor to offend others. Can the little emperor really protect her?
"Stop, what are you doing?"

"You are blind, don't you know that I am the manager of the Cining Palace? Move aside, I am here to convey the Empress Dowager's decree."

Suddenly there was a quarrel outside.

Then, Sun Dexiu, the eunuch in charge of the Cining Palace, came in with a stern look on his face, holding something that looked like an imperial edict. He shrieked, "The Empress Dowager's decree, Your Majesty, receive it."

Shall I pick you up?

Wanli couldn't help but roared: "Get out!"

Is the Empress Dowager’s decree useful?
According to the Imperial Instructions of the Ming Dynasty, the harem is not allowed to interfere in government affairs, and the empress dowager's decree was originally useless.

However, during the Wanli reign, the Empress Dowager's edict was useful.

Because Wanli was less than ten years old when he ascended the throne, he was completely ignorant and unable to issue imperial edicts.

Gao Gong, the chief minister of the cabinet at that time, was expelled from the court by the imperial decree of Empress Dowager Li. This shows how powerful the imperial decree of Empress Dowager Li was.

Empress Dowager Li was actually a person who was very good at playing power games. At that time, she joined forces with Zhang Juzheng and Feng Bao to control the power of the harem and even the court.

The unofficial history also says that she had a very good relationship with Zhang Juzheng, which is a joke. Zhang Juzheng was actually just a tool for her to gain power.

If she really had a good relationship with Zhang Juzheng, she would not have chosen Zhang Siwei to succeed him as Prime Minister. Moreover, with her power, Zhang Juzheng's family would not have been harmed so tragically with just one word from her.

Now that Zhang Juzheng is dead and Feng Bao is not very obedient, she wants to change tools.

She did not choose Zhang Juzheng's disciples, nor did she choose Zhang Juzheng's followers, nor did she choose Feng Bao. She chose to join forces with Gao Gong's disciple Zhang Siwei and her own confidant Zhang Hong to continue to hold power in the harem and even the court.

Historically, she succeeded.

Wanli always lived under her shadow and had no power at all, not even the power to make decisions for himself.

But now she may not succeed.
Because the young Wanli Emperor had become extremely rebellious.

The young emperor wanted to take back the imperial power and be the master of his own house.

However, Feng Bao was still a little afraid to offend Empress Dowager Li.

Seeing that Wanli did not accept the imperial edict, he hurried forward to take the edict, raised his hands above his head, and bowed to present it to Wanli.

What does Empress Dowager Li want to do?
When Wanli took the imperial edict and looked at it, he was so angry that he crumpled it into a ball and threw it at Sun Dexiu, roaring, "Get out! If you don't get out, I'll kill you!"

When this little emperor gets angry, he will kill people indiscriminately. He killed seven people this morning!

Upon hearing this, Sun Dexiu quickly picked up the imperial edict and ran away.

Seeing this, Feng Bao couldn't help but ask, "Your Majesty, what did the Empress Dowager say in her decree?"

Wanli's anger was still lingering as he said, "She told me to issue an immediate decree to have you dismissed and investigated, and then to kneel before that fellow for two hours, and then she'll spare me this time!"

This is a big trouble. Empress Dowager Li has issued an imperial decree to deal with him.

When Feng Bao heard this, a look of panic appeared on his face.

Wanli, however, stared blankly at the front, trying hard to recall.

It was only at this time that he realized that the Ming Dynasty's fall into the abyss of destruction was also largely related to Empress Dowager Li.

For example, the decision of Zhang Siwei to be the Prime Minister was made by Empress Dowager Li.

As for why Empress Dowager Li chose Zhang Siwei, a disciple of Gao Gong.

That’s because Zhang Siwei is rich and powerful, and this guy is extremely insidious and good at deceiving people.

This guy has an incredibly strong background and his family has an incredibly large amount of money.

The three major families in Puzhou, the Wang family of former Minister of War Wang Chonggu, the Yang family of former Minister of War who was transferred to Minister of Personnel Yang Bo, and the Zhang family of Zhang Siwei are the top three families among Shanxi merchants, and each of them is rich enough to rival a country.

Moreover, the three families are related by marriage, and Wang Chonggu is Zhang Siwei's uncle.

Wang Chonggu and Yang Bo have both been working in the court for more than 30 years, and have been promoted to the six ministers. Their students and old friends are almost spread throughout the court. In addition, Gao Gong's students and old friends also listen to Zhang Siwei. This guy's power is simply terrifying.

When Zhang Juzheng was alive, no one dared to touch him because of his power. He was also very cunning, pretending to be extremely obedient and never opposing Zhang Juzheng.

In fact, this guy was secretly bribing the confidants around Empress Dowager Li and preparing to seize power.

As soon as Zhang Juzheng died, he became the chief minister of the cabinet with the support of Empress Dowager Li.

Immediately afterwards, he began to settle accounts with Zhang Juzheng.

Empress Dowager Li appointed Zhang Siwei as Prime Minister, which was a disaster for the country and the people. It was this guy who abolished Zhang Juzheng's reforms.

After this guy abolished the reform, land annexation was not curbed, but became more and more serious, which directly led to the repeated peasant uprisings during the Chongzhen period.

The Ming Dynasty, which was originally on the road to revival, fell into the abyss of destruction.

In addition, Empress Dowager Li was too soft-hearted and did something stupid that directly led to the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

She saved Nurhaci!
When Nurhaci first started his rebellion, he only gathered about a hundred people, and the Liaodong generals all suggested encircling and suppressing him.

With the strength of the Liaodong cavalry at that time, it would have been extremely easy to wipe out Nurhaci's hundred or so men.

After learning about the situation, Empress Dowager Li actually said that the man's father and grandfather had died in the chaos of war, and that he was so pitiful and needed to be comforted.

As a result, when Nurhaci rebelled, the Ming court not only did not send troops to encircle and suppress him, but instead gave him thirty imperial edicts, thirty horses, and conferred him the title of Dragon and Tiger General, and also gave him the imperial edict of the Left Commander-in-Chief of Jianzhou Guard!
Nurhaci therefore had the legitimate right to unify the Jurchen tribes and his strength soared, which led to the great defeat at Sarhu in the late Wanli period, in which the elite Ming border troops were almost completely killed or wounded.

This is true. Nurhaci even left a will asking his descendants not to forget the kindness of Empress Dowager Li and to offer sacrifices to her every year.

After Shunzhi entered the Pass, he specially ordered people to build a separate ancestral hall outside the Donghua Gate of the Forbidden City to worship Empress Dowager Li.

Nurhaci's descendants and emperors of all dynasties have been worshipping Empress Dowager Li for more than two hundred years!

There is also the famous dispute over the national foundation during the Wanli period.

Empress Dowager Li chose to stand on the side of those civil servants with ulterior motives and forced Emperor Wanli to make Zhu Changluo the crown prince.

Because the biological mother of the eldest prince Zhu Changluo was a palace maid in Empress Dowager Li's palace.

As a result, Emperor Wanli was so angry that he did not attend court for decades.

This is not the end. The reason why the Ming Dynasty court was short of money after the Wanli Dynasty was not because of Wanli's three major expeditions, but because of two women.

The first woman was Empress Dowager Li, who doted on Prince Lu and allowed him to spend money extravagantly.

In the eleventh year of Wanli's reign, Prince Lu had a grand wedding, which was extremely extravagant. The five million taels allocated by the Ministry of Revenue was not enough, and he also embezzled more than 900,000 taels of military funds from the border troops. All the jewelry in the capital was bought up.

Immediately afterwards, in the 17th year of Wanli's reign, Prince Lu was enfeoffed in Weihui Prefecture. Empress Dowager Li insisted that the then Emperor Wanli give her 300,000 taels of gold and 10,000 hectares of fertile land.

Three hundred thousand taels of gold was equivalent to more than four million taels of silver at the exchange rate at that time, and ten thousand hectares of fertile land was equivalent to one million mu.

When Prince Lu went to his fiefdom, the wealth alone filled more than 500 grain ships. This shows how much money Empress Dowager Li spent on her beloved son.

The second woman is Concubine Zheng.

Concubine Zheng was probably angry that Empress Dowager Li did not allow her son to become the crown prince, and gave so much money and fertile land to Prince Lu.

Therefore, when her son Prince Fu was enfeoffed, she insisted that Emperor Wanli give him more gold, silver and land than when Prince Lu was enfeoffed.

As a result, the then Wanli Emperor gave all the gold, silver and treasures that he had sent eunuchs to collect for decades to Prince Fu, and also granted him 40,000 hectares of fertile land.

Forty thousand hectares is four million mu. The Ministry of Revenue simply could not collect so much fertile land. In the end, they only managed to collect twenty thousand hectares by scraping together some land.

The Ming Dynasty court became extremely poor from then on. Taichang, Tianqi and Chongzhen were not as rich as Prince Fu and Prince Lu.

It can be said that the demise of the Ming Dynasty did not begin with Emperor Wanli, but with Empress Dowager Li!
This woman destroyed the Ming Dynasty.

The question is, this woman is nominally his biological mother. Can he kill her for the sake of justice?

Moreover, this woman is still the one who calls the shots in the harem. Feng Bao is afraid of this woman, and he can't get rid of her even if he wants to.

How to do?
Wanli was lost in thought when a voice suddenly came from outside: "Your Majesty, the Minister of Personnel Liang Menglong requests an audience."

Liang Menglong?
This person was also a disciple of Zhang Juzheng. He originally held the title of Minister of War and had outstanding military achievements.

As soon as Zhang Juzheng died, his staunch ally, the Minister of Personnel Wang Guoguang, was dismissed and investigated.

Because Liang Menglong only held the title of Minister of War but had no real job, he was transferred to the Minister of Personnel.

Logically, this guy should be in cahoots with Shen Shixing. It was because Shen Shixing sided with Zhang Siwei that this guy was able to be promoted to the Minister of Personnel.

If this guy was not in cahoots with Shen Shixing, it would be unlikely for him to become the Minister of Personnel.

What is this guy doing here at this time?

Wanli thought about it carefully, and then said loudly: "Announce."

(End of this chapter)