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Zhang Hongjie (born in 1972, Liaoning Province), a doctor of history Chinese at Fudan University, a postdoctoral fellow at Tsinghua University, and a native of Liaoning Province, included 10 of his "historical essays" (people, events) in his 2019 book Millennium Paradox: Historical Experimental Records of Human Nature (published by Chongqing Publishing House). Among them, the article "Nowhere to Take: Wu Sangui" involves his comments on Hong Chengzuo in many places. The editors of Yingdu Township News hereby excerpt these paragraphs about commenting on Hong Chengzuo and share them with netizens. Zhang Hongjie's comments on historical figures have always been "neither critical nor looked up, he just held a compassionate heart, put himself in the shoes of his characters, and shared sorrow and joy" (Mo Yan).
Zhang Hongjie commented on Hong Chengzuo
Yuan Chonghuan, the most prominent military leader of the late Ming Dynasty, was killed alive by the Chongzhen Emperor because of a manchurian who was not very clever. After Yuan Chonghuan, the most talented general, Hong Chengzu, was also suspected of being pushed into the doom of being discredited.
Hong Chengzuo, Zi Hengjiu, a native of Nan'an, Fujian, entered the priesthood in the forty-fourth year of the Ming Dynasty (1616) and rose to the upper echelons of society according to the formal path. However, unlike the average reader, the dogmatic Confucian indoctrination model did not destroy his ability to think. He has become calm and pragmatic and has a strong ability to do things. In the early years of Chongzhen (1628), the Shaanxi peasant army shook the world, the officials fled in the wind, Hong Chengyu was ordered to go to suppress, six broke Li Zicheng's army, captured the leader of the rebel army, Gao Yingxiang, and dealt a devastating blow to the peasant army. At the beginning of the war in Shaanxi, the situation in Kwantung was tight, and the Chongzhen Emperor again enlisted the military of Liaodong, the governor of Hongcheng. Summing up the lessons of the repeated defeats of the previous Liaodong military commanders, Hong Chengzu formulated a strategy of fighting steadily and steadily, and in view of the fact that the Manchurians had already established their wings and were quite strong, he decided to adopt the strategy of stationing the Manchurians for a long time and gradually driving the Manchus back to their hometowns. It should be said that this was the only realistic strategy under the situation at that time, and it was also the biggest chance for the Ming Dynasty to win in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Unfortunately, Hong Chengzu's strategic concept was fiercely opposed by the imperial court, and the impatient Chongzhen and those officials who were proficient in Xiao Kai and the Eight Shares unanimously advocated a quick battle and a quick decision, and they thought that it was a great shame that the great powers of the Heavenly Dynasty could not deal with a small foreign race. One by one, the chapters accusing Hong Chengyu of cowardice and cowardice and the servants were handed to the emperor one by one, and the emperor sent one eunuch after another to supervise the army at the front, and the edict revealed more and more obvious suspicions and killing chances. Forced to fight in a hurry, Hong Chengyu, who was forced to be helpless, resulted in the total annihilation of the army.
Hong Chengzu was not defeated by the Manchus, he was defeated by his own compatriots.
When Hong Chengzuo had just been captured, he also had a mind to martyrdom, and he was barefoot in the Prison of the Manchus, cursing day and night, only to die quickly. However, Huang Taiji was not angry at all, provided Hong Chengyu with fine clothes and delicacies, took good care of them, and constantly sent people to persuade him to surrender, and did patient and meticulous ideological work. After a while, he personally went to visit the prison, and seeing that Hong's clothes were thin, he untied his mink coat and draped it on him, and asked: "Sir, do you have any chills?" Hong Chengyu stared at him for a long time and sighed, "The Lord of the True Destiny World also!" "Bow your head and bow down."
Hong Chengzu is not a corrupt Confucian, and the advantages and disadvantages between manchu qing and Zhu Ming are clear at a glance. In the process of dealing with the Manchurians, he personally felt that this nation had great prospects and would surely take Zhu Ming's place, and what made him finally make up his mind to surrender was the irresistible personal charm of this Manchurian ruler.
Hong Chengzu was one of the figures that Wu Sangui sincerely respected among the princes of the dynasty. In Wu Sangui's eyes, there are not many such people. For readers, Wu Sangui's psychology has always been very contradictory. On the one hand, he was in awe of the profound truths of these people's mouths; on the other hand, he was often astonished that these people, who spoke the truth, often did things. These people are pedantic and naïve in doing the right thing, but the threshold for catching money is finer than anyone else, and the face of drilling camp is thicker than anyone. When they encountered the opportunity to invite fame and reputation, they rushed to make decisions about the charter, but they did not speak righteously and prevaricated one after another. Manchu Dynasty officials, the rate is more like this. Wu Sangui thought that the country had been corrupted at the hands of these people.
However, Hong Chengyu was different from them. This big handsome man's appearance is also equally weak, but there is a breath of transparency and calmness in his eyes. It was the calmness of having the city government in the chest and having insight and control. This scholar of the Famous Manchu Jing Division was not the kind of nerd who could only talk on paper, he put down his brush and stepped onto the war horse, and beat the imposing and unstoppable peasant army west of Guanshan to a great dismay, and beat the famous Li Zicheng to the point that only eighteen horses were left to defeat Shangluo. Wu Sangui felt that the book said that the self-cultivation qi family ruled the country and the world should be like this, the inner saint and the outer king, the lower Ma Nengwen, the upper Ma Nengwu, this is the teaching of the saints, the way of the saints.
Wu Sangui still clearly remembered the deep impression that Hong Chengzu left on him when he first left the customs. At the reception banquet, Hong Chengzu talked about the defensive situation outside the Guanwai, analyzed the decision, and cut to the point. It was on that occasion that Hong Chengzu put forward the idea of fighting a protracted war outside Guanwai, an idea that was unanimously supported by the generals outside Guanwai. Everyone thinks that this big marshal is obviously different from the big guys in the past who only talk about it. Drinking a little, Hong Chengyu talked about the situation in Guannei and the emperor's curfew, and the patriotic feelings of the worried king overflowed into words, and as he spoke, he even cried uncontrollably. Wu Sangui experienced a different kind of personality strength for the first time from Hong Chengzuo. He felt that this person's level was not the same as that of their warriors, the loyalty of the warriors was only the courage of the flesh, and The Great Marshal Hong was from the Divine Dao Heavenly Principle in his chest.
After the fall of Songjin, people were prepared for grief and waited for the news of his martyrdom to come. The Chongzhen Emperor had even set up an ancestral hall and an altar for Hong Chengyu in Beijing.
But Hong Chengyu actually surrendered. The glorious representative of this moral article has become an ugly traitor in the blink of an eye, falling from the towering moral temple into spiritual hell overnight. This role change is also too fast, it is really difficult to adapt.
Under the harsh moral and ethical standards, a person can easily be pushed into the polar choice of ice and charcoal, and endure the equally strong tearing of natural human nature and social ethics, and there is no third way. If you don't want to be a loyal subject, you can only choose to be a courtier, if you don't become a gentleman, you can only become a villain, if you don't become an angel, you can only be a devil with a fierce heart, and if you don't enter the holy temple, you can only kneel in front of the column of shame of history. Here, there is only the harsh pressure of moral dogma, and there is no room for the weakness and imperfection of real human nature.
In this case, death is even the simplest and easiest choice, and it takes courage to survive. You have to bear the double challenge of public opinion and inner guilt, which is often difficult for ordinary people to bear, if a person's vitality is not strong enough, it will definitely be under this pressure, and it will be difficult to emit heat.
Seven years before Wu Sangui launched a rebellion, Hong Chengyu died. By the time he was dying, he had lost power. Perhaps it was this that enabled him to finally go to sleep. The Qing government generously gave him many beautiful words in the eulogy. It is said that he "should be in the right time of Heaven, reach the great righteousness, and assist the dynasty in the cause of unifying the Taiping, and his text is also marked with the name of Bamboo Shuai, Le Xun Ding Yi".
However, by the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the world had been pacified, and the imperial court began to vigorously promote the "Festival of Subjects". The courtier of "Le Xun Ding Yi" was finally included in the "Biography of the Second Minister" by the government, and the praise of the past was gone, and all that remained was a harsh accusation and sharp ridicule of his betrayal of the monarch. He was finally nailed to the moral judgment table on the charge of stealing his life and disregarding the righteousness of the monarch.
In 1772, Qianlong, the most blessed emperor of the Qing Dynasty and grandson of the Kangxi Emperor, passed through Ningyuan City on his way out to worship his ancestors. Qianlong watched with great interest the two beautiful stone arches in Ningyuan City, and the poet-loving emperor wrote another "imperial poem":
Flintlock is more waiting for the dynasty, and the dove worker He Hui is still at ease.
If it were not for huabiao's name and surname, who would know the two dynasties of Yuan Rong.