When Li Zicheng led the rebel army into the Henan area, the rebel army at this time was in a stage of being in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt, so the troops were very weak. As they traveled north along Mount Funiu, they found that the mountains were undulating and inhabited by many unemployed vagrants. The rebels, knowing that Tang Qitai was still guarding the city, were not afraid, and heroically climbed Jinping Mountain, observed the virtual reality in the city, and waited for the opportunity to launch a fierce attack on it.
After the rebels broke the city, they beheaded Lord Tang and put forward the slogan of "only killing officials, not killing the people".
Ten days later, the rebels continued their advance westward and attacked Yongning City. Zhixian and the officials organized the army and the people to hold the city, and in the end, after fighting with Li Zicheng's army for three days and three nights, they were defeated by the other side. Because, Li Zicheng blasted open the city gate with cannons, and there were rebels in the city, and the rebels tried to "ladder" to enter the city, and succeeded in one fell swoop. Li Zicheng captured Wu Daren of ZhiXian and more than a hundred squires and interrogated them at Xiguan County.
After that, the henan rebel yidougu led the generals to rendezvous with Li Zicheng, which increased Li Zicheng's troops to hundreds of thousands of people. Li Zicheng destroyed several cities in the following month, clearing the threat from the outskirts of Luoyang.
The ancient capital of Luoyang was an important town in western Henan and the residence of Zhu Changxun, the Fu King. This person was the third son of Emperor Shenzong, and his mother was Emperor Shenzong's favorite concubine, the Zheng clan. The so-called "son depends on his mother", Zhu Changxun was also deeply favored by the Divine Sect and intended to crown him as a prince.
However, forced by traditional concepts and etiquette, zhu Changluo, the eldest son of the emperor, should be appointed as crown prince.
Because the intentions of the imperial court could not be "satisfied", things such as the "Palace Transfer Case" and the "Red Pill Case" directly broke out in the palace, and the courtiers were also involved in the endless "war for power", making the Myōjin Sect have no intention of handling the affairs of the dynasty. At the same time, because Zhu Changxun's dream of being a prince could not be realized, Shenzong felt "guilty" and compensated him financially. Not only did he make an exception to reward him, but he was also given exclusive rights to the fields, salt, and commercial taxes.
In the 29th year of the Wanli Calendar, Emperor Mingshen made Zhu Changxun the "Fu King" and arranged a wedding for him, spending 300,000 taels of gold to build a magnificent palace for him in Luoyang Province. Moreover, the luxury of this palace was far more than ten times that of an ordinary prince, and King Fu hoped that his father would give him 40,000 hectares of land, but there was not so much land to reward, and finally, it was changed to 20,000 hectares.
After Zhu Changxun arrived in Luoyang, he lived every day as a drunken fan, not only was he poor and extravagant, but he also did not have the slightest compassion. Even if the grain in the warehouse was rotten, it was not distributed to the hungry people, and an angry Li Zicheng saw this situation and finally decided to attack Luoyang. Li Zicheng's gradual expansion of power in western Henan deeply disturbed Lu Weiqi, the Shangshu of The Nanjing Army of Daming, and he personally wrote to King Fu in the hope of attracting attention.
In particular, he hoped that he could send more troops to strengthen the protection of Luoyang, and for his own consideration, he could come up with money to solve the problem of military salaries in the city. Taking the loss of two cities in Henan as an example, Lord Lü explained to King Fu that he hoped that he would not become a "scrooge" and eventually fell into the point of no return.
However, Zhu Changxun couldn't listen to this suggestion at all.
Seeing that hundreds of thousands of rebel troops had already assembled outside Luoyang, he was still unmoved. When Li Zicheng's troops approached the city, he launched an offensive order to the army, only to hear the sound of killing on the battlefield, and finally, after a night of fighting between the two sides, the rebels found that the northwest of Luoyang City was weak, so they stormed the northwest corner.
However, the chief soldier Wang Shaoyu had long since lost his fighting spirit, especially the lack of military pay, and in addition, Zhu Changxun was insatiablely greedy, and his subordinates had long hated him to the bone. At this time, the soldiers saw the general attack of the rebels, and instead of worrying, they even had some "sneaking joy" in their hearts. So, the "cooperation" of the rebels opened the city gate and came to a perfect cooperation between the inside and the outside.
The soldiers and civilians of Luoyang seemed to welcome the rebels into the city with their families as if they were greeting their relatives. In the early morning of the twenty-first day, Li Zicheng occupied Luoyang. Zhu Changxun, the Fu King, who weighed more than three hundred kilograms, was captured alive on the spot before he had time to hide. When he was escorted to Li Zicheng, he had long lost his royal face, and he kept telling the king for forgiveness, prostrating his head vigorously and begging for his life.
Li Zicheng sat down in the palace and questioned Zhu Changxun as a prince, the rich side, but he did nothing in this year of famine, which was really damned. Therefore, Li Zicheng ordered him to beat him left and right forty boards, and then cut off Zhu Changxun's head and hung it above the city gate. However, the rebels still did not understand the hatred, and even chopped his body into meat paste, and drank it with venison.
However, according to the records of the Ming Shi and the Records of the Yuan, it is obviously inconsistent with the barnyard official Ye Shi of Zhu Changxun being boiled alive into human broth, and the body of King Fu remains after he was killed by the rebels. In other words, the "Fluke Reception" is a fictional story. Moreover, the unearthed Zhu Changxun Also broke the traditional saying that the long-believed corpse of King Fu was made into a "Fulu Wine" feast.
The epitaph records: "On the twentieth day of the first month of the fourteenth year of Daming Chongzhen, tens of thousands of rogue thieves suddenly attacked the capital city... Wang Du stood up against the festival, accusing the thief of scolding, being generous and fierce, and dying with the city. In addition, there are also content that beautifies the Fu King, such as "just intestines are strong, although dead and still alive". Moreover, from the analysis of the epitaph, after the death of King Fu, there was a whole corpse, how could a person with a whole corpse be boiled and eaten by Li Zicheng?
It is said that after Li Zicheng captured Luoyang, he captured three thousand people, and also captured a large number of weapons and jewels, which greatly improved the quality of his army and had a more sophisticated army. He confiscated all the wealth and grain in the Fu King's mansion and opened warehouses to rescue the people. Except for the rebels who left a part of their own money and food as food, the rest was distributed to the people.
In addition, Li Zicheng also selected soldiers among the victims of the disaster and gave their families a monthly subsidy of five or two, to which the victims responded. Li Zicheng selected five hundred people from it and asked them to stand on the walls of Luoyang and wave the flag and shout, which also means that Li Zicheng has achieved outstanding results in this battle.
In the first month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng established the Dashun regime with the era name "Yongchang".
Soon, he conquered Beijing and overthrew the Ming Dynasty. In April, Dorgon led the Eight Banner Army to rendezvous with Wu Sangui, the commander-in-chief of the Ming Dynasty, and fought li Zicheng inside and outside Shanhaiguan. After Li Zicheng's defeat, he withdrew from Beijing and led his army to fight against the Qing forces in Henan and Shaanxi.
In March of the second year of Shunzhi, the Dashun army forced the Southern Ming general Zuo Liangyu to occupy Wuchang, and Li Zicheng planned to go east by boat and seize the southeast as a base for anti-Qing resistance. However, the Dashun army was not yet fully prepared, and the Qing army suddenly attacked by land and water, causing Li Zicheng to hastily abandon Wuchang and march southeast. On May 17 of the second year of Shunzhi, Li Zicheng was mistakenly killed by villagers at Jiugong Mountain in Tongcheng County, Hubei Province.
Resources:
[Ming Shi Vol. 309 Li Zicheng Biography, Ming Shilu Shen Zong Scroll, Liu Kou Zhi]