The History of China - #256 - Qing 2: Greeted As Liberators

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Beijing has been brutally captured, with the Ming emperor committing suicide rather than face the bandit army of Li Zicheng. However, before he can get comfortable, the full might of the Qing are on their way to "liberate" the Chinese empire from, well, the Chinese. What follows is as chaotic as it is lightning swift, as the Manchu hordes, chase the fleeing remnants of the fallen Ming court south to what they pray will be a refuge: Nanjing. Time Period Covered: Apr. 1644- Nov. 1645 Major Historical Figures: Qing: The Shunzhi Emperor (Aisin Gyoro Fulin) [r. 1643-1661] Dorgon, Prince Ruizhong [1612-1650] Ajige, Prince Ying [1605-1651] Dodo, Prince Yu [1614-1649] Prime Minister Fan Wencheng [1597-1666] Ming: The Chongzhen Emperor [r. 1627-1644] General Wu Sangui [1612-1678] General Hong Chengchou [1593-1665] General Zuo Liangyu [1599-1645] General Shi Kefa [1601-1645] Bandit: Li Zicheng [d. 1644] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. The French Revolution set Europe ablaze. It was an age of enlightenment and progress, but also of tyranny and oppression. It was an age of glory and an age of tragedy. One man stood above it all. This was the Age of Napoleon. I'm Everett Rummage, host of the Age of Napoleon podcast. Join me as I examine the life and times of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic

characters in modern history. Look for the Age of Napoleon wherever you find your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the History of China. Episode 256, Greeted as Liberators. Hey and welcome back, everybody, after my long hiatus where I went on holiday to the U.S. and had a great time. It's good to be back, though, and back in the thick of things again. When last we left off, we were at the very tail end of the Ming dynasty as of 1644, ending off with the suicide by hanging of the Chongzhen Emperor, the 16th and final emperor of what we know as Great Ming, although not the last emperor of a state that will call itself Ming,

which we'll get into later on. So today we are going to pick right back up again where we left off, although this time much more from the Qing perspective, as well as the rebel himself, who has just recently conquered the capital, Li Zicheng. So let's launch right in. In late winter of 1644, in Xi'an, the rebel Li Zicheng announced his claim to the mandate of heaven as the Prince of Xun. His troops then swept across the North China Plain in 75 days and took Beijing utterly by surprise. Entering the city on April 25th and discovering the Chongzhen Emperor's suicide three days later, he nevertheless failed to claim the title of Emperor for himself until more than a week later on June 3rd. By then,

however, the tide had effectively turned decisively in favor of the Qing, leaving Li scarcely enough time to set the palace afire and escape westward. In the interim, the people and the imperial officials in Beijing suffered sufficiently to enable them to see the invading Qing armies as instead righteous avengers. So it was that when Prince Dorgon entered the city on June 5th, this was precisely the role that he would play. Li Zicheng had been no better prepared for victory than the Ming court had been prepared for defeat. During the three short weeks that he spent in the palace before marching eastward to try to defend the pass at Shanghai, he tortured the surrendered officials who might have helped him

establish his regime in the provinces, alienated the populace by allowing his soldiers to kill, rape, and plunder, and failed to establish his primacy among the rebel chieftains who followed him to the capital. Hoping to win over the last significant Ming general, Wu Sangui, who had recently moved his forces from north of the Great Wall at Ningyuan through the pass at Shanghai in response to the Ming emperor's call to defend Beijing, Li proceeded to take the general's father as hostage in Beijing. Accounts vary as to what exactly happened next. One story is that Li offered Wu a high command post, but that Wu's delay in response led to his father's brutal execution.

Another story has it that Wu's father got word to Wu that submitting to Li would bring disgrace upon his family, who had remained loyal to the Ming house. In any case, Wu Sangui then submitted to the Qing forces instead. The last week in May, when Li set out with his characteristic bravado to confront Wu Sangui as the last Ming defender, he found himself instead facing the Qing armies. Dorgon's compromise with the now-late Hong Taiji's appointees served him well at this juncture.

With multilingual grand academicians like He Fe and Gan Lin on his side, and with the aid of translators like Song Yi and the others of the inner court, Dorgon had not only the counsel of some of the very ablest Han Chinese statesmen, but of the Chinese classics as well. When news of the fall of Beijing reached the Qing court, Hong Chengchou, the master of rebel extermination and pacification now on the Qing side, urged Dorgon to adopt a policy of pacification himself. Rebels, he said, characteristically advance when they are weak and withdraw when they are strong, seeking only to win and keep treasure. Now that they were in Beijing, they had amassed plenty of loot, and were sure to flee when they saw the Qing advancing against them in strength. If the Qing armies refrained from behaving like rebels in their pursuit of Li Zicheng, taking advantage of their esprit de corps, the solidarity of their leaders,

and the pride and discipline of their troops, the beleaguered natives of Beijing would surely welcome them. He went on to outline a strategy for consolidation of the empire in the northwest, knowing well the strengths and weaknesses of the rebels and the Qing alike. Hong Chengchou's advice, in effect, was to abandon the Khanate's successful strategy of marauding for land, loot, and slaves for its clients, and now instead realize the powerful potential of the banner forces as the pacifying agents of a sage king. If Dorgon was able to follow this

advice, then he would be that Sage King, or at least the Sage Regent, and Hong would be there to be the minister that he could never quite accomplish under the decadent and decaying House of Ming. The resources commanded by such a ruler would, of course, provide much better for the bannermen than the spoils of war ever could. Hong's advice was seconded by Fan Wancheng, the grand academician who, for the past decade, had been urging caution on Hong Taiji in his pursuit of this great enterprise. Fan therefore set about drafting letters, manifestos, and edicts explaining the Qing's role as avengers of the now-defunct Ming. One such letter was in response to Wu Sangui.

On May 20th, the Qing court learned of Wu's willingness to ally himself in order to recapture Beijing from Li's rebels. Wu's letter spoke of an alliance between himself as a loyal servant of the departed Ming emperor and Dorgon as the prince of the Northern Dynasty. The Qing were only right in taking up arms against the, quote, ministers who bring disorder and sons who turn thieves, end quote, when the Ming had failed. Now that the previous Ming emperor was dead, the Qing forces were no different from the mass of loyalist forces reported to be rising all over the realm.

If they would join the loyalists' fight against the bandits, a fight in which they'd never been involved, and if they could present themselves as forces of benevolence, righteousness, and peace, then loyal ministers and war-weary people would eagerly welcome Dorgon's occupation of Beijing. Dorgon's reply, drafted by Fan Wancheng, avoided reference to this common heritage of both Wu Sangui and the Manchus as subjects of Ming emperors who were betrayed by bad ministers. Instead, it referred to Nurhaci's grievances against the Ming for not acknowledging responsibility for the death of his father and grandfather. This was why the Manchus earlier had thrice invaded the Ming state, after all. But with the current turn of events, the Qing leadership wished only to bring an end to the

fighting. The Qing state was ready to play the role of righteous avenger, and would gladly accept the services of Wu Sangui in their efforts to establish a righteous and benevolent regime. Wu had referred to the proposed alliance as a restoration, like that of the later Han dynasty. Dorgan's letter used a different historical metaphor, likening Wu Sangui to the ancient statesman Guan Cheng, who had surrendered to Duke Huan of Qi after trying to kill him while in the service of his brother. After shifting his loyalty to the winning side, Guan Cheng was able to help Duke Huan build the strongest state then known in China. If Wu would pledge allegiance to the Qing, he too would be rewarded with wealth and power. While this exchange was taking place,

Dorgon was moving his troops to Shanghai Pass. Reaching the pass on May 27th, he was greeted by Wu, who was by then ready to accept Qing terms. Two days later, Dorgon led his armies through the pass and joined the battle against Li Zicheng. The Qing forces routed the rebels, who returned to Beijing, burned the palace, and fled. The following week, Dorgon and his banner troops occupied the city in the name of the Qing Xunzhe Emperor. To the assembled officials who had survived the ravages of Li Zicheng's regime, Dorgon had a proclamation read. In the words of Fan Wancheng, most likely, the prince vowed to avenge the death of the Ming Emperor and see to it that the imperial tablets were properly arranged and that public mourning was to be properly observed. With this promise, the Qing administration began recruiting officials for the Ministry of Rights.

The mandate of rulership was thus successfully transferred. With the mandate now re-established, the conquest of China began in earnest. Just as Hongcheng Chou and Wu Sangui had predicted, the rebels quickly fled to the hills of northwest China. Before the Qing could claim to have pacified the empire, it would have to finish the job that Hongcheng Chou, Wu Sangui, and others had been engaged in before their transfer to the frontier in 1642. Not only were Li Zicheng and his fragmented allies alive and well, but the cities and towns they did not control all across the north were in the hands of militarized and equally fragmented local elites. Former Ming commanders held sway in important cities like Datong in Shaanxi and Kaifeng in Henan, the ranks of their armies swollen by decades of conflict. Further to the northwest in Gansu,

the Qing faced a frontier hitherto isolated from them by the Mongol steppes. They found communities of Turkic and Chinese Muslims, mobilized during the decade of rebellion and armed with a militantly religious ideology as well. In Sichuan, the rebel Zhang Xianzhong gained control by terrorizing the populace. Between him and the newly established Ming loyalist regime in Nanjing were the armies of Zhou Liangyu, the loyal but near-autonomous Ming general. In the Yangtze Delta and down the southeast coast, privileged literati, protectionist gangs,

and peasant hamlets mobilized for self-defense. Here in concert, they're in opposition to one another. Rice riots turned into political vendettas. Local militias into extortionist gangs. Smugglers into pirates. Separating north from south, spread out along the southern Ming defense perimeter from Kaifeng to Yangzhou, were some half-million soldiers under four defense commands loyal to the Ming prince of Fu in Nanjing. In late June, they were joined by Shi Kefa, the head of the

Nanjing Ministry of War, who moved his capital brigade to Yangzhou to guard against mutiny and to demonstrate the regime's commitment to retaking the north. Before the Qing could face this formidable opponent, it would have to clear its flanks of rebels and win the loyalty of the northern elite. From the day of arrival in Beijing, the Qing announced a general amnesty for former officials and literati. Any official who surrendered would be allowed to keep his current rank. During the summer, Dorgon had appointed as grand academicians Sun Quan, the last Ming prefect of the capital district, Feng Quan, the former Ming grand secretary who was a senior member of the Beijing political elite, and Hong Chengchou, the highly respected advocate of pacification. At this point, Dorgon rescinded his initial order, demanding that former

officials and literati shave their heads in tonsure as a sign of submission when the order encountered resistance. He appointed civilian pacification commissioners, rather than his own bannermen, as governors for Zhili and Shandong, and invited recommendations for official posts from the provinces. He strictly enforced regulations prohibiting rape and enslavement. He abolished the Ming military surtaxes that had encouraged tax resistance, and he reduced the rates by one-half for areas touched by the Qing campaigns, and by one-third for areas that had surrendered peacefully. The pacification strategy succeeded in bringing most of Zhili and Shandong rapidly into the Qing fold. Jiang Xiang, commander of the important Datong Brigade,

assassinated the rebel official in charge and surrendered on July 7th. By autumn, the Qing had governors in Shandong and Shanxi. So confident was Dorgon that he sent a letter to Shi Kefa, the minister of war in Yangzhou, urging him to abandon the southern Ming regime for a princedom in return. Xi responded saying that he would die first, and those were words that he would fatefully stand by when Prince Duoduo led his army south the following spring. The Qing campaign progressed at lightning speed. Not until after the suicidal loyalists of the Yangtze Delta and the Southeast had been crushed did the Qing learn that consolidation would require more than wooing Ming officials,

eliminating princes, and capturing cities. As the new rulers inherited Hongchengchou's problem of the North, they also inherited Xie Kefa's problem in the South. The difficulty in each case was how to pacify local and regional populations who were at this point highly militarized and divided countless ways against themselves as well as the Manchu invaders. It is rather remarkable that the Qing conquerors did not themselves succumb to a similar division. They benefited in this regard from three major advantages. First, the relatively even distribution of military strength among a large number of loyal banner commanders. Second, the relatively even distribution of military strength among a large

number of loyal banner commanders. Second, a solid income base in banner estates and limited expenditures for banner forces. And finally, the very momentum of the campaign itself. There were some 80,000 banner troops ready for service as of 1644, if the general rule of one in three able-bodied enlisted men was followed. About half this number is believed to have taken part in the occupation of Beijing. Wusong Gui commanded some 40,000 Ming troops at the time, while the forces of Li Zicheng are estimated to have numbered some 60,000. During the years of conquest, the banner troops were strictly forbidden to take loot.

Their income was instead assured by the existence of the estates in Manchuria and around the capital, and, while in the field, supplies were managed by support troops from the fighting men's own companies. Since the troops in any given army were drawn equally from each of more than 500 companies, any army of 10,000 would include no more than 20 men from a single company, along with their retainers. Commanders-in-chief of the banners, of which there were a total of 24, and sometimes commanders of the guards' brigade, generally served as field commanders. When two or more such commanders were needed, a general-in-chief would serve as coordinator. When the army returned to Beijing, it was dispersed. Loyalties that had developed in the field did not serve the princes and factional leaders

when they returned to the capital or had disputes. What the Qing lacked in numbers, therefore, it made up for in solidarity and discipline. Dorgon sent Ajiga in pursuit of Li Zhecheng's forces to the west shortly after the occupation of Beijing. He sent Houhui to Shenzhen to prepare an escort for the emperor and to take charge of Qing administration there. Hou He was the banner commander who had exposed the Haoga conspiracy. Haoga himself was reinstated as an imperial prince in the fall of 1644 and placed briefly in charge of the Shandong campaign, but he was soon replaced by Tan Tai and others who'd led the vanguard brigade.

Haogo was given no further command until two years later. Other commanders who had provided essential support for Dorgon in the White and Yellow Banners joined Ajiga and Duoduo in the West. Since occupying defenseless and chaotic Beijing in June of 1644, the Manchu leadership realized that it would have to deal decisively with the rebel armies of Li Zicheng and the general outlawry in northern China. Only then could it contemplate a campaign against the southern regime, for at that point the Manchus were not aware of its foes' political and military weakness. Consequently, during the summer and early

autumn of 1644, their leaders concentrated first on attacking Li's forces in southern Shanxi, and second on subduing scattered rebel bands in northern and eastern Shandong. The Qing armies gradually established a tenuous line of defenses across the plain north of the Yellow River, which since 1465, it should be noted, had flowed south of the Shandong Peninsula. By late autumn, reinforcements had moved into southern Shandong and northern Nanjali to guard against an offensive from the south. In southern Beijali and northern Hanan, they suppressed remnants of Li Jitong's army still active in the area. During this period, certain Ming military personnel at the front offered to

collaborate. Some were actually loyal to Nanjing, some were vacillating, and others were genuinely bent on defecting. The most serious case of defection involved the regional commander of the Kaifeng area, Xu Dingguo. Having achieved some measure of consolidation and having learned of southern Ming conditions, in mid-November, the Qing court decided to launch simultaneous campaigns against both Xi'an and Nanjing. These were to be led, respectively, by Dorgon's elder brother, Prince Ajige, and his younger brother, Prince Duoduo. Subsequently, however, the unpredictable situation in northwestern Henan threatened the success of both endeavors. The strategy was revised. Duoduo was to stabilize the area south of the Yellow River from Luoyang to Kaifeng and then turn to attack Li Zhicheng's strongest defenses

at Tong Pass, while Aljiga proceeded to attack Xi'an from the north, thus pinching off Li's base area on two sides. Duoduo's part of the plan was carried out with dispatch and heroism. Early in January, his forces crossed the Yellow River in northwestern Henan and took Luoyang and all its forts from there east to Kaifeng. They vanquished the rebels and captured or received in surrender several Ming commanders. With his rear secure, Duoro then moved west and penetrated Tong Pass on February 9th after heavy fighting. At that point, Li Zhisheng was forced to abandon the city of Xi'an. Pursued hotly by Ajiga, he fled southwest along the

Shaanxi-Henan border into northern Huguang with an army of perhaps 200,000 men. Duoduo remained behind to complete operations in Shaanxi and northwestern Henan, but shortly after March 11th, he received orders to move on to Jiangnan. In the spring of 1645, Qing forces converged on Li Zisheng's stronghold in Xi'an from two directions. Ajiga's army, having penetrated the Yan'an region from Mongolia, descended on Xi'an from the north. Duoro's forces, having obtained the surrender of the Henan provincial commander Xu Dingguo, were poised east of the Tongguan Pass, the gateway to Shanxi itself. An elite cavalry force, under the guard's commander-general, Tulei, routed Li's troops at the pass. When Ajiga and Duoduo led their armies to Xi'an, Li Jitong fled once again to the south. History isn't black and white, yet too often it's presented as such. Grey History, The French Revolution is a long-form history podcast

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The French Revolution today. Or simply search for The French Revolution. With Xi'an's capture, Dorgon appointed Meng Xiaofang, Governor-General of the Northwest. Meng was a Hanjun military man who had been with the Manchus since 1630. He joined the banner commanders Bai'an and Li Guohan, who were to be the mainstays of Qing power in the Northwest and West for a troubled decade. Doro was named General-in-Chief for the campaign against the Ming regime in Nanjing, and Ajigao was charged with pursuing Li Ziceng through the Han Valley. In response, the Ming court had ordered his best units forward, repulsing the Qing armies and designating new defense areas all along the

southern bank of the Yellow River. But two developments seriously reduced the court's capacity to deal with further Qing challenges, The assassination of Gao Jie and the revolt of Zuo Liangyu. Because he was the strongest and most aggressive of the defensive commanders, Gao Jie had been ordered to advance westward from his headquarters at Suzhou to defend the strategic pass between Luoyang and Kaifeng, and to coordinate his movements with the regional commander, Xu Dingguo. Because Gao had previously fought against Xu, the two had cause to fear and hate

one another. Now, however, both evinced both great amicability and forgiveness. However, on the night of February 8th, 1645, concealing the fact that he'd already joined the Qing, Xu gave a banquet for Gao, at which he had the general murdered. Xu Kefa had depended on Gao to maintain discipline among the forces north of the Yangtze, many of whom had begun their careers, as Gao had, with Li Zicheng, and later surrendered to the Ming. Now, Gao's lieutenants began fighting among themselves for control of his army,

threatening the balance on which the defense of Yangzhou rested. Subsequently, he made his way across the river to the Qing side, his merit in their eyes much enhanced by this act. This threw Gao's large army into a state of rage and confusion. Resentment towards Gao on the part of the other defense commanders and political machinations in Nanjing defeated Xikafa's attempt to re-establish leadership over Gao's men and to keep them at the front. As they came spilling back uncontrolled into Nanjia Li towards Yangzhou, hopes of holding the Yellow River Line were dashed. The Qing defeat of Li Zhecheng in Shanxi augmented the fears of commanders under Zuo Liangyu.

They worried that their ill-supplied and undisciplined troops soon would face a rebel onslaught from the northwest. Moreover, rumors reaching Hu Guang about the purported heir apparent and Madam Tong heightened Zhuo's dislike for the Maran clique. Old, ill, and failing mentally, Zhuo was led to accept as genuine both a letter from their quote-unquote heir calling for aid, as well as the pretext subordinates conjured for moving eastward, in order to rid the court of the hated Ma Shiying. On April 19th, as Qing troops were marching east across northern Hainan and Li Zitong's routed army, pursued by Ajigo,

was pressing on Wuzhong, Zuo launched his own eastward campaign. Zuo did not realize that he had been duped until at Jiujiang, when he was confronted by Viceroy Yuan Zixian, who refused to support Zuo's drive. Troops under both men, disobeying orders, conspired to enter and then pillage the city. His malady aggravated by remorse, Zuo would die within days. His son assumed leadership of the renegade army, which continued downstream, quote-unquote, requisitioning provisions at every point. Ma Shiying and Ren Dacheng were more concerned about Zuo than about the Manchus, whom they believed could be appeased through negotiations. Consequently, just as Qing forces were pressing on Xuzhou and Fengyang, Ma ordered several Ming commanders north of the Yangtze, including Shi Kefa, to move west of Nanjing to halt Zhuo's troops. Although regional

forces in the vicinity of Digang were able to stop what had become little more than a large desultory raiding party, attention and strength were diverted away from the Huai area at a most crucial time. By May 30th, 1645, the main Qing force was arrayed between Yizheng and Guazhou on the north bank of the Yangtze. On the opposite shore, at the juncture of the Grand Canal and the river, substantial Ming forces defended the garrison city of Zhenjiang and the key transport station there. Ajiga had chased Li Zicheng through the Wuchang area into the hills of the northwestern Jiangxi border, where Li was probably killed by villagers in early June. While some Qing troops continued to search for Li, others trailed the Zuo army down the Yangtze, planning to attack it from the rear. But upon reaching Zhejiang in late May, they obtained the surrender of disrupted and

disoriented Ming units in that vicinity without a fight. Taking advantage of darkness and heavy fog, on the night of June 1st, the Qing sent rafts mounted with torches across the river, and caused the Ming side to expend its ammunition on this phantom attack. Meanwhile, a vanguard slipped across the river to the west. When daylight came, the Zhenjiang defenders panicked at the discovery of Qing troops nearby, and abandoned their posts. Thus it was that in just one month's time, Prince Duoduo obtained the surrender of some 138,000 Ming troops who then accompanied him into the siege of Yangzhou. Having set out from Tong Pass on April 1st, Duoduo's army proceeded along three routes, through Hulao Pass, through the Luoyang area and down the Ying River, and over the Lanyang Crossing, east of Kaifeng. After converging at Guide, they divided again to cross the Huai River.

One column went toward Linhuai, another toward Shuyi. The latter column branched again at Shuzhou to send a strong contingent under the Manchu prince, Junta, along the northeastern side of the Yellow River to take Huai'an. The Qing encountered no resistance in these drives until they reached Yangzhou on May 13th. On the contrary, many Ming commanders surrendered and offered their services to the enemy. His army now decimated by both transfers and desertions, Shi Kefa now held Yangzhou with only a small force. The hard-bitten citizens of Yangzhou repulsed the Qing attack and refused Dodo's repeated inducements to surrender. But finally, the city wall was breached by cannon fire on May 20th, and the Manchu commanders, perhaps intending

to set an example for other cities that might think to resist them, ordered a general massacre and plunder of Yangzhou that lasted for ten entire days. Having failed in his attempt at suicide, Xikafai was captured and then executed after refusing once again to submit to Duoduo. He would thus become one of the best-known patriotic martyrs in Chinese history. The massacre at Yangzhou was a warning to the people of the Yangtze Delta. Its meaning was not lost on the officials who surrendered to Doudou in Nanjing itself. Among them was the prominent Hanlin scholar and literary patron Qian Tianyi, a native of Changshu in Suzhou Prefecture. Knowing the stubbornly idealistic spirit of many of his Delta Literati colleagues, indeed, one

who was to lead the suicidal resistance in Jiading City two months later had been a resident tutor of his own son, and of their admiration and support for Si Ka Fa, Qian made a compelling case for surrender to the Qing. In a manifesto that circulated with the Qing pacification commissioners in the lower Yangtze region, He praised Duoduo's troops for their discipline, and appealed to the literati to remember the myriad souls of the people. The case for the Qing as righteous avenger was even stronger now than it had been in Beijing. Prince Dorgon had already seen to the performance of the Rites of Mourning for the late Chongzhen Emperor, and preserved the sanctity of the northern Ming tombs. The banner forces had already destroyed Li Zicheng's army, and the Prince of Fu and all his generals had already surrendered or died. Resistance in Yangzhou had brought terror.

Accepting the Qing mandate in Nanjing would bring peace in the marketplace. The choice, Qian argued, could not be more obvious. Duoduo's march to Yangzhou was startlingly swift. On June 8th, just one year after Dorgon's triumphant entry into Beijing, the southern capital's noblemen and a handful of officials sallied forth to greet his brother, Prince Duoduo, and surrender the city without a fight. Another 100,000 troops were joined under the victors, and their commander marched them up from the Yangtze to Wuhu with the prince, Nikan, to capture the fleeing Ming prince of Fu. Most of the southern literati heeded Qian's advice, but the commissioner, who was sent to the provincial capital of Suzhou, encountered a Ming governor's brigade in retreat. The loyalist

governor, who had failed to defend the Yangtze Crossing, Yang Wanzhong, murdered the commissioner and then fled. Doro encountered by sending a thousand bannermen to occupy the city. In addition, he sent the Beile, Boluo, to Hangzhou, where the naval commander, Cheng Honggui, had headed with another Ming prince. Still, the newly surrendered and less disciplined Han Chinese forces were not deployed. The Ming prince surrendered to Bo Luo, and Cheng sailed southward. On August 14, 1645, Duoduo reported that all the prefectures and counties of the southern capital region had been pacified. Would that such a report were only true. As Qing commissioners returned to Nanjing with seals, maps, and registers,

loyalist literati prepared a siege of Suzhou. Across the towns and villages, fighting broke out among various armed groups. Street gangs, village defense corps, literati retainers, protection racketeers, private armies, and even slaves of households whose privileges were now in doubt. In mid-July, Dorgon made the most untimely promulgation of his entire career. He reinstated the order that Han Chinese in the pacified areas were to shave their heads in the Manchu style to express their acceptance of the Qing mandate of rule. In In response to the Headshaving, or Tonsure, Decree, police officials involved in negotiations over the transfer of authority in the river port city of Jiangyin

went into revolt. The new Qing magistrate was murdered, and the city itself prepared for a defense. Throughout the Delta, literati whose hands were forced began to choose between resistance or suicide. The news of suicides in Suzhou inspired friends in the hinterland. Some went to join the guerrillas preparing the siege of Suzhou. Some contributed money. Some chose suicide themselves. Some moved to regain control of County Yamans. Some warring parties shaved their heads to legitimize the terror that

they would impose upon their enemies, and anyone who shaved their head became a target for terrorists choosing the other side. The literati of Taichung, center of the Great Restoration Society literary and political movement of the 1630s, shaved their heads en masse and employed a local defense court to defend the city against a now hostile countryside. Into the fray, Prince Duoduo deployed the surrendered armies of Liu Yangzuo and Li Chengdong. Liu's troops went to Jiangyin to mount a siege. At that point, resistance was nowhere else in evidence to the Qing agents. Li Chengdong's mission was to occupy the brigade headquarters at Wusong, the defense outpost at the mouth of the Yangtze just north of Shanghai, which he did at the end of July without a fight. In a market town en route,

however, his troops violated some women, a number of whom died resisting the rape. The incident incensed the people and united a number of armed groups in their resolve to expel the northern soldiers or die in the effort. The sudden upsurge of armed resistance further inspired Loyalist Litterati to take the lead. The sudden upsurge of armed resistance further inspired loyalist literati to take the lead. In concert with the guerrilla siege of Suzhou, a small group took control of the city of Jiading, located between Wuzong and Qing reinforcements at Taizong. Others took control elsewhere, and some stormed the bastion at Taizong where the tonsured literati defended. The local head-shaving decree, the rape incident,

the upsurge of resistance, and the guerrilla siege of Suzhou occurred within a single, volatile week. What would follow would be three weeks of bloody fighting. The loyalist siege of Suzhou failed utterly, as the banner troops feigned ignorance and let half the loyalists enter the city, only to trap them inside. Failing to locate their enemy at first, the guerrillas then fell siege to an urban ambush. By the time Li Chengdong reunited his forces and mounted a siege of Jading, he'd lost his brother and many troops. He took vengeance on Jading's populace in a massacre that left some 20,000 dead. Elsewhere, the loyalists were chased forcibly from their positions. Brutalized, the people of the Delta fell once more into fighting amongst themselves.

Li Chengdong joined Boluo at Songjiang, and the two armies moved north to join Liu Liangzuo at the siege of Jiaying. That city fell on October 9th, paying more in blood than all the others combined. Now, the Delta was quote-unquote pacified, but at a cost that no one had ever dreamed. On October 24th, Duoduo, the general-in-chief, returned to Beijing, his mission accomplished. The resistance and massacres at Yangzhou and Jiading became legendary, and would inspire anti-Manchu sentiments as much as 250 years later. To the Qing in 1645, the events spelled the end of any hope that loyalists would grow to accept this new government as a righteous avenger. By using the undisciplined northern Chinese troops, the Qing had made a mockery of the glowing appeals of Wu Sangui, Hong Chengchou, and Qian Tianyi. Not only was peace achieved by mass rape and murder, but the perpetrators of

this evil, men like Li Chengdong and Liu Liangzuo, had themselves begun as rebels. They owed their bloody prizes to their disloyalty, first to Li Zicheng, and then to Si Kefa. Theirs was the revenge of the poverty-stricken, brutalized survivors of war in the north against the dominant, wealthy southern literati. This particular Ming legacy was to weigh heavily on the conquest of the south. And that is where we will leave off today. Next time, we will continue the Qing conquest of what is to be known as the Southern Ming State, and their eventual flight across the strait to an outlying island, up until then at least nominally controlled by the Portuguese and or pirates, known at times as Formosa and at

others, Taiwan. Thanks for listening. you Hi everyone, this is Scott. If you want to learn about the world's oldest civilizations, find out how they were rediscovered, follow the story of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's descendants over 10 generations, or take a deep dive into the Iron Age or the Hellenistic era, then check out the Ancient World Podcast. Available on all podcasting platforms, or go to ancientworldpodcast.com. That's the Ancient World Podcast.