Chapter 19 Not Paying Food—Li Zicheng’s Achilles’ heel

Who is Cheng Jiubo? For many, it didn't matter at all who he was, and few even knew there was such a person.Indeed, originally, like most people who have ever been on this planet, he should have been silently annihilated in eternal silence, just like a foam in the sea. One day in May three hundred and sixty-one years ago, Cheng Jiubo accidentally stepped into history, leaving muddy footprints. "History of the Ming Dynasty", Azige and He Tengjiao's memorials, early Qing historian Fei Mi's "Desolate Book", local county chronicles, "Cheng's Genealogy" and other materials are organized together to put such a suspicious case in black and white. on his head:

Li Zicheng, the Chuang Wang who ruled the world, should have died at the hands of this Cheng Jiubo! Therefore, as the executioner who killed the heroes of the peasant uprising, Cheng Jiubo certainly became the representative of the deadly enemy of the peasant class—the landlord class.It is clearly written in the textbook: When Li Zicheng fled to Jiugong Mountain in Hubei, he was killed by the local "landlord's armed forces". However, there is a lot of information proving that Cheng Jiubo is just an ordinary farmer in Tongshan, Hubei. According to the local tribe, he is just a "barbarian" who "carries a thousand catties" and farms and cuts firewood on the mountain every day. A typical working people .Some even said that Cheng Jiubo killed King Chuang only because King Chuang wanted to steal the lunch his mother brought.

So in that red era, it became a somewhat embarrassing question for those who had the energy and courage to think off track.In the end, most of them had no choice but to understand their own class theory in this way: even if this person named Cheng was not a landlord, he must be the landlord's minion—the first-class training in the Xiangyongtuan!Some even tried their best to verify his background, trying to promote Uncle Jiu to the class they wanted him to exist in. Of course, there were also many people who dismissed Cheng Jiubo. The ending of King Chuang, since the day he called off the curtain on the historical stage, has been a complicated and weird mystery, with no less than ten kinds of answers: there is a saying that he died in Jiugong Mountain in Tong County; Qingcheng said and so on.There are also different methods of death, some were attacked by villagers, some hanged themselves, and some died in the so-called gods in the temple...

After the only truth is swallowed by the black hole of history, Cheng Jiubo is just one of the answers that are closest to the truth calculated by future generations from the pile of old papers.However, I would rather believe that this is the truth.The farmer Cheng Jiubo and the "Ming Dynasty" mentioned "he dies in his own mind", in my opinion, has a very subtle symbolic meaning—— The hero of the peasant uprising died at the hands of a peasant! Died under the peasant's hoe! Who said that a hoe can only weed and loosen the soil?Who said that the hand holding a hoe can only bow and bow, pick grain and hand over gifts?

Who can tell how many hoes, big and small, thick and thin, struggled and struggled in the heaps of starved people all over the Loess Plateau with King Chuang's angry cry, holding them high above their heads, following King Chuang The referent roared and swarmed? There is no need to count the size of the 13th and 72nd Battalions that rose up, just look at the 13th year of Chongzhen: when they broke out from the mountains in Brazil, there were only fifty people in their own group, but one or two After entering Henan a month later, there was already a mighty 200,000 army behind him—the 200,000 people took up knives and guns in the hands that used to hold hoes.

The country that has been inherited by the Ming Dynasty for more than two hundred and seventy years has been hoeed to pieces by the humblest and most inconspicuous hoes from the Yellow Land. Even the universe will die, and nothing in the world can live forever.It is also very reasonable that the world that Zhu Yuanzhang won with a hoe is still smashed under the hoe. I don’t want to say that all of this is just due to natural disasters, even Chongzhen himself understands that it is more of a man-made disaster, although in the will, he still shirks all responsibility as always: "The rebels are going straight to the capital—all ministers mistakenly Zhen"; I don't want to excuse Chongzhen's seventeen years of hard work, after all, Daming died in his hands; Self-willedness and so on, it is as meaningless as judging a child who is carrying a heavy load and falls to his head because he is too weak.

What's more, after more than two hundred years of accumulation, the burden has become so heavy, not to mention Chongzhen with great ambition and talent. As the survival basis of any dynasty, the hoe was originally the most powerful tool for dynasty reincarnation. In 1644 AD, China had four options: Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and Dorgon behind Fulin.At that time, many people in later generations believed that Li Zicheng was only one step away from the final success. Chongzhen's mess is already hopeless; Zhang Xianzhong is not as powerful as Chuang Wang after all, and secondly he is moody and bloodthirsty; King Dashun, who was crowned king in Xi'an, is most likely the one who can end the chaos and bring about peace.Hasn't the "Eighteen Sons, the Lord's Artifact" been sung everywhere?

Millions of hoes have turned over and loosened the hard frozen soil of thousands of miles of rivers and mountains, and weeded all the thorns and weeds, just waiting for the Li family dynasty to establish a foundation and rebuild the world. More than ten years of bloody and endless fighting, everyone in the world is tired, everyone wants to throw away the blunt-edged knives and guns, have a good sleep, wake up with a hoe, a hoe, a pen holder, and a peaceful life Live in peace. The choking gunpowder smoke has been permeating the land of China for too long. The process of Li Zicheng's capture of Beijing is a good illustration of this mood.In the first month of the 17th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led an army from Chang'an to Beijing.The counties and counties along the way look forward to sending money, which really depends on the message.By the sixth day of March, they had reached Xuanfu, Shanxi.When the Dashun army began to attack the city, the governor Zhu Zhifeng ordered the defenders to fire artillery, but "there was no one to respond".Zhu was so annoyed that he wanted to light the fire himself, but his subordinates grabbed his hand silently.By the 17th, the Dashun Army had occupied Lugou Bridge.The three major battalions stationed outside Beijing immediately surrendered to Li Zicheng and turned their guns to bombard Beijing.There are also many Western cannons in the city, but when the cannons fired back, although the sound shook the roof tiles and resounded through the sky, and "the thief was not killed", even Li Zicheng was confused at the time.It turned out that "I don't know who was pointing at the city, and the Western guns did not put lead pellets and used false strikes."Li Guozhen, the guard of the capital, saw that the general situation was over, and hurriedly went to Chongzhen and cried loudly: "The defenders don't need to die, one person will be whipped, and the other will lie down as before."What else could Chongzhen do?That day, even if he himself rang the bell to summon all the officials to go to court, no one came.

"Jiashen Chuanxinlu" records that when Li Zicheng attacked Beijing, there were more than 400,000 defenders in the Ming Dynasty, and thousands of generals (of course, this number is somewhat exaggerated), but "there were only two people who died in border incidents when facing the enemy. ". It took just over two months to fight from Shaanxi to Beijing; and this strongest city in the world, which survived Oala and the Manchu Qing several times with overwhelming force, was breached in less than three days-through the ages, How many people can attack the capital of a country as easily as Li Zicheng?

All this can only show that the balance of the current situation has been lowered towards Li Zicheng, waiting for him to loosen his muscles and bones, move his wrists, step on the tray of the scale, and swing him to the top of the supreme being in the world. In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, or the first year of Dashun Yongchang, on March 19th, Li Zicheng, wearing a felt hat and riding a blue and white variegated horse, entered Beijing accompanied by Niu Jinxing and others.Hearing the sound of gongs and drums louder than the shelling of the defenders, and watching the people of the capital cheering and cheering, Li Zicheng waved his hands frequently, triumphantly.Walking to Chengtian Gate, looking up and seeing the plaque, Cheng Hao was so excited that he asked someone to take a bow and shoot an arrow right under the word "Tian".The officials fell to the ground and shouted long live. Li Zicheng threw his bow and laughed.

It had just rained this morning and the air was fresh.Under the noon sun in late spring, the city of Beijing was full of jubilation. After entering the city, whether Dashun's military discipline was so-called "no crime in autumn", or "rapid corruption" and "rampant brutality", or how many days it took to lose control has always been a topic of endless debate among historians throughout the ages.However, there is a fact that no one can deny, that is, in the Dashun army, in addition to the necessary military supplies, there are also some things that are very characteristic of Dashun: sticks.These sticks are very overbearing. "Jiashen Jishi" said that "every tree has edges and is connected with nails, and every person who is clamped will be broken." Li Guozhen, the uncle of Xiangcheng, struggled to climb back to the room to hang himself after being hit twice.No one knows how many pairs of sticks there are in the whole army, but it is said that General Liu Zongmin alone prepared 5,000 pairs. The stick is used in conjunction with the Dashun policy: to "pursue stolen goods and subsidize payment" to officials at all levels of the royal family and relatives of the Ming Dynasty.It's hard for Liu Zongmin to be so rude, he insisted on setting such a detailed standard (according to "Jiashen Hezhenlue"): Anyone who has been a cabinet scholar will be chased for one hundred thousand taels of silver; Officials of ministries, courts, and Jinyiwei, chasing silver ranging from 70,000 to 50,000 to 30,000; Thirteen imperial censors and six divisions give middle-level ones, and the chasing silver varies from 50,000 to 30,000; Hanlin is poorer, 320,000 yuan is fine, but it must not be less than 10,000 yuan; Doctors and members below are counted in two thousand taels each; Of course, there is no limit to the number of relatives, as much as you can squeeze... For a time, Beijing mourned loudly, and everything was in a mess.Gold, silver and jewelry were continuously transported to the barracks day and night.The red-eyed general of Dashun Army saw that money came easily, no one cared about any standards, and then he almost caught everyone he saw, no matter who you were or whether you had money, you can talk after you get caught!Liu Zongmin and the others were even more laughing and spinning around every day. People all over the world are eagerly waiting for a real dragon emperor to end the suffering, but unexpectedly, a group of mountain kings like wolves and tigers will come!I thought that when King Chuang arrived, it would be a condolence, and then he started from the city of Beijing and extended it to implement the benevolent government of "equal land" that he kept saying, but unexpectedly it was a stick!Within a few days, notes in mourning for Emperor Chongzhen quietly appeared around the capital, saying that the Ming Dynasty had not exhausted its energy, inciting everyone to avenge the Ming Dynasty and expel the Dashun Army—it seemed that Li Zicheng was not as good as the emperor who hanged alone! Many people in later generations found the reason for Li Zicheng's failure from this: it was this torture to recover stolen goods that led to chaos in the capital and loss of popular support—for Dashun himself, it also led to the corruption of the army.The most direct consequence was the crushing defeat of the Dashun Army in the Battle of Shanhaiguan.Although it cannot be simply said that within twenty or thirty days, the army that even drank human blood and went into battle like a liger would be rotten and weak, but the big bags around the waist must be It also caused the Dashun Army to somewhat lose its original vigor. Some people also excused King Chuang, saying that Liu Zongmin was short-sighted and didn't listen to King Chuang's advice, he would only make money and women, which ruined his career.However, isn't it a policy that Li Zicheng approves of recovering stolen goods and subsidizing wages? "Biju Town Fusi", this is an institution specially set up by the Dashun regime after entering Beijing to recover stolen goods!Besides, the pursuit of stolen goods did not start in the city of Beijing, it was always started every time one got a piece of land, sitting in the lobby, every pair of sticks might make the oil shine, and the executioner was even more skilled like a bull.This system of recovering stolen goods, which is used in conjunction with the pincers, is constantly adjusted according to the level of the captured city. When it comes to Beijing, the center of the world, and the lair of the highest-level corrupt officials, can it be easily let go? The most important thing is that the Dashun Army has never had a formal logistics supply system. If hundreds of thousands of people eat and drink, if they don't pursue stolen goods, where will the Dashun Army's salary come from? It is said that Li Zicheng lost after entering Beijing. In fact, when Li Zicheng's army shouted the slogan "follow the king, don't pay the food", the hidden danger of failure has already been planted. For the hungry people who are struggling to find grass roots, bark, and even dead squirrels on the terracotta soil, opening warehouses to provide relief, not paying food, equalizing the land, and exempting the tax for three years are definitely the most attractive slogans in the world.With a wave of arms, hundreds of thousands of people roared in response, and Li Zicheng assembled a million troops like snowballing with these few measures. Millions of people need to eat and drink, and they don't need the common people to pay for their food. Under such circumstances, the practical needs of recovering stolen goods and subsidizing wages, and liquidating the moths who used to be superior, combined with the sentiment of class revenge, the simplest method came into being and effectively Nourish and develop Chuang Wang's army. Undoubtedly, these measures were extremely necessary in the early stages of the insurrection.However, when Li Zicheng's strength grows enough to win the Central Plains, what he faces is not only to recruit hungry people to join the army, but also to think carefully about how to re-establish a reasonably functioning economic order in the areas he already controlled, and With the military victory, it spread to the whole world. And a regime without a foundation—a sound fiscal and taxation system—relies on the form of robbery such as the recovery of stolen goods all the way to maintain its operation, and the outcome is predictable. Zhu Yuanzhang, who also made his fortune in the wilderness back then, rebelled. The old Confucian Zhu Sheng gave him nine words: "Build walls high, accumulate grain widely, and become king slowly." Zhu Yuanzhang acted accordingly and brought down the great Ming Dynasty.Compared with the ancestors of his opponent Chongzhen, Li Zicheng obviously violated the first two.To build a wall high means to stand firm, but Li Zicheng lived up to the word "Chuang" at all. He traveled all over half of China and destroyed countless walls, but he never built one of his own.For many years, Li Zicheng's troops were blind men breaking the grain, breaking one by one and throwing one by one, taking down the city, looting everything, and then rushing away, rarely thinking of building a wall to stand firm.To accumulate grain, Zhu Yuanzhang used an effective system to collect grain and taxes, but Li Zicheng never worried about running out of grain—the grain was all on this pair of sticks, as much as he wanted. To conquer a city and hang the city's big-minded local tyrants and evil gentry on a stick is really "eating his mother and drinking his mother", of course it is a pleasure.However, it is eaten up, and another city is exchanged, fight!Hit it down and clip it!After clipping, hit again! This approach has its full advantages in military affairs. It does not need to defend the land, does not need supplies, is flexible and maneuverable, and is fierce and fast.However, this is only an advantage when attacking, and just like this, it will definitely not be able to maintain the results of bloody battles. Has Li Zicheng thought about setting up his own management system, organizing production, establishing logistics, and getting rid of wars to support wars in the city after killing all corrupt officials and removing the sticks? As if it didn't really come to mind.From the establishment of the Dashun regime, it can be seen that the system that stipulates that civil servants should be controlled by military generals. At that time, Li Zicheng believed most in military generals like Liu Zongmin who charged forward, and he still pinned everything on force—he still couldn’t sit still. Come down and discuss with the literati to design a reasonable tax system. This also determined the inevitability of "pursuing stolen goods and subsidizing payment" after the Dashun Army entered Beijing. There are a few other things worth noting. Before Li Yan took refuge, Li Zicheng's army was not fundamentally different from Zhang Xianzhong and other insurgents. They burned, killed and plundered basically regardless of their targets. On the way to Beijing, Li Zicheng sent people to negotiate with Chongzhen several times. The content was not to persuade Chongzhen to surrender, but to separate a piece of land and become king!Even when the army came to Beijing and the city was about to fall, Du Xun, the eunuch who surrendered, was sent into the city to look for Chongzhen, but his purpose was only: "To cut off the northwest area, order him to be king, and reward the army with millions of dollars." Li Zicheng once said: "Shaanxi is my hometown. Wealth and honor must return to my hometown. That is, ten Yanjings are not enough to make one Xi'an!" From these things, combined with Li Zicheng's delay in establishing even a preliminary fiscal and taxation system, it can only be said that his vision has never reached a height enough to overlook the entire world, and it has not even gone beyond Shaanxi.He should be taking one step at a time, not knowing what he will do in the end. He must have never expected to enter Beijing so soon. The victory came too suddenly, and he was rushed into the Forbidden City before he was fully prepared.He didn't even have an internship opportunity, and he set off for Beijing before the throne in Xi'an was hot. Forty-two days in Beijing, Li Zicheng was even more dizzy. In the past, the brothers rushed all the way, the city was getting bigger and bigger, the pass was getting more and more dangerous, and it was exciting. Now even the capital of Ming Dynasty has been laid down, and it was lost for a while. The next goal - if there is one, it's just a formal enthronement.In the past, it was to overthrow the Ming Dynasty, but now he suddenly became the master of this country, Li Zicheng was a little at a loss. Most of his experience lies in "Chuang". When he suddenly changed his identity to Shoushi, the shrewd and powerful King Li Chuang became the dull and stupid King Dashun. When all the signs proved that Wu Sangui was determined to fight to the end, he still hesitated. When he went to Shanhaiguan with Wu's father, Ming Taizi and others, he still dreamed of appeasement. Some people say that Li Zicheng's failure lies in his lack of senior counselors such as Xiao He, Zhang Liang, Liu Bowen, and Xu Shanchang.It also makes sense, Niu Jinxing and his like, who are busy recruiting students to prepare for the grand ceremony as soon as they enter Beijing, are really not good enough.But there are also some people who have been sober, such as Li Yan. After entering Beijing, he saw that the situation was not right. .Compared with the fiasco in the future, it is really a word for word.But Li Zicheng's reaction was: "I'm not very happy to see the sparseness. It's not okay to 'know' after criticizing the sparseness." Guess Zicheng's mood at the time, did he feel that there are so many good brothers who have been through life and death for so many years, and followed Lao Tzu to fight the world with their heads up, and now they finally hit the imperial city, brothers, can't they be happy for a few days?Besides, those treacherous and dirty dog ​​officials, what's the point of pinching them a few more times? Three hundred and sixty-two years later, when I read history so far, I can't help but sigh deeply. The death of the Ming Dynasty is a fact that no one can save, but it's a pity that the great river and mountains have fallen into the hands of a hero who doesn't even know what he is going to do! He is indeed a hero, he keeps saying that he does not pay his food, and he has indeed become a hero who does not pay his food! It's just a pity that this hero has worked so hard all his life, but he just acted as a vanguard with an ax for the ambitious heroes outside the pass! For the common people, it has been the best dream for thousands of years to equalize the land without paying the grain.Especially at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when the levies and miscellaneous taxes were as heavy as mountains, Li Zicheng at this time was simply a savior. According to the class theory of the year, Li Zicheng can certainly be regarded as an outstanding representative of the peasant class.Using this theoretical analysis, Li Zicheng's failure seems to be due to his "corruption" after entering Beijing and his betrayal of the peasant class. In my opinion, on the contrary, the tragedy is that Li Zicheng could not get rid of his peasant habits, and the victory he won too soon made it too late for him to switch to another class-the official, gentry and landlord class-if the old ruling class can be called The words of this name. Everyone has to admit that the class of officials, gentry and landlords who govern the world and who are well-versed in classics and familiar with historical lessons (so called in this article) are far better than those peasants whose legs are covered in mud.What's more, if they don't really bow down at your feet, but fan the flames behind your back, you will never try to prove how orthodox your throne is, so don't think that all living beings in the world can be your subjects at ease-as long as there are When it comes to food, kind and honest people always follow behind the upper class.The halo on your head needs these people to put it on for you, just like when the Western emperor is crowned, the bishop wears it for you. In the final analysis, in feudal society, the role of the peasant class was often to conquer the world; but to defend the world and build the world, I am afraid that it is more dependent on the class of officials, gentry and landlords. It can be said that at the moment of entering Beijing, the importance of the official and gentry class has surpassed that of the peasant brothers around them. The world has never belonged to any particular class. To rule the world, it is not only the class of one's origin that needs to be united, but also the spirit of inclusiveness. To be more precise, what Li Zicheng should do is not to switch classes, but to detach from classes and comfort all classes and people with a gentle and generous mind. Whether it's the peasantry, the gentry and the landlords, the brothers, or the survivors of the Ming Dynasty, aren't they all your people from now on?Be it Beijing or Xi'an, where is not your country? When conquering the world, you can use class hatred as much as you can; while governing the world, your task can only be to smooth out the contradictions between classes as much as possible-how can you think of your own capital like this (even if you only regard it as walking) Make chickens fly and dogs jump? Is there any Taiping emperor who governed his country with sticks endlessly? Are you, Da Shunchao, going to live on a stick forever? Li Zicheng has not really got off his horse, he is still "Chuangwang". He still didn't understand the truth of "You can win the world immediately, but you can't rule it". He may not even really realize the great significance of Beijing as the capital of the Ming Dynasty.Maybe he sees the city of Beijing as nothing more than a granary and treasury. Since he intends to return to his Xi'an after the war, it doesn't matter if it is a bit dilapidated—even though he also knows that this is the largest and richest city in the world. But from the moment he entered Chengtianmen, all eyes in the world focused on him and his Dashun army.Everyone is secretly weighing their weight in their hearts. Every cough in the city of Beijing will be spread thousands of miles away, and spread to the weighing pan of everyone's heart in all directions, to weigh whether these upstarts who are full of hard Qin opera can do it. Conquer this chaotic land. If you can calm down, you are the one who is truly destined for God!otherwise-- In a few days, everyone could see clearly that this group of majestic Shaanxi men were nothing but a group of locusts, locusts that came overwhelmingly and gnawed away everything! In the history books of every dynasty, there is a title for this kind of locust: "rogue." Shanhaiguan's actions after the retreat completely disappointed those who had had a little illusion about King Chuang.Hastily held a enthronement ceremony, immediately retreated, and ran back to Xi'an with bulging luggage.Before leaving, he did not forget to burn all the palaces and gates that could be burned. Even Chongzhen, who was at the end of his life, was not willing to do it.When they met villages along the way, they killed people and set fire to vent their anger; even slaughtered cities, but they slaughtered their own cities!At this time, his own city has become the enemy's fortress - reported from all over the world, there are rebellions in Dashun territory, and the officials set up by Li Zicheng are either sacrificed in front of the Chongzhen tablet or tied up as an audience gift. Dorgon! It's useless to ascend the throne and offer sacrifices to heaven. In just a few months, the Dashun regime has completely recovered and turned into a rogue. Rogues without specific goals and detailed plans cannot withstand repeated failures.Since then, the situation has been chaotic, and it can no longer be regained.You know, Li Zicheng still had hundreds of thousands of troops in Xi'an at that time. Maybe not so many, it is said that the elite troops were completely lost in Shanhaiguan.What's more likely is that the Dashun Army, who had gold and silver in their pockets, saw that their business was sluggish, and scattered a lot—we have money, so we can go home and buy a few acres of land to live a good life.Anyway, there is no emperor nowadays, as long as he waits to kowtow to the next person who is firmly seated in the dragon chair, won't all the charges be cancelled?In the past, there was meat to follow Chuang Wang, and as long as he kept breathing, there was still hope, so even if there were only eighteen riders left, Li Zicheng could make a comeback; Being kicked out - no such fate - followed by no future, it may be in vain to get on my own head, it is better to go home. Needless to say, all the people in the world who are watching closely, even the Dashun army themselves see that "winners and losers" is also the simplest truth. And the harassment of bandits is regardless of class or object, so no matter who they are, they all hate them equally. Of course, it also includes farmers who he promised not to pay grain. On the way to retreat, in the middle of the night, listening to the cries of the people in the wilderness harassing the army to rest, could Li Zicheng figure it out: Why did the villagers who were eating pots and pulp and worshiping against the wind all the way on the way to the east, in just a few short months, all die? Turned into a mob who would rather burn down his own house and fill the well to fight against our Dashun army? When Li Zicheng fled to Jiugong Mountain, the dazzling light on his body had already faded completely. Appearing in front of Cheng Jiubo, who was engrossed in working in the fields, was a ferocious one-eyed man with a knife and arrow.He looked haggard and exhausted. There are bandits and soldiers everywhere, and the times have been turbulent for many years. All townships and villages have already organized themselves to defend their homes.Cheng Jiubo stopped his work and looked at the bloody man vigilantly. He gripped the hoe tightly. According to historical records, Cheng Jiubo was awarded the experience of De'an Mansion by the Qing court for his meritorious service in killing thieves.