#历史开讲 #
There are many leaders of the uprising, but Li Zicheng is a very special one, the Ming Dynasty is about to die, he could have won the world in one fell swoop, but he did not expect that he actually "ced" to the Qing army.
Li Zicheng had great ambitions and wanted to give the peasants stability, so he led the peasants' uprising for more than ten years, but failed in three fatal links.
First, after stationing in Beijing, they were eager to satisfy their own desires, the quality of the army was not high, the discipline was loose, and they often looted and plundered materials;
Second, the ability to coordinate the deployment of troops to deal with emergencies is insufficient, they are eager to see results, and they continue to make mistakes in decision-making in the later stage;
Third, the Qing army outside the customs was not sufficiently prepared, and after the Qing army entered the customs, they were anxious and panicked.
Li Zicheng established the Dashun Dynasty, and Beijing's red walls and green tiles brought him visual enjoyment and aroused his desire for power and wealth.
The result of the rush to enjoy is only one, and he is busy for half of his life, but he is making wedding clothes for others.
He is ambitious, and going from a sheep herder to Emperor Dashun is the best proof of this.
However, his ambitions were defeated, defeated by the Qing army, defeated by the remaining forces of the Ming dynasty, and defeated by himself.
Hearing that the wind had a return date, they bypassed the ocean continent, regardless of east, west, south, north and middle, they would return to the original place, but Li Chuangwang's way home was cut off at Jiugong Mountain, and he could no longer reach Shaanxi.
The army is insufficiently effective and loosely disciplined
Li Zicheng, born in the thirty-third year of Wanli (1606) in Mizhi, Shaanxi, Li Jiqian Village.
When he was a child, he helped the landlord's family herd sheep for a living, and when he grew up, he fell in love with riding and shooting, probably because of his personality, he always liked to do challenging things.
He also worked as a pawn in Yinchuan, but he was particularly dishonest, and breaking the law was common for him.
Once he made a very big mistake, according to the law of the Great Ming to be beheaded, he was lucky and escaped.
After that, he started the business of slaughtering cattle until he joined the peasant army uprising.
In the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631), the size of the peasant army in Shaanxi at that time had reached more than 200,000.
Li Zicheng also began to participate in the peasant uprising, and he followed a person named Gao Yingxiang, who was then known as the King of Chuang. Li Zicheng followed him and was known as a general.
Li Zicheng learned a lot of experience in the rebel army, and two years later, the leader of the peasant army, Wang Ziyong, was killed, and his status with Gao Yingxiang suddenly increased a lot.
While the rebel army and the Daming army were fighting, the Later Jin regime also began to invade the Ming border south.
At this time, the rulers of the Ming Dynasty lacked skills, did not know which side to deal with first, and after thinking about it, they still felt that the border was more important, so they successively dispatched the Ming army that suppressed the peasant rebel army to the northeast.
How could the rebel army miss this opportunity, so they intensified their attacks and captured many cities in Guanzhong
Gao Yingxiang statue
In the ninth year of Chongzhen (1635), Gao Yingxiang was captured by the Ming army and executed.
So Li Zicheng became a new generation of kings. For the next three years, Li Zicheng's army was always on the losing side when fighting the Ming army.
During this period, Li Zicheng defected to Zhang Xianzhong, who was a general of the rebel army like himself, but Zhang Xianzhong rejected Li Zicheng because of the Liang Zizi he had previously formed with Li Zicheng.
As everyone knows, in less than a year after that, Li Zicheng reassembled an army about the same size as before the defeat.
And from this, we can see two points: first, Li Ziwei is still very appealing; Second, the rule of the Ming Dynasty at that time was unpopular, and there were many rebels.
In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641), Niu Jinxing and others defected to Li Zicheng, improving the cultural soft power of the army.
By 1643, Li Zicheng called himself "Generalissimo of Mukden Initiative", later known as "King Xinshun", which paved the way for his later establishment of the Dashun dynasty.
In the same year, Li Zicheng and the Ming general Sun Chuanting competed at Tongguan, and the Ming army was defeated, and the commander Sun Chuanting was killed in battle.
The following year, in 1644, Li Zicheng established the Dashun Dynasty in Xi'an and changed the year name to Yongchang.
After that, Li Zicheng led his troops to march east, and on March 18 of the same year, the eunuch Cao Huachun opened the door and surrendered, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself in Coal Mountain. Li Zicheng then became the master of Beijing.
The narrow vision of small peasant producers made Li Zicheng unable to see the danger of Houjin, nor the importance of Shanhaiguan.
The army he led consisted of two parts, one was the peasants who rebelled and the other was the Ming army that surrendered in the process of fighting the Ming court.
Both have no combat ability, and can only crush the enemy army by numbers.
In particular, some sergeants who had been thieves or bandits before could not control their desires after entering the bustling city of Beijing, and they used their weapons and relationship with Li Zicheng to plunder property and people and women in the capital.
What is Li Zicheng doing at this time?
He also gradually became addicted to this kind of sound and horse life, only thinking about how to officially ascend the throne and how to enjoy the harem with three thousand beautiful colors in the specifications of previous emperors.
The army's combat effectiveness was insufficient without strengthening, and discipline was loose without rectification, and Li Zicheng's Dashun army was doomed to go far.
Insufficient ability and many decision-making errors
During his forty-two days in Beijing, Li Zicheng constantly heard news of the counterattack of the remaining forces of the Ming Dynasty.
If in the war before this, Li Zicheng was blessed with military talent, then after the pleasure, his military thinking ability plummeted, so that he repeatedly made mistakes in his later decision-making.
The late Ming ruler Wanli Emperor ignored the imperial government and was happy to accumulate wealth, and the people complained about it.
In the time of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, he put aside political affairs and devoted himself to his carpentry work. In this courtly atmosphere, officials gradually began to pay bribes, unscrupulous in order to promote officials.
A situation of eunuch dictatorship gradually formed, and the officialdom was full of smoke.
Therefore, Li Zicheng did not suffer much hindrance in the process of leading the army to the east, but it was not ruled out that there were still people who were dedicated to the Ming Court.
They launched the War of Restoration of Ming, and at this time Li Zicheng was not here, and he just wanted to quickly calm the matter, so he sent a large army to quell the chaos, but he did not know that the Qing army outside Shanhaiguan was already impatient.
While his army was still entangled in the pass, the Qing army entered the pass. This was his first decision-making error.
After the news came that Wu Sangui had defected to the Qing army and attacked Beijing, Li Zicheng personally led the army to the battle. The armies of the two sides met in a stone and fought to the death.
In the end, the peasant army led by Li Zicheng could not resist the menacing Qing army and was defeated.
Li Zicheng led his people to flee westward, first to Beijing to ascend the throne at the Forbidden City Wuying Hall, and then hurriedly fled to Shaanxi.
Instead of persuading the family and joining forces with them to resist the Qing dynasty, he withdrew to Shaanxi, which was his second decision-making mistake.
The Qing regent Dolgon obviously would not let him easily escape back to his base camp, so he sent two generals, Azig and Dordor, in pursuit.
After Li Zicheng fled to Shaanxi, he was attacked by two Qing forces led by Doduo and Azige, and was defeated, so he chose to flee again.
In 1645, when Li Zicheng fled to Xiangyang with his army of 130,000 peasants, there were two paths in front of him: either continue to retreat westward or choose to defeat the Nanming, who he thought was vulnerable, and thus gain a respite.
He chose the second path, his third mistake.
Li Zicheng gathered Xiangyang soldiers and horses to attack Wuchang, and indeed as he expected, the Ming general Zuo Liangyu fled to Nanjing after his defeat.
Although he got Wuchang, it was only an empty city, and there was not much food left.
At this time, it was too late to rush back to Xiangyang, because Azige's troops had already chased after him.
Li Zicheng's general Liu Zongmin led troops to meet the battle, but was defeated. After many battles, the Dashun army did not get a bargain, so Li Zicheng chose to abandon Wuchang and fled.
The time and place of Li Zicheng's death are also recorded in different history books, and the Daliu theory is that he finally died in Jiugong Mountain in Hubei.
Thus, the peasant uprising led by Li Zicheng ended, and due to his many decision-making mistakes in the later period, he was eager to see short-term results and took risky measures, resulting in fatigue of the army and inevitable defeat.
Narrow vision, focusing only on internal worries and ignoring external troubles
Li Zicheng was born as a peasant, so although he was addicted to wine after he became emperor, his original intention of the uprising had not changed, or this was his "righteousness".
It was precisely this "righteous spirit" that he refused to be trusted by the rich merchants and magnates, and at the same time he had to extract their property for military pay or distribution to the peasants, and the rich merchant landlords also dared not speak out against him.
Li Zicheng is a very contradictory person, he does not strictly manage his subordinates and allows him to act recklessly and oppress the people, but he wants to distribute the property equally to the people, and these good and bad get together and the bad finally prevail, causing the people to gradually no longer expect anything from him.
In addition, Li Zicheng's Dashun Dynasty did not use the old ministers who had previously served as officials in the Ming court, but chose those who had never been officials.
Experienced people he does not use, but choose "fresh graduates", which may be a reflection of his backbone, but it is also a manifestation of lack of political acumen.
Therefore, the old minister's side did not buy his account. This left him without any support after the Qing army entered the customs and was isolated.
He is so "heavy" on internal worries, and external troubles are no longer able to be managed.
Wu Sangui was guarding Shanhaiguan, and he felt that the fortress he was guarding was related to the safety of the entire Central Plains, and Li Zicheng would definitely say good things to make him obedient.
However, Li Zicheng's attitude towards him was very arrogant, Wu Sangui was already dissatisfied in his heart, and when Li Zicheng's general Liu Zongmin took his concubine Chen Yuan as his own, Wu Sangui was completely angry, which is "Chong Guan is angry and red".
He opened Shanhaiguan and lured Qing troops into the customs, and in the end, Li Zicheng died, and he also had a great revenge.
After entering the customs, which Li Zicheng ignored, he quickly occupied Beijing and drove him west. When he finally retreated to Shaanxi, he was attacked on both sides by the Qing army, and finally had to continue to flee.
During this period of his escape, Li Zicheng must have regretted not taking measures against the Qing army earlier, but it was too late.
King Li Zicheng answered this word "trespassing" throughout his life, and from the beginning of the uprising to his death, he fought all the time, only 42 days of "vacation".
The early strength of Li Zicheng is also obvious to all, and his talent is also one of the best compared to others who participated in the uprising together.
However, Li Zicheng had to face the Qing army, which had long been eyeing the tiger and had more advanced military equipment, and the army he led was too different in terms of combat effectiveness.
In short, his failure was not the result of a single cause, but the result of many reasons coming together.
From a peasant struggle to an emperor, Li Zicheng has also succeeded.
And the imperial time is too short, the imperial throne has not yet covered the heat, and he is about to start his career of escape, and Li Zicheng has become a loser again. In the end, both winners and losers ultimately become the booster of history.