In May of the second year of Chongzhen, Yuan Chonghuan, the governor of Jiliao, met with Mao Wenlong, the commander-in-chief of pingliao in Dongjiang Town, on the pretext of military parade, and beheaded him at Shuangdao.
After killing Mao Wenlong, Yuan Chonghuan did not directly promote others to succeed Mao Wenlong as chief soldier. Instead, after surveying the Dongjiang Town Army Ding (there were 28,000 soldiers in the town of Dongjiang this time), the town of Dongjiang was divided into four associations, led by Mao Chenglu, Chen Jisheng, Xu Shizuo, and Liu Xingzuo.
Yuan Chonghuan killed Mao Wenlong illustration
Description: The right or wrong nature of Yuan Chonghuan's killing of Mao Wenlong is a controversial topic, and the author has no intention of expanding here. It just refutes a very absurd statement, "Mao Wenlong colludes with the enemy to commit treason." Yuan Chonghuan went to Shuangdao with only a few retinues, and if Mao Wenlong really collaborated with the enemy and wanted to treason, Yuan Chonghuan would be dead or alive. Yuan Chonghuan dared to behead the marshal alone, and it was precisely because he was sure that Mao Wenlong was still loyal to the imperial court and the emperor.
Xu Shiquan is not a person from Dongjiang Town, he is a person close to Yuan Chonghuan. Liu Xingzuo originally served in Houjin, but only returned to the Ming Dynasty because nurhaci carried out massacres against the Han Chinese, he was arranged by Yuan Keli to go to Dongjiang Town, he was not Mao Wenlong's hardcore. Mao Chenglu was a descendant of Mao Wenlong and had long commanded a pro-army consisting of Mao Wenlong's adopted sons, adopted grandchildren, and family members. Chen Jisheng was the deputy commander-in-chief of Dongjiang Town, and he was a close confidant of Mao Wenlong.
That is to say, Yuan Chonghuan divided dongjiang town into four factions, Mao Wenlong's personal concubines; Mao Wenlong's cronies; the court outsiders; and defected from Houjin. Naturally, this is not done for the sake of mutual trust and mutual assistance and good unity. The purpose could not have been more obvious, in order to facilitate his future control, he did not want Dongjiang Town to continue to be monolithic.
Description: Shortly after Yuan Chonghuan left Dongjiang Town, he merged the Four Associations into two associations. He was led by Chen Jisheng and Liu Xingzuo respectively. After that, the town of Dongjiang, which could not be monolithic, fell into wave after wave of internal friction, and was finally attacked by Houjin to break through zhishoupi Island, and the main force was evacuated by the imperial court after the main force was depleted.
Yuan Chonghuan's behavior not only de facto split Dongjiang Town, but also planted a mine for Dongjiang Town. His reuse of Mao Wenlong's old man meant that killing Mao Wenlong was not his personal intention, but that he was acting on behalf of the imperial court and the emperor (Yuan also said this to the Dongjiang generals at the scene when he killed Mao). This caused the generals of Dongjiang Town to develop dissatisfaction with the imperial court and the emperor, and this dissatisfaction broke out after Chongzhen killed Yuan Chonghuan and did not rehabilitate Mao Wenlong.
Kong Youde, a miner from Tieling, in the first year of the Apocalypse, due to the disaster of the Later Jin Dynasty, he and his righteous brother Geng Zhongming defected to Mao Wenlong. Although Kong Youde was uneducated and illiterate, he was "brave and good at fighting, and was the first to ascend to the battlefield, and was the crown of the generals", so he was very appreciated by Mao Wenlong. Mao Wenlong gave him the name Yongshi and adopted him as his adopted grandson.
Kong Youde was also very grateful to Mao Wenlong for his kindness, and after his demotion and soaring status, he still "said that every general and current affairs were invincible." Compared with Mao Chenglu, Kong Youde did not obey Chen Jisheng. In order to suppress Mao Chenglu and his subordinate Mao Wenlong's concubines, Yuan Chonghuan arranged for Chen Jisheng to lead the chief military officer of Dongjiang Town on behalf of him.
Portrait of Kong Youde's imperial dress after his surrender to the Qing Dynasty
In Kong Youde's eyes, Chen Jisheng turned to Yuan Chonghuan, which made Kong Youde even more dissatisfied with Chen Jisheng. Coupled with the killing of Mao Wenlong, Kong Youde was very chilled, and he also resented that the Dongjiang generals on shuangdao at that time did not stop Yuan Chonghuan. Therefore, Kong Youde left Dongjiang Town with his subordinates on the grounds that he was not enough to work with Chen Jisheng and went to Shandong to join Deng Lai to inspect Sun Yuanhua.
In fact, not only Kong Youde, but also a number of middle- and lower-ranking generals in Dongjiang, such as Geng Zhongming, Li Jiucheng, and Li Yingyuan, also left Dongjiang Town and ran to Shandong to seek a living because they were at odds with their direct superiors. The generals and subordinates separated from their own military towns to operate privately, and the imperial court did not care? The imperial court really didn't care, or the imperial court had hoped to do so.
The main reason for Mao Wenlong's killing was actually the imperial court's belief that Dongjiang Town was not controlled by the imperial court's civilian bureaucracy. Since the change of Tumu Fort, the Ming Dynasty has formed a pattern of civilian officials leading the army. However, Mao Wenlong was able to accept the eunuch Supervisor Army and firmly disagreed with the imperial court's sending civilian officials to command Dongjiang Town (Yuan Chonghuan was still persuading him to accept this condition before killing Mao Wenlong).
Description: Dongjiang Town was founded independently by Mao Wenlong deep behind enemy lines during the Apocalypse Period, and the Emperor of the Apocalypse was able to tolerate his lack of control from the civil officials of the imperial court during his reign (Yuan Keli also supported Mao Wenlong in the imperial court). However, Yuan Keli's removal from office and Chongzhen's return to civilian officials after his ascension to the throne made Mao Wenlong's attitude extremely dangerous, and he was soon killed.
Therefore, in the eyes of the civil official clique of the imperial court, Dongjiang Town was a threat rather than a help to eliminate Houjin. In this way, in the eyes of most officials in the imperial court, Dongjiang Town was not Daming's army, but a feudal town and warlord who tried to divide one side. Dongjiang Town will cause a split and scatter the gang, and the civil officials of the imperial court will be too late to be happy, so how can they stop it?
In August of the fourth year of Chongzhen, Emperor Taiji surrounded Zu Dashou, the commander-in-chief of the Liaodong Army, at the Daling River. After the rescue of The Overseer Sun Chengzong failed, he asked all localities to organize soldiers and horses to support the Liaodong battlefield. Sun Yuanhua of Shandong ordered Kong Youde to lead his 800 men to the Daling River for support.
Explanation: In principle, except for the emperor, the Ming army did not have any people or organizations that could really unify the command and dispatch of the Ming army in various places (originally the metropolitan governor's palace, which was later demolished), so the people and horses from all over the country were chaotic and difficult to organize effectively, and they could not win the battle at all. Even if Kong Youde reached the battlefield of Liaodong, he would either surrender or be completely annihilated.
The original plan was that Kong Youde and his troops would cross the sea to Yaozhou and cut off the rear road of the Houjin army that surrounded the Daling River. I don't know how Sun Yuanhua thought about it, so he arranged for these hundreds of people to go to the back road, only to be afraid that if they arrived smoothly, they would be more fierce and less lucky. However, the hurricane was unsuccessful, and Sun Yuanhua ordered Kong Youde to switch to land routes.
However, Sun Yuanhua did not calculate that the time, grain and grass required to take the sea route and the land route were completely different.
When Kong Youde led his troops to Wuqiao, there was no grain and grass, which was not a problem originally. Because according to the Ming dynasty system, the Ming army was ordered to leave the garrison and march abroad, the passing prefectures and counties were obliged to provide basic military supplies (mainly to manage meals and provide temporary camps).
However, the inherent management shortcomings of the Ming Dynasty (the local government did not provide a fixed budget for the passing army, and could only be recruited temporarily), coupled with the hostility of the imperial court to the Soldiers of Dongjiang, the governments along the way were reluctant to help them.
Theoretically, Kong Youde could go to the imperial court to impeach local officials, although there is great hope that this lawsuit will be won. But the probability of this is that before the imperial court has been judged, Kong Youde and his eight hundred brothers will all starve to death.
Just when Kong Youde was at a loss, his officers and soldiers could not sit still, who would want to let themselves starve to death? So the soldiers spontaneously plundered around. Although Kong Youde executed several of the leaders, he could not change the grain and grass, so he could not stop it.
At this time, Kong Youde fell into confusion and panic, first of all, the team was so starved of grain, afraid that if it could not reach the Liaodong team, it would mutiny and flee, which was a capital crime; if he took the team to plunder and ask for food in Liaodong, even if he had the life to come back, he would have to be settled as an old account, and he was still a capital offense.
It just so happened that at this time, Li Jiucheng, the old general of Dongjiang, was also in a panic. Because his family could not bear to starve, stealing chickens caused a dispute and killed the domestic servant of Wang Xiangchun of the Wang clan in Shandong. Although Li Jiucheng paid for the matter himself, the money was not his private, it was for him to buy horses. And he was also worried about being turned over afterwards.
Description: Li Jiucheng's concerns are not superfluous. In the late Ming Dynasty, the status of the military was extremely low, and a military attaché to the military commander had to kneel like a slave. Once a civilian officer of his kind is impeached to the imperial court, it is basically a capital offense, and he will not even have a chance to defend himself. And isn't his old superior Mao Wenlong a living example?
Li Jiucheng turned his heart sideways, and together with his son Li Yingyuan instigated Kong Youde's rebellion, kong Youde, who felt that he had no way to go, did not hesitate to agree. This is the "Wuqiao Mutiny" that changed the military balance between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin Dynasty, also known as the "Dengzhou Mutiny".
After the uprising, the Dongjiang soldiers scattered throughout Shandong often responded to Kong Youde because they were often hostile and discriminated against by the local government and the Shandong military guards on weekdays. Kong Youde's team snowballed. This group of Liaodong soldiers, who were looked down upon by the Shandong military generals, called Huazi Bing, told them with their actions who was the garbage. They soon captured Lingxian County, Linyi, Shanghe and other cities, and directly attacked the important town of Dengzhou in Shandong.
Sun Yuanhua hurriedly concentrated the Ming army near Dengzhou to defend against Kong Youde's rebels. However, the most powerful fighting force in these Ming armies were basically the old people of Dongjiang Town, such as Geng Zhongming, Chen Guangfu and others. With their help, Kong Youde defeated the commander-in-chief Zhang Keda (Who hanged himself after the defeat of Zhang Keda' army) and captured Sun Yuanhua by attacking the city of Dengzhou.
After the capture of Dengzhou, Kong Youde was confused and confused again, because he did not know what to do in the future. Do you have the ability to put up a big banner to overthrow the Ming Dynasty? Or find a place to hide and enjoy the rest of your life, but although the world does not seem to exist such a paradise.
At this time, Sun Yuanhua was moved by Kong Youde and knew that he was reasonable. Kong Youde, who had calmed down, also followed Sun Yuanhua's advice and asked the imperial court for zhao'an.
Shandong Inspector Yu Dacheng was not vulnerable to the Shandong soldiers at all, so he also agreed to appease them in order to end the chaos as soon as possible. Under the intercession led by Yu Dacheng, the imperial court agreed to let Kong Youde dai be appeased. However, Wang Daochun, the inspector of Shandong, did not see it this way, believing that Daming could not share the sun and moon with these Dongjiang soldiers, and vigorously suppressed and hid the letter of appeasement that the imperial court was preparing to issue to Kong Youde.
Because he had not been allowed to appease for a long time, Kong Youde planned to take the initiative to exert pressure. Sun Yuanhua begged Kong Youde to let him return to the imperial court (Beijing) to explain the truth, although Kong Youde agreed. However, as soon as Sun Yuanhua left, Wang Daochun led an army to attack the rebels.
Sun Yuanhua had not yet arrived at the Beijing Division, and Shandong was already at war in full swing. The imperial court believed that Kong Youde refused to accept the solicitation, and Sun Yuanhua was also "confirmed" of the crime of defecting to the rebels. Under the attack of his political enemies, Sun Yuanhua was arrested as soon as he arrived in Tianjin and thrown into the Zhenfusi Prison. He was soon sentenced to death, and Yu Chongzhen was executed with Zhang Tao in July of the fifth year.
Explanation: The reason why Zhang Tao was killed was that in the process of leading the army to suppress the rebellion, many old people from Dongjiang in his army defected to Kong Youde. There is also a reason that is not the reason, he is also the old general of Dongjiang Town.
In fact, sun Yuanhua would not help even if he was not imprisoned, and the moment Wang Daochun led his troops to attack, Kong Youde had already lost his last trust in the imperial court, because he had a knot in his heart.
In August of the third year of Chongzhen, Yuan Chonghuan was executed for ten major crimes, one of which was "beheading a marshal", but Chongzhen did not rehabilitate Mao Wenlong. That is to say, Chongzhen believes that Yuan Chonghuan is guilty of killing Mao Wenlong, not because Yuan Chonghuan has wronged Mao Wenlong, but because Yuan Chonghuan "corrected the edict".
Kong Youde could not accept this result emotionally, and he always believed that Mao Wenlong was "innocent and slaughtered". Secondly, this practice made Kong Youde feel that even the imperial court of Mao Wenlong's level was not taken seriously, and his crimes were even more unlikely to be truly pardoned by the imperial court, and even if he was recruited, he would be executed in the future.
Originally, he was beating all kinds of small drums in his heart, and Wang Daochun was just pressed outside at the right time, and Kong Youde completely set the heart of treason and treason.
The military guards in Shandong were too bad, and the imperial court transferred from Western Liaoning the elite of Guanning led by Zu Dashou to join the Ming army near Gyeonggi into Shandong to suppress the rebellion. In the face of the superior strength of the imperial court, Kong Youde felt that Dengzhou could not be defended. He abandoned the city with more than 10,000 people and prepared to return to Liaodong.
The imperial court did not intend to let the rebels go like this, and the general soldiers stationed in Lushun, Changshan, and Kashima, Huang long, were expected to have Kong Youde ashore at Changshan and Lushun, while organizing a pursuit at sea, while setting up an ambush. Kong Youde led his troops to an ambush as soon as Lushun landed, and was defeated.
Description: Before Kong Youde's rebellion, there were several civil unrest in Dongjiang Town. First, Liu Xingzhi (Liu Xingzuo's younger brother) killed Chen Jisheng under the guise of Sun Chengzong, and then Shen Shikui and Zhang Tao raised troops to kill Liu Xingzhi. After that, the imperial court sent Huang Long to Phi Dao to serve as the chief military officer of Dongjiang Town. During The Rebellion of Kong Youde, the deputy general Chen Shishi of Lushun in Dongjiang Town and the deputy general Mao Chenglu of Hiroshima responded because they were dissatisfied with Huanglong' rebellion, and after being defeated by Huanglong, they led the remnants across the sea to defect to Kong Youde.
Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming fled to Gaizhou with the remnants, and there was no way out. In the front is the Houjin, who has a deep hatred in the blood sea, and in the back is the Ming army that will never compromise and will be killed quickly. In order to survive, Kong Youde had to surrender to the Emperor Taiji.
Emperor Taiji attached great importance to Kong Youde's begging, or extremely warm welcome. He agreed without hesitation, or rather he hesitated not to accept surrender, but to accept it with whatever etiquette.
In order to buffer the preparations, Emperor Taiji first ordered the Houjin officials to entertain Kong Youde and others to rest in Liaoyang:
Commanding the old department, stationed in Tokyo (Liaoyang), commanding, advocating, and obeying, all remain in their old ways. Only the use of punishment and the dispatch of troops should be heard. The people who belong to them live in Gaizhou and Anshan, and if they do not want to, they live in places adjacent to Tokyo.
Records of the Qing Dynasty
Soon after, jin decided on the etiquette of the greeting, and the Emperor Taiji forced the crowd to personally greet Kong Youde with the most solemn etiquette of the Jurchens, the hug ceremony. Subsequently, in order for Kong Youde and his subordinates to reach Shenyang smoothly, Emperor Taiji issued a very harsh and extremely unfriendly edict to the Manchus:
The informant of our country has been harassed by many people in Liao, and has been complaining endlessly. Now the new multitude, do not be disturbed. This generation is conquering the land of the Clear, wading into danger, seeking refuge from me, and if he continues to harass him, it is really a disorder, and the offender and his wife will be executed, and he will not forgive!
The background of this decree is this.
After Nurhaci rebelled against the Ming Dynasty, especially in his later years, he was extremely distrustful of the Liaodong Han people. Regarded as slaves, both voluntarily surrendered and captured, he introduced the joint household system, encouraging jurchens to enslave the Han Chinese. Later, because the Han people could not bear the humiliation, they resisted one after another. He also carried out indiscriminate massacres of the Liaodong Han people. The Liao Han people who fled to Dongjiang Town basically all had a blood feud with Hou Jin.
The town of Dongjiang under Mao Wenlong's rule was actually far inferior in military strength to Houjin. Hou Jin couldn't do anything with them, mainly because Hou Jin had a hard wound, and without the water army, he couldn't go out to sea to kill the Dongjiang army that was entrenched on one island after another. However, the Dongjiang Army also did not have the absolute strength to engage Houjin head-on.
Therefore, most of the time the Dongjiang Army chose guerrilla warfare and harassment behind enemy lines. And their methods are also extremely cruel, imitating Nurhaci's indiscriminate attacks on the Jurchens. Most of the victims of Houjin's attacks were the old and weak women and children who stayed behind.
Therefore, the Jurchens' hatred for Dongjiang Town is no less than the hatred of Dongjiang Town for them. When you meet, you don't think about anything but a knife. No one can untie such a knot, so Huang Taiji can only use force to stop it, allowing time to dilute these hatreds.
On June 13, 1966, Emperor Taiji received Kong Youde and his party in Shenyang. In addition to a large number of financial rewards, Kong Youde was also made the marshal of the capital and Geng Zhongming was made the chief military officer, and he was given the seal (this is a real position). Kong Youde's rebellion also came to an end.
Description: Kong Youde was not crowned king when he surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, he was crowned king of Gongshun when Emperor Taiji officially established the country three years later. Geng Zhongming and Shang Kexi were also crowned kings at the same time, and the three of them were also known as the "Three Shun Kings" in later generations.
Some people believe that Kong Youde brought Houjin their urgently needed sailors, fleets, heavy artillery, and related technicians, and raised the strength of the Houjin army as a whole to a higher level. The balance of Victory and Defeat for Ming and HouJin completely fell to Houjin.
This view makes sense, but it exaggerates the role of these equipment. First of all, when the Ming Dynasty had its own fleet, heavy artillery, and artillery technicians, why couldn't it win the Houjin? Salhu, Liaoshen, and Guangning were all fiascos in these major battles.
This shows that the Ming Dynasty was not defeated in these equipment. The reason for the defeat of the Ming army was actually the cause of Kong Youde's rebellion. The organization was chaotic, and the imperial court also regarded the army as a thief.
An army travels thousands of miles to fight, and even the most basic problem of eating cannot be solved. Even if the spirit is invincible and strong, the body can carry hunger for a few days? And in many cases, the Ming army starved not because the Ming Dynasty really did not have food for them to eat, but because the imperial court did not think of feeding them at the beginning.
The question of the Ming army starving is a very complicated topic, if you are interested, you can read the author's previous picture "Why is the Ming army so weak". Here I will only give one or two small examples.
When the Ming army was marching through the prefectures and counties, if it was daytime, the prefectures and counties did not care about the meal, the reason was "what to eat, hurry up." Don't think about eating at my place and then going to the next one." In ancient times, the daily diet was poorly nutritious, the transportation system was also backward, and the marching would consume a huge amount of physical strength on the soldiers. If you can't eat enough every day, you will soon suffer from various attritions due to insufficient nutrition.
Therefore, even if there were only ten miles between the two cities, the Ming army generally had to grind until it was dark and then reach the city in front, so that there would be food to eat. Marching speed? Isn't this a guarantee that you won't starve to death?
In the second year of Chongzhen's "change of self-righteousness", Zhang Honggong, the chief soldier of Shanxi, and The inspector Geng Ruqi led 8,000 people into the King of Jingqin, and after arriving in Gyeonggi, the military headquarters ordered them to change their garrisons for several consecutive days, not because of the construction of slaves, but because of the lack of grain (the imperial court stipulated that foreign troops could only be paid on the second day after they arrived at the garrison). Every day, there was no food to eat, and the soldiers had to go around scavenging for food by themselves. Zhang and Geng were imprisoned by the imperial court for their inability to restrain the army, and the 8,000 Shanxi army scattered and fled back to Shanxi to become a liukou.
Before cursing some generals and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty for not being loyal and not sacrificing their lives for the imperial court, we must first understand what the imperial court has done.
Looking at Huang Taiji again, was he really so excited because of the equipment brought by Kong Youde? Huang Taiji was aware that Ming Dynasty Bai had given him a perfect opportunity to perform "Thousands of Gold Buy Bones". He could use this opportunity to prove to the Ming dynasty people in Liaodong, Western Liaoning, and Guannei that his emperor Taiji no longer pursued the ignorant policies of his father Khan.
Description: I have never been able to understand how those who say that Nurhaci is a brilliant politician came to this conclusion.
In fact, Huang Taiji's approach was successful, first of all, his old rival Dongjiang Zhen gradually disintegrated in internal friction, and with the example of Kong Youde, it would not be so difficult for others to defect to Houjin, and it would be gratifying to learn from it after that. These old people of Dongjiang helped Houjin to completely solve the hidden danger of Dongjiang Town, so that Houjin could use all its strength to attack Western Liaoning, making it more difficult for the Ming Dynasty to resist.
For the Ming Dynasty, the Kong Youde rebellion led to ruins around Deng Lai as a secondary importance. More importantly, from the killing of Mao Wenlong to the kong youde rebellion, a series of wrong attitudes of the imperial court made the Generals of the Ming Army generals generally begin to lose confidence in the imperial court.
The collapse of faith and organization is like a dam breach, and once it starts, it is difficult to stop.
These bitter and vengeful lords of Dongjiang Town can all mingle with Houjin, what psychological pressure and obstacles can the Guan Ning army in western Liaoning have? In addition, the court of Daming still pushed behind their backs from time to time. With these examples, what is so strange about the officials and generals of the Southern Ming Dynasty rushing to surrender?
Therefore, the main cause of the fall of the Ming Dynasty is still itself, no matter whether the weather is cold or warm, it cannot save it, even if it is Xiaoice river becomes a hot river.