A joke about stealing private money.

In everyone's eyes, emperors who have been emperors are generally rich and expensive. Because of this, the people have habitually preconceived that Chongzhen is already the emperor and must be very rich. Not only the people think so, but also the courtiers think so.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen's succession, due to the shortage of the national treasury, he issued a letter to the minister. The general idea is: "the country is already very poor, and there is no gold or silver left in the court treasury." It is difficult to support the development of our country at such a speed. Since you are important ministers of the Ming court, you should share and make progress together. "

After hearing this, the courtiers donated 52,000 pieces of silver, except the supervisor who was with Chongzhen. The rest were prevaricated for a long time, some took out 1200, and some took out 5200, saying that their families were poor and they could only donate these pieces reluctantly. After hearing this, Empress Ming, the wife of Chongzhen, also saved twelve thousand pieces of silver from herself and gave it to her father, who asked him to donate it to the state treasury.

But this Ming queen's father is a greedy man. Like all ministers, he thought that the emperor himself was rich, but refused to set aside any money for the state treasury, so he took out 5 thousand from the 12 thousand given to him by the Ming queen for his own use, and the remaining 5 thousand paid for himself. Although Chongzhen was very angry after knowing it, he was helpless.

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led soldiers to charge all the way, and both Shanxi and Taixuan of the Ming Dynasty were occupied. Chongzhen was awed, and quickly found Wu Xiang, the father of then Governor Wu Sangui, and asked him to support the war. However, Wu Xiangsheng said that he could not bear this responsibility because the salary of the army was not enough.

Chongzhen is short of breath, the state treasury is only 50,000 to 60,000 yuan, and Wu Xiang wants 300,000 yuan. Where can he get it? Wu Xiang insisted on not supporting and saw the enemy press in. In the end, the capital Beijing fell, and the Chongzhen Ming Dynasty also perished. At this time, people still think that the emperor refused to donate money for the country, which led to the final collapse of the Ming Dynasty. But who knows, Chongzhen is at the end of its rope, where is his private money?