Ma Jinzhong, the king of Hanyang who was crowned by the Yongli court of the Southern Ming Dynasty, was also a general from the Shaanxi peasant rebellion.
Ma Jinzhong was a native of Yan'an, Shaanxi Province; he also joined the uprising when the displaced people revolted, and Ma Jinzhong soon stood out and pulled up a team of his own, calling himself "Mixed 100,000", which was very famous in the early Ming Dynasty displaced people's rebel army.
Because Ma Jinzhong's fame was a bit big, he naturally became the focus of the official army. In order to avoid the encirclement and suppression of the officers and troops, Ma Jinzhong led his troops to Shaanxi, Henan, Hubei and other places.
Later, Ma Jinzhong encountered the official army in Shaanxi, was defeated, fled into the Xinyang area of Henan, and was intercepted by the famous Ming general Zuo Liangyu; in desperation, Ma Jinzhong surrendered to Zuo Liangyu. Since then, Ma Jinzhong has not repeated itself and has stubbornly pledged allegiance to the Ming government. Under Zuo Liangyu's command, Ma Jinzhong fought bravely, made many battle achievements, and became an important general in Zuo Liangyu's army.
Li Zicheng was defeated by the Qing army and retreated all the way south to attack Zuo Liangyu's old lair, Wuchang, and Ma Jinzhong was also ordered to fight a battle with Li Zicheng's Dashun army, but unfortunately, he was defeated by Li Zicheng.
Soon, Zuo Liangyu fell ill and died, and Zuo Menggeng, the son of Zuo Liangyu, led 200,000 horses to surrender to the Qing army; Ma Jinzhong was unwilling to surrender, so he led his troops to escape.
Later, Ma Jinzhong led his troops to encounter Azig's Qing army brigade in Hubei Province, and he knew that he was not a rival of the Qing army, so he surrendered to Azig.
Azig was in a hurry to lead his army south, so he ordered Ma Jinzhong to be responsible for transporting the red-clad cannons behind him; as soon as Azig left on his front foot, Ma Jinzhong ordered his men to throw all the Qing cannons into the river, and then led his troops to retreat into Yuezhou, Hunan.
In Hunan, Ma Jinzhong's troops were included in the ranks of the Southern Ming army; he followed Tuoba Yinxi and He Tengjiao, and fought with the Qing army many times, winning and losing against each other. However, the talented Tuoba Yinxi unfortunately fell ill and died, and the overseer He Tengjiao was an incompetent man who was dizzy, and the anti-Qing struggle in Hunan was repeatedly defeated.
In 1651, Ma Jinzhong followed Li Dingguo to attack Guangxi, winning all the way, and finally conquering Guilin, forcing kong Youde, the king of Dingnan of the Qing Dynasty, to recover all of Guangxi.
Just as Li Dingguo and Ma Jinzhong were preparing to capture Guangdong, Sun Kewang ordered them to return to Hunan to meet the Eight Banners from Beijing to reinforce the Hunan battlefield. As a result, Ma Jinzhong followed Li Dingguo back to the Battlefield in Hunan.
In order to eliminate the Elite Eight Banners led by the Qing Dynasty's Jingjing Prince Nikan, Li Dingguo planned to lead his own army to meet the enemy head-on, while Feng Shuangli and Ma Jinzhong's two armies were encircled from the flanks, and the three armies were encircled together, annihilating all of Nikan's Eight Banners.
After Sun Kewang learned of this battle plan, he did not want Li Dingguo to make another great contribution, so he secretly ordered Feng Shuangli to quietly withdraw his troops; Feng Shuangli's withdrawal was discovered by Ma Jinzhong, and Ma Jinzhong did not know what was going on, so he also withdrew his troops. This led to Li Dingguo's serious shortage of troops when he ambushed the elite of the Eight Banners of Nikan. In the end, although Li Dingguo killed Nikan, defeated this Eight Banners strong brigade, and achieved the record of "two famous kings", it was a pity that a war of annihilation turned into a rout war.
After that, Ma Jinzhong belonged to Sun Kewang's camp, participated in the Battle of Zhoujiapu commanded by Sun Kewang, and participated in the Battle of Changde, commanded by Liu Wenxiu, which was intended to meet the Yangtze River; although he did not win victory, Ma Jinzhong fought on the first-line battlefield of the Anti-Qing Dynasty during this period.
Later, in order to become emperor himself, Sun Kewang openly provoked infighting and sent troops to attack Li Dingguo and the Yongli Emperor, Ma Jinzhong did not want to fight a civil war, so he defected with Bai Wenxuan, Ma Weixing, Ma Bao and other generals, joined forces with Li Dingguo, and defeated Sun Kewang.
After driving out Sun Kewang, Ma Jinzhong was crowned King of Hanyang by the Yongli court.
In 1659, just when the Qing army came to attack the Yungui region, Ma Jinzhong died of illness, causing the Southern Ming Yongli court to lose a member of the anti-Qing general.
