Who knew that Liu Zongmin's words were spoken, and Song Xiance and Huo Zhaowei all shouted in unison: "This matter is not appropriate!" ”

"If you don't have the strength to be the emperor, it's just a shame to make the world laugh, the best thing at the moment is to be the king first, and then expand the territory of our army as soon as possible, as long as you can occupy the territory of several provinces, then it will be too late for the king to be the emperor again."

Huo Zhaowei said with a deep understanding of Song Xiance: "Yes, being the king is the best choice now." ”

"Hahaha, that's good, since several gentlemen have said so, then let's be kings first!"

When the lord sat down, Li Zicheng couldn't hold back the joy in his heart, and slapped the matter the chair.

Niu Jinxing saw that Song Xiance and Huo Zhaowei were taking the limelight, and the jealousy in his heart grew like a weed.

Unwilling to be left behind, he immediately came out and said: "Although Song Huo and the two have good ideas, but there are still some shortcomings, then Luo Rucai is now an army of his own, how can he be simply captured, I think it is best to take him down first, put the army in our hands, and then reward him not too late." ”

In this way, the raw rice has been cooked into rice, and he Luo Rucai has naturally become a subordinate of King Chuang. As long as we can control him, his army will have to go with us. ”

Li Zicheng looked at Niu Jinxing with an appreciative expression, "What Mr. said is good, otherwise I will almost miss a big event, and this matter will be done as you say." ”

As soon as Niu Jinxing heard this, he immediately looked at Song Xiance and Huo Zhaowei with a little provocation, and his eyebrows were full of demonstrate.

Song Xiance smiled slightly, not paying attention to it at all, and Huo Zhaowei gave Niu Jinxing a thumbs up.

A group of people deliberated over and over again for a while, and finally set the banner of the army, and Li Zicheng immediately arranged for people to prepare, while inviting Luo Rucai to the camp.

Luo Rucai thought that he was Li Zicheng's ally, who would have thought that he had already thought of annexing his own troops.

With mental calculations or unintentional, not long after Luo Rucai and the others entered the camp of the Chuang Army, they were all controlled.

On September 17, Li Zicheng led the army to claim the king in Kaifeng, calling himself "King Xinshun", and named Luo Rucai as Chen Guogong.

But not to mention, Li Zicheng's hand not only successfully merged Luo Rucai's department, but also made the morale of his subordinates soar.

For a time, the morale of the Xinshun army was like a rainbow, and the world shook up and down the Ming Dynasty.

Originally, when Chongzhen appointed Ding Qirui as the governor of the Central Plains, he also appointed Sun Chuanting as the governor of the three sides.

When Ding Qirui died, Chongzhen ordered Liu Xi to enter the Central Plains to take over the superintendent, and on the other hand, he also ordered Sun Chuanting to speed up the suppression of thieves.

Sun Chuanting, who was trapped in northern Shaanxi and Shanxi, can be said to be a real loyal minister, relying on searching for big households everywhere, he insisted on pulling up 70,000 horses in these places.

Now Li Zicheng is king in Kaifeng, and on October 15, Sun Chuanting, at the urging of the imperial court, raised troops and went straight to Xi'an, vowing to recover Shaanxi and deal a heavy blow to the newly formed Xinshun regime.

It stands to reason that Sun Chuanting had better report to Liu Ximing at this time to ask for assistance, and the two sides attacked at the same time, one south and one north, which was just enough to allow Li Zicheng to take care of himself.

However, Sun Chuanting did not wait for the reinforcements sent by Liu Ximing after all, it is said that the reason was that Zhang Xianzhong, who was in Nanhuguang, also began to make trouble, and Liu Ximing only had 100,000 soldiers and horses in his hands, so he had to fight Zhang Xianzhong first.

In desperation, Sun Chuanting had to lead the army alone to fight against the Xinshun army, but how could he defeat Li Zicheng's army, which had just completed the reconstruction, with a new division.

In addition, Sun Chuanting and Confucian scholars, their understanding of war is still at the level of defending against grassland wars.

In view of the fact that Li Zicheng's troops had formed an overwhelming advantage over themselves in terms of cavalry because of the large number of officers and soldiers, Sun Chuanting requisitioned materials everywhere according to his own understanding and built tens of thousands of board carts as car battalions to resist the cavalry of the Xinshun army.

As a result, Li Zicheng was still a step ahead, and seeing that he could not break through Sun Chuanting's camp, he simply sent cavalry to cut off Sun Chuanting's grain route and forced Sun Chuanting to fight a decisive battle with him.

After that, Li Zicheng relied on a large amount of cannon fodder to attack the army under Sun Chuanting, and then suddenly covered out with heavy cavalry, instantly defeating the only cavalry led by the surrendered generals such as Gao Jie and Bai Guangen under Sun Chuanting.

Sun Chuanting's subordinates were already demoralized because of the lack of food and grass, but now the cavalry was broken, the army collapsed instantly, and was chased and killed by Li Zicheng's troops for more than dozens of miles.

Since then, except for the army under Liu Ximing, as well as the troops of Liu Zeqing and Huang Degong in the southeast, the Ming Dynasty has no formed army in the Central Plains.

~~~

October 17, Wuchang City.

At this time, Wuchang City was already slaughtered.

When Sun Chuanting sent someone to ask for help, although Liu Ximing really didn't want to save him in his heart, the reason he gave Sun Chuanting was right.

Soon after Li Zicheng became king in Kaifeng, Zhang Xianzhong, who learned the news, also became king under the influence of his subordinates.

On September 28, the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, Zhang Xianzhong built a pole in Changsha City to claim the king, called himself the king of Daxi, and at the same time sent news to Huguang, Jiangxi and other places, to recruit learned people from all over the country to enter the court as officials.

It is said that there are many bold talents in Changsha City who were appointed as the prefect of the four products as soon as they took refuge, and as soon as this case spread, many people who read with iron wanted to go to Changsha to try their luck.

At present, everyone can see the decline of the Ming Dynasty, these scholars who have sucked blood on the Ming Dynasty for hundreds of years don't even want courtesy, righteousness and shame, what kind of thing is that, is it worthy of their investment in studying hard for decades.

Of course, this kind of thing has nothing to do with Liu Ximing.

On the contrary, these things originally had the shadow of Liu Ximing pushing behind.

It's just that what makes Liu Ximing a little depressed is that Zhang Xianzhong doesn't know which tendon is twisted, because Liu Ximing defeated and repelled Li Zicheng's army in Henan, he actually thought of finding a field from Liu Ximing and then brushing up his prestige in the rogue world.

Since the killing of Zuo Liangyu, Liu Ximing has been busy with two things, one is to collect the 120,000 soldiers and horses under Zuo Liangyu's command, and the other is naturally the reform of official governance.

Needless to say, the reform of official governance, just collecting Zuo Liangyu's army gave Liu Ximing and Cao Bianjiao and other generals a bit of a headache.

Most of these 120,000 people are strong men who have just been forcibly pulled over by Zuo Liangyu, and with Zuo Liangyu's connivance, these people have been contaminated with the bad habits of veterans in just a few months.

For such soldiers and horses, Liu Xi will not include them in his account if he is killed.

As for Zuo Liangyu's original 20,000 horses, it was a cancer among the tumors, and they had been strictly guarded by Liu Ximing from the beginning.

In the end, Liu Ximing finally made up his mind to dismiss all these people.

But if they are dismissed directly, these people will inevitably flood into the gangsters, and then they will bring a lot of trouble to themselves.

Therefore, Liu Ximing had to directly carry out a large number of land annexation work in Wuchang Mansion, and at the same time transfer the administrators of the Liu family from Xiangyang Mansion to build a village in Wuchang on the spot, and place these soldiers in Zuo Liangyu's army.

Not to mention the great twists and turns of this back and forth, Liu Ximing wantonly annexed land in Wuchang and other state capitals, and there were many conflicts with the local gentry in Huguang and Huguang officials such as He Tengjiao.

Fortunately, Liu Ximing had already given Chongzhen a preventive shot, and Huguang's snowflake-like complaint not only did not sue Liu Ximing in front of Chongzhen, but made Chongzhen feel even more that Liu Ximing was stigmatizing himself to show his loyalty.

In addition to a few words of public reprimand for Liu Ximing, the government and the opposition did not take any specific actions, which made the Huguang officials and gentry feel sad but helpless.

It's not that these people haven't thought about armed confrontation, but God is pitiful, the Liu family's appearance is too ugly, and even the cavalry under Cao Bianjiao has been sent out to buy land for Liu Jiaqiang to escort, who can withstand this situation.

In desperation, the Huguang gentry had no choice but to ask Liu Ximing for justice through He Tengjiao and others, but Liu Ximing blocked all these people with a word.

There is no large amount of land, who will feed these messy strong men in Zuo Liangyu's army.

In this way, under the cover of various names, it only took a month for the Liu family to embezzle the Tai and half of the land in several state capitals such as Wuchang Mansion, De'an Mansion, Huangzhou Mansion and Chengtian Mansion in a scolding voice.

Coupled with some places where the Liu family was originally quietly operating, it can be said that the entire Beihuguang has basically been controlled by Liu Ximing.

Under such circumstances, the 300,000 troops led by Zhang Xianzhong descended the river from the Yuezhou Mansion.