Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

The Forbidden City was full of awe, and Emperor Chongzhen carefully looked at the two memorials in front of him.One is the verdict issued by the Three Law Departments against Yang He, the governor of Shaanxi Province.The other is Yang He's son Yang Sichang's memorial for his father.

In the second year of Chongzhen, after Yang He, the governor of Shaanxi Province, took office, he found that peasants rebelled all over Shaanxi.Therefore, Yang He put forward a request for the imperial court to provide money and food to the disaster-stricken people in Shaanxi.

Yang He's reason is that Yang He regarded the peasant uprising as a very serious social problem, and he made suggestions for the imperial court from a relatively long-term perspective.Yang He advocated that the money should be spent on recruiting and relief to help farmers resume their jobs.Doing so can not only eliminate troubles, but also the government can continue to collect taxes after the farmers' arrangements are established, so it is said that "Li Mo Da Yan".

If we blindly suppress the main force and use the money for military expenses, not only will it be impossible to restore social production, but the money spent cannot be recovered through taxation. Moreover, his own experience has proved that if the livelihood problems of the peasants are not solved, the number of people participating in the uprising will inevitably increase. With more and more people coming, the suppression situation will not be easy to end, and the future troubles will be more serious.This is the main reason why Yang He suggested focusing on caressing.

It should be said that Yang He's claim is very reasonable, and Emperor Chongzhen also allocated 10 taels of funds for disaster relief to support Yang He's claim.

However, Yang He's idea of ​​appeasement and relief soon went bankrupt.There are two main reasons: one is that because there is no follow-up support for disaster relief money and food, many rebel farmers who have been recruited are rebelling;

The other is that because the Tartars entered the customs, Shaanxi sent the King Qin army to the capital, resulting in the Shaanxi government, with only a small number of imperial troops encircling and suppressing the peasant rebel army.Coupled with the fact that those King Qin's soldiers fled and joined the peasant rebel army, the power of the Shaanxi peasant rebel army became even greater.

Of course, there are other reasons, such as the killing and surrender of officials of the main suppression faction.But no matter what, Yang He's claim is completely bankrupt.And the successor of Yang He's three-sided governor of Shaanxi was Hong Chengchou, who had made many contributions in suppressing the peasant rebel army.

In addition, after Hong Chengchou took office as the three-sided governor of Shaanxi, he effectively pacified the situation in Shaanxi by suppressing bloody means and preventing grain from flowing into the area where the peasants rebelled and the army was active.

However, those desperate peasant rebel troops crossed the Yellow River and basically entered Shanxi, making Shanxi a mess.And in Shanxi, they also formed the 36th Battalion, so that the actions of the peasants' rebellion against the army could be echoed.

Who is right and who is wrong between Yang He and the officials of the main suppression faction will not be discussed here.Because as long as you are a modern person, you know the truth of having a carrot in one hand and a stick in the other.What they did was actually flawed.

But no matter what, Yang He, as a loser, will always be punished.Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen sent Tiqi to catch Yang He to the capital for punishment.The Sanfa Division set the penalty of hanging for Yang He's crime.

When he learned of the punishment of his father Yang He, Yang Sichang immediately wrote a memorial to accept the punishment of hanging with his son instead of his father.Emperor Chongzhen is looking at these two memorials now.

After the Yuan Chonghuan incident, Emperor Chongzhen hated the way civil officials behaved like a gentleman behind a villain, so he also had a deep distrust of civil officials.However, due to Emperor Chongzhen's distrust of civil officials and wariness of eunuchs, the current Emperor Chongzhen deeply felt that he did not have effective assistants around him.

We all know that in the Ming Dynasty, Confucian moral principles were paramount, and Emperor Chongzhen, who was educated by Confucianism, completely took Confucian principles as his own code of conduct.

When he saw that Yang Sichang was willing to take the place of his father, he suddenly found a piece of gold in front of him.If he is a filial son, he must be a loyal minister.In Emperor Chongzhen's mind, Yang Sichang's name was deeply imprinted.

Emperor Chongzhen put down the memorial in his hand, and said to Wang Chengen: "Wang Banban, although Yang He's crime is unforgivable, his son has a heart of pure filial piety. Forget it, change the hanging to exile."

Wang Chengen immediately bowed his head and said: "Your Majesty really has a heart of benevolence!"

Wang Chengen's witticism made Emperor Chongzhen burst out laughing, and he couldn't help laughing and scolding: "You old slave, you will make me happy. But now I just don't know what happened to Grand Master Sun in Liaodong."

Wang Chengen saw that Emperor Chongzhen had just been pregnant, and he was worried about state affairs, so he quickly comforted him: "Master Sun Wentao and Wulue, all the elders agreed with his idea of ​​building Dalinghe City. The old slave thought that it must be bad. No more. Your Majesty, you can rest assured."

"En!" Emperor Chongzhen nodded with a smile, and unconsciously, his thoughts flew to Liaodong.

After presiding over the recovery of the four cities of Yongping and adjusting the Ming army in the pass, Sun Chengzong officially went to Liaodong in the first month of the fourth year of Chongzhen to take up the post of supervisor.As soon as he took office, he started the third military operation to rush to build Dalinghe City.

The construction of Dalinghe City was an important step in Sun Chengzong's original fortress tactics.At that time, after Sun Chengzong resigned, Yuan Chonghuan, who took over, also wanted to build Dalinghe City twice, but both were destroyed by the Houjin Army. The Dalinghe City built at that time was also demolished by the Houjin Army, leaving only the foundation of the city wall.

Why did Sun Chengzong build Dalinghe City? It must be because Dalinghe City's geographical location is too important.Its importance is reflected in the following two points: first, it can become a fortress at the front of the Ningjin defense line, which can increase the defense thickness of the Ningjin defense line; Put a nail in between, so that the Hou Jin army and the Mongolian army cannot meet at will and act in unison.

But looking at it the other way around, the Hou Jin army, who knew the actions of the Ming army in Liaodong, would never allow the construction of Dalinghe City to be completed.Therefore, in Dalinghe City, a fierce battle between the Ming army and the Houjin army is bound to break out.

This battle actually lasted until October of the fifth year of Chongzhen.Because many historical materials and works have introduced this battle that had a profound impact on both the Later Jin Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, so the author only briefly introduces it here. <Ji, let Zu Dashou and He Kegang lead more than 1 Ming troops and more than 1 civilians to rush to repair Dalinghe City.This rush repair operation was very successful, Daling River City was basically repaired within three to four months.

Then, Huang Taiji led the Houjin army and the Mongolian army to join forces and attacked Dalinghe City in August of the fourth year of Chongzhen.However, Huang Taiji changed his previous tactics of hard attack and changed it to encirclement.He ordered the Eight Banners soldiers to dig four trenches around the city, and built a wall more than ten feet high, surrounding the small city of Dalinghe like an iron barrel.

Then, it was the performance of the support of the Ming army and the reinforcements of the Hou Jin army.But at this time, Sun Chengzong was surprised to find that he could not find the general who led the rescue of Dalinghe City.Because among the generals of Liaodong Iron Cavalry, Man Gui and Zhao Ledjiao, who had the most active offensive capabilities, both died in the battle of King Qin, while the other two generals, Zu Dashou and He Kegang, were now besieged in Dalinghe City.

There is no way, there is no general in Shu, and Liao Hua is the vanguard.The Ming army carried out a total of four rescue operations, and three of them were led by Wu Sangui's father Wu Xiang.But Wu Xiang didn't have the military ability of his son Wu Sangui at all. Every time he rescued, he was defeated.The Ming army's military operations also fell through.

The move to mobilize reinforcements from within the pass also fell through because of the Denglai Incident.As for the Denglei Incident, it will be described in detail later.

Seeing that there was no hope for the arrival of the reinforcements, coupled with the lack of food in the city, people had already reached the point of cannibalism. Under Huang Taiji's persuasion, Zu Dashou led the remnants of Dalinghe City in October of the fifth year of Chongzhen. More than 1 Ming troops surrendered to Houjin, but He Kegang, who refused to surrender, was killed.Dalinghe City fell.

Next, it's time to perform Hollywood blockbusters.After Zu Dashou surrendered, he escaped back through his rhetoric.Later, the debate about whether Zu Dashou really surrendered or pretended to surrender has continued until now.However, in the author's opinion, judging from Zu Dashou's performance in defending Jinzhou afterwards, he should have surrendered falsely.

The defeat in the Battle of Dalinghe made the Ming Dynasty completely lose the ability to fight the Houjin army in Liaodong.The main reason for its failure is: after Sun Chengzong took office again, he still overestimated the combat effectiveness of the Liaodong Ming Army to the level when he left office.Because during the time of King Qin, Liaodong Iron Cavalry not only lost Man Gui and Zhao Ledjiao, but also lost four thousand cavalry led by Zhao Ledjiao under the city of Zunhua.And this defeat also led to Sun Chengzong's resignation.

What is even more tragic is that the main force of the Liaodong iron cavalry who was besieged in Dalinghe City was completely annihilated by the Hou Jin army.After they surrendered to Houjin, many soldiers were incorporated into the Han Eight Banners and became a sharp knife in Houjin's hands to slaughter Han people.

Careful readers may have discovered that in the previous article, the author has been using the Liaodong iron cavalry instead of the Guanning iron cavalry that is familiar to later generations.

The main reason for this is: Although Houjin had completely controlled Liaodong at this time, the Ming army outside the pass was only passively defending the Ningjin defense line in western Liaoning.But the author still believes that as long as the Ming army commanded accurately at that time and the soldiers used their lives, with the combat effectiveness of the Liaodong iron cavalry, the Ming army was not hopeless to attack Liaodong.

However, with the defeat in the Battle of Dalinghe, Liaodong cavalry has become a historical term.In the following article, the author will also change its name to Guan Ning Iron Cavalry.

And when Zu Dashou was full of ambition and led Liaodong iron cavalry and civilian husbands to rush to repair Dalinghe City, Wu Shigong in Runing Mansion was also gathering his personal guards, preparing his luggage, and was about to leave for Yangzhou.