The Great Rebel at the End of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 108: The Ins and Outs

In his astonishment, Zhou Lun finally remembered something he had overlooked.

Indeed, historical records show that Li Zicheng was Gao Yingxiang's nephew.

If that's the case, then Gao Guiying, who is Gao Yingxiang's niece, is also Li Zicheng's cousin, right?

When he first met Gao Yingxiang, he even thought about Li Zicheng. However, at that time, Li Zicheng was nowhere to be found, and nobody knew where he was.

For more than a year, he had never heard this name from Gao Yingxiang and Gao Guiying, and as time went on, he gradually stopped thinking about it.

But who knew that things would turn out so coincidentally, and today this Li Zicheng suddenly appeared. Moreover, Li Zicheng wasn't originally called Li Zicheng; his nickname was "Zao'er," and his father named him "Hongji." He chose "Zicheng" himself later.

Zhou Lun didn't initially associate the other party with Li Zicheng at all, until the other party mentioned the name and then he realized it.

Li Zicheng, also known as Li Chuangwang.

This was a famous figure in later generations, and also the gravedigger of the Ming Dynasty.

It was this young man who single-handedly caused the downfall of the Ming Dynasty; it was also because of him that the dynasty collapsed suddenly at the peak of its power, leading to the Manchu conquest and influencing the course of history for nearly three hundred years to come.

A historical figure whose reputation was mixed, and who was even regarded as a profound lesson, was now sitting right in front of him. The young Li Zicheng didn't look particularly special; apart from his somewhat clever eyes, he looked no different from any other young man.

Yet it was he who stirred up the entire world, ultimately leading to the downfall of the dynasty; it was also because of him that the Manchus suffered the humiliation of ruling the Central Plains, causing Chinese civilization to regress and be overtaken and surpassed by the West.

Just as Zhou Lun was surprised by the other party's identity and felt a mix of emotions, Li Zicheng began to explain how he had come to be there.

To be honest, Li Zicheng was quite a troublemaker; he was never a peaceful person from a young age.

Because of his family's poverty, he was sent to a temple to be a novice monk for two years in order to have enough to eat when he was a child.

This scenario sounds familiar, doesn't it? Yes, Emperor Taizu of Tang (Zhu Yuanzhang) was also a monk. Li Zicheng's experience was remarkably similar to Zhu Yuanzhang's. Later, because the temple couldn't support so many people, he returned home to farm.

But his family didn't own much land, so he helped a local landlord surnamed Ai herd sheep, which was similar to Zhu Yuanzhang, except that Zhu Yuanzhang herded cattle while Li Zicheng herded sheep, and the order was different.

When Li Zicheng was a teenager, his mother passed away; two years later, his father also passed away.

After his parents passed away, he lived alone and had a very difficult life. In his early twenties, through the introduction of a fellow villager, he finally found an opportunity to work for the government—as a courier at a post station.

The so-called post stations were the imperial court's postal service and official guesthouses.

Li Zicheng's job as a courier was to deliver official documents, similar to a postman in later times. Now that he was receiving a government salary, he finally had a proper job and was no longer worried about going hungry, and his family's life gradually improved.

In his second year as a courier, he saved up some money, got married, and married a beautiful wife.

Who would have thought that this wife was no pushover? This woman named Han Jin'er was originally a singer. After leaving the profession, she first became a concubine of a local gentry, but later offended the wife and was driven out of the house. With nowhere to go, she married Li Zicheng.

After their marriage, Li Zicheng was often away on work, leaving Han Jin'er lonely and unable to bear the emptiness of the empty house. She began an affair with a man from the village, and while he was away, she became unfaithful and indulged in debauchery day and night. Li Zicheng, unaware of being cuckolded, was not informed until several months later by someone secretly telling him.

Upon learning of this, he was furious and rushed home that very night, where he witnessed the adulterous couple's actions firsthand.

So how could Li Zicheng possibly hold back? He wasn't Wu Dalang; he channeled Wu Erlang's spirit, drew his sword, and charged in to kill the entire adulterous couple.

After the murder, he didn't face any legal trouble. After all, according to the imperial law, it wasn't a serious crime for a husband to kill his adulterer in a fit of rage. Besides, he had a few friends in the government, so after being detained for a few days and fined some silver, the matter was dropped.

After being released from prison, Li Zicheng thought that he should marry a good woman in the future and he should never be greedy for women again. Otherwise, if another woman came along, where would he put his face?

Just as he decided to work hard and save money to find a wife, a devastating piece of bad news suddenly arrived.

The newly enthroned Emperor Chongzhen issued an edict to reduce government expenditures and decided to abolish post stations throughout the country. Furthermore, Li Zicheng, due to his involvement in murder, was among the first to be included on the list of those to be abolished.

Overnight, Li Zicheng, who had been "laid off," lost his job. Without it, and being someone who valued his reputation and loyalty, he didn't have much money left. Moreover, although he hadn't been imprisoned for his previous actions, he had been fined a sum of money, which he had borrowed from a local scholar who had passed the imperial examinations.

If Li Zicheng had continued working as a courier, his job and income would have been stable, and Wen Juren would not have pressed for payment.

But then he was laid off, and naturally, he lost his income. Faced with this situation, how could the scholar Wen allow the money he had lent to go down the drain?

They immediately went to the county government and brought Li Zicheng to court.

Because there was a written agreement, the government naturally ruled against Li Zicheng and ordered him to repay the money immediately. But where would Li Zicheng get the money? So he was taken into custody.

Afterwards, when Wen Juren had repeatedly tried to collect the money without success and was convinced that the loan was going to become a bad debt, he could no longer swallow his anger and decided to give Li Zicheng a good beating.

Even if they couldn't get the silver back, they had to teach him a lesson. After several rounds of torture and heavier shackles, even the tall and strong Li Zicheng couldn't withstand it. If this continued, he'd probably die in prison before long.

At this point, Li Zicheng's brothers and nephew Li Guo decided to risk rescuing him from prison.

These people were quite audacious; taking advantage of the government's laxity, they actually managed to get things done.

Li Zicheng, rescued and covered in wounds, was filled with hatred for the scholar who had so persecuted him. Instead of fleeing immediately, he grabbed a butcher's knife and, with a few brothers, headed straight for the scholar's house. The group stormed in and began a brutal slaughter, ultimately killing not only the scholar but also several members of his family.

Having vented their anger, Li Zicheng and his men looted Wen Ju's house, took some valuables, and fled overnight. After traveling several dozen miles, they gathered together to discuss their next move.

Returning to Mizhi was out of the question, and going anywhere else was probably impossible. After much discussion, they came up with a half-baked solution: head west to join the army in Gansu. This way, they could avoid being caught by the authorities and find a place to stay and eat.

And so, Li Zicheng, along with his nephew Li Guo and several brothers, headed straight west. More than a month later, relying on the valuables he had obtained from Wenju's family, they finally arrived in Gansu. Gansu was even worse off than Shaanxi; it was poor, vast, sparsely populated, and the land was not suitable for growing much grain, making life very difficult.

The border troops were already short-staffed, so officers were more than happy to have people volunteer to join. Besides, who cared about your background in the Northwest? As long as you were a soldier, received rations, and filled a vacancy, that was enough.

And so, Li Zicheng and his men easily joined the army and became common soldiers. To be honest, the treatment in this army was absurdly poor; officers embezzled and deducted from soldiers' pay, and being able to eat their fill was considered a blessing. However, for them, who were fleeing, it was the best place to stay.

Li Zicheng originally thought he could serve as a soldier for some time, at least three to five years, and then find a way to return to Shaanxi once things in his hometown had faded away.

Unexpectedly, things changed after he had been a soldier for less than a year. One day, news came that a rebellion had broken out in Shaanxi, and Yang He, the governor of the three border regions, wanted to transfer the border troops from Gansu to Shaanxi to suppress the bandits. Li Zicheng's unit happened to be selected and was ordered to pack up and set off immediately.

Hearing this, he was secretly pleased, thinking that going back to his hometown this way was not bad. But unexpectedly, after traveling for more than two months from Gansu and finally arriving in Shaanxi exhausted, the situation changed again.

An imperial edict was issued, declaring that the capital was in dire straits due to Huang Taiji's elite Eight Banners troops advancing into the pass. Emperor Chongzhen ordered border troops across the country to rush to the aid of the emperor. As a result, this army, which had just entered Shaanxi and had not yet reached its garrison, directly became one of the armies sent to defend the emperor.

After the order came down, Li Zicheng and his men barely had time to catch their breath before being commanded to march swiftly towards the capital. Moreover, defending the emperor was no different from suppressing bandits; the officials completely disregarded the lives of their soldiers, pushing the troops to their deaths as if they were being relentlessly pursued. Covering nearly a hundred li a day was bad enough, but the real problem was the lack of logistics! Along the way, the local governments provided absolutely no provisions. After more than ten days, with provisions dwindling and nearing starvation, the higher-ups only pressed for orders, making no move to allocate any more supplies.

How could they go hungry? Two days later, the army ran out of food. Their superiors still hadn't resolved the issue, and the local officials didn't take them seriously at all. This caused an uproar within the army.

In an attempt to quell the unrest, the officers directly whipped the soldiers, hoping to intimidate them. However, this backfired and ultimately led to a mutiny. Once the mutiny broke out, the army went on a killing spree. The soldiers, who had been holding back their anger, killed their officers, and even the local officials who couldn't escape in time fell victim to their blades.

After the uproar subsided and everyone gradually came to their senses, they realized that the mistake was irreversible.

Out of fear, most of the soldiers took the gold, silver, valuables, or dry rations they had looted and scattered, taking off their battle coats, changing into ordinary clothes, and fleeing.

Li Zicheng and several of his brothers were among them, but they didn't flee with the others. As natives of Shaanxi, their instinct was to run towards their hometown of Mizhi.

During his escape, he learned about the situation in Shaanxi from the places he passed through, and also learned about the specific news of the uprisings of various rebel armies in Shaanxi during the time they were in Gansu. In particular, when he heard that one of the rebel armies was led by a man who called himself "Chuang Wang" (King of Rebels) and whose name was Gao Yingxiang, Li Zicheng was suddenly stunned. After thinking about it carefully, his eyes suddenly lit up.

Isn't Gao Yingxiang my uncle? Could it be that he has become the leader of the rebel army? Moreover, I heard that Gao Yingxiang not only occupied the Fugu area, but also crossed the Yellow River to the east and entered Shanxi, directly taking over Hequ and Baode counties and several surrounding military forts. His troops are extremely powerful, second only to Wang Jiayin, and he is the universally recognized deputy leader of the rebel army.

Wouldn't it be better to go and seek refuge with Gao Yingxiang yourself than to sneak back to your hometown and hide?

Besides, Li Zicheng considered himself a hero. Now, he was not only guilty of killing a scholar, but he had also killed his superior in a mutiny with his colleagues. He had no way out from the government. If he could follow Gao Yingxiang and try his luck, it might not be a bad way out!