The Great Shun State arose, and the Ming Dynasty went to its demise
preface
"The monarch is commanded by heaven, and if he is competent, heaven will make him eternally solid; if he is absurd, he will change his agents."
▲ A generation of kings
cause
In 1627, in a certain region of northern Shaanxi, the local peasant Wang Er called on hundreds of starving people to launch an anti-Ming uprising and took the lead.
▲ Peasant revolt
outcome
Wang Er's revolt played an exemplary role, others revolted one after another, and later Li Zicheng's revolt was successful and overthrew the Ming Dynasty.
▲Li Zicheng
disposal
1. Born poor and taking the lead in rebellion
In 1644, Li Zicheng led a peasant rebel army and established a peasant-dominated state in Xi'an, with the name of Dashun or "DashunGuo" for short. Li Zicheng was born in a poor peasant family in northern Shaanxi, and in his early years he and his parents lived a life of eating and eating without eating, and his life was very difficult.
In 1629, Li Zicheng and his nephew Li Guo went to Ganzhou to join the army, and in the winter, because the Ganzhou army withheld the soldiers' salaries, the soldiers could not receive the salary, so Li Zicheng took the lead, killed the army and the local county order, and led the soldiers to rebel.
▲ Li Zicheng and his Da Shunguo (stills)
2. Run to Gao Yingxiang
After the uprising, Li Zicheng moved from Ganzhou to Hanzhong, and due to his weak strength, Li Zicheng needed to turn to a patron to keep himself safe, so Li Zicheng led his soldiers to defect to Wang Zuohang, the leader of the peasant army. However, not long after, the imperial court gave Wang Zuohang a high-ranking official Houlu to make Wang Zuohang submit to the imperial court, and Wang Zuohang could not resist the temptation and surrendered his weapons to the imperial court.
Losing Wang Zuohang's patron, Li Zicheng had to find another way, and he learned that his uncle Gao Yingxiang was also leading a team to revolt, and without further ado, Li Zicheng immediately went to Gao Yingxiang. At that time, Gao Yingxiang led all the rebel armies and was named "King of Chuang" by the generals of the rebel army, Gao Yingxiang was also the time to employ people at this moment, and he was very happy to see Li Zicheng come to defect to himself, and also named Li Zi as a "breaking general".
The peasant army led by Gao Yingxiang was victorious one after another, and the imperial court also began to pay attention to it, appointing the famous general Hong Chengzu as the governor of the five provinces to clear the peasant army, and Hong Chengxiang felt a shock in an instant, and Gao Yingxiang and others had to retreat to Luoyang to avoid their attacks.
▲Gao Yingxiang
3. Come up with ways to retreat from the enemy
In order to come up with a way to defeat Hong Chengzu's army, Gao Yingxiang summoned the leaders of the peasant army to a meeting to discuss strategies, and at the meeting, the leaders of the department had the heart to fear the enemy, and Li Zicheng stood up and encouraged the leaders, saying that even one person would fight the enemy army to the end, not to mention that we still had 100,000 people. When the crowd heard Li Zicheng's words, they did not disagree, and Li Zicheng told everyone that he already had a strategy to retreat from the enemy, saying that the troops should be divided into several roads and attack from different directions before they could defeat the enemy army.
For the time being, there was no better way, so they followed Li Zicheng's plan, and after discussion, it was finally decided that the troops would be divided into six roads, with Li Zicheng and Gao Yingxiang each forming a road, and another leader, Zhang Xianzhong, forming a road, and the army of these three people fought very bravely, not only rushing out of the enemy's encirclement, but also killing All the way to Zhu Yuanzhang's hometown of Fengyang, and successfully capturing.
▲Zhang Xianzhong
4. The "New King" was born
After the capture of Fengyang, the peasant army hurriedly divided the fruits of victory, and Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong both liked the small eunuchs and musical instruments in the palace, so the two began to fight for these things, ostensibly for a few things, but in fact the two were competing.
At that time, Li Zicheng's position in the peasant army was increasing day by day due to proper command, and gradually threatened Zhang Xianzhong's position, and Zhang Xianzhong wanted these things to give Li Zicheng a dismount, telling Li Zicheng that the peasant army was not yet your turn to be the master. Li Zicheng saw the situation and led his troops to Gansu alone, breaking away from the peasant army.
The following year Gao Yingxiang was ambushed by the Ming army, captured by the Ming army and finally killed by the imperial court, after Gao Yingxiang's death, his men decided to defect to Li Zicheng, because they felt that Li Zicheng was more strategic than Zhang Xianzhong, so that Li Zicheng had gained sufficient military strength, and he himself was also respected by his subordinates as the "new king", Li Zicheng also lived up to expectations, leading the rebel army to break through the world in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi.
▲ Li Zicheng bravely killed the enemy (stills)
5. Zhang Hongjing stepped down, and Zhu Kerong took the throne
In 1640, Li Zicheng seized an opportunity, when the imperial court was encircling and suppressing Zhang Xianzhong, and had no time to take care of Li Zicheng, so Li Zicheng led his troops into Henan, opened a warehouse to rescue countless local starving people, and won the hearts of the people. In order to thank Li Zicheng, the starving people joined Li Zicheng's army to repay him.
In order to win more people's hearts, Li Zicheng put forward the slogan of "exempting all fields from endowments" and also compiled a folk song "Greeting the King, Not Paying Grain."
In 1644, Li Zicheng captured Xi'an and established his own empire, the Great Shun State. After the establishment of the Great Shun State, Li Zicheng recruited troops to buy horses, and after the strength grew, the army attacked Beijing in two ways, and it did not take long to capture the Forbidden City, and the Ming Dynasty officially collapsed.
▲ Meet the king
brief summary
Li Zicheng was able to overthrow the Ming Dynasty by no means accidentally, in addition to his own strategy, he also knew how to win people's hearts, and with the support of the people, his strength naturally became stronger and stronger.
【References】:
"Li Zicheng"
History of the Ming Dynasty
"Breaking King Li Zicheng"