Chapter 75 4. Enter Sichuan

In February of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong captured Kuimen and opened the door to Sichuan.Ming Shen general Zeng Ying guarded Wushan and the city pass, was defeated by Zhang Xianzhong, and retreated to Fuzhou. Zhang Xianzhong's army was stagnant for three months due to the rising water of the Yangtze River.In May, Zhang Xianzhong continued to march towards Chongqing.In Fengdu, the female general Qin Liangyu defended herself and did not dare to fight; in Zhongzhou, the deputy general Zhao Ronggui was defeated; in Fuzhou on the seventh day of June, Zeng Ying was defeated again.Since Fuzhou and above, Xianjun has not encountered strong resistance.

This year, the famous "Jiashen Change" in Chinese history took place.In March, Li Zicheng led the Dashun army to attack Beijing, and Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide in Meishan.During those months, the central nervous system of the Ming regime was paralyzed. Some remote places, such as Sichuan, simply didn't know what happened in those one or two months, and officials big and small sat there in a daze.On April 17, Zhu Yizhi, a military officer in Sichuan, fled back to Chengdu from Beijing, bringing the sad news that Beijing had fallen and Emperor Chongzhen's whereabouts were unknown, but no one knew what to do in Sichuan.

Everyone made a fuss until the 24th day before they discussed asking the king of Shu to supervise the country, but Liu Zhibo, the inspector, firmly opposed it and failed.At this time, the most powerful person in Sichuan was Long Wenguang, the newly appointed governor of Sichuan Province, but when Mr. Long arrived in Shunqing, Zhang Xianzhong was almost at the city of Chongqing.Chen Shiqi, the former governor of Sichuan, was still in Chongqing at this time and urgently asked Long Wenguang for help. Mr. Long Wenguang has integrity, but he doesn't seem very capable, and he is a bit dull like a scholar.Chongqing City was already on fire, so the old man asked all the reinforcements to gather in Shunqing City first, and then dispatched troops after he inspected and checked.

On June 18th, Zhang Xianzhong attacked Fotu Pass, a key pass outside Chongqing City. At this time, the troops in Chongqing City were still strong, and some reinforcements came directly, and all the generals demanded to fight against the city.Chen Shiqi disagreed, thinking that these generals wanted to escape when they asked for a decisive battle outside the city, so he drove them all into the city to stay there, pretending to be honest and never fight back after being beaten. Zhang Xianzhong used the blasting method to attack the city, excavated all the cemeteries outside the city, and asked the soldiers to dig a tunnel at the foot of the city wall with the coffin boards on them, loaded a large amount of gunpowder, lit the fuse... and then there was a loud "boom", The walls are gone.This was the most efficient method of siege at the time, and the basic steps remained the same until the Taiping Rebellion more than two hundred years later.

On the 23rd, the city of Chongqing fell.Officials, big and small, put on the clothes of the common people one after another, trying to get through the customs. Zhang Xianzhong offered a huge reward to buy the identification of the common people, and none of the officials slipped through the net. Zhang Xianzhong sat on the playground, met with prisoners big and small, and talked about their mistakes and consequences in the work. First invite Wang Xingjian, the magistrate of Chongqing, and ask him to take a few masters who contributed to the army to the treasury to hand over money and food.

Then, Zhang Xianzhong invited Chen Shiqi, the former governor of Sichuan, to get straight to the point and start with the first sentence: "The imperial court was corrupted by you guys!" This sentence is applicable to any prisoner. "If there are guards in the thirteenth pass of Wushan, I will be late for a few days, so you can make preparations. If you get to this point, it's not right for you!" It was indeed Chen Shiqi's order to withdraw the garrison of the thirteenth pass, but The Ming Dynasty could even throw away the city of Beijing, so what's the use of these few small passes?What's more, you, Zhang Xianzhong, stayed in Wan County for almost three months because of flooding...

So Chen Shiqi and Wang Xingjian who returned after paying the money were executed by Ling Chi. Wang Xiliu, magistrate of Baxian County, couldn't stand Zhang Xianzhong's irrational words, so he jumped out and said, "I deserve to die, I don't want to kill the people in vain!" After the officials were killed, Zhang Xianzhong talked to King Rui again.King Rui escaped from Hanzhong. When the city of Chongqing was destroyed, Princess Liu had already committed suicide by throwing herself into a well. Now he is left alone. Zhang Xianzhong was quite polite. He got down from his seat and chatted with the prince: "Don't you know that my army is much stronger than Li Zicheng?" King Rui looked at him dizzily. Did you know that the strongest thief in the late Ming Dynasty was Li Zicheng - but he didn't dare to say that. "Since you know that you are afraid of Li Zicheng and escaped from Hanzhong, you should know that you are afraid of me and escape from Chongqing as soon as possible!" King Rui nodded. "Since you don't escape in time, I have no choice but to kill you. It's also your destiny!" King Rui was also dragged out to Ling Chi, but the treatment was higher, killing first and then cutting, and a coffin was also given as a gift.

There are too many captive soldiers, so we don't talk to each other one by one. Everyone can leave after handing over their right hand.Some captured soldiers wanted to play tricks and stretched out their left hands, but both hands were chopped off. The ground was littered with severed body parts, and blood was spilled in the summer rainstorm. After hearing about the tragedy in Chongqing, some timid local officials surrendered, but they were still inevitably killed.On July 4th, Zhang Xianzhong led the main force to attack Chengdu, burned all the ships, and marched from Luzhou in three routes.

Long Wenguang rushed to help Chengdu from Shunqing. As soon as he left, the Shunqing defenders surrendered to Zhang Xianzhong.Ming armies from all directions rushed towards Chengdu, and Zhang Xianzhong also sent many people to mix in. The city of Chengdu was in chaos, and Long Wenguang himself couldn't tell who was who. On August 7, Zhang Xianzhong attacked Chengdu with more vigor than he attacked Chongqing.Long Wenguang barely guarded for three days.Neiying Gukong, who had sneaked into the city, blew up the gunpowder depot in the Bell and Drum Tower, and the army was in chaos. Zhang Xianzhong took the opportunity to attack and captured Chengdu that day.

Long Wenguang died in battle, and Zhu Zhishu, the king of Shu, also showed bravery rarely seen in the clan of the Ming Dynasty, and committed suicide by throwing himself into a well with his concubines.The prince of Shu, Liu Zhibo and others were captured. Zhang Xianzhong first made the prince of Shu the Duke of Taiping, but after thinking about it, he killed him again. Liu Zhibo was very virtuous, but Zhang Xianzhong repeatedly tried to persuade him to no avail; he still refused to ask him to be the governor, but he was only pleading for the lives of the common people, and was finally killed.

The captured Ming soldiers were also driven to Zhongyuan and other places and slaughtered.General Liu Zhenfan's subordinate general Yang Zhan was also escorted to the riverside to be killed.He was wearing a nice armor, so he said to the soldier responsible for killing him, it's not worthwhile for you to kill me like this and dirty this armor.Why don't you untie the rope first and kill me after I take off the armor.The soldier was right after thinking about it, anyway, you can't escape, so he untied the rope.Yang Zhan pretended to take off his armor and jumped into the river with all his strength, only to swim and escape. On the 11th, Zhang Xianzhong wanted to kill again. He drove the residents of Chengdu to Zhongyuan and was about to massacre. Thanks to his counselor Wang Zhaoling's persuasion, he thought that "Chengdu is a foundation, and it is not appropriate to kill", so he gave up. On August 15th, Zhang Xianzhong proclaimed himself the King of Qin in Chengdu, changed his country name to Daxi, and changed his name to Dashun. Pingnan supervised the army, Liu Wenxiu was the vanguard of Pingnan, Li Dingguo was the former commander of the army, and Ai Nengqi was the general of Pingnan. In September, Zhang Xianzhong led his army north to defeat Ma Ke, a general of the Ming army sent by Li Zicheng to fight for northern Sichuan, and seized northern Sichuan. Some ethnic minority tribes in western Sichuan followed Ming orthodoxy and attacked the local officials who had surrendered to Zhang Xianzhong, but were immediately defeated by Ainengqi and others sent by Zhang Xianzhong.However, other Ming armies in this area were affected by this, and they successively elected Cao Xun, a general who had escaped from Chengdu, as their leader to contend with Zhang Xianzhong.The Nanming Hongguang court also came to join in the fun, and sent the old minister Wang Yingxiong to manage the military affairs of the four provinces of Sichuan, Lake, Yunnan, and Guizhou, and was fully responsible for fighting against Zhang Xianzhong. Since then, the two sides in southwest Sichuan have confronted each other, and each has an offensive and defensive outcome.