The chieftain system began in the Yuan Dynasty and evolved from the Jisi system in the Tang and Song Dynasties. It is characterized by "officials of the world, soil of the world, and people of the world", and has hereditary political rule.

Toast is a relatively special existence in the history of our country.

On the one hand, they surrendered to the central dynasty, paid tribute regularly, and accepted appointments from the court. In case of war, the chieftains had the obligation to send troops.

On the other hand, the chieftains maintain a high degree of autonomy. All local affairs are managed by themselves. Their positions are hereditary and they have their own army, which is equivalent to the local emperor in their own territory.

When the dynasty was strong, chieftains balanced the interests of the court and local ethnic groups. Chieftain soldiers contributed to the country and were an important force in the official army. The wolf soldiers in Guangxi and the white pole soldiers in Sichuan were both from the Ming Dynasty. The famous chieftain soldier.

When the dynasty weakened, the shortcomings of the chieftain system became apparent. The central government's ability to control them was insufficient, and the independence and separatist nature of the chieftains immediately emerged.

In the southwest, western Hunan, western Hubei and eastern Sichuan were places where the Qing Dynasty and the Southern Ming Dynasty fought for a long time. The two armies had been stalemate on this line for more than ten years. When the situation was not clear, these places How the toasts choose is quite representative.

The chieftains in western Hunan

The chieftains in western Hunan were the first to submit to the Qing Dynasty. In 1647 (the fourth year of Shunzhi, the first year of Yongli), the most powerful ones in western Hunan were Yongshun, Baojing, and Sangzhi. The three major Xuanwei Departments took effect one after another.

After surrendering, the chieftain of western Hunan was loyal to the Qing Dynasty and immediately fought with the Ming army Wang Jincai and Ma Jinzhong under the command of Nanming Governor He Tengjiao. Yongshun chieftain Peng Hongpeng sent his nephew and more than a thousand crossbowmen to raid the Ming army's camp from the rear, set it on fire, and forced the Ming army to retreat.

In the more than ten years of stalemate between the Qing and Ming armies in Hunan, the chieftain of western Hunan always stood on the side of the Qing Dynasty. Gao Yigong, the leader of the Loyalty Battalion who allied with the Ming army, Li Zicheng's brother-in-law, was attacked by Peng Chaozhu, the chieftain of Baojing, when he was passing through Baojing in the 11th year of Shunzhi, and died of a poisoned arrow.

The chieftains of western Hubei

The chieftains of western Hubei are further away from the front line than those of western Hunan. In the third year of Shunzhi, the Qing army had fully occupied Hubei. Compared with the chieftains of western Hunan, the chieftains of western Hubei were less supportive. Qing Dynasty.

The first person to submit to the Qing Dynasty was Rongmei Chieftain in the twelfth year of Shunzhi. Most of the other chieftains did not declare their surrender and accept the official seal of the Qing Dynasty until the end of Shunzhi and the beginning of Kangxi.

Even the Rongmei chieftain who was the first to surrender could not effectively command the little chieftains under his control. Instead, the little chieftains kept looking for opportunities to counterattack Rongmei, staging a series of small attacks on the big ones.

Eastern Sichuan Chieftains

The choice of Eastern Sichuan Chieftains is different from that of Western Hunan and Western Hubei Chieftains. Most of them are defensive and keep a distance from both the Ming and Qing Dynasties but prefer the Ming Dynasty. .

In the 16th year of Shunzhi, when the Qing army launched a three-pronged attack on Yunnan, seeing the Yongli army retreating steadily, the chieftain of eastern Sichuan still responded to the order of scholar Wen Anzhi and united with the thirteen families of Kuidong to counterattack Chongqing. Trying to contain Wu Sangui and reduce the pressure on Yunnan.

It was not until Yongli fled to Burma and the situation became irreversible that the chieftain of eastern Sichuan surrendered to the Qing Dynasty.

The different political choices of chieftains in various places depend on two aspects: family interests and cultural identity.

Family Interests

He Tengjiao, the governor of the Nanming Dynasty, was stationed in Changsha and occupied most of Hunan. His troops were mainly concentrated in Hunan. The maximum number of Chu troops under his command was 800,000. Even if there was a lot of water, There are also hundreds of thousands of people.

Soon the remaining two groups of Li Zicheng's Dashun Army entered Huguang. They were later incorporated into the Loyalty Battalion by Emperor Longwu, and Huguang added more than 200,000 troops.

Huguang has been in war for a long time. How can one province afford to support so many troops? The Southern Ming Dynasty was wiped out one after another. It has no time to protect itself, and there is no extra money and food to allocate funds.

In troubled times, the common method is robbery, which has been popular from ancient times to the present.

The remnants of the Dashun Army also had the "bandit" gene, and their reputation among the chieftains was not very good, and they were even more boycotted. Wang Jincai and Ma Jinzhong, who were attacked by Yongshun chieftain Peng Hongpeng, were the original generals of the Dashun Army.

The Ming army looted places to make a living, and the chieftains were not immune. Huguang, which once had the largest military force of the Ming army, suffered greatly. As soon as the Qing army arrived, the chieftains in western Hunan immediately surrendered and turned their guns against the Ming army. Fighting is mostly motivated by a victim mentality.

The situation of the chieftains in Western Hubei is more complicated, and they are affected by many forces.

Hubei was controlled by the Qing Dynasty earlier than Hunan, and there was no organized Ming army. One of the reasons why Western Hubei was annexed later is that it was also plundered, not by the Ming army, but by the Qing army.

In the early days of Shunzhi, the Qing Dynasty had to send multiple armies to fight in the north and south, and it also had to receive and resettle the surrendered Ming army. It was equally difficult to raise food and wages, and looting was also a way to raise food and wages, which was no different from the Ming army. To.

However, the Qing Dynasty's advantage was that it won battles. With the expansion and stability of the occupied area, food and wages were gradually provided to the rear.

At the same time, the Qing court realized that it was not supported by the people, and continuing to plunder and plunder was equivalent to digging its own grave. The only way to stabilize people's hearts and resume production was to restore production.

So we quickly adjusted our approach, restrained the generals, and used "accommodating expenditures" to patch things up here and there. We first ensured the supply of food and wages for the army, and also restored order and developed the economy in Huguang.

The Qing Dynasty also had the advantage of unified government orders and strong execution. This was much better than the warlords in the Nanming Dynasty who relied on their own troops and had frequent internal strife. This was the advantage of the system. Even if Nanming wanted to copy the work , and it can’t be done.

Even so, the Rongmei chieftain who was the first to surrender did not surrender until the twelfth year of Shunzhi. There was also a military influence in this? The thirteen families of Kuidong.

The Thirteenth Family of Kuidong was the Loyalty Battalion. After being squeezed out, they retreated to the border area of ??Sichuan, Huguang and Guangdong to jointly resist the Qing Dynasty. They were active in the Sichuan-Hubei border area based on Maolu Mountain.

Although the Thirteen Kuidong families resolutely resisted the Qing Dynasty, there was an embarrassing fact: their military discipline was not strong.

After entering Kuidong, there was neither the official restraint of Yongli nor the restraint of a powerful leader like Li Zicheng. The military discipline of the Thirteen Families was indeed a problem, and it was not uncommon to plunder places to supply the troops. .