Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

After returning to the palace, Wu Shigong threw himself into the busy banquet.Wei Yan Shenggong, Yan Jizu, and Liu Zeqing and the others were cleansing the dust; Zhao Ming led the Guide and Runing gentry regiments; Guan Kesong led the Henan and Huguang official corps; The religious delegation composed of Father Carrera, well-known temples and Muslim religious leaders is a party.

There are even under the control of Nanming, the Yangzhou business group and the Jiangnan business group each have a game.Although in every banquet, Wu Shigong tasted it lightly, but such a series of events also made him dizzy.

And these guests all came to participate in the founding ceremony of the Daping Dynasty, and Wu Shigong couldn't do without hospitality.Anyway, after returning to the palace in the evening, Wu Shigong felt exhausted and couldn't breathe for a long time.It seems that this emperor is really not made by humans!

Ye Zhong, who was serving at the side, immediately directed the little eunuch to serve Wu Shigong sober soup and hot towels.After a little relief, Wu Shigong picked up a small box full of memorials and began to annotate overnight.

Now Wu Shigong, of course, is most concerned about the military situation.Therefore, Ye Zhong, who knew Wu Shigong's habits well, first selected the memorials about military affairs.

Wu Shigong first began to annotate the northwest direction, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong's memorials.

Let me talk about Li Zicheng's Dashun Army first.

On August [-], after the Dashun Army withdrew from Beijing, they were able to enforce strict discipline at the beginning, and they were able to trade fairly with the people along the way.However, in order to hinder the pursuers, the troops who served as the rear of the palace wrapped Ouchi Brocade Qi on a tree, cast gold as a box and threw it on the right side of the road, hoping to cause looting by the pursuers, so as to slow down the speed of the enemy's pursuit. speed.

However, when the news of the annihilation of Tian Jianxiu's Dashun Army on the South Road came, the Dashun Army that fled west suddenly collapsed, and their military discipline was completely wiped out.And the brigade also collapsed like an avalanche.

After learning that the Qing army in the capital had voluntarily retreated, those staying at Shimen, Jiaoji Town led by Xue Yong and the remaining Heiyun army also started marching in a hurry, chasing Li Zicheng's troops who had fled west.After that, he overtook the Dashun army in Qingdu (now Wangdu County, Hebei Province).Qihou Guying's troops fought back, and the two sides fought in the east of the city.The Dashun army was hungry, exhausted, and their morale was low. They were defeated by the Runing army, and Gu Ying was killed in the chaos.

The Dashun Army continued to retreat southward, and fought against the Runing Army in Zhending, losing again.Then retreated into Shanxi via Jingxing, leaving elite soldiers to defend Guguan.The Runing Army temporarily stopped their pursuit due to lack of supplies of food and grass, and confronted the rear troops of the Dashun Army at Guguan.

At the same time, the Runing Army that has occupied Beijing City.A series of moves to buy people's hearts began.In addition to the generous burial of Emperor Chongzhen, the prince Zhu Cihong and several princes were also made princes.

And the Runing Army also announced to the world: as long as the former Ming officials are willing to submit to the Runing Army.He returned to his post as an official.Even promoted.At the same time, it was clearly announced that all lands taken away by farmers, soldiers and civilians will be returned to their owners.As soon as these decrees to protect the officials, gentry and landlords were promulgated, those Ming Dynasty officials, gentry and landlords who had been ravaged by the peasant army all celebrated with each other, just like a severe drought and timely rain.

From the [-]th to [-]th year of Chongzhen, many insightful people among the officials and gentry of the Ming Dynasty have actually seen that the Ming Dynasty is about to die.And because most of these officials and gentry were educated people at that time.He is also the leader of the local clan, so both in terms of influence and the right to speak, he influences the aspirations of the local society.

And when military disasters and natural disasters continued for years, even many officials, gentry and landlords.In particular, the families of officials, gentry and landlords in the northwestern provinces were all ruined, so they couldn't wait to find a new protector.

Therefore, when Li Zicheng's Dashun army swept across the several provinces in the Northwest, sweeping through the wind and clouds, these officials, gentry and landlords immediately pinned their hopes on the Dashun new dynasty.That's why?One of the important reasons why Li Zicheng conquered the entire Yellow River Basin for thousands of miles in less than half a year after entering Tongguan.

However, the gentry and landlords were soon disappointed.Although Li Zicheng and the main leaders of the Dashun Army began to gradually transform into the landlord class due to their rising status and the influence of feudal literati, this transformation has not yet reached the level of qualitative change.

In terms of basic policies, Li Zicheng and other leaders of the Dashun regime still insisted on safeguarding the interests of the peasant class.At that time, the Dashun Army had about one million soldiers and had established a political power in a large area. How to raise this huge amount of military pay and administrative expenses?

One way is to implement "light corvee and light tax" under the premise of recognizing and protecting the land ownership of the landlord class, which is the traditional method of many new dynasties in history; the other is to implement a peasant revolutionary policy of expropriating the exploiters.

However, Li Zicheng put forward the slogan of "do not pay errands, do not pay food" in Henan from 14 to 15 years of Chongzhen, and later embodied the policy of "exemption for three years".Is it to keep these promises?Or do you go back on your promises to enrich yourself?

Obviously, the "revolutionary stance" of people like Li Zicheng is quite firm, and they decided to continue to implement the policy of exempting farmers from taxes.And in this way, on the one hand, it has to solve the huge military salary and the increasing government expenditure; on the other hand, it has to abide by the promises made. With meager inventory, the officials and gentry of the Ming Dynasty were implemented to recover stolen goods and pay.And among these three, the last one is the main one.

Therefore, in the area controlled by the Dashun Army, the recovery of stolen goods and salaries was vigorously implemented, causing bureaucratic landlords everywhere to suffer.What's more, the Dashun army tortured and tortured them during the process of recovering the stolen goods, and the honorable gentry was wiped out.In this way, the political attitude of the officials, gentry and landlords, as a class with intertwined potential power in various places, has gradually undergone fundamental changes.

These officials, gentry and landlords originally hoped to take refuge in the protection of the Dashun regime, but now they find that the regime's blade is aimed at themselves.So the harsh facts put them in a state of mortal hostility with the Dashun regime.When the Dashun army was advancing militarily, the officials, gentry and landlords everywhere were frightened by the military power, and on the surface they bowed their heads and lurked to endure, but in their hearts they gritted their teeth and waited for revenge.Even some of the officials, gentry and landlords who were absorbed into the Dashun regime could not help but feel sad for the death of the rabbit and the fox, and doubt the future of the Dashun regime that implemented this policy.

In fact, it is just a sentence-productivity must be determined by production relations.In a feudal society like the late Ming Dynasty, it would be fun to fight local tyrants to divide the land, but it would never succeed.Especially the illiterate rogues like Li Zicheng.

After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Yutian, those officials, gentry and landlords who were in a latent state thought that the time had come, so they launched rebellions one after another, killing or arresting local officials of the Dashun regime, and attacking and killing the local Dashun army garrisons. Once the rebellion succeeded, the original bureaucrats of the Ming Dynasty immediately took control of the local power, thus realizing the full restoration of the bureaucratic and landlord class.

On September [-]th, when the reinforcements of the Runing Army escorted the food and salaries to Guguan, Xue Yong was appointed by Wu Shigong as the general who conquered the west, and led [-] soldiers including Jiaoji Town, Heiyun Army and reinforcements to start In order to wipe out several provinces in the Northwest, the remnants of the Dashun Army and Zhang Xianzhong's Daxi Army launched a full-scale military operation.

And after Xue Yong sent troops, the Dashun regimes in various places rebelled one after another and turned to the Runing army.This made Xue Yong's Western Expedition Army start a wild ride.

For example: Li Zicheng left tens of thousands of heavy troops in Datong, an important town in northern Shanxi, and the general Zhang Tianlin was in charge of guarding it. Because he did not remove the military power of the surrendering general Jiang Yu and others in the Ming Dynasty, and the defense was not strict, Jiang Yu's rebellion succeeded. Zhang Tianlin When the general of the Dashun Army was assassinated, the garrison troops also disintegrated, which made Li Zicheng's plan to stick to Shanxi after abandoning Beijing fell through in a blink of an eye.

And when the leaders of the Dashun Army, such as Li Zicheng, returned to Xi'an via Taiyuan and Pingyang (now Linfen) in Shanxi.Due to the shortage of troops, it is no longer possible to take care of the Jifu area, so the focus of defense is on the front line of Shanxi and Henan.

In mid-September, Li Zicheng made specific deployments for the defense of Shanxi: the Datong area in northern Shanxi was guarded by more than 1 soldiers led by General Zhang Tianlin; The Changzhi area was guarded by Ping Nanbo Liu Zhong with [-] soldiers and horses.

When Li Zicheng left Taiyuan, he personally summoned Li Yong and gave him a plan to fortify the wall and clear the country.In order to strengthen the defense of Shanxi, Yuan Zongdi, the general of the right battalion and Mianhou, was left in Linfen with tens of thousands of soldiers.

In order to consolidate its control over Shanxi, Henan and other places, the Dashun regime also took measures to combat and prevent the rebellion of bureaucratic gentry in various places.And this measure temporarily curbed the spread of the rebellion, allowing Shanxi to temporarily stabilize.

For the same purpose, the Dashun regime also took an important preventive measure. They ordered the forced relocation of the former Ming Dynasty officials and gentry from Shanxi and other places to various places in Shaanxi for resettlement.The purpose of this large-scale migration of the former Ming Dynasty officials and gentry was to make these local snakes leave their hometowns and leave their homes, so that they could no longer exert their energy.

But no matter what, these mere troops could not resist Xue Yong's 17 conscripts.After entering Shanxi, the Zhengxi Army did not encounter any decent battles at all. Instead, the Dashun Army and the local rebel troops surrendered and surrendered one after another, allowing the Zhengxi Army to completely occupy the entire Shanxi Province within a month.The troops also jumped to more than [-] people.

However, during the westward retreat, Li Zicheng did not keep as many main forces as possible in Shanxi, nor did he appoint a senior general to coordinate the defense of Shanxi. This is definitely a serious mistake strategically.It can be seen that the fiasco in Yutian seems to have wiped out Li Zicheng's military talents.

And now that Li Zicheng has returned to Xijing (Xi'an), how does he arrange Shaanxi's defense?How did he prepare for the counterattack? (To be continued..)