Not a tyrant or a saint, was the turning point of the Ming Dynasty in Zhengde and Jiajing?

If the Ming Dynasty is divided into two and a half periods, then Zheng De should be the "middle". Among all the sixteen emperors in the Ming Dynasty, Zhengde Emperor Zhu Houzhao happened to be the tenth. Although the middle number is lower, the first nine look more like a unified whole. Starting from Zheng De, the last six seem to be less "disciplined", and even each one is a little "flying with personality".

Posthumous title of Emperor Zheng De was Amin Wuzong. It seems that every dynasty with the word "Wu" is generally not too bad, because it is easy to think of Hanwu the Great, and it should have made outstanding achievements in the military. But among all the fierce emperors, Zhu Houzhao is a special case. He did win a battle and personally repelled an invasion of the south by the Mongolian prince, but that was all. The word "Wu" may come from the word "Leopard" or from a palace called "Leopard Room".

First of all, what is the "leopard room"? As the name implies, this is the house where leopards are kept. There are more than 200 rooms in which there are not only leopards, but also wild animals such as lions and tigers. It is said that Zhu Houzhao likes riding and shooting since he was a child, especially fighting wild animals. When he became emperor, he began to love this "sport" under the temptation of a group of eunuchs, and spent a lot of money to build another palace in Xihuamen. It was originally called a new house, and it was called a leopard house after raising wild animals. Besides beasts, there are actors and actresses in it. Zhu Houzhao was very excited after watching the wild animals fighting with each other. He went to debauchery and never left the leopard's room again.

He has been in office for sixteen years, which is not short. At that time, Daming's ruling center was in the leopard room. However, Zhu Houzhao is not an otaku. If he stays in the leopard room for a long time, he will feel bored and panic, so he will spend a lot of money on hiking. Every time he spends a lot of money, it leads to the failure of national affairs. Not only peasant uprisings began to appear everywhere, but even the princes of the Lao Zhu clan rose up in succession in an attempt to seize the throne. Such a Wu Zong only lived for thirty-one years and died. He died in the leopard room where his body was hollowed out.

Although Wu Zong was dissolute, he left no children. With the support of the Empress Dowager and Yang Tinghe, the cabinet record, Wu Zong's cousin ascended the throne and became the emperor of Daming Di 1 1. He is the famous Emperor Jiajing. Jiajing's fame is related to his long reign. Forty-five years of rule will naturally lead to inconsistency and inconsistency. Generally speaking, Jiajing period can be divided into two parts. The biggest feature of his early period was the chaos since the purge of Wuzong. He was particularly strict in the management of officials, but very tolerant of ordinary people. If we regard Ming Ting as a person, this practice is equivalent to "being strict with yourself and being lenient with others", and it has achieved very good results. Historically, it was called "Jiajing New Deal".

This historical appellation is often called "Prosperity", "Governing the World" or "Zhongxing", but Jiajing is not ZTE. Before him, there were many good emperors who did well, such as Xiaozong, all in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. That is the real ZTE. Prosperity is no longer the Jiajing period, because he is no longer as serious as an emperor. In the second half, I started from my personal belief in Taoism and handed over state affairs to people like Yan Song. After a long time, he ignored state affairs and even provoked a rebellion.

At the same time of civil strife, external forces are also taking advantage of it. In A.D. 1550, Mongolian Andan Khan directly drove his troops to the gates of Beijing, and pirates in the southeast coast harassed him constantly, and the chaos between the north and the south attacked him, which has been bothering Daming since the second half of Jiajing.