Evil will be punished

 

Evil will be punished

 

At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, corrupt officials were tyrannical, scandalous officials were everywhere, and the people were in dire straits.

The leader of the horse-trafficking team chatted with Agudenba and the coachman Azhuo about the events of that era from time to time, but he was helpless. The conclusion is just four words: "Evil will be rewarded with evil."

Fang Shi talked about the past experiences of his grandfather, father and himself:

In January of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, king of Chuang, proclaimed himself emperor in Xi'an and established his capital in Xi'an. The founding name of the country was "Dashun" and the name was changed to Yongchang. Then he began to move eastward and arrived in the capital in mid-March.

Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youjian killed his entire family and then hanged himself in Meishan. His death was tragic. In Chongzhen's last moments, he hated that the court was full of mediocre ministers, but there was no one who was knowledgeable, courageous, and willing to take responsibility for the country. Thinking of this, he became so angry that he smashed the tea cup in his hand and cursed: "Every minister who has wronged the country and me must die!"

Emperor Chongzhen's incompetence, willfulness, arrogance and harm to the country have made him infamous in history. This can be regarded as a case where evil is rewarded.

Fang Shi said:

It is said that after Li Zicheng forced Emperor Chongzhen to death, Dorgon captured the Forbidden City under the banner of annihilating the traitor Li Zicheng. Dorgon was once named regent to the emperor's uncle and regent to the emperor's father. Dorgon realized the wish that his grandfather and father had not realized in their lifetime: to enter Shanhaiguan. The Qing army defeated Li Zicheng's army that had entered Beijing. From then on, the Qing Dynasty aspired to dominate the Central Plains and had a state of Zuo for more than two hundred years.

After Dorgon's death, he was named emperor and his temple was named Zongzong. Just two months after being named emperor, the situation suddenly changed.

Dorgon was so outstanding that he did not take Emperor Shunzhi seriously because he had raised the emperor since he was a child. The emperor actually directly "reduced Dorgon's title, removed his temple privileges, removed his posthumous title, deposed the clan, and transferred his property to the palace."

In 1650, the 39-year-old Dorgon fell from his horse and died. Two months later, Dorgon's body was dug out of the grave and whipped. He enjoyed all the glory and wealth during his lifetime, but was ruined after his death. This is another case of evil being punished.

Fang Shidi continued:

The third case where evil is rewarded with evil, then we have to talk about Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng stationed troops in Beijing for only 42 days, but the capital was filled with complaints. Looking at these 42 days, Li Zicheng's failure can be said to be the inevitable outcome. Zhu Yuanzhang was originally a commoner in Huaiyou. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was born a beggar. However, every time he occupied a place, he first stabilized the place and bought people's hearts. Implementing taxation, replenishing the supply of troops, and supporting self-rescue through farming and production, we achieved success in a steady and steady manner. This old Zhu also resented landlords and bureaucrats, but he knew how to change his identity in time and unite the gentry and landlord class. This was his united front strategy.

On the other hand, Li Zicheng, these gentry and landlords were all the targets of Li Zicheng's robbery. In the end, they robbed the palace and robbed officials, robbed officials and robbed wealthy households, and robbed wealthy households and robbed common people. They were completely reduced to a man who robbed everything and had no bottom line. Looters.

After Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, he ordered people to search the palace and found that there were only 170,000 taels of gold and 130,000 taels of silver in the imperial treasury. He was shocked and extremely disappointed. Originally, after he "founded the country", he should have given great rewards to his soldiers. Now that gold and silver are scarce, what should we do?

Under the instigation of Liu Zongmin and others, Li Zicheng ordered the "pursuit of stolen goods." The first person to "donate money" to Dashun's army was the eunuch Cao Huachun. He offered 50,000 taels of silver, which made Li Zicheng very happy.

The first official among the officials to be robbed and killed turned out to be Li Guozhen, a relative of the Ming Dynasty and the uncle of Xiangcheng, who led three battalions of soldiers to surrender outside the capital. This traitorous minister was the most favored minister in the late period of Emperor Chongzhen. When Li Zicheng first met Li Guozhen outside Beijing, he didn't have a good impression at all. He scolded him and said, "You have received an important task from the emperor. You are trusted and favored by more than a hundred officials. You should die in the country. You have the shame to surrender. What do you want to do?" They tied him tightly and ignored his cries and pleas. Liu Zongmin first tortured him, burning him with a small fire and smashing him with a big board. He tortured him all night, and finally made Mr. Li die of extreme pain.

On March 20th, Niu Jinxing, the "prime minister" of the new dynasty, issued a proclamation: "All officials will have an audience with you the next day. After the audience, those who wish to go should listen. Anyone who dares to resist and disobey orders will be beheaded!"

The next day, Li Zicheng and others were sitting in the court hall. Niu Jinxing was holding a roster and calling names one by one. Li Zicheng became impatient after sitting for a while, so he got up and left with Liu Zongmin. Suddenly, an order came from the peasant army: "All the prisoners from the previous dynasty will be sent to General Liu Zongmin to await their fate." So, this large number of people were driven to Liu Zongmin's place.

As a result, Liu Zongmin did not interrogate or ask questions at all. He only asked someone to give an order: "If you offer silver with your official rank, you must donate tens of thousands of silver for the first grade, and thousands for the following. Those who offer silver happily will be released immediately; those who hide the silver and do not donate it will be released immediately. Serve with severe punishment.”

All of a sudden, sticks and sticks were flying wildly, cannons were used to pick out tendons, eyes were gouged out and intestines were cut, and the miserable howls of Ming Dynasty officials could be heard everywhere in Beijing. At the same time, many wealthy people in the city were also tortured and plundered, and all civilians' wages and rice were plundered by the peasant army for military use. The city was full of hungry corpses.

Li Zicheng also felt that it was a bit excessive, and said to Liu Zongmin and others: "Why don't you help the lonely king become a good emperor?"

Liu Zongmin immediately contradicted him: "The power of the emperor belongs to you, and the power of torture belongs to me. Don't talk nonsense!"

Li Zicheng was silent. Don't look at the fact that Liu Zongmin's official title is only "General", not "Taiwei", "Da Sima" or anything like that. In fact, he is almost on an equal footing with Li Zicheng, and he doesn't buy into this buddy's "Emperor" at all.

Therefore, another top priority that Li Zicheng did after entering Beijing was to hold a talent show in the palace, and Dou Meiyi finally came out on top. Later, the daughters of officials were also sent to the palace.

Li Zicheng drank and had fun every day without meeting the officials. For several days, the officials arrived early in the morning, did not eat at noon, and returned in the evening in frustration because they were not summoned. until

On the afternoon of March 23, Li Zicheng summoned all officials.

Li Zicheng called out Wei Zaode, the most important minister under the emperor and the chief minister of the cabinet, by name. He was also one of the initiators of the group request and was full of goodwill. Wei Zaode, a bachelor, was born as the champion of the Ming Dynasty. Let’s take a look at Wei Zaode’s fate first.

Li Zicheng humiliated Wei Zaode: Emperor Chongzhen was very kind to you by favoring you. Now that the emperor is dead, why don't you die for your country?

Wei Zaode said: I am still waiting to serve you, how can I dare to die?

But soon, Wei Zaode was pursued by Liu Zongmin for bribes. According to the "regulations", the minimum salary for a cabinet minister was 100,000 yuan. Poor Wei Zaode only had 10,000 yuan in silver at home. Liu Zongmin refused to believe that the most important minister in Tianzi could be so poor, so Wei Zaode was singled out. Imprisoned in a dark room. Master Wei begged through the crack in the door: "If the new dynasty wants to use me as an official, please let me out. Don't lock me here." This reminded Liu Zongmin.

Liu Zongmin took Wei Zaode into the hall and interrogated him personally. He was tortured by a pinch. While pinching him, he asked: "You are the chief minister, why do you want to cause chaos in the country like this?"

Wei Zaode howled and replied: "I am a scholar, not familiar with political affairs. The late emperor was ignorant, so I ended up like this."

Liu Zongmin was furious: "You promoted the number one scholar as a scholar, and after three years as an official, you were promoted to first assistant. How could Chongzhen be so sorry to you? How dare you accuse him of being an unprincipled and ignorant king!"

So General Liu slapped him dozens of times. When the soldiers saw this, they yanked their sticks hard, and all ten of Wei's fingers were broken. In pain, he shouted: "I have a daughter, and I would like to give it to the general as his concubine!" Liu Zongmin called for his daughter to be taken, raped and sent to the military camp, where the sergeants could enjoy it. .

However, Liu Zongmin was even more disdainful of Lao Wei who offered his daughter, and ordered his soldiers to intensify the torture. After a total of six days and six nights of "serving", Wei Zaode's head was cracked by the torture board, and his brain matter flowed out and he died. The father's debt was repaid by the son, so he went to Wei Zaode's son to repay the debt. His son said: If my father did not die, he could still raise money everywhere, but I don't have the face. As a result, Liu Zongmin decisively beat him to death.

Emperor Chongzhen's father-in-law, Zhou Kui, was also beaten with a stick and died of a split brain. This is basically the fate of people who really don't have money. The clamping sticks are all freshly made, with special wooden thorn clamps. There are 500 sets in total, and the execution locations are all over the city. The poorest officials in the Ming Dynasty, such as Hanlin and Kechen, were the most unlucky. Their families could not afford the money and water, and most of them were tortured and robbed to death.

After several days of torture and looting, Li Zicheng's army obtained a total of more than 70 million taels of silver, which were all remelted by workers into huge square silver plates with holes in the middle for easy transportation. Seventy million taels is really not a small number. Emperor Chongzhen had increased wages and apportionments for more than ten years, but could only get 20 million taels of silver from the people. As a result, the people's morale was disorganized and the country was destroyed.

Fang Shidi said to Agudengba and the carriage driver Azhuo:

Another evil behavior of Li Zicheng was "selling his official position to make money." On March 24, the list of renewal officials of the former Ming Dynasty was announced. Among more than 4,000 officials, Li Zicheng selected 200 people. Except for a limited number of important officials, most of these people came to power by donating military expenditures. To put it bluntly, It is said that Li Zicheng began to sell his official position to make money on the fifth day after entering Beijing.

Li Zicheng and a group of useless military advisers established the Dashun regime, but they did not know how to fully accept military, political and financial power. They were short-sighted and still relied on robbery to make a living. This method of robbery was called looting and paying. Li Zicheng and other leaders believed that all Ming officials' money was either embezzled or plundered from the people. It was all stolen money, and they must pursue the stolen money. Under the banner of "anti-corruption", the targets of the pursuit of stolen goods are all officials. More than 2,000 Beijing officials killed about 1,000 people. "More than a thousand people were released, and more than half of them died." A thousand people were released, and the other half of the officials died.

On March 27, the Dashun regime began to take action, apportioning silver tael according to grade, starting from 100,000 for cabinet ministers. If the number is not enough, the salary staff will be immediately transferred to those who are recovering stolen property. Again, those who have been hired can defer payment. If the debt is owed, no punishment is required. Chasing stolen goods and raising wages became a whole-army operation.

Fang Shi said:

In order to plunder more wealth, the scope of the pursuit of stolen goods and subsidies gradually expanded. For example, if someone on the street was fat, they would be arrested directly. If they saw a house with a higher wall or a larger courtyard, the soldiers would go in and arrest the person directly. Regardless of whether they are officials or not, merchants are also unlucky. Most of these situations are the personal behavior of soldiers, but Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin don't care at all, because they themselves are like this, and besides, their brothers have been fighting in the north and south for so many years, they should also get some benefits. . In the end, the robbery was used on the common people. Women were robbed without money, and the common people in the capital also suffered.

All the wealth in Beijing was wiped out like the land was being scraped off, and all military discipline was ineffective. Li Zicheng also quickly deteriorated in just 42 days. He regarded enjoyment as his first priority, did not talk about military matters, ignored advice, and did not maintain military discipline.

After Li Zicheng entered Beijing, he first selected 30 women to fill the "harem", and also held a "beauty contest", and finally named Dou Meiyi as his concubine. Later, the daughters of officials were also sent to the palace.

During this period, the palace maids were the first to suffer. Some palace maids had to be fished out even if they had jumped into the river, as long as they were alive. Later, the situation gradually expanded. Officials were chased for bribes to support their salaries, and all the female relatives at home were also plundered. Later, For street deadlifts, the pretty ones were given priority to Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng's end is coming to an end, and the time for evil will soon come.

Fang Shidi sang a song "Retribution for Good and Evil":

 

Buddhism often teaches people to cherish blessings,

Don't enjoy it too much.

Confucius said that becoming famous means success.

Good deeds are not enough to become famous.

Sima Qian actually said angrily,

I think successful people are all bad guys.

On the contrary, good people are not rewarded.

A person does many bad things,

Not only did he not suffer any retribution,

On the contrary, it will save you more joy.

The more proud he is, the more evil he will do,

You have more capital to do bad things,

The power to do evil is greater.

Westerners put it more bluntly:

If God wants him to perish,

It will inevitably make him crazier first.

 

There is a common saying among Chinese people:

what goes around comes around,

It’s not that I won’t report it, the time has not yet come.

There is an old Chinese saying:

Heaven will reward you with blessings.

Is it true that good and evil are rewarded?

The more I think about it, the more terrifying it becomes.

Those who do not accumulate evil will not be able to destroy themselves;

Treat small evils as harmless and do not change them,

Small evils accumulate and become big evils.

It is difficult to cover up the evil deeds of a cowardly king and powerful man;

When the people complain, the family is ruined and the country is in decline,

Who can eliminate evil, do good and save people's livelihood?