Hong Chengzuo can be said to be a very controversial figure, many people think that he is a traitor, but for the Qing Dynasty, he is also a great hero, it can be said that without Hong Chengzu, there would definitely be no Qing Dynasty, although Hong Chengzu made great contributions to the Qing, when still did not avoid a tragic end.
Hong Chengyu was young and poor, helped his mother sell dried beans for a living, dropped out of school at the age of eleven, the local scholar Hong Qiyin sympathized with him, teaching Hong Chengzu "History", "Zizhi Tongjian", "Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms", "Sun Tzu's Art of War", etc. In the seventh year of the Ming Dynasty (1627), he was promoted to the Governor of Shaanxi Province.
At that time, Shaanxi was a high incidence of peasant uprisings, and Hong Chengzu's judgment of the peasant army was also very accurate, and he was also very brave in fighting against the peasant rebel army, and later promoted to inspector of Yansui, and in October he was appointed the governor of Shaanxi on the three sides, and in 1634, he added prince Taibao and Bingbu Shangshu, and concurrently supervised the military affairs of Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Huguang to suppress the peasant uprising. In the battle against the peasant army, He captured Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, and sent him to Beijing for execution, and then defeated Li Zicheng in succession, and the peasant uprising turned to a low tide, but at this time Lu Xiangsheng, who resisted the Qing soldiers, was killed in battle, and the Chongzhen Emperor transferred Hong Chengzu to resist the Qing, as the governor of Jiliao, because the local general soldiers did not obey the orders, coupled with the urging of the central government, and finally Hong Chengzu lost in the anti-Qing, was besieged on Songshan, captured by the Qing soldiers, and finally persuaded to surrender.
Speaking of persuasion, there are also stories and legends, saying that The Emperor Taiji sent Xiaozhuang to seduce Hong Chengzuo, and found that Hong Chengzu "spared his clothes", and finally persuaded Hong Chengzuo to surrender. After Hong Chengzu descended to the Qing Dynasty, it can be said that he made great contributions to the Qing Dynasty.
1. Contribute to Dorgon and defeat Li Zicheng to enter the pass
Li Zicheng's Dashun army captured Beijing, the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide, and the Ming Dynasty collapsed. At this time, Hong Chengguan suggested to Duo'erguan to "unexpectedly advance from Jizhou and Miyun near Beijing", straight to Beijing, and Dolgun adopted Hong Chengzu's suggestion, and also accepted Wu Sangui's surrender, and finally defeated the Dashun army. Hong Chengzu suggested that the target be aimed at the Dashun army, recruiting the relics of the former Ming Dynasty, and soon the Qing court stabilized the three provinces of Northern Zhili, Shandong, and Shanxi, and moved the capital to Yanjing. After entering the customs, the Shunzhi Emperor appointed him as the Crown Prince Taibao, the Bingbu Shangshu and the Right Governor of the Imperial Household, and entered the Inner Courtyard to handle military affairs and conferred the title of Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, becoming the first Han scholar of the Qing Dynasty.
2. Do your best to help the Qing Dynasty appease Jiangnan
With the victory of the Qing Dynasty army, Dorgon was overwhelmed by the victory, so he issued a shaving order, which aroused the anti-Qing upsurge of the people of the whole country, the form of Jiangnan was in a bad state, and in the midst of danger, Dolgun replaced Dolgun with Hong Chengzu in leap June, awarded the "Military University Scholar who recruited the governors of Jiangnan provinces", and gave him a cheap act. During his term of office, Hong Chengzu tried his best to alleviate the ethnic contradictions between the Manchu and Han Dynasties, mainly appeasement and recruitment, and because he understood the ideas of the Ming soldiers and civilians, he was quickly pacified, but in the process he also suppressed and slaughtered a large number of righteous soldiers loyal to the Ming royal family, and was scolded by the world.
3. Ping Yunnan, conquest of the Yongli regime
With the development of the situation, the Yongli Emperor, with the support of Sun Kewang, occupied Yunnan and launched the War of the Northern Expedition against the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty has been unable to solve the Yongli regime, at this time Hong Chengzu was 61 years old, and he was appointed as "Taibao and Prince Taishi, through the five provinces of Huguang, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guizhou, the governor of the military affairs and grain pay", "officials and soldiers must not be constrained, household departments must not be delayed", "after the news", sent out to conquer the Southern Ming Yongli regime. With the efforts of Hong Chengzu, the Qing army pacified Yunnan, and Hong Chengzu asked for internal funds to help the poor, and temporarily postponed the march to the remnants of king Gui who fled to Burma, so that the social order of Yunnan-Gui after the war tended to be stable and production began to resume. In August, he requested to return to Beijing due to old age and deterioration, and the following year he was ordered to return to Beijing, but he was treated coldly.
Hong Chengzu made such a great contribution to the Qing Dynasty that he should be rewarded by the Qing Dynasty according to reason, and even Wu Sangui was made the King of Pingxi, but when Hong Chengzu retired, the Kangxi Emperor granted Hong Chengzu the insignificant title of third-class light car lieutenant. This was a great humiliation for Hong Chengzuo, after the Qing Dynasty accepted Confucian culture, it was considered to be a "traitor to the Ming Dynasty", so the Qing Dynasty included Hong Chengzuo in the "Biography of the Second Minister", and only remembered his great merits before listing him as a second minister.
In the Qing Dynasty, he was not accepted, and he was even more embarrassed in front of his own villagers and fathers. After Hong Chengzu entered the Qing Dynasty, he returned to his hometown and built a mansion in Quanzhou. After the completion of the Hong mansion, there was not a single relative or friend who came to the door. It was Hong Chengyu's mother and brother who refused to move in. The younger brother lamented the demise of the country, the elder brother surrendered to the enemy, swore that "his head would not wear the Qing Dynasty heavens, and his feet would not step on the Qing Dynasty's land", and he took his mother to live on a boat and lived in seclusion across the river.