A Brief History of the Tujia — The Tujia Under Yuan, Ming, and Qing Tusi Rule (III)
III. Tujia Struggles Against Feudal Oppression and Exploitation from Yuan to Early Qing: From the Yuan and Ming dynasties to the early Qing, Tujia resistance against feudal central court rule surged repeatedly and continuously, with many instances recorded in historical texts. These struggles included tusi resistance against central court control as well as the broad Tujia people's resistance against exploitation, enslavement, and ethnic...
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III. The Tujia People's Struggles Against Feudal Oppression and Exploitation from the Yuan to the Early Qing Dynasty
From the Yuan and Ming dynasties to the early Qing dynasty, the Tujia people's struggles against the rule of the feudal central dynasty rose one after another in an unbroken succession, and no small number are recorded in historical texts. Among these struggles, there were struggles by native officials against the control of the central dynasty, and also struggles by the vast Tujia people against exploitation, enslavement, and ethnic oppression, and these two types of struggles, different in nature, were often interwoven with each other.
Between the native officials and the central dynasty, there was mutual dependence and mutual exploitation, as well as numerous contradictions and covert strife. The native officials were local emperors who "ruled their own territory as kings," and on the question of unification versus separatism, there had always been a struggle for control and counter-control with the feudal central dynasty. Whenever the central dynasty underwent a transition between old and new and was unable to maintain control, the native officials often took the opportunity to raise troops, striving to throw off control, expand outward, and enlarge their jurisdictions; when the central dynasty controlled too strictly, the native officials would also rise in defiance and oppose control. At the end of the thirteenth century, Mongol aristocratic armies moved south, carrying out armed conquest of the peoples of the south and meeting strong resistance. In the twelfth year of Zhiyuan of Yuan Shizu (1275), the Yuan court, with powerful military force as its backing, adopted a pacification policy toward the ethnic minorities in the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou. The native officials of various sizes in the Tujia areas expressed submission and obedience to Yuan rule. Because the Yuan dynasty implemented tight military control and pursued a policy of ethnic oppression, it also aroused continuous resistance from the Tujia people.
(I) The Tujia People's Struggles Against the Yuan
From the eleventh year of Zhiyuan (1274) to the twenty-ninth year (1292), Yuan Shizu Kublai Khan repeatedly used troops abroad. The native officials in the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou, taking advantage of the Yuan dynasty's depleted forces and weakened control in this area, rose in continuous resistance. In the nineteenth year of Zhiyuan, Xiang Shixiong and his brothers of Chaba Dong, together with the Tujia people of various dongs including Sanmao, resisted Yuan rule. The Yuan dynasty dispatched Yixi Buxue from the Sichuan province to lead troops to pacify them, and only then was it quelled. In the twenty-first year of Zhizheng of Yuan Shundi (1361), the Tujia, Miao, Yao, Dong, and other peoples in "the region south of Si and Bo, and the borders of Shi, Qian, Ding, Li, Chen, and Yuan" erupted in a mighty anti-Yuan struggle. Qin Shun of Sanmao and Dapan dongs, Shiyong of Shangmu, and others raised troops against the Yuan. Xiang Shixiong of Chaba Dong led the native people to attack Lizhou, and Tian Wanqing, native official of Baiya Dong, and Meng Zaisi, native official of Nanmu Dong, attacked Chenzhou, posing a great threat to Yuan rule in this region. The Yuan court immediately dispatched Sichuan Nandao Xuanwei Li Ji Hulan, Canzheng Quli Jisi, Qiansheng Baba, and Zuocheng Wang Weizheng to lead Yuan troops from Sizhou, Bozhou, Kuimen, and other places in four routes to suppress them. Facing the large-scale attack and cruel suppression by the Yuan army, the vast Tujia, Miao, Yao, and other peoples were unafraid. Using crude weapons of "wooden crossbows and bamboo arrows" and relying on the advantageous mountainous terrain to "set ambushes at strategic passes," they seized opportunities to kill and wound Yuan soldiers. In the end, because of insufficient
In the final years of the Yuan dynasty, the political corruption of the Yuan court reached its extreme, class contradictions and ethnic contradictions were extremely sharp, and the social crisis worsened by the day. By the early years of Shundi, small-scale peasant uprisings had already spread throughout the country, and the Tujia people, together with the people of the whole country, participated in the mighty anti-Yuan peasant uprising. In the fourth year of Zhizheng (1344), the Tujia people of Sanmao Dong were the first to rise against the corrupt rule of the Yuan dynasty. In the sixth year of Zhizheng, the native official Qin Zaiquan of Sanmao Dong rose in resistance again. By this time, the Yuan court no longer had the strength to send troops to suppress them and could only adopt a policy of pacification. Both struggles ended with the native officials being pacified and surrendering.
In the eleventh year of Zhizheng (1351), the Red Turban Army's great anti-Yuan uprising broke out. Within just a few months, uprising banners were raised everywhere between the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and the Huai River regions. In the twelfth year of Zhizheng, the native official Xiang Siyong rose in rebellion at Lizhou, operating in the Cili and Shimen area. Two years later his power grew increasingly strong, and he joined forces with Xia Kewu to attack Shimen county town. This uprising, because it fought alone without support from other rebel armies, was finally cruelly suppressed by the landlord armed forces organized by Deng Junzhong. In the twentieth year of Zhizheng, during Chen Youliang's occupation of Hunan, he received strong support from the Tujia people in the Sangzhi, Cili, and Shimen area. Many Tujia and Miao people joined the Red Turban Army, and thus Chen Youliang's power grew increasingly strong. At the same time, when Ming Yuzhen raised troops in Sichuan, he not only received the support of the vast Tujia people in the Youyang and Shizhou areas, but the native officials and native officers of these areas—some of whom had contradictions with the Yuan rulers, and some of whom were overawed by the power of the peasant army—were successively given important posts by Ming Yuzhen, granted seals of office, and joined the ranks of the peasant struggle. The Tujia people's participation in the great peasant uprising dealt a heavy blow to the Yuan dynasty, causing the Yuan court's rule in the Huguang and Sichuan areas to collapse. After eliminating the forces of peasant uprisings in various places, Zhu Yuanzhang led his troops northward, thus ending Yuan rule and establishing the Ming dynasty.
(II) The Tujia People's Struggles Against the Ming and Qing
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Yuzhen regime, entrenched in a corner of Sichuan, relied on natural defenses to carve out a separatist domain and refused to submit to the Ming court. The tusi and native officials of Youyang, Shizhu, Cili, Rongmei, Shizhou and other places, who had accepted titles and offices from Ming Yuzhen, also remained loyal to his regime and opposed the Ming court. In the first year of the Hongwu reign of Emperor Taizu of Ming (1368), the Cili native official Qin Hou, using Maogang Fortress as his base, joined forces with native officials of other dong to resist the Ming, and occupied areas such as Jinchangping, Liangshuikou and Zhuyeping in present-day Sangzhi. Native officials at Rongmei, Sanmao and Houxi of the Youyang Office also rose in succession against the Ming. In the early fourth year of Hongwu, the Ming court, on one hand, sent the General of the Western Expedition Tang He and his deputy Liao Yongzhong to lead a naval force along the Yangtze toward Chongqing, while Fu Youde led infantry and cavalry from Shaanxi and Gansu into Chengdu, to eliminate Ming Yuzhen's separatist forces; on the other hand, it ordered Yang Jing, the Pingzhang of Huguang, to dispatch troops to Lizhou to suppress Qin Hou and force the tusi and native officials into submission by military means. Yang Jing led his troops to Yangshan Pass, but because of the high mountains and dangerous obstacles, could not advance, so he sent envoys to induce surrender. Qin Hou killed the envoys and refused to surrender. The Ming court then ordered Zhou Dexing, the Marquis of Jiangxia, as General of the Southern Expedition to lead a large army to attack, breaking through Fulong Pass and Wentang Pass, capturing Maogang Fortress. Qin Hou was defeated and fled, and Cao Liangchen, the Marquis of Yining, captured Rongmei Dong.
In the fifth year of Hongwu, the native officials of Jiuxi and Sanmao again rose against the Ming. The Ming court ordered Deng Yu as General of the Southern Expedition, with Zhou Dexing and Wu Liang as deputy generals, to divide their forces and attack. Wu Fu, the commander of Anlu, attacked Jiuxi and captured forty-eight dong including Shixi, Chixi and Anfu; Deng Yu attacked Sanmao and captured thirty-six dong. Qin Yewang, the Chief Marshal of the Sanmao Xuanwei Office, handed over the seals and credentials granted by Ming Yuzhen. After suppressing multiple native official rebellions over five years, the Ming Dynasty further improved the tusi system. Those who had participated in resistance but were willing to obey Ming rule were appointed to office, or appointed to demoted posts, and granted seals and credentials, allowing native officials to continue their rule. At the same time, in present-day Zhangjiajie, the Shanyang Guard and the Qianhu Offices of Tianping, Anfu and Maliao were established to guard against tusi rebellion.
Along with the strengthening of Ming control over the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and Guizhou, the tusi struggle against control grew increasingly intense. In the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381), the native officials of the Shuijinyuan and Tongtaping Zhangguan Offices under the Sanmao and Rongmei tusi rebelled against Ming control. Native official Qin Fang and others led native soldiers to besiege Shizhou City. The Ming garrison's grain ran out, the city fell, and the prefect, assistant prefect, and secretary were killed. Zhou Dexing and Mei Sizu led Ming troops to suppress them and established the Shizhou Guard with troops stationed for defense. In the twentieth year of Hongwu, Xia Dezhong, a native qianhu of the Anfu Office, launched a large-scale struggle against Ming control. Xia Dezhong joined forces with native officials of the Jiuxi area to capture Shizhou City and kill the prefect. In the twenty-second year of Hongwu, he again led native soldiers from various dong to capture Shimen and Cili counties in succession, dealing a heavy blow to Ming rule in this region. The tusi of Sanmao, Zhennan, Dawang and Shinan then rose in rebellion, closely coordinating with Xia Dezhong and echoing him from afar, creating a mighty momentum that shocked the Ming court. The Ming court immediately dispatched Lan Yu, the Duke of Liang, Ye Sheng, the Marquis of Jingning, Hu Hai, the Marquis of Dongchuan, and Zhou Dexing to lead more than a hundred thousand troops to suppress them. Hu Hai's army occupied Jiuxi and captured Xia Dezhong and Liu Guhu in the Liugubei Cave at Tianhuo Ridge in Zhangjiajie, sending them to the capital for execution. He then returned to Heshan and massacred more than a thousand native soldiers. Then he divided his forces into two routes to attack Shizhou: Hu Hai led troops from western Hunan to attack Sanmao, and Lan Yu attacked Shizhou from Hubei. The various dong of Sanmao were captured. Qin Dawang, the Zhangguan of Lare, and others were captured. The Shinan and Zhongjian tusi retreated to Longkong Fortress and held out relying on its natural defenses. Lan Yu ordered commander Xu Kai to lead troops in a strong assault, broke the fortress, captured Qin Dasheng, the Xuanfu of Shinan, killed over 1,800 people, and sent 820 people including Qin Dasheng to the capital. Qin Dasheng was executed, and the rest were sent to Kaiyuan for military service. The Ming court established the Jiuxi and Yongding Guards in the Cili and Shimen area. In view of the great distance between the Shizhou Guard and the Qianjiang Qianhu Office from Sanmao, making it difficult to dispatch troops for reinforcement, the Ming court also carved out part of the Sanmao tusi's territory in its core area and established the Datian Qianhu Office to facilitate nearby control.
In the mid-Ming period, land annexation grew increasingly fierce, and large numbers of peasants lost their land and became vagrants. Bureaucrats and landlords not only seized peasants' land but also made military garrison farmland the object of their encroachment. Large amounts of military colony land gradually passed into the private hands of officers, causing the wei-suo system to fall into disrepair and control to weaken.
Under the influence of peasant uprisings that broke out successively across the country, during the Hongzhi reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming (1488-1505), peasants of Chongningli in the Shizhou Guard area, led by Xiang Wangsan and others, together with the Sangzhi native Bai Zi, launched an uprising. The Ming court sent the Canzheng Li Zong and the Fushi Xu Zi to lead 5,000 Ming troops to suppress them, and more than thirty people including Xiang Wangsan were captured. Thereafter, Liao Wenyu and others of Chongjiao Fort rose in rebellion, leading a crowd to capture Qinlongli in Jianshi County. The Ming court sent the Canzheng Lin Kuang and others to hastily assemble troops from the Zhai Tang, Zhongzhou and Changning wei-suo to coordinate with the Shizhou Guard in a surrounding attack. Liao Wenyu and his followers, isolated and outnumbered, were finally defeated.
During the Jiajing reign of Emperor Shizong of Ming (1522-1566), politics became even more corrupt, internal strife among the ruling class grew increasingly fierce, official corruption was rampant, and landlords and local tyrants annexed land without end. In the Shizhou Guard area, the embezzlement and extortion by guard officials were extremely serious, forcing Han Chinese in the wei-suo areas to flee to tusi territories. Consequently, peasants' struggles against feudal exploitation and oppression and the tusi struggle against control arose one after another. In the ninth year of Jiajing (1530), more than a hundred peasants including Huang Maliao of Shizhou rose in rebellion, operating in the Yunyang, Wanxian and Fengjie areas. When the Shizhou Guard officials learned that Huang Maliao was an enemy of the Zhonglu tusi, they sent the Xuanfu Qin Zhenggang to suppress him, and Huang Maliao was captured and killed. In the twenty-eighth year of Jiajing, the Shizhou peasant Tan Huanggu rose in rebellion, operating in Jianshi, Yunyang, Wushan, Fengjie, Wanxian and other places. The Ming court mobilized forces from Sichuan and Huguang provinces to suppress them.
In the mid-Jiajing period, Huang Jun, the Anfu Commissioner of Longtan, and his son Huang Zhong, together with the Sanmao tusi Qin Qing and the Shinan tusi Qin Ning, jointly resisted Ming control, operating in the Shizhou, Jianshi, Zhongzhou and Fengdu areas. Gu Xuzhong, the Grand Coordinator of Hubei, was ordered to mobilize troops from the Shizhou and Chenzhou guards and native soldiers from Yongshun and Wuzhai to suppress them. Huang Zhong resisted relying on natural defenses, and the Ming army besieged him for months without success. They then changed strategy and sent Wang Ze, a secretary of the Shizhou Guard, to Huang Zhong's fortress as a hostage to lure him into surrender. Huang Zhong indeed fell for the trick and was captured and killed. When his subordinates heard the news, they killed Wang Ze. Later, Huang Zhong's clansmen, the Sanmao Xuanfu Qin Qing and the Shinan Xuanfu Qin Ning, were all brutally killed.
In the fourth year of the Longqing reign of Emperor Muzong of Ming (1570), the native officials of the Jindong Anfu Office killed one another due to internal conflicts. The Ming local officials' mediation was unfair, which provoked the resistance of the native official Qin Bi, who killed and wounded Ming government troops. The Ming court sent the Grand Coordinator and Censor-in-Chief Liu Que to supervise troops in a multi-pronged siege. After being besieged for half a year, Qin Bi, isolated and exhausted, was executed, and the Jindong Anfu Office was demoted to a Zhangguan Office.
In the late Ming period, the corruption of the ruling group reached its extreme, factional strife among various cliques grew increasingly fierce, landlords and local tyrants annexed land without restraint, land concentration was unprecedentedly severe, and the contradiction between the landlord class and peasants was extremely sharp. Heavy taxes and corvée and cruel exploitation and oppression forced peasants into an impossible life, and the flames of peasant uprising spread throughout the country. The Tujia people, living under the brutal rule of the tusi, deprived of personal freedom, and in dire suffering, also rose up and threw themselves into the mighty torrent of the nationwide peasant uprising. In the first year of the Tianqi reign of Emperor Xizong of Ming (1621), Han Chinese peasants living in the mountainous area of the Jiuxi Guard were the first to rise in rebellion against the feudal oppression and exploitation of the Ming Dynasty; the neighboring Tujia people responded upon hearing the news, coordinated with the Han peasants, and joined the ranks of the anti-feudal struggle. This struggle posed a great threat to Ming rule in the Jiuxi Guard, which felt that "the guard city is isolated and hard to defend." In the same year, She Chongming, the Xuanwei Commissioner of Yongning in Sichuan, rose in rebellion and occupied Chongqing. The Tujia people of the Shizhu Office rose in response upon hearing the news, and "the yi stockades swarmed with many responding." While dividing his forces to attack Zunyi, Hejiang and Luzhou and besieging Chengdu, She Chongming sent envoys to seek the support of the Shizhu tusi, which was relatively powerful and guarded the gateway to Wu and Kui. However, Qin Liangyu, the female tusi of Shizhu, remained loyal to the tottering Ming Dynasty and was hostile to the peasant rebel army. She killed the envoy, then led ten thousand troops upstream along the Yangtze to besiege Chongqing, coordinating with the Ming army to suppress the peasant rebel army led by She Chongming.
In the seventh year of Tianqi (1627), peasants in northern Shaanxi opened the prelude to the great peasant uprising of the late Ming. Li Zicheng put forward slogans such as "equal fields for noble and humble," "three years of tax exemption," "five years without payment," and "fair trade," which inspired the Tujia people to actively participate in and support the peasant rebel armies led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong. When the peasant rebel army broke through the many layers of Ming encirclement and advanced toward Sichuan, in the seventh year of the Chongzhen reign of Emperor Sizong of Ming (1634), it passed through Badong, Jianshi and other places in Hubei, received strong support from the Tujia people, and smoothly entered Sichuan. At the end of the same year, the native official of the Shinan Office led native soldiers to besiege Shizhou City, forcing the Shizhou Guard officials to hand over the imprisoned Shinan Xuanfu Shi Qin Shiliang. From then on, the peasant rebel armies led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong "came and went continuously, dozens of times a year" in the Tujia areas of western Hubei.
Under the direct influence of the peasant uprising, the Tujia people rose up one after another in various forms to oppose feudal oppression and exploitation. In the ninth year of Chongzhen (1636), the Youyang native official Ran Tianyun led a mass uprising, and the Xuanfu of that office, Ran Tianqi, abandoned the city and fled. In the fifth month of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong led the rebel army to rise again at Gucheng, entered Sichuan from Hubei, and swept all before him. The Rongmei tusi, on Ming orders, assembled several thousand native soldiers in an attempt to block Zhang Xianzhong from entering Sichuan. Before the native soldiers set out, some soldiers including Deng Weichang openly resisted conscription, "hoping to escape the ranks," and joined with Tan Zhengbin of Badong County to gather peasants from seventy-two villages, collect silver, bribe the Badong county magistrate, and accuse the tusi of forcing native people into military service. The native soldiers' resistance to conscription left Rongmei Xuanfu Tian Yuan helpless, and he had no choice but to report the facts to the Ming court. But the Ming court, under the blows of the peasant rebel army, had no strength to attend to it, and "even if the tusi did not send conscripts, it could no longer inquire." In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the Tujia people of the Dajiang, Xiaojiang and Jiujiang li of the Youyang Office rose in rebellion one after another, unstoppable.
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng led the main force of the peasant army to capture Beijing, ending the reactionary rule of the Ming Dynasty. At the same time, he ordered Wang Yiheng to lead the peasant army to Badong. The nearby Tujia people, under the leadership of the Mou clan, captured Badong City. Zhang Xianzhong's peasant army twice broke through Lizhou City and operated in Shimen, Cili and other places.
When Zhang Xianzhong and other peasant rebel armies operated in Tujia areas, they adopted a policy of winning over the tusi, "recruiting all the tusi everywhere," granting them gold seals, "to change their offices," and winning them over to join the ranks of the peasant uprising in order to reduce resistance. This policy quickly caused divisions within the tusi. The tusi of Shinan, Sanmao, Zhonglu, Tangya and Youyang, forced by circumstances and feeling that the Ming Dynasty's rule was about to change and its realm hard to preserve, or overawed by the might of the great peasant uprising, adopted an attitude of support and sponsorship toward the peasant army, and sometimes even sent native soldiers to coordinate with their actions.
In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen (1644), Zhang Xianzhong led the peasant army into Sichuan again, and "all the prefectures and counties along the way collapsed at the sight of the wind." More than a thousand Tujia and Han people of Badong County joined the peasant army and followed it into Sichuan. The Zhonglu tusi soldiers attacked the Yushan area of Qianjiang in Sichuan. Tang Zhenbang, the native official of the Shuijinyuan and Tongtaping Zhangguan Offices under the Rongmei tusi, then led the Tujia people to capture Changyang County town. The Ming troops defending the city were terrified and fled in disorder, retreating to Yuyang Pass. However, the tusi of Yongshun, Baojing and Rongmei were hostile to the peasant rebel army and obeyed the orders of the feudal dynasty, participating in the suppression of the peasant uprising. The Shizhu tusi even issued an ordinance to its subordinates that "anyone who follows the bandits shall have his clan spared no punishment," in a vain attempt to prevent the Tujia people from joining the peasant rebel army.
After the Qing troops entered the pass, the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng gradually retreated to Xi'an. In the second year of the Shunzhi reign of Emperor Shizu of Qing (1645), Li Zicheng met the Qing army at Tongguan. After fierce fighting, the peasant army abandoned Xi'an and moved east into Huguang. After Li Zicheng's death, his nephew Li Guo continued to fight in Huguang with the peasant armies led by Gao Bizheng, Li Laiheng, Yuan Zongdi, Liu Tichun, Hao Yaoqi and others. At this time, because the national contradiction had risen to become the principal contradiction, they decided to cooperate with the armies of the Southern Ming anti-Qing generals He Tengjiao and Du Yinxi to resist the Qing troops in Huguang. Later, Li Laiheng and others formed the "Thirteen Families of Kuidong" and independently resisted the Qing army, and the Tujia people then joined the ranks of the Kuidong Thirteen Families' anti-Qing struggle.
Li Guo and Gao Bizheng led the peasant army to capture the Jiuxi Guard in the second year of Shunzhi of Qing and occupied Cili County town. In the third year of Shunzhi, when Li Laiheng and others attacked the stockade caves of Badong County from Guizhou and Xingshan, Bai Shimei, a military student of the Youyang Office, joined forces with native soldiers from the Zhonglu and Shaxi offices to capture Pengshui County town, coordinating with the peasant army. In the fourth year of Shunzhi, the peasant army captured the Shizhou Guard, and then successively took Jianshi, Badong, Hefeng, Lichuan and other county towns. Native soldiers from the Youyang, Zhonglu, Tangya and Dawang offices and the peasant army echoed each other and again attacked Pengshui. From eastern Sichuan above to Yiling below, all was occupied by the peasant army. In the ninth month of the same year, Qing troops captured Chenzhou City, and the troops of Wang Jincai and Ma Jinzhong under the Ming Prince of Gui immediately attacked Yongshun, Baojing and other places, burning the tusi offices and ancestral halls, and echoing the peasant armies of Li Guo and Gao Yigong in western Hubei. When Wang and Ma's troops entered Bayong in Baojing County from Yongshun, they were intercepted by forces divided by Peng Chaozhu, the Xuanwei of Baojing, and then retreated to Xicun and Anbuziying in Yongshun County. Wang Jincai and Ma Jinzhong then led several thousand cavalry, crossed the river from Nanweizhou in Yongshun, and again advanced toward Baojing. Peng Chaozhu ordered his son Peng Ding to lead native soldiers to cut off their rear, raid their camp, and Wang and Ma were forced to shift. Peng Chaozhu then sent retainers with registers to the Qing military camp in Chenzhou, expressing submission to Qing rule.
The peasant rebel army in the Sichuan-Hubei border area, with hundreds of thousands of troops, fought fiercely with the Qing army and persisted in the anti-Qing struggle for more than ten years. They cared for the peasants, were strictly disciplined, and committed no offense, winning the trust, love and support of the Tujia people. In the tenth year of Shunzhi (1653), the Tujia people of Sangzhi County rose in rebellion to support the peasant army. Qing officials sent to serve in Changyang County "were all driven away by tusi soldiers." When Tan Hong and Tan Yi led troops to attack Pengshui and other counties, they "also drew in the native Miao as support," receiving strong support from the Tujia people of the Youyang, Tangya and Zhonglu offices.
Against the tusi who persisted in being their enemies, the peasant army confiscated their property and resolutely struck at them. In the sixth year of Shunzhi, the peasant army, short of grain, demanded grain from the Shizhu tusi. When the tusi refused, they sent troops to attack. In the ninth month of the eleventh year of Shunzhi, Li Laiheng's troops again attacked Baojing and camped on the opposite bank of the Youshui River for more than two months. The Baojing tusi Peng Ding gathered more than ten thousand native soldiers for a brutal suppression, and the peasant army suffered thousands of casualties. In the early fourteenth year of Shunzhi, Liu Tichun sent Liu Hongchang, a general under Wang Guangxing, and others to lead more than two thousand elite soldiers, among whom "many from Jianshi followed them," crossing the Yangtze River north of Badong, traveling by day and hiding by night, reaching Rongmei in less than four days, and capturing the entire family of the tusi Tian Ganlin. Later, with tens of thousands of gold and silver as ransom, Tian Ganlin's family was released.
In the sixteenth year of Shunzhi (1659), the Qing Dynasty launched a large-scale military campaign into the southwest. The peasant army of the Kuidong Thirteen Families, in order to preserve their strength, moved to the great mountain areas within eastern Sichuan and western Hubei, and under extremely difficult conditions both produced and fought, continuing to persist in the anti-Qing struggle. The peasant army once captured Enshi City. In the third year of the Kangxi reign of Emperor Shengzu of Qing (1664), the Qing court mobilized forces from the four provinces of Huguang, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Henan to besiege the peasant army. Wang Guangxing surrendered under the Qing army's threats and inducements, Li Laiheng's whole family committed suicide, and the peasant rebel army failed. To this day, stories of Liu Tichun and others heroically resisting the Qing are still circulated among the people in Badong County and elsewhere.