19-year-old Li Zicheng works as a post boy in Mizhi County, Shaanxi Province, and travels to the only two local post stations all year round, regardless of the severe cold and heat. At that time, he lived an ordinary life, and his dream was to honestly save a few silver, marry a wife and have children as soon as possible, and get rid of the fate of poverty.
However, the hungry people in the world were outraged, and a riot was spreading in all directions, and Li Zicheng was forced to lay off his job and join the wave of resistance. 39-year-old Li Zicheng came to the city of Beijing, surrounded by thousands of people and horses to the Chengtian Gate, in order to uproot the "ominous atmosphere" of the Ming Dynasty, he raised his bow and arrows, shot at the "Chengtian Gate" card, and shot an arrow in the center.
At that time, Li Zicheng, in the name of "King Chuang", led the heroes to overthrow the rule of the Ming Dynasty and turned the Ming Dynasty upside down for 300 years. But Li Zicheng couldn't have imagined that history only gave him 42 days, and after a short period of peaking, the army was defeated like a mountain, and in the end, even his death became a mystery.
On the 40th day of Beijing, Li Zicheng's imperial dream was like a passing cloud. On March 19, the 17th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led the Dashun army to attack Beijing, and on April 30, he hurriedly evacuated, and in just 42 days, the Dashun regime experienced a rise and fall.
At first, the Dashun army was warmly welcomed by the people, and the slogan of "killing cattle and sheep, preparing wine and syrup, opening the city gate to welcome the king, and the king did not pay for food when he came", made Li Zicheng the idol of the poor masses, and the peasants supported him one after another.
Li Zicheng's rebel army implemented the policy of "free grain for all fields", distributed the land of wealthy officials and businessmen to the peasants, reduced or exempted taxes, and won the support of the people. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, even the gentry and landlords in Beijing began to pursue Li Zicheng.
However, this situation did not last long. Liu Tingji's interview, Niu Jinxing's cynicism, and Shi Kefa's indignation all foreshadowed the crisis of the Dashun regime.
When the Ming Dynasty troops outside the Guanguan heard that the Dashun army had occupied Beijing, they surrendered one after another, and Li Zicheng's Dashun regime reached the pinnacle of its career. However, Gu Yanwu, a thinker in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, believed that the responsibilities of those who protect the country and those who protect the world are different, and the gentry and landlords only pay attention to their own interests, and do not realize that protecting the world is responsible for everyone.
Li Zicheng proposed that "the land should be free of grain" and adopted the policy of "recovering stolen goods and helping salaries" against the gentry and landlords, and the Dashun army could not grasp the gentry and landlords who came to take refuge. The "recovery of stolen goods" activities in various places continued until the defeat of the Dashun army and its westward retreat.
After the Dashun army marched into Beijing, a large number of main forces were distributed in the northwest, Huguang, Henan and other places, and after occupying Shanxi, Jifu and Shandong, the troops were further dispersed, but only the area of Jingdong and Shanhaiguan was handed over to his henchmen to guard, but entrusted to Wu Sangui and other old generals of the Ming Dynasty.
Wu Sangui originally posted a notice in Yongping Mansion stating that he would lead his subordinates to Beijing to prepare for Li Zicheng's appointment. But just four days later, when Wu Sangui led the army to arrive in Beijing, he changed his mind and changed from surrendering to Dashun to being hostile to Dashun.
Wu Sangui brought a letter to the regent of the Qing Dynasty, Dolgon, saying that as a lonely minister of the Ming Dynasty, he asked the Qing army to send troops to fight against the Dashun army, "to show the great righteousness in China, then our dynasty will report to the Northern Dynasty that it will be only rich and rich, and will split the land and dare not break its word."
Portrait of Dolgon. Dolgon had insight into the changes in the pass, he accepted Wu Sangui's surrender, and sent troops to rush to Shanhaiguan at a speed of 200 miles a day. At this point, the time for the Manchus to enter the Central Plains came.
In order to deal with the capricious Wu Sangui, the Dashun army left only 10,000 old and sick people to stay in Beijing, and the remaining 100,000 main forces led by Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin went to Shanhaiguan to meet Wu Sangui and the Qing army on a narrow road.
The battle of Shanhaiguan is about to break out. In this key battle that affected the national situation during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Dashun army fought with Wu Sangui's army and the Qing army, and was severely attacked by the Qing army, which was waiting for work, and the lineup was in chaos.
Li Zicheng saw that the defeat was decided and ordered a retreat. After the Qing army won a great victory, they attacked Shanhaiguan. After returning to Beijing, Li Zicheng beheaded 34 members of Wu Sangui's family, and he hated this rebel general.
At this time, the question before Li Zicheng was how to defend Beijing. On 30 April, as the Qing army approached step by step, North China was flattened, and Li Zicheng knew that he could not concentrate a force in Beijing that was strong enough to hold on, and once he fell into the siege of the Qing army, he might become a turtle in an urn, so he had to abandon Beijing and lead his army to retreat westward.
The day before, Li Zicheng had just held an enthronement ceremony in Beijing. On the day of his evacuation from Beijing, only 42 days had passed since the day when he had successfully invaded Beijing. According to records, when the Dashun army retreated, Beijing was "full of people in the city who helped the old and the young to run west", but many of the gentry and landlords who had surrendered to Dashun were already ready to welcome the new masters.
The Dashun army was forced to retreat in Shanxi, and the Qing army temporarily stopped the pursuit. However, Li Zicheng listened to the advice of his cronies, left Taiyuan, and returned to Shaanxi, which eventually led to the collapse of the Dashun army.
The Qing Dynasty army, under the leadership of Duoduo, successfully captured Tongguan, and the Dashun regime even lost its hometown in the northwest. Li Zicheng led his henchmen to retreat from Xi'an to Henan via Lantian and Shangluo.
The Dashun army, pursued by the Southern Ming army and the Qing army, was demoralized and became a "rogue". In May, Li Zicheng disappeared at the foot of Jiugong Mountain in Hubei, and the Dashun regime was overthrown.
Li Zicheng's whereabouts have long been a historical mystery, with some saying he died in Jiugong Mountain, Hubei, while others say he was not killed here. According to Fei Mi's "Book of Waste" and Kangxi's "Tongshan County Chronicles", Li Zicheng was besieged by the local regiment in Jiugong Mountain, and finally died in the melee, but Cheng Jiubo's descendants did not explicitly say that Cheng Jiubo was the one who killed Li Zicheng.
There are also people who believe that Li Zicheng was not killed at Jiugong Mountain, but was mistakenly killed while worshipping at the Yuan Emperor Temple. Although the villagers searched for a gold seal from Li Zicheng's body and realized that they had killed the wrong person, Li Zicheng had already passed away at this time.
As for whether Li Zicheng's body was buried in secret, scholars are still controversial.
Both the Southern Ming court and the Qing dynasty were concerned about Li Zicheng's whereabouts. It is said that he was killed on the way south and died on Jiugong Mountain. The Qing army general Azig got the news in Hubei, and he made a fuss about it, and the report was inconsistent.
In the sixth month of the leap month of 1645, Azig told the court that Li Zicheng had hanged himself because he had been besieged by the villagers when he had fled, and that he could not escape, but no one could identify his body.
After that, there was no follow-up to Azig's visit, and Li Zicheng's death was not eyebrow-raising. The regent Dolgon was dissatisfied with this and denounced Azig and the others. The Southern Ming court was also very concerned about Li Zicheng's whereabouts, and some people used this to ask the court for merit and reward.
He Tengjiao, the minister of the Southern Ming Dynasty, said that the "culprit" had been eliminated, and claimed that there was solid evidence, but this area was temporarily occupied by the Qing army, and no one could be sent to inspect it. After reading He Tengjiao's speech, Zhu Yujian, Emperor Longwu, thought that Li Zicheng's death was not true.
The Mystery of Li Zicheng's Death: Escape or Monk? From the Qing Dynasty to the Southern Ming Dynasty, people have never been able to determine the cause of Li Zicheng's death. In the official History of the Ming Dynasty compiled by the Qing Dynasty, he is included in the Legend of the Thief and described as dying in battle or hanging himself.
However, the mystery doesn't end there. According to his own investigation, He Luan of the Qing Dynasty put forward the theory that Li Zicheng escaped into the empty gate in Shimen Jiashan Temple. Based on the memories of an old local monk, he described Li Zicheng's discouragement after going south and his decision to abandon horseback riding and cut his hair to become a monk.
He also provided evidence that Li Zicheng practiced at Jiashan Monastery for many years until his death at the age of about seventy. However, this theory was not accepted for a long time after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and some people considered it a kind of "escapism" that was not conducive to the image of the leader of the peasant army.
Until 1984, the tomb of the monk Fengtianyu was found in Jiashan Temple, Shimen County, Hunan, and a large number of cultural relics about the monk Fengtianyu were found in the tomb, which seemed to confirm that the story of King Chuang as a monk was not groundless.
In addition, the local portrait of the monk Fengtianyu is also strong evidence to support this theory. The Fengtianyu monk in the portrait has one large eye and one small eye, which happens to match the characteristics of Li Zicheng's larger eye after being injured.
Despite this, whether Li Zicheng was a Fengtianyu monk is still controversial and lacks strong empirical evidence. Li Zicheng's statement that Zen is hidden in the mountain is only one of the legends of the king in various places.
Li Zicheng: A Historical Mystery In Mr. Jin Yong's martial arts**, the image of Li Zicheng often reminds people of the real "King Chuang" in history. There are various theories and legends about his life and death.
Some people say that after the defeat of the army, he lived in seclusion in Yuzhong County, Gansu Province, and died there, and his grave is in Longtoubaozi, by the Yellow River in Qingcheng Town; It is also said that he had an adopted son in Linli County, Hunan, where he made his fortune.
Regardless of the authenticity of these legends, Li Zicheng is a big IP that people talk about. He was the common jealous hero of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and under his leadership, a storm occurred that shook the world.
However, after the storm, he fell silent, and his fate became a historical mystery. In this mystery, the merits and demerits of history are nothing more than successes and failures.