"To look at history, we must look at history. Without antecedents, there are no consequences. Only look at the 'name', do not look at the 'real', chew the words, the words of the dead button, that is not called 'rigorous', can only be called 'drilling the horn tip'. The famous scholar and educator Yi Zhongtian wrote in "Three Kingdoms".
Different readers have their own views on the same historical question. "Li Zicheng" is a long historical novel by the famous modern writer Yao Xueyu, describing the historical events of the peasant revolt at the end of the Ming Dynasty. In 2019, the work was selected into the "New China 70 Years and 70 Novels Collection".
In this novel, Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty, has a world-wide mind and a sense of the overall situation and strategic thinking. Some readers can't help but wonder whether Mr. Yao Xueyu's peasant uprising is too glorified. Is Li Zicheng in the work too glorified? This also requires our rational analysis.
I. A long historical masterpiece
The long historical novel "Li Zicheng" consists of five volumes. From 1957, when Yao Xueyu began to write, to August 1999, when all five books were published, a full forty-two years passed. Yao Xueyu himself died in April 1999.
Li Zicheng is a book of about 2.3 million words, which had a great impact as soon as it was published, and won the first "Mao Dun Literature Award" in 1982. Writer Mao Dun once commented that Yao Xueyu was "the first person to fill the gap", because the book "Li Zicheng" reproduced the contradictory nature of the complex transformation of feudal society, and used dialectical materialism and historical materialism to dissect the society at that time.
The novel "Li Zicheng" takes the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng at the end of the Ming Dynasty as a clue, taking the rebel army from weak to strong, turning defeat into victory, successfully overthrowing the Ming Dynasty rule, and resisting the Qing army in the south as the main body, showing the tragedy of the peasant rebel army turning from victory to defeat from multiple angles, multiple sides and multiple levels.
During this period, the scenery of mountains and rivers in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the customs and customs of the land, and the ever-changing historical features were fully revealed. In this work, a series of historical figures such as Li Zicheng and the Chongzhen Emperor are vividly imaged, and the tension and cruelty of the peasant war are thrilling.
In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, after more than two hundred years of rule by the Zhu Dynasty, the country was crumbling and shaky. The peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng was surrounded and suppressed by the Ming governor Hong Chengzu and moved to various places. This Hong Chengzu was a jinshi during the reign of Emperor Chongzhen's grandfather, The Wanli Emperor, and after several years of political participation, he was famous for encircling and suppressing rebel armies.
In the eighth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, Zhang Xianzhong and other leaders of the rebel army gathered in groups to hold a meeting, and Li Zicheng proposed a plan of "dividing the troops and directing the army and attacking the battle in four ways", which was approved by the leaders. Later, Li Zicheng's uncle Gao Yingxiang, the "Chuang General", was killed by the Ming Dynasty, and the remnants of the "Chuang General" defected to Li Zicheng, and Li Zicheng was pushed by everyone to be the "King of Chuang".
Li Zicheng originally planned to renovate his troops in southeastern Longdong, but was betrayed by his subordinates. Originally planning to break through from the vicinity of Tongguan, but was ambushed by Hong Chengyu and others, the rebel army was severely damaged and hid in Shangluo Mountain. During Li Zicheng's stay at Shangluoshan, Hong Chengzuo and others who surrounded and suppressed the rebel army were transferred to fight against the Qing army that had entered the pass, which gave Li Zicheng time to breathe.
In Shangluoshan, Li Zicheng took in the hungry and opened a warehouse to help the people, which won the hearts of the people. During this period, Li Zicheng was beheaded by his cousin for violating the women of the people, and the rebel army was disciplined. During this period, Li Zicheng's army grew from a dozen people who had just fled to ShangluoShan to tens of thousands.
Later, Li Zicheng killed Zhu Changxun, the son of the Wanli Emperor, occupied the whole province of Shaanxi, and established the Dashun regime in Xi'an. Dashun's territory included present-day Shaanxi, Ningxia, Shanxi, and Qinghai. The Dashun army led by Li Zicheng was invincible and invaded Beijing. The Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide and the Ming Dynasty perished.
However, after Li Zicheng moved to Beijing, he did not know how to treat the people well and did not know how to establish a base area. Gradually, the peasant army began to raid homes and plunder in a luxurious manner. The atmosphere in the city was terrifying, and Li Zicheng gradually lost the hearts of the people. Coupled with the wrong use of Niu Venus, the accidental killing of Li Yan and other failed measures, as well as Wu Sangui's surrender to Qing and other incidents, Li Zicheng ultimately failed.
During this period, we saw a heroic figure who was far-sighted, had the concept of the overall situation that other peasant uprising leaders did not have, and was subconscious, and also saw a loser who was deeply trapped in feudal thought and gradually lost the hearts of the people.
Whether the peasant revolt was glorified
How to evaluate the peasant uprising? In many people's minds, peasant uprisings are always impulsive, slightly leading peasants who rise up in rebellion, always lack the strict discipline of a professional army, and always end up in failure because of their short-sightedness.
In the book "Li Zicheng", the character image and the course of events of the peasant uprising do not seem to be as rough and unintelligent as imagined. Is this a glorification of it?
We may have seen a lot of materials, a lot of interesting things, and we know a little bit about the character image. But when we really start to read the relevant books and experience the characters in the description of specific events, we will find that the important figures of the peasant uprising have flesh and blood and distinct personalities. These characters gradually became three-dimensional, no longer the flat characters in the story.
Even, in many people, we can find their shadow. At this time, the vague impressions and stereotypes before understanding the specific events will definitely be completely broken after reading and a new side will be revealed.
In addition, for the description of the peasant uprising, it is also necessary to distinguish who the narrator is and what the background of the narrative is. In different dynasties and different social contexts, different people say the same thing differently.
Different statements, sometimes with subjective or objective reasons. If you turn a deaf ear to its purpose and background, and only extract some of the sentences, it is suspected of taking them out of context, and it is likely to cause unnecessary misunderstanding of the description.
In this way, we can see that the huge historical works have undergone a long writing process, and their output is extremely difficult. What really happened at the end of the distant Ming Dynasty?
The birth and death years of the characters, the names of the Zhu family's imperial lineage, temple numbers, nicknames, era numbers, reign times, etc., these numbers and nouns can achieve relatively rough accuracy, but what happens in the process is not familiar with a few interesting things of the characters can be completely connected.
Take the words of each family, carefully examine, or gradually feel a closer pattern. We know that although the black and white words can no longer be changed, the events and characters recorded are fluid and changing. Veterans who have made meritorious contributions and guarded the frontier also have situations in which they cannot return to their posts due to corruption and corruption.
The borders of "foreigners" and the Ming Dynasty were constantly in conflict, but the plundering and exploitation of the "natives" by the Ming officials and gentry could not be ignored. The chongzhen emperor of the last generation of the Ming Dynasty also wanted to unite the Forces of Houjin and go all out against the peasant army.
In the face of the complex and changeable form of the late Ming Dynasty, the significance of the peasant uprising is difficult to summarize in three or two sentences. If you can generalize this way, is the development of events too linear?
3. Walking with historians
It is true that many history lovers will be attracted by the ups and downs of historical anecdotes, as well as the crisscrossing characters, and by the vivid historical film and television works on the silver screen. In these stories, we feel as if we are in various dynasties and have experienced different lives several times.
But in the era of fragmented information epidemic, we can often only extract fragmented information and hear the words of a family. Although many contents refer to relevant historical facts, there are still defects that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, due to time constraints, a lot of content focuses on throwing out ideas and providing corresponding basis.
These factors have invisibly limited the display of the whole picture of history. But in the eyes of knowledgeable readers, there are inevitably loopholes in these views and contents. Although excellent martial arts novels are fictional, they cannot arbitrarily distort the big joints of the historical background.
If Li Zicheng is written as useless according to his personal wishes, or if he has the revolutionary mind of the new era and the style of a proletarian revolutionary, it is really misleading for the reader.
There are vast historical documents, and there are many generations of historical researchers who are well-educated, deep-rooted, and honest in their articles. Reading the texts of these historians, starting from the most understandable works, must have a different scenery.
For history buffs, whether they have a professional background in history, whether they are entering or exporting, we can pick up the dynasties of interest in countless history books and wander freely.
But the more we come into contact with historians, the more we can find our own understanding of a certain issue; the more we come into contact with the views of other readers, the more we can understand the choice of perspectives in different intellectual contexts. For the same question, another reader may quote from a perspective that we have not thought about.
Did Yao Xueyan's "Li Zicheng" really glorify the peasant uprising? What is the place of peasant revolts in history? Why do peasant uprisings always fail? Many problems are waiting for us to continuously improve the old knowledge on the road of walking with historians.