After Li Zicheng returned to Xi'an, he finally cheered up. The first thing he did was brag. For example: Dashun Army issued a series of orders:
"Suide, Hanzhong Gao, Zhao (referring to Gao Yigong, Zhao Guangyuan) crossed the river from Xiheyi and led the Yi-Han tribe to return with 300,000 infantrymen.";
"General Quan Liu (referring to Liu Zongmin) led one hundred thousand troops across the river and headed north from Pingyang.";
"Report to the Emperor (referring to Li Zicheng) that he has commanded 3.5 million troops and set off from Chang'an. The troops will march in three directions and arrive at the sunrise.";
"First restore Ningwu, Daizhou, Datong, Xuanfu and other places, then go to Beijing, Shanhai, annihilate the Liaozuo and Henan bandits. Until the rebellious officers and soldiers are strictly cleansed, the people who obey me will not be able to escape."
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Li Zicheng wanted to use these exaggerated propaganda to stabilize the morale of the army. Of course, he also made some preparations for a counterattack. However, in the end, a large-scale counterattack never materialized.
The main reasons why this is so are:
First of all, the former surrendered officials of the Ming Dynasty saw that the situation was not good and became the back-office officials again. After Li Zicheng returned to Xi'an, he vigorously punished some Dashun court and local officials, such as Geng Shiran, the Minister of the Criminal Government, Li Tiandu, the Minister of the Household Government, and
Pingyang Defense Envoy Zhang Xu and others. Some of them were certainly due to corruption and perversion of the law, and some were related to political attitudes.
Secondly, at that time, the surrendered generals of the Ming Dynasty in the northwest region still held some military power. When these surrendered generals learned that the people sitting on the throne were the same Ming Dynasty generals who were like them, their attitudes were perhaps ambiguous.
It’s hard to figure out, or you’re eager to try.
In order to prevent possible armed rebellion, Li Zicheng had to station the old Dashun Army in strategic locations, which would inevitably involve a considerable amount of force.
For example, in September of this year, Gao Yigong, the general of Suide of Dashun Army, and Bohou Li Guo, the general of Yan'an, suddenly captured Wang Liangzhi, the Bo of Shan Bo who was guarding Yulin (that is, Wang Genzi, the Ming Dynasty general who surrendered when Li Zicheng attacked Xi'an).
) was executed, and Gao Yigong took over the defense of Yulin.
Also, Cui Youfu, the Ming capital official who surrendered to the Dashun regime, suddenly rebelled in Yongning Prefecture (today's Lishi) in western Shanxi. He gathered rural soldiers and arrested the state pastors of the Dashun regime. He occupied the prefecture city and plundered the people who came to the border.
County, Ningxiang (now Zhongyang) and two counties. The Dashun army was forced to "move troops to surround the city" and did not conquer it until September 25th.
Although these rebellions were put down, the Dashun Army's counterattack deployment was also completely disrupted.
In the end, even many people within the Dashun Army were pessimistic.
For example: When Niu Jinxing was in Xi'an, he had a drink with his relatives who were Gongsheng students, and after drinking, he uttered the truth. He suddenly sighed: "Life is in troubled times, no matter how high or low, no matter what, evil will be punished!". Then he pointed to his head and said: "Keep this.
Things are in great danger. I am caught in the net of disaster, and I may be able to escape. Even if I can't help but be chopped down and hung in the city, it is also appropriate. How can you die in the net? Fortunately, you can live in another place, and your soldiers have changed. You can escape and hide.
Save this head." Then at the banquet, because the atmosphere was really sad, he sobbed and stopped drinking.
Therefore, after the Dashun Army was defeated and returned to Xi'an, internal conflicts gradually intensified. Under such circumstances, it has become impossible to fight the enemy with all its strength.
Another point is also very important. When Li Zicheng and others fled all the way back to Shaanxi, they also reflected on it. They found that the policy of recovering stolen property and providing subsidies was not worth the gain, because excessive attacks on the officials, gentry and landlords were not conducive to the stability of the rear. Therefore, the Dashun regime
The policy of levying taxes based on the number of acres of land and the number of people has also been implemented.
But in this way, the "no taxation for three years" policy first turned into a renegade and lost the hearts and minds of a large number of ordinary people. In a short period of time, the land did not produce much and no taxes were collected at all, so it immediately caused
The financial collapse of the Dashun regime.
Without food and salary, the Dashun army was also disloyal. Except for the core troops who originally broke into the camp, other troops who later defected, surrendered and surrendered were short of food, salary and supplies. How could this make them still loyal to the Dashun Dynasty?
?So, with money, you may not be able to form an elite army; but without money, no matter how elite the army is, it will fall apart.
Facing the remnants of Dashun's army in the northwestern provinces, Xue Yong, the general who conquered the west, also formulated a northwest strategy to attack the east and attack the west. He asked Quan Dashan, who came up for reinforcements, to lead an army of 70,000. He made a posture of attacking northern Shaanxi in Shanxi, attracting
The main force of Dashun Army.
General Xue Yong personally led an army of 100,000 to pass through Huaiqing and attack Tongguan. He wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to enter the hinterland of Shaanxi, conquer Xi'an, and completely annihilate the remaining main force of the Dashun Army.
Wu Shigong didn't want to give in to the northwest strategy that Xue Yong had secretly reported. After all, Xue Yong was the one who knew the battle situation on the front line best, and Wu Shigong also believed in his commanding ability. He didn't trust the people he trusted, but he didn't trust the people he hired. Wu Shigong didn't do the stupid thing of remote control commanding, lest he do anything stupid.
Disrupt the deployment of frontline generals.
However, Wu Shigong is also a little worried. You must know that among the 70,000 miscellaneous troops led by Quan Dashan, there are only 10,000 elite troops from the Runing Army. Even among the 100,000 main troops led by Xue Yong, there are only 15,000 from Jiao Shizhen.
Thousands of people can be relied upon as the core. The rest of the troops have all surrendered, and their combat effectiveness is simply uneven, which is very uneasy.
And in order to make those troops surrender, Xue Yong not only promised to confer officers on these surrendered generals, but also promised to provide full food and salary standards. The food and salary standards for these troops were also the same as those of the Runing Army. In addition, there were 50,000 soldiers in Shanxi Province.
The surrendered landlords armed themselves to maintain local order, and these soldiers and horses also needed to provide some food and salary. And these huge expenditures would be supplied and endorsed by Wu Shigong's Daping Dynasty.
Therefore, Wu Shigong often laughed at himself: This emperor may be the poorest emperor in history. Although the Daping Dynasty has maintained such huge military expenditures, most of these food and salary were the savings of the Tongzhou camp and the Runing army.
With the proceeds from borrowing, the current Daping Dynasty was simply in debt to foreign countries.
Another point also gave Wu Shigong a headache. Because the Western Expeditionary Army was too fast, the entire Northern Zhili and Shanxi fell into the hands of the Daping Dynasty. In order to establish local political power first, the Daping Dynasty could only appoint a large number of former Ming officials.
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Let’s not talk about whether these officials from the pre-Ming Dynasty were loyal or not. Let’s just say that the way they governed the place still followed the governance methods of the pre-Ming Dynasty. Similarly, they still followed a lot of the bad rules of the pre-Ming Dynasty, and they imposed exorbitant taxes on the people.
Still very serious.
The original Runing Army had its own set of governance methods and civil service system that were completely different from those of the previous Ming Dynasty. However, because there were not so many official reserves, and they had to appease those former Ming officials, they could only temporarily stay within the Ming Dynasty.
, forming "one country, two systems". All of this will become some unstable factors for the Great Ping Dynasty.
