Chapter 69 Eleven, Jiugong Mountain

Li Zicheng fled back to Beijing in a hurry on April 26, followed closely by Wu Sangui and the Qing army.The Dashun army's policy of rape, looting and torture in Beijing has completely lost popular support, and this city cannot stand for the Dashun Dynasty. On the twenty-ninth day, Li Zicheng ascended the throne in the Wuying Hall, that is, the throne of the emperor, and respected the seven temples.That night, the Dashun army set fire to the palace complex with a history of more than 200 years, and even the towers of the Nine Gates were not spared.At dawn the next day, the Dashun Army retreated from Qihuamen, and the wounded Liu Zongmin was carried away lying on a long table.

On May 2, Dorgon led the Qing army into Beijing, and soon after, the Shunzhi Emperor Fulin ushered in. Since then, Beijing has become the capital of the Qing Dynasty. After Li Zicheng withdrew from Beijing, he took Baoding and Zhending and retreated from Jingxing Pass into Shanxi.The rear generals Gu Kecheng and Zuo Guangxian were chased by the Qing army in Qingdu and Zhending, and they suffered consecutive defeats. Gu Kecheng died in battle and Zuo Guangxian was injured.Li Zicheng arrived in Taiyuan in mid-May, left Chen Yongfu to guard Taiyuan with 10,000 troops, and withdrew to Xi'an by himself.In early July, the Dashun Army launched some counterattacks, but was immediately repulsed by the Qing Army.

In mid-September, the Qing army attacked Taiyuan and blasted through the city wall of Taiyuan with heavy artillery. The guard Chen Yongfu died in battle. In October, Fulin officially proclaimed himself emperor in Beijing and ruled the Central Plains.The Qing court took Azige as the general of Jingyuan, and led Wu Sangui, Shang Kexi and others to attack Guanzhong from northern Shaanxi; Duoduo, as the general of Dingguo, went south to Henan and threatened Guanzhong from Tongguan. In December, Li Zicheng misjudged that the North Road was the main attack of the Qing army. In addition to Li Guo and Gao Yigong stationed in Yulin and Yan'an, he personally led the army to the north for reinforcements.But on the way, when they got the news that the Qing army had attacked Tongguan, they hurried back to aid Tongguan.The Dashun Army and the Qing Army fought bitterly under Tongguan City for nearly 20 days. The Qing Army bombarded the city with heavy artillery and occupied Tongguan on the 12th day of the first lunar month of the following year.

Li Zicheng immediately gave up Xi'an, left Wuguan from Lantian, and went south to Xiangyang.At this time, the Duoduo Department of the Qing Army was transferred to the eastern part of the Central Plains to prepare to eliminate the Nanming regime, and Azige was responsible for chasing Li Zicheng.Li Zicheng fled all the way, without organizing an effective resistance along the way, and the Jingxiang base area he worked so hard to easily gave up, and the morale of the troops became more and more low.Azig pursued closely and defeated the Dashun army several times. Li Zicheng could not beat the Qing army, but he was still confident in fighting Zuo Liangyu. He arrived in Qianjiang in early March and threatened to attack Wuchang, which Zuo Liangyu occupied.Zuo Liangyu was good at fighting Zhang Xianzhong, but he was not sure how to deal with Li Zicheng. In addition, he had a disagreement with Ma Shiying and Ruan Dayue, who were in power in Nanming, so he just used the excuse to go to Nanjing to "rescue the prince" and lead his troops to escape along the river.Li Zicheng easily occupied Wuchang, but only stayed for two days, then easily handed over Wuchang City to Azig who was chasing him, and fled along the river to Jiujiang by himself.The two battles at Shanhaiguan and Tongguan severely damaged Li Zicheng's confidence, making him want to flee when he saw the main force of the Qing army.

The Qing army caught up with Li Zicheng twice at Fuchikou and near Jiujiang, and the Dashun army was completely defeated.Li Zicheng turned southwest, made a U-turn in the west of Dehua County, turned into the Shogunate Mountains, passed through Ruichang, entered Xingguo, and then went north along Qili Mountain and Taiping Mountain to the north foot of Jiugong Mountain in Tongshan County.The Qing army pursued all the way, and in Jiugong Shanyin, they chased the Dashun army again. Li Zicheng suffered another defeat and his troops were dispersed.In this series of battles, the Dashun Army suffered heavy losses. General Liu Zongmin, Zuo Guangxian, military adviser Song Xiance, two uncles of Li Zicheng and a large number of senior family members were captured successively. Niu Jinxing was also separated from Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng retreated into Jiugong Mountain.At the beginning of the fifth month of the lunar calendar in 1645, he took twenty-eight riders to climb a mountain to observe the terrain, but was ambushed by a group of village braves, and Li Zicheng was killed in the chaos.Due to the haste of the incident, Zhang Shuangxi, Li Zicheng's adopted son who accompanied him, had to run away first. Li Zicheng's close follower, Liu Mou, flew after him and shouted, "Long live Li was killed and dismounted by the soldiers!" The remnants of the Dashun army were full All cry. This statement comes from the report of He Tengjiao, governor of Huguang, in the first year of Longwu, the Tang king of the Southern Ming Dynasty. At that time, Li Zicheng's old generals were all recruited by He Tengjiao. Their unanimous statement should be more credible.What's more, Zhang Shuangxi, one of the surviving parties, is currently stationed in Xiangyin and is available for investigation at any time.

For the Qing army, Azig also got the information that Li Zicheng was dead, and he immediately reported the good news to his brother Dorgon happily.Dorgon immediately offered sacrifices to the Tiandi Taimiao and announced it to China and foreign countries.But within a few days, Dorgon got the information that Li Zicheng had fled to Jiangxi. With a cautious attitude that he would rather believe what he had than believe what he hadn't, he accused Azig of lying about military information.As a result, the great hero Azige was demoted from the prince to the county king, and he was fined an additional five thousand taels of silver. Some generals were also implicated—one of them was the famous Ao Bai Ao Shaobao.

Azig suffers because there is no reliable party to provide testimony. So a few months later, Cheng Jiubai, a citizen of Jiugong Mountain, suddenly received a visit and commendation from the local county magistrate of the Qing Dynasty, saying that he had killed Li Zicheng. , the rotting corpses are illegible—is there any doubt about that?Under the encouragement or coercion of the county magistrate, Cheng Jiubai took a decayed human head, as well as the bead helmet and dragon robe that were said to be seized, to see the governor of Huguang.Governor Tong Junmen was overjoyed and appointed him as the manager of De'an Mansion, and later appointed him as the guard of Xi'an Mansion.

However, in the "Cheng's Family Tree" discovered in the 1950s, it was honestly recorded as "(Cheng) Ansi...the word is nine hundred...suppressing the trespasser Li Yan at the foot of Niuji Ridge".Whether Li Yan and Li Zicheng are alone or not, only ghosts know. Maybe because the family tree is a private study book, there are not so many concerns? Of course, we all know the historical facts, Li Zicheng is indeed dead. Therefore, a year later, Dorgon personally signed the document to rehabilitate Azige, Tan Tai, Obai and others. But it's not over yet.When he arrived in Qianlong, the emperor was free to take out his great-grandfather Shunzhi Dynasty's "Records" and read it. After reading it, he commented: "Prince Azig of England has an impure heart. Take it for yourself. All his descendants will be reduced to ordinary people, and their family status will be reduced." Azig was unlucky again.

At this time, almost a century has passed!History, it has been quietly changing the future.