Text/Kingdom Building
On the third day of the first month of the 10th lunar month in 1643, Sun Chuanting, the Shangshu and overseer of the Ming Dynasty, was killed in battle at Tongguan. After Sun Chuanting's death, the only main force of the Ming Dynasty in the Guanzhong region surrendered to Li Zicheng's peasant army. In less than half a year, the city of Beijing was attacked by Li Zicheng, the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself, and the Ming Dynasty collapsed. "History of Ming" evaluation: Sun Chuanting died, and there was no jiancheng in Guannei! Pass the court dead and the Ming dynasty dies! So, did Sun Chuanting's death really have that great impact on the demise of the Ming Dynasty?
A brief introduction to Sun Chuanting, born in 1593, the character Boya, the number Ofe Baigu, Shanxi Daizhou people.
Sun Chuanting was originally a scholar, and at the age of 26 (1619), he entered the priesthood and was given the order of Yongcheng County. This young sun was upright and young and vigorous from an early age, and offended Wei Zhongxian, the great eunuch who was in power at that time, and had to abandon his official and return to his hometown. In 1627, Emperor Zhu Youxiao of the Apocalypse died of illness and was succeeded by his brother Zhu Youjian as Emperor Chongzhen of Daming. The Chongzhen Emperor had long heard of Sun Chuanting's reputation, and after overthrowing Wei Zhongxian, he recalled Sun Chuanting to the imperial court and appointed him as an official to seal Langzhong. Because of the favor of the Chongzhen Emperor, Sun Chuanting's official position was like a helicopter, and only 9 years later, he served as a high-powered inspector of Shaanxi. Of course, what is surprising is that this high-ranking and powerful Inspector of Shaanxi is still Sun Chuanting's initiative to ask Miao to serve. Because at that time, there was already a large-scale peasant uprising in Shaanxi, and Gao Yingxiang, the king of the Chuang Dynasty, had already occupied dozens of state capitals, and no one dared to take office.
This Sun Chuanting was also a military wizard. After traveling from Beijing to Shaanxi to perform his duties, within a few months, he beat up the peasant rebel army in the Meridian Valley and captured Wang Gao Yingxiang (1636), forcing Li Zicheng to take only the remnants of his army to fight a guerrilla attack in the mountains of Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi. The following year, with the cooperation of fraternal troops, he defeated the leaders of the peasant rebel army, such as Shengshi Wang, Guabei Wang, YiYi Fei, Zhen Tianwang and other rabble-rousers, stabilized the stormy Guanzhong region, and became the most outstanding military commander at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
In 1638, Li Zicheng, the king who thought he was strong and strong, led tens of thousands of peasant troops to attack the important town of Tongguan in Shaanxi, and Sun Chuanting worked closely with the famous general Hong Chengzu to fight a beautiful ambush battle in the south of Tongguan. In this battle, Li Zicheng's army was almost completely destroyed, and only 18 horsemen were left to escape with Li Zicheng. Just when the situation in Shaanxi was in a good situation, and Sun Chuanting and others were preparing to launch a fatal blow against Li Zicheng and other peasant armies, the Chongzhen Emperor transferred the main force in Shaanxi to Liaodong with a paper order.
In August 1638, Hou Jin took advantage of the gap between the main forces of the Ming Dynasty encircling and suppressing the peasant army in the rear, launched an attack on the border pass, breached the Great Wall (the Ming commander Lu Xiangsheng was killed in battle), and took Shanhaiguan in one fell swoop, winning the Central Plains. The Chongzhen Emperor had no choice but to transfer Sun Chuanting, Hong Chengzu and other large armies to the eastern border pass of Liaodong. After Sun Chuanting arrived in Beijing, there was a conflict with Yang Sichang of the Main Peace Faction and Gao Qiqian, a lieutenant in the supervising army, and in order to stop Sun Chuanting's strategic plan, Yang and Gao designed not to let the Chongzhen Emperor receive Sun Chuanting, and not only that, but also asked the Shaanxi army brought by Sun Chuanting to stay in Jiliao to guard the border pass. Sun Chuanting was furious and questioned Yang Sichang: "If the Qin army stays at the border pass, the thieves are bound to rise, and this is the withdrawal of troops on behalf of the thieves." Yang Sichang ignored it and asked the imperial court to appoint Sun Chuanting's governors Baoding, Shandong, and Henan for military affairs. Sun Chuanting had no soldiers in his hands, and the commander of the light pole was naturally unwilling to take office, so he again asked to see the Chongzhen Emperor fruitlessly, saying that he was sick and retired. Sun Chuanting's behavior gave the political enemies an excuse to attack, and after several slanderous accusations, the Chongzhen Emperor blamed sun Chuanting for the crime of blackmailing the imperial court and imprisoned him in The Dali Temple for trial.
Sun Chuanting spent three years in prison (1639-1642). Although he was not executed because of the righteous words of many ministers, during Sun Chuanting's time in prison, the political situation in Guanzhong underwent earth-shaking changes. First of all, the peasant army Li Zicheng's army was enlarged, and after being devastated by Sun Chuanting in 1638, Li Zicheng was already seriously injured, and the remnants of the armed force were only a few thousand, and they could not turn over any big waves. However, he did not want to have a major drought in Henan in 1640, starvation for thousands of miles, Li Zicheng led his troops into Henan, and within a few days, hundreds of thousands of hungry people surrendered, and the power suddenly became larger. In addition to another peasant army, Zhang Xianzhong's troops also led tens of thousands of people to rebel, and the Guanzhong region of the Ming Dynasty was constantly in turmoil, and the country and mountains were in danger. The military commanders Xiong Wencan and Yang Sichang appointed by the Chongzhen Emperor were repeatedly defeated by the hands of the peasant army, losing their divisions and losing ground, and the Beijing division was shaken.
In February 1642, the unused Chongzhen Emperor proposed Sun Chuanting from the prison, restored his title of Right Attendant of the Army, and asked him to lead a force to unblock the siege. Sun Chuanting was still halfway through, the city of Kaifeng had already been breached by Li Zicheng, and Wang Qiaonian, the governor of Shaanxi and the governor of Shaanxi on the three sides, was captured and killed. Therefore, the Chongzhen Emperor changed Sun Chuanting to the post of Governor of Shaanxi and Governor of Shaanxi on the Three Sides, and quickly took up the post of suppressing bandits. The first thing Sun Chuanting did after taking office was to execute He Renjie, the shaanxi general who passively avoided battle, according to secret orders, injecting a dose of strengthening into the demoralized officers and troops.
In May 1642, Sun Chuanting and Li Zicheng fought a major battle at Zhuxian Town, and the official army was defeated, and the Henan army was basically completely destroyed. In October of the same year, Sun and Li carried out the famous Battle of Persimmon Garden, in which the officers and soldiers won first and then lost, and Sun Bu lost his deputy general Sun Zhixiu and thousands of elites, and had to return to Shaanxi. Why did Sun Chuanting, who had the most powerful field troops of the Ming Dynasty, repeatedly lose? The reason for this is that it is still closely related to the discord between several military commanders and generals. At that time, Sun Chuanting had an army of 7 provinces, namely Hou Ke's (main general Zuo Liangyu)'s HuGuangbing, Yang Wenyue's Baodingbing (main general Hu Dawei), Bai Guang'en's Shaanxi soldiers, Kong Zhenhui's Sichuan soldiers, Liu Zeqing's Shandong soldiers, Zhu Dadian's Nanjing soldiers, and Chen Yongfu's Henan soldiers, with a total number of more than 150,000, and they were all the main forces that had been fighting for many years and were well-equipped. However, among these military commanders, Zuo Liangyu was greedy for life and afraid of death, and passively avoided battle; Bai Guangen and his deputy Gao Jie dismantled each other and did not help each other; Chen Yongfu, the commander-in-chief of Henan, did not govern the army strictly and could not carry out Sun Chuanting's military orders. These combined causes led to the defeat of the Battle of Ruzhou, in which the Ming Dynasty and Li Zicheng's army fought a decisive battle.
In May 1643, in order to defeat Li Zicheng completely, the Chongzhen Emperor promoted Sun Chuanting to the position of Bingbu Shangshu and the governor of Sichuan and Henan, entrusting Sun Chuanting with the last household belongings of the Ming Dynasty in the Central Plains. As a result, Sun Chuanting also officially entered the ranks of supervisors. The Chongzhen Emperor promoted Sun Chuanting's officials and delegated military power, but put forward a harsh condition, that is, to make a quick decision. Many scholars now believe that it was the urging of the Chongzhen Emperor that led to the death of Sun Chuanting, who had no grain and grass, and finally led to the demise of the Ming Dynasty. However, judging from the records of many historical texts, the Chongzhen Emperor had indeed reached the point of exhaustion at that time.
Liaodong was defeated again and again, the governor of Jiliao, Hong Chengyu, surrendered to Jin, coupled with the continuous natural and man-made disasters in the country, the financial deficit was exhausted, it was difficult to continue, if Sun Chuanting was not allowed to fight Li Zicheng in advance, it might not be 3 months later, because of the exhaustion of money and grain and the invasion of foreign tribes. Allowing Sun Chuanting and Li Zicheng to quickly fight a decisive battle, defeating Li Zicheng and then turning back to fight against Hou Jin, in order to turn the Ming Dynasty into a safe place, the strategic vision of the Chongzhen Emperor was not completely unreasonable. Anyway, for whatever reason, Sun Chuanting carried out the orders of the Chongzhen Emperor to the letter, leading 100,000 troops out of Tongguan and fighting Li Zicheng to the death. Knowing that Sun Chuanting had gone out of Tongguan to find himself in a decisive battle, Li Zicheng also made corresponding military arrangements, abandoning some of the cities and pools he had already occupied, shrinking his troops, and planning to lure Sun Bu, who lacked grain and grass, to a decisive battle in central Henan.
In August 1643, Sun Chuanting, under the guidance of the rebel generals of the peasant army, attacked Tang County, where the peasant army families were resettled, and slaughtered the peasant army dependents. In September, he broke through Ruzhou and captured Chen Kexin, the governor of Ruzhou appointed by Li Zicheng. On the surface, it seems that the officers and soldiers defeated Li Zicheng's army. In fact, Li Zicheng had already learned that Sun Chuanting lacked grain and grass, and secretly sent the general Liu Zongmin to lead 10,000 elite horses to cut off the grain route of the official army. The Ruzhou officers and troops had no logistical supplies, and suffered from 7 consecutive days of torrential rains, and their morale plummeted, and they could not fight a decisive battle with Li Zicheng's army at all. On September 23, after repeated attacks by Li Zicheng's army, the Ming army was shaken. Sun Chuanting moved the main force to Nanyang, preparing to stockpile grain and grass before fighting. When Sun Chuanting left, he ordered Chen Yongfu, the commander-in-chief of Henan, to stay in Ruzhou, and as a result, as soon as Sun Chuanting left on the front foot, Chen Yongfu's rear foot mutinied and fled to Nanyang in one fell swoop. In desperation, Sun Chuanting had no choice but to gather heavy troops and fight li Zichengjun in Nanyang.
In the decisive battle of Nanyang, both the offensive and defensive sides lined up a strong position. Li Zicheng's army of nearly 400,000 people was deployed into a five-fold position: the first was the hungry people, the second was the infantry, the third was the cavalry, the fourth was the elite cavalry, and the fifth was the family. Although the officers and men were small in number, they were well armed and equipped, and first launched a charge against Li Zicheng's army. According to the recollections of the surviving officers and soldiers, the Battle of Nanyang was also dominated by the officers and soldiers at the beginning, and in less than a day they broke through the triple position of Li Zicheng's army. However, when the officers and soldiers attacked the fourth position, they had become the end of the crossbow and could not attack, and the two sides formed a stalemate. After another day and night of fierce fighting, the train battalion of the officer Bai Guang'en could not withstand the impact of Li Zicheng's heavily armored cavalry and took the lead in retreating. This retreat of Bai Guang'en's troops caused misery to the other troops fighting with Li Zicheng's troops, and the position was instantly chaotic, and they all rushed to flee backwards, and Sun Chuanting could not do anything about it. In this battle, Li Zicheng personally led a large army to pursue and kill the officers and soldiers for more than 400 miles, killed more than 40,000 officers and soldiers, and captured hundreds of thousands of weapons and equipment. The last pair of household belongings of the Ming Dynasty was knocked out by Li Zicheng.
At the end of September 1643, Li Zicheng led 100,000 elites to surround Tongguan. On the third day of October, Tongguan was captured, and the desperate commanders Bai Guangen and Chen Yongfu surrendered to Li Zicheng, and the overseer Sun Chuanting was killed in battle in Weinan. Once Sun Chuanting died, the Ming Dynasty no longer had any military strength in the Central Plains that could stop Li Zicheng's army.
In January 1644, Li Zicheng proclaimed himself emperor in Xi'an, established the Dashun regime, and then led an army to the city of Beijing. On March 17 of the same year, the Da Shun army arrived outside Beijing and besieged the capital.
In April 1644, the Dashun army invaded the city of Beijing. After the Chongzhen Emperor slashed and killed several of his young daughters, he forced Emperor Mingxi To commit suicide and martyrdom of Empress Zhu Youxue Zhang and his own empress Dowager Zhou. After leading hundreds of henchmen and eunuchs in a vain attempt to break through, after failure, they committed suicide on a crooked neck tree in Jingshan, and the Ming Dynasty was declared dead.
Looking at the political situation and strategic warfare situation at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Sun Chuanting's importance to the Ming Dynasty is self-evident. Therefore, the "History of Ming" has: "Sun Chuanting died, and there was no strong city in Guannei!" Pass the court dead and the Ming dynasty dies! Words.