On the nineteenth day of the lunar month, Li Zicheng once again convened a meeting of civil and military officials in the palace. Present at the meeting were more than 10 people, including Liu Zongmin, Sun Ke, Song Xiance, Yu Shangyou, Shangyou of the Military Government, Zehou Tian Jianxiu, Chen Yongfu, Wenshui Bo, Bai Guangen, Taoyuan Bo, and Gu Junen, a newly promoted scholar of the former Military Government, to discuss the march to the capital. At that time, the detailed strategy of how to march to the capital had already been decided. This meeting just said that Liu Zongmin's matter of leading the troops to the expedition was of great significance, and we would see if there were any things that I had not thought of and missed. Among these people, Bai Guangen and Chen Yongfu are generals, and their participation in the meeting is of great significance in itself, after all, this is the highest official general who surrendered to Dashun. Among the two of them, Chen Yongfu is a decent person and is deeply respected by Li Zicheng. He also had to take his original two or three thousand men and horses to accompany Liu Zongmin on the expedition. His men and horses had already driven to the vicinity of Hancheng to wait, and his son, the lieutenant general Chen De, was now stationed in Huaiqing Mansion, but had not yet surrendered to Dashun. But it has been secretly agreed that once Cihou Liu Fangliang leads a partial division of the Eastern Expedition and crosses the Taihang Mountain from between Jiyuan and Huaiqing, he will surrender in Huaiqing and welcome Liu Fangliang into northern Henan. As for Bai Guangen, he and Chen Yongfu are in a different situation. Chen Yongfu has been in Henan and has been guarding Kaifeng for many years, and he has little to do with the generals outside. Bai Guangen is a more senior and well-traveled figure among the northern generals, and Hong Chengchou, a prisoner in the east and south, led eight general troops to rescue Nanzhili, and Bai Guangen is one of the eight general soldiers. Li Zicheng took him on the expedition, not because he had soldiers in his hands and could establish meritorious services for the Great Shun Dynasty on the battlefield, but because he had deep or shallow friendships with the generals in the north of the imperial court, such as Jiang Hao, Tang Tong, and Wu Sangui's father and son. He was a very useful figure when it came to recruiting these generals.

Since Li Zicheng wanted to personally lead his troops to capture the capital, Liu Zongmin was only one step ahead, so he did not hold a "sending ceremony".

In the early morning of the twentieth day of the lunar month, the sky in Chang'an was still dark, and Liu Zongmin entered the palace to resign. Li Zicheng gave a banquet in the palace, which was actually just a symbolic etiquette, very simple, and ended quickly. Then Li Zicheng personally sent him out of the noon gate and watched him get on the horse. Although Kong Ke is a scholar of Tianyou Pavilion, in the position of prime minister, Song Xiance is a military advisor, but according to the tradition of the Dashun Army, Liu Zongmin's status is above the civil and military ministers, Kong Ke and Song Xiance were ordered to lead the civil and military officials, Liu Zongmin was sent out of Chang'an City, and performed a simple "mutual salute", and then watched Liu Zongmin lead a large number of generals and personal soldiers, galloping away in the cold morning fog.

"Prime Minister Kong, I think we will be able to gather in the capital in three or five months at most!"

Seeing Liu Zongmin who was gone, Song Xiance said with a smile, and was surprised when he saw that Kong Ke didn't speak.

"Prime Minister, it seems that you have been worried lately!"

"Hmmm......"

Nodding, Sun Ke said.

"I'm still worried about that general! Counting the days, he should go to Huguang. ”

"General Pingyu?"

Song Xiance laughed.

"Even if he goes to Huguang, what will happen? There are hundreds of thousands of horses under Zhang Xianzhong's command, that is, hundreds of thousands of ducks, and he wants to eat them, but he won't be able to eat them in a year or two! When he defeated Zhang Xianzhong, there would be no Ming Dynasty in the world, and when the time came, the emperor would send heavy troops to suppress him, and he would only have to bow down and surrender to the general! ”

Since learning that the imperial court ordered General Pinglu to go south, Song Xiance tried his best to urge Li Zicheng to go east to conquer the Ming Dynasty, and he must destroy the Ming Dynasty before General Pingyu withdrew, so that the world will naturally return to Dashun.

"I hope so......"

Shaking his head and sighing lightly, Sun Kewang's expression became gloomy.

Two days after Liu Zongmin's departure, on the 22nd day of the lunar month, a messenger from Xiangyang brought a thunderous message.

"Zhang Xianzhong died, and hundreds of thousands of Western troops surrendered to the official mansion!"

When the news reached Li Zicheng, he was in the Qianqing Palace, which was once a palace in the middle of the inner court of the Qin Palace, and now serves as his own dormitory, as well as the place where he worked and summoned the military generals of Wenchen.

"What? What the hell is going on? ”

"Emperor Qiqi, the news from Wuchang said that Zhang Xianzhong and his court officials were killed by dark thunder, and the government gave Zhang Xianzhong the dark thunder disguise in the name of Zuo Liangyu, and the dark thunder was detonated by the dead when he was appreciating, Zhang Xianzhong and the civil and military officials of the Western Dynasty were killed on the spot, according to the dark thunder explosion, the earth shook like a landslide and the ground cracked......"

Song Xiance, who was standing in the hall, was sweating all over his forehead, you know, a few days ago he said that Zhang Xianzhong could last at least a year or two, but who would have thought that he would only last a few days!

"Zhang Xianzhong is dead!"

Li Zicheng muttered.

"Just Dead......

Once upon a time, he Zhang Xianzhong was so aggressive, but now? Before he even made a splash, he was blown up and killed.

"And what about his four generals? What about them? ”

"It fell, it fell on the same day, it is said that it was General Pingyu who went to his camp alone to know the reason and persuaded them!"

Hundreds of thousands of people, just like that!

After being stunned for a while, Li Zicheng said.

"Hundreds of thousands of horses, just gone, Lao Tzu has fought for half his life, and he has never seen such a way of fighting, he cleaned up Zhang Xianzhong with dark thunder, and then as soon as he came forward, people were lowered ......"

While muttering to himself, Li Zicheng said again.

"If that's the case, there's really no fucking way to fight this battle!"

This is the "decapitation operation", of course Li Zicheng in this era does not know this term, but he knows very well that once the commander is killed, what does it mean to his subordinates, without Zhang Xianzhong, there will be no Great Western Army, and the remaining people will no longer be hundreds of thousands of troops, but hundreds of thousands of stragglers.

Thinking so in his heart, Li Zicheng said.

"Be careful in the future, we must not let the officials and soldiers send the dark thunder to us, that Zhang Xianzhong is too careless."

Although he said this, he wondered in his heart, why did this thing sound so weird, could it be that there was something else? Could it be that the general of Pingyu led the thunder to bomb him......

The moment this thought came to his heart, he couldn't help but look up at the sky. Will that guy bring a thunderbolt to Chang'an?

The emperor's somewhat weak-hearted move fell in Song Xiance's eyes, so he said softly.

"Your Majesty, for the sake of it, you still have to take the capital as soon as possible, only by taking the capital can you seize orthodoxy before him, and only in this way can you command the world."

Sun Ke looked at the emperor and said.

"There is only one remedy, we have to be fast, we have to take the capital before they do."