Uncle Ge, a famous actor in modern society, said in the movie that "people's hearts are scattered, and the team is not easy to lead", if it is placed in feudal society, especially in the feudal army, it is very accurate.

From 1629 to 1631, in just three years, in the original history, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the three protagonists and the three main armed forces, if there is a consensus, then this consensus is Uncle Ge's sentence "The people's hearts are scattered, and the team is not easy to lead." ”

Modern people may not imagine the importance of "morale", which is so ethereal and disdainful as materialists, to the army of the ancient feudal agricultural era.

By 1631, among the three main armed forces in the late Ming Dynasty, the Later Jin Jurchen regime in the northeastern region of Liao, in the process of continuous internal strife, carried out six large-scale attacks on the defense line arranged by the First Army of the Southern Liaoning Army of the Fuxing Army against the defense line between Haizhou and Gaizhou under the pretext of revenge of the Great Khan of Huangtaiji.

Of these, Belle Deshan the Elder presided over two attacks, while Belle Dolgon the Younger also presided over two attacks. But no matter who presided over the attack, no matter what the scale of such an attack, they suffered a shameful defeat in front of the Baath Army's defense. After five or six attacks, in addition to the more than 30,000 Mongol subordinate troops of the Eight Banners who were exhausted in the battle, nearly 10,000 Jurchen "elite soldiers" were also annihilated by the initiative of the cavalry and chariot mixed troops of the First Army Corps in southern Liaoning.

The biggest problem with the backward tribal regime of the Later Jin Jurchens was that the supreme leader of such a regime had to maintain his authority and position with constant military victories.

During Huang Taiji's lifetime, because of the continuous promotion of the feudalization process of the post-Jin Jurchen regime, the main purpose of foreign wars was not mainly to maintain his authority and status, but to compensate for the lack of materials caused by the backwardness of the productive forces, and to transfer the internal contradictions caused by the lack of productive forces. This is the main purpose of Huang Taiji's constant foreign wars.

To take the simplest example, the purpose of launching a war against the Mongol tribes, Huang Taiji's main purpose was to obtain cattle, sheep, war horses, and replenish the combat power of the population. The main purpose of waging war against the Ming Dynasty was to obtain various artisans, farmers, and a large amount of supplies and money.

In other words, Huang Taiji's initiation of foreign wars is a process of making money and strengthening himself. His purpose in launching the war was not to consume the strength of the Houjin Jurchen itself, but to rob and plunder through war to supplement his own needs.

Without Huang Taiji, the post-Jin Jurchen regime is really very different. In history, the reason why Dolgon was able to inherit Huang Taiji's position was because this person was very "smart" in the confrontation and study with Huang Taiji, and figured out the importance of feudalism to the post-Jin Jurchen regime. The word "Rui" in "Prince Rui" does not mean that Dolgon is really smart intellectually, but that Dolgon has a clear understanding of the construction of the political system.

But unlike history, Dorgon, who is still very young, has not yet gone through that historical process. Therefore, after Huang Taiji's death, he behaved like other Jurchen high-ranking officials, and he hoped to be recognized by the leaders of the Eight Banners and the Jurchen tribes by leading the Jurchen tribes to the military victory of the Fuxing Army, so as to ascend to the throne of the Later Jin Great Khan.

In the internal struggle for power and profit within the Later Jin Jurchens, Dai Shan won the support of about half of the Jurchen tribes, and Dolgon gave full play to his "advantages" in all aspects, and through the original "relationship", he obtained the support of Bumu Butai, the widow of Huang Taiji, who had great influence in the Horqin Mongolian tribes, so that he had the support of Shangsanqi and the support of the Horqin Mongolian tribes, so that he could compete with Dai Shan, who was the eldest son of the wild boar skin.

After a series of struggles, the two sides were in a state of parity, and in the end, both sides of the struggle also clearly realized that it was unrealistic to obtain the approval of all the Later Jin Jurchens and thus ascend to the throne of the Great Khan without victory in foreign wars.

However, these two people obviously forgot one problem, that is, the rule of the Wild Boar Skin family over the entire Later Jin Jurchen tribe is not absolute.

Different from the legal basis of blood inheritance in feudal dynasties, Wild Boar Pi himself subdued the Jurchen tribes through internal wars, and Huang Taiji made a fortune together through foreign wars to unite the Jurchen tribes. Because of the sudden death of Huang Taiji, the Houjin Jurchen, who did not complete the feudalization of the regime, actually did not recognize that the wild boar skin family should be born to be the co-head of the various tribes of the Houjin Jurchen.

In this case, in fact, the main heirs of the Boar Skin family, Daishan and Dolgon, should be very cautious about starting a foreign war. After all, once the war they launched was lost, then the leaders of the Jurchen tribes of the Later Jin Dynasty would begin to question the leadership of the Jurchen tribes by the most direct means.

Even the Jurchen tribes, who were afraid of the two generations of wild boar skins, did not dare to directly use violent means to resist, and once they found that the heirs of the wild boar skin family could not undertake the natural mission of developing and strengthening the Jurchen tribes through foreign wars, they would still have no pressure to vote with their feet.

In this way, after Dolgon and Daishan, as well as Huang Taiji's eldest son Hauge, the three of them launched six battles against the Baath Army defense line and finally suffered shameful defeats, the entire post-Jin Jurchen regime began to fall apart.

Even the leaders of the slave tribes, the leaders of these tribes who had received the most natural evolutionary ideology, recognized a problem through the failures of the wild boar skins. That is, if you continue to mix with the wild boar skin family, which has lost more than 30,000 Mongolian subordinate troops and more than 10,000 core troops, your own tribe will not be in danger of becoming cannon fodder and sacrificed, or it will be in danger of falling into an existential crisis due to insufficient supplies.

For them, if they follow the wild boar skin mixed with R to eat, they will follow the wild boar skin to eat. Once they follow the wild boar skin, not only will they lose their lives, but they will lose their lives, and it will be obvious what kind of choice they will make.

In the course of the six battles against the Fuxing Army, a large number of Houjin Jurchen tribes began to perfunctory and failed to do their work, and even many relatively weak tribes directly defected to the Fuxing Army on the battlefield.

Not only did the Later Jin Jurchen begin to fall apart internally, but because of the heavy military defeat of the Baxing Army, both the North Korean side and the Mongolian side began to rebel against the Later Jin Jurchen regime Y Fengyang.

And the economic crisis caused by the existence of the Baath Party that was dozens or hundreds of times more serious than the original history also began to have the most direct impact on the post-Jin Jurchen regime. The buying and selling of grain and supplies that could have been done through the Han merchants of Shanxi became increasingly difficult. After a major military defeat, the Houjin Jurchen fell into a severe economic crisis across the board.

At the same time, the First Army Corps of the Revival Army, which had undergone full training and battlefield tests, also began to be active in the central Liaoning region. The most direct manifestation is that the defense line of the Fuxing Army has advanced to the front line of Haizhou. All the strongholds of the Later Jin Jurchens in the southern region of Haizhou were uprooted by the Renaissance Army.

Under the "lead" of the surrendered Jurchen tribes, the Revival Army even began to absorb ethnic minority tribes from all walks of life in the northeast region in the vast Jianzhouwei region. You must know that these minority tribes in the Northeast in the stage of primitive society and slave society have a lot of hatred with the Jianzhou Jurchens.

The idiom of self-care to describe the post-Jin Jurchen regime of 1631 is really apt. The Later Jin Jurchen regime, which had been on the offensive throughout history, was on the defensive in 1631.

Of course, this defensive was mainly aimed at the Revival Army in southern Liaoning. For the Liaodong warlords in the direction of Shanhaiguan, the high-level leaders of the Later Jin Jurchen, who have temporarily united due to external and internal crises, still maintain relatively great pressure.

In the face of the difficult situation, in order to ensure the security of the western part of the Later Jin Juzhen and the replenishment of human resources, Dai Shan stayed in the base camp in the Shenyang area, while Dolguan led part of the forces of Shangsanqi to unite the still "loyal" Horqin Mongols, and began a new round of conquest against the Mongolian tribes that were about to move.

On the same timeline, the Ming Dynasty government army and the Chuang army led by Gao Yingxiang launched a long tug-of-war between Zhendingfu, Dongchangfu, Luzhou and Daimyo for about a year.

In this border area of Shanxi, Shandong, Henan and Beizhili, the two sides fought a rather tragic war.

Among them, the government army was dominated by the 50,000 Guanning Army led by Yuan Chonghuan, the 30,000 Shandong New Army led by Sun Yuanhua, and the 20,000 Tianxiong Army led by Lu Xiangsheng.

In terms of the invasion army, it was dominated by the 200,000 Shaanxi and Henan troops led by Gao Yingxiang, the 60,000 Henan troops led by Li Zicheng, and the 50,000 Shaanxi and Shanxi troops led by Zhang Xianzhong.

Judging from the quality of the personnel and soldiers, the two sides are basically the situation of the eldest brother and the second brother. The ordinary soldiers of the Ming Dynasty government army and the ordinary soldiers of the invasion army were basically the same bankrupt peasants. They were all forced to join the army after a simple training.

Judging from the backbone of the troops, the government army of the Ming Dynasty and the army of the Chuang Dynasty are also half a catty. In terms of the government army of the Ming Dynasty, Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong Army was a private army, and the main officers in it were all members of the Lu family. These people belong to the children of the landlord class who have received a certain amount of education, have read some military books and war strategies, and have a certain theoretical foundation.

The officers of the Guanning Army were all from the Jiangmen families in Liaodong and Liaoxi. In fact, don't be fooled by the big name of the Jiangmen family, the more this kind of Jiangmen family background, the more the troops can only fight a good battle and not a hard battle.

Because of the fact that the soldiers are the main force of the army for the sake of the existing system, warlord troops such as the Guanning Army serve their own interests. Therefore, once there is a setback in the war, the generals of the family, as the backbone of the army, will not hesitate to protect their respective masters and make a big turn on the battlefield.

Originally, in the Liaodong battlefield at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the white pole soldiers and Zhejiang soldiers who could defeat Houjin Nuzhen in the field were killed alive on the battlefield by these pig teammates in this way.

The backbone of the Shandong New Army led by Sun Yuanhua was mainly the children of the major landlord families in Shandong. These people are the children of a large family of landlords who are not very good at cultural learning and turn to wielding knives and guns.

However, don't look at these people, it seems that they have the lowest status in the three troops, but they have all received the "professional" training of Sun Yuanhua's "good friend", the Spanish ** person recommended by Zeng Dezhao, a famous Portuguese missionary of "Zhongjun Aiming" (in fact, it is the pretending of the Renaissance Army).

At the very least, these people were able to harness the power of the "advanced" firearms sold to them by the Baath Party at low (and high) prices on the battlefield.

Similarly, in terms of the backbone of the troops, the backbone of the army was mainly the border army officers in the Shanxi region in the past. The strength of these people is actually stronger than that of the Ming army.

In fact, both sides found in the battle that the strongest combat effectiveness on the battlefield, whether it was the invasion army or the Ming army, was the unit that used the "Nanyang" firearms. In particular, the Shandong New Army, which was heavily equipped by Sun Yuanhua, exerted amazing combat effectiveness in the great melee between the two sides. A large number of high-quality Franc machine cannons and nearly 10,000 Nanyang flintlock muskets gave great damage to the invading army in the battle.

However, the strong combat effectiveness of the Shandong New Army was soon restrained by the internal strife of the Ming Dynasty government army itself.

On the one hand, the Guan Ning Army under Yuan Chonghuan did not contribute to the work in order to protect its own strength in the battle, and it suffered from old problems on the battlefield, and began to engage in fancy "pit teammates". On the other hand, Emperor Chongzhen, who saw that the war had eased down, began to supervise the army again, and sent a group of eunuchs who specialized in reducing combat effectiveness into three troops.

As a result, the war that had just improved was quickly ruined by the eunuchs represented by Gao Qiqian, the supervisor of the Tianxiong Army, and began to turn into a predicament in an all-round way.

The situation is also more difficult on the side of the army. Unlike the Ming Dynasty government army, the problem of the relatively united army was that there was no stable logistical supply.

After Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, and Zhang Xianzhong regularized the peasant rebel army, on the one hand, they did greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the troops, but on the other hand, the regular troops had very high requirements for logistical supplies. This has put tremendous pressure on the intruders.

Because Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi have been experiencing locust plagues, droughts, and military disasters for many years, the three areas nominally controlled by the invading army cannot provide any supplies from the invading army. Moreover, the intrusive army has to send some troops to garrison in various places.

The war had only been going on for less than half a year, and the logistical crisis on the part of the army began to erupt. The soldiers did not eat or wear, and a large number of soldiers either fled privately or surrendered to the Ming Dynasty government forces with weapons and equipment.

Under these circumstances, Gao Yingxiang could only entrust the battle ahead to Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, while he himself led nearly 100,000 troops to roam in the western part of Shandong. On the one hand, this is to reduce the logistical pressure on the frontal battlefield, and on the other hand, it is to feed on the spot to maintain its own troops.

In the second half of 1631, because the agricultural production in the western part of Shandong was also destroyed by Gao Yingxiang, coupled with the sudden locust plague, the harvest of that year was not harvested. In desperation, Gao Yingxiang finally made up his mind to turn his troops into slave hunters, and began to plunder the population in the Central Plains for food and material transactions with the Baath Party.

Under the leadership of Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng also learned a lot. So much so that by the end of 1631, the Chuang army, which was originally in a positive image among the people of the Central Plains, became the same as the government army of the Ming Dynasty and was not welcomed by anyone. And after seeing what their own leaders did, the morale of the Chuang army, which had begun to regain the upper hand on the battlefield, began to fall irreversibly.

In this way, at the end of 1631, the three protagonists in the war for hegemony in the world, whether it was the Later Jin Jurchen, the Ming Dynasty, or the peasant rebels, began to fall into serious internal problems. Because of the easing of the war, the whole of China actually had a bit of calm for a while.

However, at this time, a shocking change that changed the fate of China at the end of the Ming Dynasty broke out in Beijing, the ruling center of the Ming Dynasty.