Chapter 64 245 Chuang Wang Li Zicheng

In the second year of Emperor Chongzhen's accession to the throne, in 1628 AD, there was a great famine in Shaanxi.The common people had no food to eat, and even the roots and bark of the grass were dug up, so they had to eat the soil from the mountains.However, some local officials continued to urge rent and taxes, which made the common people unbearable.Peasant uprisings broke out in various parts of Shaanxi. In the winter of this year, the Ming Dynasty transferred an army from Gansu to Beijing.This army marched to Jin County (now Yulin, Shaanxi), and the soldiers couldn't get paid, so they went to the county government office.The general who led the troops came out to suppress them, and a young soldier stood up angrily and led the soldiers to kill the general and the county magistrate.This soldier is Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng is a native of Mizhi, Shaanxi. He was born in a peasant family. When he was young, he liked horseback riding and archery, and he practiced martial arts very well.Later, his father died and his family was poor, so Li Zicheng went to work as a groom in the Yinchuan post station.He treats people warmly, and the postmen love him very much. Li Zicheng's family has always been responsible for collecting taxes on behalf of the government.The harvest of Mizhi has been poor year after year, and the farmers cannot afford the rental tax.There was a big local landlord surnamed Ai who took the opportunity to lend usury and wanted to exploit the peasants.Li Zicheng saw that everyone could not pay the rent and tax, so he borrowed debts and paid the tax by himself.After a while, the landlord surnamed Ai forced Li Zicheng to repay the debt, but Li Zicheng couldn't pay, so the surname Ai instigated the government to arrest him, beat him half to death, put him in shackles, and put him in the sun without letting him eat.The people and postmen begged the magistrate to put Li Zicheng under the shade of a tree and let him eat, but the magistrate refused.This enraged the crowd, and everyone rushed forward, broke Li Zicheng's shackles, escaped with Li Zicheng from Mizhi, and went to Gansu to serve as a soldier.

This time, Li Zicheng killed the general in Jin County, took dozens of soldiers to defect to the peasant army led by Wang Zuogua, and became a leader. Yang He, the governor sent by the Ming Dynasty, was very frightened when he saw the increasing number of rebels.On the one hand, he sent troops to suppress, and on the other hand, he recruited the generals of the peasant army with high-ranking officials and generous salaries.Unable to resist the temptation, Wang Zuogua wavered and surrendered.Li Zicheng had to find another team.Later, he found out that Gao Yingxiang led an uprising and claimed to be "Chuang Wang", so he decided to join Gao Yingxiang.

Gao Yingxiang was very happy to hear that Li Zicheng had led troops to defect, and immediately asked him to be the general of a team, and everyone called him Chuang Jiang. Gao Yingxiang united with other rebels and moved to Shanxi, Hebei and other five provinces, and the momentum became more and more powerful.The officers and soldiers encircled and suppressed everywhere, but were defeated.In the end, Emperor Chongzhen became furious and mobilized the officials and troops from all provinces, trying to surround all the rebels from all walks of life and eat them all at once. In order to deal with the encirclement and suppression by the government and army, Gao Yingxiang invited the leaders of thirteen rebel armies to hold a meeting in Xingyang to discuss countermeasures.

At the Xingyang Conference, everyone talked a lot.Some thought that the enemy's forces were too strong, so it was better to fight back to their hometown in Shaanxi to avoid it; some disagreed, but they couldn't come up with a better idea.At this time, Li Zicheng stood up and said: "A soldier can fight if he is willing to fight; we have a hundred thousand troops, what can the enemy do to us?" Gao Yingxiang said approvingly: "According to your opinion, what should we do?" Li Zicheng put forward his own proposition.He believed that the rebel army should be divided into several groups and attack separately to break the enemy's encirclement and suppression.After hearing this, everyone felt that what Li Zicheng said was reasonable.After some discussion, the thirteen rebel armies were divided into six groups.Some hold back the enemy, while others fight on the move.Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng and another rebel army led by Zhang Xianzhong made an encirclement to the east and took Fengyang in the Jianghuai area.

Fengyang is the hometown of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang.After Ming Taizu died, it became the central capital of the Ming Dynasty.The purpose of the Peasant Army's attack on Fengyang was to attack the arrogance of the Ming Dynasty. The rebel army led by Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong marched like a broken bamboo. In less than ten days, they captured Fengyang and burned down the ancestral tomb of the Ming emperor and Huangjue Temple where Zhu Yuanzhang was a monk.This action really shocked the court of the Ming Dynasty. When Emperor Chongzhen heard the news, he was anxious and angry, and ordered the governor of Fengyang to be executed.

Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng led their troops back to Shaanxi and attacked the officers and soldiers back and forth, causing the officials of the Ming Dynasty to panic and panic. Both Emperor Chongzhen and the local ministers regarded Gao Yingxiang's team as a thorn in their side, and tried every means to eliminate them.Once, Gao Yingxiang led troops to attack Xi'an.Sun Chuanting, the governor of Shaanxi, laid an ambush in the valley of 盩厔 (now Zhouzhi, Shaanxi).Gao Yingxiang was unprepared, and after a fierce battle, he was arrested and sacrificed. Li Zicheng led the remaining team to fight out.The soldiers lost their coach, and they were very sad.Everyone thinks that Chuang general Li Zicheng is Gao Yingxiang's most trusted general, coupled with his high martial arts skills and bravery in battle, they support him to succeed Gao Yingxiang and become Chuang Wang.Since then, Li Chuangwang's reputation has spread far and near.

The higher the prestige of King Li Chuang, the more fear and hatred he aroused in the Ming Dynasty.Emperor Chongzhen ordered Governor Hong Chengchou and Governor Sun Chuanting to encircle and suppress Li Zicheng.Li Zicheng's situation is getting more and more difficult.However, because of the heroic fighting of the soldiers of the uprising army and Li Zicheng's resourcefulness, he broke through the encirclement of the official army many times, and was active in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi, attacking the official army. At this difficult moment, Zhang Xianzhong and Luo Rucai, the leaders of the other two rebel armies, accepted the surrender of the Ming Dynasty, and some of Li Zicheng's generals also rebelled.This made Li Zicheng's situation even more difficult.

In 1638 AD, Li Zicheng moved from Gansu to Shaanxi, preparing to go out of Tongguan.Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting heard the movement of the rebel army in advance, and arranged three ambush lines in the mountains near Tongguan, deliberately opening the road to Tongguan, and luring Li Zicheng into their encirclement. Li Zicheng fell into the enemy's trap.When he led the rebel army to the valley near Tongguan, a large number of Ming troops were killed in the mountains on both sides.Relying on the large number of people and favorable terrain, they launched attacks on the rebel army time and time again.After days and nights of fighting by the rebel army, tens of thousands of soldiers died in the battle, and the team was dispersed.

Li Zicheng and his general Liu Zongmin and other 17 people repelled a large number of enemies before breaking out of the encirclement.They crossed mountains and ridges, overcame many difficulties, and went to the Shangluo mountainous area in southeast Shaanxi, where they hid themselves. The Ming army occupied Tongguan and sent a large number of scouts to search for Li Zicheng. After searching for several months, there was no information.Later, it was rumored that Li Zicheng was seriously injured in the battle and had died, so the Ming army relaxed the search.