Tongguan

The Yellow River bends eastward from north to north, and the Wei River flows into the Yellow River at a bend from west to east, dividing the plateau into three areas. To the south is the Qinling Mountains. Between the Qinling Mountains and the Yellow River, it is the Tongguan Road that communicates Guanzhong and Henan.

Since the Warring States period, this passage has been the necessary place and key pass for the east to enter the Central Plains and the west to exit the Guanzhong and Western Regions, and has always been a battleground for soldiers. In the pre-Qin period, the danger of 'pill mud can be stopped' in Hangu gradually disappeared as the Yellow River continued to wash away and the water level of the river became lower and exposed to the riverbed, and was replaced by Tongguan, which moved westward.

Tongguan in the Ming Dynasty has long been no longer in danger of the Qin period, with the reduction of the water level of the Yellow River, you can enter the Guanzhong along the bank of the river beach to the west. Therefore, Tongguan was built on the river beach on the south bank of the Yellow River, and the terrain here is no longer as steep and complex as in the Qin and Han dynasties. Moreover, there is also the old Tongguan Road of the Han Dynasty between the southern ditches of Guancheng, which can go around to the bank of the Yellow River behind Guancheng. Of course, the terrain there is more complicated, which is not conducive to the march of large armies.

Tongguan Pass City and the top of various plateaus in the south, more than 100,000 Dashun troops are distributed in this narrow area, and tens of thousands of Qing troops are in a fierce battle.

Since the defeat of the Battle of Shanhaiguan in March, the main force of the Shun army led by Li Zicheng suffered heavy losses, and was forced to retreat back to the customs to reorganize the army.

In Guanlong, in Jingxiang, there are hundreds of thousands of Shun troops.

The troops everywhere were transferred to Guanzhong, and Li Zicheng's subordinates regathered nearly 200,000 troops, of course, the main force of the old battalion was only more than 40,000 people, but in Yulin, Yan'an, northern Shaanxi, which was guarded by Li Guo and Gao Yigong, there were tens of thousands of main forces of the Shun army, of which Li Guo's rear battalion was one of the five main forces of the Shun army.

Mobilizing troops, mobilizing food and wages, gathering strength, and waiting for an opportunity to cross the Yellow River east and fight again with the Qing army -- this was the countermeasure adopted by Li Zicheng.

However, the continuous war in the area of Guanzhong and Henan has exhausted the potential, and the people are unable to grow grain by avoiding the war, and the drought has sharply reduced the autumn harvest this year, and the Shun army cannot raise enough food and wages.

It is true that a large amount of wealth and grain can be obtained in a short period of time by attacking large households, but in the past few years, the large households in the Guanzhong area of Henan Province have already been completed, and production is far from recovering.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty did not give the Shun army time to regroup, Chongzhen 17th year of October 19, the Manchu Ying prince Azig, Wu Sangui, Shang Kexi led the army from Beijing to the west all the way around Mongolia to attack northern Shaanxi, on the way Xuanfu, Datong all the troops were transferred, the total strength of more than 80,000 people.

Tens of thousands of Ming troops in Xuanda originally surrendered to Dashun, and Li Zicheng did not reorganize in time and did not send generals to lead or supervise the army, but the original Ming army generals led the original army, but now they have made wedding dresses for others.

Upon learning the news of the Qing army's attack on northern Shaanxi, Li Zicheng sent a large army north, and Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin led the army north from Xi'an to reinforce and reach Luochuan.

However, the Manchus were not the only Azig armies. On October 25, the 17th year of Chongzhen, the Manchu Yu prince Duoduo, Kong Youde, and Geng Zhongming led the main force of more than 40,000 Eight Banner soldiers to the south, and captured Huaiqing Mansion defended by the Dashun Army in mid-November, crossed the Yellow River from Mengjin to Henan Mansion in early December, and entered Shaanzhou on December 15 to defeat Zhang Youzeng's department of the Shun army. On December 22, the Duoduo army arrived at Tongguan and set up camp twenty miles away.

The Manchus did not just attack northern Shaanxi, but attacked in two ways, and Li Zicheng, who had already reached Luochuan County in the north, was in a dilemma, not knowing where to reinforce. After being undecided, he hesitated in Luochuan for more than ten days.

And Tongguan is too close to Xi'an, if Tongguan falls, Xi'an can't hold it at all, plus the Duoduo army is very urgent, the Dashun army Tongguan guard Wushan Boma Shiyao has sent people for help, so Li Zicheng led the army back to Tongguan, in order to defeat the Duoduo army and then return to the north and Azig decisive battle.

At this time, the superiority and inferiority of the strategies of the two sides of Qingshun were easily separated. Originally, the Shun army occupied the dangerous point of Tongguan, as long as the pass was based and the troops were sufficient, the Qing army could not break through Tongguan in a short time.

However, worried about the battle situation in northern Shaanxi, and afraid that Azig would defeat Li Guogao's first merit and move his army south to attack, Li Zicheng was anxious to quickly defeat the Duoduo army, and as soon as he arrived at Tongguan, he ordered an attack on the Qing army.

On December 29, the general Liu Zongmin personally led his army to attack the Qing army, but suffered a miserable defeat and had to retreat to Tongguan. On the fourth day of the first month, Liu Fangliang, the commander of the right battalion, led the army into battle and suffered another setback. The morale of the Shun army fell suddenly.

On the fifth and sixth days of the first month, the Dashun army attacked continuously, all of which failed, and in front of the brave and elite Eight Banner soldiers, the Shun army could not bargain at all. Duoduo led the elite of the Eight Banners, even the veterans under Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming, who were also battle-hardened, which can be said to be the strongest army in East Asia in this era, and its combat effectiveness is not comparable to that of the Shun army.

However, in the face of the natural danger of Tongguan, no matter how strong the Qing army is, it is not so easy to break through and enter. Until the ninth day of the first lunar month, the Qing army's red-coated cannons arrived at Tongguan one after another, and Duoduo finally ordered to start an active attack on Tongguan.

The red-clothed cannons rumbled, the sound shook both sides of the Yellow River, and under the blow of the shells, the walls of Tongguan were stacked and broken, and the masonry flew wildly. The archers of the Eight Banners and the guns of the Han army camp of Kong Youde entered the outside of the wall and poured a curtain of bullets and arrows on the pass, and the Shun army at the pass suffered heavy casualties.

Li Zicheng sent cavalry out of the pass to counterattack, and sent people to go around to the high plateau south of the city, attacking from the south, trying to surprise from behind the Qing army, trying to turn the tide of the battle, but in the face of the heavily guarded Duoduo, they were unsuccessful.

At this time, the heavy troops led by Azig crossed the Yellow River through Baode, Shanxi, and had attacked northern Shaanxi, Li Guo and Gao Yigong led the army to defend Yulin, seeing that the siege could not be stopped, Azig left the surrender of the Datong general Jiang Jiu led a group of Ming Dynasty surrenders to continue to attack the city, contain the northern Shun army of northern Shaanxi, but he led the army to the south and advanced to Xi'an.

On December 14, they occupied Mizhi County, and all the people of Li Zicheng's hometown, young and old, were slaughtered by the Qing army.

At this moment, most of the Shun army in Xi'an reinforced Tongguan, and Li Guo's troops were surrounded in Yulin, and they were no longer able to resist the Azig troops heading south.

Under the two-way attack of the Qing army, Li Zicheng knew that the fall of Guanzhong was a foregone conclusion, and if he continued to defend Tongguan and waited until the Azig troops came to Xi'an City to attack from the west, the only way to wait for the Dashun army was to be destroyed.

In desperation, Li Zicheng was forced to withdraw to Xi'an with the main force, leaving only Wushan Boma Shiyao with 7,000 soldiers to block Duoduo at Tongguan.

With 7,000 soldiers alone to block tens of thousands of strong enemies, Ma Shiyao was powerless to resist at all, so he pretended to surrender but secretly sent a letter to Li Zicheng, asking Li Zicheng to return to Shitong Pass to attack the defeated Qing army.

Who knew that the messenger sent was captured by the Qing army in Fulu, and the next day, in the name of hunting, Duoduo set up an ambush at Jinpenkou, ten miles southwest of Tongguan, and then lied about holding a banquet to disarm all the horses and equipment under Ma Shiyao, and with an order, the Qing army in ambush suddenly rushed out and slaughtered Ma Shiyao and more than 7,000 soldiers of the Dashun army under him. The last hope of the Dashun army to defeat the Qing army was dashed.

The Azig army went south, Tongguan was lost, and Li Zicheng, who had no hope of holding the pass, decided to abandon Xi'an, and transferred to Nanyang through Lantian and Shangluo, and joined the Baiwang tribe of the Dashun army that remained in the Jingxiang area.

On the thirteenth day of the first month, Li Zicheng ordered General Quan and Zehou Tian to see the queen of the palace. He was accompanied by generals such as Liu Zongmin, Marquis of Ci, Marquis Liu Fangliang, Marquis of Mian, Marquis Yuan Zongdi, and Marquis Yihou Zhang Nai, as well as high-ranking officials of Dashun such as Niu Jinxing and military advisor Song Xiance, as well as dependents including Empress Gao, with about 130,000 soldiers.

Of course, this part is not all the troops of the Dashun army in Shaanxi, at this moment Li Guogao Yigong still has tens of thousands of people in Yulin, and there are still several Shun troops in Hanzhong, Ningxia, Gansu, and Xining who have not had time to retreat. In another time and space, Li Guo and other Shun troops chose to go west to Gansu to meet with the army of Xining, Gansu such as Dang Shousu, and then went south to Sichuan through Hanzhong, and went all the way down the river to Jingzhou, until Li Zicheng's death did he meet with the rest of the Dashun army in Huguang and Li Zicheng's east, and was later reorganized into a loyal battalion by the Southern Ming court.

Li Zicheng's hasty retreat was purely a helpless move, and he did not choose to move west to join the above Shun army, because the area around Xining in northwestern Gansu Province was a desolate place, and even if he reached those places, there was no potential for development. Li Zicheng plans to take Jingxiang as the foundation, go south to attack the whole territory of Huguang, and go east along the river to attack the heart of Nanjing Jiangnan Ming.

In order to delay the pursuit of the Qing army, Li Zicheng ordered His Royal Highness's Zehou Tian Jianxiu to burn the grain and stockpiles that Xi'an had too late to carry, and burned the entire Xi'an City. But at a critical time, Tian Jianxiu committed the kindness of a woman, thinking that instead of burning the grain, it was better to leave it to the people to survive the famine, and burning Xi'an City would make a large number of people have nowhere to live and be displaced. Only the East Gate Tower and the South Gate Tower were burned.

Tian Jianxiu's kindness as a woman enabled the Qing soldiers to receive a large amount of material supplies in Xi'an, and they were able to rest calmly. In fact, after months of marching and fighting, the Qing army was exhausted. The Duoduo tribe was the first to capture Xi'an, and soon Azig joined him with the Qing army on the northern route, and the two armies stayed in Xi'an to rest and ask the Manchu court for instructions on what to do next.

The Manchu regent Dolgon sent a decree on behalf of the Manchu court, first reprimanding Azig for taking a detour to the Mongolian Ordos tribe to ask for horses, and delaying the time to keep Li Zicheng in Guanzhong, and ordered the Qing army in Xi'an to be divided into two, and Azig led half of the Qing army to chase south, and exterminated the remnants of the Liukou in order to atone for the blame of the previous amusement. Duoduo took the other half of the Qing army out of Tongguan and returned to Defu through Kaifeng to attack the Ming Nanjing court in the south.

The successive victories made the Manchus extremely arrogant, believing that there was no opponent in the whole world, whether it was the Shun army that fled to the inner countryside of Nanyang or the Ming army in Yangzhou and Nanjing, they could not withstand the attack of the Qing army all the way. Destroy the Shun army, destroy the Ming Dynasty, and dominate the world in one fell swoop!

And at this moment, but in terms of numbers, the strength of the Dashun army is still far above the Qing army. Li Zicheng took the 130,000 army from Xi'an to the Wuguan Pass to Nanyang Prefecture Neixiang County, while Bai Wang, Hao Shaoqi, and tens of thousands of Shun troops in the four prefectures of Jingxiang, and the total strength of the Qing soldiers gathered in Xi'an was only 890,000, and it was divided into two, and the total strength of the Azig Department chasing Li Zicheng was more than 40,000.

However, the Qing soldiers are all real elites of the Eight Banners, Wu Sangui is still gratifying, Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming, and the combat power of the Han Army Banner is also superb, and the combat effectiveness is not comparable to the Dashun Army, which has suffered repeated defeats.

After resting for a period in Xi'an, Azig led his army in pursuit of the south.

Although Li Zicheng's army was far superior to the Qing army, it was demoralized after the defeat, and when he retreated, he dragged his family and moved slowly. He set out on the 13th of the first lunar month, arrived at the inner countryside on the 29th, and stayed here for a long time. It was not until the Qing army of the Azig division caught up with them that they pulled out their camp and headed south to Huguang on 18 March.

According to Li Zicheng's plan, the Great Shun Army should go straight to Nanjing and occupy the southeastern wealth of the Ming Dynasty. Due to Gu Junen's best efforts, he decided to go south to Xiangyang Chengtian and join Bai Wangbu, after all, the Shun army had been operating in Jingxiang Sifu for a long time.

From March to April of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, the Shun army fought continuously with the Qing soldiers in the areas of Dengzhou, Chengtianfu and De'anfu, but was repeatedly defeated, and the four prefectures of Jingxiang could not hold at all, so Li Zicheng could only try to lead the army to cross the Yangtze River and move to the south of the Yangtze River, so he came into contact with the Zuo Liangyu army entrenched in Wuchang and fought.

At the same time that Azig led the army south to pursue and suppress the Dashun army, Duoduo led the other half of the main force of the Eight Banners of about 40,000 people, out of Tongguan on February 14, and entered the Guide Mansion through Luoyang to the east. Liu Zhong, the general of the Dashun Army, Xu Dingguo, the general soldier of Henan in the Ming Dynasty, and other troops surrendered one after another.

In the northwest and even in Henan, Hebei, and Shandong, the Ming Dynasty officials and generals who originally surrendered to Dashun surrendered to the Qing court, such as Chen Zhilong, the envoy of Dashun Ningxia Jiedu, Niu Chenghu, the former Ming Dynasty general soldier who surrendered to Dashun, and Bai Guangen, Jiang Xuan, Tang Tong, Li Yutian, Ma Ke, etc., The Manchu Qing Dynasty added more than 100,000 troops to be reorganized into green battalions to guard various places, so as to draw out the main force of the Eight Banners to attack the Shun army and the Ming Dynasty.

The Duoduo army arrived at Guide Province, and further south was the Nanzhi Prefecture, which was the jurisdiction of Chen Yue, Marquis of Pingnan. As early as when the Qing army of Duoduo went out of Tongguan to the east, Liu Neng, who was in Guide, found out the information of the Qing army and hurriedly sent the information to Yangzhou and Nanjing.

After receiving the news that the Qing troops were moving south, the Nanjing court was greatly shaken and urgently ordered Chen Yue, the governor of Jiangbei, to reorganize the defense line and make sure to block the Qing army north of the Huai River. At the same time, he ordered Zuo Liangyu's troops to defend Wuchang, hold the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, block the way for the thieves to enter the south and go east, and force the Chuang army and the Qing soldiers to fight to the death, so as to reap the benefits of the fishermen.

For the current Ming Dynasty, it is equivalent to being attacked by the Qing army and the Shun army. Either of these two armies is the mortal enemy of the Ming Dynasty, and neither of them is easy to mess with, and they have repeatedly defeated the Ming army.

The situation was so critical that the Chongzhen court, which had just been in Nanjing for a year, fell into a panic.