In 1664, the Ming general Li Laiheng executed Li Youshi, who had come to persuade him to surrender, and then arranged a way out for his eighty-year-old mother. Everything was properly explained, And when Li Laiheng fought a bloody battle with the Qing army for several days, and when he ran out of food, Li Laiheng, his wife and son plunged into the sea of fire and set themselves on fire and died. In the Battle of Maolu Mountain, 6,000 soldiers under Li Laiheng fought with 100,000 Qing troops, and all the Ming troops were killed, and none of them surrendered.
149 years later, a general surnamed "Li" led an 800 peasant army to fight with the Manchurian Eight Banners, and when he ran out of food, he set himself on fire and died. His wife Zhang Shi (張氏) held the city and then engaged in street battles with the Qing army, slashing dozens of Qing troops, and then hanged himself and refused to be taken prisoner. This "Li" surname is the protagonist of this article, Li Wencheng.
Li Wencheng, a native of Anyang, Henan, was a fierce general of the peasant rebel army in the late Qing Dynasty, and together with Lin Qing, led the rebel army and dealt a heavy blow to the Qing Dynasty. In the early years, Li Wencheng's family was poor, and the peasant family with one acre and three points of land had no place to live. Because Qianlong ignored government affairs in his later years, corrupt officials ran rampant in Henan and Hebei, and no officials were greedy, no officials were violent, and social contradictions were very sharp, which was the prelude to the outbreak of the peasant uprising.
In order to resist the tyranny of the Qing Dynasty and change his destiny, Li Wencheng contacted Lin Qing, formed a life-and-death friendship, and conspired to launch an uprising and establish a cause. In 1813, Li Wencheng sent 1,000 soldiers and horses disguised as merchants to quietly enter the capital and prepare to plan for Lin Qing's action. According to the plan, Lin Qing directly entered the Forbidden City and carried out a "beheading operation" against the Qing emperor, and the 1,000 soldiers and horses were outside the palace.
When the uprising came, the news unfortunately leaked, and Li Wencheng was arrested by the government and thrown into the Huaxian County Prison. In prison, officials tortured Li Wencheng and asked him to say the plan of action of the rebel army, and Li Wencheng would rather die than spit out half a word. To this end, Qing officials cut off Li Wencheng's calf as punishment.
Li Wencheng was arrested, and the people of Huaxian County decided to launch an armed uprising in advance, but Lin Qing did not know that because of the urgency of the situation, they had not yet been able to inform each other. However, the Qing Dynasty rule was decadent and declining, and the officials in the capital knew that Lin Qing would make trouble, but they did not pay attention to it, and they thought that Lin Qing could not set off a big wave, which was not enough to be troubled. As a result, Lin Qing gave them an unexpected "surprise", which greatly annoyed the Jiaqing Emperor.
In 1813, the Jiaqing Emperor went to the Chengde Summer Resort to play in the mountains, and Lin Qing, with the cooperation of the eunuchs in the palace, led 200 rebel troops from DonghuaMen and Xihuamen into the palace and went straight to the Forbidden City. At this time, the Eight Banners general Celing, who was guarding the gate of the Forbidden City, panicked, and he did not dare to fight with the rebel army, but ran away. The court was in chaos, the dignitaries and nobles fled one after another, and Lin Qing was about to win.
At this moment, the crown prince Min Ning (Emperor Daoguang) came out to fight with a shotgun, and he personally shot and killed two rebel generals who were climbing the city wall. The crown prince himself went to war, and the palace guards no longer fled, and they turned to fight the rebel army. Then, the officers and men of the Jianrui Battalion and the Firearms Battalion rushed to reinforcements, and the rebel army was outnumbered, and Lin Qing led more than 40 people to break through. Soon, Lin Qing was arrested and executed by Ling Chi.
Lin Qing's attack on the Forbidden City failed, but the rebel army in Huaxian County progressed smoothly, and Li Wencheng's wife Zhang Shi led troops into Huaxian County to rescue her husband, and the rebel army was greatly encouraged. Subsequently, the poor people of Changyuan, Dongming, Cao County, Dingtao and other places launched an uprising, responded to Li Wencheng, and rushed to converge, and the rebel army expanded tens of thousands of soldiers and horses, and the Central Plains shook.
The Qing forces in Henan and Hebei could not resist the rebels. After the Jiaqing Emperor returned to Beijing from Chengde, he immediately mobilized the Eight Banners of Manchuria outside Guanwai to go south, commanded by Na Yancheng, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu, and besieged the rebel army in seven ways. Na Yancheng, with the general Yang Fang as the vanguard general, led 2,000 soldiers and horses to advance, only to be defeated by the rebel general Xu Anguo at Daokou Town, and the morale of the Qing army was low.
Daokou Town, the gateway to Huaxian County, was a key fortified by the rebel army. In order to capture the crossing, Na Yancheng personally commanded the battle and threw the main force of the Eight Banners into the battle. The two sides fought at the daokou for seven days and seven nights, the Qing army destroyed the city wall with artillery, and the eight banners outside the Guanwai took advantage of the situation to rush to kill. Xu Anguo led his army to counterattack, and after a bloody battle, he broke out and went to Hua County to join Li Wencheng.
After breaching the pass, Na Yancheng continued to march and besieged huaxian county, the base camp of the rebel army. In order to distract the attention of the Qing army, the rebel army discussed internally: Li Wencheng led 4,000 soldiers and horses to move to the Taihang Mountain area to contain the nearby Qing army and fight with Huaxian County. Li Wencheng's wife Zhang Shi stayed behind in Huaxian County, where he and Niu Liangchen, Song Yuancheng, Xu Yuancheng, Xu Anguo and other generals pinned down the main force of the Qing army.
Li Wencheng broke out and went to the Taihang Mountains to garrison, and Na Yancheng sent Yang Fang to pursue and besiege the Taihang Mountains. Yang Fang, a famous general in the late Qing Dynasty, suppressed the rebel army very strongly, and later performed badly during the Opium War. The Qing army was fierce, the rebel army occupied favorable terrain, condescending, using muskets and bows and arrows to kill the Qing army, Yang Fang could not move forward.
In order to eliminate the rebel army, Yang Fang pretended to be defeated, lured Li Wencheng in pursuit, and then ambushed the rebel army. Li Wencheng sent troops to pursue, was ambushed by the Qing army, suffered heavy losses, and only led 800 soldiers back to the cottage defense. Then, Yang Fang continued to attack the cottage, using artillery fire to destroy the fortifications, and then led his troops to charge and kill. The rebel army was not afraid of a strong enemy, and Li Wencheng personally fought a bloody battle with the Qing army.
In close combat, the Qing army was not an opponent of the rebel army. After the rebel army ran out of bullets, they picked up stones and smashed them at the Qing army, forcing the Qing army back. The Qing army was not able to fight and could not win in hand-to-hand combat, so Yang Fang switched to fire attacks, set fire to the forest, and burned the cottage. In a sea of fire, the Qing army charged again and besieged the turret where Li Wencheng was located.
Li Wencheng did not surrender, shot out bullets, and after throwing stones, Li Wencheng set himself on fire and died, all his troops were killed, and no one surrendered. After capturing the Taihang Mountain base, Yang Fang led troops to reinforce Huaxian County and deal with the Zhang clan. Seeing Yang Fang, Zhang Shi knew that her husband was fierce and ji shao, and she refused to break through and escape, but fought a bloody battle with the Qing army to the end.
The Qing army invaded Huaxian County, and Zhang Shi led his troops to engage in a street battle with Yang Fang, and she wielded a knife to fight with the Qing army, killing dozens of people. Zhang was seriously wounded in the battle, but unwilling to give in, she walked into the house and hanged herself. Niu Liangchen and Xu Anguo were captured and sent to Jingshi Lingchi for execution.
Bibliography: Draft History of the Qing Dynasty