And the situation of the entire imperial court to suppress bandits is also very good. Let's talk about Li Zicheng and the peasant army of Tianxing first!

In October of the tenth year of Chongzhen, after Li Zicheng and Guo Tianxing went south to invade Sichuan, they once came to the outskirts of Chengdu, so Hong Chengchou, the governor of Shaanxi who was in charge of the encirclement and suppression of the western front, hurriedly led the two main forces of Zuo Guangxian, the general army of Guyuan, and Cao Bianjiao, the general army of Lintao, into Sichuan to intercept and attack the peasant army from the eastern front. Fu Zonglong, the newly appointed governor of Sichuan, mobilized tens of thousands of Sichuan troops from all walks of life to stop the peasant army from moving south from Chengdu to Langzhong.

Li, Guo and other troops could not be confined to the northwest corner of Sichuan, and returned to Shaanxi in early 11 years. Passing through the sky, mixed stars and other out of the east road, through Fengxiang back to the vast area north of Xi'an.

And Shaanxi Governor Sun Chuanting took the opportunity to exert his authority. He led the army to encircle and suppress this part of the peasant army, and in April and May, he successively won victories in Chengcheng and Sanshui (now Xunyi), Chaotianxing was killed, and Guotianxing and others surrendered. Li Zicheng went out of the West Road and was active in Hezhou, Gansu (near present-day Linxia) and Lintao.

Hong Chengchou led the main force in the northwest to focus on encircling and suppressing Li Zicheng's army, and also won twice in March. After suffering a series of wounds, Li Zicheng retreated along the Qinling Mountains to the mountains at the junction of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Hubei and lurked. So far, the "rogue bandits" in the northwest have basically been suppressed.

Let's focus on Li Zicheng, who is haunted by Wu Shigong's dream!

After Li Zicheng and other troops left Sichuan in February of the 11th year of Chongzhen, Hong Chengchou, the governor of Shaanxi, and Sun Chuanting, the governor of Shaanxi, were afraid that they would be punished by the imperial court because of their contradictions with Yang Sichang.

Pursued by the officers and troops of Cao Bianjiao, Zuo Guangxian, Zu Dabi, and He Renlong, the commander-in-chief of Hong Chengchou, Li Zicheng's troops suffered two successive defeats in two battles (19 and 20 March) in the areas of Hezhou and Taozhou (near present-day Linxia and Lintan in Gansu), and suffered heavy losses in men and horses.

April. Li Zicheng had no choice but to turn back to the east, cross the Tao River from Yangsa Village, which belonged to Gongchang Prefecture in Gansu, and march to Xihe and Li counties day and night. In order to avoid being discovered by the pursuing officers and soldiers, Li Zicheng decided to adopt a dispersed and concealed approach. On the 10th day of the first month of April, Li Zicheng personally led 300 soldiers of the peasant army and their families to a place named Mawu in the north of Lixian County, Gansu Province. Zuo Guangxian, the general soldier of the Ming Dynasty, led his subordinate officers and soldiers to chase after him at dawn the next day, and the distance between the two armies was only forty or fifty miles, and Li Zicheng and others were in a very dangerous situation. Fortunately, the officers and soldiers rested in Mawu for a day, and made a mistake in judgment when they set off, so Li Zicheng was able to escape from the pursuit of the officers and troops. Entering the border area of Shaanxi and Sichuan, the team led by Li Guo and Liu Tichun converged with the same department. Afterwards, Hong Chengchou was very disappointed. Li Zicheng is really big enough.

After that, Li Zicheng's unit entered Sichuan again in May with more than 3,000 people from the Qi General Administration Department of the Sixth Team. Then there were repeated defeats, in this difficult situation. The leader of the sixth team, Chief Manager Qi, was discouraged and surrendered to Zuo Guangxian with more than 600 of his subordinates. And Li Zicheng is even thinner. had to go into the deep mountains and dense forests, so that the officers and soldiers could not find a trace.

Since then, Li Zicheng's troops have been quite small, that is, about 1,000 people, and the area of activity is sparsely populated, so the imperial court has ignored him for the time being.

However, Li Zicheng's will to rebel is still quite strong. Although his subordinates were in an extremely difficult situation both militarily and in life. but never caressed. It's really stubborn than breaking the king!

Let's talk about the other battalions of peasant armies!

Although Zhang Xianzhong and Liu Guoneng had the difference between true and false surrenders, the influence of their surrender caused a wave of surrender among the peasant army.

In July of the eleventh year of Chongzhen, King Shunyi surrendered. The imperial court issued a card to dismiss 9,500 people. In the same month, Luo Rucai, mixed 100,000, 100,000, 100,000, Tuotianwang, and Xiaoqin Wang threw themselves to Premier Xiong Wencan to beg for care, and Xiong Wencan sent Zhang Dajing, the superintendent of the army, to meet Luo Rucai and others on the first day of August to contact about recruiting security. On the second day of the first month of August, there were six departments, including Tianxing and Ziweixing, which shot down the sky (that is, Li Wanqing) and Yiziwang, and sent people to contact and surrender in Lushi County, Henan.

It seems that Xiong Wencan's appeasement is a great success. So he arranged for Luo Rucai to be stationed in Fang County with Bai Gui (Xiao Qin Wang) and Hei Yunxiang (100,000 yuan), and the other five battalions were stationed in Zhuxi and Baokang.

At this point, the only influential ones are the old Hui Ma Shouying, Ge Li Yan He Yilong, Zuo Jin Wang He Jin, the reincarnated king Liu Xiyao, and the five battalions of Ge Zuo raised by King Lin in troubled times, but because they are alone, they also hide in the deep mountains and old forests tend to be depressed.

It's really a good situation, and it's getting better and better. It should be said that the number of Xiong Wencan's appeasements is quite amazing, but what about the quality of his appeasements? Don't mention Zhang Xianzhong, let's take a look at Luo Rucai!

During the period of "appeasement", Luo Rucai refused to accept the official position of the imperial court, did not want food and salary, and did not dismiss the army. It did not obey the dispatch of the imperial court, nor did it allow the imperial court to interfere in the internal affairs of the peasant army. In addition, within a certain range, the landlords' land property was confiscated, grain and grass were accumulated in the fields, and the poor masses were recruited to join the peasant army, thus making the necessary preparations for the re-rebellion in terms of manpower and material resources.

As for the imperial court, Luo Rucai only signed a "covenant of no aggression" with the local government when he was "appeased". I see! They took the serious appeasement as a contract. Xiong Wencan's economic consciousness is really too strong!

But no matter what, the Ming Dynasty gained temporary peace. It should be said that the entire court is jubilant and harmonious! No! Without external worries, the ministers of the court immediately rolled up their sleeves and started infighting again. And the fuse of this infighting was the peace talks with the Manchus proposed by Yang Sichang.

It should be said that at this time, only a few people in the entire imperial court, Yang Sichang, knew that the suppression of bandits had not been completed, so he wanted to carry out the suppression of bandits to the end and completely eliminate this tumor in the body of the Ming Dynasty.

On April 12, the 11th year of Chongzhen, in the routine feast activities, Emperor Chongzhen summoned all the six ministers, and wanted to ask how to apply the way of Confucius and Mencius to practical government affairs, and to combine theory with practice.

So Yang Sichang took this opportunity to give a lecture to the emperor about "Mencius? A chapter in "Lilou": "Fight for land and kill people; Fight for the city, kill the city. This so-called cannibalism of the land is not allowed to die, so those who are good at fighting will be punished. "I wanted to use Mencius's pacifist ideas against the wars of the princes to guide Emperor Chongzhen to agree to contact and negotiate with the Manchus.

But Emperor Chongzhen already knew Yang Sichang's thoughts, but he was not interested at all, and refused impatiently: "This is what Mencius said in response to the war between the nations. Today, although it is not possible to make a big crusade against a subject country (referring to the Qing Dynasty) to show the prestige of the Celestial Empire, why use the strategy of 'Hefan' like the Han Dynasty? Don't talk about it again. ”

Although Emperor Chongzhen basically vetoed the motion to make peace with the Manchus, this incident still caused a storm in the city. The vast majority of courtiers were extremely indignant at Yang Sichang's proposal to "make peace" with the Qing Dynasty.

According to the traditional principle of Yixia Great Defense, the central empire of the dignified Celestial Empire is not equal to all the Yidi outside the world, and all Yidi are just vassals of the Celestial Empire, and they can only pay tribute to the Celestial Dynasty in a regular manner.

The Manchurian tribes outside the Guanguan were rewarded by the Celestial Empire for generations, and the annals of history are all there, but they suddenly did not tamestinate and rebelled, and forcibly occupied Liaodong, entered the fortress several times, burned, killed, and plundered all kinds of evil, which caused great hostility among the subjects of the Ming Dynasty. Ordinary people think that negotiating and constructing peace with the Qing side, no matter what the reason, is a loss of power and humiliation of the country, or even a collaboration with the enemy and a rebellion, which is a first-class act of Shi Jingjiao and Qin Hui.

It has been known in the previous article that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, only Yuan Chonghuan dared to negotiate with the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Yuan Chonghuan's two negotiations were regarded as great rebellion by the imperial court, and Zuihou was once regarded as one of the important crimes of "collaborating with the enemy", which directly led to his disrepute.

With such a lesson from the past, and under the condition that mediocre patriotic enthusiasm was full of the government and the opposition, Yang Sichang still dared to defy the world's condemnation and put forward a proposal for "money", which shows that he has extraordinary strategic vision and sincere loyalty to Emperor Chongzhen.

One more thing to say here: Until now, there are still many people who claim to be "experts in Ming history" who have written articles saying that Yuan Chonghuan collaborated with the enemy or something, and the evidence is his negotiations with Hou Jin. In fact, the mistakes of these "experts" are all too obvious! Of course, the author does not want to wash the ground for Yuan Chonghuan, the author has always believed that Yuan Chonghuan's death is deserved, and his crime is his incompetence.

Again. When Yang Sichang proposed "money peace", few of the courtiers could understand his vision and loyalty. In the eyes of the anti-Yang faction led by Donglin, this just added another charge to him.

The Donglin Party believes that Yang Sichang has three major crimes. The first is to overturn the case for the "reverse case" and oppose the Donglin gentleman; the second is that the double filial piety of the father's funeral and the mother's funeral is shy in the court, which hurts the foundation of the country to rule the world with filial piety; The third is to collaborate with the enemy and mislead the country. And this third point is almost intended to arouse the public indignation of the gentry and the people of the whole country.

Of course, in the hearts of the Donglin Party, they believe that as long as the Donglin Party is not in power, they are all enemies of the Donglin Party.

As a result, Donglin Party officials immediately launched a fierce attack on Yang Sichang, mainly opposing the proposal for peace talks, and also combining others. Anyway, there are a lot of so-and-so and so-and-so, but the most eye-catching is the Donglin standard-bearer, the world-famous science master Huang Daozhou.

Zodiac Zhou, to this day people know his fame. He was very knowledgeable, he was still deeply cultivated in science and "Yi Xue", and he was noble and serious, and he was regarded as a model of moral writing, and his reputation was great throughout Kyushu. So will he come up with any eye-catching theories? (To be continued......)