As we all know, the Daming Dynasty gradually collapsed under the attack of the Manchu regime and the peasant uprising. So, why did the peasant uprising break out at the end of the Ming Dynasty? How did the peasant rebels confront the Ming dynasty? Let's tell you about the occurrence and development of the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and introduce the early process of the peasant uprising.
(i)
The peasant uprising broke out in Shaanxi at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and the peasants in Shaanxi were the main force of the uprising.
Shaanxi was not a rich place in the first place, and in the last year of the apocalypse, it suffered from drought, and there was no harvest, and the poor people cried out for hunger and hunger. Under such circumstances, the imperial court should have stopped collecting taxes and provided relief to the victims. However, due to the cumbersome procedures of the bureaucracy, the decree for exemption from taxation has been delayed. Local officials continue to seek exorbitant taxes from farmers, including "liaoji." As a result, the vast number of peasants are cornered and have no choice but to take risks.
In the seven years of the apocalypse, Chengcheng County, Shaanxi Province, was thousands of miles away from the red land, and the people did not have a good life. Zhang Dooyao of Zhixian County still pressed for taxes, brutally punished the people who could not pay, and many innocent people died tragically under the staff. Under such circumstances, the common people were finally forced to rebel.
In February of that year, a man named Wang Er gathered hundreds of desperate people to come to the mountain. Everyone blackened their faces with ink, and Wang Er said to everyone: "Who dares to kill Zhang Zhixian with me?" Everyone shouted, "I dare!" So, Wang Er led the poor brethren into the county seat, came to the county seat, and killed Zhang Dooyao, a cruel official who abused the people, and then everyone went up the mountain again, and since then the grass has fallen into the grass.
The uprising led by Wang Er was like a spark falling from the sky, and instantly ignited the land of Sanqin, which was full of dry firewood.
Next, Wang Jiayin, Gao Yingxiang, Light the Lantern, Unstained Mud, Shen Yiyuan, etc. all rose up at different places and at different times, leading the poor people to kill officials and seize grain, and pull banners to rebel.
In the second year of Chongzhen, the Qing army entered Cyprus for the first time, and the Chongzhen Emperor hurriedly mobilized soldiers and horses from all over the world. The border troops of Shaanxi were also ordered to come to Beijing. However, due to the chaotic organization of the imperial court, the Shaanxi border army could not even eat for many days, and the arrears could not be distributed in time. The soldiers were angry and mutinied.
After the mutiny, the soldiers returned to their hometowns, but because they were afraid of being captured by the government, they had to fall into the grass. These soldiers with combat skills combined with the rebellious peasants made the rebel army stronger and more effective. The peasant uprising gained momentum.
By the third year of Chongzhen, the fire of peasant uprisings throughout Shaanxi had spread uncontrollably and began to threaten the feudal rule of the Daming Dynasty.
At this time, Yang He, who was the governor of Shaanxi Province, was deeply unable to face the huge peasant uprising, and also realized that suppression alone could not solve the problem. As a result, Yang He had the idea of "caressing". He successively wrote to the imperial court, hoping to find a way to appease the rebellious peasants, and at the same time provide some economic assistance so that the peasants could live and work in peace.
The Chongzhen Emperor approved Yang He's plan, and Yang He began to vigorously promote his plan of appeasement. For many peasants who rebelled, rebellion was originally a helpless thing, but now that there is a way to live, everyone is naturally willing to be a good citizen who keeps to himself. As a result, all the rebel armies began to accept Zhao'an, and for a while, the situation in Shaanxi greatly improved, and it seemed that this wave of peasant uprisings was about to pass.
(ii)
However, the harsh reality soon shattered the simple dreams of the peasants. After returning to their hometowns, the recruited farmers still face the problem of starvation to death. They are still deprived of food and clothing, unable to survive. The Chongzhen Emperor, who was at the door, only allocated 100,000 taels of silver to help the victims, which was a drop in the bucket for millions of victims.
Therefore, many peasants who accepted Zhao'an had to renew their righteousness and embark on the road of rebellion again. Yang He's appeasement plan was eventually aborted, and he himself was removed from his post for investigation. In the fourth year of Chongzhen's reign, the Chongzhen Emperor once again decreed that his policy towards Shaanxi should be changed to "suppression", intending to use massacre and suppression to extinguish the fire of peasant resistance.
The Chongzhen Emperor reappointed Hong Chengzhu as the governor of Shaanxi. Hong was a capable character, and he used his troops like gods, and the peasant rebel army, which lacked training and organization, was vulnerable to his attack and was defeated. In the sixth year of Chongzhen, according to the statistics at the time, Hong Chengzhuo "killed thieves" more than 36,600 people, and almost all the peasant rebel army in Shaanxi was wiped out by him. The famous uprising leader Wang Jiayin and Lamp (Zhao Sheng) both died under Hong Chengzhuo's butcher's knife.
However, Wang Ziyong (nicknamed Zijin Liang) and Wang Gao Yingxiang, the Eight Kings Zhang Xianzhong, the general Li Zicheng and others entered Shanxi one after another, turning Shanxi upside down. The rebel army had a total of 36 battalions (also known as 36 families) and more than 200,000 horses, jointly promoting the Zijin Liang King as his own leader, and everyone fought side by side, and soon opened up the situation in Shanxi.
The Chongzhen Emperor had no choice but to mobilize soldiers and horses from all walks of life to Shanxi to "suppress the thieves." At that time, many people advocated that Hong Chengzhuo should take charge of Shanxi's affairs, but Chongzhen was suspicious and worried that Hong Chengzhuo's power would grow, so he did not use him, and sent his trusted eunuchs Yang Jinchao and Lu Jiude as overseers to command the battle in Shanxi.
Under the step-by-step oppression of the officials and troops, in the sixth year of Chongzhen, the alliance leader of the rebel army, Wang Ziyi, was killed in battle, and Gao Yingxiang, the king of the rebels, was elected as the new alliance leader.
In November of the sixth year of Chongzhen, the Ming army suppressed the peasant rebels with superior forces to the areas of southern Jin, northern and southern Yu. In front of the rebel army, the Yellow River was in danger, and faced with no way to escape, they decided to use a fraudulent landing plan to escape. On 19 November, the leaders of the peasant army, Zhang Miaoshou and He Shuangquan, went to Zhangde, Henan, to meet with the eunuchs Yang Jinchao and Lu Jiude and the general Wang Pu, expressing their willingness to surrender.
Yang and Lu's father-in-law also had no military common sense, and believed that the rebel army surrendered, so they ordered the attack to stop. The rebels used this time to rest their ranks and purchase supplies, while continuing to negotiate surrender with the Ming army to paralyze the enemy. On November 24, the weather changed abruptly, and the Yellow River froze overnight. The rebel army quickly crossed the Yellow River on ice, jumped out of the encirclement of the Ming army in one fell swoop, and rushed into the hinterland of Henan.
(iii)
After the peasant rebel army entered Henan, it divided its forces into two routes. All the way to the west, straight to Xi'an, Shaanxi. Hong Chengzhuo hurriedly led the Shaanxi officials and troops to intercept it, but the rebel army fired a false shot and immediately went south to Sichuan.
The other group of people and horses, composed of Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others, went south to Wanluo, killed until they reached the area of Yunyang and Xiangyang, and entered northwestern Hubei.
Under these circumstances, the Chongzhen Emperor still refused to use Hong Chengzhu, but appointed Chen Qiyu as the governor of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Huguang, and Henan provinces, commanding the Ming army in an attempt to eliminate the peasant rebel army.
At this time, peasant rebels were operating in southern Shaanxi, northern Sichuan, and northwestern Hubei, which were full of mountains and dense forests, which were convenient for concealment, but food supplies were difficult. The range of activities of the peasant rebels was greatly restricted.
In the spring of the seventh year of Chongzhen, the main force of the rebel army accidentally walked into the Chexiang Gorge near Ankang in southern Shaanxi. The carriage gap is more than 40 miles long, with high mountains on both sides, and only one road in the middle can pass. Chen Qiyu took the opportunity to order the Ming army to block the exit of the carriage gorge, trapping the rebel army in the gorge. At this time, the sky was not beautiful, and it rained for more than seventy days in a row, and the bowstrings of the rebel army were softened. At this time, the supply of food and grass was basically cut off, and it can be said that the rebel army had fallen into the Jedi.
Under such circumstances, the peasant army had to repeat the old trick and once again asked the Ming army to surrender. They plan to use the trick again to escape.
After Chen Qiyu got the news that the rebels asked for surrender, he would be suspicious, after all, the rebels had already used a fraudulent surrender scheme, and Chen Qiyu would be wary of it no matter how lacking his heart and eyes. He reported the matter to Emperor Chongzhen and asked him to decide, and Chongzhen, who did not want to rush for merit, agreed to accept the surrender of the rebels with a wave of his pen.
This is not the first time that Emperor Chongzhen has committed such a rush to achieve results, and he will continue to do so in the future until he himself is sent to the crooked neck tree of the coal mountain.
Having received Chongzhen's divine decree, Chen Qiyu had to accept the surrender of the rebels. He sent people to count the number of people in the carriage gorge, and found that there were more than 40,000 people in the rebel army. So Chen Qiyu organized every 100 people of the rebel army into a team, and each team sent a "pacifying official" of the imperial court to lead the team. At the same time, officials and troops were sent to escort the rebels out of the carriage gorge, and then to their places of origin.
However, the officers and troops escorting the rebel army were Shaanxi's troops, and the rebel army was also Shaanxi people, and everyone felt particularly affectionate when they saw their fellow villagers. According to the prior arrangement, the rebel army deliberately set up close to the officers and soldiers, and everyone drank and chatted together, and as a result, the officers and soldiers relaxed their vigilance. When the rebels walked out of the canyon and came to the territory of Baoji County, one night, the rebels suddenly rioted, killed the "pacifying officials", crushed the officers and troops who monitored them, and then regrouped and fled.
Chen Qiyu was dumbfounded at this moment. According to the old habit in the past, Emperor Chongzhen put the responsibility on his head again, but fortunately did not kill him this time, but only removed his official.
After Chen Qiyu stepped down, Chongzhen had no choice but to promote Hong Chengzhuo. In November of the seventh year of Chongzhen's reign, Chongzhen appointed Hong Chengzhuo as the governor of the five provinces of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Henan, and Huguang, with overall command of the campaign to annihilate the peasant rebels. Before the edict reached Hong Chengzhuo, the peasant rebels had already rushed into the Central Plains and began a new journey.
(iv)
Hong Chengzhuo had just taken office as governor of the five provinces, but he did not want the peasant rebels to have already fled to Anhui.
At the end of December of the seventh year of Chongzhen, hundreds of thousands of people from the 13th and 72nd battalions of the rebel army gathered in Xingyang, Henan, where they held a meeting to discuss future combat strategies. At the meeting, Li Zicheng had a far-sighted view and proposed a plan to send suspicious troops in all directions to distract the Ming army and enter Anhui to fight with the main force of the rebel army. His proposal was unanimously approved.
Therefore, the peasant rebel army Geliyan, Lao Huihui, Shooting Collapse Heaven, Nine Dragons and other troops attacked on all sides to confuse the Ming army, and Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other troops led the main force of the rebel army to kill all the way to Anhui. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the peasant rebel army suddenly appeared outside Fengyang City, Anhui.
Fengyang, Anhui is Zhu Yuanzhang's hometown and the central capital of the Ming Dynasty, where the ancestral tomb of the old Zhu family is one of the most sacred places in the Ming Dynasty. The rebel army attacked Fengyang in one fell swoop, and the four thousand officers and troops guarding Fengyang surrendered without a fight, and the prefect of Fengyang was so frightened that he hid in prison.
After the rebel army invaded Fengyang, they set fire to the Xiangdian and Longxing Temple of the imperial tomb, dug up the ancestral tomb of the Zhu family, and looted the funerary offerings in the tomb, and only left Fengyang three days later.
When Emperor Chongzhen learned the news that Fengyang had fallen and the ancestral tomb had been dug, he couldn't help but feel painful. He went to the temple in plain clothes to cry and cry, and he was also accused of sinning. Subsequently, Chongzhen was angry and ordered the execution of Yang Yipeng, the governor of Fengyang, and gave Hong Chengzhuo a strict order, ordering him to quickly eliminate the peasant rebel army, and also transferred him an additional 70,000 officers and troops, and more than one million taels of military expenses.
After Hong Chengzhuo accepted the order, he did not dare to slacken and led the official army into Henan to capture the main force of the rebel army, but the rebel army turned around and killed back to Shaanxi. Hong Chengzhuo had to follow closely behind. The peasant rebel army gave full play to the characteristics of mobile operations, dragged the brigade of Ming troops around, and when they found an opportunity, they fought the Ming army coldly.
In June of the eighth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng set up an ambush in Ningzhou, Gansu, surrounded a Ming army regiment commanded by Ai Wannian and Liu Guozhen, deputy general of the Ming army, and then gathered and annihilated it, and Ai Wannian and Liuguozhen were killed in battle, and the Ming army lost more than 1,000 people.
Cao Wenzhao, a famous general of the Ming army, was furious when he learned the news. He relied on the relatively elite of his troops, so he led 3,000 men and horses to chase and fight, vowing to destroy the rebels. The peasant army sent a small force to lure the enemy deeper, led Cao Wenzhao into his ambush circle, and then launched an attack with tens of thousands of troops. Cao Wenzhao rushed left and right and could not escape, and finally had to pull out a knife and kill himself.
Cao Wenzhao was Hong Chengzhuo's most trusted and capable general, brave and good at fighting, and was known as "a Cao in the army, and the thief's heart is shaken when he hears of it." His death made Hong Chengzhuo cry bitterly.
In August of the eighth year of Chongzhen, due to the severity of the disaster in Shaanxi, the rebel army could not obtain enough food, so they divided their troops into two ways. Li Zicheng led a small number of troops to fight in the area of northern Shaanxi, and the rest of the main forces, commanded by Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong and others, rushed into Henan again in an attempt to open up a new situation.
Seeing that the scope of activities of the peasant rebel army was increasing, Chongzhen had to send Premier Lu Xiangsheng directly under the military affairs of Shandong and other places, and also transferred Guanning Iron Cavalry to participate in the battle. The scale of the war is getting bigger and bigger.
(v)
In February of the ninth year of Chongzhen, Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chongzhen, was defeated by Lu Xiangsheng in the Jianghuai area, so he had to lead his troops back to Henan, and then came to the Hanzhong area of southern Shaanxi. Hong Chengzhuo and Sun Chuanting, the governor of Shaanxi, sent heavy troops to bite Gao Yingxiang to death. In July of that year, the Ming army and Gao Yingxiang's troops fought a fierce battle at Heishuiyu, Luoxian County, Shaanxi, and Gao Yingxiang was eventually defeated, captured, and later sent to Beijing to be executed. The Ming Army finally achieved a lot of achievements.
However, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai and others were still crisscrossing the provinces, and the Ming army was still exhausted and had little effect. Chongzhen was distressed by this.
In March of the tenth year of Chongzhen, the Chongzhen Emperor heard that Yang Sichang, the son of Yang He, the former governor of Shaanxi, was a rare talent, so he promoted him and appointed him as the secretary of the military department.
After Yang Sichang took office, he soon put forward an overall battle plan of "four positives, six corners, and ten faces."
According to Yang Sichang's plan, the four places where the peasant rebel army was mainly active were Shaanxi, Henan, Huguang, and Fengyang were called the "four zhengs", and the governors of these four places should take "suppressing thieves" as their main work and take the initiative to attack and annihilate the peasant army; The six places of Yansui, Shanxi, Shandong, Jiangxi, Yingtian, and Sichuan were called the "six corners", and the governors of these six places had to assist in encircling and suppressing and preventing the rebels from entering their own areas. Hong Chengzhuo and Lu Xiangsheng's troops were the main mobile forces, tracking the main rebel forces.
In order to realize this plan, an additional 120,000 troops would be required. Only when the forces occupy an absolute superiority can this huge plan have a chance of success.
Yang Sichang's plan looks beautiful, but to realize it it requires a lot of military spending. According to preliminary calculations, an additional expenditure of 2,888,000 taels of silver per year would be required to complete this plan.
Where does this money come from? Of course, the wool comes from the sheep, and in the end it is up to the poor people to pay for it.
Yang Sichang proposed to add Tian Fu like "Liao Pay". Lu Xiangsheng suggested that only rich households with a total annual tax of more than five taels of silver should be paid, but Yang Sichang disagreed, because the rich households would use various methods to evade taxes, and the amount of silver they could collect was definitely limited. Only the poor people can honestly pay the taxes, so Yang Sichang strongly advocated that the acres of land should be distributed according to the acres, regardless of whether rich or poor, each mu of land should be divided equally.
The Chongzhen Emperor approved Yang Sichang's plan, and the famous "Suppression" was born. Chongzhen originally vowed to "temporarily burden our people for one year" and only received one year's salary, but in fact he received four years.
With a large amount of silver as a military expenditure, the strength of the Ming army has indeed improved significantly in a short period of time. The peasant rebels began to suffer heavy losses.
In the eleventh year of Chongzhen's reign, Li Zicheng fought in Shaanxi, Sichuan, and other places, and was successively attacked by Hong Chengzhuo, suffering heavy losses. By August, Li Zicheng's forces were less than 1,000 men left, and he was forced to flee into the depths of Shangluo Mountain and hide. The novel "Li Zicheng" describes that at this time, Li Zicheng and Hong Chengzhuo had fought in the southern plains of Tongguan, and this battle should not have existed. Li Zicheng was gradually lost under the repeated blows of the Ming army.
On the other hand, Zhang Xianzhong was forced to surrender to Xiong Wencan, the prime minister of the Ming Dynasty, Huguang, and other military officials in the first month of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, and after the surrender, Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to lie dormant in Gucheng County, waiting for a new opportunity. During the year, Luo Rucai, Liu Guoneng and other rebels also surrendered one after another. For a time, in the entire Central Plains, except for Li Zicheng, who was hiding in Shangluo Mountain, and the 5th Battalion of Gezuo in the area of Dabie Mountain, there was no peasant rebel army. Yang Sichang's plan was largely successful.
(vi)
Chongzhen was very excited about the smooth progress of the "suppression of thieves" plan. He naturally thought: If he followed this method to deal with the Qing army outside the Guan, he should also succeed.
Yang Sichang understood Chongzhen's mind, so he proposed a new plan as he pleased. According to his plan, the Ming Dynasty would once again pay an additional tax of 7.3 million taels of silver to the common people, use this as a military expense, train 730,000 elite soldiers, and then crush the Qing army in one fell swoop.
Chongzhen appreciated Yang Sichang's plan to quench his thirst by drinking and immediately approved it. As a result, the famous "Lianjian" was also born. "Lian pay" plus the existing "Liao pay" and "suppression pay" in front of it, this is the famous "three pay" in the late Ming Dynasty.
On the surface, the "three salaries" do not add up much, and each mu of land is only a penny of silver. However, due to the decadent system of the Ming Dynasty, officials at all levels were corrupt to the bone, and the implementation of the "three pays" was tantamount to a feast for many corrupt officials. Corrupt officials at all levels took advantage of the opportunity to collect the "three salaries" to increase the amount of money at every level and set up clever pretexts, and the actual tax burden levied on the broad masses of poor people was several times or even dozens of times the amount demanded by the "three salaries."
Countless poor people were pushed to death by the "three payes", and peasants across the country went bankrupt and fled, even starving to death. However, Chongzhen's dream of "730,000 elite soldiers" has disappeared, and large sums of military expenses have fallen into the pockets of corrupt officials at all levels.
The implementation of the "three pays" gave the peasant rebel army a chance to regain its strength. Countless poor people struggling to die became the best basis for the peasant uprising. Both Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong saw this, and the two of them re-raised the banner of righteousness in the thirteenth year of Chongzhen and launched another uprising.
Under their leadership, countless hungry and cold people responded en masse, and the fire of the uprising was unstoppable, and the Daming Dynasty could no longer support it.
Later historians have acknowledged that the implementation of the "three pays" was an important factor in the demise of the Ming Dynasty and a turning point in the peasant uprising. As the highest decision-maker, Chongzhen obviously bears unshirkable responsibility for this.