Peasant Revolt, National Unification And Ethnic Conflicts

Yu Yuan uprising was a typical historical event in the history of China peasant wars, the occurrence and development of which had the universal character of peasant revolt in China's feudal society. The social ecosystem imbalances of Southwest Shandong in Late Ming Period resulted in pressure on the survival of the local poor farmers, who revolted for survive. That was the origin of the appearance of Yu Yuan Army.Yu Yuan Army was not a peasant military with unified leadership and good organization, but several branches of armed peasants in Caozhou and Puzhou areas of Shandong by the late Ming and early Qing Period. With the natural barriers and traffic blockings of Yu Yuan, they got together here and set up a base, from which they could go out to occupy cities, threaten the transportation of the Great Canal and fight against the rule of the Qing Dynasty. The main leaders of Yu Yuan Army including Zhang Qi, Ren Qi and Liang Min were ordinary peasants. Most people of Yu Yuan Army also belonged to the local poor peasant class, and the scale of it even reached tens of thousands of people. Yu Yuan Army took Yu Yuan for base, whose activities spread throughout South and West of Shandong and North of Jiangsu. It affected four provinces including Shandong, Zhili, Henan and Jiangsu and became to the most influential peasant revolt of Shandong in early Qing period and threatened Qing Dynasty's control of local government in Shandong. Yu Yuan Army especially emphasized on the use of cavalry, and used "guerrilla warfare" and "war movement" as the main combat methods. When they encountered the crush of government forces, they would retreat to Yu Yuan base. Under the background of the late Ming shortage, they took the "thief-farms", which were farmed by them, as the main source of food. Its combat operations in the main activities were looting horses and treasury, killing officials and releasing prisoners. Looting money and horses is the main purpose of them. They had obvious features of violence, but they were different from the ordinary "banditry." Yu Yuan Army reached its peak of development in the forth and fifth year of Shunzhi Reign, and took part in the Caozhou Uprising which led by Liu Zeqing, and Li Huaqiong as coalition forces.After Manchu took the reign of China, ethnic conflicts rose up. The relationship between Yu Yuan Army and the Nanming Reign switched from hostile confrontation to cooperation gradually. Caozhou Uprising and other Anti-Qing Campaign throughout the country in the same year formed a peak of Anti-Qing struggle in early Qing period. The Nanming reign is too corrupt to unite others forces to recapture the reign of China. In the eighth year of Shunzhi Reign, Governor Zhang Cunren took government forces to attack Yu Yuan Army. He adopted brutal military means to defeat Yu Yuan Army. Main leaders were killed, but others who were left continued their activities. In the development of Yu Yuan Army, Ye Tingxiu and Yan Ermei who were famous scholars in the late Ming and early Qing period had special influences. It also reflected the early Qing scholars' changing of attitude towards armed peasants who fight against Qing Dynasty.