During the apocalypse of the Ming Dynasty, there were many famines in northern Shaanxi, and the difference between government grain and government was not reduced. Life for the Li family was very difficult. When Li Zicheng was a child, he was given to the temple as a small monk, named Huang Lai Monk, and shepherded sheep to the landlord surnamed Ai in Benyi. [8] He lost his mother as a teenager and his father died soon after. At the age of twenty-one, he was helpless and recruited to Yinchuan Post Station as a post man. [8] Soon, he was severely tortured in shackles because he was unable to repay the debts of the wealthy gentleman Wenjuren, and later, with the help of poor partners, he killed Wenjuren and fled to Gansu with his nephew Li Guo to serve as border soldiers. At that time, the life of the border soldiers was also very difficult, the food and salary were insufficient, the officers were corrupt and deducted military salaries, and the soldiers often starved and froze. [9]

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the post station system had many drawbacks, and Zhu Youzhen of the Ming Dynasty carried out reforms in the first year of Chongzhen (1628) to streamline the post station. Li Zicheng was dismissed for losing his official documents[10], returned home unemployed, and owed debts. In the winter of the same year, Li Zicheng was sued by Ai Juren to the Mizhi County Ya because he couldn't pay the debts of Ai Zhao. The county ordered Yan Zibin to "swim in the city with weapons and put him to death". After being rescued by relatives and friends, at the end of the year, he killed the creditor Ai Zhao. Then, because of the adultery between his wife Han Jin'er and Murakami's name Gaihu, Li Zicheng killed his wife again. With two lives in his body, the government can't help but ask, and he can't afford not to die if he eats a lawsuit, so he and his nephew Li Taichongzhen went to Ganzhou, Gansu (now Ganzhou District, Zhangye City) to join the army in February of the second year of Chongzhen.

At that time, Yang Zhaoji served as the general soldier of Ganzhou, and Wang Guo served as a general. Li Zicheng was soon promoted to the rank of general in the army by the kingdom. In the winter of the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the Houjin soldiers marched south, and the Beijing division was tight. In order to keep Beijing, the imperial court urgently transferred troops from all sides to Beijing for defense. The troops of Li Zicheng, a border soldier in Gansu, marched to Beijing with the general kingdom, passing through Jinxian (now Yuzhong, Gansu), and the soldiers asked for pay, but the general kingdom refused to pay it. As a result, in Yuzhong (present-day Yuzhong County, Lanzhou, Gansu), the general kingdom and the local county commander were killed, and the soldiers and civilians launched a mutiny[11].

Fight in all directions

Main article: Li Zicheng uprising

After Li Zicheng's uprising, he moved to Hanzhong and joined Wang Zuohang's peasant army. In the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the Houjin entered the fortress for the first time, Beijing was shaken, and the general Yuan Chonghuan was executed by Emperor Chongzhen Ling Chi. In the third year of Chongzhen (1630), Wang Zuohang was recruited by the Ming court, and Li Zicheng defected to Zhang Cunmeng (not muddy) and served as the captain [12].

In April of the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631), Zhang Cunmeng was defeated in northern Shaanxi and surrendered to Ming. In October, Hong Chengchou officially took over as the governor of the three sides, so in the sixth year of Chongzhen (1633), Li Zicheng led the rest of the troops to cross the Yellow River eastward, and defected to his uncle Chuang Wang Gao Yingxiang in Shanxi, called "Chuang General". In the same year, Cao Wenzhao led more than 1,000 Guanning troops to defeat the peasant army in Shanxi, and Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and others fled to Henan and were surrounded by Cao Wenzhao, Zuo Liangyu and other Ming troops.

However, in the seventh year of Chongzhen (1634), the Houjin army entered the fortress for the second time, Cao Wenzhao was transferred to Datong to resist Jin, and the besieged peasant army broke through from Wang Pu. In June of that year, Chen Qiyu, the new governor of the five provinces, led the army westward and appointed the four governors of Shaanxi, Yunyang, Huguang, and Henan to encircle and suppress the Hannan peasant army. Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, Li Zicheng and other troops saw the Ming army gathering and strayed into the Chezhou Gorge (now Ankang City, Shaanxi Province) (now Laoxian Town, Pingli County, Shaanxi Province). In the canyon is the ancient plank road, the mountains on all sides are steep, easy to enter and difficult to exit, the only exit is intercepted by the Ming army, "the horse is lacking ([chú], the grass that feeds the livestock) is dead, the bow and arrow are all off", the situation is critical, Li Zicheng used Gu Junen's strategy, bribed Chen Qiyu to the people around him, and surrendered to the officers and soldiers. Chen Qiyu released Li Zicheng and others, sent more than 50 pacification officers, sent the peasant army back to their hometowns, and as soon as they left the plank road, Zicheng immediately killed the pacification officers and rebelled.

The more you suppress, the more you should

In the eighth year of Chongzhen (1635), Hong Chengchou served as the chief of the five provinces

Li Zicheng

Li Zicheng

After the governor, the people's army was encircled and suppressed, and the peasant army retreated to the area of Luoyang, Henan. Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Lao Huihui, Luo Rucai, Ge Liyan, Zuo Jin Wang, Reincarnated King, Shooting Collapse Heaven, Hengtian King, Mixed 100,000, Guotianxing, Nine Dragons, Shuntian King and other thirteen 72 battalion rebel armies held the Xingyang Conference in Xingyang, Henan,[13] Li Zicheng proposed the strategy of "dividing troops and orienting the troops and attacking from four directions". After the meeting, Li Zicheng, Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong led their troops to capture Fengyang, Nanzhili, excavated the ancestral tomb of the Ming royal family, burned down the "Huangjue Temple" where Zhu Yuanzhang once became a monk, killed more than 60 eunuchs, and beheaded Zhu Guoxiang, the general of the capital. Because of the competition for the capture of the little eunuch and the drum of musical instruments in the Fengyang Palace, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong had a grudge, and Li Zicheng went west to Gansu as an army.

In the ninth year of Chongzhen (1636), Gao Yingxiang was defeated by Lu Xiangsheng, the new governor of the five provinces, and surrounded in the Yangshan District of Yun [yún] (subordinate to Shiyan City, Hubei Province). Gao Yingxiang was defeated at Heishuiyu (present-day Heihekou, Zhouzhi County, Shaanxi Province) and was killed by Sun Chuanting, the new governor of Shaanxi. The remnants of Gao Yingxiang defected to Li Zicheng, and Li Zicheng was promoted as the "King of Chuang",[14] and continued to conquer Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi. In the tenth year of Chongzhen (1637), Yang Sichang raised 100,000 soldiers, increased his salary by 2.8 million, and proposed the strategy of "four positive and six corners, ten sides of the net" to limit the mobility of the peasant army, break through each one, and finally annihilate. This has paid off in two years. Zhang Xianzhong's troops were defeated and surrendered to Ming, and Li Zicheng was defeated by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting in the south of Tongguan in Weinan, and took Liu Zongmin and other remnants of 17 people to hide in Shangluo Mountain in southeast Shaanxi.

In August of the 11th year of Chongzhen (1638), the Qing soldiers entered the customs from Qingkoushan (now northeast of Qian'an City, Hebei) and Zhuziling (now northeast of Miyun, Beijing) and launched the fourth entry operation. In order to implement his strategy of "keeping the inside safe and fighting the outside", Yang Sichang strongly advocated peace with the Qing Dynasty, but was fiercely opposed by Lu Xiangsheng, the governor of Xuanda and the commander-in-chief of Qinwangbing, and others. Chongzhen and the war were uncertain, and Lu Xiangsheng died in the battle of Julu, Hebei. After the Qing troops retreated, Sun Chuanting, Hong Chengchou and others were transferred to Liaodong to guard against the Qing army, and Li Zicheng was able to breathe in the mountains. In winter, Li was stationed in Shenglong Village in Fushui Guannan, and married a wife and had children. [15]

Fierce battle in the Central Plains

Main article: Li Zicheng's battle to march into the Central Plains, Li Zicheng's three attacks on Kaifeng, and Li Zicheng's attack on Luoyang

In the twelfth year of Chongzhen (1639), Zhang Xianzhong rebelled against the Ming court again in Gucheng (located in Xiangfan, Hubei), and Li Zicheng led thousands of men and horses from Shangluo Mountain to kill. In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen (1640), Li Zicheng took advantage of the main force of the Ming army to pursue Zhang Xianzhong in Sichuan and entered Henan, took in the hungry people, opened a warehouse and helped the hungry people. "Hungry people from near and far are hoeing, and those who respond are like flowing water, day and night, calling millions, and its momentum is unstoppable." Since then, Li Zicheng's army has grown to tens of thousands, and he put forward the slogan of "Juntian is exempt from taxation", that is, the folk song "Greet the king, do not pay food".

On the twentieth day of the first month of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen (1640), Li Zicheng