In the rapid collapse of the Ming Dynasty, the harm of the Donglin Party was far greater than that of the Eunuch Party, for the following reasons.

1. Wei Zhongxian, headed by the Eunuch Party, although heinous, never hindered the Ming Dynasty's major decisions, but tried his best to protect them. This was not the case with the Donglin Party. It is not an exaggeration to say that it was a disaster for the country and the people.

Anyone who knows history knows that although Wei Zhongxian was heinous and greedy for power, he never embezzled the money allocated by the state for local disaster relief. To give an obvious real-life example, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters occurred frequently in the north and local people suffered terribly. In order to appease the people, Emperor Chongzhen once allocated a huge amount of silver from the national treasury to local disaster relief. At that time, Wei Zhongxian Shang had been quickly eliminated by Chongzhen. Without the suppression of the eunuch party headed by Wei Zhongxian, the Donglin Party quickly recovered its vitality. The disaster relief funds allocated by Chongzhen to the localities had not yet reached the people. After being distributed to the localities through the hands of the Donglin Party members, there was not much money left. You must know that the Emperor Chongzhen at that time was frugal and frugal for these disaster relief funds. Instead, he was embezzled by Donglin Party literati whom he considered loyal. And what about Wei Zhongxian, whom he considered a traitor? When Wei Zhongxian was still there, Chongzhen could not come up with disaster relief money, so he handed it over to Wei Zhongxian. Under Wei Zhongxian's coercion, the Donglin Party members were forced to come up with their own money for disaster relief. When it came to allocating money, no one dared to use it for disaster relief. Take a penny from the payment. Because once they take it, Wei Zhongxian will confiscate his house and exterminate his family. It can be said that the Donglin Party members at that time were extremely afraid of Wei Zhongxian. It is precisely because of the existence of Wei Zhongxian that the literati of the Donglin Party dare to restrain themselves, and only Wei Zhongxian's thunderous methods can shock the Donglin Party. In almost all major decisions related to the Ming Dynasty, such as countering rebellions and disaster relief, Wei Zhongxian and others tried their best to protect and make suggestions, and never hindered them. It was precisely because of Wei Zhongxian's efforts to suppress and mediate that Liaodong Yuan Chonghuan was still able to fight against the Nurhachi rebels at that time. On the contrary, after Wei Zhongxian's death, the border troops were defeated one after another, Yuan Chonghuan was also killed, the Ming Dynasty broke off its own arms, and internal uprisings continued, all of which were inseparable from the Donglin Party members.

2. Although Wei Zhongxian committed a heinous crime, he never thought of betraying the rulers of the Ming Dynasty. Instead, it was those hypocritical Donglin Party members who surrendered and treason when the Ming Dynasty fell.

We don’t deny that Wei Zhongxian is really hateful, but as a minister, he is just greedy for power. Just like Ao Bai later, although he fought for power and made great achievements, he never thought about rebelling. On the contrary, the Donglin Party members above the court, when the Ming Dynasty was about to be destroyed in the later period, were not willing to spend even a penny to raise military rations for the frontline troops. Even if Chongzhen lowered his face and begged, they could not come up with one hundred thousand taels. However, the irony is that after Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, millions of taels of silver were found in any minister's house at that time. After searching all the ministers' residences in the capital, they found as much as 70 million taels of silver. This was the Donglin Party member who had been begging Emperor Chongzhen in the court for even 100,000 taels of silver. Even Emperor Chongzhen had to admit the scourge of the Donglin Party in the end: "The king is not the king who will subjugate the country, but all the ministers will be the ministers of the subjugation of the country."

Summary: The fact is that both the Eunuch Party and the Donglin Party headed by Wei Zhongxian are essentially the same type of people, except that Wei Zhongxian is greedy for power but not treason, while the Donglin Party is greedy for power and money. Treason, the selfishness and harm of the Donglin Party members as courtiers is much greater than that of Wei Zhongxian. They really live up to the classic saying: "A scholar harms the country."

If this question had been asked ten years ago, I would have told you without hesitation that the Eunuchs were all bad people and the Donglin Party were all gentlemen. But now, I feel that this may not be the case. The Donglin Party may not represent the righteous party, and the Eunuch Party may not be useless. I even think that the Donglin Party was more responsible for the demise of the Ming Dynasty than the Eunuch Party.

The eunuch party is a political force that relies on the eunuch leader Wei Zhongxian, but not all of them are composed of eunuchs. When Wei Zhongxian was in power, Wei Zhongxian could be said to be thinking about Fang Zi helping the emperor to make money. Of course, he himself could also benefit a lot from this. However, by using these mine supervisors and tax envoys to collect business taxes and overseas trade taxes from the wealthy, the Ming Dynasty's finances improved during the Tianqi years.

We don’t care what Wei Zhongxian’s original intention was, but judging from the results, his policies did have an effect and did not increase the burden on farmers. This is an extremely critical point.

After having money, the Ming Dynasty’s army also gained combat effectiveness. In the war against the Manchus, as military pay was guaranteed and a group of capable generals were appointed, the Ming army began to become able to fight. In the battle with the Manchus, the Ming army's winning rate began to increase.

When the Donglin Party came to power, they abandoned all these policies just to compete with the people. After missing such a large chunk of revenue, the Ming government once again became unable to make ends meet. The pressure on the big landlords and businessmen suddenly eased, and they became the biggest winners of the Donglin Party's rule.

In fact, this is easy to understand. Just like the surge in military industry stocks after President Trump came to power, these military industry companies are behind Trump. Behind the Donglin Party are these wealthy gentry from Jiangnan. After the Donglin Party came to power, they naturally reciprocated their kindness.

It’s a pity that they did this and suffered the common people, because the country has no money, but the country still has to fight, so they can only reach out to the people and increase taxes.

As a result, Shengdou Xiaomin, who could still survive, could no longer fool him and had no choice but to take risks and become a member of the rebel army.

It can be said that the Donglin Party members are die-hard allies of the rebel leaders such as Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. Without their help, these rebels would have been wiped out 25 times by the Ming government forces.

The reason why they can rise quickly after every major defeat is precisely because of the good policies of the Donglin Party, which makes more and more people unable to survive and have to join the rebel army. Team. Therefore, Li Zicheng should award a big medal to the Donglin Party members. The so-called merit medal contains half of it from me and half of it from you.

It should be said that the Donglin Party is a good opposition party. With their existence, the ruling eunuch party does not dare to be too presumptuous and can make the country move forward on the right track and avoid retrograde events. Condition.

Some people say that if Wei Zhongxian had not died, the Ming Dynasty would not have perished. Although it is a bit exaggerated, if you taste it carefully, you will find that it seems to be true. People like the Eunuch Party are genuine villains. Gentlemen like the Donglin Party look sanctimonious and talk about benevolence, justice and morality, but have they ever done anything beneficial to the country?

What they did was nothing more than opening up the map and saving the country through public opinion. It did not do any good to the Ming Dynasty at that time! Even in terms of national integrity, the eunuchs seem to do better than the Donglin Party. The eunuch Ma Shiying has been scolded as a traitor for hundreds of years, but what everyone doesn't know is that after King Fu was overthrown, this traitorous minister of Ma traveled around the country, organized resistance to the Qing Dynasty, and finally died heroically for his country.

As for Qian Qianyi, the leader of Donglin, he did not dare to die for his country because the water was too cold. He was not as good as Liu Rushi, a famous prostitute from the south of the Yangtze River. This beautiful lady Liu never thought that she would fight against all odds until her death. The hero he chose turned out to be such a coward. From this, we can also see the quality of the Donglin Party members. They are all kings of mouths, with nothing but a mouth.

The main reason why the Donglin Party members have such a good reputation is that they are all celebrities. They controlled the public opinion at the time and did a lot of things to put gold on their faces. In fact, speaking of reality, their contribution to the Ming Empire was far inferior to the eunuchs they looked down upon.

Let the facts speak for themselves. The Donglin Party has brought disaster to the country and the people, and is more harmful than the eunuch Party.

Let’s take a look at several major events that happened during the Donglin Party’s rule:

In the Battle of Sarhu in the forty-sixth year of Wanli (1618), the Ming army was defeated miserably, *** About 45,800 troops were lost, more than 300 generals were killed in battle, more than 28,000 mules and horses were lost, more than 20,000 guns and artillery were lost, and the two cities of Fushun and Qinghe were lost.

In the Battle of Shenyang in the first year of Tianqi (1621), the Ming army was defeated again, losing more than 20,000 people. The most important thing was that in the Battle of Hunhe River, the Ming army’s elite Baigan Army and the Zhejiang Army were completely wiped out. The cities of Shenyang and Liaoyang were lost.

In the Battle of Guangning in the second year of Tianqi (1622), the Ming army's 140,000 troops were defeated and Guangning was lost. Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong, and Xiong Tingbi, the manager, gave up all territory except Shanhaiguan. Later, the Jin army captured Yi, including Yi. With more than 40 castles including Jinzhou and Jinzhou, the Ming Dynasty's 200-year-old foundation in Liaodong was completely lost.

In the second year of Tianqi (1622), Sun Chengzong, who was also a member of the Donglin Party, asked himself to supervise Liaodong. He rebuilt a fortress defense line on the territory 400 miles west of Jinzhou that the Jin soldiers had abandoned, and pursued the "Liao Dynasty" The strategy of "people guarding the Liao territory" was a self-rescue for the Donglin Party members, and it was also their last chance to prove their abilities to the emperor. If they do well, then Wei Zhongxian probably won't have anything to worry about.

But, it’s just if.

In the Battle of Liuhe in the fifth year of Tianqi (1625), Shanhaiguan general Ma Shilong led 8,000 Guanning troops to attack Yaozhou City (east of the Daliao River estuary), which was so-called Houjin's defenseless place. As a result, he was attacked by Houjin. During the Jin raid, Deputy General Lu Zhijia and General Li Chengxian were killed, and the Ming army suffered over a thousand casualties. This is not the most critical thing. Afterwards, the Ministry of War sent people to check the number of Guan Ning's army, and found that the Guan Ning's army, which was originally said to be one hundred and eight thousand, actually had only 57,000, half of which was empty pay. In addition, the Battle of Liuhe was about to collapse. Xizong completely lost trust in the Donglin Party members.

Let’s take a look at how Wei Zhongxian’s eunuchs came to power step by step.

At first, Wei Zhongxian was only engaged in building the tombs of Shenzong and Guangzong. Due to the incompetence of the Donglin Party members, the selection and appointment of generals led to an uncontrollable situation in Liaodong. Xizong was forced to let Wei Zhongxian serve as the Supervisor of Ceremonies. Eunuch Bi also served as eunuch of Dongchang, and sent eunuchs to Liao to capture intelligence work. By the way, he restored the system of eunuchs supervising the army that had been abolished during the Jiajing Xia Yan period. This work was actually relatively successful.

In the sixth year of the Apocalypse (1621), Wei Zhongxian's close confidant Gao Di took over as the manager of Jiliao. He accurately predicted that Nurhaci would launch a new round of offensive on the Western Liaoning Corridor, so he moved Jinzhou, which had not yet built a city wall, to The troops were withdrawn into the pass, and 300,000 shi of grain from Youtun were also evacuated urgently. As a result, Yuan Chonghuan of the pro-Donglin Party thought he was right and held on to Ningyuan. The Houjin siege was not broken for several days and suffered 700-800 casualties. He turned around and attacked the nearby Juehua Island. At that time, the island was connected to the mainland in winter, and the island had 7,000 soldiers. The Duoming army and more than 7,000 merchants were all massacred by Houjin soldiers, more than 2,000 ships were destroyed, and more than 80,000 stones of food were robbed. Who wins and who loses is up to you to weigh.

In addition, Wei Zhongxian also restarted the eunuch taxation system in the Wanli period under the instruction of Xizong, which made a huge contribution to alleviating the financial pressure caused by the Liaodong War.

What can be seen is that after Chongzhen came to the throne, Wei Zhongxian and his party members were overthrown, and for a while everyone was in power, but has the country's situation improved? In the second year after Wei Zhongxian's death, Jin soldiers attacked the city of Beijing. Where did Yuan Chonghuan's intelligence work go?

Whether it is the so-called "Eunuch Party" or the Donglin Party, in the late Ming Dynasty, they were all destroyers and gravediggers of the Ming Dynasty.

But if they must be distinguished, then it is obvious that the Donglin Party is more hateful than the Eunuch Party, or that the Donglin Party has stronger destructive power against the Ming Dynasty. The tomb is also more perfect and thorough.

Since we are talking about eunuchs, we have to talk about Wei Zhongxian.

Although Zhu Youxiao, known as the "Carpenter Emperor", had average abilities, his skills in employing people were just passable, so he specially supported Wei Zhongxian to check and balance the civil servant group.

Although Wei Zhongxian has never read any books, he also knows very well why Zhu Youxiao helped him to rise to power, so he also tried his best to suppress the civil service group, and the Donglin Party was suppressed to the point where it could not raise its head. Come on, this is why the Donglin Party hates Wei Zhongxian so much.

Destroying someone's financial path is like killing one's parents.

Wei Zhongxian not only cut off the Donglin Party's financial path, but also blocked their path to power. Isn't it like killing the nine tribes?

Wei Zhongxian was greedy when he was greedy, but he also had a sense of propriety in his heart. He could not just focus on making money for himself, but also gave Emperor Zhu Youxiao a share, so that Zhu Youxiao could use the money to maintain the Ming Dynasty government. of operation.

What's more, Hou Jin was raging in the north of the Ming Dynasty at that time. It was the time to use troops. Soldiers must use money. If Zhu Youxiao had no money to use troops and Hou Jin invaded, Zhu Youxiao would be responsible for it. If he no longer becomes the emperor, he, Wei Zhongxian, will have no way to survive, let alone continue to hold power and make money.

Wei Zhongxian was greedy, but what he was greedy for was more money from vested interests such as landlords and officials. On the contrary, he reduced farmers' taxes to a certain extent.

Although the wool comes from the sheep after all, at least Wei Zhongxian's starting point is good, but his ability is limited after all, and there are some things that he cannot guard against.

He gathered the wool of the official and gentry landlords, and the official and gentry landlords went to gather the wool of the common people. He was indeed quite powerless in this regard. He also wanted to recruit talented people to contribute to him, but buying him There were not many people who took the blame, such as Sun Chengzong. Wei Zhongxian had always wanted to win over Sun Chengzong, but Supervisor Sun didn't buy it.

Of course, no matter what, with Wei Zhongxian's ability and his greed, it is impossible for the Ming Dynasty to get out of the predicament, and it will only accelerate the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

Compared with the Ming Dynasty during the Chongzhen period, the Ming Dynasty during the period when Wei Zhongxian was in power was more like the last ray of light before dark. The more he plucked the wool of the officials and gentry landlords, the more ruthlessly the officials and gentry landlords plucked the wool of the common people. He will also become more and more hateful. This is an unbreakable cycle of death, at least for Wei Zhongxian.

The Donglin Party and the Eunuch Party headed by Wei Zhongxian are more greedy. They are capable, but they focus their abilities and energy on how to fight for power.

It is precisely because the Donglin Party is more educated and capable than the Eunuch Party that they will be more destructive to the Ming Dynasty.

They thought of ways that Wei Zhongxian could not think of.

They dare to use the methods that Wei Zhongxian dare not use, because they have mastered the pen. They can turn black into white and white into black.

Most of the time they have a bottom line, but when they don’t have a bottom line it’s absolutely terrifying.

Qian Qianyi, the leader of the Donglin Party, and Liu Rushi agreed to commit suicide by drowning themselves together. Unexpectedly, when things came to a close, he said "the water is too cold" and completely abandoned his character.

Later, he shaved his head and put a "pig tail" on the back of his head.

The then Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youjian regarded people like Qian Qianyi as his ministers and entrusted the important task of saving the Ming Dynasty to people like Qian Qianyi.

How can we survive if people like Qian Qianyi are in power?

After Zhu Youjian was deceived by the Donglin Party members into eradicating Wei Zhongxian, because he did not understand the art of employing people, let alone checks and balances, he allowed the Donglin Party to dominate.

After the Donglin Party came to power, they were not as polite as Wei Zhongxian. They had been robbed of so much money by Wei Zhongxian before, and now it was their turn to take power. How could they not get it back?

Not only must we fish, we must fish harder than before.

The Donglin Party abolished many policies that were not conducive to them one by one, and then began their crazy road to making money. This resulted in the fact that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the national treasury had no money, but the officials, gentry and landlords had no money. A rich man.

What is even more ridiculous is that Zhu Youjian has no money and wants the ministers in his eyes to use some money to relieve the national crisis, but those Donglin Party princes who are greedy for power and profit But everyone shook their heads vigorously and said they had no money, and refused to lend money to Zhu Youjian, but Zhu Youjian could only shake his head and sigh.

If the Ming Dynasty during Wei Zhongxian's period was like a place full of chicken feathers, then the Ming Dynasty during the Chongzhen period was like a place full of chicken feathers plus duck feathers flying in the sky.

At least Wei Zhongxian still knows how to protect Zhu Youxiao and the Ming Dynasty, but the Donglin Party princes only care about protecting their own petty profits and ignore the Ming Dynasty.

So, although both Wei Zhongxian and the Donglin Party have a lot of good stuff, the Donglin Party is much more hateful.