Is Li Zicheng an emperor? This is a difficult question to answer. Generally speaking, as an emperor, he should have a relatively stable period of rule, a relatively stable territory, and a relatively perfect ruling body, and these Li Zicheng did not have. However, it seems that it is not quite correct to say that Li Zicheng is not an emperor, because he did claim the title of emperor, not only changed the name of the country, but also set the era name, and more importantly, he also invaded Beijing and sat on the dragon chair for 42 days.
In ancient times, the invasion of the capital was almost complete, but Li Zicheng was driven out after only 42 days in the capital, which has to be said to be a pity. So, Li Zicheng was emperor for 42 days, what did he do during those 42 days? Four major events sent him to the brink of extinction. Especially the last two pieces, which directly led to his failure, had to flee west from the already occupied capital, losing the last hope of competing for world domination.
On March 17, 1644, Li Zicheng's Dashun army surrounded the capital, and tens of thousands of Ming troops in the camp on the outskirts of Beijing collapsed without a fight. In the early morning of March 19, the Dashun army attacked the capital from The Zhangyi Gate, and the Chongzhen Emperor led dozens of eunuchs to try to break through from donghua gate, Chaoyang gate, and Anding gate, but they were either shot back by random arrows or blocked by the enemy army, and had no choice but to return to the palace. The desperate Chongzhen ordered the eunuch to ring the bell in the front hall to gather hundreds of officials, but no one came, and the indignant Chongzhen helplessly issued a sigh of "not the king of the fallen country, the subjects are all the ministers of the country".
Chongzhen, feeling that there was no hope of escape, forced several concubines to commit suicide, and then ordered his trusted eunuchs to send the three princes to the homes of foreign relatives to hide, and after slashing princess Changping, he stabbed the young Princess Zhaoren to death. After the Dashun army invaded the inner city, Chongzhen, in order to avoid being captured and humiliated, ran to hang himself under a crooked neck tree in Jingshan. Before dying, Chongzhen wrote a suicide note on his clothes, praying to Li Zicheng to "not hurt the people alone."
The Ming Dynasty ruled the world for more than 270 years, although the people at this time had a deep hatred for the imperial court, but Chongzhen as an emperor still had a deep position in the hearts of the people. After Li Zicheng entered the city, the first thing he did was to post a notice to look for Chongzhen, and finally found Chongzhen's body on March 21. According to the normal practice in history, since Li Zicheng wanted to replace the Ming Dynasty, he should bury Chongzhen well to appease the people of the Ming Dynasty. However, Li Zicheng did not do this, but ordered the body of the Chongzhen Emperor to be placed in the Donghua Gate for public display, and later the local people spontaneously buried the body of Chongzhen in the tomb of Tian Guifei.
Relatively speaking, the Qing Dynasty's approach was much smarter, not only reburied Chongzhen with emperor etiquette, but also gave him a nickname. From this point of view, Li Zicheng still did not have enough pattern, his vision was too short-sighted, and he lost an opportunity to win over the remnants of the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, since Li Zicheng's Great Shun Army was holding up the banner of the rebel army, it was definitely necessary to win over the people at the bottom. Therefore, the second thing Li Zicheng did after he invaded the capital was to declare military discipline and strictly restrain soldiers from disturbing the people, so as to avoid ruining the reputation of the rebels. But the capital is a big dye tank, and the rebel soldiers who are accustomed to a poor life are quickly immersed in the beautiful life of the capital after entering the capital, even Li Zicheng, who sits on the dragon chair, is no exception. So it wasn't long before the Da Shun army began to lax its military discipline, the soldiers took advantage of the opportunity to loot, and the people complained.
As early as half a month before Li Zicheng invaded the capital, Chongzhen had already sent an order for Wu Sangui to lead his army into the capital Qinwang, but before Wu Sangui had arrived in the capital, Chongzhen had already hanged himself on Jingshan Mountain. At this time, the Qing army was gathering a large army outside Shanhaiguan, and Wu Sangui had to turn around and return to garrison Shanhaiguan. And Li Zicheng also understood the importance of Shanhaiguan, so he did the third thing after entering Beijing, asking people to take 40,000 taels of silver to appease Wu Sangui, hoping that he could take into account the overall situation and not let the Qing army enter the customs.
Wu Sangui was born in the Liaoxi General Gate family, guarded the border pass for the Ming Dynasty town for many years, and still had some sense of responsibility, so Dolgun sent Zu Dashou to surrender Wu Sangui many times, but Wu Sangui gave him an excuse to resign. Just when Wu Sangui was sandwiched between the Dashun army and the Qing army, and did not know what choice to make, a message from the capital made Wu Sangui firmly throw himself into the arms of the Qing army. It turned out that Wu Sangui's father had been beaten by Li Zicheng's general Liu Zhongmin in the capital, and Liu Zongmin had also broken into the Wu mansion and snatched Wu Sangui's concubine Chen Yuanyuan.
After Li Zicheng entered Beijing, in addition to looking for Chongzhen, appeasing the people, and recruiting Wu Sangui, the fourth thing he did was to "chase after the stolen money and help the salary." The person in charge of this matter was Li Zicheng's general Liu Zongmin, but because Liu Zongmin's methods of action were too vicious, the result was that people were furious, not only damaging the prestige of the Dashun army, but also forcing Wu Sangui to surrender to the Qing army.
In order to complete the task assigned by the king as soon as possible, Liu Zongmin ordered five thousand sticks to be made, and all the Ming ministers who were unwilling to pay money were all punished. Moreover, Liu Zongmin also publicly declared to the outside world, "Those who offer silver in pain and happiness will be released immediately; those who conceal silver and do not donate silver will be served by great punishment." "Those Ming Dynasty ministers were not unwilling to pay money, mainly because they were forced by Chongzhen to donate several times, and they really couldn't come up with so much money, and many ministers were killed by Liu Zongmin to make an example because they really couldn't come up with money."
Among those who claimed to be emperors in ancient history, Li Zicheng should be the most regrettable one, he originally had a great chance to start a new dynasty, but in the end he failed. The reason for this is nothing more than two points, one is that it did not get the support of the Ming Dynasty gentry class, but also because Liu Zongmin forced a donation to offend the gentry class repeatedly, and then there was the failure to recruit Wu Sangui, prompting the Qing army to enter the customs. It was these two points that forced him to a dead end, and after only 42 days in the capital, he was forced out of the capital, and then he went all the way to his death, and finally was defeated and killed at the Nine Palace Mountain.