Zhang Xianzhong

Early life Zhang was born in Liushujian (柳树涧; literally 'willow spring', modern Dingbian, Shaanxi province), in 1606 into a poor family. He was described as tall in stature, had a yellow complexion and a "tiger chin" (, meaning an impressive beard), and hence was given the nickname "Yellow Tiger". He joined the Ming army around the mid-1620s, and while in the army he was sentenced to death for violations of military rules, but was reprieved after an intervention by a senior officer who was impressed by his demeanour. As rebel leader Towards the end the Ming dynasty, drought, famines and epidemics broke out in various parts of China. In the late 1620s, peasants revolted in Shaanxi, resisting attempts by the Ming government to collect grains and taxes. They coalesced into rebel armies called "roving bandits" (liúkòu 流寇) because of their highly mobile nature, and spread into other parts of China. Zhang deserted from the army around 1630, joined the rebel forces in Mizhi County, and established himself as a rebel leader with a few hundred followers, styling himself Bada Wang (八大王, Eighth Great King). Among his followers was his adopted son Li Dingguo. In 1635, Zhang joined a larger confederation of bandits with other rebel leaders including Li Zicheng (Li would later capture Beijing and end Ming rule there). They devastated Henan and pushed into Anhui. After they had burnt the Ming ancestral temple at Zhongdu (Fengyang) in Anhui and ravaged the area, the rebel armies broke up and Zhang headed to Huguang (now Hubei). He failed to subdue the city of Luzhou, but captured Xiangyang with 70,000 men under his command the following year in 1636. In 1637, joined by other rebels and with an army now reaching a size of 300,000 men, he again pushed into Anhui, then to Jiangsu to capture Suzhou, and almost down to Nanjing, auxiliary capital of Ming. But he was immediately defeated there and he retreated back to Huguang. However, he reneged on the agreement in early 1639 and rebelled, killing the local prefect and burning the town. He then ambushed and inflicted heavy losses to the Ming forces led by the Ming general Zuo Liangyu. In 1640, he suffered a defeat at the hand of Zuo at Mount Manao in Sichuan, and was forced to flee with his few remaining followers to hide in the mountains of Eastern Sichuan for a few months. Zhang gathered the remnants of his forces, and continued with his raids which Ming commander Yang Sichang found hard to contain. In 1641, he emerged from Sichuan and attacked Xiangyang, capturing and executing the imperial Prince of Xiang there. He then captured the provincial capital of Wuchang, killed the imperial prince there, and proclaimed himself "Xi Wang" (King of the West). He attempted to set up a government in Wuchang, but abandoned the city after two months when Ming forces gathered strength, and captured Wuchang soon after Zhang left. When an army of 200,000, Zhang took Yuezhou, Hengzhou and Changsha, and for a while Zhang stayed at Changsha where he controlled much of Hunan and part of Jiangxi. He was said to have cut off the hands of the city's defenders and massacred a large number of people. Rule in Sichuan In Sichuan, Zhang attempted to set up a civil administration and initially gained considerable support. According to an account by Gabriel de Magalhães, a Portuguese Jesuit who was working in Sichuan with another Jesuit Lodovico Buglio (but both pressed to serve as astronomers to Zhang), "he began his rule with such liberality, justice and magnificence by which he captivated all hearts that many mandarins, famous both in civic as in military affairs whom fear was keeping concealed, left their hideouts and flew to his side." Zhang's policy of terror increased in intensity, especially in 1646 after he had decided to abandon Sichuan. By then, Zhang's government had virtually disintegrated, all but three of his principal officials had either committed suicide or were executed. According to one account, he was betrayed by one of his officers, a native of Sichuan named Liu Chin-chung (Liu Jinzhong) who resented his policy of terror in Sichuan. Zhang was alerted to their presence and decided to confront them with only 8 to 10 men. Liu pointed Zhang out to the Qing when Zhang rushed out from his tent on learning of the betrayal, and he was then shot and killed by a skilled Manchu archer. The Draft History of Qing has an entirely different account of his death and says he was killed by Oboi during a battle. ==Devastation of Sichuan==

The events surrounding Zhang's rule and afterwards devastated Sichuan, where he was said to have "engaged in one of the most hair-raising genocides in imperial history". Lurid stories of his killings and flayings were given in various accounts. According to Shu Bi (), an 18th-century account of the massacre, after every slaughter, the heads or skulls were collected and placed in several big piles, while the hands were placed in other big piles, and the ears and noses in more piles, so that Zhang could keep count of the killings. In one incident, he is said to have organized an imperial examination ostensibly to recruit scholars for his administration, only to have all the candidates, who numbered many thousands, killed. In another, to give thanks for his recovery after an illness, he was said to have cut off the feet of many women. The severed feet were heaped in two piles with those of his favorite concubine, whose feet were unusually small, placed on top. These two piles of feet were then doused in oil and set alight to become what he called "heavenly candles". He was reported to have ordered further massacres before he abandoned Chengdu in advance of the Qing armies. Seven Kill Stele A popular account of his life has it that he erected in Chengdu a stele, which came to be known as the Seven Kill Stele (), with the following inscription: {{verse translation|lang=zh-hant|italicsoff=y 人無一善以報天 殺殺殺殺殺殺殺 There are, however, considerable doubts that this account is accurate. In 1934, a stele thought to be this very one was found by a missionary – its reverse side contains an added inscription by a Southern Ming general commemorating Zhang's numerous victims whose bones he had collected and buried in 1646. While the first two lines of the poem on this stele are similar, the line with the seven kills is absent in this stele. Instead the actual line reads: "The spirits and gods are knowing, so reflect on this and examine yourselves" (鬼神明明，自思自量). Many therefore considered the story to be a distortion from the Qing era. Deaths The actual number of people killed by Zhang is not known and is disputed. Official Ming dynasty history Ming Shi recorded a figure of 600 million deaths due to Zhang's activities, an obvious exaggeration, since the total population of China at that time was less than 150 million. According to an assessment by a modern historian, "the death toll is reputed to have been enormous, possibly one million out of a total provincial population of three million, before he was eventually killed by the Manchus." The combination of deaths from the massacres and other causes as well as flight of people from the province resulted in a sharp drop in the population of Sichuan. The population has been estimated to have dropped by as much as 75%, with fewer than a million people left in Sichuan, most of whom were clustered in the peripheral areas. A later figure for Sichuan was from the 1720s, which is over 70 years after Zhang's death and long after the resettlement of Sichuan had begun, and it recorded 634,802 households (which one estimate calculated to be around 2.5 million individuals). ==Aftermath==

Before he had abandoned Sichuan, Zhang divided his forces into four divisions, each led by one of his four generals (Li Dingguo, Sun Kewang, Liu Wenxiu, Ai Nengqi). These remnants of his army, as well as Ming loyalists, held out in Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou after Zhang's death, and most of Sichuan did not come under control of the Qing until a dozen years or so later, and fighting only finally ended in eastern Sichuan in 1664. Resettlement of Sichuan In order to fill up the depopulated regions of Sichuan, a massive resettlement program was initiated during the Qing dynasty, starting around 1670 or 1671 and lasting more than two centuries. Millions of people from Hubei, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Shaanxi and other provinces were resettled in Sichuan. Some of the early immigrants were those who returned after fleeing Sichuan (including the ancestors of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping), but some were also coerced. A large number of the migrants came from Huguang (now Hubei/Hunan), and the migration was therefore described by 19th century scholar Wei Yuan as "". By the 1720s, 70–80% of the population of Sichuan was reportedly non-native, and as much as 85% a century later. Modern references In 2021, inspired by the so-called "Auntology" and several consecutive random killings linked to social issues in China, through online diffusion and memetic adaptation, Zhang Xianzhong has been re-appropriated as a term to describe indiscriminate mass killings, evolving into a distinct internet subculture marked by irony, despair, and subversive critique, as well as an implied expectation of accelerationism. In the wake of the killings, the term Xianzhongxue, translating as "Xianzhong-ology", became an internet buzzword. Its use gained further traction after the Zhuhai vehicular attack, the Wuxi stabbing and the Suzhou bus stop stabbing in 2024, events which also prompted increased censorship targeting the term. == Notes ==