Li Zicheng

On the 21st day of the eighth lunar month in the 34th year of the Wanli reign (1606) (September 22 in the Gregorian calendar), Li Zicheng was born in Li Jiqian Village, 200 miles west of Mizhi River, more than 60 miles away from his old parents in Maoyan (both places are now Hengshan Mountains). Li Zicheng's ancestral home is Li Jiazhan in Mizhi County. There is a village in Dianshi Town, Mizhi County called Li Jiqian Village, and the locals are also called Li Jiazhan. The people in the village have been passed down from generation to generation and are descendants of Li Jiqian. According to the "Mizhi County Annals", "The Mizhi Li surname is divided into the Li family of Tai'anli Erjia and the Li family of Yonghe Shilou. One branch is Tai'anli Erjia, and the Li Zicheng family belongs to Tai'anli Erjia. They migrated from Tai'anli, Gansu before the Ming Dynasty. The other Li family migrated from Shilou County, Yonghe, Shanxi to Mizhi, and the two Li families do not belong to the same clan and family. The Li family of Tai'anli Erjia is a large clan that covers various urban and rural areas of Mizhi." The Li Zicheng family belongs to Tai'anli Erjia and migrated from Tai'anli, Gansu to Lijiazhan before the Ming Dynasty. And this Li Family Station was the place where the Xia tribe of Dangxiang Tuoba Ping lived after moving eastward from Gansu.
During the Tianqi period of the Ming Dynasty, the northern Shaanxi region suffered from consecutive years of famine, and the government's grain shortage did not decrease at all. The Li family's life is very difficult. When Li Zicheng was a child, he was rounded up to become a young monk in a temple, named Huang Laiseng, and lived as a shepherd for a landlord surnamed Ji in his hometown. I lost my mother in my teens, and soon after, my father passed away again. At the age of 21, he volunteered to work as a courier at the Yinchuan relay station, as he had no one to rely on. Not long after, unable to repay the debts of the wealthy gentleman Wen Juren, he was once shackled and severely tortured. Later, with the help of his poor friends, he killed Wen Juren and fled to Gansu with his nephew Li Guo to become a border soldier. At that time, the life of border soldiers was also very difficult, with insufficient food and pay, officers embezzling and withholding military pay, and soldiers often suffering from hunger and cold.
The post station system in the late Ming Dynasty had many drawbacks. In the first year of Chongzhen (1628), Emperor Sizong Zhu Youjian reformed the post stations and streamlined them. Li Zicheng was dismissed due to the loss of official documents, unemployed and returned home, and owed debts. In the winter of the same year, Li Zicheng was sued by the Jurchen Ai Zhao to the Mizhi County government office for not being able to pay off his debts. County magistrate Yan Zibin forced him to swim in the city with weapons and put him to death. After being rescued by relatives and friends, he killed creditor Ai Zhao at the end of the year. Then, due to his wife Han Jin'er's adultery with a villager named Gaihu, Li Zicheng killed his wife again. Two lives were lost, and the government could not ignore them. They could not survive a lawsuit. Therefore, in February of the second year of Chongzhen (1629), they went to Ganzhou, Gansu (now Ganzhou District, Zhangye City) with their nephew Li Guotai to join the army.
At that time, Yang Zhaoji served as the commander-in-chief of Ganzhou and as a participating general of the kingdom. Li Zicheng was soon promoted to the rank of General in the army by the kingdom. In the winter of the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the Later Jin army marched south in large numbers, and the capital was under pressure. In order to protect Beijing, the court urgently dispatched troops from all directions to defend Beijing. The troops led by Li Zicheng, a border soldier from Gansu, advanced towards the capital with the Kingdom of Participating Generals, passing through Jin County (now Yuzhong, Gansu). The soldiers demanded payment, but the Kingdom of Participating Generals refused to pay. So, in Yuzhong (now Yuzhong County, Lanzhou, Gansu), the participating generals of the kingdom and local county magistrates were killed, and the soldiers and civilians launched a mutiny.
After Li Zicheng rebelled, he moved to Hanzhong and joined Wang Zuoguan's peasant army. In the second year of Chongzhen (1629), the Later Jin Dynasty entered the frontier for the first time, causing a shock in Beijing. General Yuan Chonghuan was executed by Emperor Chongzhen Lingchi. In the third year of Chongzhen (1630), Wang Zuoguang was recruited by the Ming court to surrender, and Li Zicheng defected to Zhang Cunmeng (not involved) and served as the captain. In April of the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631), Zhang Cunmeng was defeated and surrendered to the Ming Dynasty in northern Shaanxi. In October, Hong Chengchou officially took over as the Governor General of the Three Borders. Therefore, in the sixth year of the Chongzhen reign (1633), Li Zicheng led his remaining troops to cross the Yellow River eastward and sought refuge with his uncle, Prince Chuang Gao Yingxiang, in Shanxi, known as the "Chuang Jiang". In the same year, Cao Wenzhao led over a thousand troops from Guanning to defeat the peasant army in Shanxi. Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong, and others fled to Henan and were surrounded by multiple Ming armies such as Cao Wenzhao and Zuo Liangyu.
However, in the seventh year of Chongzhen (1634), the Later Jin army entered the border for the second time, and Cao Wenzhao was transferred to Datong to resist the Jin. The besieged peasant army broke through from Wang Pu's position. In June of that year, the newly appointed governor of the five provinces, Chen Qiyu, led his army westward and arranged for the governors of Shaanxi, Yunyang, Huguang, and Henan to encircle and suppress the Han Nan peasant army. Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Luo Rucai, Li Zicheng and other troops saw the Ming army gathering and mistakenly entered Chexiangxia (now Laoxian Town, Pingli County, Shaanxi Province) in Xing'an (now Ankang City, Shaanxi Province). In the canyon lies an ancient plank road, surrounded by steep mountains that are easy to enter but difficult to exit. The only exit was intercepted by the Ming army, and "many horses and grass for livestock died, and their bows and arrows fell off". The situation was critical, and Li Zicheng used Gu Jun'en's scheme to bribe people around Chen Qiyu and deceive the officers and soldiers into surrendering. Chen Qiyu released Li Zicheng and others, sent more than fifty pacification officers, and sent the peasant army back home. As soon as they left the plank road, Zicheng immediately killed the pacification officers and rebelled.
In the eighth year of Chongzhen (1635), Hong Chengchou served as the governor of five provinces and besieged the peasant army, causing them to retreat to Luoyang, Henan. The uprising army of thirteen families and seventy-two battalions, including Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong, Lao Huihui, Luo Rucai, Ge Liyan, Zuo Jinwang, Gaishi Wang, Shi Shatian, Heng Tianwang, Hun 100000, Guo Tianxing, Jiutiaolong, and Shun Tianwang, held the Xingyang Conference in Xingyang, Henan. Li Zicheng proposed the strategy of "dividing troops and directing them, and attacking from four directions". After the meeting, Li Zicheng, Gao Yingxiang, and Zhang Xianzhong led their troops to capture Fengyang in Nanzhili, excavate the ancestral tombs of the Ming royal family, burn down the "Huangjue Temple" where Zhu Yuanzhang had once become a monk, kill more than 60 eunuchs, and behead the defending general Zhu Guoxiang. Due to the competition for the captured eunuchs and drumming instruments in the Fengyang Palace, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong formed a grudge, and Li Zicheng divided his army and headed west to Gansu.
In the ninth year of Chongzhen (1636), Gao Yingxiang was defeated by the newly appointed governor of the five provinces, Lu Xiangsheng, and surrounded in Yangshan District of Yun (under the jurisdiction of Shiyan City, Hubei Province). Gao Yingxiang was defeated in Heishuiyu (now Heihekou, Zhouzhi County, Shaanxi Province) and killed by the newly appointed Shaanxi Governor Sun Chuanting. The remnants of Gao Yingxiang defected to Li Zicheng, who was then promoted as the "King of Adventure" and continued to fight in Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi. In the tenth year of Chongzhen (1637), Yang Sichang gathered 100000 soldiers and increased his salary by 2.8 million. He proposed the strategy of "four heads and six corners, ten sides and a net" to restrict the mobility of the peasant army, and defeated them one by one before finally annihilating them. This move has been quite effective within two years. Zhang Xianzhong was defeated and surrendered to the Ming Dynasty. Li Zicheng was ambushed by Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting in the southern plain of Tongguan, Weinan, and was defeated. He fled with 17 remaining soldiers, including Liu Zongmin, to the Shangluo Mountains in southeastern Shaanxi.
In August of the eleventh year of Chongzhen (1638), Qing soldiers destroyed two walls and entered the pass from Qingkou Mountain (now northeast of Qian'an City, Hebei Province) and Qianziling (now northeast of Miyun, Beijing), launching the fourth entry battle. Yang Sichang advocated for peace with the Qing Dynasty in order to implement his strategy of "pacifying the interior before resisting the outside world", but faced fierce opposition from the Governor General of Xuanda and the Commander in Chief of the Qinwang Army, Lu Xiangsheng, and others. Chongzhen and Zhan were undecided, and Lu Xiangsheng died in battle in Julu, Hebei. After the retreat of the Qing army, Sun Chuanting, Hong Chengchou and others were all transferred to Liaodong to guard against the Qing army, while Li Zicheng was able to catch his breath in the mountains. In winter, Li was stationed at Shenglong Village south of Fushui Pass and married and had children.