The Manchu custom is to have many wives and concubines, and Dolgon has several wives. The brother-in-law of the Dolgon in front of him claimed to be the brother of Dolgon's fourth marriage to Fujin. Dolgon also has four Fujin, two of which are from the Horqin Department, and after supporting Fulin to ascend the throne last year, in order to consolidate his own power and win over the harem, he married the daughter of the right-wing Durbert Qitaiji of the Horqin Department. So the brother-in-law was now being favored, and Dorgon had sent him with considerable sincerity.

The nobles of the Jurchen, Mongol and other tribes near the eastern border of Liaodong all learned Chinese, so there was no language barrier between Wu Sangui and Dolgon's wife and brother. After listening to the other party's statement, Wu Sangui's doubts were relieved. It turned out that Yang Shen and Guo Yunlong, who had been ordered to go out of Shanhaiguan to envoy to the Qing Kingdom, had not yet arrived in Shenyang, and they ran into the Qing army on the way.

As early as the beginning of this year, a series of military operations by the Shun army in Shaanxi alarmed the Mongolian Ordos department, which settled in Hetao and adjacent to northern Shaanxi. The Ordos Department then transmitted the news of the Shun army's occupation of Shaanxi to the Qing court in Shenyang. In fact, the Qing State also paid a lot of attention to the internal turmoil of the Ming Kingdom, and Huang Taiji before his death even made it clear that "with me, there is a sign of death." Why? Piliu Kou infighting, thieves swarming, or millions, or three or four hundred thousand, attacking the city and plundering the land, can not be stopped", thinking that the Ming State itself can be used to benefit the Qing State. Guided by this line of thought, at the end of the fifteenth year of Chongzhen, the Qing army broke the border and committed the Ming Dynasty, and Huang Taiji instructed Doro Rao Yu Belle Abatai "If you encounter a rogue, Yiyuner and others will see that the Ming government is disordered, and it will become a radical change." Our country has come to levy for this reason. Speak with kind words. Shen precept soldiers, don't kill one or two of them by mistake, and cause evil", purposefully want to make friends with Li Zicheng and other forces who are also hostile to the Ming Dynasty in order to "meet with the Ming". The reason why Yuan Shizhong led the small Yuan battalion in Huaibei to defeat the Qing army and achieve a rare victory was also due to the uncertain war spirit of the Qing army under the instructions of Huang Taiji's "Liankou Huaming".

However, Luohua is deliberately ruthless, and Li Zicheng is not interested in Qingguo.

In the Ming Dynasty, the Ming army defending the border areas and the tribes of Outer Mongolia were constantly fighting, and on the whole, there were many victories and defeats, and they were not afraid at all, and even on the contrary, they often went out to the Mongolian tribes everywhere to plunder and fight the autumn wind, which was almost commonplace. Li Zicheng has lived in the border area for many years, and there is no shortage of border army generals and soldiers in the Shun army, in their impression, the most troublesome thing about the Tartars outside the fortress is only the attack that comes and goes very quickly, and it is really a tough battle, and the Ming army, which has studied a lot of restraint Mongolian cavalry tactics for hundreds of years, can often win more with less, and even chase hundreds of miles with horseback to horse. Therefore, the vast number of officers and men of the Shun army, including Li Zicheng, actually despised the combat effectiveness of the Saiwai tribe to a certain extent.

The Central Plains is thousands of miles away from the Guanwai, and the Qing State does not know much about the strength of the various rogues and the specific situation of the Shun army, and on the contrary, the Shun army is also blind to the Qing State. Li Zicheng, who was determined to overthrow the Ming Dynasty and replace him as the world's Zhengshuo, would not take the Qing State as a "barbarian" in his eyes, and the biggest enemy in the eyes of Li Zicheng and other Dashun high-level officials was only the Ming court.

Until Huang Taiji's death, his plan to "join Kou Vaming" was not really implemented. However, his ideas were kept in mind by the politically astute Dolgon.

At the beginning of this year, Dolgon, who supported Fulin's successful accession to the throne, gradually sat firmly in the position of the chief minister of the Qing court, and as soon as he remembered Huang Taiji's last wish, he immediately sent Chi Qilong, Miao Shangyi and the Mongolian Banner to send the credentials to Shaanxi together, wanting to find Li Zicheng to "conspire together and take the Central Plains". Who wants to wait for them to bypass the Mongol tribes to northern Shaanxi, and the Shun army, which is marching very fast, has already marched towards Beijing. The great commander of Yulinwei, Wang Liangzhi, the former deputy general of the Ming Dynasty who had surrendered to Li Zicheng in Xi'an, received the Qing envoy and immediately informed Li Zicheng of the matter after receiving the letter. However, Li Zicheng, who had long been determined to win the world, still looked down on the alliance invitation of the "Yuer Barbarian State" and ignored it. Dolgon did not get a reply from Li Zicheng, so he had to focus on the interior for the time being, first looking for an opportunity to cut Hauge in April, and put an end to the possibility of a counterattack by this political enemy. Once the internal affairs were completely secured, Dolgon's eyes naturally turned outward again.

In early March, Wu Sangui was ordered by Emperor Chongzhen to enter the king of Guanqin and abandon all the six cities including Ningyuan outside the Guan. A few days later, the situation was discovered by the nearby Qing army, which quickly sent troops to occupy these lands, and hurriedly reported to the Qing court that the Ming army outside the Guanguan had heard the news and fled. Thinking of the previous report from the Ordos Ministry and the great momentum of the Shun army, he judged that the move that could make the strong men of the Ming army break their wrists and give up the land they had been operating for decades must be related to the Shun army's invasion of Beijing.

On the fourth day of the fourth month of April, on the same day that Emperor Chongzhen, whose body had been exposed for several days, was buried and Wu Sangui changed his hexagram halfway through, Fan Wencheng, a scholar of Qingguo University, presented a recital to Dolgon to take the opportunity to march into the Guannei. Fan Wencheng was a native of the Han Dynasty in Liaodong, a generation of eunuchs, who was born in Shenyang in his early years, and was captured by the Manchurian soldiers who were then the Later Jin Dynasty to serve Nurhachi. He was also deeply trusted by Huang Taiji, held a lot of government affairs, and held a high position, which was the head of the Han Dynasty in the Qing Dynasty.

As a Han Chinese, Fan Wencheng, who was familiar with Han affairs and had a strategic vision, suggested in the recital that Dolgon seize the opportunity of the Ming army's collapse to quickly march into the territory of the Guan, and clearly pointed out that the situation was volatile, and the Qing army was now "fighting with the Ming for the world, but it was already in the corner" - at this time, neither Fan Wencheng nor Dolgon did not know that Beijing had been conquered by the Shun army, and the Ming court was destroyed last month, and still regarded the Ming as the main enemy, but at the strategic level, the threat of the Great Shun had been placed above the Ming Dynasty. In addition, the content of the recital also mentions specific military arrangements, that is, "advancing the Central Plains" as the long-term goal, and "going straight to Yanjing" as the primary task of this march. This is also the long-term consensus of the Qing State, although the Qing State has repeatedly defeated the Ming army, but the size is difficult to compare with the Ming Dynasty after all, if you are greedy and vainly try to eat a big fat man, you can only suffer from it, so it is appropriate to go step by step. After all, for the current Qing Dynasty, even if it only takes Beijing, it is enough to call the three generations of Yu Lie, and the major results accumulated by accumulation.

Dolgon, who had just defeated Hauge and other political opponents, urgently needed a military operation to divert domestic attention and secure a major battle to consolidate his authority, and he was very much in favor of Fan Wencheng's views. However, he was still cautious and did not publicly react to this for the time being, so Fan Wencheng went to Gaizhou Tangquan to recuperate.

Two days later, when Dolgon heard that Beijing had been lost, he no longer hesitated, and instantly felt that it was urgent to march to Guannai, and called Fan Wencheng, who had just arrived in Gaizhou, back overnight to discuss military affairs. Of course, Fan Wencheng strongly advocated sending troops, and judging from the historical law that "its rise is also vigorous, and its demise is also sudden", it is very likely that the Shun army, which has risen too quickly, has not yet completed the construction of all the order and regulations required for the founding of the country, and its essence is still loose rogue, and such an opponent has been strong so far in one breath, and once it is frustrated, without a strong system to restrain and manage, the momentum will inevitably plummet for thousands of miles, and it is "possible to break it in one battle."

Fan Wencheng's words made Dolgon firm in his belief in entering the customs, and the two went on to discuss the strategic layout in the future. Fan Wencheng proposed to take three steps, one is to take the land in the eastern part of the country, the second is to seize Beijing, and the third is to forge ahead into the world. Taking the land of Kwantung was the goal of the Manchurians who had been fighting bloodily since the Nurhachi period, and the unfinished business of decades was completed in the hands of Dolgon in just a few days, and it has to be said that it was Dolgon's luck. The capture of Beijing is the consensus of Dolgon and Fan Wencheng on this entry into the customs. And the third step is purely Dolgon's vision.

Fan Wencheng also knew that according to the current strength of the Qing Dynasty, it was too early to talk about forging ahead into the world, and he couldn't bear to hit Dorgon's ambitions, so he said lightly: "The country wants to stop the emperor Kwantung, and if it will unify the Xia, it must be the people of Yi'an." "It's official. However, such words were heard in the ears of Dolgon, who was now gearing up, and the encouragement was undiminished, and the matter of sending troops to the Ming Dynasty was finalized.

On April 7, the temple of Dorgon was sacrificed, followed by a full mobilization of soldiers and horses. On the 9th, two-thirds of the troops of the Eight Banners of Manchuria and Mongolia plus more than 100,000 people of the Han army, including Kong Youde, King Gongshun, Geng Zhongming, King of Huaishun, Shang Kexi, King of Zhishun, and Shen Zhixiang, Duke of Xushun, set out to fight.

On the 19th of the Qing army, Dolgon asked Hong Chengchou, who accompanied the expedition, about the combat effectiveness of the Shun army. Hong Chengchou first said that the Qing army was "invincible in the world", and the Shun army was "the rogue can be eliminated in one battle", and then reminded him that "the rogue has been used for more than ten years, and the army has been used for a long time, although it cannot be rejected by the army, and it cannot be despised by the Han soldiers in the past." Hong Chengchou had successively suppressed the Kou in the Central Plains and supervised the army in Liaodong, and had an intuitive understanding of the strength of the soldiers and horses of the Qing, Shun, and Ming dynasties.

Dorgon's words were solemn and did not dare to take this battle lightly. Hong Chengchou later mentioned that there were several things that the Qing army had to start when entering the customs, such as publicizing revenge for the Ming Dynasty to reduce the resistance of the people, prohibiting the plundering of previous years to win people's hearts, and stipulating rewards and punishments to encourage soldiers, etc., which Dolgon adopted one by one.

The Qing court had failed to surrender Wu Sangui many times before, and Dolgon couldn't figure out Wu Sangui's thoughts, so in order to avoid entanglement with the Guan Liao army and face pressure from both the Shun and Ming sides at the same time, he went north through the Mongolian tribes to bypass the Shanhaiguan Pass, borrowing Mongolian tribal villages along the way, and planned to enter Miyun County from the wall ridge and then go to Beijing. This can not only avoid fighting with the Guan Liao army, but also shorten the distance to Beijing, and even more can take the Shun army by surprise.

What Dolgon didn't expect was that on the 15th, when the army was about to reach Wenghou, he unexpectedly met Wu Sangui's envoys Yang Shen and Guo Yunlong and others. Yang and Guo told Fan Wencheng about their request for reinforcements, and their words were extremely humble, and they were called "beggars". Fan Wencheng forwarded Wu Sangui's letter to Dolgon, saying that Wu Sangui "should open the gate of Shanhaiguan to welcome the king", although Dolgon was overjoyed, but he was also worried that it was a trap set by his old enemy, and he was quite suspicious.

It's just that the 50,000 Guan Liao troops in Shanhaiguan surrendered to Shun and the temptation of Dolgon was too great, and if Wu Sangui was really willing to cooperate, then his hope of defeating the Shun army and capturing Beijing would undoubtedly be greatly increased. Such an opportunity is too rare, and even if it is risky, Dorgon does not intend to pass it up. When he arrived in Xilatala on the 16th, he wrote a reply letter to Wu Sangui for the sake of insurance, and asked Guo Yunlong and his wife and brother to go to Shanhaiguan first to spread the news and calm Wu Sangui's heart. This is the scene where Guo Yunlong suddenly returned to Shanhaiguan.

After the Qing army changed its marching route, it marched towards Shanhaiguan and arrived at Jinzhou on the 19th and Lianshan on the 20th. Today, on the 21st, his people have defeated the soldiers and horses deployed by the Shun army Tang Tong to the north, and stationed near Weiyuantai in Shanhaiguan.

"Now that the king has arrived, why don't you quickly bring the army to the meeting and break the thieves together?" The war drums outside the city were ringing, Wu Sangui stomped his feet lightly, his face was anxious, "The thieves are about to tackle the key problems, our army will hold the front defense line of Shihe, and the king will drive his troops north to attack the back of the thieves, and the battle can be decided, what are you still hesitating about?" ”

When Guo Yunlong heard this, he took out a letter from his sleeve, handed it to Wu Sangui and said, "Master Wu, this is a letter from the king." ”

Dolgon's wife and brother said lightly at this time: "Wu Ye read the letter, nod again, and the soldiers will arrive immediately." ”

Wu Sangui opened the letter with an impatient face, but after only two glances, his face changed suddenly.