Chapter 77 6. The fall of the Onishi regime

When Zhang Xianzhong invaded Chengdu, the Qing army had entered the customs for four months, Li Zicheng's Dashun army was still defending Shanxi, Nanjing Shi Kefa, Ma Shiying and others appointed King Xiaofu to supervise the country, and the world was in chaos. But Zhang Xianzhong failed to seize the precious time of these few months. Although he also established a political power, he failed to consolidate the foundation of his rule. economic base. The remnants of the Ming Dynasty were forced to resist desperately because of his relentless policy of killing surrenders and captives, and got in touch with the regime of King Fu of Nanming, and gained orthodox status; local strongmen always tried to resist him.

Looking at Zhang Xianzhong's actions in Sichuan, we can only say that although under the persuasion of his advisers, he wanted to establish his own base on a whim and took steps in this regard, but in his bones, he was still just a The "rogues" still believe in Luo Rucai's theory of rogues: "We run rampant in the world because we are happy, so why not do it!" It will only destroy, not build. In that turbulent era, Zhang Xianzhong was not a leader with the demeanor of an emperor.His favorite method is to kill people, and the common people don't like an emperor who can only kill people.

Two thousand years ago, there was a dialogue of a wise man. Is the world evil? Set at one. Which can one? Those who are not addicted to killing can be one. Zhang Xianzhong is obviously not a "non-killer". He is also what Niu Jinxing said, "although the power is strong, it is just to drive away the ears of others"! After Zhang Xianzhong captured Chongqing, he immediately marched towards Chengdu without leaving many troops to defend the city.Zeng Ying, the Ming general defending the Yangtze River, followed him and occupied Chongqing in early 1645. The soldiers and refugees from the collapsed Ming army in eastern Sichuan joined him one after another. Chongqing became the banner of Eastern Sichuan to resist Zhang Xianzhong for a while.

Of course, the Onishi regime cannot bear this.In February, Zhang Xianzhong sent Liu Wenxiu with 30,000 troops to attack Chongqing again, and arrived in Hechuan, taking Duogong City as his camp.Duogong City is a fortress built by the Wei Dynasty in the Southern Song Dynasty to resist the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. It belongs to Yubei District of Chongqing today. On the 18th, Liu Wenxiu divided his forces here into two groups, attacking Fotuguan by land, and attacking Chongqing by water from the Jialing River.After learning the information, Zeng Ying sent the old and weak refugees to Fuzhou, leaving only the elite troops, ready to fight Liu Wenxiu to the death.He used the sea to defend the Jialing Waterway, set up defenses at Longmen in Shaping, Zhang Tianxiang defended the Fotuguan Land Road, and repeatedly told these two roads not to fight, the task was to firmly restrain Liu Wenxiu.

Afterwards, he personally led 500 light cavalry and sneaked out of Duogong City by detour.Liu Wenxiu underestimated the enemy and neglected to take precautions. Duogong City was breached in one fell swoop, cutting off the retreat.Immediately, Zeng Ying took the banner of the Daxi Army and hurried along the Jialing River, joining forces with Yu Hai to attack Liu Wenxiu's main force at Longmen in Shaping. The ancient battlefield at that time was located on the section of the river between Shapingba and Shimen in today's Chongqing. In the dry season, the distance between it and the south bank of Jialing is only tens of meters.

Yu Dahai used bamboo cages to hold pebbles, sunk them into the river as a weir, and used bamboo cables and iron chains to cut off the Jialing waterway.From then on, Liu Wenxiu stopped fighting.Zeng Ying pretended to be the Western Army and attacked from behind. Yu Dahai also took the opportunity to attack from both land and water. Liu Wenxiu was defeated and fled with all the ships lost. Zeng Ying then swung his troops to defeat the land west army at Tingxi.This is the biggest defeat Zhang Xianzhong's army has suffered since entering Sichuan. General Yang Zhan, who escaped from Chengdu, also gathered thousands of old troops. On the sixth day of March, he attacked Syria from Yongning. More than 2,000 people, the Daxi army drowned countless, and the Nanming army won another victory.

But Yang Zhan was immediately defeated by Sun Kewang sent by Zhang Xianzhong, and retreated to Yufu Pass to defend himself. Zhang Xianzhong's situation gradually began to turn bad.Li Zicheng gave up Xi'an and went south to Huguang under the attack of Duoduo of the Qing army.In April, Li Zicheng's troops in northern Shaanxi, under the leadership of Li Guo and Gao Yigong, abandoned Yan'an and Yulin and went south, and went south from northeast Sichuan to Huguang to pursue Li Zicheng's main force. In Zhouzhou, Xinning, etc., the northeast gate of the Onishi regime was opened.

At this time, Zhang Xianzhong became more irritable, and sent troops to slaughter, calling it "grass killing", in preparation for abandoning Sichuan. Baoning and other big cities were massacred one after another, and the citizens of Chengdu were massacred in batches in a planned way.Some soldiers of the Western Army even hanged themselves or fled because they couldn't bear to do anything.Wen Zirang, Zhang Xianzhong's commander-in-chief, led more than a hundred cavalry to escape, and his whole family was killed. Wen had a young son, who was pink and white and cute. Zhang Xianzhong branded the child with swastikas all over him, calling him "Jin Boy".The governor Zhang Junyong, Wang Ming and dozens of other people all died because they killed few people and were skinned, and their whole families were slaughtered.

The troops sent out to take on the task of "grass killing" did not dare to report the killing data too low. In order to make Zhang Xianzhong happy, they were exaggerated.Sun Kewang reported killing more than 55.8 million men and 92 million women; Liu Wenxiu reported killing more than 95.6 million men and 88 million women; Li Dingguo reported killing 99 million men Yu Wan, 88 million women; Ainengqi reported killing more than 76 million men and 88.96 million women...the cumulative number is about 680 million. Therefore, the "History of the Ming Dynasty·Liukou Zhi" compiled by the Qing said that the Daxi Army, "It is strange how many times the generals killed men and women by killing people." This data is obviously exaggerated, but the root of the exaggeration does not lie in Qing people, but in the data fabricated by the Daxi Army because they were afraid of Zhang Xianzhong.The so-called "slander" of Zhang Xianzhong by the Qing people in later generations used this data as an example, thinking that Sichuan could not have such a large population at that time, and then deduced that even "Zhang Xianzhong slaughtered Sichuan" was framed by the Qing people.

Zhang Tingyu who compiled "Ming History" was a veteran of the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong dynasties. There is no doubt that he will be biased emotionally, but he is relatively objective in compiling "Ming History", and basically can do what he says. Although these data are not credible, by analyzing the origin of these data, we can more or less get a glimpse of some historical background at that time. After almost destroying the surrounding areas, Mr. Zhang Xianzhong was about to leave Chengdu. He felt that his soldiers were too burdensome to drag their families with them, so kill them!If you think there are too many old, weak, sick and disabled people, kill them!He didn't even spare his own family members, killed his youngest son while drunk, and killed these people when he woke up on the grounds that concubine Ji and others would not dissuade him...

In mid-August, he conquered the city of Chengdu, burned the royal palace of Shu, and also burned down the remaining houses, including all stone pillars and pavilions, and gathered firewood to burn those that were too large to be destroyed.There are thousands of pear trees in the Central Garden of Chengdu. It is a custom in Chengdu to visit here every March 3rd, but these pear trees did not escape the disaster and were burned as firewood. The history books commented: "The slaughter of cities, castles, mountains, wilds, and entire provinces, even thousands of miles away, empty like a desert, has never happened since ancient times!" After he destroyed Chengdu, he led his troops to the north, captured Shunqing, massacred 500,000 or 600,000 residents of Shunqing, and declared that in the city, people from Sichuan were called "Shu Liao", saying that I treat Shu Liao best, but Shu Liao always rebels, I am extremely negative, so I will be slaughtered. Zhang Xianzhong stationed Liu Jinzhong in Baoning, and most of his troops were soldiers from Sichuan. He was terrified when he heard that Zhang Xianzhong had slaughtered all the soldiers in Sichuan. In mid-May, Li Zicheng was killed in Jiugong Mountain, and the rest of the army fell into chaos. The Qing government then replaced Azige with Prince Su Haoge, and the commander pursued Li Zicheng's army, and transferred to Hanzhong, preparing to enter Sichuan to eliminate Zhang Xianzhong.After Liu Jinzhong surrendered, Hauge took him as his guide and went south into Sichuan. On December 11th, the Qing army found out that Zhang Xianzhong stationed troops in Fenghuang Mountain, Xichong, and sneaked into him.In the early morning fog, Qing general Obai led his troops to climb the mountain. Zhang Xianzhong's subordinates discovered the enemy's situation and reported to him. He said contemptuously: "Shake the yellow thief's ear!" It wasn't until the Qing soldiers had arrived at the gate of the camp that he was only wearing half-arms of a flying dragon and python, without any armor, with three arrows randomly stuck in his waist, chewing his breakfast, and took a few people out of the tent to check on the enemy's situation.At that time, the forward of the Qing army was only separated from him by a stream. His clothes were too conspicuous, and he was immediately spotted by Liu Jinzhong, who was the guide of the Qing army. Yabran drew an arrow and shot at Zhang Xianzhong, the arrow in his throat fell off his horse and died.The Qing army yelled, "The thief Xianzhong is dead." The Daxi Army was leaderless and in chaos. Sun Kewang and others wrapped Zhang Xianzhong's body in a brocade quilt, buried him hastily, and then led the remnants to escape eastward. The Qing army cleaned up the battlefield and found Zhang Xianzhong's body, dug him up and beheaded him, and hung him at the north gate of Chengdu for public display. A generation of heroes ended hastily like this.He only lived half a year longer than Li Zicheng, and this year was Yiyou Year of the Lunar Calendar, 1645 in the Western Calendar.