"Ahem, ahem, ahem......"

As soon as Chen Yongxi walked on his front foot, Zuo Liangyu coughed violently, and an old servant who was waiting on the side hurriedly handed Zuo Dashuai a spittoon, and Zuo Liangyu spit out a ball of dark red liquid into it before he stopped coughing violently.

"Master Hou......" Huang Shu on the side showed a concerned expression, "Are you okay?" ”

"I can't die for the time being...... Zuo Liangyu smiled bitterly, "There will always be a year and a half." ”

"Master Hou, don't say that, Da Ming is still pointing at you!"

"Pointing at me?" Zuo Liangyu sneered, "Go east to the side of Qingjun? ”

"Master Hou......" Huang Shu didn't dare to take this stubble.

In history, this person was a person who instigated Zuo Liangyu to go east to find trouble with Emperor Hongguang, but now Huang Shu hasn't mentioned this stubble for a while.

Because blind people can see that Zhu Cihong is not Hongguang!

Hongguang fled to Nanjing, where he was put on the throne by the officials and nobles who stayed in the capital - he was not really the monarch, because it was not his turn to call the shots. And Zhu Cihong used 9,600 firearms and cavalry to defeat the tens of thousands of Beijing battalion soldiers of Nanjing and became the lord of Nanjing.

Although Nanjing Jingying was notoriously wasted, less than 10,000 people still attacked the city, which greatly surprised Zuo Liangyu and others.

So he just hid in Wuchang and pretended to be crazy, and then sang against Zhu Cizhao and Nanjing, bluffing. Even Zhu Cihong gave half of Huguang to He Tengjiao and Chang Yanling to rule, but he didn't dare to resist by force...... Not to mention going east to fight Nanjing, isn't this a door-to-door delivery of people's heads? Although Zuo Liangyu's health is no longer good, he still wants to have a good death. For him, he would be satisfied to be the king of Hubei comfortably until he died.

And he is not worried that Zhu Cihong will come to Huguang to find trouble, because he is actually a buffer in Huguang who is at ease in all aspects.

Li Zicheng in the north is not afraid of him, Zhu Cihong in the east is not afraid of him, and Zhang Xianzhong in the west is even more transparent to him.

He swung in the middle, and he didn't worry about all three, what a good thing!

If he is taken by one of the three parties of Zhu Cihong, Li Zicheng, and Zhang Xianzhong, the other two parties will definitely fight, and Huguang will have to fight again.

And Zhu Cihong, Li Zicheng, and Zhang Xianzhong are all busy now, and they don't have the time to start a war in Huguang, so Zuo Liangyu should have another year to slowly die of illness......

But Huang Shu still wants to live longer, he is in good health, and he can't die within a year.

"Master Hou," Huang Shu thought for a moment, "Why don't we go west to Sichuan?" ”

Zuo Liangyu sighed, he only felt weak now, he was tired, and he was groggy all day, how could he have the energy to arrange the action of going west to Sichuan?

Besides, Zhang Xianzhong is so easy to deal with? He just became the emperor in Chengdu, and now he is in high spirits, and the current situation of the left army is to die.

"There is still one year to ......," Zuo Liangyu said, "and we can slowly rectify and strengthen the city defenses of the three cities of Wuchang, Hanyang and Hankou." As long as the three cities of Wuhan can be defended, we have a way! ”

Huang Shu sighed and said in his heart: This can only be the case. There is still a year, and I can slowly find a way out.......

......

The sky was already dark, the stars were twinkling overhead, the moon was in the sky, and there was silence between heaven and earth. Seeing such a beautiful night, it is difficult for anyone to associate it with the battle, right?

However, when Li Zicheng, who was standing on a high slope outside Tongguan City, turned his gaze from the night sky to the earth, what he saw was a series of camps, which extended to the end of his sight. The aura of slaughter enveloped the four fields.

These camps are the big camps of the Dashun army, digging the soil into a trench, cutting wood for a fence, and the company camp is in a row, extending along the Yellow River from the gourd beach near Tongguan, passing through Zhaodu Town, Luoshui, Chaoyi City, and ending at the bank of the river.

Li Zicheng's army of 80,000 was deployed at the foot of Tongguan in this way, relying on the Yellow River to defend and block the way of the Qing army under Duoduo.

The camp of the Qing army was placed east of Tongguan and the north bank of the Yellow River (east bank), and in this darkness, Li Zicheng could vaguely see the torches on the Qing army's camp fighting, flashing and flashing, emitting a dim light.

Compared with the joint camp of 80,000 troops on Li Zicheng's side, the camp of the Qing army was much smaller, and their number would not exceed 40,000, which was only half of the Dashun army. And Li Zicheng has Tongguan to defend and the Yellow River to rely on, no matter how you look at it, he is invincible.

Of course, he is not without a little worry.

There are now two things that make this great Shun emperor anxious, one is the haunting Wu Sangui - now Wu Sangui has completely occupied the entire territory of Ningxia Town and Gansu Town; Zhenrong, Pingyu, Xi'an and Guyuan Prefecture in Pingliang Prefecture; Anbiansuo and Qingxian in Qingyang Province; Jingyuwei, located between the Yellow River and Pingliangfu; Lanzhou, Jinxian and Didao in the west of Lintao Province; It also controlled the territory between the towns of Gansu and Ningxia, which had belonged to some Mongol tribes.

This is a large piece of territory, and for more than 200 years, it has been a place where the guards have lived, and when the Dashun army fought over, it did not encounter any resistance, and naturally it was not purged, and the original powerful forces were still there.

Now most of these forces have been collected by Wu Sangui and have become accomplices of the Wu family's army!

With the support of these local tyrants and inferior gentry, even if Wu Sangui gained a firm foothold in the northwest, he also had the strength to go east......

Another thing that worried Li Zicheng was that the consumption of 80,000 troops on the Tongguan front line was too large, which made the Dashun court a little unbearable.

Because the three-year free grain policy is still being implemented, and the Dashun army gathered heavy troops in Tongguan this time and fought a protracted war with the Qing army. The 80,000 troops on the front line are only the number of soldiers, and if you count the people who transported grain and grass for the Dashun army and built the city, the number of people who need Li Zicheng's support has exceeded 200,000!

In addition, there are more than 100,000 horses of various large animals that also need Li Zicheng's imperial court to find a way to raise forage.

So Niu Jinxing, the prime minister of the Great Shun Dynasty, is dying of sorrow these days...... Because Li Zicheng is still thinking about winning the hearts of the people, what kind of people are invincible. So I am not willing to give up the promise of not levying for three years in Guanzhong!

Since it is not levied, it can only be bought with silver...... The land in Guanzhong was already barren, and after years of drought and war, the price of grain was high. In addition, because Li Zicheng's three-year grain exemption policy was expanded, the peasants resisted rent and defaulted on their debts, which dealt a heavy blow to the gentry and merchants in Guanzhong, and commercial activities quickly declined. The Shaanxi merchant network, which originally covered all parts of Shaanxi, no longer exists.

In other words, it is difficult for Niu Venus to buy food with silver!

When Li Zicheng returned to the palace in Tongguan City, Prime Minister Niu Dacheng had been waiting for a long time, and when he saw Li Zicheng coming back, he was busy kowtowing.

Li Zicheng yawned, waved his hand to let him get up, and when he saw Niu Jinxing's sad face, he asked, "Prime Minister, why are you here?" Why are you crying and losing your face? ”

"Emperor," Niu Jinxing said, "the minister has tried his best, but he really can't raise grain and grass...... If the expedition is not started again, I am afraid that the army will not last for the second half of the year. ”

Li Zicheng fell silent when he heard this.

"Emperor," Niu Jinxing said again, "the harvest in Guanzhong has not been very good in recent years, and there have been wars for many years, and the people regard grain as valuable, even if we pay a high price, we are not willing to sell it." And there is nothing to buy after selling......"

"What should I do?" Li Zicheng asked.

"Emperor, let's collect grain!" Niu Jinxing said, "Let's levy a little less, a million stones is enough." ”

Li Zicheng sighed, "Xiangjing and Luoyang have allocated land to the soldiers, and Guanzhong is now going to start a campaign again...... If this continues, what is the difference between the foreheads and the Zhu family, and the Tartars? ”

"This .......," said Niu Venus's heart, isn't it? You, Zhu Cihong, and Dolgon are all the way!

Li Zicheng saw that Niu Jinxing didn't answer, and sighed again: "I thought that Dashun was a country established for the poor people, and it was different from the Ming Dynasty and Dongyu. I didn't expect to do the same thing as the Ming Dynasty and Dongyu now...... If I knew this, I should have done it when I was in Beijing, and I wouldn't be where I am today! ”

"What the emperor said is," Niu Jinxing sighed, "Fortunately, it's not too late!" ”