Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

At this time, Emperor Chongzhen could be said to be complacent.In the one year since he came to the throne, Emperor Chongzhen has completely taken charge of the power, and under the praise of literati, he has already gained the title of "Sage King".And the affairs in the court are nothing more than cleaning up the remnants of Wei Zhongxian's party that still remain in the court.

By the way, at that time, Xue Lian's deadly opponent in the Beijing camp, Li Chengzuo, Marquis of Fengcheng, proposed to Wei Zhongxian ignorantly when Emperor Chongzhen first came to the throne: Let Wei Zhongxian take charge of the power and completely empty the idea of ​​Emperor Chongzhen.Now he was settled by Emperor Chongzhen Qiuhou.

Li Chengzuo was deprived of his title by Emperor Chongzhen, exiled on the border, and was arrested and beheaded in the capital in the second year of Chongzhen.Relatively speaking, Xue Lian, who is now under house arrest, got the best end.

The situation in the Ming Dynasty was also peaceful.Under the blow of the female general Qin Liangyu's several victories, the She'an Rebellion could not take shape.The rebellion in Henan was also subsided within a short period of time.

Although there are some reports of peasant unrest in northern Shaanxi, judging from the memorials submitted by the local officials in Shaanxi, it is basically a group of mobs, and it is estimated that they will subside soon.

After being summoned by the platform, Emperor Chongzhen squeezed out a large amount of money and food from the Ministry of Households and sent them to Liaodong in order to meet Yuan Chonghuan's promise of "Five Years of Ping Liao".The situation in Liaodong did calm down after Yuan Chonghuan took office.

This situation is not only known by Emperor Chongzhen from the memorials submitted by Yuan Chonghuan, but also reflected in the memorials submitted by other officials in Liaodong and the supervisory army: since the beginning of autumn, the number of sao harassing attacks by Jiannu Greatly reduced, the interval time is getting longer and longer.

After receiving such good news, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help being a little proud of his wise move of using Yuan Chonghuan as the supervisor. In Emperor Chongzhen's opinion: the situation in Liaodong has improved greatly. As long as he has his own support, Yuan Chonghuan will definitely To achieve the goal of Ping Liao.

Therefore, in these days, Emperor Chongzhen seemed very relaxed.And because of the emperor's ease, the entire court also showed a scene of singing and dancing.

However, Emperor Chongzhen and many ministers in the court did not expect that what they learned was not the same thing at all.The Shaanxi peasant rebellion and the post-Jin slave army, these two will become the objects of Emperor Chongzhen's nightmare in the future, and they actively carried out some actions in the autumn and winter of the first year of Chongzhen.

Let's talk about Shaanxi first.

When the flames of peasant rebellion had just been ignited, the local officials of the Ming Dynasty in Shaanxi were afraid that the fire would burn on themselves, and that the court would find them responsible and be severely sanctioned.

At the same time, these officials imagined that as long as the summer harvest was over, the rebel peasants who were suffering from hunger and cold would automatically disband and return to their hometowns.Therefore, they adopted an ostrich policy, prohibiting all prefectures and counties from reporting news of "incidents".Speaking of this, the author is a little speechless. The drought has become like this today. Are those officials blind and brain-dead? Are they still looking forward to a summer harvest?

However, there will always be people with unlimited IQ.Hu Tingyan, the governor of Shaanxi at the time, whenever a prefecture or county reported a "thief" incident, he beat the visitor without asking why, and said: "This hungry rascal, after plundering to Mingchun, he will fix his ears. "

Well, the largest officials in Shaanxi are like this, so those small officials in the prefectures and counties below will also be little ostriches.These local officials then looked forward to the autumn harvest.

However, some of those farmers who were farming joined the rebel team because they could not survive, and some who were unwilling to rebel also escaped completely. No one came to farm at all, so where did the autumn harvest come from?

In the end, the paper finally could not contain the fire, and the momentum of peasant rebellion was getting higher and higher day by day. These local officials could no longer cover it up, so they had to bite the bullet and report to the court.

However, when the Ministry of War was ordered to conduct an inspection, these local officials tried to shirk each other.They are not good at handling local government affairs, but they are all top-notch in wrangling skills.

When the peasants in northern Shaanxi first rebelled, those rebellious peasants joined the existing horse bandits and bandits one after another.And where did those horse bandits and bandits come from?

This is about the battle of Saerhu that established the establishment of the Houjin regime during the Wanli period.In the Battle of Sarhu, the army of the Ming Dynasty was the Houjin army who besieged Dahachi from four directions, and was defeated by the Houjin army.

Among the four besieging armies, there were Ming Dynasty troops sent from Shaanxi and Shanxi.After those broken soldiers from Shaanxi and Shanxi fled back to their hometowns, they were afraid of receiving the military law and dared not return to the army, so they simply fell into grass on the spot and became horse bandits and bandits.

In the early years of Chongzhen's peasant rebellion, there were bandit gangs with these defeated soldiers as the main backbone and peasants who were struggling to survive as the periphery.

However, this situation has provided abundant ammunition for the wrangling of local officials in Shaanxi.In Shaanxi Province in the Ming Dynasty, in addition to Hu Tingyan, the governor of Shaanxi, who was mainly in charge of local affairs in Shaanxi, there was also a governor of Yansui, Yue Hesheng, who was mainly in charge of military town affairs.

It is conceivable that Hu Tingyan, the governor of Shaanxi, would definitely say: it was the border soldiers under the jurisdiction of Governor Yue Hesheng of Yansui who caused the rebellion, and it had nothing to do with local affairs; Stealing" has nothing to do with the military town.

And as the directly subordinate official sent by the imperial court to monitor the locality——Shaanxi inspector censor Wu Huan, he did not report the real situation to the imperial court, but mixed mud, and in the memorials he submitted, he played [-] boards each. The real situation of the peasant rebellion is an understatement.

But in this way, Emperor Chongzhen and the court ministers were even more confused about the situation of the peasant rebellion in Shaanxi.They can only believe the understated description of the peasants' rebellion in these local officials' memorials.I thought it was just some bandits making trouble, and it was not a problem.

It can be seen from this that under the ostrich and wrangling behavior of local officials in Shaanxi, at the very beginning of the peasant rebellion in northern Shaanxi, the government did not take any organized disaster relief and suppression actions, nor did they take timely action Tell the Emperor Chongzhen and the court ministers about the peasant rebellion.Not to mention getting reinforcements and money from the imperial court.

It was not until the farmers rebelled for more than a year that Yang He became the governor of the three sides of Shaanxi that he told Emperor Chongzhen and the court ministers the real situation of the farmers' rebellion at that time.

But at that time, the situation of peasant rebellion had swept across the entire Shaanxi Province.Therefore, at the beginning of the peasant rebellion in Shaanxi, it has not yet become the climate.The best opportunity to quell the peasant rebellion in Shaanxi was wasted in vain in the hands of those stupid and stupid local officials in Shaanxi.

And why is the Houjin army in front of Yuan Chonghuan's Ningjin defense line so calm?

Huang Taiji went through the death of his father Khan and the thwarted attack on the Ningjin defense line after he first came to power, and came to the conclusion that if the Ningjin defense line cannot be attacked, he cannot enter Shanhaiguan.And if you can't enter Shanhaiguan, you can't enter the Central Plains.However, Ningjin's defense line is too strong. If they attack head-on, even if the Houjin army wins in the end, the Houjin army will suffer heavy losses and will no longer be able to attack the Central Plains.

And because of the threat of the two thorns on the east and west sides of the Houjin army—the Mao Wenlong army in Dongjiang Town and the Mongolian army of Chahar Lindan Khan, Huang Taiji made such a military strategy: He will make great use of Mongolia, and Bypass Shanhaiguan Pass and enter from each entrance of the Great Wall.

Therefore, in February of the first year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji personally led his two younger brothers, Dorgon and Duoduo, to lead an army to conquer the Dorot tribe to which Hal belonged, and entered Ao Mulun, capturing 200 people. .Because of the great victory of Ao Mulun, Dorgon was given the title Mo'ergen Daiqing, and Duoduo was given the title Erke Chuhuer.

But this time, because Lin Dan Khan escaped faster, it did not hit the main force of the Chahar Ministry of Mongolia, and Lin Dan Khan's foundation was not shaken.

So in August of this year, Huang Taiji negotiated peace with Karakin, and in September dispatched Horqin, Karakin, Aohan, Naiman and Khalkha troops to meet.On September [-]th, the Hou Jin army set off to Chahar.On the [-]th, attack Xierha, Xibotu, Ying, Tang, etc., all down.

The next day they chased them to Xing'an Mountains, where they captured countless people and animals.Returned victorious in mid-October.In this expedition, Hou Jin not only attacked the great enemy Chahar, but also further consolidated the rule of the subjugated Mongolian tribes.

Soon, Huang Taiji sent Ashdarhan to these places to proclaim the imperial edict. In the future, if Hara was conscripted, all the bannermen under the age of [-] and above [-] will be conscripted. Those who punished the horse.

Huang Taiji's expedition this time has completely defeated Lin Danhan's Chahar Department.Although Lin Danhan still escaped, but in the years until Lin Danhan died of illness, Lin Danhan never posed any threat to the Houjin army.

What's even more frightening is that because of the force deterrence of the Houjin army and the series of intermarriages between the Manchu nobles such as Huang Taiji and the Mongolian nobles and other gentle means, the Manchus and Mongolians formed a close military group.The mouths of the Great Wall controlled by the Mongolian tribes were also completely open to the Houjin army.

And all the actions of Huang Taiji's Houjin army, because of the existence of that no-man's land, and those Liaodong army generals refused to send spies into the no-man's land for reconnaissance and strangulation in order to preserve their strength. The movement of Taiji's Houjin army is unknown.

Liaodong officials and generals like Yuan Chonghuan only felt on the surface that the harassment of them by the Houjin army was much less.But they didn't know that the main force of the Houjin army had already set out to attack Chahar Lindan Khan in Mongolia.

Therefore, at the end of the first year of Chongzhen, because there was no bad news at all, the Emperor Chongzhen and the ministers in the capital felt that the world was calm.They don't know that starting from the second year of Chongzhen, the entire Ming Dynasty will immediately become stormy under the impact of the times.

However, at the end of the first year of Chongzhen, our Wu Shigong encountered an annoying problem.