In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, the Dashun army poured its nest north, known as a million, passed Dingxing, broke Zhuozhou, surrounded Daxing, and sang all the way to the city of Beijing.

Shocked inside and outside the Jingshi, Chongzhen divided the ten members of the inner palace to supervise each gate, and ordered the cities of Jifu to recruit and refine the township to prepare the city guards.

Many people are not panicking, they think that the city wall of Beijing is high, the circumference of the city is sixty or seventy miles, and there are 100,000 Beijing camps in the city, and there is no problem in guarding it for three months and half a year.

It's not the first time that Daming's Jingshi has been besieged, which time is not the turn of evil into good fortune?

As long as the Jingshi holds out for a month or two, the crown prince leads the troops north, or tens of thousands of troops from Liaodong come back to help, the siege of the Jingshi can be relieved, and the little rogue is not to be feared......

There are also people who are very worried, the plague in Beijing has made Beijing a pot of porridge, and the Beijing camp has lost a lot, not to mention that there is no so-called 100,000 army in the Beijing camp, and empty salaries abound, counting the new army trained in the past few years, it would be good to be able to pull out 50,000, how to resist the millions of rogues?

What's more, the emperor's will to summon the crown prince to Beijing has not been issued for a long time, and there is no edict to send in the Liaodong army, what are the princes of the imperial court doing?

The Ming Dynasty has set the ancestral system since the Yongle period, and without the emperor's edict, the vassal kings of various places are not allowed to enter Beijing, let alone lead troops into Beijing.

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, the Qing soldiers entered the customs, raging around the Beijing division, and Zhu Yujian, the king of the Tang Dynasty, recruited troops to go north to King Qin, and was cut off by Emperor Chongzhen, and imprisoned in Fengyang, the central capital, for several years.

The crown prince is in charge of the country in Nanjing, and if there is no emperor's edict to lead the troops north, he will also be suspected of plotting against him to seize the throne.

Many people have complicated expressions, looking at the momentum of the thieves, claiming that millions of people are approaching the Beijing Division, can the capital be held by then? If the Jingshi falls and the Ming Dynasty falls, where should they go?

In this anxious mood, many people took advantage of the fact that the thieves had not yet completed the siege of the Jingshi, and fled from the city with their families, among which the most fleeing merchants were the largest.

However, some people privately discussed whether Daming was exhausted and should follow the trend and welcome the new master, but most people chose to wait and see.

In the Imperial Palace, a court meeting is being held.

The atmosphere in the hall was a little intense, and the ministers kept coming out to play the right thing, but what they were talking about was not the defense of the Beijing Division, but the matter of Yang Sichang.

After Yang Sichang's death, Emperor Chongzhen personally wrote a memorial text, posthumously presented him as the crown prince, and lamented: "Since Yang Sichang's death, there is no longer a person who can supervise the teacher and level the thief." ”

However, the ministers of the DPRK and China did not comply, and a large number of courtiers continued to write to attack Yang Sichang for misleading the country, and asked him to investigate the responsibility of trapping the domain.

Chongzhen did not leave any of these recitals, and finally exonerated Yang Sichang with the example of "discussion of merit".

At today's court meeting, Chongzhen convened six officials, such as Jiuqing and Kedao, to discuss how to deal with the Liukou and how to defend the Jingshi, but the ministers still did not agree to his disposal of Yang Sichang.

Suddenly, a cheer rang out, but it was Ni Yuanlu, the new head of the household department, who came out of class and shouted: "What do you want?" Do you care so much about the life and death of my Daming? ”

Now that millions of thieves are approaching Jingshi, the ministers are actually talking about Yang Sichang's crimes!

It's all like this, and I'm still thinking about infighting! Are you blind?

Ni Yuanlu glared angrily at the ministers of the court, his anger was full of indignation, and his words were full of resentment, coldness and other emotions.

Chen Yan, the new first assistant of the cabinet, said with a smile: "The crime of the national thief Yang Sichang is uncertain every day, and the world is unstable every day. ”

Although he had a smile on his face, his words were full of cold chills, and it could be seen that he hated Yang Sichang deeply.

Chen Yancai is mediocre and mean, he wantonly excludes dissidents during his official period, declares personal vendettas, deceives superiors and subordinates, has no planning, and even Chongzhen, who single-handedly promoted him, can't understand what this thing is doing.

Chongzhen angrily patted the dragon case, got up angrily, and said: "Yang Sichang is used by me, the use of soldiers is ineffective, I am self-judged, and there is still talent to be taken, you say that I protect Sichang, but I want to make a name!" ”

He roared, his face turned red with anger and anxiety, his thin body tensed, and his voice continued to tremble as he spoke, and today's courtiers were no longer as afraid of imperial power as before.

The ministers were silent, as if they were playing on the spot, and did not take it seriously.

Fan Jingwen, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, sighed: "The matter of eating the king, the matter of loyalty to the king, as a minister of the Ming Dynasty, I always need to do something to live up to this emperor's grace. ”

Kou Xiang was anxious, and the courtiers originally intended to transfer Hong Chengchou and Wu Sangui to help, but Wei Zaode, a scholar of Dongge University, retorted: "The slaves and thieves have entered the customs again, and they are approaching Shenyang, so they can't show that they are weak, and the transfer of troops to the south is not a strange calculation?" ”

Chongzhen felt justified that the land outside the pass could no longer be lost, so he gave up the idea of letting the Liaodong army enter the pass to help.

Next, the courtiers came up with the idea of moving rescue troops everywhere, and even the guerrilla generals who only had 3,000 people were nominated for him to come back to help, but no one proposed to let the crown prince Zhu Cihong lead the troops north.

The courtiers tacitly understood that the crown prince implemented a series of new policies in the south of the Yangtze River, such as apportioning the land into the mu, the integration of officials and businessmen to pay grain, and the reform of the imperial examination system.

As a gentry and a scholar, all kinds of preferential privileges are gone, so what hope is there?

Such an insidious and ruthless monarch, with heavy troops in his hands, is chilling, if he is allowed to lead his troops north into Beijing, then he will have it?

No matter who is mentioned, all the ministers of the court, except for a few people, do not agree with letting the crown prince lead his troops north, let alone take the initiative to propose it.

During the period of thinking about various back roads, many ministers invariably came up with an idea: defect to Dashun!

Although Dashun is an anti-thief country, but the current situation is very good, won the hearts of the people, especially heard that Li Zicheng courteous literati, if he wins the world in the future, the new dynasty and new atmosphere, he will govern the country must be less than recruits, until then......

To put it bluntly, at present, everyone in the court would rather welcome the new lord than serve the crown prince of the Ming Dynasty, who is more difficult to deal with than a thief!

In the end, the results of the court meeting were: Liu Zeqing, the general soldier of Shandong, Wang Wannian, the general soldier of Shanxi, He Renlong, the general soldier of Shaanxi, Wang Tingchen, the general soldier of Miyun, and the general soldier of Jizhou......

At present, only these remnants of the army in the northern land are defeated, and I only hope that they can get together to put pressure on the puppet Shun army, and then lead the troops to help after Hong Chengchou repels Jiannu.

On July 27, Liu Zongmin, a puppet general, moved to Beijing and said: "The Dashun army will enter the city on the first day of August, and everyone in the city is ready to greet it!" ”

The earthquake in Beijing was great, the city was turbulent, the thieves came, there was a noise in the city, and the houses were burned and looted.

Chongzhen strictly ordered all ministries, Dongchang, Jinyiwei, and Wucheng Soldiers and Horses to send personnel to set up soldiers in the alleys, prohibit night travel, arrest criminals, and stabilize the order of the Beijing Division.

On that day, Emperor Chongzhen personally inspected the Beijing camp, and when he saw its tragic situation, his heart was even more worried.

(End of chapter)