To choose who is the person with the best luck in the late Ming Dynasty, it is undoubtedly Li Zicheng.
In the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), Li Zicheng was brutally beaten by the joint efforts of Hong Chengzhuo and Sun Chuanting, and only fled into the Shangluo Mountains in Shaanxi with eighteen horses.
The gap between once commanding thousands of troops and now becoming a guerrilla leader is clearly crushing and desperate.
However, Li Zicheng's luck is good.
In September of the same year, Dolgon entered Cyprus with the Eight Flags Army. The Ming court had no choice but to transfer the troops pursuing the rebels to the Beijing Division to fight the fire.
Once the place of the henchman is empty, the rebel army can take the opportunity to turn over the river.
In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, there was a great drought in Henan.
Li Zicheng took advantage of the situation to kill Shang Luoshan, erected the banner of "Juntian exempt from endowment" in the Central Plains, and recruited more than 100,000 people for a while.
Faced with the messy situation in the Central Plains, Chongzhen pinned his hopes on Sun Chuanting.
But today is different.
After years of development, Li Zicheng's troops have gradually been regularized, and they are no longer the rogue armed forces they once were.
And the officials and troops lost their elite for various reasons, and Sun Chuanting only had troops left in his hands.
In October of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng defeated Sun Chuanting and won a decisive victory.
Only then did Chongzhen realize that the family thieves were more threatening than the Eight Flags Army. However, it was too late.
On the first day of the first lunar month of the following year, Li Zicheng established the Dashun regime in Xi'an, and then marched north.
At this time, the Ming Dynasty could no longer suppress Li Zicheng's rise.
On 19 March, the Dashun army invaded Beijing, and Chongzhen, who had had enough of 17 years of fighting on two fronts, hanged himself on a coal mountain. The Ming dynasty perished.
As the saying goes: If you do not die, you will be blessed.
This is very appropriate for Li Zicheng.
However, Li Zicheng's post-blessing was short-lived.
At this time, although the Dashun regime had the appearance of founding the country, it did not have the fortune of changing the dynasty.
In society at the end of the Ming Dynasty, class contradictions were sharp, and the contradictions between the common people and the rulers could not be reconciled.
It can be said that the contradiction between the bottom and the upper class was the main social contradiction before Chongzhen fifteen years ago.
But in the last years of Chongzhen's reign, this did not seem to be the case.
In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the elite Ming army of eastern Liaodong, except for Wu Sangui's more than 20,000 people, was not in the Battle of Songjin.
At this time, even a fool could see that the combat power of the Eight Flags soldiers was a unique existence. If the rebel forces of the Ming Dynasty and the Central Plains were not to be swept by the Qing Dynasty, they must unite and establish a "united front."
However, at this important moment of decision-making that determined the direction of history, Nanming and Li Zicheng both chose the wrong route.
After Chongzhen's death, Ma Shiying and others supported the succession of Fu King Zhu Yousong in Nanjing, and sacrificed the foolish policy of linking up and destroying Shun.
Li Zicheng also lacked a view of the overall situation, and did not change his position at the first time, enlisting the officials of the former dynasty and the northern gentry class.
At that time, Li Zicheng adopted the advice of the wise man and sent jiedu envoys and defense envoys to Henan, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi and other places in an attempt to establish a ruling order and make Dashun evolve into another Daming.
But Li Zicheng's work is only superficial.
At the central level, Li Zicheng retained only a small group of officials. Let most people stand directly aside.
Even the officials who were retained and needed to be co-opted, the Dashun army did not respect them enough. The most typical example is the attitude towards Wu Sangui.
Locally, Li Zicheng's policy toward local officials in the former Ming Dynasty was not to use all those who had not been appointed during the Ming Dynasty.
In addition, Li Zicheng also continued to implement the policy of "exempting the field from endowment" and suppressing the gentry.
This hand operation, in terms of personal feelings, Li Zicheng still has a conscience. I didn't forget my roots because I ate meat.
But in terms of the general trend of the world, this can only be evaluated out of place.
You know, in ancient times, only a few people such as Zhixian and County Cheng were eligible to eat imperial food.
The ruling order in the countryside, the imperial court needed to rely on the gentry to maintain it.
It is no exaggeration to say that the local gentry are actually more important to the stability of the regime than the grassroots officials.
Li Zicheng declared himself emperor and did not unite these people, resulting in local gentry hatred of the Dashun regime. The weak foundation of Dashun's rule can be imagined.
Influenced by the "Jiashen 300th Anniversary Festival", the reasons for the failure of the Dashun regime were often attributed to Li Zicheng's rapid corruption and degeneration after entering Beijing, and losing popular support.
But looking at the annals of history, it is not difficult to find that the main reason for Li Zicheng's failure is precisely because he is not corrupt enough.
To borrow the view of Mr. Gu Cheng, an expert in Ming history: the reason why the Dashun regime is untenable is not that it has corrupted and lost the support of the people at the bottom; On the contrary, Li Zicheng's defeat was precisely because he did not completely betray the masses and did not cooperate with the ruling class of the Ming Dynasty, which caused strong dissatisfaction among the vast number of gentry, resulting in the failure of all strata of people in the Central Plains at that time to form a unified force against the Qing Dynasty.
The ruling clique of the previous dynasty did not support Dashun, and Li Zicheng could only rely on his own strength to fight the Qing dynasty.
So does he have the strength to fight? Apparently not.
After the Battle of Songjin, the Qing Dynasty could mobilize about 150,000 troops.
Among them, Baqi Manchuria has about 60,000 people; about 20,000 people in Mongolia and Chahar Eight Banners; The Eight Banners of the Han Army had nearly 30,000 people.
There are about 30,000 people in Mongolia (such as Horqin);
There are also four people, Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, Shang Kexi, and Shen Zhixiang, totaling about 10,000 people.
At a glance, the Qing army did not have many troops.
However, this force actually has an advantage over Li Zicheng.
Because the 150,000 people of the Qing army are all real elites.
And Li Zicheng's army, although very large, but not many elite soldiers.
Chongzhen's seventeen-year Dashun army was roughly divided into three parts:
First, Li Zicheng brought out more than 10,000 veterans from Shangluoshan.
These people are not only die-hard fans of Li Zicheng, but also have quite excellent military quality, good organizational discipline, and strong combat effectiveness.
The second is the poor people recruited by Li Zicheng in various parts of the Central Plains after he killed Shang Luoshan.
Most of these soldiers were from poor backgrounds and their number was relatively large, which was the foundation of Li Zicheng's founding of the state and emperor.
However, because Li Zicheng has always been in a mobile combat state, there is a lack of systematic training for the newly recruited rebels.
Therefore, the military quality and loyalty of these peasant soldiers are uneven.
Some people are loyal to Li Zicheng, and most of them are rabble with the wind rudder.
The third is the Ming Dynasty troops who surrendered one after another during Li Zicheng's attack on Beijing. That's 300,000 people.
The combat effectiveness of the Ming army, especially the combat effectiveness of the border army, has always been not low.
The soldiers are actually very capable of fighting, and the key depends on whether the military salary can be paid in full.
Before Chongzhen hanged himself, the imperial court had no money, and the Ming army in various places surrendered to the Dashun army.
When Li Zicheng absorbed the Ming army, he also faced the confusion that Chongzhen had had.
These court officials and troops could not pay military salaries once they could. They will mutiny, even rebel.
Overall. Although Li Zicheng had hundreds of thousands of troops, there were not many elite soldiers who could fight a good war.
In April of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Wu Sangui defeated Tang Tong, who Li Zicheng had sent to receive Shanhaiguan, and declared that he would not share the sky with the Dashun regime.
In the matter of winning over Wu Sangui, Li Zicheng needs to bear some responsibility.
On the one hand, he always believed that Ming officials were all guilty of original sin, and Wu Sangui was no exception. This made Wu Sangui very unhappy.
In Wu Sangui's view, he holds tens of thousands of horses and horses, and also occupies strategic positions. It should have been Dashun who took the initiative to send someone to beg him, but it turned out to be a hot face and a cold ass.
On the other hand, Wu Sangui could vaguely see that Li Zicheng seemed to be unable to beat Dolgon.
Wu Sangui did not want to surrender Li Zicheng first and suffer a humiliation. When Li Zicheng was defeated by Dolgon, he surrendered to the Qing dynasty and suffered another humiliation.
What is the shame of another humiliation?
Knowing that Wu Sangui refused to submit, Li Zicheng personally led 60,000 elite troops to attack Shanhaiguan.
On 19 April, the Dashun army engaged Wu Sangui, and the Wu army was defeated.
On 20 April, Dolgon received a letter from Wu Sangui asking for help, and led his troops to Shanhaiguan overnight.
After the arrival of the Qing army, Dolgon deliberately stood still and tried to sell at a price.
On April 21, under the continuous attack of the Dashun army, Wu Sangui fell into despair, so he had to send people out to negotiate and agree to all the conditions of submission proposed by Dolgon.
On April 22, Wu Sangui led his troops to shave their hair and clear it.
On the same day, the Qing army quietly entered the customs and took advantage of the battle between Li Zicheng and Wu Sangui to attack the Dashun army.
This wave of Qing offensive was quite fierce, and the Shun general Liu Zongmin was seriously wounded in the battle.
Li Zicheng saw that the situation was not good, and immediately ordered Ming Jin to collect the troops.
On 23 April, Li Zicheng gathered the defeated soldiers, feeling that there was no hope of counterattacking Shanhaiguan, so he had to order a retreat.
After losing the Battle of Shanhaiguan, Li Zicheng returned to Beijing.
At first, Li Zicheng also wanted to fight with the Eight Flags Army in Beijing, so he ordered the rearmament of Beijing's fortifications.
But it wasn't long before he received news that Shunjun soldiers were looting markets in the city.
Li Zicheng let the government suppress, and the effect was not good.
Seeing that it was no longer possible to hold on, Li Zicheng held an enthronement ceremony in the Forbidden City on April 29, and then issued the first holy decree after ascending the throne - the withdrawal of the Dashun army from Beijing.
On 30 April, all Shunjun withdrew from Beijing.
According to the Qing Dynasty historical document "Records of the Fire of Fire", before the Dashun army retreated, Li Zicheng ordered the burning of some palaces in the Forbidden City.
Whether this historical material is fabricated remains to be verified.
In July, Li Zicheng arrived in Xi'an and began planning for defense.
During the retreat of the Dashun army, Dolgon adopted three suggestions from Fan Wencheng:
First, raise the banner, kill Li Zicheng, and avenge Chongzhen.
Second, strictly enforce military discipline and prohibit the Eight Flags Army from plundering the common people.
Third, encircle the warlords and gentry of the Ming Dynasty. Anyone who has the ability can be made a king and a marquis, and his descendants and grandchildren will be born forever.
These three moves are very powerful, not only making a group of mediocrities in the Southern Ming mistakenly think that the Qing Dynasty is a friend. It even made Li Zicheng suffer heavy losses.
For example, in Datong at that time, Li Zicheng left 10,000 elite troops stationed in the Shunjun. After hearing that the Qing Dynasty issued a high reward, Jiang Jun, the former general of the Ming Dynasty, immediately turned against the water and commanded the Ming army to kill 10,000 Dashun troops.
The same is true elsewhere. Some gentry and the Ming army also sneaked on their horses and tried to curry favor with the Dashun officials sent by Li Zicheng. But when he heard that Li Zicheng's army had defeated Shanhaiguan, he immediately turned his face and did not recognize people, brandishing a butcher knife and wantonly slaughtering.
Li Zicheng had not many combatable soldiers in his hands, and after being slaughtered by the Ming army and gentry in this way, he and Dolgon were obviously not opponents of the same level.
On 19 October, Li Zicheng's threat was not as good as before. Dolgon ordered the southern expedition, appointed Doduo as a general of Dingguo, and together with Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and other troops, went south to attack the Southern Ming;
At the same time, he appointed Azige as a general of Jingyuan, and together with Wu Sangui and Shang Kexi, attacked Li Zicheng.
After the two Qing armies were dispatched, about 20,000 Dashun troops launched an offensive in Yuanqu, Shanxi, linking Henan Jiyuan and Meng County.
When Dorgon heard the news, he immediately revised his plan and ordered Dordor to change direction and attack Xi'an with Azig to solve Li Zicheng first.
On December 29, the Qing army arrived at Tongguan. Liu Zongmin led his army to attack, and the Battle of Tongguan broke out.
The battle on this day was fierce, but Liu Zongmin failed to defeat Doduo.
After a few days of rest, Liu Fangliang, a general of the Dashun army, led his troops to fight again, but also failed to defeat Doduo.
Knowing that both battles had been lost, Li Zicheng decided to personally go out and transfer all the troops of Xi'an to Tongguan.
On the sixth day of the first lunar month of the second year of Shunzhi (1645), Li Zicheng and Doduo fought under the city of Tongguan, but still failed to win.
On the ninth day of the first lunar month, the Qing army's big killing weapon, red-clothed cannons, arrived.
Faced with the bombardment of the red-clothed cannons, Li Zicheng commanded the Shun army to "chisel heavy trenches and erect strong walls", while strengthening the Tongguan defense line, while sending cavalry to counterattack, and at the same time dispatching some soldiers and horses to return to the Qing army to carry out a sneak attack.
But after a few busy days, the war situation still did not improve.
If it is said that the Shun army was defeated by the Qing army at Shanhaiguan, there was an element of sneak attack by the Qing army and bad luck.
That battle of Tongguan, the Shunjun army lost the heart.
Just as Li Zicheng was fighting Doduo with all his strength, Azige led his army to break through the northern Shaanxi defense line of the Dashun army.
As mentioned earlier, the main force of the Dashun army was all transferred by Li Zicheng to the front line of Tongguan, and Xi'an was an empty city.
If they do not retreat in time, the materials left in Xi'an by the Shun army, as well as the civilian and military officials of the Dashun regime, are likely to be overwhelmed by Azige.
So after learning of the military report from northern Shaanxi, Li Zicheng immediately ordered a retreat.
On the 12th day of the first month, the Qing army attacked Tongguan again, and Ma Shiyao, the general of the Shun army stationed at Tongguan, led 7,000 men to surrender.
If Tongguan is lost, Guanzhong will definitely not be able to stay.
But if you give up Guanzhong, where should you retreat?
In order to solve this problem, Li Zicheng called a meeting of the generals.
At the meeting, most people's suggestion was to move to Xiangyang via Lantian and Shangluo. Then he marched to Nanjing and opened up a new base in Jiangnan.
Since most people advocate going east, so be it.
On the evening of the 13th of the first month, Li Zicheng led soldiers and horses, some civilian officials, family members, and property, totaling 130,000 people, to withdraw from Guanzhong according to the scheduled plan.
Five days later, on the eighteenth day of the first lunar month, Doduo led his army to occupy Xi'an.
Soon, Azig also arrived in Xi'an.
After the two Qing armies converged, Dolgon adjusted his deployment again: Azig was responsible for pursuing Li Zicheng; Doduo no longer participated in the subsequent pursuit of the Shun army and attacked the Southern Ming instead.
After Azig took the order, the army divided into two ways, following Li Zicheng all the way. All the way, the Dashun army stationed in Lanzhou and northern Shaanxi was cleared. That is, the Dashun army, which failed to retreat with Li Zicheng.
Because Azig moved quickly, he cut off the retreat at the first time. Therefore, the Shun army was therefore divided into two armies, the east and west.
The Eastern Route Army was a 130,000-strong army and official brought out by Li Zicheng from Xi'an.
The Western Route Army was a 100,000-strong Shun army led by Li Zicheng's nephew Li Guo and the general Gao Yi.
Li Zicheng stumbled all the way to Xiangyang and made peace with the 70,000 Shun troops stationed there.
At this time, Li Zicheng faced a choice - whether to give up the four provinces of Jingxiang and go east.
If he does not give up Jing Xiang, he has a fairly stable rear to provide him with money, food, soldiers and horses.
And there are quite a few 70,000 garrisons in Xiangyang, enough to deal with Azige for a while. This will undoubtedly buy time for Li Zicheng's crusade against Nanjing.
But without taking the Jingxiang garrison, Li Zicheng felt that he was not very sure of taking Nanjing.
Because the four towns of Jiangbei in the Southern Ming Dynasty and the Zuoliang Yubu in Wuchang in the town of Wuchang totaled about a hundred thousand combatable soldiers. (Known as millions)
The 130,000 people that Li Zicheng brought from Guanzhong, excluding civilian employees and military families, had 780,000 soldiers who could be used.
Using tens of thousands of people against hundreds of thousands, Li Zicheng was not sure.
After thinking about it, he decided to gamble: abandon the four provinces of Jingxiang and concentrate all his efforts on launching a fierce attack on Nanming.
After Li Zicheng made a decision, the Shunjun generals opposed it in unison.
The reason for everyone's opposition is very simple, once the four provinces of Jingxiang are abandoned, the Dashun army will return to the rogue form of fighting without rear.
Moreover, if the attack on Jiangnan was unfavorable, the Qing army cut off the retreat from the north. At that time, if you cannot advance or retreat, the army will fall into a place of irreparable disaster.
Obviously, the opposition of the Shun generals is justified.
Since ancient times, whether guarding the south of the Jiangsu or taking the south of the river, the prerequisite is to first guard Jingzhou in the upper reaches of the Jiangnan.
Without Jingzhou as a barrier, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River would simply not be able to hold on.
Li Zicheng can go east, but after Azige takes Xiangyang, can't he go east?
Therefore, Li Zicheng's decision to give up Jing Xiang is undoubtedly a fainting idea. It fully demonstrates his lack of vision and realm as a founding king.
Everyone strongly opposed it, but Li Zicheng insisted on going his own way. In the end, Shunjun did not fire a shot, and voluntarily gave up the base area that had been operating for two years.
At the end of March, Li Zicheng led his army to capture Wuchang.
Prior to this, Zuo Liangyu, who was guarding Wuchang, took the first step and took the Qing monarch's side as an excuse to take 700,000 troops and their accompanying families to Nanjing.
Before Zuo Liangyu left, he ordered the burning of Wuchang City.
This led to Li Zicheng capturing Wuchang and getting nothing more than an empty city.
200,000 Shunjun troops, abandoned the great rear, and as a result, only took a ruined city without food. This has undoubtedly seriously dampened morale.
At this time, Li Zicheng faced another choice:
Whether to continue the crusade against Nanjing, or to go south through Hunan.
In April, while Li Zicheng was still hesitating, Azige led his army to Wuchang.
Compared with the Ming Dynasty's encirclement and suppression of Li Zicheng, Azige was quite efficient.
As soon as Li Zicheng gave up Xiangyang, the Qing army killed Xiangyang.
As soon as Li Zicheng took Wuchang, the Qing army chased Wuchang.
In the process of pursuit, the Qing army pursued and fought fiercely, leaving Li Zicheng with no respite.
And during the pursuit, Azig also attached great importance to recruiting rebels.
After Li Zicheng left Guanzhong , Azige surrendered 60,000 Ming troops guarding Yansui, Ningxia, Gansu, and Guyuan.
After Li Zicheng abandoned Jingxiang, Azige successively recruited tens of thousands of local Ming and Dashun troops.
With the absorption of these armed forces, Azig's strength increased greatly, and his own strength was enough to defeat Li Zicheng.
Faced with the sudden killing of tens of thousands of Qing troops, Li Zicheng ordered Liu Zongmin and Tian Jianxiu to lead troops to fight.
However, the morale of the Shun army was low at this time, and they had no intention of fighting, and as a result, they were beaten and abandoned their armor.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Li Zicheng immediately made a decision to abandon Wuchang and go east along the river.
Seeing this, Azige commanded the Qing army to pursue and catch up with the Dashun army in the waters near the Jiujiang River.
After a fierce battle, the Shun army suffered heavy losses. Not only Liu Zongmin, Song Xiance and other high-ranking officials were captured, but even the tens of thousands of ships prepared by Li Zicheng for the Eastern Crusade were captured by the Qing army.
The ships were gone, and the plan of the Dashun army to go east to Nanjing was naturally in vain.
As a last resort, Li Zicheng had to change the direction of his march and planned to pass through the mountainous areas of northern Jiangxi and turn into Hunan to join Li Guo's Western Route Army.
Realistically speaking, if Li Zicheng can get rid of the pursuit and join Li Guo, he may actually gain a foothold in the southwest and fight a new world.
But people are not as good as days.
On the fourth day of May, when Li Zicheng led his army to the foot of Jiugong Mountain in Tongshan, Hubei Province, his boat capsized in the gutter and was killed by local militia forces.
Since the beginning of the incident, Li Zicheng has encountered danger many times, relying on the luck of the overlord, he has escaped death many times.
Because of this, he also developed an adventurous personality. Whenever I encounter difficulties, I will make a desperate bet.
But this time, God didn't favor him again.
After Li Zicheng's death, the remainder of the Shun army continued to resist the Qing dynasty in two groups, led by Hao Wanqi, Liu Tichun, Li Guo, and Gao Yi.
In September of the third year of Shunzhi (1646), the two Shun armies successively contacted He Tengjiao, the governor of Minghuguang in Hunan and Hubei, and Gao Yinxi, the governor of Hubei, to accept the control of the Southern Ming and join forces with the Ming to resist the Qing Dynasty.
However, the backbone of the Dashun army was Li Zicheng. Without Li Zicheng's leadership, the development of the Dashun Army has always been tepid, far inferior to the Great Western Army.
In the eighth year of Shunzhi (1651), the remnants of the Dashun army led by Liu Tichun, Hao Shaoqi, Li Laiheng and others moved to the eastern Sichuan region, and combined with the local anti-Qing armed forces to form the famous "Thirteen Families of Cuidong".
In the third year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1664), under the heavy siege of the Qing army, the thirteen families of Kudong, who had held on for more than ten years, were destroyed.