"Your Majesty, Shaanxi 600 miles urgent!"

Chongzhen impatiently took the report and said, "The affairs of Liaodong have not been taken care of yet, what is the matter in Shaanxi?" ”

Just a cursory look, his emaciated face immediately changed, the newspaper said that Li Zicheng took seventeen generals out of Shangluo Mountain, demagogic with celestial phenomena, and shouted the slogan of "Eighteen sons, the main artifact" to recruit troops, and in just a few days, thousands of people gathered and swept the surrounding states and counties.

"Eighteen sons" is the split word of "Li", corresponding to Li Zicheng and the only seventeen remaining subordinates, and "main artifact" refers to dominating the world, which means that the person surnamed Li can be the emperor and dominate the world.

Chongzhen had a headache for a while, he gently rubbed his temples and muttered: "Li Thief is really a wildfire that can't be burned, and the spring breeze blows and grows again!" ”

At this time, the chief eunuch of the Chengqian Palace came to report: "Your Majesty, the condition of the Fifth Highness is getting worse and worse, I am afraid that it will be ......."

"What?" Chongzhen hurriedly said: "What's the aggravation, isn't it better the day before yesterday?" ”

Although he was weak, Chongzhen was still relieved of the work at hand and hurried to Chengqian Palace to visit his son.

In the Chengqian Palace, the thin fifth prince Zhu Cihuan was lying on the bed, breathing weakly, and Tian Guifei on the side of the bed had a haggard face, sobbing and choking on the side.

Chongzhen saw that the situation was not right, and asked in a deep voice, "What's the matter?" ”

Tian Guifei pounced and choked up: "Your Majesty, the imperial doctors said that the emperor is afraid that he will die......"

"Nonsense!" Chongzhen slowly pushed him away, sat on the bed, held Zhu Cihuan's little hand trembling slightly, and said, "Huan'er, my father is by your side, it's okay." ”

Zhu Cihuan, who was only five years old, opened his eyes in a daze, and suddenly said: "The Nine Lotus Bodhisattva said that the emperor treats his relatives thinly and will kill all his sons......."

In just one sentence, like five thunderbolts, everyone present was shocked.

The Nine Lotus Bodhisattva refers to the Empress Dowager Li, the mother of the Wanli Emperor, who likes to worship the Buddha, worships Mount Tai Bixia Yuanjun as a teacher, cultivates the positive fruit, and is named the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva by the Wanli Emperor, blessing and increasing the longevity of all beings.

Empress Dowager Li's maiden family is the Marquis of Wuqing, and now Marquis of Wuqing Li Guorui died in the Imperial Prison.

The meaning of this sentence of the five princes is that the Empress Dowager Li appeared and said that the emperor treated his relatives poorly, provoked the anger of heaven to punish him, and his sons would die one by one, and none of them were spared.

Tian Guifei's face turned pale, and she hurriedly pleaded guiltily: "Your Majesty is angry, the emperor is ........"

Zhu Cihong continued to whisper in a daze: "The Nine Lotus Bodhisattva said that the emperor treats his relatives poorly, and he will kill all his son.......s."

Chongzhen was furious and was about to scold, but saw that Wuzi Cihuan didn't breathe anymore after saying this, and the corners of his mouth were slightly open and he didn't move anymore.

Chongzhen said eagerly: "Let's see, what's going on!" ”

Several imperial doctors hurriedly stepped forward to diagnose, and the last one knelt on the ground, saying that the Fifth Highness had passed away.

Chongzhen's brain went blank all of a sudden, and when he came back, he didn't hear Tian Guifei's mournful voice, and his mind kept repeating the words of the fifth son just now: The Nine Lotus Bodhisattva said that the emperor treats his relatives thinly and will kill all his sons.......

The fifth son, Zhu Cihuan, passed away after speaking, which made Chongzhen very frightened.

For a time, there was a lot of rumors inside and outside the Forbidden City, saying that the emperor was not kind and treated the emperor's relatives and relatives badly, which led to the appearance of the Nine Lotus Bodhisattva and punished the emperor to make him cut off his heirs.

When his beloved son left, Chongzhen was heartbroken and extremely afraid, but the disaster did not go alone, and soon after, the sixth-prince Zhu Cican, who was only two years old, died unexpectedly.

Chongzhen was already a little superstitious, and he lost his two sons, so he no longer dared to take risks, so he hurriedly ordered the termination of the will to pay the salary, and returned all the silver taels copied from the family of the Marquis of Wuqing, and also restored the title of Marquis of Wuqing, so that Li Guorui's seven-year-old son inherited the throne of the Marquis of Wuqing.

Xue Guoguan, who proposed to let the emperor's relatives, nobles, courtiers, and eunuchs help pay him, suddenly became the focus of everyone's fire, and countless impeachment notes were piled up on the dragon case in Wenhua Palace.

Chongzhen also began to hate Xue Guoguan and was ready to find an excuse to punish him, but there was no evidence of guilt in these impeachment transcripts to bring down Xue Guoguan.

At this time, Wang Dehua came to mend the knife, he had long wanted to take revenge on Xue Guoguan, and he was also secretly investigating Xue Guoguan, and finally found a piece of evidence.

Subsequently, Wu Changshi, the director of the Ministry of Rites, impeached Xue Guoguan for accepting bribes, saying that there was a corrupt official who had his head cut off by the crown prince before, and he had brought a lot of money to Xue Guoguan's activities to do business.

Xue Guoguan naturally refused to admit it, he said: The person concerned is dead, there is no way to verify, this is obviously someone framed me!

Seeing that the emperor's attitude was unclear, Xue Guoguan was also very anxious, I heard that Wang Dehua had recently found Yang Sichang, and the two enemies had joined forces to get him, and the head of the Ministry of Rites who had sued him was Yang Sichang's dog.

The more Xue Guoguan thought about it, the more frightened he became, so he secretly wrote a letter and sent someone to Liaodong, asking the crown prince Zhu Cihong to take a moment to maneuver, and said that as long as he could stand on his feet, there would be no problem with logistics.

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In mid-August, the midsummer is about to pass, and several consecutive heavy rains have made the weather in Liaodong much colder.

However, the war was still in full swing and entered the final decisive stage, the armies of the Eight Banners were galloping to help Shengjing, and the Ming armies from all walks of life were also advancing towards the Hunhe River one after another.

Wu Sangui and other major generals, after leaving some of their men and horses to garrison, hurriedly rushed to the front line with their elite soldiers and horses in the starry night, wanting to get a piece of the pie when they broke through Shengjing.

On the banks of the Hunhe River, the original lush trees have been cut down, and there are tall camps rising from the ground everywhere, and the camps of the Qing army stretch for dozens of miles along the river.

More than ten miles away from the Hunhe River, there is a large camp of the Ming army with strong barriers.

Zhu Cihong stood on Mozi Mountain, looking at the winding Hunhe River in the distance, and his mood was difficult to calm down, and the battle of the Hunhe River took place here twenty years ago.

At that time, 4,000 white pole soldiers and 3,000 Zhejiang soldiers, a total of more than 7,000 people, were ordered to go to the rescue of Shenyang, when they rushed to the Hunhe River, found that Shenyang had been captured by Nurhachi, although the rescue mission had failed, but the military order was still there, the white pole soldiers and Zhejiang soldiers rushed to cross the river to fight in formation.

The commander of the Zhejiang soldiers is called Qi Jin, who is the nephew of Qi Jiguang's clan, and has followed Qi Jiguang to fight in the south and north all the year round.

On both sides of the Hunhe River, tens of thousands of Eight Banner Army besieged 7,000 white pole soldiers and Zhejiang soldiers, and the two sides fought until it was getting late, and the Eight Banner Army had reinforcements to the battlefield!

Seeing that there were no reinforcements, all the generals and soldiers had the heart of benevolence, and in the end, except for a very small number of officers and soldiers who fought their way out of the encirclement and returned to the Ming army camp in Liaoyang, the general Chen Ce, Tong Zhonghui and the deputy general Qi Jin, the generals Yuan Jianlong, Deng Qilong, Zhang Mingshi, Zhang Dadou and other generals and officials, a total of more than 120 people, all died tragically.

Twenty years ago, the battle of the Hunhe River, can be said to be the most tragic battle on the battlefield of Liaodong, the Ming people are very proud, "Ming Xi Zonglu" called it "dignified and vigorous" and "Shi Xianzhuang", according to Hou Jin's own history books, the Eight Banners did suffer an extremely heavy blow, heavy casualties.