After Lushun was successfully received by the Tang army, the peace negotiations between the Tang and Qing dynasties officially began.

According to Li Xiao's instructions, the negotiators of the Tang Army, Jiang Yueguang, the main envoy, and Zhao Bingyi, the deputy envoy, were engaged in peace consultations and negotiations with Ning Wanyi in a secret meeting hall of the Haicheng official office.

There is a saying that the golden cup is drunk together, and the white blade is not forgiven. Li Xiao, who regarded the negotiations as a cover, actually never thought about what kind of peace agreement he would reach with the Qing court when he had a great advantage.

Therefore, he asked Jiang Yueguang and Zhao Bingyi to delay this negotiation as much as possible, and it was best to reach a small detail, which was best to negotiate for more than a month or two, so that the Qing court could see hope, but it was impatient. In this way, he will gain sufficient time and make thorough preparations for his next step of concentrating his forces to attack Liaoyang.

Under Li Xiao's instructions, Jiang Yueguang and Zhao Bingyi, as messengers, in this secret room, picked out the words word by word, and discussed the details one by one, which was very cumbersome and delicate. And seeing that time passed day by day, Fan Wencheng and Ning Wan, who were anxious to achieve a negotiation result, were sitting on pins and needles, but they were helpless.

While the two countries were negotiating, Li Xiao sent all the sea ships that were now staying at Yingkou Port to return to Shandong immediately to load grain and ordnance, so as to make full logistical preparations for the next step of the whole army's joint attack on Liaoyang.

Just when Li Xiao thought that all the things in front of him were going according to his own plan, in the northwest of Shaanxi, there were surging clouds and treacherous clouds.

It turned out that in the first two months, in this place of Shaanxi, all kinds of thrilling events happened one after another, which was completely beyond Li Xiao's expectations.

At the beginning of January of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself the king of Xinshun, suddenly attacked, killed Luo Rucai, and annexed all his soldiers and horses.

After Luo Rucai was defeated by the Tang army in the western camp of the Tang army, Luo Rucai led the remnants of his army to the north to surrender to Li Zicheng, and was warmly welcomed and welcomed by Li Zicheng.

In order to envelop Luo Rucai, who had returned from the newly defeated, Li Luo and the two agreed that all the children who captured the city and obtained the jade silk for their children would be distributed according to the ratio of four or six, that is, Luo Rucai would get four shares, and Li Zicheng would get six shares.

This condition can be described as very generous, so that Luo Rucai, who was defeated and surrendered, was very grateful, so he allowed Li Zicheng to drive.

As the saying goes, a friend in distress is a true friend, but because of the inferior nature of human beings, most people can only share the suffering, but not the common prosperity. Unfortunately, Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, also belongs to one of these people.

Since the rebellion against the Ming Dynasty, Li Zi has always maintained a hard and simple style of life, while Luo Rucai's house is highly corrupt, and his wives and concubines live in groups of rotten people.

Regarding Luo Rucai's corruption and degeneration, Li Zicheng despised him very much in his heart, looked down on him very much, and thought in his heart that people like Luo Rucai would only drag themselves back in the end. 、

And as Luo Rucai's troops gradually regained their vitality in Shaanxi, Li Zicheng began to worry that Luo Rucai's gang would definitely be big in the future, and he would no longer obey his own command, so at the instigation of the military advisor Song Xiance, he secretly killed the machine and decided to strike first.

On a snowy morning in early January of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng sent an elite detachment, under the banner of contacting military intelligence, and rushed all the way into Luo Rucai's big tent without warning, and slashed Luo Rucai, who was still sleeping with a woman in his arms, on the bed.

Next, after the successful beheading, Li Zicheng dispatched a large army to surround Luo Rucai's entire army in the barracks, and killed Luo Rucai's military division Ji Jue and several generals who were loyal to Luo Rucai on the spot. Such a terrifying and bloody, but cruel and direct means made Luo Rucai's more than 100,000 people and horses all shocked to the extreme, except for a very small number of mutinies and escapes, most of the soldiers and horses were smoothly reorganized by Li Zicheng.

After Li Zicheng received Luo Rucai's soldiers and horses, his momentum was greatly boosted, and he immediately sent troops to attack Lin Chengcheng, Ge Liyan, and Lao Hui Ma Shouying, who were also Liukou, and all of them were stationed in Shaanxi.

Li Zicheng's successive annexation actions shocked Emperor Chongzhen, who was far away in Beijing.

He almost instinctively thought that he would immediately dispatch the Tang army with Li Xiao to conquer and suppress it, but he was worried that Li Xiao, who was already powerful, would only become more and more difficult to control if he defeated Li Zicheng and other rogues in the northwest.

Besides, Chongzhen also knows that now the main force of Li Xiao's soldiers and horses is going all out to attack the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and if he wants to let the troops go to the northwest again, he is afraid that he will not be able to. And even if Li Xiao immediately withdrew his troops from Liaodong and rushed to the northwest, it would be too late to step forward for thousands of miles.

In such hesitation, Li Zicheng, who had a huge force, began to use troops frequently in Shaanxi and attacked prefectures and counties everywhere, and the military situation in Shaanxi and Gansu became more and more urgent and imminent, and documents reporting to the imperial court flew like snowflakes.

"Report! The thief soldier Keweinan, Yang Xuan of the county was killed in battle, and was poked into pieces by the enemy soldiers, Zhang Fu, the teacher of the county, Cai Qicheng and the county students, all fought and died, and the thieves plundered Weinan, ten households and nine empty ......"

"Report! The Liukou captured Huazhou, and the former Nanjing History Department Shangshu Nan and Zhong, together with his son, were burned to death by the thieves' artillery, and the thieves set fire to the city, slaughtering the soldiers and civilians, and Huazhou was in ruins......"

"Report! Li Zicheng's troops captured Lintong, so Guo Zongzhen in Sichuan was tortured, Li Chengcan was attacked by Shanhaiguan, and Xue Guohui and his brother Guohua were killed alive in Ningxia, and their condition was unbearable......"

"Report! The thieves captured Shangzhou ......"

A series of terrible news of losing the city and losing the land, so that Chongzhen was like sitting on pins and needles, under the strong recommendation of the first assistant Chen Yan, Chongzhen could only hastily order, the Shaanxi general soldier Sun Chuanting, promoted to the military department of Shangshu, and at the same time Sichuan, Henan, Shaanxi, Gansu four provinces of military affairs, called the supervisor, and gave Shang Fang the sword, requiring him to concentrate the soldiers and horses of the four provinces, and make every effort to suppress Li Zicheng's bandits.

For Chongzhen's very strict, even panicked holy decree, Zhang Fengxiang, the squire of the military department, clearly objected, and he said to Chongzhen: "Sun Chuanting's subordinates, for the world's only remaining elite soldiers loyal to His Majesty, the emperor only has this one belongings, and must not be moved lightly!" ”

For Zhang Fengxiang's performance, the anxious Emperor Chongzhen did not listen to it at all. In order to calm down the situation in Shaanxi as soon as possible, he issued a series of holy decrees, ordering Sun Chuanting to suppress the bandits within a time limit, and there must be no mistakes.

Sun Chuanting, who was promoted to the secretary of the military department, did not want to rush into battle, but under the urging of the imperial court, he had no choice but to gather troops in all directions, and personally led Bai Guangen and other troops with a total of 100,000 soldiers and horses, and went out to Tongguan, from the township of Shaanzhou, to suppress Li Zicheng's department.

At the same time, he passed on the three troops and horses of Zuo Liangyu, the general soldier of Huguang, Chen Yongfu, the general soldier of Henan, and the general soldier Qin Yiming of northern Sichuan, to each other's horns and marched west to Guanzhong together, so as to strengthen the reserve military strength of the Ming army and ensure that the Ming army had enough troops to replenish when attacking the Liukou.

Originally, Sun Chuanting also wanted to transfer the Tang army stationed in eastern Sichuan and Yunyang to recruit troops from the western battalion, but he was deeply afraid that if these Tang troops moved, Zhang Xianzhong, who had already entrenched most of central Sichuan and established himself as the king of Chengdu, would no longer have anyone to control him, and he was very likely to outflank his own back road. If such a thing happened, it would be like a nightmare, so he didn't dare to easily mobilize the strength of these Tang troops.

When Sun Chuanting dispatched troops and prepared to fight Li Zicheng to the death, Li Zicheng was in Shangzhou City, and he also urgently discussed with a group of strategists how to defeat Sun Chuanting.

Niu Jinxing took the lead in proposing that the whole army should withdraw from Shaanxi to avoid its edge, and then gather forces and wave his army to take Beijing.

Yang Yongyu said that he would withdraw the whole army from Shaanxi, enter Henan, and then move all the way to the southeast, and finally capture the rich Jinling and the entire southeast money and grain important land.

After the two of them finished speaking, the chief strategist Gu Junen rejected both of these opinions.

He said to Li Zicheng: "The plan to take the Beijing division directly is too eager, in case there is a blockage along the way, the capital attacks the mud, and the back road of Shaanxi has been lost, and our army is safe?" As for the plan of the troops entering Henan and then taking Jinling, it was too slow, and the march of thousands of miles, the Ming army must have enough time to attack our army in front and rear, so this plan is not advisable. Therefore, in Gu's view, it is still necessary to base himself on Shaanxi and concentrate his forces to defeat Sun Chuanting. As long as our army wins this battle, the entire Shaanxi, the Ming army will no longer have the strength to defend. And the fertile fields in the pass, the hundred and two Qin passes, also belong to me, how can such a king's capital be discarded? After this matter is resolved, our army will wave to Shanxi and Xuanfu again, and go straight to the Ming Court of Beijing, then the world can be determined, and the hegemony can be achieved! ”

Gu Junen's words were very appetizing to Li Zicheng, and he immediately made a decision, adopted his strategy, and assembled the whole army in Shangzhou to fight to the death with Sun Chuanting.

So, outside Shangzhou City, Li Zicheng's army of nearly 200,000 and Sun Chengting's 100,000 soldiers and horses launched an earth-shattering battle.

This battle, from dawn to dark, came from afar, and lacked supplies of the Ming army, the army was much less than the Liukou troops, the battle to this time, was already hungry and exhausted and unable to fight again, the general soldier Bai Guangen saw that the situation was not good, led the troops to flee in a hurry, all the way to Tongguan and go.

As soon as Bai Guangen fled, Sun Chuanting was difficult to support with one arm, the whole army was defeated, the Liukou army was greatly invigorated, Li Zicheng led his troops to chase and kill hundreds of miles in one day, more than half of the 100,000 Ming troops were killed, and a large number of weapons and baggage were lost, Sun Chuanting only led the remnants yesterday, and Bai Guangen, retreated to Tongguan.

At this time, the remnants of the Ming army were less than 40,000 people, and they were no longer able to launch any attack on the Liukou, so they could only defend Tongguan and wait for reinforcements to arrive.

And Li Zicheng immediately divided the soldiers and horses into two parts, one with 70,000 or 80,000 soldiers and horses, and surrounded Tongguan like an iron bucket. Another army of 180,000 soldiers and horses took advantage of the victory to attack Xi'an.

Emperor Chongzhen, who was extremely concerned about the battle situation, became angry after receiving the news of the defeat, obviously he ordered Sun Chuanting to step up the attack, but now he put the responsibility for the defeat on Sun Chuanting, and sternly ordered: "The Ministry of Soldiers said: Chuanting is light and incompatible, and the overseers have been repeatedly defeated, and the superintendent has been cut off from the superintendent's book, and the remaining soldiers are guarded with the crime of Qin Governor Dai, and the merit is redeemed." If a thief enters Qin, the previous sin will be counted together. ”

At the same time, he was worried that Liukou would ignore Sun Chuanting and go east to take the Beijing division, so he issued another order: "Reply to the military department to order Jin, Henan, Bao, and Dongsi Fu, each with troops and horses, personally stationed in Hegan, and cooperate to block the palace, and not allow a thief to sneak into the crossing." ”

And only three days later, Chongzhen, who was like a headless fly, hurriedly ordered Bai Guangen to be promoted to the chief officer of the reinforcement and suppression, hung the seal of General Kou, and promised to allocate 30,000 elite soldiers to his Beijing camp, hoping that with such a heavy reward, the general of the defeated army in Shangzhou that day could be grateful for his life, and could stick to Tongguan with Sun Chuanting, and finally keep Shaanxi.

It's just that Chongzhen's decree can't stop the rapid change of the situation, so after Li Zicheng quickly conquered Xi'an, he immediately concentrated his troops and attacked Tongguan together. After Tongguan was quickly breached, Sun Chuanting committed suicide in defeat, and Bai Guangen, the general soldier who was rewarded by Chongzhen, could not be loyal to the country, and even opened the gate of Tongguan and surrendered to Li Zicheng.

After hearing the news of Sun Chuantingyuan's death, Zuo Liangyu, Qin Yiming, Chen Yongfu and others, who were still leading troops on the road, were all terrified and led their troops to withdraw to the station.

For a time, Li Zicheng's troops defeated the Ming army in a row, and the whole of Shaanxi was in the bag, and the momentum was unprecedented, since the rebellion.

In February of the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng officially called the emperor in Xi'an, changed Xi'an to Chang'an, called Xijing, took the Ming and Qin palaces as the harem, founded the country as "Dashun", and took the seventeenth year of Chongzhen as the first year of Yongchang. And canonized Li Jiqian as the ancestor, his great-grandfather below the emperor, his mother Lu as the queen mother, Gao as the queen, and Chen as the concubine.

Next, Li Zicheng began to seal the meritorious heroes, and he used the meritorious military merits as the basis for the fifth-class title. The specific situation is that the general of the right and the general of the system are marquis; General Guo Yi, mighty general Feng Bo, son, male.

Among them, the more famous ones are Ruhou Liu Zongmin, Zehou Tian Jianxiu, Qihou Guying, Bohou Li Jin (Li Guo), Cihou Liu Fangliang, Yihou Zhang Nai (Li Shuangxi), Mianhou Yuan Zongdi, Huaihou Liu Guochang and so on.

In terms of military system, the names of the five battalions are Zhongji, Left Auxiliary, Right Wing, Forward, and Stamina; The front camp is black, the rear camp is yellow, the left camp is white, the right camp is red, and the middle camp is blue. Although the military ranks are still set up, there are still officer titles such as General Quan, General System, General Guoyi, General Wuwu, Captain, Brigade Commander, Department General, and Sentinel General. Externally, it is claimed that the total number of soldiers and horses under his command is 600,000 infantry and 400,000 horsemen.

The military system was established, and Li Zicheng ordered the establishment of a scholar of the Tianyou Palace, which was served by Niu Jinxing, and at the same time served as the secretary of the Ministry of Industry, Song Qijiao was the secretary of the Ministry of Officials, Lu Zhiqi was the secretary of the Ministry of Households, Gong Yu was the secretary of the Ministry of Rites, and Zhang Ran was the secretary of the Ministry of War.

And under Shangshu, Yu Shangyou is the servant of the Ministry of Officials, Xiao Yingkun is the waiter of the Ministry of Households, Yang Yongyu is the waiter of the Ministry of Rites, Qiu Zhitao is the waiter of the Ministry of War, Deng Yanzhong is the waiter of the Criminal Department, Yao Xiyin is the waiter of the Ministry of Works, and helps the Populus to divide government affairs.

In this world that Li Xiao crossed over, the time when Li Zicheng officially founded the country was a year earlier than the real history. Speaking of this matter, it is really an incomparable sorrow for the stormy Ming Dynasty.

In the northwest, a new regime, a new force, has officially announced its rise. No one can ignore its strength and underestimate its determination. And the entire Ming Dynasty fell into a more stormy realm because of this. 8)