Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

After Li Zicheng returned to Xi'an, he finally cheered up.The first thing he did was - bragging.For example: the Dashun Army issued successive orders:

"Suide, Hanzhong Gao, and Zhao (referring to Gao Yigong, Zhao Guangyuan) crossed the river from Xihe Post, and commanded 30 Yihan Fan returning horse infantry.";

"General Quan Liu (referring to Liu Zongmin) commanded [-] troops to cross the river and go north from Pingyang.";

"Report to the emperor (referring to Li Zicheng) to command 350 million soldiers, starting from Chang'an. Marching troops on three routes, coming in the next day.";

"First resume the suppression of Ningwu, Daizhou, Datong, Xuanfu, etc., and then go to Beijing, Shanhai, and wipe out the Liaozuo and Henan thieves. Until the rebel officers and soldiers are thoroughly punished, the people will not flee in shock."

……

Li Zicheng tried to use these exaggerated propaganda to stabilize the morale of the army first.Of course, he was also preparing for some counterattacks.But in the end, the large-scale counterattack never became a fact.

The main reasons why this is the case are:

First of all, the former surrendering officials of the Ming Dynasty saw that the situation was not good, so they redid the wall.After Li Zicheng returned to Xi'an, he vigorously punished some Dashun court and local officials, such as Geng Shiran, Shangshu of the criminal government, Li Tiandu, servant of the household government, and Zhang Yu, the defense envoy of Pingyang.Some are of course because of corruption and breaking the law, while others are related to political attitudes.

Secondly, the surrendering generals of the original Ming Dynasty who were in the northwest region at that time still held part of the military power.And when these surrendered generals learned that the same generals of the Ming Dynasty who sat on the dragon chair were the same as them, their attitudes were either ambiguous or eager to try.

And Li Zicheng was to guard against possible armed mutiny.Had to garrison the old headquarters of the Dashun Army in strategically important places, which would inevitably involve a considerable amount of force.

For example: In September of this year, Gao Yigong, the defender of Suide of the Dashun Army, and Li Guo, the defender of Yan'an, Bohou.Suddenly, Shanbo Wang Liangzhi, who was guarding Yulin (that is, Wang Genzi, the Ming Dynasty guard who opened the door and surrendered when Li Zicheng attacked Xi'an), was executed, and Gao Yigong took over the defense of Yulin.

Also, Cui Youfu, the governor of the Ming capital who surrendered to the Dashun regime, suddenly rebelled in Yongning Prefecture (now Lishi) in Shanxi.He gathered township soldiers to arrest the state shepherd of the Dashun regime, occupied the state city, and plundered Linxian and Ningxiang (now Zhongyang) counties bordering the border.The Dashun Army was forced to "move troops to besiege the city" and did not conquer until September 25th.

Although these rebellions were put down.But the deployment of the Dashun Army's counterattack was completely disrupted.

In the end, even many people in the Dashun Army were pessimistic.

For example: when Niu Jinxing was in Xi'an, he bought wine with him as a relative of Gongsheng.After uttering the truth after drinking, he suddenly sighed: "Life is in troubled times, no matter what is high or low, and evil will be rewarded!".Then he pointed to his own head and said, "It's very difficult to protect this thing. I'm in the net of disaster. Or the concubine can almost be spared. Even if it is inevitable, it is also appropriate to chop it down and hang it in the city. Why are you in the net of death? Fortunately, you will come out soon." Living in another place, the pawns will change, the profit will escape, and keep this head." Then at the banquet, because the atmosphere was really sad, so he stopped drinking with sobs

Therefore, after the Dashun Army was defeated and returned to Xi'an, internal conflicts gradually intensified.In this case, it has become impossible to fight the enemy with all your strength.

Another point is also quite important.Li Zicheng and the others fled all the way back to Shaanxi.They are also reflecting on the fact that the policy of recovering stolen goods and subsidizing payment is not worth the candle.Because excessive blows to officials, gentry and landlords are not conducive to the stability of the rear.Therefore, the Dashun regime also began to implement the policy of collecting taxes based on the number of acres of land and the number of heads.

But in this way, the policy of "no levy for three years" first turned into a backlash, losing the support of a large number of ordinary people.In a short period of time, the land did not produce much, and no tax was collected at all, which immediately caused the financial collapse of the Dashun regime.

And without food and pay, the Dashun army is also divided. Except for the core troops who broke into the camp, the other troops who took refuge, surrendered and surrendered later lacked food and supplies. How could this make them loyal to the Dashun Dynasty? ?Therefore, with money, it is not necessarily possible to form an elite army; but without money, even the elite army will fall apart.

Facing the remnants of the Dashun Army in several provinces in the Northwest, Xue Yong, the General of the Western Expedition, also formulated a Northwest strategy to attack the West.He asked Quan Dashan, who came up as reinforcements, to lead a miscellaneous army of [-], and made a gesture of attacking northern Shaanxi in Shanxi, attracting the main force of the Dashun army.

However, General Xue Yong led an army of [-] troops to attack Tongguan through Huaiqing. He wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to enter the hinterland of Shaanxi, conquer Xi'an, and completely annihilate the remaining main force of the Dashun Army.

Wu Shigong didn't want to point fingers at Xue Yong's Northwest strategy.After all, Xue Yong knew the battle situation on the front line best, and Wu Shigong also believed in his commanding ability.No need for suspects, no doubts for employing people, Wu Shigong will not do the stupid thing of remote command, so as not to disrupt the deployment of frontline generals.

But Wu Shigong was also a little worried.You know, among the 5000 miscellaneous troops led by Quan Dashan, there are only [-] of the elite Runing Army.Even the [-] main force led by Xue Yong, among which only the [-] people in Jiaoji Town can be relied upon as the core.The rest of the troops were all defected and surrendered, and their combat effectiveness was uneven at all, which was not reassuring.

Moreover, in order to make those troops surrender, Xue Yong not only promised to give these surrendered generals official titles, but also promised to provide full food and salary.The food and payment standards of these troops are also the same as those of the Runing Army. In addition, there are more than 5 surrendered landlords in Shanxi to maintain local order. These soldiers and horses also need to provide some food and payment.And these huge expenditures will be supplied and endorsed by Wu Shigong's Daping Dynasty.

Therefore, Wu Shigong often laughs at himself: the emperor himself may be the poorest emperor in history. Borrowing income, so the current Daping Dynasty is simply in debt to the outside world.

Another point also gave Wu Shigong quite a headache.Because the attacking speed of the Zhengxi Army was too fast, the entire Beizhili and Shanxi fell into the hands of the Daping Dynasty.In order to establish the local government first, the Daping Dynasty could only appoint a large number of former Ming officials.

Not to mention whether these former Ming officials were loyal or not.Just talking about their way of governing the local area, they still use the governance methods of the previous Ming Dynasty.Similarly, they still followed quite a lot of bad rules from the Ming Dynasty, and the violent expropriation of the people is still very serious.

However, the original Runing Army had its own set of governance methods and civil service system that were very different from those of the previous Ming Dynasty.However, because there are not so many official reserves, and to appease those former Ming officials, they can only temporarily form "one country, two systems" within the Ming Dynasty.And all of these will become some unstable factors in the Daping Dynasty. (To be continued..)