On April 26th of the first year of Shunzhi, Li Zicheng, the leader of Dashun peasant army, was defeated by the Qing army in Shanhaiguan and led his troops back to Beijing. On the 29th, Li Zicheng hastily proclaimed himself emperor in Wuying Hall of the Forbidden City. The next day, he left Beijing with his army and moved to Shanxi and Shanxi. The Regent of the Qing Dynasty, Dourgen, led the Qing army into Beijing from Shanhaiguan, and ordered the Wu Sangui Army of the Qing Dynasty as the forerunner. Wu Sangui reincarnated, defeated Liu Zongmin, Lee Guo and other great Shunjun troops in the back of the house, and was ordered to continue the pursuit. On the third day of May, he fought with the guards of Dashun Army on the bank of North Qingshui River in Dingzhou. Gu Kecheng, the general of Dashun Army, was killed and Zuo Guangxian was wounded.
The Background of the Battle of Destroying Dashun in Qing Dynasty
After the demise of the Ming dynasty, the heavy responsibility of fighting against the Qing army fell on the peasant rebels. At that time, the peasant uprising army headed by Li Zicheng and Zhang developed rapidly in just a few years. For example, Li Zicheng was defeated by Hong Chengchou in 1638 and lay dormant in Shangluo Mountain in southern Shaanxi. It was not until the end of 1640 that it rushed out of Shangluo Mountain and entered Henan. As thousands of hungry people from the Central Plains flocked to join in, his army quickly expanded into an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, galloping across the Central Plains, climbing mountains and mountains, and finally advancing eastward, subverting the Ming Dynasty. When Beijing was conquered, the peasant army actually had only three and a half years to fight.
Obviously, in these short years, most of the peasants who joined the rebel army have never touched swords, so it is difficult to catch up with the Eight Banners who grew up on horseback and can ride well. As far as peasant insurgents are concerned, only in repeated contests with powerful enemies can they exercise strong combat effectiveness. Most of the elite soldiers of the Ming Dynasty fought against the Qing army on the front line in Liaodong, and fought against the insurgents in the mainland, mostly searching for skilled and ineffective troops. It is difficult to exercise the fighting capacity of the rebels.
There was once a view that Li Chuangwang's army became complacent after entering Beijing, and soon became corrupt and lost its fighting capacity, unable to resist the joint attack of the Qing army and the Wu Sangui army. This view is not entirely accurate. Li Zicheng's army is really corrupt in Beijing, and its military discipline is corrupt. For example, many generals occupy the houses of royal nobles, "their children can use them at any time"; Some soldiers search people's homes at night and "break into houses and steal women's gold and silver". However, this army has only been in Beijing for a month, and its corruption time is still short, and its fighting spirit has not been completely lost. Li Zicheng, especially as a leader, still maintained a strong enterprising spirit and fighting will, regardless of dissuasion, and insisted on personal expedition to Wu Sangui. During the Shanhaiguan War, the rebels fought bravely because of Li Zicheng's personal supervision.
At that time, Wu Sangui was one of the few leading figures in the Ming army, and his troops dared to compete with the Eight Banners on the battlefield. In repeated battles, he won the reputation of "Ning Guan Warrior" and became a powerful force outside Megatron. However, in the Shanhaiguan War, Wu Sangui's experienced "Ning Guan fighters" could not resist Li Zicheng's army and fell into crisis several times. This shows that the rebels still have tenacious fighting style and high fighting morale. However, compared with the skilled Eight Banners, the fighting capacity of the insurgents is still very poor. When tens of thousands of fighters of the Qing army poured in, the rebels could not resist. For Li Zicheng's army's rapid rout in front of the fighters of the Qing army, many theorists believe that it is the result of fatigue caused by fighting with Commander Wu Sangui for too long. However, it should be noted that at that time, all the main forces of the Qing army under the command of Dourgen had not yet participated in the war, and Prince Azig of Britain and Khotan were pro-Wang Duoduo's white flag and white flag troops.
After Emperor Chongzhen hanged Jingshan Park, Dourgen immediately called a meeting of his ministers, and the advisers of Manchu urged Dourgen to send troops to compete with Li Zicheng for the world immediately. At that time, Dourgen was in awe of Li Zicheng, thinking that the Qing army had not conquered Beijing three times, while Li Zicheng's entry into Beijing in World War I showed his great wisdom and courage and the strong fighting capacity of the rebel army. At the beginning of April in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Fan Wencheng, a great scholar in the Qing Dynasty, adopted the policy of "competing for the Central Plains". Although Li Zicheng "carried millions of people and ran amok", he won many wars and won many times, and he was full of ambition, and the arrogant went before a fall. He may be defeated in the First World War.
Hong Chengchou, a general of the Ming Dynasty, fought against the rebels for a long time and was the number one enemy of the peasant army. He knows the characteristics of the peasant army. He told Dourgen that although Li Zicheng's army was stronger than the Ming army, it was not as good as Han Xiao, the Eight Banners of the Qing army. So Dourgen was bold, determined to arise, and led most of the Eight Banners in Manchuria and all the Eight Banners of the Han Army, as well as the military forces of Kong Youde, Shangkexi and Gengzhongming, the three kings of the Ming Dynasty, to fire with great vigour. They chose the entry route suggested by Hong Chengchou, instead of going to Shanhaiguan, and went straight to Beijing via Jizhou and Miyun. The whole army dressed lightly and simply, with the trench in the back and the elite soldiers in the front, ready to surround the Beijing army in Li Zicheng with lightning speed and annihilate it in one fell swoop. It was only on the sixth day of the expedition that I met an emissary sent by Wu Sangui to beg for surrender. Dourgen came to his senses, led his division to Shanhaiguan, and ordered the left-behind red cannon to rush forward. In this way, a bloody battle took place in Shanhaiguan, which decided that the Qing Dynasty entered the Central Plains.
The process of eliminating Dashun War in Qing Dynasty
A bloody battle is a stone.
When Li Zicheng rebels invaded Beijing, he led elite troops into Shanhaiguan. Li Zicheng once surrendered to him, but refused to do so. There was a fierce battle between the two sides. On April 21st, the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, several cavalry of the rebel army advanced on Xiluo and arrived at Shanhaiguan Gate. Amin in the north wing rose up and surrendered to Li Zicheng, and Shanhaiguan City was just around the corner. On April 22nd, the Qing army galloped to Shanhaiguan, and Wu Sangui turned on the switch to meet them. With the joint efforts of Wu Sangui and the Qing army, Li Zicheng rebels were outnumbered and had to retreat.
After Li Zicheng got the news of Wu Sangui's anti-Qing Dynasty in Beijing, he sent Tang Tong, a general of the Ming Dynasty, to lead twenty thousand cavalry out of the stone, cut off Wu Sangui's retreat outside the customs, and led two hundred thousand troops north to crusade against Wu Sangui on April 13th. After receiving an emergency letter from Wu Sangui, the Qing army galloped overnight. On 2 1 day, the Qing army defeated Tang Tongbu with one stone and then entered the customs. The next day, the Qing army, Wu Jun and Dashun army confronted each other in front of Shanhaiguan. The commander-in-chief of the Qing army, Dourgen, ordered Wu Sangui Army to engage Dashun Army first. The two armies fought fiercely until noon, and Wu Jun was surrounded by peasant troops, which was difficult to support. Hidden behind the array, the elite cavalry of the Qing army suddenly attacked from the right wing of Wu Jun and stormed the left wing of Dashun Army. The peasant army immediately fell into chaos, once collapsed and retreated to Beijing. The Qing army followed closely and defeated Li Zicheng again in Yongping.
Li Zicheng withdrew from Beijing.
After Li Zicheng returned to Beijing, the 18th Battalion of Lianbing fought back with the Qing soldiers and lost. At this time, the peasants fell into military diplomacy and the situation was grim. Li Zicheng has no intention of attaching itself to the north. After he ascended the throne in Wuying Hall, he abandoned Beijing and retreated to Xi on April 19, 2009. On the way to Dashun retreat, the Qing army defeated Baoding and Dingzhou peasant troops, and then attacked Shanxi. Jiang Xian, the governor of Datong, surrendered and Pingyang Chen Yongfu was captured. Gold fell into the hands of the Qing army. At the same time, most areas of Hebei and Shandong were occupied.
On June+10, 5438, the Qing army attacked Dashun Army in two ways: the north road led by Prince Azig, Wu Sangui and Shang Kexi went south through Datong, Yulin and Yan 'an, and the south road led by Prince Dodo and Kong Youde from Henan attacked Tongguan through Henan. At the same time, the army led by Prince Su has occupied some places in Henan and Shandong. 10 On June 9th, the Qing court took Prince Azig of England as the general of Jingyuan, and together with Wu Sangui, the king of the day, Shangkexi, the king of Shunzhi, a total of more than 30,000 people rode from Datong to Shaanxi via Mongolia to attack the Dashun army. On 25th, Prince Yu was appointed as the general of Yue State, and together with obedient Wang Kong Youde and Huai Geng, more than 20,000 people rode south to attack Nanming regime.
In the first month of the following year, Duoduo defeated Dashun Army in Tongguan, and Li Zicheng led the main force to evacuate to Xi 'an overnight. Tongguan was occupied by the Qing army and the entrance to Shaanxi was opened. After the Qing army of Azige entered northern Shaanxi, it besieged Dashun Army and Gao, who were holed up in Yulin and Yan 'an, and led his troops to the south. From then on, the retreat of Gaobu to An was cut off, and he was forced to give up northern Shaanxi and enter Hubei from Sichuan via Hanzhong. Under the converging attack of two Qing armies, Li Zicheng had to give up Xi 'an, take Shangluo and western Henan, and turn to Huguang Xiangyang.
4. The Final Struggle of Dashun Army
In order to reverse the decline of Shanxi and Henan Dashun, Li Zicheng began to counterattack Huaiqing in Henan in June+10/October 65438+February, and even Jiyuan and Mengxian defeated the Qing army in Baixiang Town. Beheaded the prefect of the Qing court, and joined forces with Chang Ding and Chen to attack Qinyang. Zuke, the company commander of Qing Weihui, led the troops to reinforce. When Dourgen heard the news, he urged the prince of Henan to send more troops to the west, first to solve the siege of Huaiqing, and then to cross the Yellow River from Henan, forming a north-south attack with King Aziz of England and attacking Dashun. Li Zicheng led Liu Zongmin, Liu Fangliang and other elite troops to the north to prepare for a decisive battle with the Qing army in northern Shaanxi. 12 15, more into Shaanxi, defeated the defenders of Dashun in Lingbao County, and headed west to Tongguan.
After the Qing court occupied Xi 'an, it ordered a massive eastward advance to destroy the Hong Guang regime, and ordered Ajige to continue to pursue Dashun Army. At this time, 500,000 Dashun troops were distracted, lax in discipline and chaotic in command. Under the pursuit of the Qing army, 13 was defeated in Xiangyang, Jiujiang and other places, and all the jurisdictions were lost. In May, when Li Zicheng led his troops to Jiugongshan, Tongshan County, Hubei Province, he was attacked by local landlords and died unfortunately, and the Dashun regime collapsed. The remaining 300,000 troops later joined forces with the Nanming regime under the leadership of Lee Guo and Li Laiheng, continued to resist the Qing Dynasty, and finally failed in Kangxi for three years.
Comment on the Battle of Clearing Dashun
The victory of the Qing army in destroying Dashun marked the elimination of the biggest obstacle for the Qing army to enter the Central Plains, and a large number of Qing troops entered the Central Plains. The entry of the Qing army into Shanhaiguan marked the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the birth of the Qing Dynasty's unification of the whole country, which was an epoch-making event in the history of China. Undeniably, in the history of Ming and Qing dynasties, for the whole country, it reduced class contradictions to secondary contradictions and raised ethnic contradictions to primary contradictions. Many historians have discussed it for a long time, so I won't repeat it here. What must be emphasized here is the special role and important influence of the Qing army entering the customs on all Manchu people. As we all know, Nuzhen, the predecessor of Manchu, was originally a ruled minority under the rule of Ming Dynasty. When the Qing army entered the customs, Manchu became the highest ruling nation in the country. Moreover, almost all Manchu people, whether nobles or civilians, moved from the frontier areas outside the customs to the hinterland of the Central Plains, the capital and important towns in various provinces. What needs to be discussed here is that the most important influence of the Qing army's entry into the customs is political.