The Rebellion of Rogue Bandits

 

The Rebellion of Rogue Bandits

Speaking of Wu Sangui, Chinese people will always curse this great traitor and traitor. The Ming Dynasty was destroyed, and all the subjects of the country belonged to the Qing Dynasty. The Han people became the servants of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, wearing long braids and yellow mandarins. Who would say that all the officials of the Ming Dynasty were the dog slaves of the Manchu Qing Dynasty? The Qing Dynasty was the most shameful dynasty for the Han nation.

Fang Shidi said to Agudengba and Azhuo: It was Wu Sangui who dared to be the enemy of the Qing Dynasty. While the Qing army was fighting for power after the death of Huang Taiji, they sent Prince Zheng Jierhalang to lead the troops, captured the Zhonghou Suo, Zhongqian Suo and Qiangwei one after another, and forced them towards Ningyuan City. Facing the Qing army's offensive, Wu Sangui defended Ningyuan City and turned Ningyuan City into an important town that blocked the Qing army from taking over the Central Plains.

Fang Shi said:

In 1638 AD, Fulin, the third emperor of the Qing Dynasty, was born in Shengjing. At that time, people in the Manchu Qing regime did not know that he would be the next monarch of the Jurchens.

Dorgon was the fourteenth prince of Emperor Nurhachi of the Later Jin Dynasty and his favorite son.

Dorgon's treatment of Shunzhi deserves the words "the utmost benevolence and righteousness". He fully assisted Fulin, acting like a father and son inside, and like a master and apprentice outside. Shunzhi grew up under Dorgon's all-round, three-dimensional and strict discipline since he was a child.

After that, Dorgon successfully supported the 6-year-old Shunzhi to ascend the throne in the battle for the throne, allowing the Qing Dynasty to complete the transfer of power.

But the problem is that Dorgon watched Shunzhi grow up and did not regard the young emperor as an emperor.

On weekdays, Dorgon relies on his high position and authority to make decisions without asking Shunzhi, acting completely arbitrarily.

Emperor Shunzhi said: "Prince Rui is regent, and I only hand over my hand to accept the sacrifices. I neither predict the affairs of the world nor have anyone explain them to me in detail." This way of getting along and discipline is similar to Zhang Juzheng's attitude towards Wanli. The emperor's education methods were so bad that they also aroused the emperor's hatred.

During Dorgon's reign, he indeed regarded himself as "below one person and above ten thousand people." In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, there was a scene where "all ministers knelt down to greet Dorgon" when he entered the court. In addition to talking about grandeur, Dorgon also constantly excludes dissidents and favors nepotism when it comes to employment issues. Shunzhi was very dissatisfied with his actions in government affairs. He also prevented Shunzhi from seeing his mother, the Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang, on the grounds that the harem was not allowed to interfere in politics, which made Shunzhi hate him even more.

In 1643, Dorgon was granted the title of Auxiliary and Prince Shuorui; in 1644, the first year of Shunzhi, he was granted the title of Regent for his uncle.

From the age of 14 to 24, Dorgon participated in 6 wars. Three of them were against the Ming Dynasty, two against the Chahar Tribe of Mongolia, and one against North Korea. In these wars, Dorgon showed unparalleled war talents.

Especially in the war against the Chahar tribe, Dorgon not only solved the hidden worries behind Hou Jin, but also made the Mongolian Queen Mother Sutai surrender without spending a single soldier during her second campaign in Mongolia. He also brought back the lost jade seal of the Yuan Dynasty, which gave Hou Jin the legitimacy to unify the Central Plains and gave Huang Taiji a legitimate reason to attack the Central Plains.

When Dorgon was appointed Minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, he repeatedly wrote letters advocating the resumption of scientific research and suggested that Huang Taiji put more emphasis on Han people. This is completely different from Nurhachi's measures to oppose Han people entering the DPRK as officials and discriminate against Han people. Fan Wencheng, a Han Chinese, rose all the way up through the scientific examination and reached the core of Hou Jin's power.

When Huang Taiji was preparing to go south to attack the Ming Dynasty, Fan Wencheng proposed a plan to abandon Shanhaiguan and march to Xifengkou. The Jin army then reached Beijing with unstoppable momentum. Later, they used counterintuitive tactics to allow Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty to delay Yuan Chonghuan, eliminating the major worries of Nurhaci and Huang Taiji.

After the death of Huang Taiji, Dorgon led the Jin army to enter the Pass and occupied Beijing. It was also he who officially opened the rule of the Later Jin Dynasty over China. He was the actual founder of the Qing Empire.

Fang Shidi said to Agudenba and Azhuo:

Although the Ming Dynasty was eventually replaced by the Qing Dynasty, it was Li Zicheng who really forced Emperor Zhuang Lie to death and destroyed the Ming Dynasty.

In the early days of the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty, the peasant army had no awareness of changing dynasties. The vast majority of rebellious peasants participated in the uprising simply because they were unable to make ends meet due to heavy taxes. However, as long as some local officials promised benefits, it was often easy to recruit some of the peasant troops.

In the first month of the eighth year of Chongzhen, the peasant army moved eastward from Runing Prefecture in Henan Province and entered the territory of South Zhili, which is now Anhui Province. Pounced on Fengyang, the central capital of the Ming Dynasty. Fengyang is Zhu Yuanzhang's hometown, and Zhu Yuanzhang's parents are also buried in the imperial mausoleum in Fengyang. The peasant army's attack on Fengyang was not done on a whim or with long-planned plans, but at the invitation of the people of Fengyang.

Since Fengyang was promoted to the central capital by Ming Taizu, taxes and corvee were nominally exempted. It stands to reason that the people should live a comfortable life, but in fact this is not the case. After Fengyang Prefecture became the capital of China, the government offices were stacked up and built, the number of officials and servants was large, and various royal civil engineering projects were also very numerous.

In the Ming Dynasty, land taxation was very low, and quota systems were implemented in various places, and these quotas would not change for many years. This results in low national fiscal revenue, and additional taxes and labor must be allocated to complete various fiscal expenditures. The land in Fengyang was barren, and the harvest was not good. The output of the land could not support the people, but it had to support so many officials and servants, so it was naturally unsustainable.

During the Chongzhen period, when the sun was declining, there were natural disasters in the past, rebellions in the past, and powerful enemies outside. The empire's normal fiscal revenue could not cope with such huge expenditures, so it had to increase taxes under clever pretexts. These tax burdens were treated equally across the country, and Fengyang was no exception. The people of Fengyang were repeatedly exploited by local officials and the imperial court, and their lives were very difficult.

For this reason, Qian Shisheng, the right minister of the Nanjing Ministry of Rites at the time, once petitioned Emperor Chongzhen to exempt Fengyang from taxes, but Chongzhen was afraid that other places would follow suit and rejected the proposal.

Overwhelmed, the people of Fengyang pinned their hopes on the peasant army. Some poor farmers traveled hundreds of miles to find the peasant army, guide them, and tell them which wealthy households there were in Fengyang and where there were gaps in military deployment. With the help of local people in Fengyang, the peasant army successfully captured Fengyang.

The peasant army at that time was led by Chuang Wang Gao Yingxiang, and both Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were in the team. Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng led the peasant army to excavate the Ming Emperor's Mausoleum to show a complete break with the Ming Dynasty, which meant that dynasty change became their inevitable goal.

Fang Shidi said:

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, Gao Yingxiang sent troops from Ziwu Valley to attack Xi'an, but was unexpectedly intercepted by Sun Chuanting, governor of Shaanxi Province. Gao Yingxiang was defeated and captured, and was sent to Beijing to be executed. Since Li Zicheng was Gao Yingxiang's nephew, everyone elected Li Zicheng to succeed King Chuang.

In the 14th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng besieged Luoyang. Lu Weiqi, then the Minister of War in Nanjing, suggested that Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu who lived in Luoyang, use his own treasury to solve the food and salary problem of the Ming army. However, the king of Fu, who cherished money as much as his life, refused this request.

When Li Zicheng's troops approached the city, the Luoyang defenders had no fighting spirit. General Wang Shaoyu led his troops to surrender to Li Zicheng, and Luoyang fell. Li Zicheng distributed the money and grain from Prince Fu's treasury to the people near Luoyang, and won strong support from the people.

Luoyang was the ancient capital of thirteen dynasties. Conquering Luoyang would inevitably arouse Li Zicheng's ambitions, and the plan to change dynasties became the next important step. Li Zicheng set up a bureaucracy in Luoyang and appointed a surrendered court official to stay in Luoyang, clearly showing his desire to found the country. However, Li Zicheng was not strong enough to establish a political power at this time, and Luoyang quickly gave up.

In the eleventh month of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng went south to Xiangyang. Zuo Liangyu, who was stationed in Xiangyang, had 200,000 troops, but the imperial court gave him only 25,000 troops. Zuo Liangyu mainly relied on plundering people's wealth to maintain military supplies, which was no different from a rogue bandit.

Hearing that the peasant army was coming to Xiangyang, the local people, like the people in Fengyang and Luoyang, led the way and provided support. Li Zicheng's army was able to bypass Zuo Liangyu's stronghold and capture Xiangyang.

At this time, Li Zicheng already had stable control over vast areas such as southern Henan and northern Hubei, and was ready to establish political power. Therefore, Li Zicheng changed Xiangyang to Xiangjing in the spring of the following year and established a central official office imitating the Ming court structure.

After Li Zicheng ended his guerrilla warfare and formally established his political power, he adopted a series of economic policies, including land equalization, grain exemption, stolen goods recovery, hunger relief, and resumption of production.

In the 17th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng established the Dashun regime in Xi'an and formalized the central government office in the Xiangyang period. The Dashun regime proposed a policy of "equalizing land between the rich and the humble" and dispatched local officials to summon landless farmers to reclaim their land for farming.

At that time, when they heard that the peasant army was coming, some wealthy households fled one after another. Those who failed to escape in time might be killed by the peasant army or their neighbors. Their land was claimed back by the landless farmers who had sold their land, and the Dashun regime resumed its control. Farmers are issued land deeds to confirm their land rights. The essence of this "land equalization" policy is to legalize illegal rights, but it meets the needs of the people, and if the land left by wealthy households is not distributed to farmers, it will be terra nullius and can only be abandoned.

Fang Shidi told Agudenba and Azhuo: Li Zicheng's so-called "land equalization" policy was just the historical version of "attack local tyrants and divide the land." After Li Zicheng's defeat, the landless peasants still had nothing. It is still the court and the powerful who reap the fruits.

Fang Shidi sang a Fengyang folk song "Speaking of Fengyang":

 

Talk about Fengyang, sing about Fengyang,

Fengyang is a good place,

Since Emperor Zhu was born,

There are nine years of drought out of ten years.

 

Talk about Fengyang, sing about Fengyang,

Digging the Ming Emperor's tomb,

King Chuang came and refused to pay the grain.

The autocratic court must perish.

 

Talk about Fengyang, sing about Fengyang,

Dynasty changes, feng shui changes,

Fengyang is still the same as before,

The rich people in the government are all tigers and wolves.