1644 AD is the year of Jiashen in the Chinese Ganzhi calendar, the last year of the 276th year of the Ming Dynasty's rule over China; the first year of the 268th year of the Qing Dynasty's rule of the Central Plains; Li Zicheng established the Dashun Dynasty The year of the Great Western Dynasty was also the year of destruction; the year when Zhang Xianzhong established the Daxi Dynasty. The fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing Dynasty in 1644 was the most dramatic scene of all dynastic changes in Chinese history.This book mainly tells about the relationship between people under different regimes and the 1644 event around 1644.Some of them directly caused the sudden change in 1644, such as Li Zicheng and Wu Sangui; some of them did not wait until this day, but their own destiny was closely connected with 1644, such as Yuan Chonghuan; In the end, more Han people who did not change history were helplessly involved in the torrent of history. Like those who changed history, they faced a historical choice: either follow the trend of history and surrender to the Qing Dynasty, or resist fate and engage in anti-Qing activities. Restoration of the Ming Dynasty, or compromise with fate and retreat to the mountains and forests, which led to a far more complicated situation than in 1644.

Therefore, during the great social turmoil in the late Ming Dynasty, everyone was inevitably involved in the torrent of history, playing different roles.But all of these people ended in tragedy. For two thousand years in China, morality has been used instead of the legal system, and it was developed to the extreme in the Ming Dynasty. This is the crux of all problems. What is described in this book is basically a total record of failures.Because the main characters in the narrative include Emperor Chongzhen who hanged Meishan, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, the leaders of the peasant uprising, Wu Sangui and Hong Chengchou, important officials of the Ming Dynasty who surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Hongguang, Zuo Liangyu, and Shi Kefa of the Southern Ming Dynasty, and others. The giants of Fushe, Chen Zilong, Hou Fangyu, etc., and the three Jiangzuo masters, Qian Qianyi, Gong Dingzi, and Wu Weiye, were either defeated or famous, and none of them achieved success.Even if it wasn't for Liu Rushi, Li Xiangjun and other Qinhuai prostitutes who were high in the temple, they all had no good results.

This situation cannot be explained by personal reasons, but the environment of the day, from the emperor to the common people, all became victims of the general environment. If we look at historical figures from a historical point of view, we will find that the choices of these historical figures are all their own pursuits, and they are all choices made under the general environment at that time. Although it is a tragedy, it is not. How much can be blamed and criticized.The choice of these historical figures more or less rewrote history.We cannot force the ancients to have today's way of thinking, but we need to express our understanding of their behavior.In that era, it was impossible to judge right from wrong. They were all struggling to pursue their own ideals, to survive, to live a better life, to survive, and to struggle under the unfair fate.

History is developing and changing, and we try to find the reasons for historical changes from the phenomena of historical life. Also in the Jiashen Year of 1644, on the other side of the world in England, Cromwell led the Parliamentary Army to a decisive battle with the Royal Army in the Marston Moor, and won a decisive victory, which became a turning point in the English Civil War.The English Civil War was a great struggle between the British bourgeoisie and the feudal autocratic monarchy with the support of the broad masses of the people.Through the war, the autocratic monarchy was overthrown, and the new aristocracy and the bourgeoisie established their dominant positions in the country's political life.The Battle of Marston thus became one of the important symbols of the success of the British bourgeois revolution.

On January 30, 1649, less than five years after Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself, Charles I of the Stuart dynasty of England was executed. In February, Congress passed a resolution to abolish the House of Lords and the Crown, and in May, the Republic was established.The English bourgeois revolution reached its apex with the help of victory in the Civil War. In the 1740s, the monarchs of two great powers in the East and the West went to death successively, but their deaths brought about completely different results: the Western bourgeoisie entered the stage of world history with a brand new look.China once again replaced the old feudal power with a new feudal power. The year of Jiashen in 1644 was the symbolic year when the West entered this track, and China began to lag behind the West since then.

Three hundred years after 1644, in AD 1944, the West was far ahead of China in terms of political civilization, economic system and technology.Guo Moruo published the famous "Jiashen Three Hundred Years Ceremony" in Chongqing's "Xinhua Daily".After this article was published, it immediately aroused great attention from both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.The KMT considered this article to be a "campaign for the Communist Party's anti-government" and condemned it.The Chinese Communist Party believes that this article explains the occurrence, victory, and failure of the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty from the perspective of historical materialism, and it is extremely valuable to summarize the painful lessons of the uprising's ultimate failure. 1944 was already the eve of the victory of the revolution (the original meaning of "revolution" is to change the destiny, see "Zhouyi·Forty-ninth Hexagram·Ge": "The revolution of Tang and Wu follows the sky and responds to people, and the time of revolution is great. ”), so the article "Jiashen Three Hundred Years Ceremony" played an inestimable role in the Chinese Communist Party's seizure of national power.Mao Zedong attached great importance to this article, and twice called on the whole party to study it, and took it as an important document for the study of the Yan'an rectification movement, emphasizing guarding against arrogance and anti-corruption.

What we need is an authentic understanding of the past. The year 1644 is so representative, which reflects the characteristics and disadvantages of China, and will always affect the most tragic history of modern China, even today, or even affect China's future. The Jiashen year has special meanings to the Chinese people. Apart from the thrilling vicissitudes, there are also more sighs.Revisiting Jiashen, there are still thousands of horses galloping in my heart. Everyone mentioned in this book is an ordinary person.Around 1644, too many people in various positions and for various interests developed intricate but stable rules.In this chess game where too many people restrain each other, everyone becomes "a person who is determined by fate and has only a small power to change" (French historian Braudette said).Therefore, the focus of this book is not on the legend of the characters, but on the general environment of the era background in which the protagonists live.In fact, in this book, the background is the protagonist.

Finally, it needs to be explained that I am not a historian, nor have I received training in history. I came from an engineering background, and at best I am only a lover of history and literature.I worked hard on history out of interest and hobbies, but I really started writing from historical novels.I position my book as an essay between official history and historical fiction.History only pays attention to recording reality, while historical novels mostly have many fictional things.It is the most typical historical novel. Although it is rated as "examining the history of various countries and paying attention to profits and losses", it actually rewrites historical facts in many places.And my short essays will never deviate from the reality of official history, but on the basis of taking into account the reading habits of modern readers, I will make some environmental and psychological reproductions to show the richness of historical reality; but these reproductions must be in line with case of historical logic.

It should be emphasized that although this book is divided into chapters, with major events and core characters as the main line, overall, the book is coherent in time, because the contents are highly related, so in some places There will be intersections, and they will not be fully discussed in chronological order.