Before that, I wrote the history of the Great Western Army's struggle against the Qing Dynasty for more than ten years, but there was still a lack of character commentaries by Li Dingguo, the King of Jin, which will be supplemented today, and at the same time, due to the length and time, it is divided into two articles to write.
Many people like to portray the King of Jin as a tall, majestic, white and flawless image. However, I think that this kind of thinking is too one-sided, and to evaluate Li Dingguo as a person, it is absolutely impossible to leave the historical background, especially the group of "Liukou".
Liu Kouduo was transformed into a border army of the Ming Dynasty.
Whether it is for the Zhu Ming royal family, or the military attaches and civilians who are honest and shameful, or the common people at the bottom, the history of the late Ming Dynasty is a huge tragedy. When Emperor Zhaozong escaped from Kunming, he saw that the soldiers and civilians fleeing for their lives on the road were so numerous that they almost blocked the road." Even to Biji Pass, the militia cried and shook the valley. "Chronicle of the Cruel Ming Dynasty" "Zhu Yourong lost his voice and cried bitterly on the rut of the car" to be a person and suffer a thousand surnames, it is better to return the palace to die in the society, so as not to make the people miserable! "Why did the emperor cry?" Because of the guilt, the guilt is that the people are ruined, but also because of fear, the fear is that the Daming River is about to collapse, and he will soon die, and the emperor himself is powerless, which is of course a huge tragedy for him. The same is true of Li Dingguo, and his life is not only full of tragedies, but also a life of contradictions.
Li Dingguo.
Li Dingguo, a native of Suide, Shaanxi, said in the Chronicle of Li Dingguo that he was probably born in 1620, that is, in the first year of Taichang (the forty-eighth year of the Wanli calendar), and Li Dingguo himself participated in the battle of Zhang Xianzhong's army attacking Xiangyang in 1641, and mixed with more than ten pioneers into Xiangyang City, which shows that Li Dingguo at this time must have been over 15 years old, and it is also possible that he was seventeen or eighteen years old, so it is more reasonable to say that he was born around 1620. But born in this year, his childhood was destined not to be happy.
Officers and soldiers.
The specific situation in Shaanxi in the early years of Chongzhen does not need to be said more, so how Li Dingguo entered Zhang Xianzhong's army, although there is no clear record, it is not difficult to guess, either the starving people or the ming officers and soldiers with extremely difficult living conditions with their families and mouths to zhang Xianzhong's army, or they were plundered by Zhang Xianzhong's army, of course, no matter what, Li Dingguo's parents are likely to have died when they were young, a lonely child mixed in with a group of rogues, all day facing is " Killing people everywhere", and the people around him talked about slaughtering, setting fires, and looting, which may have been resisted by the young Li Dingguo at the beginning, but in the end, he was also assimilated. I think that's why we can find a lot of records of slaughter in some of Li Dingguo's early activities, even after entering Yunnan.
What else can the rogues of the late Ming Dynasty do?
For most of the first 20 years of his life he and his brothers and righteous fathers were doing similar things. However, he still has a bottom line, in fact, not only Li Dingguo, although the Great Western Army was a team of rogues who set fire to loot and slaughter for most of the time during Zhang Xianzhong's period, but among many people in the team, we can see the good side, for example, Zhang Xianzhong was ready to kill all the residents of Chengdu when he entered Chengdu, Ma Yuanli, Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang, Zhang Nengqi, Bai Wenxuan, Zhang Huaneng, Liu Wenxiu and others "all bowed down and drooled", and Zhang Xianzhong eventually lost control. When ordering their subordinates to massacre innocent civilians, many soldiers of the Great Western Army committed suicide in order to refuse to accept brutal orders.
Zhang Xianzhong's rebel army.
Therefore, people are complex, whether it is Li Dingguo or other generals of the Great Western Army, there is a fierce and cruel side, and there is also a good side. The reason why they sometimes have sympathy for the innocent suffering civilians may be due to some good thoughts left in their own character, or they may be the same disease of the same people who are at the bottom (or born from the bottom).
Li Dingguo, King of Jin.
As for why there are still some records of slaughtering civilians after Zhang Xianzhong's death, sometimes it may be just a thought, such as Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu attacking Lin'an Prefecture, the Defenders of Shadingzhou on the city wall "guns like rain", the soldiers who attacked the city were killed and wounded, at this time, it is difficult for the generals of the army not to be affected by emotions, even if the generals are not affected, the soldiers after the destruction of the city will never maintain a trace of pity, so when the impulse overcomes reason, the tragedy has already occurred, no matter how much regret afterwards, The city has also become a ruin" (Liu Wenxiu) At the beginning of his entry into Yunnan, he slaughtered Wuding, and even though he regretted it, he did not kill a person in vain"
Liu Wenxiu, the king of Funan, restrained himself after this.
And it is precisely because of the contradictory performance of "fierce cruelty and kindness are displayed in a person at the same time" that the Southern Ming regime is more easily accepted by the public emotionally, while their sworn enemy qing army is restless everywhere it goes, and every Qing soldier is plundering. Therefore, when you read about Li Dingguo and others in the history books, you will find that in the more than 40 years from 1644 to 1683, you can see a glimmer of light in these people. At the critical moment when the Qing army was approaching Kunming, Bai Wenxuan wanted to burn the mountains of grain and grass in Kunming to prevent it from being used by the tailing Qing army, and Li Dingguo sighed, "I have waited in Yunnan for more than ten years, and I have also done enough to abuse the people, if I do not leave the warehouse grain, I am deeply tired for the people!" "The grain was never burned.
Qing army.
If the stored grain in Kunming was burned, then the Qing army, which was extremely difficult to collect grain and grass in Guizhou, would inevitably run out of grain after entering Yunnan, and the Yongli regime, which was in danger, would have a little more vitality, but Li Dingguo did not do so in the end, not for anything else, but for fear of "deeply tired for the people", and he himself and his majesty Zhu Youluo finally paid a heavy price for this good deed.