China's ancient dynasties changed rapidly, there were many excellent and talented kings and ministers, but there were still many officials who were corrupt, so there were many brave peasants who wanted to revolt, of course, the peasant revolt was also very difficult, it needed to have enough troops, and it was even more necessary to get the support of the people.
In the early years of Chongzhen, there were natural disasters in the northwest for many years, and the peasants who planted the land had no harvest, and they were hungry and cold. At this time, Li Zicheng was still an ordinary pawn at the imperial court station, responsible for horse breeding, delivering letters and other errands, relying on a small salary, the family could barely make ends meet. However, the roof leak was rained overnight, and soon the news came from above that the emperor decided to abolish a number of stations on a large scale in order to save money. It is said that Chongzhen calculated that after the abolition of the post, he could save more than 200,000 taels of silver for the imperial court a year.
Against such a background, Li Zicheng stepped onto the stage of history and gathered a large number of peasant armies under the slogan of "no grain." This is the origin of "greeting the king, and the king does not pay grain". In fact, the name of the king of Chuang was not Li Zicheng at the beginning, but the first king Gao Yingxiang risked his way to the Meridian Valley to sneak up on the Ming army, and after being recognized by the Ming army, the soldiers were defeated and killed, and Li Zicheng was elected to take over the position of the highest leader and became the new king of Chuang.
Originally, this Li Zicheng might really be able to go down in history if he governed the country well, but he was "inflated". He also used his identity to do bad things in the local area, so this dragon chair only sat for 42 days before being driven away by the Qing people.
The peasant revolt is limited, without unified advanced theoretical support, and the direction is determined by the will of only one person. Think about it, what happens to a group of poor and frightened people when they learn that the city of Beijing is all you?
Of course, it is indispensable to burn and loot, kill Ming officials, and also make some enthronement ceremony, and the city of Beijing is ruined. It is said that the peasant uprising, they should sympathize with the people, because they are all a kind of people, this attack on Beijing, they can feel overwhelmed, forget their identity, retribution will always come.
Li Zicheng provoked anger from all sides, and the Qing army and Wu Sangui marched to Beijing, and Li Zicheng fled in a hurry. "History of Ming": "The scourge of thieves has been constant throughout the ages, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were extremely strong." In the annals of history, there is no such thing as the cool one of Jos.
At that time, the life of the people was already very hard, living in the war every day, after Li came, there were still some people with high expectations, hoping that their lives could be improved, but they did not expect that the harm he caused was several times more painful than that brought by the Qing Dynasty. This may really be the biggest flaw of people who have no ruling experience at all to occupy the capital as kings, they have spent a lot of effort to defeat the original ruler, and after getting some sweetness, they forget the process of hard struggle, just like enjoying the beauty of the results, so there is no doubt that fate is very short.
Since Li Zicheng entered the capital, the first unreliable thing he did was to indulge his subordinates, but there was a faint Ming king who could manage the world, and originally thought that as long as Li Zicheng came, life would be better, in fact, no one thought of it, but it brought him a lot of pain.
On March 19, 1644, Li Zicheng laid siege to the capital of the Ming Dynasty, Beijing, and led a brigade from Deshengmen into the Ming Imperial Palace, officially destroying the Ming Dynasty. Two months later, after losing the battle between Shanhaiguan and the Qing army, Li Zicheng suddenly remembered that he had not yet ascended the throne as emperor and hurried back to Beijing. On April 29, the enthronement ceremony was held at the Wuying Hall, and his wife Gao Shi was made empress, and the chancellor was sent to the Temple of Heaven to worship the heavens.
After the altar of heaven, Li Zicheng was also the official emperor, but his emperor really enjoyed the blessings of the Forbidden City Palace for only one day. On this day, in addition to ascending the throne as emperor, Li Zicheng also killed 34 members of Wu Sangui's family. Early the next morning, Li Zicheng ordered the burning of some of the buildings in Beijing and the Forbidden City, and then led his army to retreat towards Xi'an, beginning his career as a fugitive after ascending the throne.
There is a very important reason, that is, Wu Sangui, at that time Wu Sangui had already decided to defect to him, but he actually took a fancy to Wu Sangui's wife, Chen Yuanyuan, and took it for himself, so Wu Sangui defected to the Manchu Qing government, which became an important reason for his later overthrow. When the Manchu Qing government killed him, no one supported him at all, and his brothers, who had long since lost their fighting spirit and vigilance in pleasure, were easily defeated by a blow, and of course his regime was maintained for a long time.
Seeing this, do you understand the reason for his failure? At the beginning, he was dissatisfied with the dynasty and the heavy pressure on the people to revolt, but after he became emperor, people's lives did not change at all, and he was not a Ming Emperor. From this point of view, a person can not only have the ability, but also have good qualities, in order to succeed.