On the eighth day of November, the Dengzhou army led by Liu Ximing finally returned to Dengzhou again.

The militia in the inner countryside had already been dismissed and returned to the county when they pursued Li Zicheng before, and when Liu Ximing returned to Dengzhou, except for thousands of officers and soldiers of the 105th Division, the rest of the soldiers and horses were all scattered to various parts of Dengzhou again.

In Dengzhou City, Liu Ximing picked up his head again at this time.

It is impossible for the Dengzhou militia to snipe at Li Zicheng's department as a big thing, not to mention that Li Zicheng's department has already flowed in the direction of Huguang, even the local officials in Henan will hear the news sooner or later.

Rather than provoke others to be suspicious, it is better for Liu Xi to calm down the matter and report it to him first.

After thinking about it for a long time, Liu Ximing finally bit the pen and wrote:

Since last month, the epidemic situation in the six provinces of the Central Plains has improved greatly, and the minister has made every effort to raise food, grass and medicine to prepare for the decisive battle against the epidemic. However, natural disasters continue, man-made disasters are also fierce, and there are rogues Li Zicheng, who led thieves out of Shaanxi and endangered Dengzhou. ”

"In a hurry, the minister had to mobilize the people of the whole state to fight, fortunately His Majesty Hongfu, the people are not afraid of death, the minister in July 18 in the inner township Danyang small victory thief soldiers, beheaded the first level of 5,700 strange, the thieves fled Huguang, in this battle Dengzhou Zhizhou Dou Yuquan, Neixiang Zhixian Lei Hong officials, and the strength of the same enemy, the same hatred of the enemy, really has a great merit......

Liu Ximing sprinkled nearly a thousand words, cutting most of the credit by half, and most of the rest of the credit was also distributed to Dou Yuquan and others.

It just so happened that Dou Yuquan, Lei Hong and others had already completed their three-year term of office and were about to be transferred, with the credit of this battle, and Liu Ximing had planned to put a lot of credit for epidemic prevention on their heads, so they could have a lot of room for operation when they wanted to come.

In Liu Ximing's mind, it is best to directly push Dou Yuquan to the position of the prefect of Nanyang, and then the entire Nanyang Basin can be regarded as under his own control.

However, in Liu Ximing's opinion, this matter is not so easy to do, after all, the prefect is a high-ranking official of the fourth grade, and the governor is only the sixth grade.

It was with this intention in mind that Liu Ximing's letter was submitted some time late.

At present, the Central Plains has achieved great results in fighting the epidemic, and under the guidance of isolation and other means, the epidemic situation in the six provinces is entering the subsidence stage.

It's just that what Liu Ximing didn't know was that not long after he sent this letter, several major events would once again profoundly change the political ecology of the Ming Dynasty.

In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Liu Xi, the new Anbo, the governor of the Central Plains, the left waiter of the military department and the right deputy envoy of the Imperial Inspectorate of the Central Plains, was ordered to help the epidemic in the six provinces of the Central Plains, and successfully eliminated the plague by the end of the year.

Under the repeated propaganda of the Central Plains Daily, many of the Ming scholars who were originally obsessed with the subset of scripture and history began to study this way, and Liu Ximing also had a tendency to be quite original in Shilin.

~~~

On the seventh day of the fourth month of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, Shenyang, Liaodong, in the Shengjing city of Taqing.

The Taqing monarchs and ministers, who had already recovered from Chongzhen's twelve-year defeat, gathered in the Chongzheng Hall with full vitality.

Dorobelle Duoduo came out and said: "Great Khan, the situation in the Ningjin area has been heard clearly, the Hangou Central Plains has another incident, many soldiers and generals have been transferred to the Central Plains to suppress the Liukou, and now the Ming army from Jinzhou to Shanhaiguan is only thirty or forty thousand people, and it is the time for our army to attack." ”

Huang Taiji, who was firmly on the throne, turned his head to look at Prince Zheng Jierharang, who was the head of the ministers, "Prince Zheng, how is the construction of Yizhou City?" ”

"Your Majesty, Yizhou City has been built, and it can be used as a springboard for attacking Jinzhou."

Since Dolgon and others led the troops back to Liaodong, Huang Taiji has not let go of his intention to attack the Ming Dynasty again, and as for the peace treaty signed with the Ming court, in Huang Taiji's opinion, it is naturally a piece of waste paper.

Jianzhou comes from a bitter cold land, and it is about the law of the jungle, and what kind of thing is peace and covenant.

Therefore, since the end of the twelfth year of Chongzhen, Huang Taiji sent Ji'er Harang and others to build a city on the bank of the Daling River in the east of Jinzhou City, and the name was Yizhou.

It is said that the city of Yizhou was within the attack range of Jinzhou, and the Manchus should not have completed the construction of the city so easily.

But who called Emperor Daming and Yang Sichang and others were very concerned about the peace treaty, and repeatedly issued orders not to allow the defenders of Jinzhou to provoke the war.

This gave Jierharang and others an excellent opportunity, even if it was cold, with the Ming people who drove to enslave Liaodong, the Manchu Qing still completed the construction of the city before June of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen.

Hearing Jilharang's confirmation, Huang Taiji was overjoyed.

"Hahaha, God help me, we are a feud with the Ming people, the Ming country will not die for a day, we will be like a man's back, and now the country is in turmoil, it is the time for me to raise troops."

Huang Taiji suddenly got up, and his strong figure formed a strong sense of oppression in the main hall.

"The generals listened to the order, I have made up my mind, immediately send troops to attack Ming, my army is divided into three teams, take turns to besiege Jinzhou, this battle must be Ming in the Guanguan stronghold all pulled out, no victory."

"Long live the Great Khan!"

In the Chongzhen Palace, Azig, Haoge and other military generals all burst out with cheers, the Ming people are weak, and fighting means that there will be prisoners, which is the most direct means of expanding the power of the Eight Banners of Jianzhou.

On 19 April, Hong Chengchou, the governor of Jiliao, who was still in the military affairs of the governor of Shanhaiguan, received a report from Kuaima that Jianlu sent 80,000 troops to attack Jinzhou in turn, and the war in eastern Liaodong was triggered again.

Frightened, Hong Chengchou hurriedly mobilized manpower and gathered the Shanhaiguan Headquarters, Wu Sangui, the chief soldier of the Ningyuan regiment, and other troops to rush to Jinzhou.

However, Jianyu had long been prepared for this, and under the coming and going of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Liaodong battlefield entered the stage of protracted warfare.

The bad news of Liaodong was only transmitted to the Beijing Division, which caused Chongzhen and a group of courtiers to regret and not to mention, and soon there was an even greater bad news from the battlefield of the Central Plains.

~~~

November 27, Huguang Wuchang Province.

In the past, the outside of Wuchang Mansion, where business and travel were flourishing, had become a place of slaughter, and hundreds of thousands of troops were densely stationed outside the city, which surrounded the entire Wuchang Mansion.

The entire army outside Wuchang Mansion was clearly divided into four parts, with Li Zicheng in the west, Cao Cao and Luo Rucai in the north, and Zhang Xianzhong and the fifth battalion of Ge Zuo in the east and south respectively.

It turned out that after being driven south by Liu Xi's troops, Li Zicheng led his troops straight to Xiangyang, Huguang, where Yang Sichang's camp was located.

But at present, all the generals under Yang Sichang are pursuing the Liukou in the provinces, which has caused the military strength of Xiangyang Mansion to be empty.

In addition, when Zhang Xianzhong and others raised troops again last year, they broke the Xiangyang Mansion and killed the entire family of the king of Xiangyang, so until this time, Xiangyang has not eased up.

In the face of Li Zicheng's 100,000 army threat, Yang Sichang commanded Zuo Liangyu, fierce as a tiger and other troops to resist for a while, but due to the weak strength, they finally had to abandon the city again and flee to Wuchang.

Li Zicheng's troops successfully occupied Xiangyang, where they were effectively supplied, and heard that Luo Rucai, Zhang Xianzhong and other troops were also active in Huguang, so they asked several people to attack Wuchang City together.

It was not until November 14 that Cao Cao and Luo Ru led 70,000 rogues from Ruyang, Zhang Xianzhong led an army of 120,000 from Yueyang to the north, plus 50,000 soldiers and horses of Lao Hui Ma Shouying and others, and the number of rogues under the entire city of Wuchang was as high as 340,000.

On the wall of Wuchang City, which was more than three zhang high, Yang Sichang's already gray and old face was filled with a deep sense of powerlessness.

Ordered in danger, I thought that I was able to turn the tide, but who would have thought that today's thieves were surrounded by thieves.

With a long sigh again, Yang Sichang turned his head to look at Fu Zonglong, the governor of Huguang.

"Zhonglun, is the King of Chu still unwilling to pay for the salary?"

Fu Zonglong is also a famous minister in the world, not to mention the fact that he was born with a lofty instrument, but also has the kind of decisive temperament that is rare among literati.

Hearing Yang Sichang's question, Fu Zonglong's resolute face showed a trace of indignation, and he sighed: "Fu has been persuaded four times, but the king of Chu still refuses to take money from the inner treasury, he said that raising troops is a matter for the imperial court, and it has nothing to do with them. ”

"In addition, the king of Chu reprimanded us many times, saying that we have failed the important responsibilities of the imperial court, and we cannot suppress the thieves but are trapped by the thieves, and the money should be paid by our officials."

Following Yang Sichang to inspect the military situation outside the city at the head of the city, there were also Wang Weiping, the prefect of Wuchang, and others, and when they heard Fu Zonglong's words, a group of people were all indignant.

Wang Weiping, who had a round face and big ears, was dressed in a four-grade red official uniform, and scolded angrily in the direction of the Chu Wangfu in the city: "He is really a slave who keeps money, if Wuchang dies, how can he live alone in the Chu Wangfu, this kind of thing that even the common people know, how can he say this." ”

Wang Weiping's words were already quite rude, but no one reprimanded the court ministers who were supposed to uphold the etiquette and law at the head of the city.

Outside the city, the army of rogues who have been jointly camped for dozens of miles is always reminding officials at all levels in Wuchang that it has reached the most critical juncture.

Even Yang Sichang was full of anger when he heard this: "It's really not a son of man, now that hundreds of thousands of troops are on the side, if you don't mobilize the people of the whole city, how can you hold the city, go, this official personally went to urge the king of Chu to open a warehouse." ”