In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), Sun Chuanting was defeated at Tongguan and died on the battlefield, and his family also committed suicide after the city was destroyed. The Sun family can be said to be full of loyal martyrs, but for Sun Chuanting, Chongzhen always refused to give him a yin, until the forty-first year of Qianlong, Sun Chuanting was posthumously honored as "Zhongjing".
What happened to Make Chongzhen refuse to acknowledge That Sun Chuanting sacrificed his life for the country, so that the Qing Dynasty, which destroyed the Ming Dynasty, pursued Ming Chen?
It all starts with Sun Chuanting, the last "stronghold of the country" of the Ming Dynasty.
Sun Chuanting was a jinshi during the Wanli Dynasty, and during the Apocalypse he entered the capital as an official. Dissatisfied with the arbitrary power of the eunuch Wei Zhongxian, Sun Chuanting resigned his official post and returned to his hometown in anger, and did not reappear until chongzhen was eight years old.
This is an era when the edifice will fall, the Qing Dynasty in the north is rising with unstoppable momentum, and the desperate victims of the country have launched an uprising and burned all over the country. Yuan Chonghuan had already been executed by the Chongzhen Emperor Ling Chi, and those who could preside over the Ming Dynasty's military were Lu Xiangsheng and Sun Chuanting.
However, when Lu Xiangsheng was wrongfully killed in the eleventh year of Chongzhen due to the trap of Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian, Daming was really left with only Sun Chuanting.
Sun Chuanting did not expect that there would be such a day, he was a Confucian student, and his ambition was to establish a heart for heaven and earth and open up peace for all the worlds. However, when the building was about to fall, Sun Chuanting was forced to become the person who struggled to support the building.
However, Chongzhen was too strict with this only pillar, and he asked Sun Chuanting to quickly form an army from Shaanxi, and asked them to fight the combat effectiveness of the old Qin army without clothes and food.
Sun Chuanting did it, and so did the Qin army he brought out of Shaanxi, and they defeated the masses with fewer battles and won many battles. In the ninth year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting led the Qin army to defeat Gao Yingxiang's forces and sent Gao Yingxiangsheng to Beijing for execution. In the tenth year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting led the Qin army to Shangzhou, Luonan, Lantian and other places, defeated the Shengshi King, the Guabei King, the Yiyi Fei, the Zhentian King, and pacified the area south of Guanzhong. In the eleventh year of Chongzhen, Sun Chuanting set up an ambush to defeat the rebel armies of Tianxing, Chaotianxing, and Ma Jinzhong, and completely annihilated the army of Li Zicheng, who only rode 18 horses to escape.
From the initial battle in Shaanxi to the annihilation of Li Zicheng, Sun Chuanting led the Qin army to defeat two generations of kings in a row under extremely unfavorable circumstances, and defeated the rebel army in Guanzhong, so he had to flee to Henan and other places, and did not dare to stay in Guanzhong. As long as Sun Chuanting was given a little more time, Li Zicheng and other rebel armies would be completely destroyed, but at this time, Dorgon led the Qing army to attack the border pass, and Sun Chuanting was transferred back to the Beijing Division to take charge of defense.
At this time, Lu Xiangsheng had already died on the battlefield, and Only Hong Chengyu and Sun Chuanting were left in Daming. Sun Chuanting was firm in the main battle, believing that at this time of life and death, he must fight with the enemy to win life.
However, Sun Chuanting's enthusiasm was wrongly paid, and the Chongzhen Emperor was already afraid and timid at this time, so he privately discussed peace affairs with the Qing Dynasty, and paid more and more attention to Yang Sichang and Gao Qiqian, who were the lords and factions.
Sun Chuanting was transferred to The Capital To defend the capital, but the Chongzhen Emperor ordered him not to be admitted to the capital. Yang Sichang also appointed Hong Chengzu as the governor of Jiliao, and suggested that all of Sun Chuanting's Shaanxi Qin army remain in Jiliao.
Yang Sichang's move undoubtedly deprived Sun Chuanting of his military power, and robbed him of the Qin army that he had devoted all his efforts to, and left all the Qin troops in the north, and the thieves in Shaanxi would definitely repeat the crime. Leaving the thief is arrogant, not beneficial to the side, and it is also the withdrawal of the thief on behalf of the thief. (History of the Ming Dynasty)
However, Yang Sichang ignored it, and the Chongzhen Emperor did not accept Sun Chuanting's suggestion. Sun Chuanting became so depressed that he became deaf.
Sun Chuanting was suddenly ill, but the Chongzhen Emperor was full of concern, he thought that the thieves were no longer a threat, and the most urgent thing was the Qing army in the north, so he ordered Sun Chuanting to let the military affairs of Baoding, Shandong, and Henan be allowed, and he was not allowed to return to Shaanxi.
Sun Chuanting wrote a letter, and Yang Sichang obstructed him from allowing him to enter beijing to see Chongzhen. Sun Chuanting, in protest, took the illness to rest, but the Chongzhen Emperor believed that Sun Chuanting was disobedient, and demoted him to a commoner, throwing him into a big prison and awaiting trial.
In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, a famine broke out in Henan, and Li Zicheng's army expanded rapidly. Yang Sichang went to suppress it, but died at the hands of Zhang Xianzhong. Without Sun Chuanting, Li Zicheng was like a wild horse that had lost its reins, crisscrossing the territory of Daming and soon supporting hundreds of thousands of troops. At this time, Sun Chuanting was waiting for trial in prison, how ironic.
In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng won the great victory in Kaifeng, and the Ming army was repeatedly defeated, Chongzhen finally remembered Sun Chuanting at this time, he brought Sun Chuanting out of prison, and asked him to immediately lead the army to fight Against Li Zicheng.
In fact, at this time, the Ming army and the rebel army still had the strength to fight a war, Sun Chuanting's Shaanxi soldiers, Zuo Liangyu's Huguang soldiers, and Hu Dawei's Baoding soldiers were all elite and had strong combat effectiveness. However, Chongzhen did not dare to let Sun Chuanting restrain the whole army, but let them cooperate with each other and obey all their orders.
From the capital to the battlefield, orders often had to be given last month, but Chongzhen asked the army to obey his orders in response to the situation a month ago. The generals of each department have their own small calculations, and the tail is not big, not only can not form an effective cooperation, but often become a drag.
As a result, the various armies were broken by the rebel army, the generals died and fled, and for a time no one dared to fight with the rebel army.
It was Sun Chuanting who broke the situation. After several months of rest in Shaanxi, Sun Chuanting's army was replenished, and if he was given some more time, he could pull out a Qin army that could fight again.
But Chongzhen couldn't wait, he kept urging Sun Chuanting to march, and his words were very harsh. Sun Chuanting did not dare not follow, and could only lead the newly recruited army to the expedition.
Under the plot of Sun Chuanting, the official army raided the rebel army and lured the enemy to penetrate deeper, defeating the rebel army. However, the heavens were also going to die, and just when Sun Chuanting was about to pursue, the heavy rain caused the road to be muddy, and the officers and soldiers could not pursue, giving the rebel army time to breathe. Later, the rebels killed a Hui horse gun and defeated Sun Chuanting.
After Sun Chuanting withdrew to Shaanxi, he once again recruited troops here to buy and build firearms. In the past six months, Sun Chuanting has formed an army with combat effectiveness. Sun Chuanting's outstanding place is also here, he is good at recruiting troops, but also good at training troops, as long as he is given time, he can pull out a strong brigade in Shaanxi, where there are hard soldiers.
However, Sun Chuanting never had enough time, Daming had no one to use, as long as Sun Chuanting had a slight army, the Chongzhen Emperor would urge him to immediately suppress the bandits.
Sun Chuanting had no choice but to go out on the expedition. Even in a hurry, Sun Chuanting still broke the rebel army, and he led the army all the way to the ground, almost capturing Li Zicheng.
However, God blessed Li Zicheng, and it rained heavily for seven days in a row, causing the officers and soldiers to be unable to pursue, and the trucks carrying grain could not come up. Li Zicheng took this opportunity to cut off the grain routes of officers and soldiers, and Sun Chuanting had no choice but to hastily fight with Li Zicheng.
In Ruzhou, Sun Chuanting personally sat down and led the officers and soldiers to a decisive battle with Li Zicheng's army. The officers and men broke through the rebel army's triple army and were in a stalemate with the last elite cavalry of the rebel army. Since the families of the rebels were behind the cavalry, the rebels fought to the death, and the firearms troops defeated the officers and men's firearms army from the flanks. In the end, the officers and men were defeated, killing more than 40,000 people and collapsing for more than 400 miles.
Li Zicheng led a large army to pursue the victory and conquer Tongguan. Sun Chuanting refused to surrender and was killed on the battlefield. After the fall of Shaanxi, Sun Chuanting's family was martyred in a well, and only his eight-year-old son was adopted by an old man.
However, when the news reached the capital, Chongzhen thought that Sun Chuanting had absconded by deception, so he did not give him a gift.
Sun Chuanting was the last wall of the Ming Dynasty, and after the deaths of Yuan Chonghuan, Lu Xiangsheng and others, he became the only pillar supporting the Ming Dynasty. Once Sun Chuanting died, the Ming Dynasty no longer had a strong city, "Chuanting died and the Ming dynasty died."
Resources:
History of the Ming Dynasty