After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, peasant uprisings often occurred, the chaos of the imperial government and the corruption of officials during the Chongzhen period, the war with the Later Jin brought a large demand for liao pay and the plundering of the Qing soldiers, and the national famine caused by the reduction of agricultural production due to the cold climate during the Xiaoice River period, all of which increased the burden on the Ming people.

The starving people riot in Chengcheng, Shaanxi, opened the prelude to the civil uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty, and then Wang Ziyong, Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other peasants rose up, and finally developed into Li Zicheng who was dominant in Shaanxi and Henan and Zhang Xianzhong who occupied Huguang and Sichuan successively.

Li Zicheng founded the country of Dashun, Li Zicheng led the army to the Northern Expedition to capture Datong, Xuanfu, Juyong Pass, and finally conquered Beijing. Chongzhen hanged himself in the coal mountain, and the history of the Ming Dynasty as a unified country ended.

In thousands of years of Chinese history, the most remarkable dynasty was not the Han and Tang dynasties, nor the Yuan and Qing dynasties, but the Ming Empire. Why is it said that he is remarkable? Because from the founding of the People's Republic of China in Nanjing to the hanging of Zhu Youzhen in Beijing, it lasted 276 years, and there were 16 emperors, which was a long-lived dynasty. It is not uncommon for a strong and stable dynasty to live a long life, but among the sixteen emperors of the Ming Dynasty, there are almost no normal people.

Not to mention the slaughter of ministers and the people, there are those who make themselves generals and then lead the troops to the battle, those who practice alchemy in the palace, those who hide in the harem for decades and never go to the court to see the ministers, and those who aspire to be carpenters. It was a completely dark era when the government was corrupt, corrupt officials were in charge, eunuchs and spies were rampant, there were infighting within the royal family, there were constant external troubles, and the people were struggling to make a living.

The civil uprising that originated in Shaanxi during the Chongzhen period was not the earliest civil uprising in the Ming Dynasty, but this civil uprising shook the Ming Empire and directly led to its demise. In fact, due to political corruption, heavy taxes and taxes, the extreme gap between the rich and the poor in society, the oppression of wealthy families, the lack of a place for the people to stand, and the inability of soldiers to receive military salaries, the seeds of turmoil have already been sown.

There was a famine in Shaanxi, the people were hungry, people ate each other, Chengcheng County ordered Zhang Douyao to strictly urge taxes, he had to do this, in addition to embezzlement, he also had to contribute to his superiors. A man named Wang Er gathered hundreds of oppressed people on the mountain, painted their faces with ink, and shouted: "Who dares to kill Zhang Zhixian?"

Everyone responded in unison: "I dare to kill!"

He entered the county seat and killed Zhang Douyao, which opened the prelude to the people's uprising, and the officers and soldiers entered the suppression, but because they were not familiar with the terrain, they were defeated.

Wang Er's attack led to the response of the hungry people in various places, and there was a tendency to burn the plains, they killed officials and robbed the rich, and wandered around, so they were called Liukou, and combined with deserters, Tukou, frontier peoples, etc., the power is getting bigger and bigger. When encountering officers and soldiers, they fought separately, and if they were victorious, they would advance, and if they were defeated, they would flee the valley, and the rogues of different units would sometimes be combined and sometimes act separately, and they were full of mobility.

Li Zicheng is a native of Mizhi County, Shaanxi, and when he was a teenager, he suffered the losses of local wealthy families, broke the law because of resistance, and fled to Gansu to serve as a soldier. In the second year of Chongzhen, the Jurchens crossed the Great Wall and attacked, Beijing was under martial law, and the troops from all over the country were enlisted.

Because these frontier troops are often owed military salaries, the imperial court has not given enough, and the officers at the top have been withheld by themselves, and they have endured it for a long time, so they want to take advantage of this expedition to have a good meal, extort money along the road, and when they pass through Jin County, they ask for salary from the magistrate county, but the matter is big, and the soldiers killed the generals in the chaos, and pushed Li Zicheng out to lead them to escape.

Li Zicheng's group of deserters successively took refuge in several liukou, and later took refuge in Gao Yingxiang, the king of Chuang, and became Gao Yingxiang's favorite general, Gao Yingxiang also helped Li Zicheng get a nickname.

In the third or fourth year of Chongzhen, the most powerful rogues were called Wang Jiayin, but he failed to lead and was killed by his own subordinates. At that time, there were 36 different forces, including more than 200,000 people, known as the 36th Battalion, all of whom were regarded as spiritual leaders by Wang Ziyong, and began to have a preliminary plan for organizing and coordinating operations.

Wang Ziyong was shot and killed by the official army, and the 36th battalion was forced by the official army to cross the Yellow River into Henan. At this time, Gao Yingxiang's power was the strongest, and Li Zicheng also divided an independent battalion at this time, which was a small leader. Gao Yingxiang convened a meeting of various rogues in Xingyang, Henan Province, to discuss the strategy of dealing with the official army, and a total of 13 big leaders and 72 small leaders attended the meeting, known as the 13 families and 72 battalions, and Li Zicheng was not counted among the 13 families at this time.

In this conference, Zhongliukou formulated a strategy of dividing troops to attack, the main defense officers and troops on the north, south and west roads, Gao Yingxiang led the main force to the east, all the way to Zhu Yuanzhang's hometown Fengyang, burning the imperial tomb, which was the most prosperous period of Gao Yingxiang. Gao Yingxiang and Li Zicheng returned to Shaanxi, fought several victories, and beheaded the Ming army generals Ai Wannian and Cao Wenzhao, and shocked the world. Gao Yingxiang attacked Xi'an, fell into an ambush by the official army, was captured and sent to Beijing Lingchi to be executed, and Li Zicheng succeeded him as the king of Chuang.

Gao Yingxiang's death caused a major setback to the development of the Liukou, most of whom accepted the government's recruitment, and only a few such as Li Zicheng were still hiding in the mountains. However, firstly, these rogues did not really surrender, and secondly, the government did not have enough financial resources to properly resettle them, and after they surrendered, they became officials and soldiers, and began to fall into a cycle of continuous extortion and bribery by their superiors.

At this time, the most powerful is the eight kings Zhang Xianzhong, he surrendered and was placed in Hubei Xucheng, the second year of rebellion, when he left a list on the city wall, when he left a list of how much money he received from him, and indicated: "Xiangyang Dao Wang Ruizheng, do not accept the only one who offers loyal money." ”

Zhang Xianzhong later entered Sichuan and became the king of super killing, and the population of Sichuan once plummeted from 3 million to 80,000. In Chinese history, tyrants abused many generals, and their brutal killings all had great purpose, and they belonged to planned killings under calm thinking. But an aimless homicidal maniac like Zhang Xianzhong at the end of the Ming Dynasty is the only one in Chinese history.

Zhang Xianzhong, the big thief head of the same age as Li Zicheng, has a long body and a golden complexion, known as the Yellow Tiger. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were probably more than 3 million people in Sichuan alone, and Zhang Xianzhong killed nearly 3 million of them and ate 780,000 of them. After Zhang Xianzhong's rebellion, Shu was basically empty.

Zhang Xianzhong, who had already made significant progress in Hunan and Jiangxi, suddenly abandoned the land of the two provinces and entered Sichuan in a big way. The reason is very simple, Li Zicheng's power is too great, Zhang Xianzhong felt that he couldn't get him, so he simply went farther away, so as not to fight for food between the two tigers.

On the Sichuan side, there was an organization of the Thirteen Yellow Shakers who had participated in the Xingyang Conference, which was an extremely evil bandit composed of ruffians and hooligans, who had no political goals or ambitions, and only knew how to burn, kill, and loot, and caused great attrition to the Sichuan officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty. Zhang Xianzhong had these people stirring up in Sichuan, he calmly entered Sichuan for the second time, went beyond the prison, crossed the Three Gorges, as if entering a no-man's land, after conquering Fuzhou, he went straight to Chongqing.

Originally, Chongqing faced the river on three sides, which was easy to defend and difficult to attack. Zhang Xianzhong planted explosives under the base of the city wall, and with a bang, the hard stone wall collapsed, and the thief army poured in. After Zhang Xianzhong entered the city, he first killed Chen Shiqi, the governor who defended the city, and then tied Zhu Changluo, the fifth son of Mingshenzong, to the court.

At that time, the sky was clear, and there was a sudden explosion of thunder in the air, and King Rui himself was a prince with a good character in the clan, and he was a good Buddha by nature, and he belonged to the kind that rarely had public anger. Zhang Xianzhong laughed and shouted: "If God thunders again, I should release King Rui and not kill him." ”

After waiting for a while, there was no thunder in the sky, Zhang Xianzhong personally stepped forward to cut off the head of King Rui, and killed more than 10,000 of his family members and Chongqing officials.

In the afternoon, the mountain city was thundering and lightning, and the day was like night. Zhang Xianzhong was not afraid at all, and ordered the soldiers to set up cannons to shoot into the sky, and soon the darkness turned to light. At this time, Zhang Xianzhong's murderous intent was not too heavy, and the 37,000 captured Ming soldiers were dealt with as follows, each of them cut off an arm, and let them go. So on the martial arts field, piled up with more than 30,000 bloody arms, these soldiers with only one arm left escaped from Chongqing and became Zhang Xianzhong's living advertisement, and the people of Zhucheng were afraid to fight and fled wildly.

Chongqing was trapped, and Zhang Xianzhong's next target was CD. CD is the 270-year-old Ming Dynasty, but unfortunately the King of Shu is also a wealth fan, his person is good, knowledgeable, Emperor Chongzhen called him Shu Xiucai, but refused to take out the palace gold and silver army.

After four days of siege of the CD, Zhang Xianzhong entered the city, and the king of Shu and his wife, the local governor, and the general soldier all committed suicide by throwing themselves into the well. Governor Liu Zhibo was arrested, Zhang Xianzhong tied him to the school ground, because Governor Liu was from Shaanxi, the thief army persuaded him to surrender, Governor Liu scolded. Zhang Xianzhong was furious, and let people slowly chop him, Liu Xun pressed and said loudly: "I'd rather cut me more than kill one less civilian!" The thief army released arrows and shot Liu Xun to death.

After the fall of CD, most of the prefectures, prefectures, and counties in Sichuan were defeated in response, and they were soon captured by Zhang Xianzhong. At that time, Li Zicheng had already been defeated and returned to Shaanxi, he tried to send troops to attack, but was beaten back to Shaanxi by Zhang Xianzhong, so far the two peasant armies not only did not join forces again, but openly and firmly broke up.

After Zhang Xianzhong's small victory, he gained an inch, and attacked Hanzhong Mansion, where Li Zicheng was based, but was defeated by the Dashun army. But only a few dozen days later, Li Zicheng abandoned Xi'an and fled, so that Zhang Xianzhong's north was exposed to the Qing army.

Zhang Xianzhong in the CD after the establishment of stability, the establishment of the Great West Kingdom called the emperor, he first married the daughter of the scholar Chen Yan as the queen, from the south gate five miles away to build a bridge more than ten zhang high, over the city to the Shu Palace, planted lanterns all over, the night looks like a long rainbow in the sky, leading the palace maid Cai'e and Queen Chen into the palace. After only ten days of playing with the girl, Zhang Xianzhong was disgusted, cut off Queen Chen's head with a knife, and sent someone to kill all her relatives in CD, which can be regarded as a complete line with the landlord class.

Like fun, Zhang Xianzhong also opened a branch to take scholars, and collected a total of 130 jinshi, and overnight, he suddenly changed his face and killed all the jinshi. Among them, the champion Zhang Dashou, a native of Huayang County, is not thirty years old, seven feet long, and is skilled in bows and horses. Zhang Xianzhong saw that this person had a magnificent appearance, a lofty spirit, gorgeous clothes, and great love at first sight, thinking that he was a genius, and immediately gave more than ten kinds of gold coins for swords and horses.

Within a few days, Zhang Dashou entered the palace every day as a companion, sometimes offering poems, sometimes composing, sometimes Danqing pictures, Zhang Xianzhong kept rewarding him, a total of the first district, 20 families, 10 beauties. On the morning of the fifth day, Zhang Xianzhong sat in the court, and the official reported: "The new champion has entered the court to thank the Holy Grace." ”

Zhang Xianzhong suddenly changed his face and said to himself: "This donkey is raised, Lao Tzu loves him tightly, and he is full of joy when he sees him." Our Lao Tzu is a little afraid of him, in case he has a different heart in the future, won't it hurt Lao Tzu?

The two words that Zhang Xianzhong said most often were to send away, that is, to kill himself, and tidy up, that is, to kill the whole family. His subordinates obeyed the order and immediately tied up Zhang Dashou and killed him, and none of the beauties he had given him before were left, and they were all killed immediately.

At that time, all the students who went to the test in central Sichuan had not left, Zhang Xianzhong pretended to try again, and lured them to Qingyang Palace, and killed one by one, killing about 10,000 people in total.

After killing all the scholars, Zhang Xianzhong pretended to open a martial arts department, and thousands of martial arts gathered in the school field, and they were all assigned an inferior horse to ride. Suddenly, a huge cannon rang out, the golden drums rang out in unison, and the thieves shot arrows from the wall, taking the martial artists as prey, and shot them to death one by one.

When Emperor Onishi's courtiers were even more miserable, when he went to court in the morning, Zhang Xianzhong sneezed, felt unhappy, and immediately asked the soldiers to take more than 300 people out and kill them. Someone persuaded him, and he smiled: "Are civil officials still afraid that no one will do it?"

Sometimes in the court, Zhang Xianzhong will lead out dozens of huge mastiffs to the palace, as long as the mastiff sniffs whom, who will be immediately led out and beheaded, called heavenly killing.