![]() ![]() This was leaked to the press, causing a public outcry. When he believed a peace treaty with the Manchus was necessary, he asked defense secretary Chen Xinjia to begin peace talks. For a start, it would have been hard to inspire loyalty when he showed none to his advisors. The competent were scythed down with the inept: Yuán Chónghuàn 袁崇煥, a seasoned general responsible for defending the northern border against the Manchus, was executed in the worst way possible, by lingchi (“slow slicing”), on false charges of treason.Ĭhongzhen’s aim was to smother factionalism, but instead he fanned the flames. He went through 50 Grand Secretaries (the equivalent of a prime minister) in his 17 years, and in the last year of his reign in 1644, the prisons were so full an edict had to be made to speed up court trials. The country was rocked by rebellions within and Manchu invasions without.īut Chongzhen didn’t help his cause: he was intensely paranoid, firing officials at the smallest provocation, determined to root out the corruption that harried his predecessors. A plague cut down 200,000 in the capital, with factionalism and corruption rife across the government. The Mandate of Heaven seemed lost due to consistently bad harvests. Indeed, Chongzhen’s inheritance was unenviable. ![]() Future Qing emperor Kangxi believed that Chongzhen “had at least tried to govern, but there was nothing he could do about the state of the country.” Some historians believe his fate was sealed before he was even born, courtesy of the useless Wanli Emperor. The last emperor of the Ming Dynasty was certainly a serious ruler - serious about reversing the empire’s decline. Some were just dealt a poor genetic hand: the Ming’s Tianqi Emperor was reported mentally unfit, illiterate but an excellent carpenter.īut when it comes to “the worst,” there are three who stand out. The favoritism Emperor Xuanzong showed Ān Lùshān 安禄山 led to the latter leading a rebellion that crashed the Tang’s golden age, and the brutality of Xià Jié 夏桀 (who supposedly rode his chancellor like a horse) led to revolts that ended the Xia Dynasty. Others weren’t suited to commanding armies - the Song Dynasty’s Emperor Huizong was too busy painting to notice the Jurchen invasion that swiftly captured him and irreparably crippled his dynasty. ![]()
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