Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty, was born in the military, and such a family will serve in the army for generations, but Zhang Xianzhong had a difficult fate before participating in the uprising. Zhang Xianzhong's father somehow broke away from the military and became a farmer, Zhang Xianzhong once did a job as a catcher after he became an adult, but was quickly dismissed, and later mistakenly joined the Ming Dynasty army, and was almost sentenced to death, fortunately, Chen Hongfan saved his life and was thrown into prison. After his release from prison, Zhang Xianzhong joined the peasant army and embarked on a vigorous road from then on.
Zhang Xianzhong
Although Zhang Xianzhong was born at the bottom, he was very flexible in using troops, and people sometimes commented that "Zhang Xianzhong used soldiers the most cunning", which can be understood as a kind of praise, indicating that Zhang Xianzhong has a great command art, can grasp the weaknesses of his opponents, and achieve the greatest victory at the smallest cost.
For example, in the eighth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong, Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and others used the Ming army and the people to celebrate the Lantern Festival, sent some soldiers disguised as fortune tellers and small traders who roamed the streets and alleys to mix into Fengyang City, and finally took advantage of everyone's celebration to set fires everywhere, and then cooperated with the outside world, successfully captured fengyang, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, and finally burned Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestral mausoleum, which caused the Chongzhen Emperor a great headache, and a large number of Ming officials were also punished.
When Chongzhen attacked Luzhou in the fifteenth year, Zhang Xianzhong's tactics were even bolder, and this time his troops pretended to be government officials of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, Luzhou was heavily defended, known as "Tielu Prefecture", and if it attacked hard, it would definitely cause heavy losses to the peasant army, so Zhang Xianzhong repeated the same technique. His troops detected that a Ming Dynasty scholar and political official was about to inspect Luzhou (of course, this scholar and political official was also very blind), so Zhang Xianzhong sent people to the middle of the road to intercept the Ming officials, and then used his army to pretend to be Ming officials and retinues, deceived the Luzhou city gate, and once again attacked the ming Dynasty's important town without bloodshed.
When Chongzhen captured the important town of Xiangyang in the fourteenth year, Zhang Xianzhong also adopted a similar strategy, he sent a peasant army disguised as a Ming army, mixed into the city of Xiangyang, and then took advantage of Zhang Xianzhong's army to attack Xiangyang. Zhang Xianzhong tried this strategy repeatedly, and the Ming army stepped into Zhang Xianzhong's trap again and again.
Xiangyang City
So back to the question raised at the beginning of the article, Zhang Xianzhong was born in a reckless background and had never undergone formal military training, so how did he learn these schemes? Of course, this is related to personality and the accumulation of daily combat life, but it cannot be ignored that Zhang Xianzhong is also drawing these military and strategic knowledge from books. According to the late Ming and early Qing dynasty notebook historical materials "Ming Ji Beiluo", Zhang Xianzhong often seriously studied Sun Tzu's soldiers and horses, and Zhang Xianzhong also had a habit, "The cunning of dedication to loyalty is also the Japanese people say the books of the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin, and their ambush and attack on Xianyi." ”
Although Zhang Xianzhong's cultural level is limited, he can start from his own characteristics, let people interpret popular novels such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin", and learn the way of using soldiers from them, from ambush to attacking cities and pools, one by one, and apply theoretical knowledge to actual combat, which has the saying of "Zhang Xianzhong's cunning".
Stills from Water Margin
It can be seen that these three books have a great influence on Zhang Xianzhong's combat thinking, do you think that Zhang Xianzhong has other performances that imitate the plot of these three books?
Reference: "Zhang Xianzhong's Biography"