Inside a makeshift barracks made of rubble on the hill, wounded soldiers supported the broken bladed soldiers, trying to make themselves stand up straight.
Although they stood in different places, the pair of sad eyes were all staring straight at the same place. The place was a tent that was put on stone with a few rags, and the tent of the barracks was to be used.
Inside the tent sat a man with a sword and wearing iron armor, who looked at the sky silently, two lines of blood and tears flowing down the river.
Li Dingguo knew that he was dying, and although he forcibly put on his armor, he himself understood that after the Yongli Emperor was hanged by Wu Sangui, his heart died, and when his heart died, people naturally did not live long.
At the beginning, with a spirit of restoring the Ming Dynasty, he fought with the Qing army, with Wu Sangui, and with his eldest brother, even if he had always lost more and won less, but he had never been afraid.
But now that the emperor of the Ming Dynasty was dead, Li Dingguo was afraid, and he was afraid that he would fight back and forth in his life, but in the end he would end up in a vacuum. His brothers persuaded him to become king, and he immediately hung up the brother who had followed him all the way and whipped him fiercely. Saying that this is simply, he Li Dingguo wants to do that, and Sun Kewang's villain is different.
Looking back on his own life, he came step by step from the most ruthless anti-king of the Ming Dynasty rebellion, and became the last person who still protected this Daming.
"Fuck!" Li Dingguo smiled and shook his head, got up and took off his armor, took out a pen and paper from the desk, dipped the blood of his wound, and wrote down the next sentence. Then he collapsed on the desk and never got up again.
（1）
In 1630 (the third year of Chongzhen), Zhang Xianzhong, who openly declared a rebellion, was chased around by the Ming government. This time, he fled to the top of a mountain village, where he was separated from his subordinates.
Zhang Xianzhong sat on the ground, his eyes blank, casually looking around. At this time a small fart child in front of him caught his attention.
Not far in front of Zhang Xianzhong, a little boy who looked to be more than ten years old was fighting with a crazy cultivating cow, although the cultivating cow was already hungry and skinny, but its strength was not something that a human child could resist.
The boy who knew this didn't confront it head-on either, and he ran back and forth around several dead trees around him. Suddenly turning to the side, the cattle that could not be stopped were stuck in several trees and could not break free.
"Courageous and resourceful, a good boy Khan." This is a pioneer general given to me by God, hahahahaha! Zhang Xianzhong's eyes lit up and he roared happily. He rushed over and directly picked up the boy who was gasping for breath, and the boy looked back,
A man with messy hair, a face full of dust, his clothes covered with patches, and a man who looked like a beggar hugged himself and shouted, suddenly frightened, and struggled.
"Boy, don't struggle, from now on you will be my fourth son Zhang Xianzhong." I want to name you Dingguo, Li Dingguo, to help the Father build our own country. Zhang Xianzhong looked up at the sky and laughed, holding the boy tighter.
Under the fiery red sunset, the laughter of the men and the cries of the boys spread far and wide.
（2）
Li Dingguo, who had just been brought back by Zhang Xianzhong, was bullied in the barracks. Not only was it the teasing of the low-level soldiers, but also the targeting of those who wanted to curry favor with Zhang Xianzhong and several other righteous sons. Out of expectation of this fourth righteous son, Zhang Xianzhong chose to ignore all this.
Therefore, the young Li Dingguo, in the case of being bullied again and again but having no way to find a way, secretly made up his mind: he must get ahead, he can only bully others by himself, and he cannot let others bully him.
Finally, the opportunity came.
In 1637 (the tenth year of Chongzhen), the seventeen-year-old Li Dingguo learned of the news that his father was going to attack Henan and Hubei, and immediately led his 20,000 subordinates who had accumulated over the years to follow.
However, at that time, the Ming court had not yet reached the point of being terminally ill, and not everyone could march forward like Li Zicheng, the "king of the invasion".
In February 1641 (the fourteenth year of Chongzhen), Zhang Xianzhong, who had failed again and again, set his sights on the less guarded city of Xiangyang. But even Xiangyang City, which had relatively weak defenses, was not something that these peasant armies that had laid down their agricultural tools to revolt could resist.
At night, Zhang Xianzhong, who was complaining from his subordinates all day, was too sad to sleep peacefully. He thought about retiring from the army, but he was worried that it would inevitably be looked down upon by people to go back so grayly, so he sat in his private tent and drank and sighed.
Li Dingguo, who was guarding outside the tent, heard the heavy sigh of his righteous father and knew that this was the opportunity he had waited for several years to get ahead. But what should he do about Xiangyang City, which even the army could not break through?
At this time, several quartermasters passed him carrying the loot collected from the battlefield. Li Dingguo looked at the Ming army armor that shone in the moonlight, and a smile slowly appeared on his face. ......
The city of Xiangyang was eventually breached. Disguised as an errand officer of the Ming army, Li Dingguo rushed into Xiangyang City overnight with twenty light horses, and completely captured Xiangyang from the inside out.
This great victory in Xiangyang was the turning point when Zhang Xianzhong's rebel army began to move toward victory, and Li Dingguo made his reputation for the first time in this era of war and chaos at the end of the Ming Dynasty. From then on, Li Dingguo lived up to the name of "Dingguo" and went around to conquer the west, completely laying the foundation for Zhang Xianzhong's claim to the throne.
In Chengdu in November 1644 (the seventeenth year of Chongzhen), Zhang Xianzhong wore a crown on his head and sat trembling on a high platform. Looking at the kneeling piece below, the head of the person pressed down, the old man was in tears, his face was flushed, and he shouted "Flat body." ”
This means that the historical Ōnishi regime was established, and Zhang Xianzhong's wish that he had worked hard for most of his life was realized today.
Twenty-four-year-old Li Dingguo was given the title of General of Anxi for his outstanding military achievements, supervising sixteen military camps. At this time, he was eight feet tall, handsome in appearance, known in the army for loving the people like a son, and always leading the way in battle, heroic. Therefore, it is often compared with Wei Chigong of the Tang Dynasty, calling him "Xiao Wei Chi" and "Ten Thousand Enemies". He fulfilled his vow to stand out in his infancy, and he was young and ambitious, and he was in the limelight for a while.
（3）
King Chuang invaded the capital, and all the low-level people, including the people of Kyoto, celebrated. And the Chongzhen Emperor, who had made up for the holes in his life and could not help anything, took the only remaining eunuch in the palace to hang himself in the coal mountain. Before dying, he killed his daughter and his favorite concubine, and set fire to the palace, leaving nothing behind.
How could those rebel armies who had managed to break into the capital and prepare for a big profit be willing to face such a scene? Although Li Zicheng has repeatedly restrained him, for the soldiers who are all crawling out of the pile of dead people and can be happy, the rules are a blank piece of paper at this moment.
The people in the city were dumbfounded, and the rebels who had been waiting for so long were nothing more than a bunch of demons, robbing the women, burning and looting, and it was simply all evil. Just when the soldiers were indulging around, there was one person who couldn't sit still, that is, Wu Sangui, who was far away in Liaodong Town, guarding the frontier.
On the first day he learned that Li Zicheng entered Beijing, he personally wrote a letter and sent it over, hoping that Li Zicheng would be kind to his old father and his wife Chen Yuanyuan, who was once known as one of the four beauties. But the "king" obviously couldn't control the people under his hands.
When he heard the news that his father had been killed and his wife had been taken away, Wu Sangui fainted directly, and when he woke up, he directly sent a letter to the Qing army, which had always been hostile, saying that he was willing to surrender and only asked to kill Li Zicheng with his own hands.
In this way, the Qing army, which had been spying on the Central Plains for a long time, entered the country.
（4）
Regardless of the battle of wits and courage after Wu Sangui and Li Zicheng, just look at the other anti-kings. As soon as the news of the Qing army's entry into the territory spread, several major anti-kings at that time were furious.
Since ancient times, China has had the saying that "if it is not my race, its heart must be different", the Han people seem to have always been full of hostility to outsiders, no matter how fiercely they fight behind closed doors, once outsiders participate, they can put aside their hatred for each other and unite to beat outsiders first. (Except, of course, for Wu Sangui.) )
In August 1646 (the third year of Qing Shunzhi and the second year of Ming Longwu), the elderly Zhang Xianzhong, despite the persuasion of others, said that he wanted to let these Qing troops know that the Central Plains were not the place where they could come. He insisted on personally leading the Great Western Army of 500,000 to the north to resist the Qing.
At that time, Li Dingguo, as the vanguard, led his subordinates to engage the Qing army and beheaded the leaders of the Qing army, Gu Lang'a, Bayan'a, and others. Other generals of the Great Western Army also had their own merits. The situation is very good.
However, when Zhang Xianzhong was in the Phoenix Mountain in Xichong, he was unfortunately shot by a random arrow by the Qing army, and was seriously injured and dying. Before he died, he summoned the four righteous sons, clasped their hands together, and told them. The brothers must make a concerted effort to drive the Qing people out. After saying this old man who had fought all his life, he closed his eyes forever.
After Zhang Xianzhong's death, there was a great disturbance in the army, and the Qing army took advantage of the situation to attack, and the rebels suffered heavy casualties.
His four righteous descendants, Ke Wang, Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu, and Ai Nengqi, in the midst of danger, struggled to gather together thousands of remnants and more than 10,000 people in their families, chose to march south, and traveled hundreds of miles a day and night to preserve some of their living strength.
When these four people learned of the existence of the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty, they elected the eldest brother Sun Kewang as the leader, chose to look for the young emperor, and ordered the battalions: "It is advisable for each battalion to work together to support the young lord and achieve great things." For a time, brothers and sisters.
（5）
Although the power of the Qing army is getting bigger and bigger, the death and extinction of several major anti-kings in that year are now only the one left by Zhang Xianzhong, but Li Dingguo and others are not afraid of the Qing people.
They led the Great Western Army to fight the Qing people to the death, and finally recovered yunnan and most of the Central Plains such as Yunnan after paying the price of Ainengqi's death and Liu Wenxiu's removal from his post.
Under the fear of the Qing people, Hugh wrote a letter, saying that "he ruled the world together with the king", but was fiercely rejected by Li Dingguo.
In such a good situation, Sun Kewang swelled, and he wanted to emulate Cao Pi, hold Tianzi hostage, and force him to abdicate, but each time he did not succeed under Li Dingguo's repeated persuasion. Annoyed and angry, Sun Kewang and his subordinates chose to go to war with Li Dingguo.
For the sake of the overall situation, Li Dingguo could only avoid fighting, and fled with his subordinates and the emperor to Burma and other places.
Taking advantage of Sun Li's discord, the Qing army launched an attack in a hurry, and Sun Kewang was powerless to resist and had to flee in a hurry. The great situation that the Great Western Army had so hard to fight was thus lost. ..................
At this moment, in the midst of a makeshift palace in Burma. Li Dingguo, who was already middle-aged, sat in front of the young Yongli Emperor. Look at this last emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
The last hope of this Daming in front of him was still a child who was less than ten years old, wearing a yellow robe that was several times larger than his own body, and how funny he looked.
The little emperor looked at Li Dingguo with frightened eyes, his body shrunk into a ball, and carefully said, "I... I pass the throne... Pass it on to you, don't you kill me okay. ”
Li Dingguo, who had never shed tears in the battlefield for decades, could not stop the tears at this time, he knew that it was his brother Sun Kewang's ambition to become emperor that frightened the little emperor, but the emperor's actions in front of him still made Li Dingguo's eyes black and he was about to faint.
Is there really hope for such a cowardly emperor to assist him?
Li Dingguo sat quietly for a while, then got up and picked up the emperor and put him on the throne. He slowly stepped back, got down on his knees, and prostrated his head three times heavily. "Wei Chen, don't you dare!" Wei Chen hereby swore that he would definitely drive out the Qing people and let His Majesty reign in the world again. ”
The little emperor on the throne was stunned, lifted his yellow robe to wipe a handful of tears, and nodded his head. Li Dingguo did not look back again, he silently walked out of the palace, facing the soldiers, he changed back into the appearance of the iron-blooded general.
He knew he had too much blood on his hands and couldn't turn back. The figures of the dead father and brother often appeared in his dreams these days and nights, but he could only look at them guiltily and did not dare to speak out.
Li Dingguo told himself that he must drive the Qing people out of the Central Plains and fulfill his father's last wish. Remembering the big guys who had recently been captured and called "elephants" by the locals, he was now confident in that goal.
（6）
In this era of warhorses everywhere, when such a thing as an elephant first officially appeared on the battlefield, it did play a great role, and during that time, the Qing people often cried that the "monster" was killed by the Great Western Army led by Li Dingguo, and there was no courage to fight again.
But gradually, the elephants moved slowly, and their easily frightened weaknesses were discovered by the Qing people, who made a loud noise with their fire bolts on the battlefield to intimidate the elephant herds, and the frightened elephants were not divided between me and me, running around, rushing into their own army several times and trampling on them at will, and some soldiers died at the feet of their own cultivated mounts.
Based on this situation, Li Dingguo had no choice but to stop the idea of using elephants as weapons and think of fighting the Qing army with his own strength.
However, in the face of the Qing army that had almost completely occupied the entire Central Plains at that time, Li Dingguo's resistance seemed so weak and weak, and his main force was exhausted in several large encirclements and suppressions of the Qing army, and the remnants of less than 10,000 people were still pursued and killed by the Qing people.
Li Dingguo found the local Burmese people, promised them a lot of profits, and handed over the emperor who had grown into a young man to them, asking him to take care of him carefully, and he was going to fight a final battle with the Qing people.
He chose a mountain similar to a crescent moon on the necessary route of the Qing army's pursuit, and did his best in this life to set a series of hidden traps such as tripwires. Wait for the arrival of the Qing army.
He led his men to the top of the hill, preparing for the final harvest. Li Dingguo, who calculated everything well, only ignored the human heart. Bai Wenxuan, the deputy general who had been following Li Dingguo behind him, slowly changed his mind after he fell into the wilderness and fled again and again.
He took the initiative to contact the Qing army, told them the hiding place of the little emperor and promised to show the Qing army to kill Li Dingguo, and the Qing army may have promised him a high-ranking official Houlu.
Naturally, in the eyes of both sides, everyone is happy. And when Li Dingguo on the mountain knew all this, the Yongli Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty had already been hanged by Wu Sangui in the street, and Bai Wenxuan had already begun to surround him with people.
He squirted a mouthful of blood from the sky, and two lines of blood and tears flowed from his eyes in a flash.
The surrounding subordinates rushed into the tent to take Li Dingguo out of the path behind the mountain, but he waved his hand and refused. Breakout, which is so easy.
Paying for other lives for himself, this kind of thing Li Dingguo has not done before, but this time he is unwilling. Li Dingguo stood up slowly from his chair, looked at these brothers who had accompanied him all his life in the Eastern Expedition and the Western War, and suddenly smiled.
I Li Dingguo wasted one, should have died a long time ago, but these brothers of mine should not have died here, they still have a better future.
I'm here today and I'm not going anywhere. I have such a great credit for making my brothers leave. I can't imagine that I still have some effect in the end, which is very good.
Li Dingguo, who had dismissed all the brothers, sat alone in the tent. Looking back on his life, he cried and laughed for a while. After a while, he took out his pen and ink and raised it. A line of blood-stained words fell on the paper: "I'd rather die in the wilderness than surrender!"
Looking at the words he had written, Li Dingguo looked up at the sky and laughed, and then picked up the long sword around his waist and wiped it his neck.
At this point, Li Dingguo, who had persisted in the struggle against the Qing Dynasty for 17 years in the southwestern frontier, committed suicide in June 1662, at the age of 42.
Author: Feng Shui, this article is less to read the original works of the Red Chamber.