At the end of any dynasty, there will be waves of peasant uprisings, which, although called peasant armies, have in fact gone beyond the peasants.
This can be seen in the frequent confrontations between local armed forces and peasant rebel armies, the most obvious example of which is Li Zicheng. In that year, he was defeated by the Manchu Qing and originally planned to flee to Nanjing, but because the warship was burned, he had to be diverted to Hubei.
When passing through Tongshan County, due to his unfamiliarity with the local area, he personally led less than thirty cavalry to explore the road. However, this exploration led him to die at the hands of the local armed forces led by Cheng Chengbo.
Why did the local armed forces take action against Li Zicheng? Because they didn't know that Li Zicheng was King Chuang at that time, if they knew, they would not have taken such an action.
Later, Li Zicheng's rebel army did kill the local armed forces led by Cheng Chengbo. Why did the local armed forces rebel against the peasant rebels?
The reason is simple: at the beginning of the peasant rebel army, the management of the soldiers was very loose, because most of the soldiers joined the rebel army because of the hardship of life.
Therefore, they need to compensate themselves, and the way to compensate them is by burning and looting. The leader of the rebel army usually does not warn the soldiers of unreasonable behavior, because if they do, the soldiers may scatter.
Moreover, in the troubled times, the other two advantages of this are: the first advantage is that the peasant rebel army has actually blocked its retreat in the process of burning, killing and looting, and if you do not join the rebel army in the future, you are likely to become the most wanted person when you return to your hometown, so you can only follow the leader to the black.
The second advantage is that in the process of robbing the people of the peasant rebel army, the people are usually not willing to be robbed, and they will choose to join the rebel army, thus completing the transformation from the robbed to the robber.
If an insurrectionary army implements the three-light policy for a long time, its probability of success is slim, and historical experience tells us that only by winning the hearts and minds of the people can we take power in the world. Once notoriety is formed, every battle can be extremely tough, and no one can withstand the constant trials of life and death.
On the other hand, building a good reputation is not an easy task, because the promises made are not kept, and it only makes people suspicious. This is the reason why there were many rebel armies in the last years of the dynasty, but in the end there were only one or two left.
The rebel army was either wiped out before the transformation, or the transformation failed, and the whole army collapsed. However, Zhu Yuanzhang provided a successful example of how the peasant rebel army could be transformed. As we all know, Zhu Yuanzhang started in Guo Zixing's rebel army, but what is the military discipline of Guo Zixing's army?
It can be described as extremely bad, and Zhu Yuanzhang himself has a deep understanding of this. When he joined Guo Zixing's rebel army, he was arrested as soon as he entered the city gate, and the reason was to extort money.
If it weren't for the appearance of Guo Zixing and Qian Zong Tang He, he might have ended his rebellion career before he began. Zhu Yuanzhang's army naturally had the style of Guo Zixing's army, especially in the two battles of Quarrying and Taiping.
After conquering the quarry, the soldiers' first reaction was to transport all the grain, livestock, gold, silver and jewelry back to the base camp and the state for partition, which was obviously contrary to Zhu Yuanzhang's strategic plan.
His goal was to conquer Nanjing, changing the base camp from Hezhou to Nanjing, so he needed to conquer Taiping further. However, the soldier is not willing to give it his all again unless there is a better reward.
And Zhu Yuanzhang did give a greater reward, that is, after conquering Taiping, any items can be carried by soldiers at will, including people. The soldiers lived up to expectations and conquered Taiping, and the next Taiping must have been full of cruelty and chaos.
Zhu Yuanzhang faced the challenge of Nanjing, and he could no longer continue to implement the old policy, otherwise the people of Nanjing would want him to leave. In order to stabilize the situation, he had to use Nanjing as his base camp, but this required a large garrison and resources.
In order to achieve this goal, he ordered the cessation of all looting operations, which caused discontent among the soldiers. Xu Da, as a general, was outraged by this, and he promised to give them wealth after conquering Nanjing, but this was not the case.
Zhu Yuanzhang immediately punished Xu Da, which showed that he would not allow anyone to disobey his orders. He will assert his authority by imposing severe penalties on those who violate orders.
Although Zhu Yuanzhang's severe punishment had a deterrent effect, it also led to the instability of the military's morale. At this time, he adopted a reward measure to promote himself to the rank of Duke of Wu as a way to motivate his generals and soldiers.
This action not only satisfies their vanity, but also gives them hope. They saw Zhu Yuanzhang's journey from a rogue, to a prince, and then to a possible king or emperor, and also saw the opportunity for himself to become a local overlord.
Such incentives are such that none of the generals and soldiers disobey. Through this change, Zhu Yuanzhang successfully stabilized the morale of the army.
An important reason for the failure of Li Zicheng's uprising was that his rebel army was a group of rogues from beginning to end. When the rebels first entered Beijing, there was not much conflict with the people, but the next day, they began to show their true colors, committing adultery, plundering and other bad acts.
Why is that? It turned out that he had never reformed the rebel army like Zhu Yuanzhang, resulting in the evil in human nature never being suppressed, and finally erupting into a natural result.