Yuan Chonghuan

Yuan Chonghuan (袁崇煥; style name: Yuansu 元素 and Ziru 自如; June 6, 1584 – September 22, 1630) was a famed patriot and military commander of the Ming Dynasty who battled the Manchus in Liaoning. He was known to have excelled in artillery warfare and successfully incorporated western tactics into the East. Yuan's military career reached its height when he defeated Nurhaci and the Manchurian army in the first Battle of Ningyuan. Nurhaci's son and successor, Huang Taiji, was defeated by him in the second Battle of Ningyuan. However, Yuan was a tragic figure, and was executed by his emperor under false charges which Huang Taiji deliberately planted against him.

Early life

He was born in Dongguan, Guangdong province. During his adolescence, Yuan spent time travelling from town to town. It is during these journeys that he befriended many Jesuits and foreigners. He had taken imperial examinations a few times with little success, but in his journeys to the capital, he was able to see a lot more than the average examiners could see. Some say that in this time, he befriended westerners and together, they spent time modifying European cannons.

Early military career

He passed the imperial examinations in 1619 and was appointed to the minor post of magistrate in a remote place. In 1619, the imperial Ming army was very badly defeated by the Manchus in the Battle of Sarhu. Subsequently, the Chinese armies suffered successive defeats and in 1622 they were forced to retreat to Shanhaiguan, abandoning all of Liaoning to the Manchus. After a visit to the front, Yuan was appointed second-class secretary in the Board of War, promoted almost immediately to secretary, and supplied with funds for enlisting troops. (Note: It should be noted that Yuan did not have any formal military training at all. Of course, he had to study the Confucian classics in order to pass the imperial examinations. It is some sort of minor miracle that he could move from a junior civilian officer to a high-ranking military commander in just a couple of years.)

Yuan Chonghuan worked harmoniously with the commander-in-chief Sun Chengzong (孫承宗) and pushed the frontiers steadily northward, fortifying Ningyuan (寧遠) in 1623. Sun was an able commander with a good moral character and refused to bribe the Emperor's eunuch. Consequently, in 1625 Sun was recalled and replaced by Gao Di (高第), who ordered a general retreat to Shanhaiguan, but Yuan flatly refused to leave Ningyuan. Early in the next year, Nurhaci led the Manchus back across the Liao River. Yuan Chonghuan and his Deputies successfully held Ningyuan with the newly-mounted and modified "red-barbarian cannon" (紅衣大炮, 紅夷大炮) and wounded the Manchurian Emperor, Nurhaci. As a result of this victory, the Imperial Court at Beijing appointed Yuan on 27 February 1626 as the Governor of Liaodong, with full authority to handle all forces outside the passes. This battle was an amazing deed since Yuan had only 9000 soldiers (of whom many were simply militia), eventhough Nurhaci's men consisted of 130,000 strong men (some say 200,000). This battle prevented China from being conquered and boosted the hopes of Ming and its allies that the Manchurians were defeatable. It is noted that Yuan was said to have studied every aspect of the cannon for it to fire correctly at the position he wanted, and this is the reason why Nurhaci, even though well protected by his elite guards in a relatively safe position, was fatally wounded. This battle was remembered as the Battle of Ningyuan. It is said that after the battle, Yuan sent letters to ask the well-being of Nurhaci, as what traditionally Chinese generals would do, but Nurhaci returned an insult by calling him a faker.

During this time, he executed Mao Wenlong (毛文龍), a somewhat talented commander but who had a terrible moral character. Various texts have different perspectives of his actions. Many stated this was a terrible mistake since Mao could still be used to defend against the Manchus. However, Yuan took in account of how Mao committed his battles. Mao's tactics usually involved using civilian settlements as a shield for his troops and during the occupation, civilians suffered tremendously. It is also Mao's fault for using Korea, Ming's ally, as a base to attack Manchuria, which resulted in Korea being conquered by Manchus as Mao ordered a general retreat when the Manchus entered Korea. This angered many merchants in the Beijing area since Mao had never dared to drag major cities into war even when there was a strategic advantage. In addition, Mao had bribe many eunuchs and corrupted officials. Thus, Yuan made enemies with the most influential and corrupted people in China.

Taking advantage of Nurhaci's death later in the year, Yuan reoccupied Jinzhou. The Manchus reappeared in June and withdrew after a series of indecisive battles. (Note: This is known as the Battle of Ningyuan-Jinzhou or the Second Battle of Ningyuan.) The campaign gave opportunity for Yuan to be criticised by the partisans of the eunuch official Wei Zhongxian, stating that he took too long to fight off the "Barbarian" Manchurians, in consequence of which he retired.

Later military career and death

In 1628, under a new government, Yuan Chonghuan was reinstated as field marshal of all the forces of the northeast. He embarked on an ambitious five year plan for the complete recovery of Liaodong. In 1629 he was granted the title of Senior Guardian of the Heir Apparent. The Chongzhen Emperor, the new emperor gave him his Imperial Sword and stated that he would fully support Yuan's decisions.

This time Yuan had to face again a larger Manchurian force (slightly above 200,000) under Huang Taiji. This time the Manchurians had incorporated many more men including the newly surrendered Mongols, rebel Ming army and the conquered Korea and various small states of the North. However, the Manchus were not confident to attack Jinzhou or Ningyuan again.

Th Manchus changed their strategy. They bypassed Jinzhou, Ningyuan and Shanhai Pass. They broke through the Great Hall west of Shanhai Pass and suddenly appeared north of Beijing in the winter of 1629. Yuan rushed back with an elite army from Ningyuan to defend the capital. He reached Beijing only one or two days before the Manchus arrived at Beijing. Outside the city wall of Beijing, he defeated the Manchurian "Eight Flags" (八旗) which numbered one hundred thousand. (Note: The Manchus failed to destroy the Imperial Ming army at the city wall of Beijing and thus failed to launch a direct assault on the city wall. Thus the Manchus failed in their main objective of launching a surprise attack on Beijing. Yuan's army was not strong enough to destroy the Manchu army. He only managed to make the Manchus fail in their main objective.) As he arrived into Beijing, instead of being welcome, he was heavily criticized. Some eunuchs even accused Yuan of collaborating with the enemy. In fact, they were actually tricked by Huang Taiji into thinking that Yuan had backstabbed them.

Without much evidence, the Chongzhen Emperor ordered his arrest during an interview with the Emperor on January 13 1630. He was accused of collusion with the enemy and condemned to death by "death by a thousand cuts" at Ganshiqiao (甘石橋) in Beijing. It is stated the merchants, eunuchs and corrupt officials rushed to buy his body parts so they could eat it. When Yuan was asked for last words before his execution, he produced the poem: "A life's work always ends up in vain; half of my career seems to be in dreams. I do not worry about lacking brave warriors after my death, for my spirit will continue to guard Liaodong." (一生事業總成空，半世功名在夢中。死後不愁無將勇，忠魂依舊保遼東！) His family was also exiled.

Mourning was given to the general's honor throughout most part of the country and even Korea; everyone regarded the fate of Ming and its allies was in boiling water with the death of Yuan. His head, the only recognizable part after the torture, was taken outside the Inner City Wall by a city guard, whose surname is She, and buried near Guanqu Men. The guard's family have guarded it from one generation to the next ever since. His tomb was renovated to Yuanchonghuan Memorial recently.

Huang Taiji publicly stated that he would never able to beat Yuan in a fair game, thus, making the Chongzhen Emperor kill him the only method to get rid of him. Just as the message of Yuan's death reach Huang Taiji's ears, he changed his state name from Jin to Qing and proclaimed himself Emperor Qing Taizong. Some historical information states that Huang Taiji fear Yuan's last word stating his soul will always guard Liaodong Peninsula: As the name Chonghuan, means Undying Flames, contains the element "Fire", he put the word Qing, meaning cleanse, which contains the element "Water", to overcome it; however, even if this is the case, the main reason is probably because the "Ming" of the Ming Dynasty contains the element "Fire" itself.

Modern judgment of Yuan Chonghuan

For many years of the Manchurian regime, Yuan was characterized as a villain by the Qing government, but locals still revered him as a great patriot, especially in Taiwan and South China, where Chinese diehards spent a much longer time resisting the Manchurian invaders. During the regime of Qianlong, Yuan was reverted back to a "patriot."

Many historians have stated that Yuan's death marked the end of the Ming dynasty because Yuan was the only general capable of turning back such odds in the late years of the Ming.

Twentieth century intellectual Liang Qichao characterised Yuan Chonghuan as China's greatest soldier. Some Japanese scholars were exceptionally fond of Yuan, and they revered him as the Master of Artillery Warfare (砲戦の神).

(Note: The imperial Ming army had fire arms like cannons before the Battle of Ningyuan. The Manchus managed to defeat the imperial Ming army in the Battle of Sarhu even though the imperial Ming army had cannons. Thus Yuan won the Battle of Ningyuan not just because of cannons. The human factor was also very important.)

Popular culture

Although history stated that his entire family was executed, in Jinyong wuxia novel Sword Stained with Royal Blood (碧血劍), Yuan had left a son. He was the protagonist of the novel who learned amazing martial arts on Mount Hua and tried to avenge his father's death. Jinyong also put forward a theory by some other historians that it was the Chongzhen Emperor, not Huangtaiji, that in fact killed Yuan Chonghuan, and that the Chongzhen Emperor knew perfectly well that Yuan was not a traitor. As in the case of Yue Fei, Jinyong proposed that the cause of Yuan's death was the Chongzhen Emperor's fear of his popularity with the people and of his disrespect of the Emperor. (A reader's comment: Yuan's tragedy is actually not an isolated case. A good person tends to be slandered by a lot of people. When people are in great trouble, they want to find somebody to blame. A whole lot of people, including ordinary people, officials, euenchs and the emperor tried to blame him. People quite frequently judge by counting numbers instead of studying hard facts. This is called human nature. It is also human nature that even subsequently the emperor might understand that he had made a mistake, the emperor would not change his verdict out of concern of his "authority". This sort of tragedy actually happens again and again. Even for modern times, if somebody wants to frame another person in the same way as Huangtaiji, that person will be in a very difficult situation. After several hundred years, the only improvement in human society is that a minister in such a situation will be forced to resign without suffering such a terrible death. According to history, Yuan does not have any descendants at all. This is considered one of the greatest misfortune according to traditional Chinese way of thinking. However, one of his servants was willing to look over his grave and this servant's descendants continued this volunteer service until early 21st century.)

His name was conclusively cleared about 100 years after his death by the emperor Qianlong, a descendant of his arch enemy, Huangtaiji, who plotted his death. This happened after people found conclusive evidence in old archives of the Imperial Qing court. The Manchu emperor Qianlong tried to show off his unusual kindness by searching for Yuan's descendants for reward but none could be found. Then he rewarded some descendants of Yuan's brother. The irony is that the cause of the sudden and so mysterious death of his arch enemy Huangtaiji in 1643 has not been conclusively solved up to now.

Various books have been written on him. Various TV dramas or films have been made in his honor. A man named Biao Li wrote one of the most famous books on him. The book is named, life of a Chinese man. Biao Li is an average asian man. He likes to play counter-strike whenever he's bored. He has no life whatsoever.