Author: Old History
▲In front of the Yangzhou Shi Kefa Memorial Hall
Count the tears of the plum blossoms,
The two clear moons are the hearts of the former subjects.
This is a painting written by the Qing Dynasty scholar Zhang Erxing to mourn the national hero Shi Kefa at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Today, it is still hanging in front of the Yangzhou Shigong Ancestral Hall, which expresses the endless mourning of Shi Kefa in later generations.
▲ Statue of Shi Kefa
Shi Kefa, also spelled Xianzhi, was born in the 30th year of the Ming Dynasty. In the first year of Chongzhen, he was a Chinese-style jinshi, who served as the governor of Xi'an Province, the chief of the household department, the member wailang, and langzhong, and later with the titles of right counselor and deputy envoy, he successively served as Anchi and Anlu Bingbeidao, and divided into Anqing, Chizhou, Luzhou, and other places; in the tenth year of Chongzhen, Shi Kefa was promoted to the post of Right Governor of The Imperial History, Inspector of Anqing, and stationed in Jielu'an; In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, he was ordered to go to The Governor of Huai'an, Caoyun, to inspect Fengyang; on July 20, 2016, When Shangshu Xiongming of the Nanjing Military Department was deposed, he was promoted to Shangshu of the Nanjing Bingbu, Counselor of The Machine, and the official to Erpin. Throughout his life, he was a clean and honest official, with outstanding political achievements, and was a famous politician in the late Ming Dynasty.
On March 19, 1777, Li Zicheng led a peasant army into Beijing and established the Dashun Dynasty, while the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youjian, hanged himself at Coal Mountain, declaring the end of the Ming Dynasty. When the news reached the capital nanjing, Shi Kefa first presided over the election of a new monarch together with the minister of Nanjing, in the capacity of Shangshu of the Nanjing Bingbu, and then presided over the election of a new monarch with the minister of Nanjing. On the third day of the first month of May, The Fu King Zhu Yousong oversaw the state of Nanjing, and Shi Kefa, Gao Hongtu, Jiang Yueguang, and Wang Duo were also scholars of Dongge University; on the fifteenth day, the Fu King declared himself emperor in Nanjing, established the Southern Ming Dynasty, and decreed that the next year would be the first year of Hongguang. Ostracized by Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng and a gang of traitors, Shi Kefa resigned on the eighteenth and went to Yangzhou as a scholar and soldier of Dongge University.
In March of the first year of Hongguang, the Qing army, under the leadership of Duoduo, the king of Yu, marched south in a big way to prepare to unify the world. From April 15 to 25, the Qing army besieged the ancient city of Yangzhou. Facing the 100,000 qing troops, Shi Kefa led an army of less than 10,000 people to resist, and after holding out for a full ten days, he was finally outnumbered and Yangzhou fell. Seeing that the situation was irreparable, Shi Kefa took the knife and killed himself, but he did not stop. Although Later, King Duoduo of Qingyu treated him like a guest and persuaded him to surrender, Shi Kefa was unyielding and tragic, and performed the last scene of his generosity and tragedy.
▲ "The Complete Biography of Shi Kefa"
In the book "The Complete Biography of Shi Kefa" published by Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press in June 2018, I gave a detailed introduction to Shi Kefa's life. The first two volumes of the book total 1.3 million words, from the first year of the Apocalypse Zuo GuangDou xue Gyeonggi coincidental encounter with Shi Kefa, to Shi Kefa's heroic righteousness in Yangzhou, almost the whole process records Shi Kefa's short life. In this long work, whether it is the protagonist Shi Kefa or various other historical figures, the author makes a true description with a serious and serious attitude, does not make groundless distortions and fabrications, respects both the true feelings of history and the deep feelings of national heroes, and also shows the intricate social contradictions and magnificent class and national wars in the history of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. In order to make more work very busy, it is difficult to have enough time to read the thick "Shi Kefa Complete Biography", but interested readers in the limited spare time to understand Shi Kefa and those things that happened in the last period of the Ming Dynasty, this work is re-created in a concise style, I hope the majority of readers like!
Updated 10-25
Editor: Yan Jingping