In the feudal war for hegemony in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, there were three main protagonists. They are: the government army of the Ming Dynasty; the National Invasion Army of the Later Jin Jurchen; A peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng and other rebels.

In terms of strategic goals, the goals of all three were China's feudal ruling power.

In terms of the will to fight, the purpose of the government army was to maintain the feudal rule of the Ming Dynasty. But the soldiers of the Ming army, who had suffered **** and oppression, did not agree with this. Therefore, the will to fight on the part of the government army is relatively weak.

The purpose of the national invading army is to objectively open up space for national survival for the post-Jin Jurchen nation. Because this purpose is related to the overall interests of the entire Houjin Jurchen nation, there are certain contradictions between the commanders of the Eight Banners, but under the general goal of national living space, the national invading army is relatively united and has a strong will to fight.

The situation of the peasant rebel army in the early stage was a desperate consciousness involving the survival of each rebel in which the officials forced the people to rebel, and the situation in the later period was the influence of the huge ambition of the dynasty to fight for hegemony, so the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng and others also had a relatively strong sense of combat.

After all, in terms of the overall trend, both the national invading army and the peasant rebel army are in the process of moving from a relatively bad status quo to a possible good result. So both of these forces are on an upward trend.

The government army of the Ming Dynasty was in a situation that was not very good, and it was impossible to maintain this situation that could not be better. So the government forces are facing a downward trend.

Judging by the composition of the three military forces, ordinary warriors. The government army, like the rebel army, was made up of ordinary peasant-turned-fighters who had worked for a long time. The invading army is better. The barbarism of the Houjin women, who have been fishing and hunting in the harsh environment of the deep mountains and old forests for a long time, is still relatively strong. In a feudal agrarian society where there was no absolute overwhelming superiority in the level of science and technology, the barbarism of this backward civilization was a relatively positive advantage.

However, in terms of military equipment, although the government army of the Ming Dynasty had the advantage of generation difference in the face of the invading army and the rebel army, because of the decay and backwardness of the ruling class of the declining feudal dynasty, this kind of military generation difference could not exist as an advantage at all.

As a matter of fact, because the vested interest groups entrenched in the feudal ruling class themselves frantically seek their own benefits by means of sabotaging and plundering national interests, the government army, which is in an advantageous position on the surface, is actually in a disadvantaged position.

However, from the perspective of combat methods, except for troops with a certain degree of full training such as Qin Liangyu's white pole soldiers and Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong army, the combat methods of the three are basically the same. It is the kind of way that the core troops are behind, the cannon fodder troops are in front, and the core troops drive the cannon fodder troops to attack the opponent's position and then fight according to the results.

It's just that whether it is a government army, an invading army, or a rebel army, the cannon fodder troops of the three are all composed of ordinary Chinese people. Government forces used forced conscription to drive away civilians. The rebels drove Lao Baixin through coercion. The invading army, on the other hand, drove the common people away by plundering the population.

Speaking of which, the reason why China's population rapidly decreased from 200 million to about 100 million in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties is directly related to the combat methods of these three major forces.

While driving the people to be cannon fodder, the Houjin Jurchen carried out massacres in Liaodong, and after entering the customs, they carried out massacres all over the country. The government army and the rebel army engaged in long-term and large-scale operations in the Central Plains, in addition to consuming a large number of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of cannon fodder, which were composed of ordinary people, also seriously damaged agricultural production in northern China, causing a large number of ordinary people to die of famine.

Therefore, from this point of view alone, whether it is the government army of the Ming Dynasty, the national invading army of the Later Jin Jurchen, or the peasant rebel army led by the peasant rebels, these three forces vying for the right to rule China are the purest and outright enemies that directly endanger the safety of their lives for any ordinary Chinese people.

It is precisely for this reason that the Baath Party, in its ideological and political education work a long time ago, made it clear that the three are the enemies of the people and the enemies of the Ba'ath Party. However, in Wang Shuhui's view, no matter how good the ideological and political education work is, it is not as shocking as the education brought to people by reality.

Many of the soldiers of the Ba'ath Army themselves were born into exiles. Their understanding of the reactionary nature of the peasant rebels was not very profound. The sudden appearance of Zhang Xianzhong's peasant rebel army was actually a very good opportunity to set up a negative teaching material for the Baath Party.

Seeing that Zhang Xianzhong began to drive the nearly 10,000 people he had coerced in nearby prefectures and counties to attack the position of the First Army Corps in the northwest of the Baxing Army in accordance with the old method of using a core cavalry of about 3,000 people in his old method, Wang Shuhui had already begun to ponder in his heart how to make better use of this opportunity to carry out effective ideological and political education for the Baath Party.

Zhang Xianzhong was a fast catcher, and it is true that he was a soldier in the border army of the regular military unit of the Ming Dynasty, but let alone an ordinary soldier like him, he is an officer of the official army of the Ming Dynasty with 800 serious days, in fact, he has no decent military quality at all.

The level of the government army in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, except for a few armies that were professionally trained and professional, the other armies were actually on par with the level of bandits.

It can be said that since the end of the Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty has not had troops produced by formal training. A regular army like the Qi family army with systematic training methods and specialized combat tactics is almost impossible to find in today's Ming Dynasty.

Let's just explain Zuo Liangyu, the most powerful "thief general" among the warlords at the end of the war. His army, which claimed to be hundreds of thousands, was in fact the same as the peasant rebel army, which was composed of the common people who had been coerced. Compared with the more experienced bandits, he can't compare.

In other words, the military quality of a well-known rebel leader like Zhang Xianzhong is actually the level of an experienced bandit. The current state of his troops is basically that the 3,000 core troops have horses and simple swords and other weapons. Not to mention muskets and armor, which are very tall things for them, even simple weapons such as spears and bows and arrows, these 3,000 people can barely do one per person.

As for the tens of thousands of ordinary people who were coerced and driven forward as cannon fodder, it would be nice if they could have a wooden stick or something like that in their hands. Most of them staggered towards the Baath Army's position empty-handed and desperate.

The cannon fodder people in front of him had just begun to advance, and before Zhang Xianzhong's 3,000 cavalry who were the pressure on the formation began to move, Zhang Xianzhong heard a voice he had never heard coming from the position of the revival army.

Until the unbelievable, terrifying, and heart-wrenching huge explosion suddenly appeared in the cavalry troops, and countless human bodies and horses were not far from Zhang Xianzhong, and were torn to pieces by the explosive shells fired by the revival army, Zhang Xianzhong did not react to what happened

Space-Time Gate 1619

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Chapter 331: Progress and Backwardness of the Peasant Revolt 6