One day in 2021, I flipped through "Winter Swimming" again, and in the past two years, "Northeast Literature" has almost become the only ** I am immersed in and have no distractions. In this land of Northeast literature, I got acquainted with a group of marginal people, who were dusty, had a bright future, and were abandoned by the times. So I came up with the idea of writing a book for marginalized people living in the same region, but in different eras. They lived in the era of the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing Dynasty, in Liaodong, calling themselves "Idongren", and were known as "Liaoren" in history.
The ghosts wandering in Liaodong: From the resisters to the "leading party", the Liao people are undoubtedly marginal. For the Jurchens (i.e., the Manchus) who aspired to annex Liaodong, the Liao were Han Chinese, fierce enemies, resisters, allies to win over, and rebels who were always treacherous;In the eyes of the ** regime of the Ming Dynasty and the Han people in the interior, the Liao people were a dissident force with ill intentions, the object of expropriation, a refugee fleeing poverty in the interior, a firm force against the Eight Banners Iron Cavalry, a wandering and volatile spies, and rebellious traitors. The Liao people became the ghosts wandering in Liaodong, they did not know who they were, their self-identity and dignity were destroyed in the great changes of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and gradually evolved into speculators of the great era. From 1618, when Nurhachi raised troops, to 1644, when the Qing army entered the customs, the Liao people were always the most resolute resisters and the most effective "leading party". To be precise, it was not the Manchus who fought alone, but the "victorious alliance" composed of the Manchus, Mongols and Liao. To a certain extent, the basis for the Qing regime's entry into the customs was not only the "Manchu-Mongolian Alliance", but also the "Manchu-Mongolian-Liao Alliance". However, in historical narratives and memory, the Liao people have become a relatively forgotten group, which is another meaning of "marginal people". For the Han doctors, doctors and the people, the Liao people are Wu Sangui, the representative of the traitors, and the culprit of the demise of the Ming Dynasty;For the upper echelons of the Manchurians, the Liao people were comrades-in-arms who fought together and were the most loyal forwards. However, after the rebellion of the three feudatories led by Wu Sangui, the Liao people became rebels, and their former exploits and alliances must be diluted and erased.
Jump out of the big view of history and reject simplistic thinking. Are the Liao people traitors?This is a complex issue caught in the weight of nationalism. But if we go back to the era of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, the Liao people are the marginal people who are not included in the mainland society, and they are rarely regarded as the real "Han people";In fact, the Liao people are a mixed group living in the eastern frontier of Liaodong with different cultural backgrounds, and the relationship with ** is inseparable. Can such a group be simply characterized as traitors?I'm afraid it's not that easy to ask. In the historical narrative of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, there are many similar simplistic thinking. When I read this history when I was a teenager, my deepest feeling was that the main reason for the defeat of the Ming army was that "the Ming Dynasty itself had problems": party strife, traitorous ministers, traitorous generals, and faint monarchs......Over the years, Yuan Chonghuan and Mao Wenlong have become responsible. The Yuan Party and the Mao Party, the Donglin Party and the Wei Zhongxian Party, quarreled endlessly on the Internet, and their intensity may be no less than that of the party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty. However, behind these seemingly opposing arguments, there is a common view of history: the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing Dynasty are the problems of the Ming Dynasty itself, and it seems to be irrelevant to whether the Later Jin (Qing Dynasty) was strong, whether the Eight Banners Army was good at fighting, whether the Firearms Revolution of the Eight Banners Army was successful, whether Nurhachi, Huang Taiji was wise, whether the Manchu-Mongolia-Liao alliance was effective, and so on. To use the famous sentence of "The Three-Body Problem": I was destroyed by you, and it has nothing to do with you. What an arrogant view of history this is, which I will call the "Ming Dynasty-centric view of history." The death of the Ming Dynasty and the revival of the Qing Dynasty, how can it be only related to the internal affairs of the Ming Dynasty and not to the relationship between the Qing Dynasty?Is there only "Ming Death", but no "Qingxing"?The rise of the Later Jin Dynasty was the largest geopolitical event in Northeast Asia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, in which there were ups and downs, twists and turns, strategies, twists and turns, resourcefulness, diplomacy and alliances, as well as internal strife and political strife similar to that of the Ming DynastyThere are Koreans, Mongolians, Liao, and Jurchens and Mongols, which are complicated. This is far from being summed up by a simple "Manchu-Mongolian alliance". So many details, such a grand historical event, many times are buried in "I was destroyed by you, and it has nothing to do with you". Perhaps this judgment was not wrong in the end, after all, there were naturally thousands of reasons for the collapse of the behemoth of the Ming Dynasty, but this should not be a reason for us to ignore "Qingxing". What's more, does the fall of the Ming Dynasty really have nothing to do with "the Qing Dynasty and the Qing army were stronger"?We always say that we cannot be blinded by nationalism, but the "Ming Dynasty-centric view of history" may also be a kind of nationalism;Being too critical of oneself and not mentioning too much about the strength of one's opponent is also a kind of conceit. The book is not an objective and balanced work, and it overemphasizes the content of "Qingxing" and downplays the political struggles of the Ming Dynasty. Of course, it's not that political disputes aren't important, it's just that they have been mentioned so much that I don't need to add to them. Therefore, please forgive me for being arbitrary and "disproportionate".