In the late Ming Dynasty, the crumbling Ming Dynasty fought a major battle with the Qing army outside Shanhaiguan.
In this battle, the Ming general Hong Chengyu personally led 130,000 Ming troops to Guanwai, and the two sides fought for more than three years, initially the Ming army won a small victory, but was eventually defeated by Huang Taiji. After the end of the war, the 130,000 elites of the Ming army were lost, Hong Chengyu was captured and surrendered to the Qing, and the Ming Dynasty was no longer able to resist the Qing army's iron horse, completely losing control of the outside of the Pass, and this battle was the Battle of Songjin.
The Battle of Songjin was the last decisive battle between the two regimes of the Ming and Qing dynasties, how did the two sides fight in this battle? Why is this happening?
1. The survival of Guanwai is determined by the First World War
In 1626, Emperor Taiji ascended to the throne of Houjin Khan, and in the face of the general lack of enterprising ideas of the Houjin nobles, Huang Taiji made drastic reforms as soon as he came to power, formulating a strategic general policy for advancing into the Central Plains.
In order to "train the brigade to wait for the Mandate of Heaven", Emperor Taiji "made peace" with the Ming Dynasty while comprehensively "transforming" Houjin.
First, he innovated state institutions and strengthened the feudal monarchy and centralization; second, he developed social economy and eased class contradictions; and finally, he rectified the eight-flag system and improved the combat effectiveness of the army. After this series of reforms, the overall strength of Houjin has been greatly improved, and it has the conditions to shake the foundation of the Ming Dynasty's rule.
In this context, in 1636, Emperor Taiji believed that the time had come to take the Ming and replace it, so he changed the name of the Later Jin Dynasty to Daqing, abandoned the Khan and called himself emperor, and also said bluntly to the ministers: "Those who are now enemies, only the Ears of the Ming Kingdom", it can be seen that at this time, the Emperor Taiji already had the ambition to seize the world.
However, at this time, the Manchu Qing regime was outside the guanxi, and if it wanted to advance into the Central Plains, it was first necessary to seize Shanhaiguan, and if it wanted to seize Shanhaiguan, it was first necessary to seize Jinzhou. Therefore, in 1640, Emperor Taiji ordered a large army to garrison Yizhou, which was not far from Jinzhou.
The Ming Dynasty side was well aware that Emperor Taiji was "intending to enter Jinzhou" in doing so, so when the Qing army first arrived in Yizhou, he ordered the forward general Zu Dashou and the Liaodong general Wu Sangui to guard Jinzhou and Songshan. For the Ming Dynasty, Jinzhou City was a strategic town of the Ming Dynasty outside the Guanxi, responsible for the important task of encircling Shanhaiguan and defending the Beijing Division, and once it was successfully controlled by the Emperor Taiji, then the Daming Sheji was in danger.
As the saying goes: "The survival of Guanwai and the safety of Shenjing are decided in the First World War", and the Battle of Songjin broke out.
230,000 people threw away their armor
In the first month of 1640, Emperor Taiji formulated a strategy for entering Uiju, and by April of that year, the Qing army "built the city and built the room, the furniture was complete, and the land from east to west of Uiju had been reclaimed." At this time, Yizhou had become the base camp for the Qing army to attack Jinzhou. Next, there were two roads in front of the Emperor Taiji, that is, to directly attack the city, or to besiege Jinzhou.
Siege and siege, both have advantages and disadvantages, the time spent on the siege is relatively short, you can quickly capture Jinzhou City, but it is also possible to attack for a long time, resulting in huge losses; although the siege of the city as long as it persists, it will be successful, but the time spent is very long, and the soldiers are easy to slacken off.
The main body of the Qing army is cavalry, accustomed to attacking the city and plundering the land, lacking enough patience, in the past, the Qing army was to induce the Ming army to take the initiative to go out of the city to engage it, thus defeating it in one fell swoop.
However, during the yuan chonghuan period, the Ming army set a combat policy of "relying on the fortified city and using cannons", and has always insisted on sticking to the city, refusing to easily go out of the city and directly confront the Qing army, which is good at riding and shooting. In the beginning, Huang Taiji tried to directly attack the city, but because the Ming army was "very defensive", it returned without success, and even "caused more casualties".
Therefore, although the siege time is shorter and the siege time is longer, in the case of repeated sieges, Huang Taiji can only helplessly set the strategy of besieging Jinzhou.
In order to better implement the siege strategy, Emperor Taiji ordered that all the crops outside Jinzhou Be cut, sweep up the Ming army posts around Jinzhou, cut off all internal and external access of the Jinzhou city defenders, and also set up a rotation mechanism to rotate the Siege Qing army once every three months to avoid the slack mentality of the generals.
In 1641, under the siege of the Qing army, cracks gradually appeared within the defenders of Jinzhou City, and Emperor Taiji took the opportunity to rebel against the Mongol soldiers in the city, seized the opportunity to capture the outer city of Jinzhou, and immediately strengthened the troops besieging Jinzhou, and the city of Jinzhou was in danger.
The Jinzhou general Zu Dashou sent people to the imperial court for help in this critical situation. When the Chongzhen Emperor learned of the current situation in Jinzhou, he immediately ordered Hong Chengzu to lead 130,000 infantry and horses to rush to jinzhou. After the Ming Dynasty army arrived at Songshan, the "Jianzhou soldiers were horrified", the initial battle "lost, the flag was erected on the top of the mountain, the two red flags, the three banners of the blue flag were garrisoned, and it was captured by the enemy", the Qing army "people and horses were wounded", and the Ming army won a small victory.
After learning of the defeat of the Qing army, Emperor Taiji decisively decided to personally march, and he "Si Suo Shen Zhongren Ding" led more than 100,000 troops to Songshan.
On the second day after arriving at Songshan, Emperor Taiji judged that the Ming army was highly concentrated, and did not care about each other, and decided to adopt the operational policy of cutting off grain roads, digging trenches and building walls, and besieging the Ming army. This move by Emperor Taiji directly cut off the food supply of the Songshan Ming army, causing a panic among the Ming generals of the Ming Dynasty. Especially during this period, Emperor Taiji also ordered the Qing army to seize the grain stored by the Ming army at Beacon Mountain, and at this time, the grain brought by the Ming army was only enough to supply for three days.
Under these circumstances, Hong Chengyu decided to fight desperately, but the soldiers below did not want to listen to him at all, and wanted to retreat to Ningyuan. Hong Chengyu could only appease the generals and set up a strategy for attacking the Qing army the next day. Unexpectedly, on that night, some generals were timid and took the lead in fleeing, so the various units of the Ming army rushed to escape, chaotically, and were covered by the Qing army that had long been ambushed, and nearly 100,000 troops were lost in one dynasty.
In the following time, the Qing army, instead of being greedy and aggressive, continued to be patient and besieged Songshan. Hong Chengyu failed to break through many times, and the Ming Dynasty was already powerless to rescue, and the end of Songshan City can be imagined.
In this desperate situation, the generals in the city secretly surrendered, and the inside and outside should be combined, which eventually led to the destruction of Songshan Castle and the capture of Hong Chengyu himself. As soon as Songshan was broken, Jinzhou City was difficult to support, and the grain in the city had long been exhausted, Zu Dashou could only lead the crowd to surrender, and since then the two cities of Songjin have fallen into the hands of the Qing army, and this battle ended with the defeat of the Ming army.
Third, why was the Battle of Songjin lost
The result of the Battle of Songjin was a great defeat of the Ming army and the loss of the elite outside the Guan. In this battle, the strength of the ming and qing armies was actually not much different, so why did the Ming army occupy a geographical advantage and still suffer such a fiasco? In fact, looking back at the entire battle, there are three reasons why the Ming army failed:
First, blindly urge war. When Hong Chengzu led 130,000 troops to Ningyuan, he did not want to risk his way forward, but wanted to "take defense as a battle" and take step by step as a battalion to force the Qing army to retreat. However, the Chongzhen Emperor was a light enemy and rushed to fight, which eventually led to "100,000 people, overwhelmed".
Second, improper command. As the commander of the First Army, Hong Chengzu had no opinion, only considered personal gains and losses, and submitted to high-ranking officials of the imperial court. He knew the consequences of the advance, but he still went deep alone, and showed a state of hesitation in combat command, which made the Ming army feel at a loss.
From the beginning of the lone army to go deep, leading the crowd to Songshan, to arriving at Songshan, the large army was gathered together, so that the end could not take care of each other; and then after discovering the Qing army's action, it could not retreat decisively, nor could it attack decisively, this series of mistakes made the Ming army step by step into defeat.
Third, the general is afraid of death. After Hong Chengzu decided on the strategy of attacking the Qing army, some generals actually took advantage of the night to flee, which led to the Ming army's self-chaos and caused a major rout of the Ming army. There were also the surrenders of generals Matsuyama and Zu Dashou and others, which accelerated the final defeat of the Ming army.
It was these three reasons that ultimately led to the defeat of the Ming army. The Ming Dynasty fought a great war in this way, and went farther and farther on the road of destruction, and was eventually replaced by the Qing Dynasty.
Text/Leyu
Reference: On the Battle of Songjin in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Li Hongbin