In March of the first year of Ming Qi (1621), Nurhachi successively attacked Shenyang and Liaoyang, two important towns in eastern Liaodong.
When the news reached Beijing, it can be described as a shock. Shenyang and Liaoyang were fortified cities heavily guarded by the Ming army in Liaodong, especially Liaoyang, which was the center of the Ming Dynasty's rule in Liaodong at that time, and also the political, economic, cultural, and military center and important transportation hub of Liaodong. During Xiong Tingbi's previous passage through Liaodong, he attached great importance to the defense of Shenyang and Liaoyang, not only strengthened the city wall and reorganized the armament, but also established a complete set of city defense fortifications.
It's just that the final outcome of the war was beyond everyone's expectations, Shenyang fell in just one day, and Liaoyang was conquered after only three days and three nights of resistance with a numerical advantage in troops.
The successive losses of Shenyang and Liaoyang caused the Ming Dynasty to lose control of the area east of the Liaohe River, and then more than 70 cities surrendered to Houjin, and the Ming Dynasty fell into an increasingly unfavorable situation in the Liaodong war.
However, this seemingly "undeserved" defeat was actually destined from the beginning, and the starting point of this major tragedy in the Liaodong war was a wrong appointment of a "non-human". This person who was "misused" is Xiong Tingbi's successor, Yuan Yingtai, the Liaodong Economic Strategy.
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Yuan Yingtai, Ming Wanli twenty-three years (1595) in the examination of Jinshi, since then into the career, to the first year of Taichang (1620) officially took over Xiong Tingbi to become the Liaodong strategy, in these 25 years of official experience, Yuan Yingtai's political achievements and merits, is indeed remarkable, especially in the Ming Dynasty ** team of corruption and party strife at that time, he can definitely be called a "clear stream" like existence.
First of all, Yuan Yingtai has achieved the "love of the people like a son".
In the History of the Ming Dynasty, two such things as Yuan Yingtai are recorded:
"Granted to Linzhang Zhi County. Build a causeway for more than 40 miles to defend Zhangshui. Adjust the multiplication of the river, pass through the Taihang Mountain, lead the water, become 25 weirs, irrigate tens of thousands of hectares, and the neighboring towns all enjoy its benefits. ”The first thing is that when Yuan Yingtai was the magistrate of Linzhang, he opened a canal for drinking water and built a dam and weir, which not only controlled the flood, but also irrigated the farmland along the river basin, and even the people in the surrounding counties also benefited.Moved to Huai Xu to prepare for the Senate. There was a great hunger in Shandong, and a porridge factory was set up to feed the displaced people, and the city was renovated and the temple was repaired, so that the hungry could eat. He also searched for additional taxes and tens of thousands of gold in the price of discounted horses, and successively revitalized. The household department impeached him for moving the official without permission, and when he moved the deputy envoy, he was moved back. ”
The second thing is that when Yuan Yingtai was serving as a member of the Huaixu Military Staff, there was a famine in Shandong, and in order to help the people, Yuan Yingtai used the money and grain from the government treasury without asking for an order, and did not hesitate to gamble on his political future.
From these two things, it is not difficult to see that Yuan Yingtai knows very well the "foundation of being an official" and "the way of establishing oneself", not only worried about the people, but also puts hard work in the first place, and has done a lot of practical and good things for the people.
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Secondly, Yuan Yingtai was originally a member of the Donglin Party, but he formed a contrast with the traditional image of the Donglin Party of "empty talk to mislead the country" and "selling fame and reputation".
In the process of building canals and dams for the people, including the later repair of the Confucian Temple, Yuan Yingtai did not only know how to reach out to the state to ask for money, nor did he blindly exploit the local rich businessmen and ordinary people under the pretext, but took the lead in setting an example out of his own pocket, taking out his own money, and setting a good example, which attracted the people to follow suit. And Yuan Yingtai himself is an honest official, which also makes his own family's life extremely poor.
Speaking of which, it can't help but remind people of the last years of Chongzhen, when Emperor Chongzhen borrowed money from his ministers, hoping that the monarchs and ministers would tide over the difficulties together, but starting from Chongzhen's father-in-law Zhou Kui, the ministers of the Donglin Party of the Manchu Dynasty resisted one after another and staged a farce. However, in the brutal "torture" organized by Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin, they were forced out of 70 million taels. And the contrast between this and Yuan Yingtai at this time is also extremely stark.
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Thirdly, Yuan Yingtai is really able to put aside the antagonism of parties and do his best for the overall interests of the country with all his heart.
"For a long time, Henan participated in politics on the right side, and governed the army Yongping according to the inspection. Liao affairs are thorny, should Tai train the army armor, repair the pavilion barrier, the Loulou, the need for the outside of the customs to be breathing. After a little Xiong Tingbi is deeply reliant on Yan. ”Yuan Yingtai is a member of the Donglin Party, and Xiong Tingbi is a member of the Chu Party.
In the court, the Donglin Party took advantage of the enthronement of Emperor Taichang of Mingguangzong and Emperor Tianqi of Mingxizong to greatly expand the power of the DPRK and China, and attacked other parties. Xiong Tingbi was inevitably the target of their key attacks, and often hindered Xiong Tingbi's work in Liaodong. Later, the small defeat of the "Battle of Puhe" was infinitely magnified by the Donglin Party, which continued to add fuel and vinegar, and finally led to Xiong Tingbi's departure.
However, Yuan Yingtai, who was a member of the Donglin Party, was able to put aside the prejudice of partisan struggle, put everyone's overall interests first, actively trained the army for the Liaodong battlefield, provided heavy supplies, and supported Xiong Tingbi's work. Just imagine, even Xiong Tingbi, who has a hot temper and an extreme personality, and is difficult to tolerate people, has highly recognized Yuan Yingtai, which further proves Yuan Yingtai's character and ability, as well as his sense of responsibility for the country, which were rare at that time.
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If Yuan Yingtai's political life was terminated, or if he did not have the political experience of Liaodong in the future, Yuan Yingtai's reputation and prestige would only be high. However, it was such an appointment of "entrusted non-people" that made Yuan Yingtai a "sinner" in history, killed himself, and also suffered Liaodong and the entire Ming Dynasty.
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Yuan Yingtai arrived in Liaodong, it can be said that he was full of ambition, and in the note to the Emperor of the Apocalypse, Yuan Yingtai wrote:
"The ministers are willing to start with the Liao Prime Minister, and they would like the civil and military ministers to have no two hearts and end with the ministers. Those who have excuses and thanks, there is no forgiveness for their sins. ”It is not difficult to see from this note that Yuan Yingtai has the courage and determination to live and die with Liaodong, and this spirit is worthy of affirmation and praise, but then Yuan Yingtai's series of wrong measures will lay a deep foreshadowing for the subsequent defeat of Liaoshen.
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The first erroneous move was to turn "defending" into "attacking", making a lot of nonsense, and planning to "recover Fushun".
During Xiong Tingbi's operation in Liaodong, he pursued a comprehensive defensive strategy. It can be said that this was a very correct decision at that time, after all, after the "Battle of Sarhu", the Ming army lost troops and lost generals, and had shifted from strategic offensive to strategic defense, thus losing the initiative on the battlefield, and at the same time, this was also Xiong Tingbi's fear of the combat power of the Houjin army and the weak combat power of the Ming Dynasty army.
However, Yuan Yingtai overthrew Xiong Tingbi's basic strategy and appealed to Emperor Chongzhen
"Fushun is a place that must be contested, and since Fushun is lost, Shen and Feng are in danger. The ministers once patrolled and the generals of the Taoist ministers, asked for a strategy, and said that it was advisable to restore Fushun and Qinghe. ”At the same time, Yuan Yingtai planned to use 180,000 troops to "go out of the division in three ways" to recover Fushun.
However, this plan was never realized, but the change from "defense" to "attack" not only changed the existing defense system of Liaodong, but also affected the mentality of the defenders of Liaodong, and the Ming army tasted serious consequences in the battle of Liaoshen afterward.
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The second erroneous measure, changing "administering the army strictly" to "managing the army with goodness," has committed the taboo of "not being merciful in charge of the army."
During Xiong Tingbi's operation of Liaodong, not only did he give Nurha a headache, but even the officers and soldiers of Liaodong were very afraid of Xiong Tingbi, mainly because of Xiong Tingbi's attitude of "governing the army strictly". However, after Xiong Tingbi's rectification, the army's combat effectiveness has been improved, and the Ming army's paralysis of "retreating without a fight" and "fleeing from battle" has been greatly improved.
However, after Yuan Yingtai arrived in Liaodong Economic Strategy, he immediately changed this policy, and he used his once "loving the people like a son" to govern the army. In this way, the military law and military regulations that Xiong Tingbi had so hard established were completely destroyed by Yuan Yingtai's move, military discipline was dispersed again, and all kinds of vices and bad habits from top to bottom of the army once again appeared, and the combat effectiveness was naturally not as good as before.
If in peacetime, it is a very desirable strategy to narrow the relationship with the low-level officers and soldiers, but in the Liaodong region, where the situation is so critical, not advocating military discipline and not administering the army strictly is tantamount to chronic suicide, and this has been confirmed in several large and small battles in Liaodong before, but Yuan Yingtai insisted on the set of Confucian theories of his scholars, and thoroughly talked on paper.
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The third mistake, and the most fatal, was to blindly take in the Mongol people.
During Xiong Tingbi's passage through Liaodong, there were also Mongolian refugees who came to surrender, but Xiong Tingbi's strategy was to "break up the whole into pieces, disrupt and replace" and "closely monitor and secretly deal with it". That is, all the Mongol subjugates were scattered in various cities, fortresses, and villages, so that they could not echo each other, and at the same time, they secretly sent people to observe and secretly execute the Mongol subjugates who had espionage or violated laws and disciplines. In this way, not only will they not be subjected to the pressure of not accepting the surrender of the people, but they will also be able to discover the Houjin spies hidden in the surrender in time, and eliminate their influence and destructive power invisibly.
However, Yuan Yingtai thinks:
"If I don't give first aid, he will return to the enemy, and he will be a soldier of benefit. ”Therefore, in order to win over the Mongolian settlers for his own use, Yuan Yingtai adopted an attitude that was almost "at home" to treat the Mongolian settlers, not only placing them in a centralized manner according to tribes and families, but also treating them leniently and kindly, and even dealing with their violations of law and discipline.
This kind of treatment of the Ming Dynasty military and civilians and the treatment of the Mongolian people "double standards", up to the imperial court, down to the Liaodong military and civilians, have put forward strong objections, especially the Liaodong governor Xue Guoyong, repeatedly admonished, but Yuan Yingtai still went his own way and continued to adhere to his own policy. Later, on the eve of the Battle of Liaoshen, in Nurhachi's tentative attack on Wang Darentun, the Mongol subjugated troops, as the vanguard of the defenders, actively resisted the Houjin attack and killed more than 20 people, which made Yuan Yingtai even more firm in his attitude.
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In fact, when the Mongolian refugees returned, many "suspicious points" had been exposed.
First, there is the question of the timing of the return of refugees.
At that time, the time of natural disasters in Mongolia was in the 47th year of Wanli (1619), and the Mongolian tribes first suffered drought in summer and snowstorm in winter. However, the surrender of these Mongol refugees took place at the end of the first year of Taichang (1620), nearly a year after the disaster. Why would the refugees persist in the withered grasslands for a year before thinking of surrendering and submitting to the people's livelihood cannot help but make people wonder.
Second, it was the refugees who came to Liaoxi almost intact.
At the end of the first year of Taichang (1620), more than 4,000 Mongol surrenderers came, and they did not come empty-handed, but drove 80 carts and thousands of livestock, and then a large number of refugees came. The long way to escape, but not being plundered by other Mongolian tribes or the Later Jin army, so safely came to the chassis of the Ming army, which also made people have deep doubts.
However, Yuan Yingtai, who did not understand military affairs and even less Liao affairs, still adhered to his strategy, completely ignoring the dissuasion from top to bottom, and finally caused a catastrophe.
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Just when Yuan Yingtai felt good about himself, but in fact he was going farther and farther on the road of "death", Nurhachi seemed to have found the feeling of "someone will send a pillow if you want to sleep".
Xiong Tingbi managed Liaodong and made the Liaodong position a monolith, so that Nurhachi chose to wait in hibernation, but with Xiong Tingbi's departure and Yuan Yingtai's arrival, Liaodong has now returned to Xiong Tingbi's former state, and Nurhachi has vented all the anger that has been suppressed for more than a year on the battle of Liaoshen.
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On March 16 of the first year of the Apocalypse (1621), Nurhachi led a large army to advance by water and kill Shenyang.
In the Battle of Shenyang, He Shixian, the commander of the Ming army, fell into Nurhachi's strategy to lure the enemy, and lightly attacked the enemy, causing himself to be deeply encircled. When he finally broke through from the encirclement of the Houjin and came to the city of Shenyang, he found that the suspension bridge on the city gate refused to be put down.
At this time, the Ming army in the city was being held back by spies, and it was completely unable to take care of He Shixian, who was in danger, so he died in battle. Another general, You Shigong, was also martyred in the process of rescuing He Shixian.
Seeing the death of the main general, the Ming army was scattered in an instant, and showed a rout, Shenyang City, which was originally a city with thick walls and a complete defense system inside and outside the city, was conquered by Nurhachi in less than a day.
He Shixian's haste was one of the reasons for the defeat, but more importantly, these Mongol subjugators, who had high hopes from Yuan Yingtai, betrayed him at the most critical time, which eventually led to the fall of Shenyang. At the same time, it has to be said that He Shixian's dispatch of troops to meet the battle was not also influenced by Yuan Yingtai's idea of turning "defending" to "attacking", so it seems that Yuan Yingtai undoubtedly became the "culprit" of the fall of Shenyang.
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However, Yuan Yingtai's next performance was even more stunning.
The Houjin army was best at encircling and sending reinforcements, and this was the case for Nurhachi, and even more so for his successor, Huang Taiji.
Just when he received the news that Nurhachi was besieging Shenyang, Yuan Yingtai hurriedly dispatched 7,000 Sichuan soldiers led by Qin Bangping and Zhou Dunji, as well as 3,000 Zhejiang soldiers led by Chen Ce, Tong Zhonghua and Qi Jiguang's nephew Qi Jin, to rescue Shenyang. These two troops are famous in the history of the Ming Dynasty, among which the Sichuan Army is the White Pole Army founded by Qin Liangyu, the "heroine" of the Ming Dynasty, and the Zhejiang soldiers are even more famous, which is the "Qi Family Army" that is powerful for a while.
However, by the time the support army reached the Hunhe River, Shenyang had already fallen, and Nurhachi had discovered the army and began to attack it. At this time, Yuan Yingtai, who has always advocated taking the initiative to attack, did not send troops to rescue again, the reason was that it was ridiculous that "if you save it, you will be sent to death". So he watched the 10,000 Sichuan and Zhejiang soldiers die on both sides of the Hunhe River, and the main generals Tong Zhonghua, Chen Ce, Zhou Dunji and others were all martyred.
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At this time, Yuan Yingtai's nightmare was not over, and just five days later, Nurhachi began to attack Liaoyang, and he also ushered in the "final judgment" of fate for him.
The lesson of the fall of Shenyang is still vivid, but at this time, Yuan Yingtai still refused to stick to the city, but sent Li Bingcheng, Hou Shilu, Zhu Wanliang and others to bring 50,000 soldiers and horses out of the city to meet the battle. In terms of numbers, it was not superior, and the Houjin army was good at field warfare, so the result of such a strategy of "promoting shortcomings and avoiding strengths" was inevitably the rout of the Ming army, which greatly consumed the strength of the defenders and seriously shook the morale of the army.
After cleaning up the Ming army outside the city, Nurhachi ordered to attack Liaoyang City, cavalry charge, shield and vehicle coordination, internal and external echoes, breaking the embankment and releasing water, in front of Nurhachi's superb combat command talent, Yuan Yingtai obviously had no power to parry.
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And at this time, it was the Houjin spies among the Mongol people who were wreaking havoc in the city, attacking the defenders and people in the city, while preaching that the Ming army had been defeated, and by the way, a fire was lit in the city.
Faced with this situation, Yuan Yingtai knew that the general trend had gone. Liaodong Patrol Zhang Quan thought that Yuan Yingtai did not have the "responsibility to defend the land" and asked him to break through quickly. But Yuan Yingtai chose to stay, and came to Zhenyuanlou in the northeast of the city alone, bowed to Beijing to the west, and lamented:
"The minister to Liao, seeing that the people's hearts are not solid, can not be kept, is to have the oath of death and burial of Liao. Now the fruit is falling, the ministers are exhausted and dying, and I hope that the emperor will clean up the hearts of the people for recovery."After that, Yuan Yingtai wore the seal letter of Liaodong Jinglu and the sword of Shangfang given by the Emperor of the Apocalypse, and hanged himself.
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In "History of the Ming Dynasty", Yuan Yingtai was given a rather soft, and even very pertinent evaluation:
"Ying Taili is an officer who is sensitive and resolute, and he is not good at using soldiers, and his planning is quite sparse. ”This is a comprehensive negation of Yuan Yingtai's military strategic capability while affirming his ability to govern the country and the people. In fact, Yuan Yingtai served as an official for one term, benefiting one party, and was a standard "good official". However, it is such a civil official who is honest and honest and diligent in government affairs, but knows nothing about military affairs, and he is indeed "entrusted to a non-person" by placing him in the position of Liaodong Economic Strategy.
Although Yuan Yingtai has the advantage of daring to do things and being willing to take responsibility, this is only in terms of spiritual integrity, which is better than those inactive officials who are lazy and slack in government. However, the more he does, the more mistakes he makes, if this is to govern the people, there is still room for redemption, but this is precisely in the field of military warfare where one move is wrong and all games are lost, and at the same time, it is also in Liaodong, a turbulent and rapidly changing crisis place, Yuan Yingtai's wrong actions again and again eventually led to the tragic ending of his own self-hanging, and it also caused the irreparable failure of Liaoshen to fall and lose a large part of Liaodong's territory.
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Could it be that Yuan Yingtai is to blame for all this? The answer, of course, is no.
In fact, Yuan Yingtai was a victim of the outright party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty, and he was stationed in Liaodong only because he was a member of the Donglin Party, and the Donglin Party needed to occupy the key position of Liaodong Economic Strategy, but he ignored the ability, responsibility and risk that the person in this position should have, so there was such a "entrusted non-person" appointment.
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Yuan Yingtai was not the first victim of political struggle, even if Xiong Tingbi before him had outstanding achievements, he also fell under the party struggle; Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan after him, without exception, were not planted in their own hands. After such a "self-destruction of the Great Wall" again and again, the Ming Dynasty gradually lost the territory outside the Guan, and it also went to extinction step by step.
This also makes us lament the tragic ending of Yuan Yingtai, but also sigh for the decline and demise of the Ming Dynasty.
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