In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, due to the incompetence of Chongzhen, the political ecology withered, coupled with the increasingly prominent class contradictions, and the constant emergence of plagues and natural disasters everywhere, large-scale peasant uprisings finally broke out.
When it comes to the peasant revolt at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the first thing we think of is Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, the "king of chuang". One established the "Dashun regime" and the other established the "Daxi regime", and the two were considered equally famous, each occupying half of the rebel army.
In fact, in addition to Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng, there were many leaders of the peasant uprising. The earliest should be Gao Yingxiang, he is the real first generation of "breaking the king", Li Zicheng is to inherit his mantle. At the same time, there is also a man named Wang Er, who was suppressed and killed in less than 2 years after the uprising, and also left no strong ink in history.
Of course, even if the reputation is like Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, in the end, they cannot escape the fixed number of failure. The reason for this is that the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty did not have a clear program support, and has always adhered to the extreme egalitarianism and anarchism of "equalizing the fields and free grain". The slogans are empty, and the process of the uprising is quite brutal, and failure is inevitable.
As a result, the leaders of these peasant uprisings are doomed to a long story. For example, Zhang Xianzhong, although the Ming Dynasty had collapsed after the establishment of the Daxi regime, he was still shot dead at Phoenix Mountain by the Qing army that entered the pass. Gao Yingxiang was even more miserable, being ambushed by Sun Chuanting, the governor of Shaanxi, during the Battle of Meridian Valley, and finally escorted to the capital Ling Chi and executed.
So, what kind of death did Li Zicheng, who inherited Gao Yingxiang's mantle and went all the way into the capital to overthrow the Ming Dynasty, finally die?
Referring to Zhang Xianzhong's fate, perhaps the public subconscious will think that Li Zicheng also died in the bitter battle with the Qing army. In fact, not long after Li Zicheng contributed to the capital, Dorgon's troops and Wu Sangui's men and horses immediately killed him. Li Zicheng was defeated and retreated to Beijing, and then ran to Hubei.
At that time, Li Zicheng wanted to rely on Hubei and deepen his forces to the southeast, so as to develop his own anti-Qing base. However, before he could recover, the Qing army killed him. In the end, Li Zicheng had to flee from Wuchang to Xianning, and as a result, he died in the place of Jiugong Mountain in Xianning.
The strange thing is that the Qing army did not pursue and kill this place at that time, so why did Li Zicheng die so much? According to the research of historians, when Li Zicheng was passing through the Nine Palaces Mountain at that time, he saw a statue of the Yuan Emperor here. Out of the superstitious instincts of the peasants, he stopped and went to his knees.
As a result, there was also a small peasant uprising in the local area, and when they saw Li Zicheng dressed well, they thought that he was a rich man, so they took advantage of the worship and took up a stone to sneak up on him from behind, and Li Zicheng died because of this. Afterwards, the rebels who wanted to rob the money found the golden seal when they searched Li Zicheng's body, and only then did they know that they had killed the wrong person.
The poor generation of peasant revolt leaders was eventually killed by the peasants. Although it was a misunderstanding, it was full of irony. Li Zicheng was also the one who died the most among the leaders of the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty, and it can be said that there is no ancient person before and no one who has come after.
In fact, Li Zicheng's method of death also corroborates the blindness and ignorance of the peasant revolt at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
At that time, the brutality of the peasant rebels throughout the country was far beyond imagination, and they not only burned and destroyed the ancient buildings that carried the painstaking efforts of their ancestors, but also massacred many innocent people and princes and nobles. It can be said that everywhere you go, you will burn and plunder, and there will be no grass. And Li Zicheng himself, indiscriminately killed more than 10,000 descendants of Zhu Yuanzhang in Shanxi.
It is precisely because of their example that the phenomenon of indiscriminate killing of innocents in the peasant rebel armies everywhere is widespread. And Li Zicheng finally died under this law, which is nothing more than the reincarnation of the Heavenly Dao, the cycle of cause and effect.