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.

I 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.

The irony is that after Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, millions of taels of silver were found in the homes of any ministers at that time. After searching all the ministers' mansions 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 subjugates the country, but all the ministers are 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 Donglin Party members as courtiers is much greater than that of Wei Zhongxian. They really live up to the classic saying: "The scholar harms the country."