Preface
As we all know, history is always written by the victors, and this is especially evident in the ancient times of the continent, which focused on recording history.
Whenever a dynasty replaces the previous dynasty, the history of the previous dynasty will be revised, and what kind of history of the previous dynasty will be written depends on the ideas of the rulers of the dynasty and the spring and autumn penmanship of the historians.
Sometimes the ruler of the current dynasty has some mercy, and it is enough to just smear the words and deeds of the people of the previous dynasty, and when it is more serious, he can even directly delete a person from history and make him disappear for hundreds of years.
Yuan Keli, the minister at the end of the Ming Dynasty, was such a person, because he was too capable of fighting, he even made Nurhachi lose several times, so when the Qing Dynasty compiled the "History of the Ming Dynasty", he broke the defense and directly deleted Yuan Like!
1. The important ministers who disappeared in the "History of the Ming Dynasty".
People often joke that the surname Yuan is the natural enemy of the Qing Dynasty, and there were the "Wu San Yuan" in the late Ming Dynasty: Yuan Keli, Yuan Chonghuan, and Yuan Yingtai resisted the invasion one after another when the Ming Dynasty was already at the end of the crossbow; and then Yuan Shikai forced Pu Yi to abdicate and overthrew the Qing Dynasty in the last years of the Qing Dynasty.
But among the three Yuan generals in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, Yuan Keli was almost drowned in the torrent of history under the hands of the Qing Dynasty emperor.
After the Qing army entered the customs and established the Manchu regime, the Qing Dynasty began to compile the "History of the Ming Dynasty", which is the rule in the history of the mainland.
Even the act of revising history was gradually endowed with political significance and became a manifestation of inheriting orthodoxy, and the Qing Dynasty was originally a foreign power, and it was very necessary to show its own orthodoxy, so it was very important to revise the "History of the Ming Dynasty".
The compilation and revision of this "History of the Ming Dynasty" began in the Shunzhi period and was not finally completed until the Qianlong period, after more than 90 years in the middle, containing more than 300 volumes of content, which can be said to be quite comprehensive.
However, in these more than 300 volumes, there is no general Yuan Keli in the last years of the Ming Dynasty from beginning to end, you must know that Yuan Keli is a minister with outstanding achievements in the late Ming Dynasty, and it is very reasonable to even open a volume for him alone.
However, there is no mention of Yuan Keli in the long "History of the Ming Dynasty", which is only one possibility, that is, the Qing Dynasty was really broken by him, and after mastering the right to speak, he resolutely refused to let him have the opportunity to be admired by future generations.
This is actually very reasonable, because after all, Yuan Keli is the master who can't even deal with him against the Qing Taizu Nurhachi, and even has fought several defeats under him.
As a descendant of Nurhachi, the emperor of the Qing Dynasty naturally had to maintain the image of his ancestors as wise and martial, so he could only let Yuan Keli evaporate from the world in the "History of the Ming Dynasty" and erase his experience.
But as long as a person has existed in the world, he will inevitably leave traces, if it is a more distant dynasty, the written materials may be lost, but the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty are only 400 years ago, and there are many written records of that time have been handed down, so that future generations can recognize this loyal and honest virtuous minister after a few hundred years.
Second, civilian officials go to war
In the history books compiled by the Qing Dynasty, their ancestor Nurhachi can be said to be a victorious general who is invincible in a hundred battles, and it is precisely because of his courage that the Ming Dynasty people feel fear, not only can not be defeated, but many people see the momentum of the troops and take the initiative to surrender to the Qing army that was still called Houjin at that time.
The Spring and Autumn penmanship of writing history is very powerful here, and it is difficult for people to distinguish the truth from the falsehood when the real events are mixed with the compiled events, and this sentence is actually only half true.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, many people saw that the army was strong and took the initiative to surrender, but Nurhachi was not an unstoppable victorious general, on the contrary, Nurhachi was also defeated and retreated by Yuan Keli, gritting his teeth.
Yuan Keli was a veteran of the four dynasties in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, and he was also a loyal minister and a good general.
Not only that, Yuan Keli is not afraid of power, as long as someone makes the people unhappy, he will make anyone unhappy, so he executed the eunuchs at that time, so that the people who have been oppressed by him for a long time gratefully call Yuan Keli "Qingtian".
But Yuan Keli's ambition was not only limited to the imperial court and being an official, he knew that the northern part of the Ming Dynasty was seriously harassed by the Later Jin Zhengqun, and it could be said that it was in danger.
So at the juncture when no one was willing to care about the war in the north, Yuan Keli took the initiative to state to the emperor seven of his suggestions for the war, which were all adopted by the emperor, and Yuan Like was appointed as a general guarding the frontier at the critical juncture.
This is a chore in the eyes of others, after all, no literati is willing to contact such life-threatening things as war, but it is in Yuan Ke's arms, he dares to go to the book, what is not to dare to go to the battlefield?
What's more, after all these years of officialdom and deceit, Yuan Keli not only deeply saw the miasma of the imperial court, but also offended many people, so he went to the frontier to avoid the limelight.
But what he didn't know was that he didn't have any scruples when he came to the frontier to avoid the limelight, but he gave Nurhachi, who won the battle a little fluttering, a blow to the head.
How could he have thought that Yuan Keli, a minister of the Ming Dynasty who only had a good reputation in the officialdom, would be so able to fight on the battlefield, and he would be a little suspicious of life!
3. Repeatedly defeated Nurhachi
Yuan Keli had written seven suggestions before he took command, as if there was a providence in the dark, and the invincible Nurhachi was really defeated by Yuan Keli seven times.
At the beginning, Nurhachi didn't take Yuan Keli seriously at all, thinking that this was just a weak civilian official, and he was here to die on the battlefield.
However, soon he found that his face was crackled, and the Jin army was originally clear about the combat effectiveness of the Ming Dynasty army, and it was simply vulnerable in their eyes.
However, after Yuan Keli came, how did the Ming army feel as if it had changed into a great increase in combat effectiveness? Time and again, they could not pick up a bargain in the hands of the Ming army, and even suffered losses.
Nurhachi's mentality was still very stable when he was defeated at the beginning, because he knew that it was normal for the march to win and lose, but there were many times and there were more losses, and he also felt panicked.
During this period, the cities that the Jin army had taken were recaptured by the Ming army led by Yuan Keli one after another, and Nurhachi's original intention to develop westward was also broken by Yuan Keli, so he only blocked the Jin army to prevent them from succeeding.
There was also a defeat that made Nurhachi both angry and humiliated, and the benefits of Yuan Keli's civil officials leading troops were shown, and he had an idea, and he persuaded Nurhachi's son-in-law Liu Aita to surrender without spending a single soldier!
After Liu Aita rebelled, he even hibernated in the Jin army for a while, during which time, as an internal agent, he coaxed Nurhachi to believe in him very much, and got a lot of information and opportunities to make trouble.
And after Liu Aita betrayed and left, not only did the Jin army lose one of its generals, but many generals, because Nurhachi was furious when he learned about it and killed many Han generals in the Jin army.
This is equivalent to cutting off one's arm for the Jin army, and before the Ming army can fight, the Jin army itself has already become a pot of porridge, so Yuan Keli took the opportunity to win a few more battles.
epilogue
It is precisely because of the rebellion against Nurhachi's son-in-law that Nurhachi hated Yuan Keli and the Han people to the core, and the loss of face was not only Nurhachi's, but also their descendants.
Therefore, after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, Nurhachi's descendants deeply remembered the shame of being teased by the Han people, which indirectly led to the creation of the "literary prison", and they were reluctant to write Yuan Keli, the enemy, even when writing the "History of the Ming Dynasty".