Hou Jin, with tens of thousands of Eight Banner soldiers, finally defeated Daming, who was several times larger than himself. There are many reasons for this, but there is no doubt that many of them have betrayed Daming's rebel generals and made great contributions to all this.
For example, Wu Sangui, no matter why he surrendered, but after he surrendered, it was like changing a person, it was almost like fighting chicken blood, the southern conquest and the northern war, also made a lot of military achievements, and also became one of the three provinces because of his merits.
The one we are talking about today, he was also born as a military general, but he later surrendered to the Manchu Qing and became a famous minister and strategist in the early years of the Qing Dynasty. Although his contribution to the expansion of the territory cannot be compared with That of Wu Sangui and others, his contribution is also unquestionable.
He was Bao Chengxian, the first Han minister in the early Qing Dynasty, so why did he surrender, and why was he able to make a great contribution?
Bao Chengxian, born as a shogun, hereditary military position. During the Ming Dynasty, Bao Chengxian was promoted to a staff general. In 1620, a strange thing happened in Daming, in this year there were three emperors in 30 days, and at this time Bao Chengxian followed the generals He Shixian and Li Bingcheng to guard Shenyang. Soon, he was reappointed as the commander of Kaiyuan East Road, the deputy general of the "New Yong Battalion", and continued to defend the city of Shenyang.
In 1621, the Manchu Qing (then later Jin) invaded Shenyang, the general He Shixian was killed in battle, Shenyang fell, bao Chengxian had to retreat to Guangning.
In 1623, it was in Quang Ninh that Daming also encountered great trouble, facing the Eight Banners iron horse, the Ming army was unfavorable, and Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong Province, had to abandon Guangning City and guerrilla Sun Degong and others to welcome the Qing army into Quang Ninh City. Bao Chengxian had no choice but to surrender to Houjin.
Objectively speaking, he was not worth mentioning at all among the Ming troops that surrendered at that time, so Nurhaci only granted him the post of deputy general.
In December 1629, this time was already the time of emperor Taiji, when he led an army to cut down the Ming Dynasty, and Bao Chengxian followed the Prince of Zheng Zilharang to attack Malanyu and recruit his defenders. When they arrived in Beijing, they recruited the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty's horse factory and obtained many Ming War horses.
Because of his loyalty, he was recommended by Ning Guan, the minister of decision-making of HouJin, and thus he entered the bunkan. Wenguan was the cabinet of the early Qing Dynasty, and it was also from this time that he really entered the Houjin decision-making group and began to participate in the major affairs of the military state.
And his greatest credit is to get rid of Yuan Chonghuan with a plan. Emperor Taiji had no way to deal with Yuan Chonghuan at that time, and later heeded Bao Chengxian's advice and adopted a divisive strategy, causing Chongzhen to get rid of Yuan Chonghuan.
This was a huge loss for Daming, and Bao Chengxian was more and more trusted by Emperor Taiji.
In the following years, he either fought or surrendered, and made many contributions in the war between The Jin dynasty and the Ming Dynasty.
Later, after the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains, Bao Chengxian became the first cabinet minister, and repeatedly wrote to suggest, which also played a certain role in improving the construction of manchu qing power.