He grazed cattle in his childhood, became a young pawn, unveiled the pole at the age of 23, the Xingyang Assembly was later called the King of Chuang, proposed that The Field was free of grain, twice assumed that xiangyang was called king at the age of 37, Jiandashun, 38 years old to conquer Beijing as emperor, 1.5 million soldiers, 39 years old soldiers defeated Jiugong Mountain, hundreds of years of death causes became a mystery, and now his 13th generation of xuansun suddenly appeared to show the family tree... He is the generation of heroes who turned the Ming Dynasty upside down- Li Zicheng.
First, the five versions of the cause of failure, the "plague theory", are the most eye-catching.
The real reason for Li Zicheng's failure after his evacuation from Beijing has remained a mystery. For more than a hundred years, the experts' explanation is also that the benevolent see the wise and the wise see the wise, and Li Zicheng can't defeat the Qing soldiers? At present, from the analysis of history books or experts, there are at least 5 versions of the statement, which seems to be reasonable and wants to persuade people, but all lack the support of historical materials. For example, "corruption and complacency" theory, "rogue guerrilla" theory, "plague" theory, "rabble-rousers" theory, "Wu Sangui" theory, and so on. In particular, in the past two years, the "plague theory" of relevant experts is very eye-catching. The gist is that plague was prevalent at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and before and after Li Zicheng entered Beijing, there was an epidemic of plague in the surrounding areas of Beijing, and some literature has recorded this. Plague is a potent infectious disease caused by Y. pestis. It is mainly transmitted between humans - fleas - rats. Every time the plague spread to a new area, it was highly mortal and contagious because locals, rats, and fleas were not resistant. The mortality rate is higher than 50 per cent. It can be seen that plague is a terrible disease that is very epidemicable, has a high mortality rate and is difficult to control. Li Zichengjun arrived in Beijing in the third month of the lunar calendar (April and May in the Gregorian calendar), and the relevant literature records that the plague of the autumn of Chongzhen 16 has appeared in the Beijing area, only because of the low temperature in winter, the spread of plague has slowed down, and in the spring in March, the flowers bloom warmly, the peach red apricot is white, fleas and rats begin to become active, and large-scale plague naturally breaks out. Due to the high mortality rate of plague infection, it is not surprising that Chongzhen's Imperial Forest Army lost its combat effectiveness for a short time. Li Zicheng thus occupied Beijing without encountering a major war. After Li Zicheng's army entered Beijing, it was infected with plague, and its natural combat effectiveness was greatly reduced, of course, it could not defeat the Qing soldiers, although its number was far lower than its own. And the defeated soldiers thus became the source of the plague infection - the literature records that "thieves pass everywhere a great plague". Therefore, although Li Zicheng was rich and powerful at this time, he could recruit troops on a large scale, but when new recruits enlisted in the army, they were infected with plague and lost their combat effectiveness, and no matter how many troops they had, they were useless, and they could never resist the Tiger and Wolf Division of the Manchu Qing. The plague spread to the military camp and could not get rid of it for a long time, and Li Zicheng's spirit suffered a devastating blow, so he lost the country and collapsed, "helpless to spend the flowers".
But I think the "plague theory" is just speculation after all. The downfall or rout of any political or military group in history has its own inherent inevitable laws (laws), which are nothing more than the result of the overlapping superposition of two fundamental factors: strategic and tactical. If strategy and tactics complement each other, they will be completely accomplished, and if they are not, they will be completely defeated. Li Zicheng's failure is not only a simple problem of not being able to defeat the Qing soldiers, but a strategic blindness, a tactical mess, and if it does not fail, God will blame it!
Second, why is it said that Li Zicheng made a mistake in strategic judgment?
Li Zicheng's strategy before entering beijing was wrong, and the strategy after occupying Beijing was wrong. At the beginning of 1644, when Li Zicheng established the Dashun regime in Xi'an, he did have a total of 1.5 million troops under his command, but when he crossed the Yellow River to Beijing, the actual number of troops he led was about 500,000, and when he passed the pass to seize the city and stay behind, when he reached the city of Beijing, the actual strength was more than 300,000. At that time, Li Zicheng had not yet fully figured out the details of the city of Beijing, otherwise he would not have negotiated with Chongzhen to negotiate with Chongzhen to be the "King of the Northwest". When Li Zicheng occupied the city of Beijing, he thought he had overthrown the Ming Dynasty, causing serious strategic mistakes. It is mainly manifested in both external and internal aspects. Externally, of course, it was against the Manchu Qing Eight Banner Army, because Li Zicheng had been fighting with the Ming army in the interior of the Central Plains for many years and did not know much about the Manchu Qing, and he did not expect that the Original Manchu Qing was highly consistent with his goal, that is, to overthrow the Ming Dynasty and dominate the Central Plains, but the means were different. In other words, it was precisely because the Eight Banners Army had contained the main force of the Ming Dynasty outside Shanhaiguan that Li Zicheng could take advantage of the nine provinces to take beijing directly, otherwise he would have been wiped out in Hangu Pass long ago; on the contrary, the reason why Li Zicheng's rebel army was chaotic and mischievous, the Ming court was attacked on three sides by the enemy, and the Manchu Qing Eight Banners were able to advance and become more and more powerful. See? In April and May 1644, there were five major military groups in the world, namely the Li Zicheng Group, the Manchu Eight Banners Group, the Nanming Group, the Zhang Xianzhong Group, and the Wu Sangui Group. If Li Zicheng was a strategist, there were three schemes at that time. The best strategy: contact and negotiate with the Manchu Qing, and then cross the river to deal with Nanming, so that Wu Sangui and Zhang Xianzhong will no longer be a problem. In the first month of 1644, Dorgon wrote a letter to the Dashun army in the name of the Qing Emperor, proposing a strategy of conspiring together and taking the Central Plains. Li Zicheng first listened to the advice of the military master Li Yan and considered it, but Niu Jinxing and others strongly opposed it, believing that this was a counter-plan of the Ming court, and finally Li Zicheng swayed left and right and ignored it. As a result, the Manchu Qing changed from attacking the Ming Dynasty to competing with Li Zicheng for the right to rule the whole country. A sentence by Niu Jinxing and others led to Li Zicheng's strategic misjudgment and misjudgment, laying the groundwork for future failures. Zhongzhi: Unite Zhang Xianzhong and Wu Sangui to deal with the Manchu Qing outside the Guanwai first, and then cross the Yangtze River in an attempt to seek a long-term plan; the next strategy: to forcibly conquer the Wu Sangui clique that is not subordinate, causing the Manchu Qing to take advantage of the void and enter the fish and gain profits. Li Zicheng just chose the next strategy, so it is a rat's eye, can it be undefeated?!
Third, why is it said that Li Zicheng is a mess in tactics?
Its roots lie in the deep-rooted idea of guerrilla warfare by peasant rebels. The characteristic of Li Zicheng's army is that if he can fight, he will fight, and if he can't fight, he will run. Where to go? Running to shaanxi's hometown, Shaanxi did not have to go, just drilled the mountain. Li Zicheng and Wu Sangui plus the Eight Banners Army in a stone battle, heavy losses, fled back to Beijing, the main general Liu Zongmin and others are still there, Beijing still has at least 100,000 main troops, can completely organize Beijing to resist the war, and then transfer Shaanxi Shanxi left behind troops reinforcements, the probability of victory is very large, after all, the Manchu Qing Eight Banners are not heavenly soldiers and heavenly generals! Failure to organize an effective blockade of the Manchu Qing Eight Banner Army in Beijing was Li Zicheng's biggest tactical failure. Do you know how many Eight Banners Army were pursuing Li Zicheng at that time? More than twenty thousand. What about Wu Sangui's? More than 10,000! But a piece of stone became Li Zicheng's last nightmare, and after Beijing's hasty ascension to the throne, he voluntarily abandoned Beijing and fled. This is not a problem that Li Zicheng cannot defeat the Qing soldiers, but that he does not want to fight at all, and the ghost makes the gods want to run back to Shaanxi. This run will run away from the old ben and the old life!