Chapter 63 5. The mountains of prey and the rise of the Central Plains

Li Zicheng hid in Shangluo Mountain with a dozen people, and gradually collected the broken old troops to accumulate strength.According to historical legend, during this period of time, he once went to Gucheng to meet Zhang Xianzhong. Since Zhang Xianzhong accepted Xiong Wencan's recruitment, he was placed in the Gucheng area on the south bank of the Han River. He is too cunning, so no one knows whether he really surrendered or not.According to the residents of Gucheng, in December of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, that is, two months after Li Zicheng's defeat in Tongguan Nanyuan, someone saw Li Zicheng riding a mule and bringing several cronies to Gucheng.The two people did not know what they talked about. A few days later, Li Zicheng left with some mules and horse armor given by Zhang Xianzhong.

This is certainly a rumor, but it does not seem to be an unfounded rumor.In May of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong rebelled in Gucheng, and Cao Cao, Luo Rucai and others also responded. For more than half a year, Li Zicheng has been active in the mountains at the junction of Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Huguang. They will go out from here to compete in the Central Plains, and finally climb to the Golden Temple in Beijing.After the defeat of the Dashun Army, his remnants returned to this area and persisted in farming and fighting for more than ten years. It was not until the second year of Kangxi that the Qing army was completely wiped out at Jiulianping in Maolu Mountain.

This is probably reincarnation. But now, Li Zicheng's career has just begun. When he heard the news that Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai and others rebelled again, he quickly went out to join Luo Rucai, nicknamed "Cao Cao", and other troops. At this time, there were only a thousand people around him.The peasant army and the Ming army fought a battle in Xiangyouping, defeated the Ming army, and then moved to Sichuan.Fu Zonglong, governor of Sichuan, came to attack. Li Zi had few adults and horses. After losing the battle, he fled into the mountains in today's Fengjie area, leaving only a few dozen people around him.It is said that Li Zicheng was quite depressed in the mountains, and tried to commit suicide several times, but was dissuaded by his cronies.One day, he and Liu Zongmin entered the temple together, and sighed: "People say that I should be the emperor. Let's have a look. It's unlucky, so you can take my head and surrender!" uplifting.After returning home, Liu Zongmin killed his two wives, and said to Li Zicheng, "I'm risking my life to be with you."

Afterwards, Li Zicheng moved closer to Zhang Xianzhong in Fangxian County, but Zhang Xianzhong had just suffered a defeat. Both of them were weak, and the combined strength was no more than a thousand elite soldiers, and they were soon defeated by the chasing Ming army. There were not many people around Li Zicheng, but with few people and small targets, he easily got rid of the pursuit of the Ming army, returned to Shaanxi in July, and then entered Henan.This was the autumn of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen. At that time, there was a famine in Henan every year, but the imperial court was still extorting excessively, and the people were in dire straits.According to the official Zuo Maodi, in the Central Plains in the northern section of the Grand Canal, 30% of the people died of starvation, 30% died of illness, and the remaining 40% had no choice but to "be a thief." The difficulties in other places can also be imagined.

After Li Zicheng entered Henan, relying on his great reputation as "Chuangwang", many small groups of peasant troops came to join him, and his strength quickly grew again.At the end of this year, he broke through Lushan, Jiaxian, Yiyang, Yiyang and other counties. Li Chuang's prestige, not to mention the desperate ordinary people, even some intellectuals also came to seek refuge, the famous ones were Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance and others.Niu Jinxing himself is a Juren, and the incident of him taking refuge in Li Zicheng is known as the beginning of "Juren to surrender thieves". They all rebelled!Niu Jinxing and others persuaded Li Zicheng to "prohibit prostitution and killing, occupy the Central Plains, and win people's hearts", and sent people to spread slogans everywhere such as "Welcome the king of Chuang, don't pay the grain", "Don't kill civilians, but kill officials". To them, the tyrannical government of Kepai and the slogan of "not paying food" is tantamount to rain after a long drought.In addition to using economic means to win people's hearts, Li Zicheng's army also put forward the strict discipline of "Killing a person is like killing my father, and adultery is like adultery with my mother". "Benevolence and Righteous Soldiers", many people return to them.

The Ming court analyzed the two "giant thieves" Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, and believed that "governance is easy, but governance is difficult." Why? "Gai Xian is feared by people; Chuang is attached to people." Because "Chuang" is so popular, even the loyal men of the Ming Dynasty went to the point of "seeing thieves as home, and people forgetting loyalty"—such How can a "thief" be cured?Therefore, since Li Zicheng entered Henan in the autumn of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the land of the Central Plains burned like a raging fire.

Li Zicheng's mobile operations in the previous ten years were all aimed at avoiding the encirclement and suppression by the government and army, which can be said to be aimless.At this time, Niu Jinxing's persuasion, coupled with Song Xiance's divination "Eighteen Sons Master the Artifact", the fate and personnel seem to be telling Li Zicheng: He can replace him. A campaign to compete in the Central Plains has begun! At the end of December of this year, Li Zicheng conquered Yongning and killed Zhu Caiqing, the king of Wan'an, the clan of the Ming Dynasty.At the beginning of the next year, Li Zicheng's army conquered Yanshi, Lingbao, Xin'an, and Baofeng, and surrounded Luoyang, an important town in the Central Plains.Luoyang is the fiefdom of Emperor Chongzhen's uncle, Zhu Changxun, King of Fu.This King of Fortune was born of the Wanli Emperor's favorite concubine Zheng, and Chongzhen's father Guangzong Zhu Changluo had been fighting for the crown prince for decades. This is the famous "national foundation" dispute in the Wanli Dynasty.

Although the mother and concubine were favored, under the desperate efforts of the court ministers, Zhu Changxun failed to win the crown prince. His father, Emperor Wanli, felt very guilty about this, so he had to try his best to make up for it in other ways.Therefore, King Fu's fiefdom and treatment are quite astonishing: Not only was the land enfeoffed as an important town in the Central Plains, the ancient capital of Luoyang (Wanli's younger brother, Lu Wang, was only entrusted to Weihui, a medium-sized city), but he also granted 20,000 hectares of land (this is still after the ministers strived to reduce the number), And got the salt monopoly.We also know that during the Wanli period, the mine salt tax envoys went out to harass the people and search for money everywhere-the extra income of the Wanli emperor is said to have mostly been given to the Fu Wang Zhu Changxun.

Although Chang Xun's elder brother Chang Luo won the crown prince and became emperor, the victory was not easy - he waited for 19 years to win the position of crown prince, and spent 29 years in fear to keep this position , finally became the emperor, but died after only working for one month. So in calculation, Chang Xun's life is still more comfortable. Although he is not regarded as the emperor, he is really "rich in the world", so he doesn't have to worry about it.King Fu lived happily ever after for decades, and there was nothing to worry about, such as wine, sex and wealth.Only the two years when he was thirty-four or five years old had more things: first, he heard that his father, Emperor Shenzong, had passed away, and shed two tears; Dare to be seen...

The person who continued to replace the emperor was first his nephew Zhu Youxiao. This kid liked making handmade models since he was a child. The name is Chongzhen. It is said that he likes to kill people. This is not a good letter... Fortunately, this kid respects his elders. It seems that he does not want to settle old scores for his father. At this time, Chang Xun was over middle-aged and had nothing to do—he didn't dare to engage in politics or talk nonsense, so he had to immerse himself in wine and sex, waiting for the approach of old age.This is the general way of life of the vassals of the Ming Dynasty.

Fourteen years later, Chang Xun was already in his fifties, weighing more than three hundred catties, and he could not understand the situation of the world at all.Just after the Spring Festival of this year, there was a lot of turmoil everywhere. Lu Weiqi, Minister of the Ministry of War in Nanjing, who was dismissed due to the burning of the Fengyang Imperial Mausoleum, was living in Luoyang City at this time, and suddenly wrote a letter to King Fu.The letter said that the rogue Li Zicheng was about to call, and there were few soldiers and food in the city. Your lord, you are also in the city. For the sake of your own life, do you want to spend some money and food to supplement the army's salary?The obese old King Fu thought hard: Shall we scare the widows?If you lose the city, won't you be punished?It is my nephew's responsibility to guard the country, and I don't care about it. So he refused to pay for his life and death - he was still agitating about what happened back then. Fu Wang was not wrong in his estimation. The officials of all sizes in Henan were indeed dying of anxiety this time, but it was difficult to say whether they were capable of defending the emperor's uncle. Li Xianfeng, the governor of Henan who was stationed in Kaifeng, heard that Luoyang was in danger, so he urgently sent the general officer Wang Shaoyu and two generals to lead troops to help.When King Fu heard that reinforcements were coming, he was very happy. He invited the three generals to enter the city to drink, but they did not allow their troops to enter the city. Firstly, he heard that Wang Shaoyu's troops were not well disciplined, and secondly, he was afraid of spending too much money.Wang Shaoyu proposed a compromise plan. He led some troops into the city himself, and two lieutenants led troops to station outside the city.Fu Wang still disagreed.Wang Shaoyu was furious and marched into the city with his own soldiers, but King Fu was helpless.The troops who stayed outside the city came all the way, hoping to get some rewards, but they couldn't even enter the city gate, and they were quite resentful, so they surrendered to Li Zicheng immediately. At this time, Fu Wang realized that the momentum was not right, so he raised thousands of gold to recruit warriors to attack Li Zicheng's camp at night, and achieved some results, so Li Zicheng retreated temporarily. But the next day, on the 20th day of the first lunar month, Wang Shaoyu's relatives actually chatted and laughed with the peasant army on the top of the city. .Wang Shaoyu himself rushed to persuade him, but was also pushed aside by the soldiers.The peasant army took the opportunity to attack the city and swarmed in from the north gate of Luoyang, and the city of Luoyang was destroyed. Fu Wang and his son fled separately. Because he was too fat to run, he hid in a farmer's house and was arrested the next day.The peasant army killed King Fu, boiled his meat and venison, and put it in a high-level wine meeting, known as "Fu Lu Wine".Xiaofu Wang Zhu Yousong took advantage of the chaos to escape and went south.After Chongzhen committed suicide in 1644, he was proclaimed emperor in Nanjing, with the reign title "Hongguang", and he was Hongguang Emperor of Nanming.Emperor Hongguang was licentious and immoral, appointed inhumane people, and this small court lasted only one year. After Li Zicheng captured Luoyang, he used the surplus food in the Fuwang Mansion to relieve the hungry people. The hungry people rushed to tell each other and defected to Li Zicheng.Then, the Peasant Army burned down Fu Wang's Mansion, and the fire burned for three days.