Mao Wenlong, who was sitting on Phi Dao, had become a big tail, and the rashness and arbitrariness in dealing with the Mao Wenlong issue contributed to Yuan Chonghuan's tragic fate to a large extent.

Phi Island, also known as Linden Island and Dongjiang River, is an island located in the Bohai Sea with a length of 15 miles and a width of 10 miles, echoing with Zhangzi Island and Deer Island at the mouth of the Yalu River, showing a three-legged trend. Because Phi Dao was located between the Later Jin Dynasty, Joseon and Liaodong, Dengzhou and Laizhou in Shandong Province of the Ming Dynasty, the strategic location was very important.

Mao Wenlong was originally an unemployed vagrant in Hangzhou, but at the age of 30 he was recommended by his uncle to Wang Huazhen, the governor of Liaodong, and quickly rose to prominence, rising to the rank of deputy commander-in-chief. After that, he led his army to stationed on Phi Island, taking advantage of the island's transportation hub conditions, gathering displaced people, trade and development, and within a few years the island became a dominant town. Phi Dao is located in the choke point of the Houjin Sea, when the Ming army lost several important towns in Liaodong one after another, the strategic significance of Phi Dao became more prominent.

Although Mao Wenlong had killed good people and made meritorious deeds, the Phi Dao he governed was still a great constraint on the Houjin, and the imperial court, including Tianqi, who had never been interested in political affairs, fully realized this, and not only promoted him to the rank of chief soldier, but also sent people to express condolences many times. Mao Wenlong is like a flea attached to Hou Jin's body, although it will not kill Hou Jin for this, but it can constantly harass it and make it uneasy.

But after sitting on one side for a little longer, this flea became less easy to control, and the court began to slander Mao Wenlong from belly to verbal criticism, and Mao Wenlong did become arrogant and lawless because of Jiuzhen's side. He almost turned the garrison of Phi Dao into the Mao family army, and most of the important positions in the army were his sons, nephews or sons, and the generals were all surnamed Mao.

He falsely reported the number of 200,000 soldiers, but in fact it was less than 50,000, and most of the other 100,000 military salaries fell into his private pocket. He took advantage of Phi Dao's strategic location on the sea to levy taxes on merchant ships that came and went, without the authorization of the imperial court.

Yuan Chonghuan was well aware of Mao Wenlong's illegal situation, and this loyal minister with a moral habit had already set a countermeasure before he officially contacted Mao Wenlong. While still in the capital, the cabinet minister Qian Longxi asked how to deal with the relationship with Mao Wenlong, and Yuan Chonghuan blurted out: "If it is available, it will be used, and if it is not available, it will be killed." ”

It is not difficult to see that what drives him to do this is not personal self-interest, but personal moral likes and dislikes, he is not used to Mao Wenlong's arrogance and lawlessness, and he is even more unaccustomed to Mao Wenlong's disobedience to the imperial court's edicts. But in any case, Mao Wenlong's crime will not lead to death, not to mention that at the moment of the great enemy, Mao Wenlong can be regarded as a leader in the independent side, so he killed him so hastily, what a mistake Yuan Chonghuan made.

Sure enough, after Yuan Chonghuan arrived, the relationship with Mao Wenlong was extremely tense, and he first sent officials to Phi Dao to audit Mao Wenlong's economy, and then announced a sea ban on merchant ships to go straight to Phi Dao. This trick is quite vicious, the direct consequence is that Mao Wenlong's originally very generous taxes have not been collected since then, Mao Wenlong of course does not want to admit defeat, he has written to Chongzhen many times, but Chongzhen's attitude is vague and refuses to express his position.

In the recital, Mao Wenlong said sadly and angrily: "The ministers want to get rid of the ministers, but they don't care about getting rid of him, they regard the country as a way to satisfy their own private grievances, and they will use the spear in the same room." "A series of changes that occurred later, Mao Wenlong's angry words of martial arts were not vain, but the changes at that time were not only invisible to Mao Wenlong, but also to Yuan Chonghuan.

At the beginning of Yuan Chonghuan's tenure, the first person he dealt with was his own man Mao Wenlong, which is a very surprising thing, vaguely revealing that this senior general, who prides himself on his loyalty and bravery, probably also believes in the creed that the outside must first be at ease. Mao Wenlong was unwilling to admit defeat, and Yuan Chonghuan took it for granted that this was unusable, and since it was unusable, then he had to be killed.

The deal with Mao Wenlong fully reflects Yuan Chonghuan's resourcefulness, but unfortunately this resourcefulness is not against Houjin, who is eyeing him, but against his comrades in the same trench. Yuan Chonghuan killed Mao Wenlong on the one hand, and on the other hand, in order to paralyze him, he took the initiative to send him a large amount of military salary. Immediately afterwards, Yuan Chonghuan went deep into Phi Dao in the name of a military parade.

Mao Wenlong was completely unprepared for this, and when Mao Wenlong's generals came to see Yuan Chonghuan, Yuan Chonghuan immediately instigated: "My officers and soldiers on the Ningyuan front line have higher salaries than yours, and they can't eat enough, you work harder at sea, but your military pay is lower, and you have to rely on it to support your family. ”

Mao Wenlong's generals were both a little moved and a little afraid of Yuan Chonghuan's words, and the ancients called the combination of grace and might, which is probably the case.

It was at this meeting that Yuan Chonghuan announced in public that Mao Wenlong had twelve major crimes, but there were only two or three of them that really got involved, and most of the others were fabricated words. What's more, if you really want to execute a high-ranking general, as long as there is a serious crime, too many charges will expose the fact that the weaver is afraid that the charges are not sufficient and the reasons are not sufficient.

Mao Wenlong was beheaded in front of the tent that day, and died on Phi Island, which he had painstakingly managed for ten years, and Mao Wenlong's troops were reorganized by Yuan Chonghuan, and Mao's army ceased to exist.

Although Chongzhen had previously given Yuan Chonghuan the sword of Shang Fang, which he could do cheaply, Yuan Chonghuan actually executed a high-ranking official who both the court and Chongzhen thought could be in charge without making any report, which was not only a simple overreach, but also a Cao Kan official who was good at acting as a prestige.

However, Chongzhen also has his own troubles, he has just entrusted the Liao affairs to Yuan Chonghuan, and Yuan Chonghuan is determined to be the best candidate to turn the tide, and Yuan Chonghuan himself has also set up a military order to level Liao for five years, so the crime of pursuing and executing Mao Wenlong will not only be dead and useless, but may affect the five-year plan to level Liao.

In other words, when Chongzhen was forced to issue an edict to praise Yuan Chonghuan's behavior, the monarch had a basic bottom line in his heart, that is, Yuan Chonghuan must fulfill his promise of five years of Pingliao. In this way, Yuan Chonghuan is equivalent to pushing himself to a dead end.

When Yuan Chonghuan deliberately dealt with Mao Wenlong, who he thought was too big to lose, Houjin seized this favorable opportunity, and after pacifying the Monan, Huang Taiji personally led an army of 100,000 to bypass Ningyuan and Jinzhou, which were heavily defended by Yuan Chonghuan, and invaded from the weak area defended by the Ming army around Jimen through the Mongolian ground in western Liaoxi.

When Huang Taiji's army crossed the Great Wall of Xifengkou and approached the city of Zunhua, which was only two or three hundred miles away from Beijing, Yuan Chonghuan woke up like a dream and hurriedly led the main force into Shanhaiguan for reinforcements. At this time, the people of Beijing were already panicking, that is, the day before Yuan Chonghuan galloped to the customs at night, Zhao Shujiao, the chief soldier of Shanhaiguan, in order to relieve the dilemma of Beijing's siege, fought fiercely with Huang Taiji in Zunhua, and unfortunately was defeated and the whole army was annihilated.

The next day, that is, the day when Yuan Chonghuan entered the customs in shock, the Zunhua garrison collapsed, the governor Wang Yuanya committed suicide, the deputy chief soldier Zhu Lai and others abandoned the city and fled, and the chief soldier Zhu Guoyan committed suicide with his wife. Before Zhu Guoyan committed suicide, he wrote the names of the generals who escaped from the battle on the case one by one.

A few months ago, when Yuan Chonghuan was summoned on the platform, he swore to Chongzhen that he had been in Pingliao for five years, and the rigid and suspicious Chongzhen saw it was at this point that he did not care about Yuan Chonghuan's reckless killing of Mao Wenlong.

Chongzhen used Sun Chengzong to guard the Beijing Division, and on the other hand, he ordered the transfer of foreign troops to King Qin. At this point, if Yuan Chonghuan can repel Huang Taiji in time, it is estimated that although Chongzhen will still be dissatisfied with him, he will definitely not be removed from his post, let alone imprisoned. The terrible thing is that Yuan Chonghuan accidentally made another mistake, and it was not his ability that caused him to make this mistake, but his loyalty.

At that time, there were already rumors in the capital that Huang Taiji's invasion was that Yuan Chonghuan had secretly lowered Houjin. Yuan Chonghuan rushed to the capital from the starry night outside the Guan, and was supposed to fight a decisive battle with the Houjin army on the ground in Tongzhou outside the capital, but he was afraid that Beijing would make a mistake, so he led the army directly to the gate of the Beijing division and asked the army to enter the city. The general with a heavy army asked to go deep into the capital, where could the suspicious Chongzhen be trusted?

As far as Yuan Chonghuan was concerned, he thought that he was completely loyal and was thinking about the king; as far as Chongzhen and the ministers of the imperial court were concerned, Yuan Chonghuan did not retreat from the enemy outside the city, but wanted to lead his army into the city, who could guarantee that he really had nothing to do with the Later Jin? In addition, since many imperial relatives and eunuchs had villas built outside the city, most of these villas were looted and burned down by the Later Jin army, and the imperial relatives and eunuchs could not ask the Houjin for an explanation, so they were all angry with Yuan Chonghuan.

At this time, Huang Taiji only used a discordant strategy that was not clever, and Yuan Chonghuan fell from the feudal official to a prisoner. It is not so much that this is Huang Taiji's cleverness, but that Chongzhen's so-called trust in Yuan Chonghuan was originally a mirror.

Chongzhen did not immediately make a move against Yuan Chonghuan, not that he believed in Yuan Chonghuan, but that the Houjin army was still outside Beijing. Chongzhen summoned Yuan Chonghuan on the platform, and Yuan Chonghuan also knew that he was in a bad situation at this time, so he tried his best to show Chongzhen and other ministers how powerful Houjin was and how unstoppable. He even told other ministers that the Manchurians had come to be emperors and had chosen to ascend the throne one day.

The reason why Yuan Chonghuan said this was not that he was afraid of the Later Jin army, but that he hoped to use the powerful Later Jin to coerce the courtiers to propose peace with the Later Jin to Chongzhen and gain a buffer time to prepare for the war.

A closer look at the relationship between the king and his ministers reveals a subtlety that is difficult to describe in words, and it is also a game between them, but it is often painted with the likes of loyalty and virtue. Although Chongzhen had evil thoughts about Yuan Chonghuan, he still made an amiable appearance when he was summoned on the platform, and took off his mink coat and put it on Yuan Chonghuan himself.

In Chinese history, a detail that can often be seen is that the master took off his clothes and put them on the courtier, and the courtier at this time, in addition to being grateful to Dade, was secretly determined to shed the last drop of blood in his life for the master.

Only a few days later, when Chongzhen arranged the candidate to replace Yuan Chonghuan, this amiable man suddenly became very powerful, Yuan Chonghuan was summoned into the palace, still in front of the platform of the previous two summons, and the furious Chongzhen ordered Yuan Chonghuan to be taken down.

Next, Chongzhen issued an order to exile Yuan Chonghuan according to the law, his wife and Yuan Chonghuan's brother, two thousand miles away, and that happy Ling Chi happened unstoppably. When Yuan Chonghuan endured the torment of death amid the sound of the executioner's indifferent and ruthless counting of knives and the excited scolding of the surrounding spectators, it was doomed that only the destruction of the Ming Empire was the final outcome.

Yuan Chonghuan, a god who is not a god of war, the 3,543 swords scraped on his body are the eternal pain of a nation.

Yuan Chonghuan said: "If I don't go to hell, who will go to hell." In the end, he went to hell, and he went straight to the eighteenth layer of hell, and at once it was a hundred years, and in a hundred years, he was scolded as a traitor by hundreds of millions of people, and it seemed that he was going to be sent to the eighteenth layer of hell and could not be reborn forever.

I hope that every Chinese can remember the pain of the 3,543 knives scraped on the body. The pain of the three thousand five hundred and forty-three swords is the eternal pain of a nation, and it cannot be dissipated for a long time like a ghost, and it can still be heard coming from the depths of hell.