Chapter 335 The Fuse of the Last Ming-Qing War: Wu Sangui Changed Flag
Dorgon seemed to have thought very carefully about how to restart border provocations in the fourth year of Shunzhi and find a good excuse to inspire the whole army.
And until the last moment, he was very confident about the development of the situation and whether it could be implemented according to his vision.
There is no other reason, just because the history of the war between the Ming and Qing Dynasties in the past twenty years has already told the world: the Qing army was always the one who broke promises and broke the treaty and started war, while the Ming Dynasty was always the cowardly one who insisted on seeking peace and peace.
This inertia is so strong that when the strength of the enemy and ourselves reverses, people's mentality still lags behind and fails to reverse.
Does Mingren dare to take the initiative to ask for war? Or at least dare to set up a situation to run afoul of it, at the expense of igniting the powder keg in advance in exchange for a more proactive situation in the early stages of the war? Impossible!
And this kind of inertia of thinking is bound to come at a price.
…
Early July of the third year of Longwu, Xi'an.
Wu Sangui, who was based in Shaanxi, was faced with a decision.
Since he hunted down the remnants of Li Zicheng three years ago, and finally destroyed Xi'an, Li Zicheng's nominal capital, he has also used a fig leaf for himself, and has the nerve to say that he is avenging the late emperor Chongzhen, and did not deliberately let the Qing soldiers go.
Enter customs.
Due to the butterfly effect of historical changes, Shaanxi became more dilapidated than the same period in history (in the second year of Shunzhi, he was asked to count the population, and there were only 300,000 civilians left in the province. Of course, the escaped refugees were not excluded). After Wu Sangui arrived in Shaanxi, the Qing government
He was not forced to express his position clearly, but was allowed to sit on the wall to form an isolation zone on the Western Front between the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
This situation may seem strange, but it is actually reasonable and actually happens.
On the one hand, the Qing government felt that Shaanxi had no value for economic exploitation. After being absorbed into the direct jurisdiction, it might implicate other provinces and burden them with a heavier bottomless pit burden.
It would be better to leave Wu Sangui to govern for the time being. He can do whatever he wants. As long as he doesn't ask the Qing Dynasty for money and food, it won't be the Qing Dynasty's business even if he tortures all the remaining people in Shaanxi.
In this period of history, the Qing army was obsessed with Shaanxi. The purpose was not Shaanxi itself, but just a springboard to enter Sichuan. Since Sichuan is very stable and cannot enter Sichuan, who wants Shaanxi?
In the south, the Ming Dynasty and Sichuan Governor Fang Kongzhen also turned a blind eye to this situation. Through Qin Liangyu and Yuan Zongdi, who was a surrendered general, they occasionally sent people to contact Wu Sangui and declare to him.
The policies of the Ming Dynasty:
He said that the Nanjing court could conclude that his act of letting the Qing troops enter the pass was just a temporary confusion, and that he wanted to avenge the late emperor at any cost. So far, Wu Sangui had only fought with the peasant army, and had not engaged in civil war with the territories and armies directly under the Ming Dynasty.
This shows that his conscience as a minister of the Ming Dynasty has not been completely wiped out, and the Ming Dynasty still hopes that he will contribute to the Ming Dynasty on the battlefield again in the future, and will also give him a stable and wealthy ending - but it does not say that he will be allowed to hold military power for the rest of his life.
Fang Kongzhen had no right to write bad checks randomly, and he did not want to do anything treacherous, and there was no need for the court to be too vain on this issue.
Everyone on earth knows that Wu Sangui indulged the Qing soldiers. After the Ming Dynasty reunified the world, it would be unrealistic for him to expect to maintain military power for a long time.
If he now starts to abandon the dark side and join the bright side, and once again clearly helps the Ming Dynasty to defeat the Qing army, in the future he can be given a cup of wine to release his military power and become a wealthy man with a title, spend his old age in peace, and his children and grandchildren will have long-term meal tickets, which will be good.
Therefore, Fang Kongzhen did not make random promises, and Wu Sangui did not take it seriously. Instead, he felt that what Fang Kongzhen said in bargaining should be true——
If you are really like Liu Bang, who readily agrees to everything when you are used, that would be terrifying. Who knows whether you will be destroyed like Han Xin, Peng Yueyingbu, etc. in the future.
In the first two years, this kind of contact had no substantial impact. Anyway, there was a truce between the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Starting last year, crops such as corn and potatoes finally began to spread northward. In Huaibei, Shandong, and the military villages occupied by the Qing army in Heluo, some were also planted experimentally.
When it came time to harvest, the harvest was quite satisfactory, which gave the northern rulers a great surprise. They quickly asked to save all the seeds as much as possible and continue to expand planting in the next season.
And we must find ways to expand private trade with the money-grubbing businessmen in the Nanming-occupied areas, import more seeds, and speed up the expansion of planting.
In contrast, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Hebei benefited from crops such as corn and potatoes relatively late.
Shanxi and Hebei are not bordering the Nanming-occupied areas. When the seeds of new crops first spread over, the bordering provinces intercepted all the seeds and even the seeds were not enough. Where could the seeds be distributed to provinces further north?
Shaanxi is bordering Sichuan, which was occupied by the Nanming Dynasty. Unfortunately, the road to Shu was difficult, and the border was closed during the war. The garrison company in Shaanxi did not know what the Sichuan government opposite was doing. How could they talk about privately expanding transactions and obtaining seeds?
You must know that when Liu Bei died, Zhuge Liang announced the closure of the pass. As a result, until Cao Pi died and Zhuge Liang went on the Northern Expedition, Cao Wei did not know what Ji Han was doing for four years. As long as Fang Kongzhen wanted to close the pass, the effect would be the same.
Wu Sangui could not obtain corn and potato seeds through normal channels, and learned from his colleagues in Heluo that the yield of corn could more than double that of wheat. The most important thing was that it was also drought-resistant and required very little irrigation. This made
How can he not be jealous?
After all, the situation that Shaanxi is in today is due to natural disasters. The key is that water conservancy is not repaired. Without the protection of permanent tenant rights, landowners and farmers are destructively reclaiming land and depleting the lake for fishing. Water and soil erosion has long since turned into a loess plateau.
In areas where water resources cannot be preserved due to loess erosion, water-saving crops are simply a godsend.
Moreover, Wu Sangui came to Shaanxi with tens of thousands of Guan Ning's troops and more than 100 or 200,000 families of Guan Ning's troops. The previous two years of rule had completely wiped out the local area, and he had to find a way out.
When Wu Sangui first arrived, Shaanxi still had a population of 300,000 on its books. In fact, it might be a little more, because the refugees lived in seclusion and formed cottages everywhere to grow and eat their own food. (At that time, the bandits in Shaanxi had nothing to rob.
The so-called thief means enclosing a piece of land to grow and eat for yourself, without paying taxes to anyone)
Wu Sangui wanted to supply military supplies. How could he exploit the local population of 300,000? The bandits were unwilling to become obedient citizens again. The natural disaster had not yet ended. After two years of fighting, more than half of the population was lost.
In the end, there were only a few hundred thousand civilians left, who were completely incorporated into military management by Wu Sangui. There were no free people or thieves in the entire Shaanxi Province, only dead people and military settlements under Wu Sangui's command.
Therefore, there are still 300,000 living people in the whole province of Shaanxi today, but among these 300,000, more than 10% are soldiers of the Guan Ning Army, and 50% are family members of the Guan Ning Army, leaving less than 40%.
Chengdu is a local civilian population that was conquered and managed by militarized people.
However, after complete military management, Wu Sangui was barely able to prevent his subordinates from starving to death on a large scale. Because if the locals wanted to farm in a wandering way, there would be no chance for destructive farming, and they were completely controlled. That is to say, "a small country with few people"
"People", only when the total number of people is small to a certain extent can such detailed management be allowed. But if the population exceeds 500,000, he will not be able to manage it in this way.
In such a difficult environment, when Wu Sangui learned that Fang Kongzhen had the corn and potato seeds he urgently needed, he would naturally be jealous.
The Qing governor of Heluo couldn't grow it himself and refused to give it to him. Wu Sangui took advantage of last year's autumn harvest and when Fang Kongzhen sent someone to contact him again, he put forward his needs one by one.
I didn't have much hope at the time.
Unexpectedly, after Fang Kongzhen consulted internally, he quickly responded to Wu Sangui and expressed his willingness to give him corn seeds. This made Wu Sangui overjoyed and his trust in the Ming court in Nanjing increased.
Of course, when Fang Kongzhen did this, he also consulted Zhu Shuren. In the end, the actual decision-maker was Zhu Shuren.
Zhu Shuren thought this way: Since the Qing government has planted corn and potatoes in small areas in Huaibei and Shandong, after at least three to five years of propagation and spread, and by saving as much seed as possible each time, the entire north will definitely be covered in the end.
The reproduction of seeds is a geometric progression that is multiplied by at least ten times every year, or even faster, which is uncontrollable.
So whether you give it to Wu Sangui or not, Wu Sangui will get it in the end. It's just a time difference. If you give it now, you can do more favors with Wu Sangui and try to win over him, and maybe you can win over it. Even if it doesn't succeed, the loss is still serious.
Controlled.
Zhu Shuren only made an additional request to Fang Kongzhen: when Wu Sangui took the corn seeds, he promised that within five years, he would only grow corn seeds in Shaanxi, secretly grow them in private, and do not let other governors of the Qing court know, and he was not allowed to sell the seeds to other Qing court governors.
Governor. Otherwise, if he breaks the contract first, Daming will naturally expose other connections between him and Daming!
As long as Wu Sangui did not sell the seeds to Shanxi, Hebei and other areas under actual control of the Qing government, and did not enhance the Tatars' overall national strength, Wu Sangui could grow food for himself behind closed doors in Shaanxi, which would not affect the overall situation of the Northern Expedition.
Wu Sangui had something to ask for, so he naturally had no choice but to agree to this condition. He felt that he had not cultivated enough and there was no way he could export it to the outside world, so why should he be such a bad person?
Now, it is already July of the third year of Longwu/the fourth year of Shunzhi. The large amount of corn seeds that Wu Sangui obtained from Fang Kongzhen has been harvested on a large scale on the Guanzhong Plain.
Until before the harvest, most of the farmers in the military settlements who were forced to sow new crops by his militarization were still in an uneasy mood. The local people had been poor and isolated for many years, and had no chance to broaden their horizons outside. They did not trust anything new and all
They were forced to do so with swords and guns, and if they didn't do so, they would be directly executed, so they were forced to do so.
Now it was finally harvested, and it turned out to be a good harvest. Wu Sangui finally gained a firm foothold in Shaanxi, won the hearts and minds of the people, and solved the problem of military rations.
No matter how dilapidated Shaanxi is, with such a large land area, as long as the population is as small as 300,000, and each person can manage a few hundred acres of land through extensive planting and harvesting, he can still support himself.
Once we have surplus grain, we can slowly reorganize water conservancy, plant trees in the north, or return farmland to forests and grasslands to control desertification. There is always a way to survive.
…
Unfortunately, it was at this juncture that Wu Sangui encountered the order from Dorgon during the first harvest season after he reached a secret deal with Fang Kongzheng on corn seeds.
He "invited" him to send his eldest son Wu Yingxiong to Beijing to "learn Manchu etiquette, riding and shooting, so as to integrate into the Manchu high-level circles and promote them according to their talents."
How could this make Wu Sangui not nervous? He thought it was because of his flirtation with Fang Kongzheng, but Dorgon finally caught him.
He hurriedly inquired whether Jiang Gan, the commander-in-chief of Datong in neighboring provinces, had sent his son to the capital, but the news he received made him even more nervous: Jiang Gan had sent him without hesitation.
Some people may think that since Jiang Yu was given away, doesn’t it mean that Dorgon is targeting everyone? It’s not just him, Wu Sangui!
But Wu Sangui didn't dare to bet, because he quickly thought of a similar case that he heard with his own ears a few years ago:
Eight years ago, when Zhang Xianzhong surrendered and rebelled, Yang Sichang, the then Minister of War of the Chongzhen Dynasty, recruited all the other children of warlords who had been recruited by Xiong Wencan like Zhang Xianzhong to study at the Nanjing Imperial College...
At that time, Yang Sichang also concealed it. He did not say it openly. In order to trick Zheng Zhilong into sending Zheng Sen (Zheng Chenggong) away, he also tried hard to get Shen Tingyang to send away Shen Shuren (Zhu Shuren).
Why is Dorgon's behavior today not based on that of Yang Sichang? Why is Jiang Quan not the Shen Tingyang of this era? Why is Wu Sangui not the Zheng Zhilong of this era?
After hesitating again and again, after observing over the past few years, he felt that the national power of the Ming Dynasty had vaguely surpassed the Qing Dynasty again. The south under Zhu Shuren's governance was in good order, and the military industry was progressing at a rapid pace.
He and Zhu Shuren had some friendship many years ago. Since the two sides still have a way of communication, and they can ride on the top of the wall and slide in any direction, then let's just pull the flag!
…
On the fourth day of July in the third year of Longwu, Wu Sangui received Dorgon's order and delayed the messenger in Xi'an for about ten days and eight days to stabilize the opponent and delay the preparation time for raising troops.
On July 12, under repeated urging from the envoy, Wu Sangui said that "the dog is seriously ill and is not conducive to travel" and declined Dorgon's request to recruit hostages to Beijing.
Of course, the two sides had not completely broken up at this time, so Wu Sangui asked the envoy to bring back a seal stating his difficulties.
Even though the envoy had noticed Wu Sangui's instability, he did not dare to expose it immediately. After all, he also wanted to save his life. Therefore, after getting Wu Sangui's reply, he flew straight to Beijing. The journey back was almost six hundred miles away.
Just six days later, on July 18th, Dorgon in the capital learned of Wu Sangui's resistance. Of course, he had to further order to suppress the opponent, and on the other hand, he had to make two-pronged preparations and send troops to deter Wu Sangui.
The Qing court was not very interested in taking over and completely controlling Shaanxi, because Shaanxi's geographical environment was still closed, and it was not enough to mobilize local resources to other battlefields (it could provide troops, but Guan Ning's army has not been able to mobilize them in recent years).
Willing to be used by the Qing court, he has always been in a free state)
Therefore, even if there is trouble in Shaanxi, the key is to block the gap and prevent Wu Sangui from spreading, disrupting the Qing rear and being used by the Southern Ming. As long as Wu Sangui cannot play his role and completely separate Shaanxi from other battlefields, this matter will be over.
And if Wu Sangui really colluded with the Ming Dynasty, the Qing court could further use this news to unite the internal forces. Originally, Dorgon wanted to find an excuse to provoke and restart the southern invasion.
If Wu Sangui's incident happened, it would be the Ming Dynasty who took the initiative to invade the Qing Dynasty. Dorgon could use it as propaganda and let the Manchus and Qing Dynasties act as a protector of their country and greatly boost their morale.
After all, the morale of the Patriotic War is always higher than that of the war of aggression at any time. This level of psychological BUFF is not stacked or stacked.
…
Considering that the Shaanxi battlefield was in chaos again, it would not be easy to achieve military success, and it might require long-term low-intensity stalemate. After careful consideration, Dorgon decided to send Hauge to the Shaanxi battlefield to confront Wu Sangui.
At the same time, Shanxi Jiangwan's army should also be temporarily allocated to Hauge for unified dispatch, mainly relying on the Shanxi Army in the rear to maintain a stalemate with the Shaanxi Guanning Army, and also to guard the dangerous passes of Tongguan.
When Wu Sangui destroyed the remnants of Li Zicheng's Guanzhong army three and a half years ago, the Qing army took control of Pubanjin and Tongguan. This was also to ensure that the key areas were in the hands of the Qing army, which allowed Wu Sangui to actually stand on his own in the northwest. Of course Wu Sangui did not want that.
In this way, he had no choice at the time, because if he had to garrison Tongguan himself, the Qing government would break up with him.
It was precisely because the Qing army controlled Tongguan that they were not worried about Wu Sangui causing trouble.
Dorgon made some arrangements, and the second message of comfort to Wu Sangui was sent from Beijing on July 26th. According to the plan, it should arrive in Xi'an on the third day of August.
Hauge himself had already set off for Shanxi on July 20, and the Manzheng Blue Banner led by Hauge also gradually mobilized westward. Before Hauge arrived, the local Qing troops in Shanxi and Tongguan had also obtained advance orders.
Message, enter alert.
In the end, Dorgon's envoy failed to arrive in Xi'an on the third day of August as planned - because on the first day of August, two days before the arrival of the second batch of Dorgon's envoys, Wu Sangui officially raised the flag.
, in response to the Ming Dynasty’s resistance to the Qing court,
Wu Sangui immediately sent troops to block the west exit of Tongguan Road, set up camp on the road to confront the Qing army, and sent troops on the other side to block the west bank of Pubanjin.
What Wu Sangui claimed to the outside world was to officially recognize the Nanjing court as Zhengshuo and help the Nanjing court to protect Shaanxi. He did not say that he would attack the Qing-occupied areas.
But just the official change of flag in Shaanxi was enough to trigger a complete and all-out war between the two countries.
Hauge and Wu Sangui soon started fighting each other on the front line of Tongguan. Both sides suffered casualties. It is said that Hauge had the advantageous location, but the Qing army could not achieve quick results.
Wu Sangui's Guan Ning Army is not weak in combat power. The most important thing is that Sichuan's Fang Kongzheng has been closely monitoring Wu Sangui's actions.
After the outbreak of the Northern Front, he also temporarily moved his yamen from Chengdu to Hanzhong in order to obtain first-hand information on the war situation as soon as possible. Discovering that Wu Sangui had truly abandoned the secret and turned over to the bright side, and spent a lot of money to fight with Hauge, Fang Kongzhen ordered Qin Liangyu to bring down the enemy three years ago.
The original bandit Yuan Zongdi who surrendered was also sent to Guanzhong to assist Wu Sangui in the battle, and could be temporarily under Wu Sangui's control.
Of course, Fang Kongzhen had a good grasp of the supply speed of reinforcements and armaments. Basically, it would not cause Wu Sangui to become stronger and bigger as the war progressed. It was just that Wu Sangui would make up for the loss, allowing Wu Sangui and Hauge to slowly
Consume.
And Fang Kongzhen's reasons are also very good: the road to Shu is difficult and transportation is not easy. It is good to be able to supply at this speed. No matter how many people are brought in at once, Wu Sangui's grain reserves in Xi'an will not be able to last until the spring famine next year, right?
The infrastructure conditions of the Shu Road meant that Fang Kongzhen could only provide troops, ammunition and arrows, and it was impossible to rely on Hanzhong for food rations. As much food as Wu Sangui himself could only maintain the number of living people in the Guanzhong Plain at the same time.
…
After the war on the Western Front began and the stalemate entered, the Ming and Qing Dynasties were completely separated from each other.
Of course Dorgon knew that the western front was not a decisive place. The road conditions were too poor and it was too far away from the heart of the country.
What can really have the final say is the front lines in the middle.
Therefore, within just half a month after Wu Sangui pulled the flag, the Qing army launched another offensive in Xinyang and Fengyang.
The Nanyang and Xinyang front lines were still commanded by Azige, the commander-in-chief of the army three years ago, and launched the offensive on the tenth day of August.
On the Fengyang front line, Abatai and his two sons, Bolo and Yue Le, were responsible for the attack and launched the offensive on August 15th.
In the northernmost area of Huai'an, that is, Suqian, Pizhou, Haizhou and other counties in Huaibei, the Qing army took a defensive position, leaving only the size of the troops required for defense, led by Mandahai.