The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty in the history of the mainland, and the evaluation of this dynasty has been praised and deprecated by posterity. Some people think that as a northern tribe of China, it has entered the Central Plains and ruled China with a small and broad for more than two hundred years. However, there were three important milestones in the Entry of the Qing Dynasty into the Central Plains, which were important for the founding of the Qing Dynasty. Before the Qing Dynasty and the Later Jin Dynasty entered the Pass, starting from the first confrontation in Fushun in the forty-sixth year of the Wanli Calendar (1618) to the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), in these thirty years, more than 100 wars, large and small, were fought against the Ming Dynasty, but there were three major battles that really laid the foundation for the Qing Dynasty and finally entered the Central Plains.
Defensive counter-attack
The later Jin war against the Ming Dynasty from defensive to offensive was the Battle of Salhu, which was a battle from defense to attack.
1. Background analysis
Later Jin: In the 5 years from the eleventh year of the Wanli Calendar to the sixteenth year of the Wanli Calendar (1583-1588), Nurhaci led the tribes to unify the various departments of Jianzhou, and then unified the various departments of Haixi and The East China Sea, and its control area reached the Japanese seashore, the west reached the jurisdiction of Liaodong Dusi, the south reached the Yalu River, and the north reached the Waixingling Land north of the Heilongjiang River, although sparsely populated, but other tribes such as the Jurchen tribe in the unified area were under the jurisdiction of Nurhaci. Nurhaci took advantage of the situation to establish the eight-flag system of integrating soldiers and civilians. All Jurchens were organized among the Eight Banners, similar to the Jin Dynasty's Meng'an Muke system. At this time, Nurhaci's strength reached more than 60,000 people, although it was heavy infantry, but it already had a strong combat ability. In 1616, Nurhaci made the capital at Hetuala and established Houjin.
Ming Dynasty: After the Ming Dynasty destroyed the Yuan Dynasty, related defenses were also established in the northeast, and Wanli set up nine important towns from the Yalu River to Jiayuguan, also known as the "Nine Sides", when Liaodong was one of the nine sides and governed most of Liaoning. The Ming Dynasty ruled over the Jurchen tribes, one was to divide and manage the Yi, and the other was to divide them, so that there were contradictions within them, each of them was opposed, and then divided and ruled.
In the confrontation between the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin, the Jurchen Yehebu, in order to avoid the annexation of Nurhaci, was subordinated to the Ming Dynasty and the Later Jin. The Lee Dynasty of Korea also favored the Ming Dynasty, and the Mongolian ChahaBu, in the middle of Hohhot and Chengde, basically rebelled against the Later Jin, but it was not too good with the Ming Dynasty. The Mongol Horqin and Khalkha tribes north of the Daling River joined forces with the Later Jin to rebel against the Ming Dynasty.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty, because the Ming rulers were busy suppressing peasant uprisings, they could not take care of the defense of Liaodong at all. At this time, the Ming Dynasty garrison in Liaodong was short of money and food, training was wasted, and the defense was scattered, and the combat effectiveness was extremely poor, but it gave Nurhaci the opportunity to develop.
2. The course of the war
The chaos of the Ming Dynasty gave Nurhaci the courage, although the number of troops was small, but Nurhaci had the courage. Because of the strength of the Eight Banner Soldiers, Nurhaci has several. Therefore, at the beginning of 1618, Nurhaci summoned his ministers to discuss the strategy of fighting the Ming Dynasty, and decided to first attack the Liaodong Ming army, and then destroy Yehebu. Subsequently, Nurhaci made sufficient preparations, recruited a large number of Jurchens, equipped Xiuzhi, and sent spies to collect the situation of the Ming Dynasty. In April 1618, Nurhaci swore an oath of rebellion on the grounds of "7 Great Hates". After 20,000 Jin soldiers attacked first, the Ming defensive points east of Fushun City were captured, and soon the Fushun Qinghe River was occupied. Nurhaci wanted to eat the two cities of Liaoshen in one bite, but Yehebu was a threat, and the Ming army was increasing its troops in Liaoning, and Nurhaci was good to withdraw first.
On the side of the Ming Dynasty, Yang Hao was sent to be in charge of the liaodong war, and the ming dynasty wanted to send large troops to destroy Houjin, but due to the lack of soldiers and money, it had to transfer troops from the four southern provinces to Liaodong, and also informed the Li dynasty and Ye Hebu to cooperate, and this preparation was half a year. But Nurhaci recovered and in 1619 he again attacked Yehebu with 20 villages. Yang Ho wanted to negotiate peace with Nurhaci and wait for reinforcements, but Nurhaci refused. Later, after the Ming Dynasty's 87,000 reinforcements arrived, plus yehebu and the Korean Li clan, for a time the troops were strong and strong, but due to the lack of money in the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Mingshenzong let Yang Hao make a quick decision, so Yang Ho divided into four major armies to attack Houjin.
After the war was launched, Nurhaci saw through Yang Ho's strategy, he used the Ming army Juniper troops to venture and isolate, when the Juniper army entered the vicinity of Salhu, Nurhaci led the main force to meet the attack, using tactics to completely annihilate the Ming Dynasty Western Route Army, Juniper and other generals were all killed.
The Ming Dynasty Northern Route Army, led by Ma Lin, went to the northeast of Salhu and did not dare to move forward, and in order to preserve its strength, it actually defended on the spot, which gave Nurhaci another opportunity. When Nurhaci led the army to attack, Malin thought that the Number of Houjin troops was not large, so he joined the three-way army to fight with Nurhaci. The Eight Banner Soldiers who had previously pursued the Ming Army finally rushed over, and because the Houjin soldiers suddenly charged from the rear, they blinded the Ming Army, and the Northern Route Army was also annihilated. The Eastern Route Army led by the Ming general Liu Ling was unable to reach the designated combat area due to the slow march of the mountain road, but he was already too late, Nurhaci finished fighting the Northern Route Army, and turned back to collect the Eastern Route Army, but Liu Lingzhongji was ambushed and killed. Li Rubai of the Southern Route Army was so frightened that he ran away, and the 5,000 men of the Lee clan of North Korea surrendered directly to Houjin.
Ride on the momentum
Nurhaci took Advantage of the situation to capture Kaiyuan and Tieling, and conquered Yehebu. At this point, the Ming army switched from attack to defense, and HouJin began to attack.
Salhu was a crucial battle that boosted Nurhaci's confidence, but he was not yet in the point of absolute dominance. However, the Ming Army began to lack self-confidence.
Taking advantage of the victory in the Battle of Salhu, Nurhaci continued to expand his achievements and attacked Shenyang and Liaoyang. Because these were two important cities of the Ming Dynasty, Nurhaci also intended to move the capital after taking the two cities.
In 1621, Nurhaci led an army of 40,000 to attack Fengjie Fort in the middle of Shenyang and Liaoyang. Ming defeated Li Bingcheng's army and fled back to the city. In March, Nurhaci led an army of 100,000 to attack the city of Shenyang, tricking the Shenyang defender He Shixian out of the way and killing more than a thousand Ming troops. Another defender, Yu Shigong, was also killed by Nurhaci when he went out of the city to rescue him, and Nurhaci installed traitors in advance to open the city gates, and the Jin army invaded the city.
Nurhaci did not stop and continued to attack Liaoyang. Nurhaci used another trick this time, he led his army deliberately to the southwest of Liaoyang in the direction of Shanhaiguan, Liaoyang defender Yuan Yingtai thought that Nurhaci was going to Shanhaiguan, and hurriedly dispatched most of his troops to stop Nurhaci in the west of Liaoyang, in fact, most of Nurhaci's troops were in the eastern and western cities of Liaoyang. Yuan Yingtai led his troops to the eastern mountains of Liaoyang to try to move Nurhaci's troops, but the number of Later Jin troops was too large, Nurhaci attacked the city on the one hand, and attacked the mountain on the other, Yuan Yingtai was defeated, Nurhaci's spies worked again, and Liaoyang City fell.
Although the Battle of Shenliao was very close to the Battle of Salhu, the Battle of Shenliao was the end of the Ming Dynasty's rule in Liaodong, which made Nurchi's confidence in destroying the Ming Dynasty even stronger, and it was also the beginning of the Later Jin's oppression of the Ming Dynasty, and it was also the beginning of the fierce military confrontation between the Later Jin and the Ming Dynasty.
The Battle of Dingding
After the victory at the Battle of Shenliao, Nurhaci moved the capital to Shenyang. Nurhaci did not stop the strategy of destroying the Ming Dynasty, and in 1626 he led his army to launch the Battle of Ningyuan, but was defeated by Yuan Chonghuan and died of a poisonous disease shortly after.
After Emperor Taiji succeeded to the throne, he continued to fight against the Ming Dynasty. In 1640, Emperor Taiji led an army to besiege Jinzhou City, and defeated the Ming army in two years, leaving only Wu Sangui of Ningyuan. Jinzhou City has always been a place where soldiers must fight, at this time, if it is lost, the gate of Guannei will be opened, and when the Qing army comes in, Shanhaiguan cannot stop it. Moreover, Li Zicheng also constantly launched attacks on Beijing, and in fact, he was also helping Huang Taiji.
Therefore, the Battle of Songjin was a decisive battle in which the Qing Dynasty entered Yanjing and dingding the Central Plains. Although this battle lasted a long time, if it failed, how the Qing army would develop in the future is unknown. However, the Qing army also had to thank Li Zicheng's rebel army, if Li Zicheng did not attack the city of Beijing, Wu Sangui did not surrender to the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty entered Beijing is also unknown.
However, all favorable conditions were given to the Qing Dynasty, and they had no reason to settle the Central Plains.