Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, in the past thirty years, countless large and small battles have taken place.
However, both the scale and the importance of the battle can be called decisive, and there are only two battles.
One was the Battle of Salhu, and the other was the Battle of Songjin.
Unfortunately, both of these great battles ended in crushing defeats for the Ming dynasty.
After the Battle of Salhu, Houjin switched from the previous defensive to offensive;
The Battle of Songjin caused the Ming army to lose almost all its elite outside the pass, and the city outside the pass fell except for the isolated city of Ningyuan.
From then on, the Ming army was no longer able to organize an effective counterattack against the Qing army.
After Yuan Chonghuan took charge of the military affairs of Jiliao, he proposed "defending as the right, attacking as the odd, and making peace as the side" based on the comparison of military forces between the Ming and Qing dynasties.
His military philosophy is to focus on defense and rely on strong city defenses to counter the fierce cavalry of the eight banners.
To this end, Yuan Chonghuan began to focus on building the Guanning-Jin Defense Line with Shanhaiguan, Ningyuan, and Jinzhou as the main nodes.
In this line of defense, with Shanhaiguan as the backing, Ningyuan as the backbone, and Jinzhou as the vanguard, a number of forts were built as joint defense strongholds.
The Guanningjin Defense Line is divided into two sections, north and south, and the southern section is the Guanning Defense Line, which is about 100 kilometers long, from Shanhaiguan to Ningyuan; The northern section is the Ningjin Defense Line, which is also about 100 kilometers long, from Ningyuan through Lianshan, Tashan, Songshan and Jinzhou to the Daling River.
This defensive line was so strong that the Eight Flags Army repeatedly returned without success in front of this defensive line.
In March 1640, Emperor Taiji planned to challenge the Guanningjin defense line in front of him again.
After detailed analysis, Huang Taiji believed that the reason why the Qing Dynasty launched several attacks but could not get the size of the Ming Dynasty was because of the Shanhaiguan barrier.
And if you want to seize Shanhaiguan, you must first capture the four cities of Songshan, Xingshan, Jinzhou and Ningyuan outside the customs, and Jinzhou is the first to bear the brunt.
This time, Huang Taiji learned the lesson of the setbacks in the past storming Ningyuan and Jinzhou, and decided not to adopt the means of strong attack, but formulated a battle plan to besiege it for a long time and force it to surrender.
He ordered Zir Harang, Doduo and others to lead troops to build a city in Yizhou Town, Yixian County, Jinzhou, while monitoring the Ming army's every move, while providing logistical supplies to the Eight Flags Army.
By June, Huang Taiji commanded the Qing troops to Jinzhou and began a protracted siege.
Huang Taiji divided the besieged Qing soldiers into two shifts, which took turns once a month.
The Qing soldiers harvested all the crops outside Jinzhou City, and cleared the strongholds of the Ming army on the outskirts of Jinzhou one by one, completely cutting off the Ming army stationed in Jinzhou from the outside world.
By March 1641, Emperor Taiji ordered the Qing army to build several camps outside Jinzhou, dig deep trenches and build fences outside the camps, and the camps were connected by deep trenches, completely encircling Jinzhou.
The lord of the Ming army defending the city will be the former general Zu Dashou under Yuan Chonghuan's account.
After several months of stalemate with the Qing army, the Mongols in Zu Dashou's army had a different heart and secretly contacted Zilharang, intending to join forces with the Qing army and capture Jinzhou.
However, this matter was detected by Zu Dashou in advance. Zu Dashou planned to preemptively attack the rebels, but because he was not careful enough, he was detected by the rebels.
So the rebels preemptively engaged the Ming army. When Zilharang heard the news, he took advantage of the situation to attack the city.
Under the internal and external attack of the Qing army and the rebels, Zu Dashou was defeated and retreated into the inner city of Jinzhou to hold on, and the outer city of Jinzhou was immediately lost.
After capturing the outer city of Jinzhou, the Qing troops quickly filled the moat, destroyed the city wall, and surrounded the inner city of Jinzhou like an iron cylinder.
Zu Dashou had no choice but to report to the Ming court: "The grain and rice in Jincheng are only for more than one month, and the beans that feed the horses cannot support January, if the Qing army attacks again, the two cities of Ningjin will be breached, then the three cities of Song, Xing, and Jin will be precarious and precarious." ”
Chongzhen also knew the importance of Jinzhou City. Therefore, Hong Chengzhuo, who had been suppressing Kou in the Shaanxi area, was urgently edicted, and promoted him to the rank of Shangshu of the Military Department and Deputy Imperial History of the Imperial Governor of the Imperial Prosecutor's Office, and the military affairs of Jiliao.
He also ordered him to lead Wang Pu, Yang Guozhu, Tang Tong, Bai Guangen, Cao Huanjiao, Ma Ke, Wang Tingchen, and Wu Sangui to gather 90,000 infantry and 40,000 cavalry, totaling 130,000 troops, and quickly join troops in Ningyuan to relieve the siege of Jinzhou.
At the same time, Huang Taiji also continued to release troops to the Jinzhou front.
In April 1641, Ling Kong Youde and Shang Kexi each led their troops to Jinzhou to reinforce the Zilharang army. In July, he also ordered Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and the gratifying general Cao Dexuan to lead troops to help besiege Jinzhou.
As the forces of both sides continued to increase, a battle of the general assembly began.
On July 28, 1641, Hong Chengzhuo led his army to encounter the Eight Banner Army in the area of Rufeng Mountain south of Jinzhou City, and after a fierce battle, the Qing troops were defeated, and the soldiers and horses were killed and wounded. The Ming army won the first battle.
On the 29th, Hong Chengzhu ordered his general Yang Guozhu to lead his troops to attack Xishimen, and Yang Guozhu was killed by an arrow in this battle, and Li Fuming, the general of Shanxi, took his command. However, Zu Dashou and the Ming army outside the city should have joined forces and recaptured the outer city of Jinzhou.
The Qing army lost at the front, and Emperor Taiji, who was sitting in the rear, was so anxious that he decided to personally conquer Jinzhou despite his serious illness.
On 14 August, Huang Taiji personally led 3,000 elite horses to ride more than 500 miles day and night, despite the blood flowing from his nose, and on the 19th he arrived at Qijiabao, north of Jinzhou City.
At this time, Hong Chengzhu faced difficulties not only with the aggressive Qing army, but also with the inconsistency of strategic thinking within the Ming Dynasty.
According to Hong Chengzhuo's strategic thinking, he did not want to immediately start a decisive battle with the Qing army, but prepared and defended the battle.
Hong Chengzhuo said slightly above Chongzhen: "Long holding pine apricot to transfer money, and the jin guard is quite strong, not easy to shake. If the enemy crosses the present rank, not only will the enemy be poor, but also North Korea will be poor, and this can be defended and then can be fought. Today, when the army is discussing the war, An dares to postpone it, but I am afraid that it will turn into difficulty, and the whip will be beyond its reach, and the national body is at stake, so that if he does not wait for a while, he will be able to get trapped himself."
The meaning is that Jinzhou is currently fortified and will not fall easily. If we fight steadily and steadily and fight a protracted war with the Qing army, the Qing army will definitely not be able to hold out first.
At this time, Zu Dashou, who was besieged in Jinzhou, also sent people to break out of the city to write to the imperial court: "It is advisable to advocate it with the Cheying, not to fight lightly", and also suggested that defense should be the main thing, and do not fight easily.
However, Shangshu Chen Xinjia and others of the military department did not agree with Hong Chengzhuo's strategy of fighting steadily and steadily, and strongly advocated a quick victory.
The reason is very simple, at present, the treasury of the Daming Imperial Court has bottomed out, and the longer the time drags on, the more food and wages the army of more than 100,000 people will spend.
And the enemies of the Ming Dynasty are not only the Qing Dynasty, but also Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other peasant rebels, the Ming Dynasty has long been internal and external, whether it is military or financial resources, it is already stretched.
In this situation of "pressing the gourd and getting up", the most ideal outcome is, of course, to quickly resolve the siege of Jinzhou, and then turn around and return to the outside of Guanwai to calm down the civil unrest.
This saves money and does both.
Therefore, under the strong leadership of Chen Xinjia and others, Chongzhen, who was already anxious, also ordered Hong Chengzhuo to lead the army to "march on time".
In desperation, Hong Chengzhuo had to lead his troops and horses to march first, and assembled at Songshan on 26 July, waiting for the opportunity to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army.
Matsuyama's location is very important. It is located between Jinzhou and Xingshan and is the "throat of Ningjin".
After Hong Chengzhuo led his army to garrison Songshan, he quickly set up defensive positions in Songshan, camped around Songshan City, and established seven large camps of infantry, stationed between Rushengshan Mountain and Songshan City, digging long soil, guarding by tree fences, and cavalry stationed on the eastern, western, and northern sides of Songshan.
After Huang Taiji arrived at Qijiabao, he climbed the mountain to overlook the Ming army camp, and not only sighed: Everyone said that Hong Chengzhuo was good at using troops, and sure enough, we must be careful to deal with the battle.
After many days of observation, Huang Taiji finally found the weakness of the Ming army.
Because Hong Chengzhuo was eager to use troops at the urging of the imperial court, he concentrated most of his forces in the front, while the rear was neglected, so that the army had the right to front and no rear, and could not care about each other.
Therefore, Huang Taiji planned to make a fuss in the back of the Ming army.
He commanded the Qing army from the west of Jinzhou to the south, between Songshan and Xingshan Mountains, all the way to Haikou, digging three large trenches, each eight feet deep and the opening one foot and two feet, and the bottom of the trench was extremely narrow, only allowing people to stand on their feet.
This kind of trench cannot be crossed by horses, people cannot climb, and once they fall in, it is extremely difficult to climb out.
These trenches cut off all links and food supplies for the Ming army in the rear. Hong Chengzhuo sensed that something was wrong and led an attack on August 21, but the Ming army failed to break through the trench.
Subsequently, Huang Taiji sent Azige to lead an army to attack Tashan and seize twelve piles of grain stored by the Ming army at Beacon Hill at the time of the tide.
These actions of the Qing army instantly caused panic in the Ming army of Matsuyama.
Originally, because the Chongzhen Emperor asked Hong Chengzhuo to send troops immediately, the Ming army stationed in Songshan at this time only carried three days' worth of dry food each.
Now that the retreat has been cut off, the military food has been robbed, and the army's heart has been in great chaos.
Hong Chengzhu also knew that the situation was not good, and if he waited a few more days, I was afraid that the Ming army would collapse without a fight.
For now, he can only fight to the death with the Qing army in the front.
At this time, in terms of the strength of both sides, the Ming army may not lose to the Qing army. Because the two sides were roughly equal in numbers, although the Qing army was better at riding and shooting, the number of Ming firearms exceeded that of the Qing army.
Therefore, if the two sides give it a go, it is difficult to determine who will win and who will lose.
However, although Hong Chengzhuo planned to fight to the death with the Qing army at this time, the eight generals under his command did not think so.
Since the Battle of Salhu, the Ming army and the Qing army have won fewer victories and more losses, and both generals and soldiers have a strong desire to avoid battle.
What's more, the eight general soldiers who accompanied Hong Chengzhuo on the expedition each had their own ideas, and no one was willing to risk burning jade and stone to go head-to-head with the Qing army, and they all proposed to Hong Chengzhuo to return to Ningyuan to make plans.
More importantly, Zhang Ruolin, who Chongzhen sent to oversee the army, also strongly opposed the decisive battle and hoped to withdraw to Ningyuan.
He said to Hong Chengzhuo: "It seems that it is permissible that all marshals have a proposal to return to Ningyuan to support grain and fight again."
Hong Chengyu saw that the generals had lost the will to fight a decisive battle at this time, and even if he forced the generals to fight a decisive battle with the Qing army, there was no possibility of victory.
So he had to order Yu to retreat and break through the encirclement, and he divided the soldiers and horses led by the Eighth General Army into left and right, and decided to break through the siege the next day.
With the current strength of the Ming army, if it really breaks through the siege in a dead battle, the Qing army will definitely not be able to stop it.
But just after Hong Chengzhuo gave the order to fight.
Wang Pu, a soldier who was greedy for life and feared death, led his army first, and began to flee that night.
The Ming army, which was already in turmoil, made Wang Pu's actions cause great confusion in the army's heart, and began to flee one after another.
For a while, the soldiers and horses of the Ming army fled one after another, and in the dark night, the cavalry and infantry trampled on each other, killing and wounding countless people.
And the Qing army, which had long been waiting for the battle, suddenly rushed out and blocked it everywhere, and the corpses of the Ming army, which had already collapsed, were killed all over the field.
At this time, Hong Chengzhuo saw that there was no hope of breaking through the siege, so he had to lead part of his army to hold Songshan.
And those Ming troops who intended to break through the encirclement, lacking unified command, had become a collapse, were surrounded and blocked by the Qing army, and killed and fled.
A large part of them were driven to the sea by the Qing army and had no way to escape, and countless were shot and drowned.
"The Ming soldiers fled, the mountains were everywhere, from the south of Xingshan Mountain, along the coast to Tashan, to the sea to die, invincible."
In the most section, the general soldiers Wu Sangui and Wang Pu fled to Xingshan, Ma Ke, Li Fuming and others fled to Tashan, and the two general soldiers Cao Huan and Wang Tingchen withdrew to Songshan City.
Hong Chengzhu and the 10,000 Ming army held the isolated city of Songshan, and several attempts to break through the siege were unsuccessful, and in the end, the food and food in the city were cut off.
On February 18, 1642, Xia Chengde, the deputy general of the Songshan Defenders, surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and led Qing troops into the city as an internal commander.
Matsuyama Castle fell. The generals Qiu Minyang, Wang Tingchen, and Cao Huanjiao were killed, and Hong Chengzhuo and Zu Da Le were defeated and captured.
The city of Jinzhou returned to a situation of isolation, and by 1642, for three years, the city had been besieged for a whole year, the city was cut off from food, and the tragedy of killing and cannibalism continued to occur.
On March 8, 1642, the helpless Zu Dashou led his troops to surrender the city, and the Qing troops occupied Jinzhou.
On April 22, 1642, Qing troops bombarded Xingshan Castle with red-clothed cannons, and the adjutant general Lü Pinqi led his troops to surrender without a fight, and Xingshan Castle fell.
At this point, the fortress outside the Ming Dynasty was only left in Ningyuan.
The Battle of Songjin ended with a defeat for the Ming army.
In the Battle of Songjin, the 130,000 elite troops of the Ming army were destroyed.
Look at the superficial reason, the reason is that the generals are greedy for life and fear death.
Because the strength of the Ming army at that time was no worse than that of the Qing army, and it was even better than the Qing army in firearms, as long as it dared to fight to the death, even if it could not completely fight back the Qing army, at least it could be defeated by the Qing army.
However, the Ming army was timid before a fight and escaped before the battle.
Not to mention the fact that the command system of the Ming army was too chaotic. The strategic deployment of the army led by Commander Hong Chengzhuo could not be thoroughly implemented at all.
Not only Shangshu Chen Xinjia, who was in the military department of the central government, but also Zhang Ruolin, who was supervising the army in the army, would put forward his own opinions on Hong Chengzhuo, who actually led the troops to fight.
And the eight general soldiers under Hong Chengzhuo also like to play their own little calculations, so that Hong Chengzhuo cannot form a unified command.
However, the fundamental reason for the final defeat of this great war was related to two stubborn diseases of the Daming court.
First, the deformed fiscal and expenditure system made the finances of the Ming Dynasty already full of holes.
At the beginning of the war, Hong Chengzhuo proposed to fight step by step, steadily and steadily, and the Jinzhou defender Zu Dashou also put forward the idea of "forcing the Che camp and not fighting lightly", advocating fighting and defending, and gradually advancing forward to relieve the siege of Jinzhou.
This set of combat ideas was actually very feasible, but it was strongly opposed by Chen Xinjia and others, and Chongzhen also urged Hong Chengyu to fight a quick victory.
Why? The Ming Dynasty is really short of money!
At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang set an annual salary for all the descendants of the clan to ensure that the Zhu family would remain prosperous for generations.
Take the prince (son of the emperor, the highest in the years) as an example, the years are ten thousand stones, which is equivalent to an annual salary of 8,000 taels of silver.
By the Chongzhen period, the population of the sect had increased to more than 330,000 people, while the annual financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty at that time was only 20 million taels of silver.
This part of the expenses alone made the imperial court unable to make ends meet.
Coupled with the tight defense of border gates, military spending is increasing day by day.
The Ming Dynasty had to increase taxes.
However, a variety of lands were annexed by eunuchs.
When Wei Zhongxian was in charge of the imperial government, he could also use harsh government to collect taxes from the gentry and merchants.
However, after the fall of Wei Zhongxian, the Donglin regained power.
This group of hypocrites, representing the interests of the merchants and gentry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang at that time, opposed the imperial court's collection of taxes on industrial and commercial people.
And taking advantage of the opportunity of the Chongzhen Emperor to eliminate Wei Zhongxian's forces, he abolished or reduced the tax burden of overseas trade tax, mining tax, salt tax, tea tax and other taxes.
As a result, the source of tax revenue of the imperial court was more dependent on ordinary peasants, coupled with various natural disasters at that time, which caused a large number of peasants to go bankrupt and form a large number of displaced people, which directly led to the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty.
And the children of the clan and the officials of the DPRK and China are all full of personal pockets, and they have no intention of serving the country.
In February of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, in the face of an increasingly empty treasury, the Chongzhen Emperor issued a donation order.
He called on the royal family, the princes and nobles, the military generals and the local gentry and wealthy households to donate in case of emergency, and stipulated that "30,000 is the highest grade".
However, no one has donated to this amount, the highest amount is 20,000, most of them are "only a few hundred and dozen", which is purely perfunctory.
The Chongzhen Emperor saw that it was far from achieving the expected results, so he had to order each minister to raise a rich man from his hometown who could donate, but only Nanzhi and Zhejiang each raised one person, "the rest of the province has not yet reached the lift."
On March 10, when the city of Beijing was on the verge of life and death, the Chongzhen Emperor sent the eunuch Xu Gao to the house of Zhou Kui, the father of Empress Zhou and the abbot of the state, to persuade him to donate 100,000 taels of silver.
However, when Zhou Kui heard that he wanted to donate money, it was like a funeral to Kaoyu, and said that "the old minister has more gold", and he insisted that he could only donate 10,000 taels.
Xu Gao asked in grief and indignation: "What is the benefit of saving and being productive?" ”
Under repeated urging, Zhou Kui donated 10,000, Chongzhen felt that 10,000 was too little, let him add another 10,000 taels, and Zhou Kui entered the palace to ask his daughter Empress Zhou for help.
Empress Zhou handed over the 5,000 taels of private money she had accumulated over the years to her father, but Zhou Kui deducted 2,000 taels from it, and only took 3,000 taels as a donation to Chongzhen.
The great eunuch and the governor of the East Factory, Wang Zhixin, was the richest, and Chongzhen asked him to be generous, but Wang Zhixin shirked: "The family has been lacking for many years." "Barely made up 10,000 taels.
In order to protect the family's wealth, Wei Zaode, the head of the cabinet at that time, took the lead in saying that the family had no surplus wealth and opposed Chongzhen's requisition.
In the end, Chongzhen's last-minute "donate money and help salary" activity only raised a mere 200,000 taels.
On 19 March, after Li Zicheng attacked the city of Beijing, he pursued the stolen goods from Ming officials.
In the end, Zhou Kui gave his family wealth 520,000 taels of silver, and other treasures were equivalent to 20,000 taels of silver;
The king's heart was tortured by the king's army, and he was forced to give 150,000 taels of silver, as well as gold and silver objects of equal value;
Wei Zaode originally wanted to serve the new dynasty, but he was caught in prison, donated tens of thousands of taels of silver under heavy punishment, and finally died of a split brain pulp under torture.
According to statistics, Li Zicheng looted a total of 70 million taels from the Ming Dynasty's honorary qi, internal supervisors, hundred officials, and civil society through the pursuit of stolen goods.
At this time, the treasury of the Ming Dynasty only had more than 2,300 taels of silver.
How can such a greedy court official and such a rotten fiscal revenue and expenditure system ensure that the army wins the battle in the front.
Second, by the end of the Ming Dynasty, the private military system was already very serious.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the system of tuntian and soldier households was implemented.
That is to say, this family has been a soldier for generations, cultivating its own land without war, and going into battle when there is a war.
This system has led to a lower and lower quality of soldiers, coupled with the fact that military salaries have been withheld layer by layer, which has seriously reduced the combat effectiveness of the army.
And as the border war became tighter, the imperial court needed soldiers who could fight.
So the imperial court began to allow capable and ambitious generals to develop armies similar to those of their own soldiers.
In some generals with a large number of private soldiers, they grew up savagely in the chaotic times of war and gradually became warlords on one side, Li Chengliang and Mao Wenlong are typical representatives of them.
These warlords had soldiers and guns in their hands, and used their armies as capital to bargain with the imperial court and fight for their own interests.
By the late Ming Dynasty, almost every general was playing his own little calculations.
Some sold military materials such as armor, weapons, and horses to Houjin for profit;
Some of them started maritime trade;
Some deliberately raise their own dignity in order to strengthen their own power and reap more benefits in the name of sweeping up the rebellion.
But when it comes to a critical moment, it is necessary to fight a tough battle, and these people only want to maintain their strength and run faster than anyone.
Therefore, the military system of the Ming Dynasty has become indiscriminate.
The same generals, the same soldiers, in the Ming Dynasty, it was a scattered sand, and after surrendering to the Qing Dynasty, it swept across Jiangnan like a fierce tiger descending the mountain, is this the greatest irony of the Zhu Dynasty?
Therefore, the collapse of the Ming Dynasty was not bad at all in a certain link or region, but the complete collapse of the entire dynasty and government.
Not to mention that Chongzhen Kong has great ambitions but no heroic talents, even if Zhu Yuanzhang is reborn, it is difficult to reverse the decline of the Ming Dynasty.