In the last year of tomorrow and the beginning of the year, Shaanxi suffered a famine that has been rare for decades, and successive years of drought and locust plague have caused a sharp decline in grain production here, and the affected peasants have lost their homes due to the famine, and for a time the whole territory of Shaanxi has been starving and dying, and the victims have even changed their children to eat in order not to be starved to death!
The peasants in Shaanxi gradually lost confidence in the imperial court, and the harsh policy of not reducing taxes in the year of famine made them completely lose their minds.
In July of the seventh year of the Apocalypse, the first large-scale peasant uprising broke out in Weibei, Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province, the "Wang Er Uprising", and soon the peasants in Shaanxi rose up one after another, and the fire of the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty also burned from Shaanxi to the whole country in an instant.
Wang Er revolted
Among the leaders of the peasant rebel army at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the name of Li Zicheng, the "king of chuang", was undoubtedly the largest, and he overthrew the Dashun regime established by the Ming Dynasty.
But at that time, there was another person whose strength was comparable to Li Zicheng's Qihu. This person was Zhang Xianzhong, the "Eight Great Kings" who established the "Great West" regime.
Lee Zi-cheng
In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong led the Great Western Army to occupy all of Hunan and part of Jiangxi, and then established political power here, and it is reasonable to say that Zhang Xianzhong, who relied on the wealthy Zhang Xianzhong in the Central Plains, only needed a little operation here to have the strength to compete with Li Zicheng for the world.
However, just a few months after the establishment of the "Great West" regime, Zhang Xianzhong abandoned the Central Plains, which had already gained a firm foothold, and led the "Great Western Army" from Jingzhou, Hubei Province, up the current into Sichuan, which was still garrisoned by the Ming Army.
Why did Zhang Xianzhong abandon the Central Plains at this time and choose Sichuan second?
Zhang Xianzhong
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > forced by the times</h1>
Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng were once subordinates of Gao Yingxiang, the "Old Chuang King", and the two of them were the most powerful "generals" under Gao Yingxiang, who fought side by side to help the "Old Chuang King" lay the foundation for Fengyang, the hometown of Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty.
However, with the death of Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng gradually became the new "king of intruders" sought after by people. Zhang Xianzhong believed that his ability and battle achievements were not inferior to Li Zicheng, and Li Zicheng was supported by everyone but he was not cared about, which made Zhang Xianzhong jealous of Li Zicheng all the time.
Therefore, after Gao Yingxiang was killed in battle, Zhang Xianzhong simply took his elite soldiers and strong generals to huguang to establish the gate.
Gao Yingxiang
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng established the "Dashun" regime in Xi'an, and in March of that year, he led a large rebel army to attack the Forbidden City and forced the death of the Ming Emperor Zhu Youjian.
At this time, Li Zicheng's power reached its peak, and Zhang Xianzhong knew that Li Zicheng's next goal would undoubtedly be himself. In this way, there are only two roads in front of Zhang Xianzhong, either to submit to Li Zicheng or to fight with Li Zicheng, and it is obvious that Zhang Xianzhong chose the latter.
At this time, most of the northern region was already Li Zicheng's sphere of influence, and Zhang Xianzhong could not stop the iron hooves of the "Great Shun Iron Horse" only by relying on the plains such as Hubei and Hunan.
Zhu Youjian
Originally, when Li Zicheng had just attacked the city of Beijing, Zhang Xianzhong wanted to lead a large army to attack Nanjing and divide the world with Li Zicheng, but just when Zhang Xianzhong's head was hot and wanted to make this decision, Zhang Xianzhong's "dog-headed military division" and "Zuo Chengxiang of the Great Western Dynasty" Wang Zhaolin made suggestions to him, saying:
"Nourish your spirits, it is not Shudi... Only by obtaining Shu land can we lay a solid foundation, and when the foundation is strong, then carry out the Northern Expedition, and finally we can pacify the world. ”
Wang Zhaolin's words can be described as a word to wake up the dreamer. Zhang Xianzhong had entered shu three times, and he was very familiar with the topography of Sichuan, sichuan's terrain was dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and he could enter the Central Plains with his sword and retreat to hold on to natural danger.
Li Zicheng attacked the city of Beijing
Not only that, Sichuan is extremely rich in products, known as the "country of heavenly capital", and it is undoubtedly the most secure to rest and recuperate here. In addition, the most important point is that the Sichuan garrison at this time was very weak, and only tens of thousands of defenders were stationed here.
However, he Zhang Xianzhong had a full 300,000 troops in his hands, ten times his strength, and this Sichuan was already within zhang Xianzhong's eyes, and he thought that these Zhang Xianzhong would determine Sichuan as his next stop.
In the first month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong led his 300,000 troops up the river and entered Sichuan along the line of Badong, Wushan, and Fengjie in an attempt to "temporarily take Bashu as the foundation, and then revitalize the division to pacify the world."
In August of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong led his troops to attack the city of Chengdu and captured tens of thousands of Ming troops. On November 6 of that year, Zhang Xianzhong proclaimed the emperor in Chengdu the name of the state "Great West".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="23" > is murderous and gradually loses popularity</h1>
In ancient times, "breaking the city" meant "laying down millions of corpses and bleeding thousands of miles", but after Zhang Xianzhong occupied Sichuan, he did not "kill the ring".
As early as before the siege of the city, Zhang Xianzhong put down his harsh words: "Guicheng is the grass and trees do not move, resisting that is, the old and the young do not stay", so after Zhang Xianzhong attacked Chengdu, the people in Chengdu fell into extreme panic, but they never expected that Zhang Xianzhong did not wave a butcher knife at them.
In fact, not slaughtering the city is not that Zhang Xianzhong has the heart of a bodhisattva, but a means of his demagoguery, and the first order he issued after entering Chengdu was "do not kill the pawns". Zhang Xianzhong ordered the troops not to kill the captives, but to cut off their right hands as punishment, and the history books record that "the thieves broke the arms of 37,000 soldiers."
Zhang Xianzhong's purpose in cutting off the arms of the captives was threefold: 1. Letting these captured Ming troops exchange their arms for their lives could show the world That Zhang Xianzhong's magnanimity and arrogance were extraordinary; 2. What was cut off was the right hand, because even if the right hand was cut off, these captives could not take up arms against themselves in the future.
3. Use the cutting off of the arm to deter and tell the people of Sichuan that as long as they dare to disobey Me Zhang Xianzhong, this is the end.
After Zhang Xianzhong occupied Sichuan, he ordered that the people of Sichuan be exempted from taxes for three years, and held an imperial examination for the whole province. These policies made the people of Sichuan, who had just experienced the brutal oppression of the Ming Dynasty, seem to see hope again, so that at the beginning of the establishment of the "Great West" regime, the people of Sichuan welcomed the invader very much.
However, the Sichuan people gradually discovered that this "Great West King" was actually a murderous demon. Zhang Xianzhong summoned tens of thousands of readers from various counties in Sichuan in the name of "Keju", but they all had only one final outcome - death.
According to one surviving scholar, Jiading Ouyang Zhi, "Dedication ... Transferred students to listen to the examination, to the forbidden Daci Temple... One person is taken by a soldier, and he is led to the South Gate Bridge to pray into the water, the teachers, students, masters and servants pay for the clear flow, the river is red, the corpses are blocked, and more than ten days are floating away. ”
Zhang Xianzhong not only killed the readers, but even the innocent people he had to slaughter.
Zhang Xianzhong indiscriminately killed innocents
In November 1645, the Great Western Army was defeated in successive battles on the Hanzhong front, and the Qing army suppressed the territory; in the southern Sichuan region, Zhang Xianzhong's troops were also not happy, and many townships in the southern Sichuan region were lost, and the Southern Ming army was like a broken bamboo.
At this time, Zhang Xianzhong fell into a situation of being attacked by the enemy on his stomach and back, and it just so happened that at this time, there was a momentum of opposition to Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan and it became more and more noisy, which completely angered Zhang Xianzhong, who was cruel and cruel.
Stills of the Qing army suppressing the territory
On November 23 of that year, Zhang Xianzhong gathered an army to massacre all the people in Chengdu on the grounds that "the Sichuan people colluded with the enemy and intended to riot"! After that, the former bustling Chengdu was full of corpses and rivers of blood overnight, and for some time since then, Chengdu has been an uninhabited deserted city and a "dead city" full of dead silence.
Zhang Xianzhong also gradually lost the hearts of the people because of his murderous nature, and finally lost the hearts of the people, and he was forced to give up Sichuan.
Statue of Zhang Xianzhong
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="37" > summary</h1>
In November of the third year of Shunzhi, the Qing army Hauge led Aobai, Zhunta and others to Xichong, at this time Zhang Xianzhong, who was unaware of the Qing army's movements, happened to encounter Aobai's troops, and he personally went out to the camp to observe without knowing anything, but was unexpectedly recognized by the old subordinates who had defected to the Qing army at this time.
Knowing that the person standing on the opposite hill was Zhang Xianzhong, the Qing archers immediately shot an arrow at him, and this arrow also thoroughly understood the life of Zhang Xianzhong, the "King of the Great West". With the death of Zhang Xianzhong, the Great Western Army was leaderless and collapsed, and the rule of the Great Western Dynasty in Sichuan also ended.