Only five days......

Zhu Cihong turned his head to look at Wu Xiang, and Wu Xiang nodded. His estimate is also five days! If there is another day of delay, then you can only hold on to the Imperial City and the Forbidden City.

As for whether his son Wu Sangui could come before the fall of Beijing, he himself was not sure.

So the best strategy is to run away immediately!

"Commander Li," Zhu Cihong asked, "five days is too little, can you keep it for a few more days?" ”

"Yes." Li Ruolian nodded, "Give up the outer city!" ”

"Give up the outer city?" Zhu Cihong frowned, "Is it to concentrate troops to defend the inner city?" ”

There are a total of 16 gates in the inner and outer cities of Beijing, nine inside and seven outside. If the outer city is abandoned, then the limited number of defenders of the capital division will be divided into the nine inner gates, and the defenders on each gate and the surrounding city walls will be slightly larger. But it's not much, and it's good to have 1,000 people in one door.

"Concentrating forces is only one thing;" Li Ruolian said, "Attracting the rebel old camp to enter the city to attack Chongwen, Zhengyang, and Xuanwu is the second; The third is to take Zhengyangmen Urn City as the last stronghold! ”

Zhu Cihong asked: "How do you know that the old camp will attack Chongwen, Zhengyang, and Xuanwu from the outer city?" ”

Li Ruolian replied: "The minister is a native of Shuntianfu and is familiar with the situation in the capital city. The outer city of Beijing is also a rich place, with many shops and dense population, how can the rebels be willing to let the coerced rabble and rebellious soldiers enter the city and plunder?

Moreover, the area of the outer city near Chongwen, Zhengyang, and Xuanwu is very prosperous, with dense houses and numerous buildings, which can cover the sight of the defenders and is not conducive to the play of artillery. In order to avoid too much loss of his old battalion, he must let the old battalion attack Chongwen, Zhengyang, and Xuanwu from the outer city. At the same time, the rabble and newly attached armies attacked from outside the city as a countermeasure. ”

Listening to Li Ruolian say this, with Zhu Cihong's cunning, how could he not understand what he meant? If most of the old camps of King Chuang have entered the outer city, then there will be fewer old camps outside the city...... Relying on the newly attached army and the rabble, it is difficult to stop the difficult battalion commanded by Wu Xiang and Wu Sanfu.

Who said that the Ming Dynasty has no loyal ministers? This Li Ruolian is a great loyal minister!

Zhu Cihong said in his heart, thinking that people who do not have loyal ministers in the Ming Dynasty will definitely not discover potential loyal ministers! Like undervalued stocks, loyal ministers need to be analyzed and explored.

He is obviously good at discovering loyal ministers, and today he has unearthed several loyal ministers and good eunuchs. According to the development of this trend, a group of loyal ministers and good generals will definitely gather around him, and Daming Zhongxing is hopeful!

"Good!" Zhu Cihong nodded approvingly, "Commander Li is indeed a pillar of the country...... Which gate are you in charge of now? ”

"Returning to the prince, the minister is in charge of Chongwenmen."

"You don't have to worry about Chongwenmen," Zhu Cihong said, "just go to the palace to staff the military aircraft...... Chongwenmen will give it, give it to Zu Zepu. He is the tiger general of the ancestral army, and there are many family members of the ancestral family around him, so he will definitely be able to manage Chongwenmen well. ”

As he spoke, he said to his chief housekeeper Huang Dabao: "Give Zu Zepu another 3,000 taels." He beckoned to Wu Sanfu again, asked him to step forward, and then whispered: "Sanfu, you go with Huang Dabao, go and tell Zu Zepu that you must control the defenders of Chongwenmen to the palace...... The palace trusts him, and when he arrives in Jiangnan, he will be reused, and his future status should not be under his father. ”

Of course, Zhu Cihong's promise to Zu Zepu is difficult to keep...... Because there must always be someone to act as cannon fodder and a target to attract Li Zicheng's attention.

Wu Xiang and Wu Sanfu's father and son are very important, and they can't do this. Qiu Zhizhong and Zhu Chunjie are Zhu Cihong's close confidants, and they can't be sacrificed easily, so they can only sacrifice Zu Zepu. However, Zhu Cihong will not let him die in vain, and when he arrives in Nanjing, he will definitely be listed in the Loyal Shrine and be buried in a beautiful manner!

Seeing that Li Ruolian had become a close minister of the crown prince, a group of gatekeepers naturally became hot, and the second one immediately got up to offer advice to Zhu Cihong.

This person is also dressed in a flying fish suit, thirty years old, tall, white-faced and long-haired, handsome facial features, and a beautiful man. Zhu Cihong recognized his name as Luo Xiushen, and he was the younger brother of the Jinyi Guard's commander Luo Yang. The official worships the Jinyi guard and commands the affairs and manages the Han general.

The so-called Han generals are the guards in front of the palace, and when they were in the last dynasty, the golden helmets and golden armor stood there as a façade, and all of them were beautiful men. This Luo Xiu is their leader, naturally he is dignified, and he is a famous general at first glance.

Maybe it was because he looked too similar, so he was pulled by Wang Chengen and sent to guard the port.

"His Royal Highness the Prince, the minister is now the gatekeeper of Fuchengmen." Luo Xiu bowed and said, "The minister thinks that the thieves will come from the northwest, and most of them will set up camp outside the four gates of Fuchengmen, Xizhimen, Deshengmen, and Andingmen. Our side should have made preparations in advance, collected flags, gongs and drums, and artillery, and concentrated on the above four guns. Then recruit strong and brave, arrange it in the four gates, and make a big fanfare, so that the thieves think that there are many defenders in the Beijing division and the defense is tight. In this way, the thieves did not dare to disperse their forces too much around the capital division. ”

Zhu Cihong turned his head to look at Wu Xiang, and Wu Xiang nodded. Zhu Cihong said: "Who are the guards of Xizhimen, Deshengmen, and Andingmen?" ”

Three generals of the Beijing camp rose up in response, one of them, Zhu Cihong, was recognized, named Zhang Shizhong, the cousin of the British prince Zhang Shize, and now the general of the Beijing camp, was sent by Wang Chengen to guard the Andingmen.

The other two also got their names, namely Zhu Guoyong, the cousin of Zhu Guobi, the Marquis of Funing, and the hundred households of Jinyiwei, and Lin Yihu, a martial artist in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen. These two are not very old, Zhu Guoyong is only in his early twenties, although he is from a noble background, but he looks a little rustic, and he is also strong. Lin Yihu is a little older, that is, twenty-five or sixteen years old, although he is a martial artist, he is a gentleman, with a medium stature, delicate eyebrows, fair skin, and a short beard.

"Give you two more 3,000 taels of silver, and recruit people early tomorrow morning, and you can get up to one tael of silver a day!" The original soldiers of the Beijing camp in the city also gave each of them one a tael of silver a day...... If the money is not enough, this palace will give you more money! ”

Zhu Cihong is also out of the way! There will be brave men under the heavy reward! Now I can only take out a heavy reward to pull people, it's hard to say whether I'm brave or not, anyway, there are enough people, it seems that there are many soldiers, so let's bluff Li Zicheng and talk about it.

What he is most afraid of now is Li Zicheng's siege. Once surrounded, it will be difficult to stand out, so you can only passively wait for Wu Sangui to lead his troops to approach Beijing City.

But it's really hard to say whether Wu Sangui will listen to his father or not!

The so-called seeking others is better than seeking oneself. He can only make the most of the power of the army now, bluffing, making Li Zicheng think that there are still more defenders in Beijing, so he will not adopt the tactic of dividing troops to besiege the city.

But only God knows if his current arrangement will have an effect.

……

Forbidden City, Qianqing Palace.

Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youzhen was summoning Zhu Chunchen, the Duke of Chengguo, and Jinyi Wei to command Luo Yangxing and Gong Yonggu, the commander of the horses.

Later generations always regarded the eunuchs of the middle and late Ming Dynasty as powerful, but at the same time ignored the existence of nobles.

In fact, Xungui has always been an important part of the Ming Dynasty's power game. Even after the serious decline of Xungui's power due to the consumption of the Battle of Tumubao, the power of Xungui still cannot be ignored in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty.

Because the Jingying and Jinyi Guards, who defend the two capitals in the north and south, have always been under the control of the nobles!

In other words, the emperor himself has always been under the protection of the Xungui group!

The reason why Emperor Chongzhen was able to easily get rid of Wei Zhongxian was that Wei Zhongxian had no way to take Jingying and Jinyiwei away from Xungui.

At that time, the governor of Jingying was Zhang Weixian, the grandfather of the British prince Zhang Shize, who helped Zhu Cihong block the door. And Luo's father Luo Sigong (his ancestor Luo Yicheng was a martyr of the founding of the Ming Dynasty) was in charge of Jinyiwei for 42 years! Moreover, the Luo family has been deeply cultivated in Jinyiwei for six generations, and there was a Jinyiwei general constitution before Luo Sigong!

Compared with the nobles who are deeply involved in the Beijing camp and Jinyiwei, Wei Zhongxian's foundation is really not worth mentioning, and it is not surprising that he was pushed to death by Emperor Chongzhen.

Zhu Cihong, who suddenly rose up in the middle of the dangerous city, although he is not comparable to Wei Zhongxian and his ilk, but Chongzhen, who has been the emperor for 17 years, is also daydreaming......