How to survive in troubled times? The rise of a generation of heroes
Zuo Liangyu first appeared in the history of the Ming Dynasty when he was twenty-nine years old, and this year, he served"Liaoche Right Battalion Supervision Division", the history books do not record his family history, he thinks he has no family history. He was resourceful and loved by the soldiers under his command, and often made military achievements. Therefore, his official position was based on his military exploits.
Just when Zuo Liangyu's future was bright, he suffered the first setback in his life. In the first year of Chongzhen, the Liaodong military camp rebelled due to insufficient military salaries, and the governor of Liaodong committed suicide, and Zuo Liangyu participated in the dismissal.
Two years later, in 1630, after the Jixi Rebellion, the Jin army withdrew from Guannai, where only a few soldiers remained, and occupied the four towns of Zunhua and Changping. Cao Wenzhao was one of the few good generals in the late Ming Dynasty, and Zuo Liangyu obeyed him and did not treat him badly.
In the second year, Zuo Liangyu continued to fight in Liaodong and won the first place in the battle with the Qing army. It seems that Zuo Liangyu is still a hot-blooded young man at this time.
The turning point in Zuo Liangyu's life was when he was 32 years old, in the fifth year of Chongzhen, the peasant uprising, the fire of the prairie fire, Zuo Liangyu was transferred to Henan to quell the civil strife. Zuo Liangyu was appointed deputy general and led 2,000 men from Changping.
At the beginning of the sixth year of Chongzhen, Zuo Liangyu showed strong combat effectiveness in the battle of Shexian and won the first victory. Although Zuo Liangyu's army was not large, even on the battlefield of Liaodong, Zuo Liangyu fought for his life, and the blow to the peasant army was not small. So much so that the name of the peasant army was: Grandpa Zuo, when he saw Zuo Liangyu's military flag, even if there were only three or five horsemen, he didn't dare to fight and fled. So called"Left Jiajun"。
In Henan, the Ming army at this time mainly consisted of Deng Gang and Qin Liangyu's daughter-in-law Ma Fengyi. But after the outbreak of the Wuqiao Rebellion, Deng Gang was transferred, and Ma Fengyi also came to Henan, and the battle was lost. Zuo Liangyu was speechless, how to fight this battle, the peasant army is hundreds of thousands, and his own army is more than 2,000 people, although he has won many battles, but even more than 2,000 people are getting fewer and fewer.
Fortunately, reinforcements were also sent from the palace, and the two generals, Ni Chou and Wang Pu, arrived with the soldiers of the large battalion. Don't think that the soldiers of the Beijing camp have combat effectiveness, on the contrary, these soldiers have been corrupt in the capital for a long time and have long lost their combat effectiveness. At the same time, Emperor Chongzhen was not worried about the soldiers in the army, so he sent a eunuch to each army to take care of the army, and Zuo Liangyu's camp was no exception, Zuo Liangyu was naturally not happy about this, he didn't want to be guarded by eunuchs every day.
The peasant army organized a meeting in Henan, which was attended by almost all the leaders of the peasant army. After the meeting, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong attacked Zhu Yuanzhang's hometown, Fengyang, the central capital. Fengyang did not have a city wall, and due to feng shui reasons, it could not withstand the attack of the peasant army.
The peasant army worshiped the ancestral tomb of the old Zhu family, which was a big event, Emperor Chongzhen wept bitterly in the ancestral temple, killed some **, gathered a large army to deal with the peasant army, and launched a war to destroy the country.
The Ming army gathered Cao Wenzhao, Zuo Liangyu, You Shiwei, Deng Jiameng, Chen Yongfu, Zu Kuan, Zhang Yingchang, Tang Jiuzhou and other people who could fight the most, and the fierce peasant army rushed out. Although there are many peasant troops, as long as they move around to avoid the enemy, to put it mildly, the Ming army has already forced it into a chicken dog.
However, the Ming army also suffered heavy losses. Cao Wenzhao, who had the highest martial arts, fell into the trap of luring the enemy and committed suicide; Deng Jiezhu's army resisted due to insufficient pay, and Deng Jiezhu fell to his death while climbing the wall; Tang Jiuzhou's lone army went deep, was surrounded by the peasant army, and died on the battlefield; You Shiwei was defeated and deposed.
Tang Jiuzhou died because of Zuo Liangyu. They agreed to attack the peasant army together, Tang Jiuzhou was in deep conflict, Zuo Liangyu noticed it and retreated first, as a result, Tang Jiuzhou's entire army was annihilated, and Tang Jiuzhou was killed.
Zuo Liangyu, who has been on the battlefield, already understands what the battlefield is like: the most important thing is to survive.
Zuo Liangyu and his peasant army fought and fought, and there was no shortage of dangerous moments. One of the most dangerous moments was the battle with the old Hui.
Here I have to talk about the internal structure of the peasant army, 100,000 people are not the whole army, 20,000 or 30,000 people include family members, women and children, and it is no longer the old camp mentioned during the Anti-Japanese War. In order to maintain the old battalion, in addition to the 20,000 or 30,000 infantry, the peasant army had the ultimate in real combat effectiveness of 40,000 or 50,000 cavalry.
Lao Hui returned more than 100,000 people, and there were still thousands of people who were not taken into Zuo Liangyu's eyes, Zuo Liangyu sneak attacked in the middle of the night, Lao Hui was defeated, Zuo Liangyu killed thousands of people, but Zuo Liangyu shot the entire old battalion, most of the dead were women and children, and the main force of the peasant army did not lose.
Zuo Liangyu in the process of reporting, backed by the main force of the old horse, the battle was fierce, Zuo Liangyu once wanted to commit suicide, but under the resistance of his subordinates, he fought his way out and escaped with his life.
Zuo Liangyu's failure was blamed on other **, but Chongzhen put the blame on him. Zuo Liangyu galloped and almost died on the battlefield, but he achieved such an achievement.
This also created Zuo Liangyu's later self-protection and domineering.
On the battlefield, Zuo Liangyu gradually grasped the command of the Ming army.
In response to the heavenly governor Zhang Guowei, Zuo Liangyu went up the mountain to search and suppress three times, but Zuo Liangyu did not answer; Xichuan fell, Zuo Liangyu sat and watched with his troops, not to rescue. Why didn't Emperor Chongzhen kill him? The reason is very simple, the Henan battlefield can only be fought, kill him, and still take those peasant troops who have fled.
Chongzhen was also very helpless, but he still signaled him to kill the enemy!
Yang Sichang has sent ten parties to break the enemy's net, and under Xiong Wencan's five-province plan, he will be the prime minister, and Hong Chengchou will still serve as the governor of the three sides of Shaanxi, and work together to kill the thieves.
In the first month of the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), Zuo Liangyu fought with Zhang Xianzhong in Nanyang. During the battle, the peasant army was defeated, and Zhang Xianzhong fled. Zuo Liangyu gave chase, fired two arrows in succession, shot Zhang Xianzhong in the shoulder, and slashed him with a knife. Zhang Xianzhong was bleeding profusely, and was rescued by his subordinates before he was able to escape.
Poor Zhang Xianzhong surrendered Xiong Wencan. Of course, Zuo Liangyu knew that he was pretending to surrender and tried his best to attack him, but Xiong Wencan did not allow it. At the same time, Zuo Liangyu's family had settled in Xuzhou during the Xuzhou Uprising, and the city gate was destroyed during the uprising.
Of course, this is a tragedy for Zuo Liangyu, it is a fact that his family died at the hands of the peasant army, after all, he was a mortal enemy, but he died at the hands of his own rebels. Another consequence of this incident is that Zuo Liangyu used to worry that his actions would affect his family, but now this worry is gone.
Zhang Xianzhong did not expect Zuo Liangyu, he quickly surrendered, and then rebelled, Zuo Liangyu followed, Zhang Xianzhong caught up and defeated him.
Zuo Liangyu was not convinced, and chased Zhang Xianzhong and besieged him on the ridge. Zuo Liangyu led the peasant army that had surrendered to Zhang Xianzhong's camp, deceived the camp gate, and broke in. Zhang Xianzhong was defeated and fled, followed by Zuo Liangyu. Zhang Xianzhong wrote to Zuo Liangyu and said"Zuo Liangyu: You show the public, your subordinates do a lot of evil, if you kill me, your life will be over, and Yang Sichang will clean up for you.
Zhang Xianzhong also asked his subordinates to bring all the treasures to Zuo Liangyu. Zhang Xianzhong also seemed to clearly see the problem of the Ming army.
Zuo Liangyu and the governor Yang Sichang have contradictions, in fact, Yang Sichang is also responsible and willing to ask for it in front of Emperor Chongzhen"Straight Thief General"was willing to give it to Zuo Liangyu, but when he saw that Zuo Liangyu was disobedient, he wanted to give the seal letter to General He Renlong, but then he felt that He Renlong was not interesting enough, so he couldn't explain it to reason, so he decided to hand it over to Zuo Liangyu. General Yin, in the end, He Renlong made Zuo Liangyu unhappy.
Yang Sichang organized the Eastern Sichuan Army to attack Zhang Xianzhong, Zuo Liangyu said that I was sick and couldn't come, and He Renlong went back to Shaanxi directly. The angry Yang Sichang fell ill, Zhang Xianzhong also took the opportunity to get rid of his followers, ravaged the Sichuan realm for more than a thousand miles, plundered everywhere, and suddenly committed suicide on the back of a horse in Xiangyang, and the mansion of the governor Yang Sichang was captured, and at this time Li Zicheng also captured Luoyang, killed King Fu, and Yang Sichang died of despair.
At this time, the strength of the peasant army and the strength of the Ming army were obviously at a disadvantage. Li Zicheng besieged Kaifeng, and Chongzhen ordered 170,000 Ming troops to come to the rescue. In the face of the enemy in front, Zuo Liangyu's strategy was ignored, the unwilling team was abandoned, and the Ming army collapsed for the first time before the war. But Li Zicheng had already prepared, he dug a deep ditch on the retreat route of the Ming army, Zuo Liangyu's entire army was annihilated, and only he escaped.
Why does Zuo Liangyu slip away every time? Was he lucky? Of course not! At the beginning of the article, Zuo Liangyu's biggest feature is that he loves soldiers, and the soldiers love him very much, so there are always soldiers who sacrifice their lives to save Zuo Liangyu in danger.
This time, Zuo Liangyu was frightened by Zhu Xianzhen's defeat and no longer dared to fight with Li Zi.
Zuo Liangyu gathered scattered soldiers and rushed to Wuchang to ask the king of Chu for money and food, and the king of Chu was willing to give it. This Ming army will not fight, it is still no problem to rob people, and even the grain and salt center of the Ming Dynasty has been robbed. With money and food, Zuo Liangyu began to recruit troops and horses, and there were 200,000 people in a short time. Have you ever seen a routine like this? Yes That's what the peasant army did. When the peasant army attacked a city, it used the money and grain in the city to recruit troops and buy horses, and every time it was responsive.
Zuo Liangyu not only stopped there, but also prepared to take 200,000 people to Nanjing, but was stopped by Li Banghua in Jiujiang, who took 200,000 taels of silver to Zuo Liangyu to settle the account.
At the end of 1643, Sun Chuanting led the last Ming army to attack Li Zicheng and told Zuo Liangyu that leaving Wuchang had nothing to do with him. Now he has mastered the military and political power in Wuchang, he has no worries about food and clothing, and his power is constantly expanding.
After Sun Chuanting and Li Zicheng's Northern Expedition to Beijing failed, Chongzhen instructed Zuo Liangyu to let the soldiers work hard to serve the king, and promised that after the matter was completed, the descendants could be the councillors of Wuchang City, and Zuo Liangyu was named Ning Nanbo, leaving only Zuo Menggeng's son Ping Thief Association, Zuo Liangyu heard this order, and also wanted to laugh, isn't Wuchang in my hands now? Originally, it was to make everyone uncomfortable to level the thief, but now the emperor took the initiative to seal his son to level the thief, he is really in his hands, and he has everything.
Zuo Liangyu's army in Wuchang used to have 800,000 men, but these soldiers were only a number, because Zuo Liangyu was able to use the resources of Wuchang and its surroundings to feed so many people who did not starve to death. These 800,000 men never fought, and the only battle was after the establishment of the Southern Ming Dynasty, when Zuo Liangyu led this rebel army to crusade against Nanjing.
However, Zuo Liangyu fell ill and died in the camp. The already disunited army became even more **, Huang Degong was defeated, and Zuo Liangyu's son Zuo Mengeng led 13 generals and hundreds of thousands of people to surrender to the Qing army.
The Qing army has become hundreds of thousands of people at a time, and it will soon be able to pacify the Southern Ming, so why not? It's just that there are few thugs in this gang, and the Qing army can't use it, can't raise it, can't hold it accountable, and most of them are remnants of the defeated army.
Zuo Liangyu was one of the few people who could survive the swords, swords, shadows and infighting of the Ming Dynasty at that time, and he certainly had this ability.
However, only Zuo Liangyu and others survived to the end, while most people such as Lu Xiangsheng, Sun Chuanting, Cao Wenzhao, and Fu Zonglong who sincerely served the country could not die well.
Isn't that a sadness for that era?