Chapter 14 12 Chongzhen Death Bend

The key to understanding China's history and national conditions lies precisely in figuring out the actual interests and interests hidden under the beautiful articles.Without the guarantee of this pattern, those beautiful regulations are nothing more than an expression of the government's good wishes or attempts to deceive others. 【Fatal U-Turn】 In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), March 19th in the lunar calendar was the day when Zhu Youjian, the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty, hanged himself.More than 20 days ago, Jiang Dejing, a cabinet scholar (similar to the current vice premier or member of the Politburo), talked back to the emperor and said a few paragraphs that were too late, but still very important in my opinion, which angered the emperor. Angry, Jiang Dejing also lost his official position.

The backlash stemmed from a different view of the tax hike.Five years ago, in the spring of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, the emperor sent an additional 7.3 million taels of silver across the country as military training expenses, called training salaries.This is the fourth large-scale tax increase after Chongzhen ascended the throne, and the total tax payment of the people of the whole country has almost doubled so far.The emperor's tax increase was indeed out of helplessness.The peasant rebellion in the Central Plains has not yet subsided, and Manchuria has turned upside down again.Just over a month before the decision to raise taxes, the Qing soldiers ravaged two thousand miles across Hebei and Shandong, plundered more than 500,000 people and livestock, and killed a German king in Jinan.They rushed in swaggeringly, and returned swaggeringly with a full load. The Ming Dynasty's officers and soldiers shrank into a group and did not dare to fight against them.How can such soldiers not practice?How can military training not cost money?However, the emperor also felt guilty. If the taxes and fees were increased, would there be any problems for the common people?Yang Sichang was the minister of the Ministry of War at that time, similar to the current Minister of Defense. He was serious, smart and capable, and he did some class analysis for the emperor.

Yang Sichang said: The tax increase will not cause harm, because the money is added to the land, and the land is in the hands of the powerful.Yang Sichang took the last increase in salaries as an example, expropriating three or four silver coins per 100 mu of land. This is not only not harmful, but also increases the burden on the powerful, lest they have too much money to engage in land annexation.This analysis sounds reasonable. The emperor has also heard another analysis in favor of tax increases.In the 11th year of Chongzhen's examination and selection of censors, a county magistrate named Zeng Yiyi from the grassroots also said that taxes could be increased.He said that the key problem is that local officials are not clean. If they are all clean, it would be okay to send some more.The emperor felt that this point of view was right, so he ranked him first in the examination and promoted him to an official position.It is said that the government of Zengzhi County is clean and honest. His opinion must have come from feelings, and it is absolutely correct in logic.From the perspective of the people's burden, corruption equals an extra heavy tax.Assuming that this corruption tax can really be deducted, it is of course no harm to send some more military pay.

With the support of these analyses, the emperor sought the opinions of two other cabinet maesters.The two also favored tax increases.So the emperor made a final decision and increased the levy for training.If it is now, policy makers probably need to ask some figures, such as how heavy the extra burden caused by corruption is, and how much can it be eliminated?What percentage of the land is in the hands of the tyrants, and what percentage of the land is in the hands of the self-cultivators?What is the tenant burden of the tyrants?etc.Neither the top decision maker of the Naihe empire nor his advisors are good at quantitative analysis.

In a blink of an eye, after five years of collecting wages, the problem that was originally intended to be solved was not only not solved, but aggravated.The officers and soldiers are still ineffective; the Qing soldiers are still making trouble; Li Zicheng has changed from a strategic escape to a strategic offensive, marching from Xi'an to Beijing, and has already reached the Datong area; Yang Sichang himself failed in the battle with Zhang Xianzhong and committed suicide.What exactly is going on?Do you need to review the big policy?At this time, a man named Guang Shiheng (similar to the secretary in charge of supervision in the President's Office) wrote a memorial to the emperor. He believed that the policy of increasing the salary was a policy that harmed the country and the people, and the proponents should be held accountable.

According to the rules, this memorandum should first be reviewed by a cabinet scholar, who will draft a handling opinion for the emperor, and then submit it to the emperor for final decision.So Jiang Dejing, a scholar of the cabinet, drafted a passage for the emperor, to the effect that: formerly collecting villains, he proposed to levy salaries, searched the common people, caused the people to be poor, and planted a bane. The emperor was very unhappy when he saw this passage. The salary was obviously collected by him, but Jiang Dejing said that he was collecting a villain, who is a villain?The emperor called Jiang Dejing over and asked face to face: Who is the villain Julian referring to?

The villain Jiang Dejing thought of was Yang Sichang, but Yang Sichang died in his post, and the emperor had always had a good impression of him, so Jiang Dejing dared not say it directly.The villain the emperor thought of was himself, he suspected that Jiang Dejing was criticizing Sang and scolding Huai, so he insisted on asking.So Jiang Dejing pulled out a scapegoat, saying that he was referring to the former Minister of Finance.The emperor didn't believe it, and defended himself: I am not collecting money, I just want to train soldiers. Jiang Dejing said: "Of course the emperor doesn't want to collect money."However, the responsibility of those ministers cannot be shirked.He pointed out a series of figures for taxation, and anyone who heard it would feel that this was a search for the people; at the same time, he also pointed out a series of figures for soldiers and horses, and anyone who heard it would understand that training soldiers was fruitless.A huge amount of money was searched, but no soldiers were trained. It is self-evident whether it should be regarded as accumulation or training.

The words behind are still long.In short, it was Jiang Dejing who talked back, the emperor was furious, Jiang Dejing defended himself again, and all the ministers interceded for him.In the end, the Minister of Finance took the initiative to stand up, saying that the department's work was not done well, and he took all the responsibility on himself.After the emperor heard this, his anger subsided a little. This Jiang Ge is always from Fujian. He speaks with a heavy accent and is not good at debating, but his writing is elegant and extremely knowledgeable.After Jiang Dejing returned home, he wrote a memorial to the emperor to further explain his thoughts.The general idea of ​​the memorial is: Now local officials collect taxes in various names, pursue torture, make people miserable, and welcome thieves when they encounter them, or even go to welcome thieves before they arrive.As a result, the soldiers have not been trained, the people have been lost, and finally the salary still cannot be collected.Therefore, I would like to hold those who advocate the rate adjustment accountable.It was presumptuous of me to do this, I was stupid and straight, and I deserved death.Then he resigned after citing the crime.

Note these few words.Jiang Dejing described a reverse relationship to the emperor: Don't you want to increase your salary to calm the thief?However, the greater the scale and effort you make in raising wages, the more enthusiastic the people will be in welcoming the thieves, and the more thieves will be.The people have turned into thieves, and there is nowhere to collect their salaries.This means an empty policy in exchange for more enemies and the permanent disappearance of the tax base.In order to express this meaning, the most knowledgeable elder Jiang Ge in the cabinet angered the emperor and resigned.

Chongzhen wanted face very much, but he was not confused.Consistent with this contradictory psychology, he allowed Jiang Dejing to resign from office, but soon canceled his training salary.Zhao Yi, a historian of the Qing Dynasty, speculated on the psychology of Chongzhen's dismissal of salaries, and said a very simple sentence: Emperor Gai also knew that the people were exhausted, trapped in exorcism, and became thieves, so he let it go. ④ To put it more succinctly in modern Chinese, the emperor also knew that the more taxes were collected, the more thieves would be. Having said that, we clearly see that the emperor has turned a corner.The emperor's thinking seems to be linear. He wants to collect more money and train more troops, so as to eliminate the rebels.When collecting the first, second, or even the seventh or eighth million, this kind of thinking seems to be correct. There are more money, more soldiers, and the rebellion has begun to subside.But the more we go down this road, the more wrong it becomes.When the money was collected to the tens of millions, the speed and scale of ordinary people joining the rebellion team increased sharply.The new military expenditures collected by the emperor and the newly increased troops are not enough to suppress the newly created rebellion.Describing this turn in this way has a taste of modern marginal analysis, and the people of the Ming Dynasty really did not express it so clearly.But they clearly realized that there was a fatal turn ahead.This dead turn has repeatedly appeared in the history of our empire for more than 2,000 years, costing the lives of countless people, and now it is coming to kill Chongzhen again.

We can imagine a U-shaped valley. Viewed from the side, Chongzhen led the government's brigade to suppress the generals all the way, squeezed out more money, food and soldiers, suppressed rebellions in various places, and achieved some results.But the more he went back, the harder he was, and finally he hit the bottom of the valley.At this time, his efforts had the exact opposite effect.Heavy taxes crushed more farmers, forced out more bandits and rebels, and the scale and intensity of the rebellion began to rise instead. In sum, the greater the pressure to tax, the greater the scale of the rebellion.The new violence of the Empire was no match for the new violence of the Rebellion.When the situation in the whole country reached such a point, Chongzhen was desperate.In my opinion, Chongzhen and the Ming Dynasty were strangled to death by this U-shaped bend, so it is called Chongzhen's dead bend. 【Li Zicheng: The Hard Rock at the Bottom of the Valley】 In different regions, for different social groups, the bottom of Chongzhen's dead bend appeared at different times.Shaanxi was the first place where the bottom of the valley was exposed in the late Ming Dynasty.As for the exact time, if the rebellion of Li Zicheng, the core figure who overthrew the Ming Dynasty, was used as a sign, the valley appeared on a day in the summer of the third year of Chongzhen (1630).On that day, the government that had been squeezed all the way met Li Zicheng, a hard rock. Regarding the story that happened on this day, I have seen three versions.Among them, the most direct statement related to the government's grain distribution comes from Volume 5 of Mao Qiling's "Houjianlu".Mao Qiling is the author of Ming History.The author of "Biography of the Bandit" is considered an authoritative figure.He said that Zicheng was elected as the head of the village. In today's words, Li Zicheng was elected by the villagers as the head of the administrative village.The method of collecting taxes and fees in the late Ming Dynasty was similar to that of the present, and it was also carried out through village cadres.If the money and food are not paid in full, they will ask the village cadres.Mao Qiling said: "It's time to urge the department to be urgent. The county magistrate whipped his arm and shackled the city."The Ming Dynasty had a set of fixed methods of urging grain and distributing money. The flogging boards recorded here, and putting on wooden shackles and showing the public on the street are all routine procedures for urging subjects.According to this procedure, those who have not paid their taxes within the time limit will be beaten up or put on the shackles every five or ten days until you complete the payment tasks assigned by the government.If Li Zicheng failed to collect all the money and food in the village, he couldn't afford to pay for it, so he had to flee to a place where the government couldn't catch him.This is exactly the case with Li Zicheng. A slightly more indirect statement about the connection with the government's grain distribution is the record in Volume 42 of Sun Chengze's "Spring Dream Remnant Records": Li Zicheng, a native of Shuangquanbao, Mizhi County, Shaanxi.Because of the debt of Ai Tongzhi Yingjia in this city, he was forced to become a bandit. According to this statement, Li Zicheng was also forced to rebel by the government's taxes, but in the middle he passed through the hands of a local squire named Ai Tongzhi.The so-called squires generally refer to those landlords who are retired or recuperate at home, and have the status of cadres or the qualifications of cadres.The so-called debt of Yingjia refers to the debt owed when supporting the servants sent by the government to the village.Probably Li Zicheng became the supporting government, borrowed a debt from Ai Tongzhi, and just in time for the disaster year, he couldn't pay it back for a while, and was forced to die by a powerful rich man, so he reversed. Nominally speaking, after the one-whip law was implemented during the Wanli period, all arbitrary fees and apportionments were merged into one total, and there should be no additional support.However, there are policies and countermeasures, and local officials always have a way to collect extra money and food, not to mention that the central government has not played a good leading role.In some remote places, the local government dared to openly dispatch all kinds of additional claims without even bothering to find an excuse. The third version of the story about the valley is that Li Zicheng’s grandfather and father’s generation had already lost their fortunes in the work of raising horses in the government post. He became a young monk, commonly known as Huang Lai Seng.When he was a little older, he herded sheep for a family surnamed Ji. At the age of twenty, he went to the post station as a postman (similar to a postman).In the second year of Chongzhen, due to financial difficulties, the central government could not bear the huge loss of the post office and guest house, so it decided to cut down the post station on a large scale.The following year, 24-year-old Li Zicheng was laid off and unemployed. Zheng Lian recorded Li Zicheng's experience after losing his job in Volume 1 of "Yubian Jilue".He said that Li Zicheng was very popular when he was a courier. During the famine that year, a squire surnamed Ai lent money, but Li Zicheng couldn't pay back the loan. Ai's servants put wooden shackles on him and exposed him to the sun on the street.His fellow couriers wanted to move him to a shady place and give him some water to drink, but the Ai family refused.Li Zicheng also refused to give in and intercede.His buddies couldn't hold back their indignation, they simply destroyed the wooden shackles, and fled outside the city with Li Zicheng in their arms.The hungry people followed suit and formed a team. Zheng Lian, the author of "Yubian Jilue", was captured by Li Zicheng's army and served in the peasant army for many years. This statement can be regarded as a popular version among the rebel ranks. I have listed three versions in a long-winded manner, because all the factors involved in these three versions have an important impact on the shape of Chongzhen's dead bend and the position of the valley bottom.For example, the impact of natural disasters, the impact of landlords, the impact of government taxes and additional apportionments, the impact of severe pursuit methods, the impact of unemployment and laid-off jobs, and so on. There is no need to elaborate on the influence of landlords. We have been educated by the Communist Party for many years and have heard many stories of landlords oppressing farmers.The land rent in the past dynasties in China was indeed very high, usually 50% of the output. If the tenants defaulted, the government would use dictatorship tools to help the landlords, because the fields contained imperial grain.We have already seen that Li Zicheng was exposed to the sun in the street with the yoke, and the yoke is a special torture tool for the government. The appearance of the yoke is a sign of government intervention.In the state of colluding with the government and losing restraint, the local tyrants and evil gentry are an important force that pushes the whole society to the bottom of Chongzhen's dead bend. The impact of natural disasters cannot be ignored.The chaos at the end of the Ming Dynasty started in Shaanxi, which is very reasonable in terms of natural geography.It is said that China's climate entered a small ice age at the end of the Ming Dynasty, presumably the rainfall area generally moved southward.Judging from the meteorological records, it can be seen that there has been a severe drought in Shaanxi for many years, and there is no rain for seven or eight months.In Shaanxi, a place that relies on the sky for food, this means widespread famine.Someone in the Ming Dynasty once observed a phenomenon: when the price of rice in the south of the Yangtze River rose from four to five taels of silver per stone to one to two five to two taels of silver per stone, people could be seen dying of hunger on the road.Before and after Li Zicheng's rebellion, the price of rice in northern Shaanxi lingered at an ultra-high price of six taels to eight taels of silver per stone. Correspondingly, there were records of starvation everywhere and a large number of people eating each other.What's more, Shaanxi is not as good as Jiangnan. Its foundation is very weak, and it can withstand such continuous natural disasters there. At this juncture, what the government should do is relief and disaster relief, and it should never continue to increase taxes and squeeze.What Chongzhen did was to increase taxes, and the pressure was severe. "History of Ming Dynasty."The Biography of the Bandits" records that: At that time, the items collected by Shaanxi included new salary, interim frame, and even loss. The items wished to increase every day.In the first version of the rebellion, Li Zicheng was punished by the county magistrate and put on a shackle to show the public, which well reflects the role of the government in fueling the fire. According to the regulations of Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, local officials must report disasters in various places in time, and those who conceal and fail to report will die.If the situation is urgent, the local officials have the right to directly open the warehouse to release grain, and then report to the Ministry of Households for approval and filing.The central government is naturally more responsible for disaster relief.This is a formal regulation in line with the Confucian theory of governing the country, but it is just a piece of paper.According to "History of Ming Dynasty."Biography of the Bandits" records that in the year when Li Zicheng rebelled, Li Jizhen, a doctor of the Ministry of War (similar to the director of the Ministry of National Defense), once reported to Chongzhen, saying that there was a famine in Yan'an. Seeing that the people were going to be robbers, he asked the treasury to distribute 100,000 taels of silver to relieve the hungry people .As a result, God did not listen.If the emperor doesn't listen, what can you do with him?For the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was their ancestor, and the status of ancestral precepts is equivalent to the current constitution, but the emperor violated the constitution, who would dare to do anything to him? Then again, there may not be much grain in granaries in various places. Many places have it on the books, but they have been secretly eaten by those redundant officials and soldiers, or replaced by bad ones.When Li Zicheng besieged Kaifeng, the granary in Kaifeng exposed such secrets. As a result, Kaifeng was so hungry that he often disappeared while walking alone, and was quietly killed and eaten like a dog.The darkness in China's food sector has a long tradition of thousands of years. Could Chongzhen find a panacea for the cure? The one hundred thousand taels of silver that Li Jizhen applied for disaster relief was not a large amount, roughly equivalent to three or four months of food expenses for the royal family.Besides, in those few years, the people in Shaanxi paid an extra two hundred and sixty thousand taels of silver just for the Liao pay.Compared with tens of millions of military salaries every year, compared with the upcoming many vigorous large-scale battles and the victories or suicides of senior generals, these small figures in terms of money and food are just bits and pieces that not many people pay attention to, but as far as Among these odds and ends, among the people's helpless government corruption and official indifference, Chongzhen's dead end has approached the bottom of the valley. I saw a mobilization slogan before the peasant rebellion in the first year of Chongzhen: starving to death is death, being a robber is also death, waiting to starve to death is better than dying as a robber⑤!This is a very realistic stakes calculation.The risks of being a good citizen and being a robber are already equal, but the hope of surviving as a robber is much greater. This is the bottom of Chongzhen's dead end. Generally speaking, the increase in taxes means that the tools of dictatorship supported by the emperor are more powerful, and the risk of common people's rebellion should also increase accordingly.Although the transformation channel from money and food to deterrence is corrupt and rotten, and there is serious leakage, that large amount of money and food will always turn into some troops and swords, which will be forced in front of the rebels, and dangle in front of the disaffected people, posing a chilling threat .However, if the squeeze is excessive, the common people will die anyway, and the risk cannot continue to increase, and the above principles will fail.In case the government's suppression force can't keep up, or the outsiders are strong, or they can be bribed, so that the common people can see that committing chaos is a way to survive. At this time, Chongzhen's dead end will come to an end.In this place, rebellion pays off, but being a good citizen doesn't.There are risks in rebellion, but so do good people, maybe even greater.This is the microcosmic basis for the formation of Chongzhen's dead bend. 【Wave after wave of bottom】 Li Zicheng's rebellion was not accidental.He is but part of a wider state-civilian conflict in time and space.The ruling group has monopolized all the power and squeezed the common people. There is no way to do this. The common people are scattered and unable to resist. Sooner or later, this society will sink to the bottom of Chongzhen's dead bend.And Li Zicheng is just a hard rock in the bottom of the valley after wave after wave. He is neither the beginning nor the end. In July of the first year of Qin II, farmers Chen Sheng, Wu Guang, and nine hundred garrison soldiers went to serve in the area of ​​Beijing today. The road was blocked by heavy rain, and they were not able to arrive on time. They were executed according to law.The two discussed what to do, the content of the discussion was how to deal with the government, and what kind of risks and prospects did different countermeasures have.Continuing on the road is undoubtedly sending oneself to death. Compared with fleeing and rebelling, Wu Guang believes that the risk of the two is similar, and it is still a death.Chen Sheng said that the world has suffered from the rule of the Qin Dynasty for a long time, and the rebellion may succeed.So I decided to rebel.Through this calculation that we are already familiar with, it can be concluded that Chen Sheng and Wu Guang are at the bottom of the standard Chongzhen death curve.And the world has suffered from the Qin Dynasty for a long time, which means that the situation of the people of the whole country is not far from the bottom of Chongzhen's death bend. This is indeed an excellent condition for the success of the rebellion.Later, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang gave a mobilization report to their colleagues, talking about the bottom of the crowd.This is probably the earliest rebel mobilization report recorded in Chinese history. The mobilization report said: Everyone was caught in the rain, and none of them could arrive on time.Delay will be beheaded.Even if the head is not beheaded, the death rate of the border guards is usually six to seven out of ten.It is enough for a strong man not to die, but if he dies, he will do great things and become famous, and the princes and generals will be kind! ⑥The people agreed with this conclusion, so they rebelled, the world was in chaos, and the Qin Dynasty perished. This is what happened in 209 BC, but this kind of thing has been repeated for more than 2000 years.This deadly conflict between the government and the people has not been completely resolved systematically.Our ancestors seemed to remember eating but not fighting, always making mistakes on the same question. In March of the twelfth year of Zhizheng (1352) of the Yuan Dynasty, 1,560 years after the rebellion of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, and 278 years before the rebellion of Li Zicheng, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, was 25 years old. At the age of 18, he was working as a monk in a monastery in Fengyang, Anhui.Like Li Zicheng, he became a monk because his family was too poor.At that time, the Yuan Dynasty had forced out the Red Turban Army with heavy corvee and blatant corruption. Officers, soldiers and rebels were killing each other, and the world was in chaos.At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang began to calculate the bad luck.He wanted to join the rebellion, but he was afraid of the risk.If you stay in the monastery, you will sooner or later be tied up by the officers and soldiers to ask for rewards.When he couldn't figure it out, Tang Hetuo, a buddy from the same village, brought him a letter.The letter stated that he had defected to the Red Turban Army and had already become a thousand households (similar to the current head of the regiment), and advised Zhu Yuanzhang to join the group as well.Zhu Yuanzhang burned the letter and hesitated for several days. The brother in the same room told him quietly that someone knew about the letter the day before yesterday and would report it to the government⑦. We know that at this time Zhu Yuanzhang was desperate and approached the bottom of Chongzhen's dead end.But Zhu Yuanzhang was very cautious in handling things. He couldn't make up his mind, so he went back to the village to discuss with another buddy.His question is: Should he wait in the temple for someone to catch him, or should he stand up and fight with them⑧?That buddy thought it would be better to join the Red Scarf Army, but he was not sure, so he advised him to go back and ask the Bodhisattva for a divination, and listen to the Bodhisattva.When Zhu Yuanzhang returned to the monastery, he found that the monastery had been burned down and all the monks had run away.It is said that the officers and soldiers believed that the Red Scarf Army worshiped Maitreya Buddha, and the monks also worshiped Maitreya Buddha. They were afraid that the monks would be spies for the Red Scarf Army, so they burned the temple next to the ban.That day happened to burn Zhu Yuanzhang's shelter, and he had no place to eat.The bottom is here. Zhu Yuanzhang still asked for a divination.As a result, it is fierce to stay, and it is also fierce to escape.The results are the same as Wu Guang's analysis back then, and the risks are the same.How about voting for the Red Turban Army?The answer is Kat.So, the man who was about to bury the Yuan Dynasty went on the road and went to the Red Turban Army. In less than three hundred years, the world has turned a circle again, and it is the turn of Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants to face the first-class figures of Ming Taizu. In the late Ming Dynasty, the first peasant rebellion in Shaanxi was Baishui Wang Er, in the sixth year of Tianqi (1627), 275 years later than Zhu Yuanzhang and three years earlier than Li Zicheng. In March of that year, Zhang Douyao, the magistrate of Chengcheng County, was still urging the conscripts in the year of severe drought, and the methods were cruel, and the common people couldn't bear it.A man named Wang Er gathered hundreds of people on the mountain, and all of them blackened their faces with ink.Wang Ergao shouted: "Who dares to kill Zhang Zhixian?"Everyone replied in unison: I dare!The spoken language at that time was very close to that of today, and the question and answer about dare and dare is the original words recorded in the history books, not my translation.After the question and answer, the group of black-faced men went down the mountain and rushed into the county town, and the gatekeepers hid aside in fright.Everyone broke into the county government compound, and at this time, Zhang Zhixian was sitting in the hall to compete for food. According to the provisions, he sat in the lobby and tortured, forcing the people to pay the food and pay taxes.The black-faced men rushed to the court, armed with weapons, and Zhang Zhixian fled to his house behind the county government compound. The rioters went straight into the private house and hacked Zhang Zhixian to death.Then, Wang Er and others retreated to the mountain ⑨.In the late Ming Dynasty, the peasant uprising in Shaanxi began. In my opinion, Zhang Zhixian died quite unjustly.How could he die?According to the official theory, such a vicious event is simply impossible.The government and the people are a family, and their relationship is like the relationship between parents and children, and there is no fundamental conflict of interest.Zhu Yuanzhang came from the poor, and he himself was a famous stone in the bottom of Chongzhen's deadly valley. He understood the relationship between the government and the people very well, and he also paid great attention to emphasizing the relationship between their family.We know that he has beautiful regulations on disaster relief, which is the proof of family affection.According to those beautiful regulations, Zhang Zhixian sitting in the lobby should be releasing food instead of urging food.There should be a lot of praises below, but why did a group of black-faced men with knives appear?Everyone understands that opening a warehouse to release grain is a very popular thing, even a very lucrative thing, not to mention that it is not his Zhang family's grain.Could it be that there is something wrong with Zhang Douyao, he doesn't like to use other people's money to buy good things for himself, but he wants to risk offending others and collect debts for others?Or does he have other reasons? According to Li Qing's records in the incident, Chongzhen was strict in collecting money and food as soon as he came to the throne, and made some specific and strict regulations.For example, magistrates cannot be promoted if they do not complete their taxation tasks, and officials such as magistrates cannot participate in the pre-promotion examinations if they do not complete their taxation tasks.This is the policy of using carrots to lure donkeys forward.At the same time, there is a policy of expulsion with a big stick.Those who fail to complete the task of money and food will be demoted and their salary will be deducted.This is not a bluff, the Songjiang Mansion and the Suzhou Mansion have heavy tasks of money and food, and their salaries were deducted and fined dozens of times, and they were demoted ten or eight levels.Moreover, the completed grain tax payment indicators that participated in the examination were not only the positive Liao salary, but also many miscellaneous items were added later.Its content is so complex that even the bureau chiefs of the Ministry of Household Affairs (Ministry of Finance) can't figure it out, so they can only rely on the scribes who handle specific registration and handling tasks. In this way, the county magistrate's pressure for money and food was basically forced by the central government and the emperor.After all, wages and black hats are in the hands of others, not in the hands of ordinary people.In this case, what should the magistrates do? There are at least three ways that I know of.The first method, which is also the most honest or the most stupid method, is to take the common people as a knife.Zhang Zhixian was killed a year before Chongzhen ascended the throne. It is difficult for us to pin the responsibility for the death of Zhang Zhixian on Chongzhen. However, Chongzhen implemented stricter policies and more means, and the pressure on county officials and people was even greater. .During the incident, Li Qing once passed by Enxian County in the northwest of Shandong Province (now Pingyuan County, Shandong Province), and saw the county magistrate pressing for money and food, and beating the people until they bled.He said that this is a poor place, and it is difficult to complete the tasks of money and food, but all the miscellaneous items of salary and miscellaneous items must be passed the exam.The rewards and punishments set up by the central government are like this, and the county magistrates are faced with a simple question: your own future and salary are more important, or the ass of a farmer who owes taxes? Of course there are tricks too.Since the directors of the Ministry of Finance are not clear about the names of those exorbitant taxes, they are likely to get away with it.In the Ming Dynasty, there is a jargon describing the unspoken rules of officialdom, which is called before going to the emperor, first come to the hand of the book.The Son of Heaven is originally the biggest, so of course he has to worship, and he should be ranked first.But the scribes are responsible for registering and making accounts. If the task of money and food is not completed, they can bribe the scribes to make them tamper with the accounts, move forward and back, and point out that the unfinished work has been completed.Anyway, the emperor and those bureau chiefs couldn't figure it out.In this sense, the calligrapher can influence the fate of the magistrate more than the emperor, so naturally he should be ranked ahead of the emperor. In Gu Shanzhen's "Ke Dian Shu", I also saw a brilliant way for a county magistrate to complete the task of money and food.He said that when Chongzhen appointed Liao Daheng as the governor of Sichuan, Peng County had a lot of tax arrears.This is obviously a good way to mobilize the enthusiasm of the majority of government officials to recover the arrears.Before the New Year's Eve of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the yamen servants made a large-scale pursuit, causing complaints from the people. Unexpectedly, the enthusiasm of the yamen servants was high, and the common people were forced to the bottom of Chongzhen's dead end.Entering the first lunar month, Wang Gang and Ren Ji, the wealthy citizens of Pengxian County, beat the gong to summon the masses and issued a proposal to eliminate the idiots of the yamen. The crowd responded enthusiastically and destroyed all the homes of the yamen servants.All prefectures and counties in Sichuan rose up upon hearing the news, and expanded Peng County's campaign to eradicate government stupidity into a campaign to eradicate five idiots.It includes not only officials and servants in prefectures and counties, but also those who rely on the influence of the royal family to run amok;During this mass movement, among the five idiots, those who were beaten to death, those who were thrown into a pot to stew, and those who were pushed into the cellar and buried alive are too numerous to remember. This movement spread in Xinfan, Pengshan and other counties, and many people gathered in front of the city gate of the provincial capital Chengdu, clamoring for the city.The government comforted them in many ways, but the common people seemed to insist on asking for an explanation and refused to listen to the government's words.So the government sent regular troops to suppress it, and the situation of stability and unity was restored.The final result of this matter was that Liao Daheng, governor of Sichuan, was dismissed from his post on the charge of inciting a civil uprising and sent to the frontier. I don't know what kind of person Liao Daheng is, but in terms of facts, he is also very unlucky, he has completely become a scapegoat for the emperor.The direct cause of the civil uprising was the recovery of tax arrears, and this reason was related to Chongzhen's policies, and Liao Daheng was at best one of the executors.In the process of execution, there must have been many corrupt practices of extortion and extortion, but this can only be regarded as dependent.Besides, the corruption in the yamen is the result of the profound accumulation of the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years. Who can Liao Daheng have the ability to eliminate the corruption of a century? What's interesting is that the banner of eliminating the five idiots was raised during the mass movement, which is clearly a confession against corrupt officials and not against the emperor.Our ancestors only asked to remove the stupid bugs from the flagpole.He didn't want to cut down the dragon flag.The yamen is still good, but the idiots inside are bad.Is such a claim motivated by a self-defense strategy, or is it what our ancestors really thought?I think that's what they really think, because we don't see much wisdom elsewhere.Li Zicheng seems to have gone the farthest. He is against the emperor, but his goal is to become the emperor himself, and then he will formulate many beautiful regulations like Zhu Yuanzhang, and then gradually become written, and repeat the same thing after two or three hundred years.That's not a good idea.When I say this, I don’t mean to blame the ancients. Thinking about our current situation and level, our ancestors really don’t need to be ashamed. It’s us, our descendants who don’t make progress, who should be ashamed. 【Road to the bottom of the valley】 It is also a huge project to squeeze a prosperous society to the bottom of Chongzhen's dead bend, which needs to be carried out step by step.I want to use the direction of the field price as a buoy for the progress of this project. We know that the heavier the burden on the land and the more levies and miscellaneous taxes, the less valuable the land will be.It's like opening a restaurant. In addition to paying various taxes and fees, a few people in official uniforms come to eat and drink, and after eating and leaving, you have to smile with your face, or you will tear it up. A fine sheet, it is difficult for such a restaurant to make money, and naturally it cannot be sold at a good price.That is to say, the quality of the emperor and the number of corrupt officials have a great influence on the land price.Land prices can be roughly regarded as a buoy for the extent to which the government squeezes the people.The harder the squeeze, the lower the price. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the world was in chaos, the population dropped sharply, the land was sparsely populated, and the price of land was very cheap, only one or two taels of silver per mu.Converted into the price of grain at that time, it was worth about three or four hundred kilograms of rice, which is equivalent to about two thousand and four hundred New Taiwan dollars today.In the mid-Ming Dynasty, the world was peaceful for a long time, the population increased, and taxes were not too heavy. The price of land reached a peak, and it could be sold for fifty taels to one hundred taels of silver per mu.Converted into the price of grain at that time, it was worth about 10,000 to 20,000 kilograms of rice, which is equivalent to about 120,000 NT dollars today.Later, the good and idealistic Emperor Hongzhi died, and his naughty son, Emperor Zhengde, came to the throne. The taxes were heavy, and the land price began to drop all the way.It is said that in the era of Zhengde and Jiajing, people once regarded fields as a great burden, and some people gave them away but people refused to take them⑫.Of course, this is not a rule. Land in the south can generally be sold for ten taels of silver per mu, but the impact of political conditions on land prices is already obvious. Jiajing is the emperor who came to the throne after the naughty boy Zhengde.Hai Rui, a well-known upright official in the Ming Dynasty, was famous for his daring to scold the emperor. He scolded Emperor Jiajing, saying that Jiajing Jiajing means that every family is clean.Similar to this, after Chongzhen came to the throne, there was also a saying among the common people, calling Chongzhen a heavy conquest.To what extent can re-levying be imposed?According to Gu Yanwu in "The Book of Diseases of the World, Commanderies and Countries".It is recorded in "Fujian Three": One mu of civilian land is worth seven or eight taels of silver, and the payment is up to ten taels. I have no intention of defending Chongzhen, but I have to admit honestly that this figure is too outrageous, and my first feeling is that it is impossible.At that time, the grain yield in Fujian was at most three stones per mu (less than three hundred kilograms), and in normal years it was only sold for one tael of silver.This is a lot of money, not just printing as much money as you want.Even if the price of food in Fujian went crazy, three shi of rice was only sold for six taels of silver, so how could it be possible to charge ten taels of money?Later, I saw a memorial to Sun Chengze from the Criminal Division of the Ming Dynasty, in which he described the problem of local private sects to the emperor.Putting myself in the place he described, I have to admit that what Gu Yanwu said is not impossible.Sun Chengze described the situation of local officials in this way, and suddenly he issued a document, asking to take thousands of peas and rice, thousands of bundles of grass, several healthy mules, several bags, several copper pots, and several war horses, and send them to so-and-so There is no way to pay the state and county where the troops are stationed, so they first borrow the regular salary to send it up.But those who are apportioned to the village can be found everywhere.Therefore, there are more private schools than official schools⑬. There are more private factions than official ones, more dark ones than bright ones, and this is the key.From this, I have learned a lesson again, that is, I have not changed my bad habits, and I often have illusions about the ruler.說到這裡，我乾脆就一併承認了吧：儘管我自稱沒有替皇上辯護的意思，但我內心深處潛伏著對崇禎的同情。這位年輕人當了十七年皇上，滿心焦慮，天天熬夜，不近女色，沒完沒了地批閱文件，處理他難以勝任、恐怕也沒人能夠勝任的天下特大號難題，動不動還要下一道罪己詔作自我批評。十七年如一日，簡直就沒有過上一天好日子。換了我當皇上，被那許多誘惑包圍著，我能像他那樣嚴格要求自己嗎？說話要憑良心，皇上可不是壞人，我願意相信皇上，也願意相信中央政府的種種明文規定。可是，我這樣做是要犯錯誤的。理解中國歷史和國情的關鍵，恰恰在於搞清楚隱蔽在漂亮文章下邊的實際利害格局。沒有這種格局的保障，那些漂亮規定不過表達了政府的善良願望或者騙人唬人的企圖。 我們還是接著說稅收攤派和土地價格。公派私派和明稅暗稅徵到十兩銀子的份上，地還能要麼？按照顧炎武的說法，這時候人們的反應是：往往相率欲棄田逃走。這就意味著，在到達崇禎死彎的谷底之前，我們可以看到一個現象，那就是大面積的土地拋荒和流民的出現。流民是土匪或造反隊伍的後備軍，他們的出現又可以更多地製造荒地和流民，進一步壓低田價。 據錢泳《履園叢話》記載，崇禎末年，盜賊四起，年穀屢荒，人們都以無田為幸運，每畝田價不過一二兩銀子。田的成色稍差，也有白送沒人要的⑭。如果一個飯館白送也沒人要了，或者便宜得一塌糊塗，我們當然可以推測，這時候不會再有人開飯館了，飯館的廚師和服務員也要大規模失業了。事實上這正是明末農民的處境。我們可以看到大量戶口（納稅單位）逃亡過半，流民遍天下的記載。 人逃走了，地也荒了，官吏和軍隊的數目卻越來越大，他們總要穿衣吃飯。這就要求我們的父母官更加嚴厲地催逼那些尚未逃走的農民，把他們也逼跑。明楊士聰在《玉堂薈記》卷四裡痛罵楊嗣昌，說他服毒自殺活該，不死也要建議砍了他的腦袋，砍了腦袋仍然死有餘辜。如此痛罵就是因為楊嗣昌建議加派。他加派的兵餉，只能加於尚未造反的地方，湖廣、河南、陝西、四川這些已亂的地方根本就沒法加。而未亂的地方，一日未亂，則加派一日未已。最後鬧到天下全亂，無處加派拉倒。楊士聰描述的大體是一個惡性循環，是崇禎死彎最後階段的加速下跌。 以上說的都是農村和農業，沒有涉及工商業。實際上，工商業的財富更集中，敲詐勒索起來也比較省事，而官場與鄉紳聯繫密切，與工商業的聯繫卻弱得多，敲詐起來的內部阻力也小得多。所以，在農村發生危機的時候，工商業的失業大軍也出現了。據統計，在山東臨清，七十三家布店中的四十五家，三十三家綢緞店中的二十一家，都於十七世紀初被迫倒閉關門。北京門頭溝的礦工曾在一六○三年進城示威。蘇州、松江、杭州、北京和所有重要的手工業中心，幾乎每年都出現市民暴動⑮。工商業對稅率和腐敗的反應比農業敏銳得多，農民以肚子的忍耐程度為底線，工商業沒了利潤便要破產。工商業的崩潰導致農產品市場萎縮，又會加劇農村的危機。這方面的內容講起來另是一大篇文章，在此暫且從略。 在崇禎死彎的下坡路上，明朝的官軍又狠狠地踹了社會一腳。 明朝的鄖陽巡按高斗樞在《守鄖紀略》中記載了明末的情景和官軍的表現。他說，崇禎十四年（一六四一年）六月，他奉命駐守鄖陽。七月初，他從長沙動身，水路到達荊州，路經襄陽，八月初六進入鄖陽。一路數百里的農田裡都長滿了蓬蒿，村落破敗，沒有人煙。唯有靠近城市的一些田地，還有城裡人耕種餬口。 他說，在他抵達鄖陽前的十幾天，左良玉率領的官軍路過此地，兩三萬官兵一湧入城，城中沒有一家沒有兵的。淫汙之狀不可言。住了幾天大軍開拔，又將城裡所有人家清洗一空，十多天後他到了，竟然找不到米和菜。士紳和百姓見到他，無不痛哭流涕，不恨賊而恨兵。 高斗樞不願細說官軍的淫汙之狀，但我們可以在別處找到補充材料。李清在《三垣筆記．下．弘光》中說：左良玉的兵一半要算群盜，甚是淫汙狠毒。每入百姓家勒索，用木板將人夾住，小火燒之，胖人有的能流一地油。他們搶掠來婦女，公然在大街上姦汙。將她們拉到船上搶走時，有人望著岸上的父親或丈夫哭泣，立刻被這些兵砍下腦袋來。 公平地說，左良玉的部隊在明朝官軍中並不是最壞的。他們燒殺搶掠，但是好歹還能打仗，這總比那些見到百姓如狼似虎，見到清兵和土匪便抱頭鼠竄的傢伙管點用。另外，官軍搶劫百姓，明朝官府要負多一半的責任。儘管官府的稅費一徵再徵，仍然嚴重拖欠軍餉。士兵們被迫賣命打仗，卻又缺糧斷餉，搶劫起來自然理直氣壯，軍官們也就不敢真管已經有許多把官兵逼反的先例。在這個意義上，官軍的搶劫等於一次刮地三尺的極其兇殘的高額徵稅，過度和違法之處，則相當於政府攤派和收稅時免不了的腐敗稅，當時的正式稱呼叫陋規、或者叫常例，反正都是那些按規矩必定落入貪官汙吏腰包的黑錢。 明朝的官軍數以百萬計，這是橫行天下的百萬豺狼餓虎，在計算崇禎死彎及其谷底的時候無法忽略。 【李自成可以抬高谷底】 與官軍的表現相反，李自成的軍紀越來越好。高斗樞在《守鄖紀略》中說：早先，張獻忠和李自成每攻陷一城，就要大肆搶掠一場。到壬午（一六四二年）夏秋，李自成和羅汝才每得一城，則改為派賊防守，並且嚴禁搶掠，以籠絡民心。 馬世奇還向皇上彙報了一件意味深長的事，他說賊知道百姓恨什麼，專門打出了剿兵安民的旗號，結果百姓望風投降。而賊進一步發放錢糧賑饑，結果老百姓把賊當成了歸宿⑯。形勢發展到這個份上，剿匪已經沒有剿兵的旗號吸引人了，漂亮話的作用也就到頭了漂亮話本來對安撫人心大有作用，同樣是餓肚子，心裡以為餓得對，餓得公道，就可能縮在家裡等死；心裡以為不公道，就很可能罵一聲娘，拎著大棒子出門。所以林彪元帥說：槍桿子，筆桿子，奪取政權靠這兩桿子，鞏固政權也要靠這兩桿子。漂亮話確實可以當槍用。 皇上聽說了剿兵之類的事，會有什麼感想呢？李清記載了崇禎和蔣德璟等內閣大學士的一段對話。 皇上聽說百姓多跟著李自成跑，歎息了很久，然後說：我以前當面對河南的督撫說過，叫他們選好將領，選好官員。有了好將領，自然兵有紀律，不敢擾民；有了好官員，自然安撫百姓。百姓視之如父母，誰還肯跟著賊跑？這是固結人心，是比剿賊還要靠前的事⑰。 在明朝的幹部選拔機制中，崇禎想要的巧媳婦究竟能不能選到，選到後如何做出無米之炊，已經是另外的問題了。我在這裡想說的還是崇禎死彎，而李自成等人的出現，對崇禎死彎的谷底的高度有重大的影響。 沒有李自成，谷底會比較深，非等到反正也是一死的時候才算到了底。有了李自成之類的強大反對勢力，人們利害計算的結果頓時改變，崇禎死彎的谷底就要抬高了。李自成的力量正在發展壯大，不那麼容易被消滅，反過來倒有得天下的可能，這時候入夥的風險就降低了，甚至比當流民的風險還要低了。而自己當官坐天下的利益似乎也可以列入人生預算了。此外，李自成等輩將大批官軍吸引過去，鬧得全國各地兵力空虛，無論是造反起義還是當土匪搶東西，風險都大幅度降低了。到了這種時刻，當然不必等到快餓死的時候再造反。這已經不是生死之間的選擇，而是怎樣更有利的選擇，是比生死底線高出一大截的選擇。 對於一無所有，吃了上頓沒下頓的流民來說，答案是很明白的。對於躲在城裡的良民來說，跟誰走的利弊恐怕還要算算清楚。這時候，李自成散佈的歌謠給出了一個粗直的答案。歌曰：吃他娘，穿他娘，開了大門迎闖王，闖王來時不納糧！ 對於那些饑寒交迫的人們來說，對於那些即將被苛捐雜稅和貪官汙吏逼得傾家蕩產的人們來說，痛痛快快地吃他娘幾頓飽的，穿他娘一身暖的，不再給狗日的納糧了，這是多麼美好的世界啊！ 【結局】 崇禎十七年（一六四四年）舊曆三月十二日，李自成大軍逼近北京西北三百餘里的軍事重鎮宣府（今河北宣化），巡撫朱之馮開會，號召誓死守城。而城中哄傳李自成免徭役、不殺人，全城喜氣洋洋，張燈結綵，點上香準備迎接。鎮守太監杜勳打算帶人去三十里外歡迎李自成。朱之馮痛斥這位皇上的特派員沒良心，杜太監嘻嘻一笑，兀自領著人走了。李自成的隊伍到了，朱之馮無可奈何，親自登上城樓，向左右下令發炮，左右默然，誰都不動。朱之馮親自點火放炮，又被左右拉住。細看時，大炮的線孔已經被鐵釘釘死。朱之馮嘆道：沒想到人心至此。然後仰天大哭，給崇禎寫了封遺書，勸皇上收拾人心。隨後上吊自殺⑱。 五天後，三月十七日，李自成大軍抵達北京，發炮攻城。十八日，崇禎在炮聲中發出罪己詔，宣佈取消所有加派的新餉舊餉。當晚，北京城破。十九日凌晨，崇禎自縊於皇宮後的景山腳下，時年三十三歲。 Notes: ➀清嚴有禧：《漱華隨筆》卷一。順便提一句：曾就義上任不久就病死了。嚴有禧恨恨地罵道：夫國計民生，何等重大，而昧心妄言，以博一己之官，此天地不容。曾之死，陰禍致然也！我覺得他罵得有點不分青紅皂白。 ➁《明史》卷二五二，楊嗣昌列傳。 ➂明李清：《三垣筆記．附識》。 ➃清趙翼：《廿二史劄記》卷三十六。 ➄《明季北略》卷五。 ➅《史記．陳涉世家》。 ➆參見吳晗《朱元璋傳》第四十七頁。 ➇皇陵碑上這幾句話的原文是：當此之際，逼迫而無已，試與知者相商。乃告之曰：果束手以待罪，亦奮臂而相戕？ ➈參見《烈皇小識》卷一，《頌天臚筆》卷二十一，轉引自柳義南《李自成紀年附考》第二十二頁。 ➉李清《三垣筆記上．崇禎》。給事中的職位，近似如今總統辦公室中負責監察工作的秘書，職位不高，但有權駁回中央各部甚至皇帝本人的不合成法的決定。 ⑪《三垣筆記上．崇禎》。 ⑫參見黃冕堂：《明史管窺》。 ⑬《春明夢餘錄》卷三十六。 ⑭這並不是天方夜譚。一九九九年春，我到安徽農村調查，發現那裡就有白送土地給人耕種而無人接受的現象。當地每畝土地分攤各項稅費將近二百元（新台幣八百元），扣除種子肥料等項成本後，種地只能掙出來低廉的工錢。只要有機會幹兩個月的臨時工，就沒有種地的道理。當地拋荒的順序，也是先從差地沒人要開始。還有一點也是有啟發性的：按照中央政府三令五申的規定，農民負擔不能超過收入的百分之五。而那裡每畝土地的負擔竟在減負辦（減輕農民負擔辦公室）的眼皮下達到了百分之二三十。這也進一步證明，每畝賦稅十兩銀子，並不是顧炎武在胡說八道。儘管這等數目在名義上是不存在的。 ⑮（法）謝和耐：《中國社會史》，江蘇人民出版社，一九七七年第一版，第三七○頁。 ⑯計六奇：《明季北略》卷十九。 ⑰李清：《三垣筆記．附識上．崇禎》。 ⑱《明通鑑》卷九十。