Text: Xia Yan (Columnist on Reading History)
In the last years of the Ming Dynasty more than three hundred years ago, there was a person who skillfully used guerrilla tactics behind enemy lines and beat the Qing Taizu NurHaci at that time without any temper, he was mao Wenlong, a famous general who resisted the Qing Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Mao Wenlong was born in Hangzhou in 1576, his parents are local famous and prestigious families, when he was young, Mao Wenlong was very smart, but he did not like to read the Four Books and Five Classics, but he liked to read the art of war, and often danced with knives and guns. Later, his uncle Shen Guangzuo recommended him to the account of Li Chengliang, a famous general of the Ming Dynasty, and from then on, Mao Wenlong, a generation of generals, began his military career in the Liaodong area.
Mao Wenlong lived through the four dynasties of Wanli, Taichang, Tianqi and Chongzhen. During the Apocalypse years, Mao Wenlong began to be reused, and his military talents began to slowly be displayed.
In 1621, Mao Wenlong, a guerrilla who was training troops, was sent by Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong Province, to penetrate deep behind enemy lines and contact the Liao people in order to contain and disperse Houjin's forces. At that time, he only led more than 200 people from his family and non-commissioned officers to the rear of the enemy. It was mao Wenlong who used this team to instigate a huge and surging resistance movement behind the enemy lines, which was regarded by HouJin as a serious problem for his confidants, and the Town of Dongjiang that he founded stood majestically behind the enemy and became a nail to contain Houjin's long-distance battle, which long restricted the pace of Houjin's southern invasion.
However, at that time, the Ming Dynasty was corrupt and there were constant party disputes. At present, the great enemy actually sent Wang Huazhen, who was not accustomed to military affairs but was very talented in medicine, as the commander. Therefore, in the Battle of Quang Ninh, it was defeated and the land of western Liaoning was lost, and the Later Jin army could directly hold Shanhaiguan.
At this time, Mao Wenlong's role became more prominent.
Mao Wenlong used Phi Dao as an anti-Jin base area, Phi Dao was backed by Korea, facing the rear of HouJin, during the Nurhaci period, as long as the Houjin army attacked the Ming army to the west, Mao Wenlong led troops to attack the rear of the Houjin army, threatening the base camp of the Houjin army, and the Houjin army could not take care of each other, and returned several times without success. Nurhaci, who was embarrassed and angry, tried to get rid of Mao Wenlong many times, but Mao Wenlong was haunted, and as soon as the Houjin army returned, it was reduced to pieces, and it continued to set up ambushes along the way, and the Tired Houjin Army was miserable.
In the sixth year of the Apocalypse (1626), when Nurhaci attacked Ningyuan, Mao Wenlong took the opportunity to attack Yongning, and Later Jin was forced to return to the division. Later, nurhaci personally led a large army to conquer The Mongolian Khalkha in April, and Mao Wenlong immediately attacked Anshan, and nurhaci was forced to return to the division due to the tight rear.
Out of jealousy of Mao Wenlong, Nurhaci never stepped into Guannei for the rest of his life.
Not only that, Mao Wenlong also mobilized the masses extensively; when he first arrived in Dongjiang, he had only two hundred followers, but within a few years he had grown to tens of thousands of people, and in the rear of Houjin, Pingdingshan, Haizhou, Anshan, Shoushan, and Zhangyi, he launched armed struggles against Houjin.
At the same time, Mao Wenlong continued to send people deep into Houjin to carry out "incitement", resulting in many cities and pools in Jin after the surrender, military and civilians successively "rebelled" and surrendered to the Ming Dynasty.
With the growth of the armed contingent behind enemy lines, many talents also appeared under Mao Wenlong's hands, such as Wu Sangui, Shang Kexi, Kong Youde, and others who rose one after another.
Mao Wenlong's guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines posed a great threat to the Houjin army, and he repeatedly led his army to ambush the Houjin army many times, plundering the materials of the Houjin army, and causing great losses to the Houjin army. Many of Hou Jin's Baylor ministers believed: "Mao Wenlong's plague should be quickly extinguished!" If Wenlong does not perish for a day, the rebellion will not stop for a day, and the good people will not be at peace for a day. ”
From the beginning of the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627) to April, Houjin exhausted his elite at the cost of empty Shenyang, and launched the "Battle of Dingjiao" against Mao Wenlong's Dongjiang Town and Korea with heavy troops, and Mao Wenlong rose up to resist and won "five battles and five victories" at Tieshan, Bottle Mountain, Changcheng, and Yalu River.
Mao Wenlong was like a nail, stubbornly holding Back Jin's tail, so that he could not fight at a long distance and for a long time.
However, it was such an excellent general who did not die at the hands of the Hou Jin Army, but died at the hands of his own people.
Of course, this is also related to Mao Wenlong's own personality defects, Mao Wenlong is proud of his high merits, flying high, and often disobeying orders, and he is also more than a lot of money on military salaries, which makes him have a bad relationship with several leaders, especially the later Jiliao governor Yuan Chonghuan, the contradiction between the two deepened, plus Mao Wenlong also had the suspicion of privately negotiating peace with Hou Jin, which also made Yuan Chonghuan finally make the decision to "correct the edict" and kill him.
On the first day of June in the second year of Chongzhen (1629), Yuan Chonghuan, armed with shangfang's sword, met with Mao Wenlong at Phi Dao and discussed military affairs. After that, Yuan Chuan's deputy general Wang Yi boarded the ship to discuss secretly, and deployed all night to kill Mao Wenlong.
A generation of famous generals were unpaid, and eventually died tragically at the hands of their superiors.
After Mao Wenlong's death, the armed groups behind the enemy lines led by him were leaderless, and many of them surrendered to the Houjin army, and the base area of Dongjiang Town that he single-handedly created no longer existed. The Later Jin army had no worries and went all out to deal with the Ming army in Guannei, and only seven days after Mao Wenlong was killed, Emperor Taiji announced the whole army to march west, and the Later Jin army entered the pass many times, and the soldiers pointed directly at the city of Beijing.
Regardless of whether Mao Wenlong committed a capital crime or not, after he was killed, the Ming Dynasty was completely passively beaten in the war against Houjin, which also greatly accelerated the process of the Qing army's entry into the customs, and this kind of practice of relatives and enemies being quick is a stain that Yuan Chonghuan cannot erase.