Li Dingguo

Li Dingguo

Li Dingguo (1621-1662), a famous general of Yongli regime in the Southern Ming Dynasty, was born in Yulin (or Yan'an), Shaanxi Province.

Li Dingguo was born in a poor peasant family. In 1630 (the third year of Chongzhen), Zhang Xianzhong launched a famine uprising in Northern Shaanxi. He took Li Dingguo as his adopted son and changed his surname to Zhang. From then on, he followed Zhang Xianzhong to fight north and south.

As an adult, Li Dingguo was brave and good at fighting, and was loved by Zhang Xianzhong. At the beginning of 1652 (the sixth year of Yongli and the ninth year of Shunzhi in Qing Dynasty), Li Dingguo sent 80000 troops to attack Hunan after full preparation. They first took Yuanzhou (now Qianyang, Hunan) and Jingzhou (now Shaoyang, Hunan), then attacked Guilin, Guangxi and defeated the Qing army, forcing Kong Youde, the commander of the Qing army and king of Dingnan, to commit suicide. At the beginning of July, Li Dingguo occupied Guilin, then went down to Liuzhou, Hengzhou and other four states, and his troops pointed to Changsha. The Qing government was shocked by the news and sent 100000 more troops to help. In order to avoid the spirit of the Qing army, Li Dingguo temporarily withdrew from the periphery of Changsha and retreated to Hengzhou. Ni Kan, the commander-in-chief and Prince of the Qing army, led the army to pursue. Li Dingguo set up an ambush to encircle the Qing army, and attacked on all sides. The Qing army collapsed. Ni Kan was cut off and the whole army was annihilated. Li Dingguo's victory in Guilin and Hengyang opened up a new situation in Nanming's struggle against Qing Dynasty.

In 1661 A.D. (the 15th year of Yongli and the 18th year of Shunzhi), a hundred thousand troops of Wu Sangui of the Qing army entered Myanmar and forced the king of Myanmar to hand over Yongli emperor. The following year, Wu Sangui hanged emperor Yongli in Kunming, and the Southern Ming Dynasty ended. Li Dingguo died of illness in Mengla (West of Lancang River) in June 1662, when he was 42 years old.

At present, Yunnan people still regard Li Dingguo as the backbone of central Yunnan. During the uprising of the revolutionaries in the late Qing Dynasty, Cai E and others still take Li Dingguo as an example. Zhang Binglin said, "may we Yunnan people never forget Li Dingguo!"

Life of the characters

Early experience

Li Dingguo, whose name is Hongyuan (or Ning Yu, Lin Yu, Yi Chun, Da Shou), was born on June 11, 1621 in Yan'an, Shaanxi Province. In 1630 (the third year of Chongzhen), Li Dingguo, who was only ten years old, joined Zhang Xianzhong's uprising army. Zhang Xianzhong saw Li Dingguo's extraordinary appearance and adopted him as an adopted son. Zhang Xianzhong has four adopted sons. The eldest is sun Wangwang, followed by Li Dingguo, and the third and fourth are Liu Wenxiu and AI nengqi. From then on, Li Dingguo followed Zhang Xianzhong.

In 1637 (the tenth year of Chongzhen reign), Li Dingguo, 17, led his troops to attack Henan and Hubei with Zhang Xianzhong. In February 1641 (the fourteenth year of Chongzhen), he disguised himself as an official of the Ming army. Together with 20 light cavalry, he rushed to Xiangyang City overnight and occupied Xiangyang. Yang Sichang, a Bachelor of the Ming governor's Normal University, saved more than 100000 military funds, all of which were obtained by the peasant army. The great victory of Xiangyang was the turning point of Zhang Xianzhong's uprising army's victory.

In November 1644 (the 17th year of Chongzhen), Zhang Xianzhong officially established the Daxi regime in Chengdu. Li Dingguo was appointed as the general of Anxi and supervised 16 military barracks. At that time, Li Dingguo was only twenty-four years old. He was eight feet tall, handsome and well-known for his tolerance and kindness in the army. He was the leader in the war and was extremely brave. He was known as "little Wei Chi" or "enemy of ten thousand people". He was a brave and intelligent general in the West army.

Since the Qing army entered the pass, the national contradiction began to rise to the main social contradiction. In August 1646 (the third year of Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty and the second year of Longwu reign of the Ming Dynasty), Zhang Xianzhong led 500000 troops from the west to fight against the Qing Dynasty. Dingguo led his troops to fight against the Qing army and killed Gu lang'a and bayan'a, the captains of the Qing army. Unfortunately, Zhang Xianzhong died on November 27 when he was shot and killed by Fenghuang. General sun Wangwang, General Li Dingguo, General Liu Wenxiu and general AI nengqi collected thousands of remnant troops and more than ten thousand people from their families during the crisis. They quickly went south from Shunqing (today's Nanchong City) and drove hundreds of miles a day and night to save some of their living strength. In December, the Daxi army arrived in Jiangbei, Chongqing, and Zeng Ying, the commander of Nanming army, led his troops to block the attack. When the peasants' Army ran out of grain for more than ten days, they rushed across the Yangtze River and killed Zeng Ying, causing the collapse of more than 100000 disabled Ming army. In Chongqing, the four generals executed Wang Zhaolin, the Prime Minister of the left, who instigated Zhang Xianzhong to kill soldiers and civilians in vain and had long been a source of hatred in the army, and took advantage of the victory to reach Qijiang. The four generals preached to the battalions: "we should all work together to help the young master and achieve great things", which improved the morale of the battalions Each camp is "natural". The Great Western army began to develop from adversity.

Pacify Guizhou and Yunnan

In the first month of 1647 (the fourth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty and the first year of Yongli in the Ming Dynasty), the Daxi army marched into Guizhou. In March, Lianke, Guiyang, Dingfan and Yongning, as well as the counties in the west of Guizhou, came down.

In Guiyang, the four generals discussed the way out and strategy of the Great Western army in the future. Sun Wangwang advocated that if there was a crisis, he could go to sea. Li Dingguo would help Nanming and restore the great Ming Dynasty. Zhang Xianzhong's attitude towards the Ming Dynasty has changed since the Qing army entered the pass. On the eve of going north to resist the Qing Dynasty, he once said to the Ministry: "the three hundred year old Ming Dynasty is the orthodox of China. It is the will of heaven that he did not perish. After I die, you should submit to the Ming Dynasty and do nothing unjust. "The defeat of the Great Western army also made Li Dingguo feel that he had made a mistake against the Ming Dynasty. At this time, Li Dingguo wanted to surrender to the Southern Ming Dynasty and restore the regime of the Ming Dynasty. Sun and Li argued with each other. Li Dingguo said angrily," if you have the ability, go by yourself, don't pull me on the back. "So he pulled out his sword and stabbed himself. The generals seized the sword and immediately tore a flag to wrap it. They also agreed to obey Li Dingguo's orders. When sun Wangwang saw this, he had to withdraw his own opinions. The four generals set up an altar to pledge to restore their original surnames. They respected sun Wangwang as the leader, and the trend of uniting the Ming Dynasty and resisting the Qing Dynasty began to take shape.

At this time, Yunnan was in the chaos of sadingzhou, the chieftain of amizhou, and Mu Tianbo, the Duke of Guizhou in Ming Dynasty, fled Kunming. As long Zaitian, the deputy general, met sunwang when he feigned surrender in zhangxianzhong's Gucheng, he sent someone to sunwang for help and said, "if you Xingyi division come to attack, Yunnan Province can win." The fourth general thought that this was a good opportunity to expand the territory under the jurisdiction of the peasant army, so he sent troops to Yunnan in the name of revenge for the Duke of Guizhou. Hearing the news, Sha Ding Zhou was terrified and fled south from Kunming.

In April 1647 (the fourth year of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty and the first year of Yongli in the Ming Dynasty), the Great Western army entered Kunming, and all the people in the city came out to meet it. The four generals constantly divided the way to calm down, convinced Mu Tianbo to unite with the peasant army, and announced: "to assist the king of Qin and restore the Ming Dynasty.".

In August, four generals shared the same title in Kunming. Sun can be called Ping Dong Wang. Li Dingguo said that the king of Xi, Liu Wenxiu called the king of Fu Nan, and Ai Nengqi said that the king of North King still maintained the tradition of the peasant army. Every time he met with a major event, four people sat side by side, and all the soldiers and soldiers of the camp were has the final say.

Sun is expected to expand his personal ambition as his status improves. Ren He, the Ming Imperial censor, threw himself in his favor and said to sun Wang, "general sun, it's better to be the head of a country, set up hundreds of officials, issue coins, and issue new year's number." Sun Wang was very happy when he heard that. However, Li Dingguo despised this practice very much, and every time he said this, he was very conflicted. Sun Wangwang and his confidant Wang Shangli planned to subdue Li Dingguo and establish personal authority. On the first day of April in 1648 (the fifth year of Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty and the second year of Yongli reign of the Ming Dynasty), all the troops went to the military arena to gather together. Li Dingguo entered the arena first, and the military saluted and raised the commander-in-chief flag according to the custom. Sun Wangwang accused Li Dingguo and said, "you don't pay attention to me on weekdays. "Then he issued an order to punish Li Dingguo for his 100 military staff. Li Dingguo said angrily, "you and I are brothers, but there is no commander in chief for the time being. I respect you as the Lord. Why should I count on you. "In order to prevent secession, Bai Wenxuan, the former military governor, hugged Li Dingguo from behind and said," please bear with General Li for the time being. If you leave, the army will be divided and we will be taken advantage of. "Li Dingguo was reluctantly blamed, and the generals pleaded for mercy before he was blamed by the staff. After the fight, sun Wangwang hugged Li Dingguo and wept bitterly, saying, "I'm doing it for the sake of righteousness. I hope my younger brother doesn't bear grudges. In the future, we will be of one heart and one mind. "In order to maintain the unity of the Great Western army, Li Dingguo endured this insult, and then asked for an order to pacify shadingzhou. “

In May, AI nengqi, king of Dingbei, died in the battle of conquering Dongchuan. He was recruited by sunwang. In August, Li Dingguo and Liu Wenxiu broke through the shazhai village and captured shadingzhou alive, making it completely flat in eastern Yunnan. When the army returned to the army, Mu Tianbo "immediately gave thanks". The local people hated him because of the usual cruelty of Sha Dingzhou. They all applauded when they heard that he had been killed.

As the four generals implemented the policy of resuming production in favor of the people in Yunnan, the Yi, Bai, Zhuang, Dai and other ethnic groups joined the army one after another. The Great Western army expanded to more than 200000 people, and a new armed force, the elephant troop, was added. Li Dingguo alone has more than 50000 people. Great progress has also been made in production. In those years, there was a great harvest and the army and the people lived in peace.

South to the West

Zhang Xianzhong once fought against the Qing army in the west of Liaoning Province and served as a small flag. Therefore, he imitated the lighting army and established the governor's office of the Fifth Army, with sun Wangwang, Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu and AI Qineng as the four generals. Zhang Xianzhong was sniped by the arrow of Eight Banners in the battle of Fenghuang mountain. After that, the military activities of Daxi army were mainly carried out by Si Yizi. Among the four kings, AI Qi can make friends with sun Wang, Liu Wenxiu is the peacemaker, and Li Dingguo doesn't agree with sun Wang. The three kings of sun AI and Liu once negotiated to hunt for opportunities in the school yard and beat Dingguo violently, so as to build up the army's prestige. Who would like to think that although the surface of Sun Li reconciliation, but the two hate is growing. When AI Qi can be poisoned and killed, AI Qi can take over Feng Shuangli

Chinese PinYin : Li Ding Guo