In many cases, human beings fear losing power far more than death.
In 1643, Sun Chuanting, who fought with Li Zihui in Tongguan, was killed, and not long ago, the Ming army suffered a crushing defeat in the battle of Songjin against Houjin, and the Ming Dynasty was already in danger.
Obviously, the Ming Dynasty has categorically no strength to win the war between the east and the west at the same time, for the Manchu Qing in the northeast, it can still barely resist with the danger of Shanhaiguan, but for Li Zicheng, the Ming can almost be said to have no way. Facing Li Zicheng, who was in the limelight, Emperor Chongzhen seemed to have only two choices-Moving south, or peace talks.
But in fact, Emperor Chongzhen still has a way to go, and it is a dangerous move to take this road, but it should be effective.
This risky move is-Decentralization, so that Li Zicheng's peasant army activity area of the local **, even local heroes, to collect money and grain on their own, recruit troops, to fight against Li Zicheng's peasant army.
The benefits of this are twofold:
One,Due to the irreconcilability of their interests, the local tyrants and the rogues are inherently opposed, so if power is decentralized, these local forces will definitely do their best to resist Li Zicheng.
Second,Due to the decentralization of financial power and conscription power, the financial pressure of the Ming court will be greatly eased.
Of course, the *** of this practice is equally obvious, that is, it may lead to the late Tang DynastyThe division of feudal towns was repeatedBut in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, when the rebel army was everywhere, were you still afraid of more separatist forces? Even if these local forces fail to defeat Li Zicheng in the end, they can at least resist Li Zicheng for a while and give the Ming court some time to maneuver, right?
There is no ifs in history, and Emperor Chongzhen did not delegate power until the end, and even when local forces organized their own armed forces to fight against Li Zicheng's peasant army, Emperor Chongzhen also defined these people as "Tukou", which was a force that needed to be exterminated like Li Zicheng's "Liukou".
If you have to find a reason for Chongzhen's miraculous operation of turning friendly troops into enemy troops, I think the only reasonable explanation is that Chongzhen has a yes in his heartThe extreme fear of local secession, and the ** of this fear may have been one of the three major expeditions of Wanli that took place in the southwest region of the Ming Dynasty decades agoBattle of Banshu.
Banzhou is located in Sichuan, Guizhou, Chongqing, its mountains and rivers are dangerous, the terrain is dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack, in the transportation, information and other aspects of the pre-industrial civilization era of underdeveloped technology, ** for this kind of place is located in the far border, cultural traditions and self-contained areas are difficult to achieve complete rule, therefore, ** often take the way of cooperation with local forces to implement indirect rule, that is, local forces to accept the title of ** regime to express their support for the legitimacy of the ** regime, and pay money and tribute every year, and** The regime will give greater autonomy to local powers. And the Banzhou Yang clan is a leader among the local forces.
Yang's management of Banzhou began at the end of the Tang Dynasty, through the two Song Dynasty, the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and Yang Yinglong inherited the title for 29 generationsAs mentioned above, due to technical reasons, the rule of the Ming Dynasty ** regime over Banzhou was not sufficient, and Yang Yinglong, the head of the Yang family who had been running Banzhou for hundreds of years, was naturally like a soil emperor.
Soil Emperor Yang Yinglongye has an entrepreneurial heart, he is a little dissatisfied with the status quo, so in the seventeenth year of Wanli began to gradually expand outward, Yang Yinglong wants to expand, the first unlucky must be the other local Tusi forces near it, these small Tusi are not Yang Yinglong's opponents, so they united to sue Yang Yinglong for rebellion.
The Ming court naturally couldn't sit back and watch the Tusi under its rule attack on their own, so they put pressure on Yang Yinglong with the threat of sending troops, and in the face of the pressure of the Ming court, Yang Yinglong used both soft and the one hand, he confessed to the court, but on the other hand, he still carried out his own expansion.
The first direct confrontation between the two sides occurred in the 21st year of Wanli, when the Ming court ordered the Wenchen Wang Jiguang and the military generals Liu Chengsi and Guo Chengbing to attack Yang Yinglong in three ways. Yang Yinglong attacked the east and west, and under the guise of surrender, led a heavy army to suddenly rush to kill the pass, and most of the officers and soldiers were killed and wounded.
Yang Yinglong, who won the victory, decided to accept it when he saw it, he said that as long as the court pardoned his crimes, he was willing to give 40,000 gold to the court, and said that he would not make trouble in the future, the Ming court accepted the olive branch thrown by Yang Yinglong, but the condition was that his eldest son Yang Chaodong took his post, and the second son Yang Kedong stayed in Chongqing as a hostage to be released after the donation was paid, such conditions were not harsh, although Yang Yinglong was dissatisfied, but he accepted. The conflict between the Ming court and the Banshu Yang clan seems to have been resolved peacefully.
But there are unforeseen circumstances, Yang Yinglong's second son Yang Kedong arrived in Chongqing and died of illness in prison, Yang Yinglong believed that his son's death was related to the imperial court, so not only did not pay the pre-agreed donation, but more actively opened the rebellion mode, he strengthened the old nest of the sea dragon hoard, while sending troops to raid Yuqing, Dahu, Duba and other places, and then, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places were harassed by Yang Yinglong, to Wanli 25 years, Yang Yinglong's raid and raid has expanded to Huguang 48 tun, the court was angry, In the twenty-seventh year of Wanli (1599), the governor of Guizhou, Jiangdong, led 3,000 troops to suppress it. Yang Yinglong ordered his younger brother Yang Zhaolong and son Yang Chaodong to take advantage of the terrain to meet the official army at Feilian FortThe officers and troops were again defeated. After the second defeat of the official army, Yang Yinglong's confidence soared, and he led 80,000 troops to trap the river, and the army washed Qijiang City in blood.
Yang Yinglong, as a local snake, his tactics of using geographical advantages to fight against the official army are not bad, and because of this, he can defeat the official army twice, he is, the success of tactics is difficult to make up for the strategic failure, Yang Yinglong's brazen public rebellion in the absence of strength is an unwise act, once the Ming court is determined to solve this matter, Yang Yinglong will not be able to clean up the situation.
With the return of the army sent to Korea in 1600, the Wanli Emperor decided that the problem of Banzhou should be solved once and for all, and the Wanli Emperor ordered Li Hualong to serve as a military squire, the governor of Sichuan, Huguang, and Guizhou provinces, and to recruit soldiers from Zhejiang, Fujian, Yunnan, Guangdong and other provinces to encircle and suppress Yang Yinglong. The Ming army was divided into eight routes: the general soldier Liu Ting went out of Qijiang; The chief soldier Ma Liying went out of Nanchuan; Wu Guang, the chief soldier, went out of Hejiang; Deputy Chief Soldier Cao Xibin out of Yongning; The total soldier boy has no town out of the Wujiang River; Counselor Zhu Heling out of Shaxi; General soldier Li Yingxiang out of Xinglongwei; The chief soldier Chen Lan came out of the white mud. There are 30,000 soldiers and horses on each road, totaling more than 200,000 people. Among the generals who went out this time were Liu Wei, Wu Guang, Chen Lan and other battle-hardened veterans, and their combat effectiveness was certainly not comparable to the local ** subordinate army during the first two expeditions.
In the face of the menacing official army, Yang Yinglong sent his son to take a force to defend Loushan Pass, and he led the main force of the Banzhou Army to the south, completely annihilating the Tongyuan Town Department from the north of the Wujiang River, and then returning to the army to attack Liu Ting's department, but this Liu Ting's combat effectiveness is really reported, the main force of the Banzhou Army led by Yang Yinglong has not had time to return to help, Loushan Pass has been conquered by Liu Ting, with the Loushan Pass being conquered, the defense of the sea dragon hoard is no longer so impregnable, coupled with the obvious advantages of the Ming army's firearms, Yang Yinglong's old nest sea dragon hoard was conquered by the Ming army within a few months, Yang Yinglong committed suicide, and from then on, the Battle of Banzhou ended in the complete victory of the Ming court.
However, as the last battle of the three major campaigns of Wanli, although the result of the Battle of Banzhou was the victory of the Ming Dynasty, the decline of the Ming Dynasty was also exposed in this battle.
First, of course, the treasury was empty, the money and grain were insufficient, and the battle of Banzhou cost more than 200 thousand vehicles of money and grain, and the tax system of the Ming Dynasty was extremely simple, and the money spent could only be returned by adding agricultural taxes. And this kind of tax hike for many years will one day exceed the people's tolerance and provoke popular unrest.
The second is that the balance between ** and the local Tusi power has become fragile, and the Ming Empire's method of maintaining local rule by means of mutual balance and mutual restraint began to fail. The reason why Yang Yinglong spent so much money on the expedition must be because the Wanli Emperor used the army of his own empire as the main force, and the armies of other local forces only played a cooperating roleSince their own troops are the main force, then they have to pay for their own military expenses.
At this point, the contradictions and predicaments of the Ming Dynasty have been very obvious, and we can summarize them as:The contradiction between the infinite desire for absolute control and the limited financial and military resources.
Since the Ming Dynasty seeks complete control in the practical sense, then he must maintain this control with sufficient military and financial resources, but due to natural disasters and man-made disasters, the treasury of the Ming Dynasty has long been stretched.
In a sense, the Battle of Banzhou achieved the goal of "changing the land and returning to the stream" (both from the management of local forces to the direct management of **), and the reform of the land and the return to the stream can certainly strengthen the control of the **,However, in the case of the lack of national strength of the Ming Dynasty, it is really difficult to say whether this change of land is a blessing or a curse.
People often say that Chongzhen is the next mess, and the biggest contradiction in this mess is:At that time, the power held by Emperor Chongzhen was no longer capable of maintaining such great power and control, but from the ancestors' legacy to the Manchu courtiers, everyone was telling Emperor Chongzhen that power could not be put away, not at all.
The Son of Heaven guards the country, and the king dies Sheji" is Zhu Di's ancestral training for future generations, this sentence is very burning and rigid, but he also implies a subtext:When faced with a crisis, win or die, there is no middle ground to take.
Because of the national policy set at the beginning, Emperor Chongzhen could neither move south, nor could he make peace, and because the power of the first at that time had been loosened, Emperor Chongzhen did not dare to delegate these rights to the locality, Yang Yinglong's story has just passed a few decades, Chongzhen still maintains the fear of local forces in his heart, he is afraid that the power released will grow like a wild beast released, he is afraid that if the power is released, even if Li Zicheng is defeated, and a Zhang Zicheng and Wang Zicheng will rise, So even though the north of the Ming Empire was in chaos, he still didn't want to let go of power, and he still had to struggle with his poor political ability until the whole system collapsed.
Sometimes, the world shows its fairness in a different way, wanting absolute power, having to assume absolute obligations.
Zhu Yuanzhang abolished the prime minister and included the prime minister's power in the imperial power, then, the prime minister's obligations must also be borne by the emperor, in the past, the best work can be changed to the prime minister, but now it is not possible, the emperor must shoulder all the responsibilities and obligations, in this political setting, like Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di and other eloquent kings can show their strength, but for the emperor Chongzhen, who lacks political ability,It's a nightmare.
The Ming and Qing dynasties were the pinnacle of imperial power, but those who wanted to control everything must be responsible for everything, and once they failed to do so, the punishment they suffered must be unprecedentedThey must defend the country, and they must die in the community. Once the edifice of power they built with their own hands collapses, they must sacrifice their heads.
As for why the Qing Dynasty emperor, who was more centralized than the Ming Dynasty, was able to die well, this is thanks to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, if it were not for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's forced Qing court to delegate power to local Han people, the fate of the Aixin Jueluo royal family would not be much better than that of Emperor Chongzhen, although the southeast mutual protection made the Qing court discredited, but the throne is still yours, although the initiative to abdicate is not good-looking, but the head is saved.
In the face of different choices when power is challenged, the fate of these two dynasties was determined, the Ming Dynasty still refused to let go of power in the end, so the death was vigorous, and the second half of the Qing Dynasty continued to release power, so in exchange for a reluctant life, which is better or worse, see the wisdom of others.
The flamboyant beast of power does not hide the white bones beneath its fangs, and the latecomers continue to follow suit.