Crazy at the end of the Ming Dynasty

Afterwards, Xiong Zhengen's department began to show their might and sent the bandits in this area, including Jiaozhou Han Jiben, Gaomi Danzhishang, Zhang Yu, Jimo Huang Zongxian, Saturday, Qiu Shangzuo, Wang Erxi, Pingdu Damao, Zhai Wu monk, Zhang Guang, etc. The Ministry has been wiped out one by one.

But in May of this year, another change occurred in Qingzhou.A unit originally belonging to the Dashun Army, after losing contact with the main force of the Dashun Army retreating to the west, led by Zhao Yingyuan and Yang Wangxiu, a former Ming official who surrendered to the Dashun regime, came to Qingzhou.On the morning of May 29th, in the name of visiting the city, he took the opportunity to rush in.

Then, Zhao Yingyuan sent his infantry to set up stacks on the top of the city, while he led his cavalry straight into the magistrate's yamen in the city.However, the prefect of Qingzhou, appointed by the Daping court, thought that Zhao Yingyuan had led his troops to surrender, and suddenly saw soldiers swarming in with their knives exposed, and was beheaded unexpectedly.

And Zhao Yingyuan's recovery of Qingzhou was not for the purpose of rebuilding the local regime in Dashun.He himself claimed that he only wanted to support Ming Dynasty alone.So he helped King Heng to sit in the palace.But at this time, King Heng has already surrendered to Daping, so he is afraid that Zhao Yingyuan will call Fuming to kill him.After King Heng was supported, he cried every day and his eyes were swollen like peaches.The standard unsupportable Liu Adou!

But when Xiong Zhengen arrived with his troops, Li Shiyuan, the Qingzhou defender who had already been pacified in the Ming Dynasty, made a plan to outwit him. He secretly communicated with the officials and gentry in Qingzhou City, and entered Qingzhou City to act as a lobbyist.During the lobbying, Li Shiyuan threatened and lured Zhao Yingyuan, persuaded him to switch to the Daping Dynasty, and promised Zhao Yingyuan that he would not kill anyone, and conferred a title on Zhao Yingyuan.

Sure enough, Zhao Yingyuan was fooled and took hundreds of soldiers out of the city to meet with Xiong Zhengen and others.The two sides swear to the sky with their swords and blood.That night, Zhao Yingyuan held a feast at the Zhanchen Building at the north gate of Fucheng, and enjoyed a lot of wine and fun.The Daping Army followed the plan agreed by Li Shiyuan and others.Ambush outside the city.During the banquet, there was a burst of artillery fire, and Li Shiyuan, Han Zhaoxuan and their followers killed Zhao Yingyuan and Yang Wangxiu on the spot, and the Zhao army was in chaos.The Daping army swarmed into the city, killed King Heng's family and recruited the rest of the party to surrender. The change in Qingzhou was put down immediately.

After Wu Shigong heard the news, he was furious.He issued an imperial decree and angrily reprimanded Xiong Zhengen and others.He also ordered the Daping armies all over the world: to strictly implement the "Amnesty Order".Do your best to maintain the credibility of the Daping court, and you must not resort to any expedient measures.

Afterwards, Wu Shigong sent people to search for Zhao Yingyuan's concubine and son.Send it to the capital, confer the earl, and give the mansion a lot of money.In order to make up for Xiong Zhengen's fault.

But Xiong Zhengen was forced to do this.His military strength is limited, and rebellions in Shandong are also happening one after another.At this time, the Marine Corps of Gonzales and Huang Ding were in the north.North Korean Raiders are preparing to cross the sea.And Chi Ming led the new army Yizhen and the Lu army left behind by Liu Zeqing.He also put on an aggressive offensive against Nanming to cover up the decisive battle between the Daping Army and the Qing Army.In addition, Xiong Zhengen's army was also a newly formed army, so it was not until the second year of Qiongyuan that the Shandong area was finally completely wiped out.

At this time, the Nanming Hongguang Dynasty's foreign policy was to use rebellion to fight against the bandits.It is necessary to use the power of the Daping Dynasty to resist and eliminate the two mortal enemies of the peasant army and the Qing army.And it is hoped that there will be a lose-lose situation among the three, and the snipe and the clam can fight each other, so as to keep Nanming in Jiangnan.

For this reason, Hong Guangchao was even willing to negotiate peace with Dapingchao.Proposed: conditions such as professing ministers, old coins, resisting pledges, and marriage, and hoped that the Daping Dynasty would divert its attention.Don't point the blade at Nanming first.

For this reason, the civil servants of the Hongguang Dynasty even put forward a theoretical basis. They even wrote a book on the topic of the Tang Dynasty's pacification of the Huangchao Uprising. For the rebellion, it is not enough to rely on generals like Guo Ziyi and Li Guangbi. It is also necessary to borrow the Shatuo soldiers used by Li Ke to recruit traitors from the peasant army like Zhu Wen, so that there is hope for revival.

It can be seen from this that the emperor and ministers of the Hongguang Dynasty regarded the peasant rebels such as Dashun and Daxi as the first enemy.In order to eliminate them, the Hongguang monarchs and ministers were even willing to cooperate with the Manchus, not to mention Wu Shigong, who was originally a Ming general.

It should be said that this set of theories is quite unified among Hongguang monarchs and ministers.Even the leader of the "Battle faction" - Shi Kefa, he is only quite noble in personal conduct, but in terms of basic policies, there is not much difference with other civil servants. .

Even Liu Zongzhou, the censor of Zuodu, and other literati leaders in the world also agreed with this national policy.They even thought that Wu Sangui's descent to the Qing Dynasty was just a stopgap measure, and they wanted to send people to the north to get in touch with Wu Sangui, so as to obtain the miraculous effect of Chi Su's persuasion to return.

What makes people laugh out loud is that some officials even think that "the kindness of the Ming Dynasty" can be used to influence Wu Shigong, so that Wu Shigong can voluntarily become a minister.There is no need to comment on such a whimsical idea.However, this topic is very popular in the Jinling Fengyue circle. More than one person is willing to "feed the tiger with his body" and use his beauty and wisdom to complete this impossible task.For this reason, some good people even organized a "draft" to give everyone a strong momentum.

Of course, whether these people are stupid, or the speculators are stupid, or everyone is stupid, or not stupid, this is the benevolent see benevolence, and the wise see wisdom.Anyway, this topic brought infinite joy to Jinling City at that time.Should it be said: "Business women don't know the hatred of subjugation"?

However, there are still some middle- and lower-level officials who are clear-headed.They believe that in the Southern Song Dynasty, because military officers such as Yue Fei and Han Shizhong showed their "muscles", it was possible for the Southern Song Dynasty to sign a peace treaty with the Kingdom of Jin.And now the Daping Dynasty is fighting with Dashun, Daxi, Qing army and Nanming on all sides. Taking advantage of this opportunity, we should actively carry out the Northern Expedition.If the lost ground can be regained, that would be the best. Even if it is not possible, a more favorable peace treaty can be signed with the Daping Dynasty, so that it will be scruples and dare not invade the south rashly.

However, although these officials have good knowledge, their official positions are too low to affect the government of the Hongguang court at all.In addition, the reason why Zhu Yousong ascended to the throne of God was to rely on contacting the generals of the towns, and the generals of the towns were knighted with "determined policies" and had no enterprising spirit. Northern affairs.So these suggestions were quickly ignored.

At this time, Shi Kefa and other important officials of the Hongguang court were hesitant to move forward and blindly guarded the south of the Yangtze River. In fact, they were quite cowardly in their hearts.The main military pillars of the Hongguang court, such as Zuo Liangyu, Gao Jie, Liu Liangzuo, etc., were all defeated generals who avoided the battle first, and the Dashun army was defeated by the Qing army and the Daping army successively. The strength of each army can only be seen at a glance. It can be seen.

Therefore, Shi Kefa and others thought that the best strategy was not to overstep the threshold, so as not to "provoke" the Daping Army and give them an excuse to go south.Then, the humble words and courtesy were better than that of the Daping Dynasty, and the situation of partial security was maintained.Even at this time, Hongguang Jun and his ministers still held the illusion of peace talks, put on a cautious and pitiful look, and tried to win the favor of the Daping Dynasty.

And this kind of weakness made it easy for the Daping Dynasty to take over a large number of counties in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.In this area, many officials and gentry who were still close to the former Ming Dynasty were forced to join Daping because they could not get the protection of the Hongguang court.As the Daping Dynasty showed a strong military power, coupled with the implementation of some "good governance" one after another, in the end, these officials and gentry were transformed into loyal ministers and good people of the Daping Dynasty.

It is not that there are no officials and gentry who still have hope for Nanming, and some people even drag their families to move south.But those officials and gentry who stayed where they were, couldn't hope for "Wang Shibei will set the Central Plains", and they finally gave up their illusions.The short-sightedness of the Hongguang monarch and his ministers also lost the last chance to continue Nanming.

In fact, at this time, in addition to the combat effectiveness of the troops, the Hongguang court established in Nanjing had a very obvious advantage over the Daping Dynasty, the Dashun regime or the Qing Dynasty in terms of manpower and material resources.It controlled half of the country, and the south of the Huaihe River was the most densely populated and most economically developed place in China at that time, and it was the least damaged by the war.It should be said that the Hongguang court can still make a difference if it works hard.

However, these troops of Nanming have degenerated into a tool for the generals to maintain and expand their self-interest.They are timid in public battles and brave in private fights; they flee when encountering the enemy, and regard the people as flesh and blood.

It was precisely because soldiers were not available that even though there were many generals in the Hongguang court, they gathered in the Jianghuai area for fun and pleasure, without any intention of making progress.In order to cover up their inner cowardice, Shi Kefa, a bachelor of the supervisor, and the generals in the towns under his control can only make a big fuss about the issue of food and payment.

At that time, the Hongguang court stipulated that each town had a quota of 20 soldiers, and an annual supply of 40 shi and 60 taels of silver. 240 million per year.

This military payment is indeed generous enough.However, in order to win over the military officers of various towns, in just four months, under the threat of crying poverty from the generals of various towns, the Hongguang court actually distributed a salary equivalent to one and a half years, which should be said to be very rich.What's more, at the beginning of the establishment of the town, the Hongguang court also allocated the income from grain storage and commercial taxes in some places in Jiangbei to the towns.What a wealth of money!Jiangnan is really rich enough.

As for Shi Kefa, the military generals of the governor's towns, although he is an honest official, he is also very diligent. He is also very clear about the number of troops in each town, the amount of pay, and the amount that has been paid. There are many.However, in his memorials, he even sang the same tune as the towns, making alarmist remarks, in order to cheat for food and wages.

Here we can see Shi Kefa's helplessness.Because he had been tempered for a long time in the officialdom in the late Ming Dynasty, he was familiar with the long-standing abuses of Wen Tian and Wu Xi at that time, and he also accumulated a set of tricks to deal with the public opinion of the government and the public.

Although Shi Kefa himself really took great pains to mediate the towns and protect the environment and the people. It is certainly inappropriate to blame too much, but he was indeed fearful of the towns and regarded the towns as his pride, so that these warlords stopped their troops in the north of the Yangtze River and blindly exploited the people.

Therefore, it can be said that after Shi Kefa became the supervisor, he spent a lot of food and pay for the people in the south of the Yangtze River, but he was still helpless with the military situation. It is not too much to say that he tolerated traitors and fed tigers. (To be continued..)