There is also a well-known so-called "seeking the Lord" written by Li Zicheng, a native of Qixian County, Yan Li. Since the Qing Dynasty, many people have verified that he is "self-taught without a teacher". Even if he is a real person, he is only a juror. Later, as the uprising intensified, Li Zicheng also appointed other advisers, but the level was not high. These low-level intellectuals who have lived in rural areas or rivers and lakes for a long time not only lack political experience in leading troops to fight and govern the country, but also have a narrow vision and cannot accurately grasp the national situation and its trend. Their suggestions will inevitably lead to such deviations and mistakes, thus laying the groundwork for future destruction.
When it comes to the peasant war in the late Ming Dynasty, people feel the historical achievements of Li Zicheng in overthrowing the decadent rule of the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time, they also feel the speed of his defeat. After careful study, there are many reasons for Li Zicheng's downfall, but the failure of intellectual policy is one of the important factors.
Only the lower intellectuals: the curse of burying destruction
When it comes to the mistakes of Li Zicheng's intellectual policy, let's start with the advisers he appointed.
Li Zicheng was born in a poor peasant family in Mizhi, Shaanxi. In the third year of Chongzhen, he led a group of hungry people in the village to revolt. However, until Chongzhen invaded Henan in the thirteenth year, he never absorbed a Confucian scholar. When encountering major problems, we should negotiate with the uprising generals around us to solve them.
In the autumn of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led a small number of troops from Shangluo Mountain, which was besieged by loyalists, to Xichuan and Neixiang, Henan Province. From fifty to tens of thousands of people, they occupied Luoyang town in January of the following year. With the revival of the uprising, Niu Jinxing and other frustrated intellectuals came to take refuge in succession, and Li Zicheng immediately appointed them as counselors. They put forward many useful suggestions in rectifying the discipline of the peasant army, recruiting talents, and building political power, especially helping Li Zicheng to formulate the slogan of "no requisition of grain fields" and the policies of "no requisition for five years", "no grain for all officials" and "flat purchase and flat sales". As Zheng Lian's Bian Yulue pointed out: "When he was sleepy in Shangluo, he collapsed and died in his breath, and there was no hope for a sky. The gully from the south of Ningnan to the vertical part is due to "Yi Yi". If you have to use it on Niu Jinxing, the fish will surf, the sun will shine, and two disgraced people will help you. If you fly for wings, it is unstoppable. "
However, most of the intellectuals appointed by Li Zicheng are frustrated literati at the lower level. For example, Niu Jinxing, a juren in the seventh year of the Apocalypse, once worked as a school teacher. "Tiantong Guanfengjiao's book is also quite about Sun Wu's art of war." Because of the death of her daughter-in-law, she turned against her husband Wang Shijun, was framed by officials and gentry, was arrested and imprisoned, and was deprived of her reputation. Song Xiance, a native of Henan, is not a scholar, but he is good at pen and ink, and he is "good at the plan of six people and the divination of numbers". In the 14th year of Chongzhen, after Niu Jinxing introduced him to the uprising team, he presented Li Zicheng with the prophecy of "Eighteen Main Artifacts". There is also a well-known so-called "seeking the Lord" written by Li Zicheng, a native of Qixian County, Yan Li. Since the Qing Dynasty, many people have verified that he is "self-taught without a teacher". Even if he is a real person, he is only a juror. See you later, Victor.
The first is the slogan of "returning farmland to grain" and the policy issues of "not returning grain due to improper distribution" and "not levying for five years". At that time, the release of egalitarian slogans and policies will undoubtedly win the enthusiastic support of farmers. Li Zicheng's team has developed into a million-strong army in just one year. But absolute egalitarianism cannot be realized in reality. Taxation is the foundation of the existence of the state machine. In an agricultural society, without taxes and servants, millions of uprising troops will not be paid, and the machine of Dashun regime will not work. Confiscating the government's inventory and a large amount of property of the Ming imperial clan can only save the immediate emergency, but can not solve the long-term needs.
Although the peasant army has cultivated land and promulgated the law of collecting grain, it has not been widely implemented in all occupied areas and has not been adhered to for a long time. Therefore, the income is not enough to cover the huge expenditure. Therefore, after the Dashun regime invaded Xi 'an, it used the method of recovering money and grain to torture officials and gentry to hand over their property for military expenditure. Weinan in Guanzhong and Shen Nan in Hunan were once accused of "crossing160"; In Henan, officials of Dashun regime "chased each other when they got off the bus. Anyone who has family wealth is always broke, but a well-dressed family is restless. Five punishments, the dead are better than others. " This practice not only caused social chaos and people's anxiety, but also cornered the officials and gentry of the Ming Dynasty, resolutely stood on the side of the Ming Dynasty and fought against the Dashun regime to the end. After the invasion of Beijing, the Dashun regime not only failed to make policy adjustments, but pushed the action of demanding restitution to a climax. "Dashun regime loss compensation, nave sixty-five thousand four hundred and thirty-eight+ten thousand, department, Jingtang, jinyi seventy thousand, department, official department fifty or thirty thousand, academician thirty thousand, subordinate twenty thousand or sixty-five thousand four hundred and thirty-eight+ten thousand, each in thousands. Qi Xun's family was in decline, and his wealth was empty, which made a large number of officials, gentlemen and doctors in the Ming Dynasty fall to the Qing Dynasty or the Hong Guang court in Nanming. The important reason for Wu Sangui's anti-Qing Dynasty after surrendering to Dashun regime was that his father Wu Xiang was arrested after the city was broken, and he went on the rampage when he heard that his beloved concubine was taken away by Liu Zongmin in Li Zicheng.
Secondly, it is the problem of understanding and grasping the national conditions and their trend at that time. After the peasant uprising broke out in the late Ming Dynasty, the peasant army and its existing regime, the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty competed in the vast land of China. Whether the Ming Dynasty suppressed the peasant uprising army or the uprising army overthrew the Ming Dynasty, the victorious party would eventually live and die with the Qing Dynasty. At this time, in Li Zicheng's eyes, the enemy's situation is only clear, not clear, and there is a lack of accurate judgment of the situation. He failed to foresee that he would face a decisive battle with the Qing Dynasty after overthrowing the Ming Dynasty. And those counselors around Li Zicheng, also lack the vision. Before Li Zicheng entered Beijing, there were millions of troops, but the number was huge, mainly distributed in the northwest, Huguang, Henan, Shanxi, Jifu and other places, and only about 80,000 people were brought to Beijing. After the capture of Beijing, the defense and deployment of strategic locations around Jifu were also inappropriate. JD.COM Shanhaiguan region did not send its own generals to guard it, but hoped that Wu Sangui, the general of Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty, Li Yutian, the governor of Liaodong and Gaudi, the general who closed the door, would surrender. After Liaodong and the closed Ming loyalist surrendered, Li Zicheng only sent Tang Tong, the company commander of the Ming Dynasty who just surrendered a few days ago, to take over Shanhaiguan defense with 8,000 people and ordered Wu Sangui to lead the troops into Beijing. It was not prepared to prevent the Qing army from entering the customs and winning the Central Plains, which eventually led to its defeat.
"I am mowing the grass": the fate of scholars in Dashun regime
Why did Li Zicheng use junior intellectuals instead of senior intellectuals as counselors? This touched on Li Zicheng's intellectual policy.
Li Zicheng was born in a poor peasant family and had no education since childhood. He is not familiar with the historical experience of Liu Bang, Zhu Yuanzhang and other founding emperors who appointed intellectuals to seize the world. In addition, in the era of "learning to be an excellent official", once a scholar goes to high school and becomes an official in yamen, he puts on airs and bullies the people. Li Zicheng is inevitably disgusted with this. For a long time after the uprising, he rejected all intellectuals. In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, there were even licking and gouging events in Xiangcheng. This rude practice is tantamount to driving fish out of the abyss and pushing intellectuals into hostile camps. After that, Li Zicheng surrounded Kaifeng, and all the literati in Kaifeng stood on the side of the government and fought against the rebels to the end. When Kaifeng was opened for the second time, Huang Zhu, the official in charge of Kaifeng, erected a white flag at Caomen, and wrote: "Heroes of the Capital of Song Dynasty, those who wish to travel far, erect this flag." In Kaifeng City, "princes, gentry, gentry and merchants are reluctant to join the society", among which "gentry" includes many literati.
In the summer and autumn of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the insurgents had basically established local political power in the occupied counties, and a large number of intellectuals were urgently needed as administrative officers. At the end of that year, Li Zicheng "proposed to open Hebei Province" and "sent first-class and second-class people to the government offices to select officials". But at this time, the scholars who took the exam were forced, and they did not refuse the freedom of the imperial examination. In the first month of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, the Dean House in Hubei "detained all students" to take the exam, and some of them "would rather splash water than go"; In Runing County, Henan Province, "only one fake official is allowed to take the exam, and those who escape are executed"; In Shaanxi, if a candidate "should not, he will be forced to do so". Li Mo, a native of Henan Province, recalled his participation in the Imperial Examination of the Peasant Army and said, "You must go out. On the day of the trial, some people were furious and cursed, some were sad and crying, and some were afraid of misfortune, but they were unwilling. They got angry and said,' I cut our children like grass, but we are kind and don't kill them. We only kill those who scold and cry. If we don't do this, we will cut off their ears and ears. Once we are unified, we will be imprisoned for life. "Li Mo probably belongs to the" chapter ",as a result," the nose and ears have been cut off ".
In addition to the Jinshi, although Li Zicheng also relied on Niu Jinxing and others to recruit some Ming Dynasty Jinshi to hold positions in the central institutions, he only let these surrendered Jinshi hold specific administrative positions and never appointed them as counselors, which shows that he still has doubts about senior intellectuals. Even after the capture of Beijing in the 17th year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng only appointed officials of the Ming Dynasty with less than four grades, and "former assistant minister Hou Xun only used three grades". That's because Hou Xun was imprisoned by Chongzhen, thinking that he must have hated the transparent dynasty and could be used by the peasant army. Moreover, Li Zicheng also stipulated that all civil servants of Dashun regime should be bound by military commanders, that is, peasant generals who revolted. Even among these officials appointed by the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng never seriously consulted their opinions on the general trend of the world and governing the country and the army. In fact, many of these more than 3,000 relegated officials have a clear understanding of the national situation and have the ability to govern the country and the army. Some of them were later relegated to the Qing dynasty, and were appointed as six ministers or even university students by the Qing court, which made great contributions to the Qing court's elimination of the peasant army and anti-Qing armed forces in the south of the Ming dynasty and the establishment of its dominant position.
To the extent of being politicized and ideological, China intellectuals have not been an independent group since ancient times. They use their cultural knowledge.
People may ask, if Li Zicheng had done that, wouldn't he have changed from a peasant leader to a representative of the landlord class and turned the peasant regime he established into a feudal regime, thus deviating from the desire of the lower classes to get rid of oppression and exploitation? However, we should not forget that although peasant uprising can deal a heavy blow to feudal rule, it cannot bring about a new social system higher than feudal system. In the end, they all ended in failure, either brutally suppressed by the landlord class or become a tool for the landlord class to change the dynasty.
Of course, hypothesis cannot replace history. The history of the struggle between the peasant army and the Ming and Qing Dynasties has long been floating in the wind. Looking back at history today, we should not only remember Li Zicheng's historical achievements, but also forget the profound lessons left by his intellectual policy mistakes: without the participation of intellectuals, any revolution will fail; Without a correct knowledge policy, any regime will collapse.