Chongzhen Emperor - Legacy and Personality

Legacy and Personality

While Chongzhen was not especially incompetent by the standards of the later Ming, he nevertheless sealed the fate of the Ming dynasty. He did his best to save the dynasty. Despite a reputation for hard work, Chongzhen's paranoia, impatience, stubbornness and lack of regard for the plight of his people doomed his crumbling empire. Chongzhen's attempts at reform did not take into account the considerable decline of Ming power, which was already far advanced at the time of his accession. Over the course of his 17 year reign, Chongzhen executed 7 military governors, 11 regional commanders, replaced his minister of defense 14 times, and appointed an unprecedented 50 ministers to the Grand Secretariat (equivalent to the cabinet and prime minister). Even though the Ming Dynasty still possessed capable commanders and skilled politicians in its dying years, Chongzhen's impatience and paranoid personality prevented any of them from enacting any real plan to salvage a perilous situation.

In particular, Chongzhen's execution of Yuan Chonghuan on extremely flimsy grounds was regarded as the decisively fatal blow. At the time of his death, Yuan was supreme commander of all Ming forces in the northeast, and had just rushed from the borders to defend the capital against a surprise Manchurian invasion. For much of the preceding decade, Yuan had served as the Ming Empire's bulwark in the north, where he was responsible for securing Ming borders at a time when the Empire was suffering humiliating defeat after defeat. His unjust death destroyed Ming military morale and removed one of the greatest obstacles to the eventual Manchurian conquest of China.