Who is Yang Tingjian? Why did he submit to Li Zicheng?

Who is Yang Tingjian? Why did he submit to Li Zicheng?

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng, who was a post soldier, stood out from the ranks of many peasant rebels and became the real gravedigger of the Ming Dynasty. Since the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the Ming army led by Hong Chengchou was defeated outside the Pass, and Li Zicheng defeated Sun Chuanting in Henan. His troops were unstoppable on the battlefield inside the Pass.

Therefore, Li Zicheng formally established the Dashun regime in Xiangyang in the first month of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen. However, Li Zicheng's regime was not recognized by the gentry of the Ming Dynasty. Until Li Zicheng's death, no gentry took the initiative to recognize Li Zicheng's regime. The reason is also very simple. Li Zicheng did not adopt gentle methods towards the gentry.

Since Li Zicheng raised his army, he has relied on looted wealth and food to provide supplies for his troops. All the wealth and food were stolen from the gentry. At least until the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, he had always used Li Zicheng's rebel army, which appeared in the form of rogue bandits, never thought of winning over the gentry class in the past.

Under his command, there are only a few scholars who were forced to join the rebel army due to crimes, such as Niu Jinxing and Li Yan. It is informal, and even writing some inflammatory slogans requires arresting people to write them temporarily.

According to records, Li Zicheng’s peasant uprising army also captured a future Ming Dynasty imperial examination champion to help them write slogans. This man was named Yang Tingjian, a native of Jiangsu. He was originally a civil servant. In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen’s reign, He went to Beijing to take the exam and detoured to Henan to visit old friends. As a result, he was captured by Li Zicheng's peasant uprising army and became a young man.

Because Yang Tingjian was a scholar, he happened to be a talent that the rebels urgently needed. In order to save his life, Yang Tingjian was forced to cater to Li Zicheng and helped the peasant rebels write many anti-Ming slogans, such as "Kill the cows." Sheep, prepare wine and slurry, and open the gate to welcome King Chuang. When King Chuang comes, he will not accept food."

After all, Yang Tingjian was still a serious scholar and was unwilling to commit himself to Li Zicheng. He was just a civil servant with no reputation, and the peasant rebel army did not strictly monitor him. Yang Tingjian found an opportunity to escape and continued to go to Beijing to participate in the imperial examination in the 16th year of Chongzhen.

Yang Tingjian rose to high school in this imperial examination, and was valued by Emperor Chongzhen during the palace examination. Emperor Chongzhen personally selected him as the number one scholar in the imperial examination. Of course, Chongzhen would not know that the number one scholar he personally selected had ever been He wrote many treasonous slogans for the traitor Li Zicheng.

After Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, he tortured and plundered the officials of the third rank and above of the former Ming Dynasty, but left most of the low-level officials and those new to the officialdom untouched, and prepared to reuse them. It was natural for a new scholar like Yang Tingjian to They were taken seriously, not to mention that there was still some affection between them.

What Li Zicheng did in Beijing made Yang Tingjian despise him. He did not think that a rebel like Li Zicheng who did not pay attention to scholars and gentry groups could have a good ending. Therefore, he fled again. It is said that he crawled for three thousand miles. After many hardships, he finally fled back to his hometown of Changzhou. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, he ignored the Qing Dynasty's repeated solicitations and refused to serve the Qing Dynasty until he died of illness. In the fifteenth year of Chongzhen's reign, many people had already seen that the Ming Dynasty was failing.

But after Yang Tingjian was captured by Li Zicheng's rebel army, he still insisted on escaping to take the imperial examination. This was one reason why the Ming Dynasty had not officially perished. The most important thing was that Li Zicheng's consistent extermination of scholars and gentry made him Yang Tingjian regarded him as a thief.

Li Zicheng adopted some gentle methods towards the gentry and allowed his regime to compromise with the so-called landlord class, just like what happened after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs. Maybe Yang Tingjian might have done something for him when he was first captured. Li Zicheng worked for him, but he later refused to accept the Qing Dynasty's recruitment. He was divided into Chinese and foreigners. There was no such barrier between Li Zicheng's rebel army and him. It's just that Li Zicheng never knew the importance of the gentry class and scholars.