Early the next morning, Hong Chengchou quietly left Jinzhou with his personal guards, marched all the way day and night, and arrived in the capital three days later. It was already evening on the day he arrived in the capital, so Hong Chengchou first reported to the military department and learned in detail about the situation and battle situation in the northwest from Yang Sichang, the secretary of the military department.

The information held by the Ministry of War is very detailed, and Hong Chengchou looked at these materials one by one, and the more he looked at it, the cooler his heart became!

At this time, Li Zicheng has been very different from a few years ago, since the last Tongguan failure, Li Zicheng profoundly summed up the reasons for the failure of the previous rebel army, this time the comeback, he listened to the advice of the strategist Li Yan, put forward the slogan of "Juntian free grain", "Juntian", that is, to distribute land to farmers; "Grain exemption" means tax reduction. At that time, the high concentration of land and heavy taxes were the fundamental causes of social contradictions, and the vast number of landless peasants suffered greatly, so the rebel army put forward this slogan, and immediately won the love and support of the vast number of poor peasants. Wherever the rebel army went, the people welcomed it, and the young peasants actively joined the rebel army, and Li Yan also compiled the program of the rebel army into a slip of the tongue and sent secret agents to various places to secretly propagate it; those peasants in the areas still under the control of the official army were harassed by the officials and the army and oppressed by exorbitant taxes and taxes, and they all hoped that the rebel army would quickly liberate themselves. The masses everywhere sang this folk song: "Kill cattle and sheep, prepare wine syrup, open the city gate to meet the king, and when the king comes, he will not pay food." ”

The rebel army won the hearts and minds of the people, was invincible, and was like a broken bamboo, the officers and troops were defeated and retreated, their morale was low, the main force of the Northwest Army was almost completely depleted, and the officers and troops in the northwest battlefield were no longer suppressing bandits, but were completely in a situation of being passively beaten.

From the analysis of these circumstances, the official army in the northwest is not only a military defeat, but also a political defeat. Seeing these circumstances, Hong Chengchou was even more determined not to return to the northwest.

On this day, Chongzhen came to the west side hall of the Wenhua Hall early in the morning, sitting quietly on the dragon chair, these days, he was disturbed by the situation in the northwest, and he was sad all day long, he felt that his country was divided by others piece by piece, which was more unbearable than cutting off the flesh on his body, recently, he often fell into a state of madness, hysterical throwing things, casually disposing of the people around him, so that the courtiers and the palace people around him were panicked.

A few days ago, the cabinet suggested to him that Hong Chengchou had been in charge of the army in the northwest for a long time, and that he should immediately transfer Hong Chengchou back to Beijing as counselor. As if grasping a life-saving straw, he issued a gold medal decree and urgently summoned Hong Chengchou back to Beijing.

Chongzhen muttered silently: "Hong Aiqing, I hope you can be ordered to be in danger and solve this crisis for me!" He asked the chief eunuch beside him, "Is Hong Chengchou here?" ”

The eunuch replied: "Long live Hui, Lord Hong is waiting outside the palace. ”

Chongzhen said in a deep voice: "Announce him to the palace!" ”

"Yes." The chief eunuch shouted at the top of his voice: "The emperor has a decree, and Hong Chengchou, the minister of the Northeast Economic Strategy, will go to the palace." ”

After a while, Hong Chengchou came in step by step with the support of two eunuchs, and when he arrived at the front of the hall, Hong Chengchou pushed away the eunuch who was holding him, staggered a few steps to the front, knelt down and kowtowed, and said weakly: "Long live my emperor, long live, long live!" ”

When Chongzhen saw Hong Chengchou's appearance, his heart sank, and he said eagerly: "Hong Aiqing, hurry up and excuse yourself, come here, and give Lord Hong a seat." ”

"Your Majesty." Hong Chengchou struggled to get up and sat on a few stools. Chongzhen saw that Hong Chengchou had a sad face, a sickly face, and a red mark pinched between his eyebrows, and he was flustered in his heart, and asked, "Hong Aiqing is so good-looking, but is she sick?" ”

Hong Chengchou poured two breaths, and hissed and said: "Back to the emperor, the minister is old, and he has been running around in the army for many years, his body has long collapsed, and he can't withstand the wind and frost and hard work, this time the emperor urgently summoned the ministers into Beijing, and the ministers were in a hurry to go, and they didn't want to be tired and cold along the way, so they had internal heat, and they wanted to rest for two days, but they wanted to have something important to do when the emperor summoned the ministers, so they had to meet the emperor like this, and asked the emperor to forgive the ministers for the crime of disrespect." ”

Chongzhen sighed, rubbed his hands and said, "Alas! I didn't expect Aiqing to be so sick and weak, and now the northwest is in turmoil, and the court has no available generals, how good is this! ”

Hong Chengchou made a loyal look and said: "The emperor doesn't have to worry, the northwest is just a corner of the Celestial Empire, and the imperial court still has the vast land of Jiangnan and the Central Plains, and hundreds of millions of Li people. The bandit jumping off the beam clown is just rampant for a while, but it is difficult to shake the foundation of my Celestial Empire! As long as the emperor cheers up the court, the monarch and the ministers work together, train elite soldiers extensively, cultivate military equipment diligently, appoint talents, and slowly figure it out, this situation is still promising. It's just that the minister is old and decrepit, and he can't go into battle to kill the enemy and share the emperor's worries, and the minister is really anxious and helpless! Emperor! Ho-ho-ho! As he spoke, he made a gesture and burst into tears.

Chongzhen was also touched, and sighed in his heart: "Hong Chengchou is really a loyal minister, but unfortunately there is only one, and he is already old, if there are a few more, how can the situation be like this!" He waved his hand and motioned for the eunuch to bring a towel to Hong Chengchou to wipe his face.

However, Hong Chengchou's "compliments" just now also made him feel a little comforted: the situation has not yet reached the point of weakness, and most of the country is still under the control of the imperial court. After Hong Chengchou stopped crying, he said gently: "Hong Aiqing doesn't have to be sad, I know that you are a person who serves the country loyally, you are good at life, and I still have to count on you." But does Aiqing have any good plans for the current situation? ”

Hong Chengchou said: "The emperor made a gaffe in front of the minister, please forgive the emperor." In today's situation, the northwest must choose a good general to lead the army, and the minister thinks that Lu Xiangsheng has been in battle for a long time and is familiar with the situation in the northwest, so he can be the commander. ”

"Yes! Go on. Chongzhen nodded.

"At present, the situation in the northwest is not suitable for dividing troops to encircle and suppress the bandits, but we should concentrate our forces in Shandong and Zhili to stop the momentum of the bandits' eastward advance, and at the same time recruit and transfer troops from all over the country, step up the formation and training, replenish the troops in the northwest, and then regain the lost territory when the strength is sufficient. At the same time, the ministers thought that it was very appropriate for Wang Qiang Wang to organize and train the militia in Tongzhou at the beginning, and he should issue an order to encourage the local squires to spontaneously organize and train the militia to resist the bandits and maintain local law and order, so that the imperial court did not need to increase military salaries, and could alleviate the shortage of military strength of the officials and troops in various places. ”

"Good! Quasi-play. Chongzhen listened to Hong Chengchou's suggestions, as if he saw a way to relieve his difficulties, and his mood was a little better, and when he saw Wang Qiang, he couldn't help asking: "How is Wang Qiang doing to you now?" I heard that he set up a study house and taught some arithmetic and Chinese literature, isn't it not a good job? ”

Hong Chengchou sighed in his heart: "Alas, you were suspicious when people were doing their jobs, and now they say that people don't do their jobs, isn't his business just spying on me!" Our master is out of line. He pondered and said, "Oh, there is no war in the northeast border pass now, so Lord Wang discussed with me to set up this study house, and recruit some students and children to learn knowledge, in order to cultivate some useful talents for the country." Lord Wang was quite disciplined in the army, hard-working, loyal to his duties, loyal to the emperor, and paid for the cultivation of talents for the country in his spare time, which is really a model for us. ”

"Well, that's it, Wang Qiang is loyal to me, and there are many ghost ideas, now the court is the time to use people, if you can raise a group of talents, it is deeply in line with my intentions, I think so, go back and let the ministry send a hall official to assist Wang Qiang, and if you have outstanding talents, you can directly entrust them to the ministries or the army to experience."

Hong Chengchou listened to it and said in his heart: "It seems that the emperor is not worried about Wang Qiang again." ”

Chongzhen continued: "Since there is no war in the northeast, can we transfer some more soldiers and horses from there to enrich the northwest front?" ”

Hong Chengchou hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, although there is no war in the Northeast now, the Manchu Qing Dynasty has amassed 100,000 troops on the border, and they are eyeing our Ming Dynasty. ”

Chongzhen felt that what Hong Chengchou said was reasonable, so he said: "Let's discuss this matter later." Let's go, go up to the temple with me. ”

Hong Chengchou deceived Chongzhen and dispelled the idea of sending himself to the northwest, and he was proud in his heart. In the evening, he received a military report from the Jinzhou base camp, the military report said that the Qing army in western Liaoning was mobilized in a big way and was assembling in the direction of Jinzhou.