Kong Youde was born in the Wanli period. He is from Weizhou, Liaodong. His ancestral home is Shandong.
Kong Youde was a miner. Although he was illiterate, he was "good at archery and horses". So when the Liaodong area was occupied by Later Jin , he enlisted in the army and joined the Ming general Mao Wenlong .
Because Kong Youde was "brave and good at fighting, and was the first to compete in the battle, and was the champion of all generals", he was highly valued by Mao Wenlong. He not only adopted him as his adopted grandson, but also promoted him to a general.
(Kong Youde's stills)
Kong Youde was grateful to Mao Wenlong for his kindness. Every time he fought against the Later Jin Dynasty, Kong Youde charges ahead and is unstoppable. Because of the powerful general like him, the Later Jin Dynasty could not win several battles, so Mao Wenlong's army was famous for its ability to defeat the Later Jin Dynasty.
However, there are unexpected situations in the world. Because Mao Wenlong is proud of his achievements and is quite indulgent to the army, it not only arouses complaints from local people, but also arouses great suspicion from the Ming court. In the end, Mao Wenlong died at the hands of the Liaodong Governor Yuan Chonghuan .
Kong Youde believes that Mao Wenlong's "being guiltless and slaughtered in a bad mood" was a manifestation of the Ming court's coldness, so he was dissatisfied. Unsatisfied, Kong Youde led his army to mutiny and led Geng Zhongming and others to join the command of Sun Yuanhua, the governor of Denglai.
1631, the Later Jin attacked Dalinghe , and the Ming general Zu Dashou vowed to defend the city to the death. Seeing that the city was in urgent need of food and grass, Sun Yuanhua sent Kong Youde to lead his army to reinforce.
Kong Youde encountered a hurricane on the marching road first and was not allowed to advance. He had to return to Wuqiao to go around. As a result, the Shandong soldiers stationed in Wuqiao have always been inconsistent with the Liaodong soldiers and were not allowed to enter the city. In addition to the wind and snow, the army led by Kong Youde suffered a lot.
One of them was sued by the rich family's chicken. In order to purify military discipline, Kong Youde imposed a criminal law on the offenders' "mastering" of the criminal law, which led to a mutiny in the army.
Kong Youde Confucius could not get through the situation. Under the persuasion of his subordinates, he simply launched a mutiny, proclaimed himself marshal, and led his army to attack Dengzhou, captured Sun Yuanhua, and forced him to become king. But Sun Yuanhua was unwilling to be king, so Kong Youde let him go out of the city. Since then, Kong Youde has occupied Dengzhou and dominated the country.
(stills from Mao Wenlong)
Then, Kong Youde attacked Laizhou , but Laizhou City could not be captured for a long time.
Although the Ming court has repeatedly advised Kong Youde, Kong Youde is determined to act alone. The Ming court did not dare to take it lightly, so he had to fight him severely. Soon, not only did Laizhou clear the siege, but also recovered Dengzhou, which he occupied. Kong Youde was in a hurry and led tens of thousands of remnants, as well as many red barbarian cannons and warships to the Later Jin Dynasty to write a letter to beg for surrender.
Huang Taiji After receiving Kong Youde's letter of begging for surrender, he attached great importance to it.
On the one hand, Huang Taiji had long wanted to replace Ming Dynasty to unify the world; on the other hand, the reason why the Later Jin Dynasty suffered heavy casualties in fighting with the Ming army was because the Ming army had red barbarian cannons in their hands. The Great Khan of the Later Jin Dynasty, Nurhaci was hit by the Red Barbarians in the Battle of Ningyuan and was seriously injured and died.
So, when Kong Youde said in his letter of surrender that he had "ten thousand armored soldiers, more than one hundred light boats, and all kinds of artillery firearms", how could Huang Taiji not be excited!
So, Huang Taiji not only immediately asked Jirhalang and Ajige to lead his troops to Yalu River to meet Kong Youde, but also personally led the beiles out of Shengjing to greet him, and treated Kong Youde with the most solemn "helming greeting" of the Jurchens.
Kong Youde also showed his loyalty, not only shaved his hair on the way to Shengjing, but also brought some craftsmen who were good at artillery.
Now, Huang Taiji's force has increased significantly. In addition, Kong Youde knew a lot about the Ming court, so when fighting against the Ming court, Kong Youde not only charged forward, but also made many strange plans, which was highly valued by Huang Taiji. Not only was he awarded the title of Grand Marshal, but he also formed his own army.
In addition, Kong Youde also forced the Ming Dynasty's vassal state, Korea, to surrender to the Later Jin Dynasty, causing the Ming Dynasty to lose allies and could only fight alone.
(Although Huang Taiji)
Because Kong Youde made great contributions to the attack on the Ming Dynasty in the Later Jin Dynasty, Huang Taiji ascended the throne and became emperor, he was named King Gongshun.
The reason why Huang Taiji treated Kong Youde well was that in addition to Kong Youde being good at fighting, there was another reason, which was that the Ming generals saw his good encounter with surrendered generals. In addition, he also asked Kong Youde to persuade Ming generals to advance more so that more Ming generals could be used by him. After the Qing army entered the pass, Kong Youde not only actively participated in the encirclement and suppression of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, but also bloody suppression of the anti-Qing struggle in various places.
In order to attack the Southern Ming regime, the Qing court changed Kong Youde to Dingnanwang , and asked him to lead an army of 20,000 to garrison Guangxi.
, Kong Youde, who was awarded the title of official position and was highly valued by the Qing court, was even more courageous when attacking the Southern Ming armed forces. Soon, he took almost the entire Guangxi area. After being captured by him, Zhu Hengyi and others were even cruelly executed by him.
In Kong Youde's view, he was an important minister of the court and a vassal king at this time, and his complacent feelings were beyond words.
In order to show off, Kong Youde did not forget to go to Qufu, Shandong, to worship the descendants of Confucius Confucius Temple Confucius Forest.
never thought that his traitorous behavior had long made the people of the Kong family think that he was insulting the Kong family. So when Kong Youde expressed his desire to go to the Confucius Temple to worship, the Kong clan closed the door and shouted at him. In addition, since the Kong family does not recognize him, his name is not found in the Kong family tree.
(reference historical materials: " Qing History Draft ", "Ming History·Biography of Kong Youde", "Ming Ji Baishi")
