Reading li zicheng's experience, we can understand why he rebelled

When it comes to the uprising launched by Li Zicheng, we usually call it the "Great Peasant Uprising at the End of the Ming Dynasty", which is actually not rigorous. Because Li Zicheng was a postman in the Ming Dynasty before the uprising. This position is lowly, but it is still worthy of the national food. However, why did Li Zicheng eat the emperor's grain and want to create the emperor's rebellion? Let's start with the situation and reform of the post stations at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

The Ming Dynasty set up post stations on the national transportation line, which was not only a communication network for the government to upload reports, but also a place for officials and dignitaries to provide transportation, food and accommodation for official business. According to the regulations of the Ming Dynasty, there is a shop every ten miles, and the shop is long; there is a station in the sixty miles, and there is a post. The main duty of the shop is to transmit documents; the main duty of the station is to provide transportation and accommodation conditions such as carriages, horses, and servants for the passing officials, and also to deliver urgent documents. After entering the middle of the Ming Dynasty, with the overall corruption of the official rule, the post became a place of extortion and extortion by the Ming officials. When officials traveled to and from the caravanserai, they often extorted servants and horses at will, and even demanded that the post provide more than the actual supply was needed, and these excess parts were converted into silver and collected into private pockets. The limited manpower and material resources of the caravanserai could not meet the needs of the officials who came and went, and the expenses of the government were also deducted, making the poor people serving in the caravanserai miserable. In the second year of the Apocalypse, on the way from Tongzhou to Shanhaiguan, Yushi Fang Zhenru, through what he saw and heard, gave the emperor a message, in which he wrote: "When the subject arrived at the customs from Tongzhou, he saw futou, horse households, and car households, and all of them wept like rain, and could not bear to see and hear. And the skinny horse walking the dead side is invincible. "The pawns of the Ming Dynasty station not only had to provide manpower services, but also be responsible for raising horses, and once the horses fell ill or died, they were severely punished according to the law." Therefore, the life of these pawns is very poor, but at least they still have food to eat, so they will not starve to death.

The Chongzhen Emperor was an extremely greedy and miserly man, and he was extremely excited about anything that could reduce expenses or increase income. In the second year of Chongzhen (1629 AD), the Criminal Investigation Department gave a message to Liu Mao in the matter, suggesting that the station be rectified and the standard of post delivery be re-stipulated, and after rectification, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver could be saved a year. When the Chongzhen Emperor heard that it was profitable, he immediately ordered Liu Mao to take full responsibility for rectifying the affairs of the station. According to Liu Mao's original intention, the saved expenses were used to transfer the new salary paid by the imperial court to the people. The Chongzhen Emperor also claimed that this move was to "impoverish the people of The Soviet Union", and in fact the expenses cut down were not used to offset the new salary sent by Liu Mao according to Liu Mao's original intention, but all of them were used for military use. Two years later, Liu Mao reported to the Chongzhen Emperor that the provinces had cut a total of 685,720 silver.

Liu Mao's move to cut the cost of the station is bound to make the already trapped station worse. Some of the postmen who made a living at the post stations were cut off and withdrawn to their villages, while others were really unable to make a living and were forced to flee, and a considerable number of them joined the ranks of the peasant uprising. Li Zicheng could not stay in the station any longer, and only then did he devote himself to the peasant uprising. As the history books say: "Li Zicheng was a Horseman of Yinchuan, shouting with his arms, and Kyushu was cracked." ”

The following is a rough introduction to Li Zicheng's encounter in the station. Li Zicheng is a groom in the Yinchuan Station, belonging to the bottom of the society. Once, because Li Zicheng was really sleepy, he slept in a stone square in front of a squire named Ai, and after being discovered by Ai Xiangsheng, Li Zicheng was severely beaten and tied to a court pillar in the courtyard. It just so happened that ai xiangsheng's younger son was holding a cake and passing in front of Li Zicheng while eating it. Li Zicheng was hungry and begged Forai Zhangshen's younger son. The youngest son not only did not give, but scolded: "I would rather feed the dog than give it to you." The original words in the history books are "I would rather feed a dog than be with Ru." Then throw the bread on the ground and step away. Later, Li Zicheng was sent to the officials by Ai Xiangsheng to punish him, and just before this, Li Zicheng rode two horses in the caravanserai and was being chased by the government. Later, he rode another horse to death, because he could not afford to compensate, so he had to flee.

The year after Li Zicheng fled the post, his hometown in Shaanxi suffered another famine, and Shanxi Province, which was across the river, banned the sale of grain to Shaanxi under the name of "preventing Kou". The price of rice in northern Shaanxi rose to six silver to buy a bucket of rice. In this situation, Li Zicheng led a group of desperate people in his village to join the insurgent army that did not stick to the mud.