In 1644, after the Qing army entered the customs, it immediately began to unify the country, and some Ming dynasty clans and civilian generals established a series of political powers in the south, known as the "Southern Ming". Faced with a precarious situation, some Southern Ming generals tried to reverse the situation and revitalize Heshan, and the most successful and influential of them was the Northern Expedition launched by Zheng Chenggong in 1659.
From devastation to fiasco
After his father Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, Zhu Yujian, the Emperor of the Southern Ming Dynasty, was also captured and killed by the Qing army soon after. Unwilling to follow in his father's footsteps, Zheng Chenggong continued his great cause of resisting the Qing Dynasty, and gradually gained a foothold in the coastal areas of Fujian, establishing a solid base area, while the Yongli Emperor Zhu Youluo (also the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty in a broad sense) who was far away in the southwest region was also honored, and Zhu Youluo also named him "King of Yanping" (so some history books also call Zheng Chenggong "Zheng Yanping").
Above_ Zheng Chenggong (military general of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties)
In 1657, Zheng Chenggong prepared to start the march, but unexpectedly failed twice, and also encountered a typhoon that caused his three sons to fall into the water and die, but Zheng Chenggong was unmoved and continued to recuperate.
In 1659, the Qing army concentrated its main forces on the Yongli regime in the southwest region to carry out a joint siege attack, and Zheng Chenggong took advantage of the situation to start his third Northern Expedition. In this battle, Zheng Chenggong commanded nearly 200,000 people of the land and water army to go north, and was coordinated by another Southern Ming minister, Zhang Huangyan.
In the early days, Zheng's army made rapid progress, eliminating the main force of the Qing Dynasty's water division at Zhoushan, and then marching up the Yangtze River, all the way to the outside of Nanjing, and Zhang Huangyan also conquered many prefectures and counties in southern Anhui. The Qing court and the public were all shaken by this, and the Shunzhi Emperor, who was quite good at eating and chanting Buddhas and having children in the history of the wilderness, was in a state of chaos in the face of major military affairs, and even had the idea of moving the capital to Guanwai. At that time, Zheng Chenggong's soldiers were still far away from Beijing, the capital of the Qing Dynasty, and this magnificent monarch of a country only wanted to flee for his life, which can be seen as a person.
Zhang Huangyan (1620-1664), written by Xuan, is a Cangshui
However, under such favorable conditions, Zheng Chenggong unexpectedly "rested" outside the city of Nanjing for dozens of days, neither attacking the city nor taking any other actions, wasting valuable fighters in vain, and finally after a large number of reinforcements arrived in the Qing army, the troops defeated Nanjing and were forced to retreat. After that, Zheng Chenggong suffered consecutive defeats and had to eventually return to the Fujian area. Zhang Huangyan was isolated and helpless, and had to retreat to eastern Zhejiang, and was later captured and righteous.
From the initial momentum like a bamboo, the siege of the city, to the final loss of troops, the loss of achievements, but more than a few months, so what led to Zheng Chenggong's final failure?
Above_ Zheng Successfully fought the Northern Expedition to Nanjing
First of all, Zheng Chenggong's side made command mistakes and misjudged the situation in specific operations, and it missed a good opportunity
As a famous marshal at that time, Zheng Chenggong's military talent was beyond doubt, but many great commanders in the past and the present actually made mistakes, and Zheng Chenggong was no exception. After his troops arrived at the city of Nanjing, they actually "rested" for more than dozens of days, and in the face of the isolated city of Nanjing, they did nothing, missed the opportunity, and waited until the main reinforcements of the Qing Dynasty arrived, but had to fail. There are many reasons for this.
The most widely circulated saying is that the Qing Dynasty guards pretended to surrender, nonsense what surrendered to the Qing court in more than 30 days can spare their own family, asking Zheng Chenggong to grace time, and Zheng Chenggong actually believed it in a confused way. This kind of statement is really too strong in "jokes", and it seriously lowers the IQ of Zheng Chenggong.
Above_ The city of Nanjing built by Ming Taiming
It is more credible that Zheng Chenggong believed that the Nanjing city wall was tall and strong, the siege would cause heavy casualties, and in order to preserve strength, the siege was carried out, and the initial series of victories also made Zheng Chenggong and his generals feel light enemy. Nanjing was not only the military, transportation and economic center at that time, but also the former capital of the Ming Dynasty, which was of great strategic and symbolic significance. If Nanjing can be recovered, it will also be a great encouragement and support for the Southern Ming side, but it will also be a major blow to the Qing Dynasty. In any case, not taking Nanjing with a single blow was indeed a major mistake for Zheng Chenggong.
After the defeat at the Battle of Nanjing, the Zheng army not only failed to regain its strength, but its morale plummeted, and it was defeated again and again, and all the Zhenjiang, Guazhou, and Yizheng that had been captured earlier were lost, and finally they could only return home. At this point, Zheng Chenggong, as the supreme commander, is naturally to blame.
Above_ A map of Fujian Province for the Ming Dynasty written by the Dutch
Secondly, Zheng Chenggong, who started at sea, relied too much on the marine division, and there were shortcomings in land combat capabilities
Zheng Chenggong, who started at sea, really had the best combat strength of his marine division at that time, and in a series of battles along the coast of Fujian and Zhejiang, he also repeatedly defeated the Qing Dynasty's water division. However, in the Northern Expedition operations that penetrated deep into the interior, land warfare played a key role, and this point zhengjun obviously had serious deficiencies, which were manifested in the excessive dependence on water divisions, and the camps and villages were also along the river, and did not further expand the strategic depth to the inland.
In the ground operations around Nanjing, in the face of the Qing army with strong land combat capabilities, especially the absolute cavalry superiority and many artillery, the shortcomings of the Zheng army's land warfare were exposed, and despite the support of the marine division, it eventually ended in failure.
After the disastrous defeat of the Northern Expedition, Zheng Chenggong also realized that it was not realistic to compete with the Qing court for dominance on land, so he turned to the sea, using the recovery of Taiwan as a base for anti-Qing and restoration, and finally returned to his naval warfare expertise.
Above_ Zheng successfully recovered Taiwan Pictorial
Third, the Southern Ming regime has not had a unified leadership core, and the various factions support the army and respect themselves, and lack of coordination and cooperation
In terms of its population, area, army, economy, etc., the Southern Ming regime actually has considerable strength, not only is it not inferior to the historical Southern Jin Dynasty, the Southern Song Dynasty and other regimes that have the same "fate" to move south, but also many places have advantages (especially in terms of economy), even if it cannot restore the Ming Dynasty, it is not absolutely impossible to confront the Qing court from the north to the south, and rule by river.
However, unlike those southern regimes in history, the Southern Ming did not have a real leadership core from beginning to end, the Hongguang Emperor Zhu Yousong was captured and killed after a year of reign, and later a number of Ming Dynasty royal families came out to claim the title of emperor, this side Longwu was called emperor in Fujian, and Zhejiang was also engaged in a Lu wang supervision state; this side Yongli was called emperor in the southwest, and Zhu Yulei was called emperor in Guangdong, and the emperors were not convinced of each other, and even tit-for-tat confrontation with each other. The clans fought among themselves, and the generals with heavy armies gradually "warlordized", regarded the army as private property, and even appeared ugly dramas of attacking each other and seizing territory. The Qing army suppressed the territory, and the interior of the Southern Ming was still constantly rolled inside, which was really heart-wrenching and chilling.
At the time of Zheng Cheng's successful Northern Expedition, in addition to Zhang Huangyan, many forces in the Southern Ming Dynasty were also neutral on the sidelines, not to mention cooperating in the battle, and even the containment and strategy of these "auxiliaries" could not be done. Zheng Chenggong can be described as a single tree, in the case of an extreme lack of foreign aid, in the face of the strong Qing army, the final failure is also reasonable.
Above_ Naval warships of the Ming Dynasty
Finally, the Qing Dynasty's strong comprehensive strength and proper strategy and tactics also led to the final defeat of Zheng Chenggong's Northern Expedition
As a Qing Dynasty that had completed most of the unification at that time, its comprehensive strength was already crushed on the Southern Ming side in a state of scattered sand, and It was not an order of magnitude on the zheng chenggong side, even if it faced the initial defeat of the Zheng army, it did not hurt the bones and bones. More importantly, although there were some contradictions within the Qing court (between the Manchurian royal family and the nobility, as well as between the Manchu ruling class and the Ming Dynasty), it was basically able to unite and unite from top to bottom, which was in stark contrast to the Continuous Southern Ming Dynasty.
From a strategic point of view, although Shunzhi's performance as an emperor was "out of standard", his mother Empress Xiaozhuang was even more "famous and gentlemanly", and she reprimanded shunzhi's idea of not choosing a path and resolutely stopped it, so that he could stabilize his position, and promptly suggested that Shunzhi immediately dispatch troops and send reinforcements;
From a specific tactical point of view, the supreme commander of the Qing army in Nanjing, Kakhamu, the governor of Liangjiang, Lang Tingzuo (Han, who was the first governor of Liangjiang in the Qing Dynasty, whose father was originally a Ming Dynasty scholar, and later defected to the Qing Dynasty, and was included in the Yellow Banner of the Han Army) and others did not abandon the city and flee when facing the siege of Zheng Chenggong's army (again comparing their monarchs who were far away in Beijing), but were able to rely on the strong walls of Nanjing to do a good job of defense. When the reinforcements arrived, they could counterattack the Zheng army in time and finally win.
Above: Aisin Kyora Fulin (15 March 1638 – 5 February 1661), also known as the Shunzhi Emperor
It can be said that under the opponent's strong strength and impeccable "operation", Zheng Chenggong's final failure is inevitable.
Although Zheng Chenggong's Northern Expedition ended in failure, it also dealt a heavy blow to the Qing Dynasty forces and became the last "highlight moment" of the Southern Ming Dynasty. Then, Zheng successfully shifted his strategic direction, moved his division to the east, defeated the Dutch colonists who had occupied Taiwan for thirty-eight years, and successfully recovered the treasure island of Taiwan, leaving an extremely glorious page in history!
Author: Yanagi Yang Correction/Editor: Lilith
Resources:
[1] "History of the Southern Ming Dynasty" Guangming Daily Publishing House, by Gu Cheng
[2] "Ming Ji NanLuo" qing ji liu qi
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author