Later, the old eunuch entered the palace. After several years of silence, he got rid of the wet nurse Wei Chao and stepped on his body to enter the small circle of eunuchs. Then he killed Wang An, the first eunuch in the palace, and got the favor of the Apocalypse Emperor. After several years in power, he acted arbitrarily and excluded dissidents. His name is "Nine Thousand Years Old". After Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, he wiped out the eunuchs in Wei Zhongxian. History books belittle eunuch Wei Zhongxian's intervention in state affairs, even at the expense of spreading rumors and smearing. Wei Zhongxian does have many stains. But in that era of lower limit, compared with Lindong Party, Wei Zhongxian was really a great loyal minister!
Before Wei Zhongxian was killed, the Ming Dynasty was basically not short of money, or not as poor as Chongzhen. During Jiajing period, Yan Song was in power for more than 20 years, with Mongolian Tatar in the north and Japanese pirates in the south. During the Wanli period, it was not in court for decades, but it launched three major signs of Wanli; Emperor Apocalypse worked as a carpenter every day, but the Ming Dynasty was able to run smoothly during these three emperors' periods, and there was no sign that the military strength of the Ming Dynasty was weak. Why? In addition to Zhang Xu's Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty used eunuchs to collect taxes everywhere, and mining tax, salt tax and commercial tax greatly enriched the emperor's internal funds. When the cannon rang, the gold was 12 thousand, and Wanli swept the world because of its wealth.
The Apocalypse Emperor trusted Wei Zhongxian because the three major cases in the late Ming Dynasty, namely, the Qiaocheng case, the Marubeni case and the relocation case, were all directed against his father Zhu Changluo. Compared with Lindong Party, he prefers eunuchs who grew up with him. Wei Zhongxian's strongest ability is not to suppress Lindong Party, but to collect taxes. Wei Zhongxian re-established the industrial and commercial tax and customs duties abolished by Lindong Party at the end of Wanli, aiming at the Jiangnan area where industry and commerce and foreign trade were developed. Therefore, during the Apocalypse period, there was constant war in the Shanhaiguan Pass, but the Ming army never cut off its pay, and there was no peasant uprising in the Pass. When the eunuch was destroyed, Wei Zhongxian left 20 million taels of silver in the emperor's treasury. Without this money, Chongzhen could not last 17 years.
At the beginning of Chongzhen's succession, the followers of the eunuch party spread all over the world, so the Lindong Party was used against the eunuch party. Lindong political party, full of benevolence and morality, abolished the eunuch tax collection system after it came to power. They think that commercial tax, mining tax and sea tax are robbing people's wealth and essence, so they uproot the tax system established in Wei Zhongxian, greatly reducing the tax burden in the rich areas in the south of the Yangtze River. At that time, jiangnan province's tax revenue accounted for one-third of the whole province. Then the problem is coming. What should I do if the soldiers at the front line in Liaodong can't pay their wages? Then increase taxes. In this way, the tax of rich families has decreased, while the tax of poor farmers has increased.
Wei Zhongxian raises taxes on the rich, while Lindong Party raises taxes on the poor. Not to mention the taxes paid by the poor, the poor farmers in the northwest can't even survive the uprising because of natural and man-made disasters. When all the money left by Wei Zhongxian was spent, the mouse in the library, which was originally abundant, moved because of lack of food, and the salary of the frontline soldiers could not be paid, but the strength of Houjin was constantly increasing. Finally, the peasant uprising in Shanhaiguan continued, and the loyalists surrendered crazily because they could not pay their salaries for more than a year. Li Zicheng led 60,000 troops of miscellaneous brands to Beijing at the gates, and led hundreds of thousands of Ming troops who surrendered.
Before entering Beijing, Li Zicheng repeatedly asked for "taking money and leaving" and even called himself a "thief". He only asked for a salary of 1 million, and went home to be the king of the northwest. The main reason is that if he has no money, the surrendered Ming army will not kill him. However, Chongzhen only raised 202,000 yuan, knowing that there was nothing he could do. He lamented that "I am not the king of national subjugation, and all ministers are ministers of national subjugation", and a little eunuch around him cried and said, "If Wei Fu were here, the situation would not be so". Chongzhen suddenly woke up and remembered the words of the Apocalypse Emperor, "Wei Zhongxian is faithful and can achieve great things", but it was too late to regret it.
In addition to taxes, Wei Zhongxian put aside personal grievances and used Sun Chengzong, Zhao Nanxing, Yuan Keli and others against his will. Wei Zhongxian is not without its merits. Even dare to say that compared with Lindong Party, Wei Zhongxian is a great loyal minister!