In the leap june of the second year of Shunzhi (1645 AD), the university scholar Hong Chengyu was transferred to the post of "Military Scholar of the Governor of the South" and went to Nanjing. At this time, the Southern Ming Hongguang regime had just collapsed, and the smoke of war in Jiangnan had not yet been extinguished, and the purpose of Hong Chengzu's visit was to appease all parts of the southeast.
In the Nanjing prison, an ordinary old man named Shen Baiwu was held on the charge of anti-Qing. At the beginning of his term of office, Hong Chengyu personally went to the cell with gifts to visit Shen Baiwu. Since there were countless people arrested and imprisoned in the anti-Qing Dynasty, why did Hong Chengzuo treat an old man who was about to be buried so courteously? It turned out that this Shen Baiwu had no power or prestige, but was kind to Hong Chengyu.
Decades ago, Shen Baiwu once met the impoverished Hong Chengyu in a guest house. At that time, Hong Chengzuo was only a teenager, ragged and hungry. Shen Baiwu thought that the tattered child in front of him had an extraordinary temperament and would become the pillar of the imperial court in the future--the imperial court in Shen Baiwu's heart was naturally the Ming Dynasty. He not only provided Food and Clothing for Hong Chengzuo, but also warmly invited Hong Chengzu to his home as a guest. Hong Chengyu was grateful to Dade, honored Shen Baiwu as his uncle, and wrote letters after Zhongju became an official. Now seeing that Shen Baiwu was a prisoner of the order, Hong Chengyu hurried over to save him.
In the cell, Shen Baiwu was gaunt and blind, sitting paralyzed on the ground, and Hong Chengwu came from his heart and hugged Shen Baiwu and cried. Shen Baiwu deliberately pretended not to know anyone and said, "I am blind, who are you?" Hong Chengzuo replied: "The little nephew is Hong Chengzuo, does the uncle remember?" No, Shen Baiwu scolded: "Hong Gong has been generously favored by the imperial court and has already been martyred!" What adulterer are you? Hong Chengyu listened awkwardly and whispered to Shen Baiwu to submit to the Qing Dynasty and get out of prison to enjoy his old age. Shen Baiwu scolded even more
Fierce, one by one, a "traitor", questioned why Hong Chengyu had trapped himself in "injustice". Hong Chengyu listened to the scolding for a long time, and saw that Shen Baiwu had no intention of submitting, so he had to walk away silently. Shen Baiwu was immediately killed.
This was just the beginning of Hong Chengyu's embarrassment in Nanjing. Hong Chengyu is generally rejected. Every time he was interrogated or surrendered, he was either fruitless or scolded. When Hong Chengzu interrogated Xia Wanchun, a Prodigy boy in Jiangnan who was defeated and captured by the anti-Qing army, Xia Wanchun, 16, said to the officials of Mantang: "I grew up hearing that there was a Mr. Hong Hengjiu (Hong Chengzuzi) in my dynasty, who was loyal to the king and served the country, and was martyred in Songshan, shocking China and foreign countries. I admired his loyalty and vowed to serve the country by example and not to fall behind Mr. Hong. These words left Hong Chengzuo speechless. One of the retinue thought that Xia Wanchun did not know Hong Chengyu, and pointed out that it was Mr. Hengjiu who was sitting in the hall. Xia Wanchun took the opportunity to point at Hong Chengzu's nose and scolded: "Mr. Hong is a 157 animal for the country, and everyone in the world knows it." The former emperor personally set up sacrifices, and the Manchu Dynasty wept bitterly and mourned. How dare the traitors in the church impersonate martyrs and insult their loyal souls! Another time, Hong Chengzu interrogated Sun Zhaokui, the leader of the Wuzhong rebel army. Previously, when the Qing army attacked Yangzhou, it did not find the body of the inspector Shi Kefa, and it has been rumored in society that "Shi Kefa is not dead". Therefore, Hong asked Sun whether Shi Kefa, who was defending the city in Yangzhou before in the Ming army, was really killed in battle. Sun Zhaokui asked Hong Chengzu, who was in the north before, whether Hong Chengzu, who had been martyred at Songshan, had really been martyred. Hong Chengzuo was once again dumbfounded.
Huang Daozhou, a scholar of the Southern Ming Longwu Dynasty, insisted on resisting the Qing in Jiangxi, and was captured and escorted to Nanjing. Hong Chengyu personally went to persuade him to surrender, walked to the cell, and saw a pair of Zodiac Zhou handwritten letters:
History is fluent, although it has not yet become famous, it can finally be legal;
Hong En is vast and cannot repay the country and become a vendetta.
The method of using consonant inlays for couplets conceals "Shi Kefa Zhong" and "Hong Chengzu Anti". This represents the general view of the society at that time on Hong Chengzu and Shi Kefa, two Ming Dynasty scholars.
As a former Ming scholar who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and served as a pawn for the Qing Dynasty, Hong Chengzu was entangled in relations in the south and his prestige still existed, and he should be the ideal candidate to appease the southeast. No, the Jiangnan Shiren did not recognize the existence of Hong Chengyu at all. They prefer that "Hong Chengyu" is dead, a glorious name that stays in the annals of history. Hong Chengzuo's early student Jin Zhengxi ran to Nanjing to visit the teacher and said that he had written an article and asked the teacher for guidance. Hong Chengyu was full of troubles and did not have the heart to consider the article, and did not want to read it under the pretext that his eyes were sick. Kim Jong-hee insisted on reading it to the teacher. Therefore, he opened the scroll in public and recited aloud the eulogy written by the Chongzhen Emperor who had hanged himself and martyred the previous year, "A Brief Text of the Tribute to the Hong Jing". Suddenly, the whole hall was shocked. The bodyguard Qingbing rushed in and put Kim Jong-hee on death row. Above the lobby, listening to the loud words and the cries of the old students, Hong Chengzuo seemed to have returned to the first half of his life, and changed back to the Ming Dynasty minister who was conquering the west.
Born into a poor family in Fujian, Hong Chengzuo dropped out of school as a child to help his mother make dried beans at home to make a living. Every day, just after dawn, Hong Chengyu began to walk the streets and alleys to sell dried beans. Different from ordinary peasant teenagers, Hong Chengyu often lay on the window of the village school to listen to lessons after selling dried beans, and learned to do pairs by himself. Mr. Murasaki found that Hong Chengyu was eager to learn and accepted him as an apprentice for free. After returning to school, in addition to his excellent grades in the imperial examination, Hong Chengzuo also read a large number of books that have been used in the world, and showed his ambition to govern the country and the world from an early age. This is invaluable in the rigid and mediocre countryside of the late Ming Dynasty. The gentleman gave him the comment that "the family is thousands of miles, and the national stone is ten thousand jun".
In the forty-third year of the Wanli Calendar (1615 AD), the 23-year-old Hong Chengyu Zhongju won the fourteenth place in the second class of the temple examination the following year, and was born into the military and officially entered the official field.
From the Wanli calendar to the apocalypse, Hong Chengyu lived a step-by-step life, obscurity. After the Chongzhen Emperor ascended the throne, Hong Chengyu began to rise rapidly. The Chongzhen Emperor had an understanding of Hong Chengzu. The cause of the incident was that from the first year of Chongzhen (1628 AD), an uprising of Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Li Zicheng and others broke out in Shaanxi, and hundreds of rebel armies rose and fell one after another, shocking the government and the opposition. In the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627 AD), Hong Chengzu had just ascended to the shaanxi governor's council and came to this place. In the second year of Chongzhen (1629 AD), the rebel army attacked Hancheng, and Yang He, who was the governor of the three sides at the time, had no adjustment, and he was ill and rushed to the hospital, allowing Hong Chengzu to lead the army to battle. Unwillingly, Hong Chengyu defeated the rebel army and lifted the siege of Hancheng, making him famous. After that, Hong Chengyu was promoted to inspector of Yansui and began to show his fists. His main achievement was the suppression of the peasant uprising in Shaanxi. Yang He pursued a "policy of appeasement" to the rebels, while Hong Chengzu did the opposite, vigorously purge and suppress, and killed countless people, giving him the name "Hong Madman". The heinous practice of the Hong madman was that even the surrendered peasant army could not be killed. His explanation was that the rebel army often surrendered when it was exhausted, and then rebelled after replenishing its strength, and the Ming Dynasty repeatedly suppressed it without success, which was too kind to the rebel army. Hong Chengzu's approach was effective, and he was promoted to governor after Yang He. He concentrated his forces and went all out to suppress the rebel army, achieved the "Great Victory of Western Australia", and reversed the decline of the Ming army. In the seventh year of Chongzhen (1634 AD), the Chongzhen Emperor asked Hong Chengyu to add the titles of Prince Taibao and Bingbu Shangshu on the basis of the three governors, and the military affairs of the five provinces of Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Huguang, and Sichuan entrusted him with military power in Guannei. Hong Chengzu lived up to the emperor's favor and won successive victories in suppressing peasant uprisings, capturing Gao Yingxiang and defeating Li Zicheng many times. Li Zicheng finally fled with only 18 horses into the Shangluo Mountains in southern Shaanxi.
At this point, Hong Chengzu, who started a practical family, became the pillar of the Ming Dynasty and the minister of Chongzhen.
Therefore, when the Qing army outside Guanwai took the Pass south and swept the Beijing Division, the chongzhen emperor and his ministers first thought of transferring Hong Chengzu to preside over the battle against the Qing army. As a result, Hong Chengzu came to the north from Shaanxi fengchen servants, served as the governor of Jiliao, presided over the military affairs of Liaodong, and commanded 130,000 elite soldiers under the eight general officers. At that time, the Ming and Qing armies were fiercely fighting over the Shanhaiguan and Jinzhou areas. Once the Qing army occupied this area, it opened the door to marching into Beijing to destroy the Ming Dynasty. It can be said that the government and the opposition have pinned the safety of the dynasty on Hong Chengzuo's body. At the beginning of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1641 AD), the main force of the Qing army besieged Jinzhou, and the Jinzhou defender Zu Dashou was in a hurry. Hong Chengzu led his army to meet the battle. The great battle that decided the fate of the Ming and Qing dynasties broke out under jinzhou city.
Hong Chengyu's operational thinking is very clear, that is, to fight steadily and slowly approach Jinzhou. Because on the one hand, the enemy attacked and defended us, the Ming army was suitable for taking every step as a battalion and seeing tricks and dismantling moves; on the other hand, the army under Hong Cheng's account 159 came from all over the country, and there were complicated internal coordination and balance problems, which was not suitable for large corps to fight collectively. This line of thought of his was initially approved by the Chongzhen Emperor, and at first it also controlled the commanding heights because of this line of thought, thwarting the active attack of the Qing army. After achieving initial results, the Chongzhen Emperor, who was both suspicious and suspicious, listened to the urgent battle opinions of the new soldier Shangshu Chen Xinjia and ordered Hong Chengzu to attack quickly and look for a decisive battle for the Qing army. Chen Xinjia also sent a supervisory army to the front line to supervise Hong Chengzu to make a quick decision. Hong Chengyu had no choice but to supervise the large army to advance in a big stride. Emperor Taiji was rewarded, poured all his strength into bypassing the main force of the Ming army, attacked the rear Tower Mountain, and cut off the supply of food and grass for the Ming army. The Ming army was shaken. The commanders-in-chief of the various departments advocated retreat, and Hong Chengzu and everyone agreed to jointly break through. No, the generals have already decided, violated military orders, and rushed to withdraw their troops. First, Wang Pu, the commander-in-chief of Datong, led his troops to escape overnight, and then Ma Ke and Wu Sangui's two troops followed. The Qing army took the opportunity to pursue and kill, more than 100,000 Ming troops collapsed, more than 50,000 people were killed, and countless people died by trampling on each other and jumping into the sea. The main battle ended in a crushing defeat for the Ming Dynasty.
Hong Chengyu led more than 10,000 remnants of the defeated army to flee to Songshan City, where he was surrounded by Qing legions. In the following six months, none of the breakthroughs organized by Hong Chengzu were successful, and the Ming reinforcements on the outside line were afraid of battle and did not dare to rescue. Matsuyama ran out of ammunition, and the Qing army, with the cooperation of the generals, attacked the city in one fell swoop, and Hong Chengyu was captured. The Ming army of Jinzhou, which had been besieged for a long time, surrendered to the Qing army under the leadership of Zu Dashou. Since then, the Ming Dynasty has lost Liaodong and is unable to fight against the Qing army.
When the bad news came, the government and the public were shocked. The ministers all thought that Hong Chengzu would undoubtedly die, and the Chongzhen Emperor was extremely saddened, so he quit the dynasty for three days and sacrificed Hong Chengzu with the specifications of a prince, "giving sacrifice to sixteen altars", an altar for seven days, and personally offering sacrifices, promulgating the "Sketch of the Book of Mourning Hong" to inform the world. Hong Chengzu received the greatest mourning that a human subject could get. Although Hong Chengzu was to bear considerable responsibility for the defeat of Liaodong, the government and the public ministers did not pursue and accuse him at first. On the contrary, Chen Xinjia and the frontline supervisors and others were impeached and were responsible for the defeat. When the sacrifice reached the ninth altar, even greater bad news came: Hong Chengyu had descended! The Ming Dynasty hastened to stop the sacrifice of Hong Chengzu and instead fight the flogging.
Hong Chengzu's surrender to Qing was unacceptable to the Ming Dynasty society, except for the point of "bending down to the barbarians", it was he who failed to live up to the emperor's kindness and the expectations of the government and the public, and did not martyr the country with his body, and even more he surrendered to the enemy and betrayed the country, and he lost his reputation.
Before the Zodiac Zhou was righteous, he tore his clothes and left a blood book: "Gang Chang is eternal; "The Confucian ethics and the loyalty of personal honor and righteousness are the basic criteria for historical evaluation of a character. Zodiac Zhou Li supported the crisis situation, generously went to righteousness, and his reputation went down in history; and Hong Chengzu could not resist the enemy and serve the country, but also failed to live up to the emperor's kindness and the high expectations of the government and the public, and even treasonously surrendered to the enemy, of course, he would be left behind for thousands of years. This is no problem, the problem is that people ignore: why did Hong Chengzu descend to Qing? What did he do after he was cleared?
Hong Chengyu surrendered to the Qing Dynasty after psychological struggle. He had deep roots in Confucianism, naturally knew the ethics of the Gangchang and attached importance to personal honor. At the beginning of his capture, Hong Chengyu did not say a word, closed his eyes to those who came to persuade him to surrender, and only asked for a quick death. How did the transformation of death and surrender be accomplished? It is certainly not the result of the beauty scheme of the couple of Huang Taiji and Concubine Zhuang. However, Fan Wencheng, a Han Chinese who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty earlier than Hong Chengzu, seized Hong's psychology--this Fan Wencheng was a descendant of Fan Zhongyan, who took the initiative to defect to the Qing Dynasty, causing a lot of commotion in the Ming Dynasty. When Fan Wencheng came to persuade him to surrender, Hong Chengzuo did not look at him at all, and closed his eyes to recuperate. Fan Wencheng did not think that he could persuade Hong Chengzuo to surrender at one time, and did not mention the surrender at all, but instead talked with Hong Chengzuo about poetry and classics. Hong Chengyu had been living in the army for a long time, and he was trapped outside the plug, and he actually heard the Zhongyuan Palm And Confucian classics, and his eyes were refreshed, and he opened his eyes and talked with Fan Wencheng very happily. During the conversation, a piece of swallow mud fell from the beam of the room, which was falling on Hong Chengyu's clothes. Hong Chengyu spoke while gently dusting it off. Fan Wencheng looked in his eyes, did not move, and went back to play the Emperor Taiji: "Hong Chengyu is not dead. Chengzu still cherishes our robes, but how is his body? ”
Indeed, Hong Chengzuo did not have the will to die. He has a deep nostalgia for the world. Since he was a child, Hong Chengzu has been determined to govern the country and the world, and his career has been very heavy after entering politics. He is pragmatic and fierce, and he has a wide range of knowledge. When he was captured, Hong Chengzuo was 50 years old, still in good health, excellent in ability, rich in political experience, and was at a critical moment to meet the new glory of his career. Originally thinking of doing a big job, he suddenly became a prisoner of the order, and Hong Chengzuo was not willing.
Emperor Taiji agreed with Fan Wencheng's judgment of Hong Chengzuo, and was more generous to Hong Chengzu, hoping to recruit him for his own use. Good birds choose trees to roost. Compared with Huang Taiji, Chongzhen was obedient, uncertain, miserly, and extremely immature politically; Huang Taiji was steady and generous, Wen Tao was slightly above Chongzhen, and the Qing Dynasty under his command was vigorous and vigorous, and was in a period of vigorous growth. Recalling the encounters of Ming courtiers under the Chongzhen Emperor (such as Yuan Chonghuan and Sun Chuanting), and looking at the state and future of the Hundred Officials of the Qing Dynasty under Emperor Taiji, Hong Chengzuo's psychological balance began to tilt towards Emperor Taiji and the Qing Dynasty. Until one day, when Emperor Taiji saw that Hong Chengzuo's clothes were thin, he immediately took off the mink fur on his body and draped it on Hong Chengzuo's body, and Hong Chengzuo was greatly moved. He had the ability and experience to govern the country and the world, so he lacked the "heavenly time" that needed the support of the emperor, and immediately expressed his submission to the Great Qing. Emperor Taiji was overjoyed and announced that he had found a guide to calm the world.
Hong Chengzu did play a guiding role in the unification of China by the Qing Dynasty. In 1644, Li Zicheng attacked the city of Beijing, and Dolgun, who ruled the Qing Dynasty, led an army of 100,000 people to the south, intending to take advantage of the fire and loot. When the news came that Li Zicheng had captured Beijing and the Chongzhen Emperor had hanged himself, Hong Chengyu immediately suggested that 161 change the marching plan and go straight to Beijing from Jizhou and Miyun. The Qing Dynasty adopted Hong Chengzu's suggestion and set a general policy of replacing the Ming Dynasty in unifying the country. On the way to the march, Hong Chengzu also suggested that the Qing army do a good job of propaganda, "do not slaughter the people, do not burn the huts, do not plunder property," "announce to the provinces and counties, open the door and surrender, the officials will be promoted, and the military and civilians will not commit any crimes." If they resisted, the day they went down, the officials were reprimanded, and the people were still safe. Those who initiate internal responses will be rewarded out of the ordinary." His suggestion was adopted again, and received great political results, and most of the Ming troops passing through the prefectures and counties and along the way took the initiative to submit. After the Qing Dynasty came to power in Beijing, Hong Chengzu promoted the Qing Dynasty to follow the Ming Dynasty's canonical system, recommended many Ming officials, and quickly improved and strengthened the State Apparatus of the Qing Dynasty. He also suggested that the Manchu magnates learn the Han language and writing, understand the etiquette and customs of the Han people, advocate Confucianism, and dilute the differences between the Manchu and Han ethnic groups. The Qing Dynasty was able to quickly pacify the north and replace the Ming Dynasty, and Hong Chengzu played a great role in it. The Shunzhi Emperor attached great importance to Hong Chengzu, and appointed him as the Crown Prince Taibao (太保), the Shangshu of the Bingbu (兵部尚書) and the Right Governor of the Imperial Household of the Imperial Household bureau ( ) , and was appointed as a scholar of the Inner Yuan , and was appointed as a scholar of the Secretariat Academy.
In the second year of Shunzhi (1645 AD), DuoDuo, the Prince of Yu, attacked Nanjing and destroyed the Southern Ming Hongguang regime. Dorgon brazenly promoted the shaving of his hair in the south, and the opponents killed him without mercy, provoking a wave of resistance to the Qing in the south. At the time of crisis, Hong Chengyu was ordered to replace Duoduo and sit in Nanjing, inviting all parts of the southeast. Despite the unanimous sarcasm of the southerners, Hong Chengzuo's Career in Nanjing still achieved outstanding political achievements. On the condition that the former officials remain in office, he peacefully recruited thirteen provinces, including Ningguo, Huizhou, Jiujiang, and Nanchang, to keep large areas away from the flames of war; he adopted a series of measures to exempt the people from enrichment and profits, reduce the burden on the people, and restore production and stabilize order as much as possible. In the tenth year of Shunzhi (1653 AD), the southern Ming Gui king's regime, with the support of the peasant army, established a state in Yungui. Hong Chengzu was once again appointed to serve as the military governor of the five provinces of Huguang, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou. He first set up an ambush in Yuezhou and defeated Sun Kewang's peasant army, forcing the gui king's regime to shrink. After the Qing army pacified Yunnan, Hong Chengzuo advocated slowing down military operations, recruiting the people to resume production, and gradually settling down the Yunnan-Guizhou region. From the perspective of preserving the locality and stabilizing the society, Dr. Sun Yat-sen once wrote a poem praising Hong Chengzuo: "The living soul is not destroyed, and no one knows the merits." ”
In short, after Hong Chengzu surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, he assisted in government affairs and appeased the south for 16 years, which played a positive role in the smooth social change in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. His political achievements after the Qing Dynasty far exceeded those of the suppression of the peasant army in the Ming Dynasty, and it was the most brilliant achievement of his ambition to display his talents.
Later generations often use the objective effect of a historical figure's actions on future generations to praise and denigrate his value, which is unreasonable. Because it ignores the impact of what historical figures did on the time. From this point of view, Hong Chengzuo's actions had a positive and objective effect on future generations, but the negative effects of treason and surrender of the enemy at "that time" should be taken into account. The author has no intention of overturning the case for Hong Chengzuo, but only wants to jump out of the logic of "hereafter" and "then" and talk about the political behavior of readers.