At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to frequent disasters and corruption, the northern and central plains were devastated, hungry and cold everywhere, and the people were in dire straits. How should those poor people who have no choice but to ponder whether "non-duty-free food" is practical and the last word of survival face it? A full stomach is the most important thing for a soldier. As a result, Li Zicheng rallied and attacked. Soldiers and civilians can forget about "free food without taxes", but Li Zicheng can't, which is related to the success or failure of the rebel army. However, Li Zicheng does have a way to feed the insurgents.
His method is "robbing grain and gold", that is, losing the property of the state treasury, imperial clan, aristocratic family, landlord and rich man to meet the economic needs of the rebel mobile operations. But conquering the country needs one step at a time, and one step at a time should be the base area. To consolidate and expand the base area, we must attach great importance to and earnestly strengthen the political, economic and military construction in the base area, so as to make it a reliable military supply base for the peasant uprising army, a fortress for the peasant uprising army to advance and retreat, and an important supplementary force source that the uprising army can rely on most. It is worth noting that all this is inseparable from taxation. Without taxes, all construction is water without a source and a tree without a root.
Peasant rebels in Li Zicheng galloped in the mountain plains of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Shandong provinces, and captured big cities such as xi, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Taiyuan, Baoding and Beiping. But they just occupied every city and region as a temporary warehouse to supplement the army's supplies and soldiers, just like a blind man breaking corn and throwing a stick. Has the serious rogue thought, has highlighted Li Zicheng's. Dashun Army was hit hard by the Qing army in Shanhaiguan, and the rout was out of control under the pursuit of the Qing army. The important reason is that Dashun Army lacks a solid rear foundation.
"Free food duty-free" has great motivation. It is a successful strategy to shout "free food without tax" as a slogan to incite the people, win their support and consolidate the public opinion base of the rebels, but if it is implemented as a policy agenda, the problem will be big. In fact, Li Zicheng finally failed in the "grain exemption without tax". After the establishment of the Dashun regime, there is still no clear fiscal and taxation policy, and there is even no organization to manage fiscal and taxation. How does the bureaucracy work and how does the army survive? Li Zicheng has ideas, too. Starting from the officials and ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty, generals led the troops to arrest and demote officials, collect illicit money, and abuse and kill the people. Soldiers flooded the streets and lanes, looting along the road in the name of searching for horses and copper, and were unscrupulous. Beijing alone was robbed of 70 million taels of silver. Niu Jinxing thought it would lose popularity, but General Liu Zongmin said, "What I am most worried about now is mutiny, not civil rebellion. If the soldiers are not satisfied, it is a disaster. In contrast, it is easy to deal with dissatisfied people, and it won't cost a penny to go door to door. The troops can't have no money, don't grab it, where does the money come from? " Niu Jinxing was speechless and said.
History often has striking similarities. In the early years of Chongzhen, there was a famine in Shaanxi, and the military and civilians stirred up each other. In the punishment class, Liu Mao asked Emperor Chongzhen to provide Shaanxi Border Region with two years' salary and pay 100,000 yuan to help the troops in Yansui and stabilize the morale of the army, but Emperor Chongzhen did not agree. Seeing that the pay could not be paid, Liu Mao demanded the abolition of Shaanxi Post Station, claiming that he could get hundreds of thousands of taels of silver for soldiers every year, and Emperor Chongzhen readily agreed. As a result, the post office was abolished, and Li Chuangwang, the leader of the rebel army, was forced to step down and became a key figure in the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
In order to solve the problem of military supplies and maintain the normal operation of the regime, General Liu Zongmin led troops to plunder everywhere, arrest officials, search for illicit money and kill innocent people. Finally, he even tortured the old father of Wu Sangui, the company commander of Shanhaiguan who was ready to surrender, and took Wu Sangui's concubine. Wu Sangui was furious and immediately returned to Shanhaiguan, raided Li Zicheng troops defending Shanhaiguan, killed the special envoy sent by Li Zicheng, and completely broke away from the Dashun regime. Dashun regime forced out a Wu Sangui who led the Qing army into the customs and became a key figure in overthrowing Dashun regime.
Li Zicheng's slogan of "no tax, no food" conforms to the interests of poor farmers, attracting millions of farmers to throw themselves into the torrent of overthrowing the decadent Ming Dynasty, which is the fundamental reason why the uprising army led by Li Zicheng rose in difficulties and quickly formed a magnificent trend. However, after conquering Beijing and forcing Emperor Chongzhen to death, the insurgents still took "no tax and no food" as their national policy, trying their best to please the people and win their hearts. They didn't understand the significance of fiscal revenue in regime consolidation and national construction, which showed that Dashun regime headed by Li Zicheng lacked the idea of governing the country and the ability to build and manage a region or country well. From this point of view, Li Zicheng's final failure is inevitable.