Chapter Eighty-Eight: Breaking the City
Chen Yuanyuan lived a claustrophobic and lonely life in the Wu family. On the wedding day, Wu Xiang thought that she was ominous, and placed her alone in a separate courtyard, arranging special maids and servants to serve her, neither requiring her to go to greet her every day, nor inviting her to dine with her family, obviously not treating her as his daughter-in-law. The food and clothing are well supplied, and she has never been wronged. Although the days are dull and comfortable, they are inevitably a little lonely and boring.
Wu Sangui was ordered to leave home on his wedding day to go to the border to defend against the enemy, and three years passed, and the two did not see each other again. She and Wu Sangui have only met twice in total, the first time was in Zhou Kui's mansion, and the second time was when they said goodbye on the day they got married, and now she can't even remember Wu Sangui's appearance clearly. However, Wu Sangui's image is getting taller and taller in her mind, in her heart, Wu Sangui is the embodiment of heroes, a warrior who resisted the Qing Dynasty, and a husband who stands up to the sky.
Wang Qiang's image in her mind is already ugly to the extreme, when she is lonely, the image of the little eunuch with thief eyebrows and rat eyes will often jump out of her mind, lingering, making her annoying. She believed that Wang Qiang had come to disrupt her wedding banquet under the pretense of a holy decree for revenge, and forced away her new husband, who was not only despicable and shameless, but also scheming and hateful.
Yuanyuan is thinking about Wu Sangui all the time, looking forward to him going home as soon as possible to reunite with his husband and wife and share his family, although she stays at home, she is extremely sensitive to the news from the Northeast, but the information she got is that the little eunuch Wang Qiang led the troops to kill the Qing army and recover a large area of territory in western Liaoning. She didn't believe that this was true anyway, thinking that the little eunuch was powerless, and could only pat the emperor's ass, how could he lead the troops to win the battle, it must be that her husband led the troops to kill the enemy and retreat from the Qing army, but the credit was robbed by the little eunuch. This woman is eccentric, Chen Yuanyuan is in love with Wu Sangui in his heart, and naturally puts Wang Qiang's credit on Wu Sangui, imagining the heroic posture of her husband waving a spear to kill in the enemy formation, she is more and more convinced that Wang Qiang used conspiracy and tricks to rob her husband of the credit, and she hated it in her heart, until she heard that Wang Qiang was knocked unconscious, she felt unhappy with retribution, and felt relieved.
After Wu Sangui left, at the beginning, she sent a letter to the family and greeted Yuanyuan, but later, she was no longer mentioned, and she found that the Wu family's attitude towards her was slowly changing, at first everyone called her the young lady, and then unanimously changed her name to Miss Chen, although she didn't know the reason, but also understood that it must be the Wu family who was disgusted with herself, and couldn't help but feel sad, she guessed that all this was because her husband was not at home, once Wu Sangui came back, everything would be fine. She stroked the piano all day long, pinning her thoughts on her husband in the sound of the piano, hoping that her distant husband would be able to hear her heart's song. It's a pity that she doesn't know that she has been ruthlessly abandoned by Wu Sangui and betrayed by two traitors, Zhou Kui and Wu Xiang.
The progress of the Dashun army was very fast, and it took only a little more than a month to connect more than 10 prefectures, including Datong and Xuanhua, and on 15 March, Li Zicheng's army drove through Juyong Pass and reached the city of Beijing. Today's Beijing city is a lonely city at your fingertips in Li Zicheng's eyes, the secret agents have probed Beijing's defense situation clearly, more than half of the defenders in the city and the ministers of the court have secretly handed over the surrender table, promised to be an internal response, the officials and troops in the suburbs or surrender or flee are basically swept away, only the defenders of the Tongzhou Special Administrative Region are still sticking to their posts, but Li Zicheng did not put them in his eyes, what he is eager to do now is to attack Beijing, kill Chongzhen, and officially announce the world from the south to the north above the main hall, Fulfill his long-cherished wish to become emperor.
At noon on March 18, Li Zicheng gave an order, tens of thousands of Dashun troops began a general attack on Beijing City from the west and north directions in the earth-shattering shouts, guarding the northwest city is the soldiers and horses of the three major battalions of the Beijing Division, these old soldiers have been stationed in the capital, on weekdays, they are arrogant, pampered, they will only oppress the people, they have not seen any battles at all, how to resist the battle-hardened Dashun army, only two rounds of continuous attacks, the West City was lost, and the officers and soldiers of the North City had no intention of fighting, after the commander fled, the soldiers opened the city gate and surrendered, the outer city of Beijing fell in just one hour.
The rebel army, under the command of the general Liu Zongmin, launched an attack on the inner city. Guarding the inner city were the troops of the Jinyi Guard and the Jingshi Shenji Battalion led by Fan Hu, and these troops were worshiped in peacetime
Ren, there are many rewards, there is still a trace of loyalty to the court, and the firearms are sharp, and the combat effectiveness is very strong, Lu Xiangsheng is also personally supervising the battle on this line. The rebel army and the defending officer army fought fiercely at Xizhimen and Deshengmen, although the Dashun army was heroic, but the Ming army desperately resisted with the help of tall city walls and sharp firearms, and the killing was equal for a while, and the losses of the Dashun army were not small.
After nightfall, the battle subsided, Liu Zongmin saw that the attack on the inner city was blocked, ordered to temporarily stop the attack, he ordered people to transport the artillery of the Ming army captured on the outer city wall to the inner city overnight, aimed at the city gate, and mobilized several elite battalions to ambush outside the city, ready to launch a general attack immediately after dawn.
In the early morning of the 19th, Liu Zongmin gave an order, dozens of cannons roared together, the city wall of the inner city was quickly collapsed by the artillery fire of the Dashun army, the infantry cavalry of the Dashun army generally attacked the inner city from the gap in the city wall, Lu Xiangsheng commanded the army to fight back wildly, and the two armies fought repeatedly near the city gate, and launched a fierce hand-to-hand combat.
But said that Emperor Chongzhen, this morning, he dressed up meticulously as usual, and went to the court on time as usual. The palace was already in chaos, and the eunuchs and palace maids fled around with their thin softness, and when they saw Chongzhen, they no longer saluted and dodged. The shouts of the Dashun army's charge mixed with the sound of siege artillery were clearly audible, and the inner city was about to fall, and Chongzhen knew that the final moment was coming. However, Chongzhen turned a deaf ear to all this, he tried his best to suppress the fear, resentment, and loss in his heart, and walked towards the Taihe Hall with calm steps, he wanted to maintain his calm imperial demeanor, and he had to face death like a hero He had prepared for this day in advance, and even looked forward to this moment coming earlier.
The Wenhua Hall was empty, only the chief eunuch of the main hall stood alone at the door to greet Chongzhen, Chongzhen asked in a deep voice: "Where have the ministers gone, why no one has gone to court?"
The chief eunuch was already frightened and his legs weakened, peeked at Chongzhen, and said in his heart: "Is the emperor crazy or what's wrong, do you still need to ask?" he replied cautiously: "Back to the emperor, now the thieves are attacking the city, and these ministers are blocked in the middle of the road." ”
Chongzhen sighed slightly and said: "Don't you need to go to the court to attack the city, knock on the Jingyang bell, and convene hundreds of officials to discuss the matter." ”
"This, slave and maid obey." The chief eunuch reluctantly arrived in front of the palace and rang the bell vigorously, "dang, dang, dang, dang" The bell sounded thick and pleasant, and the sound immediately spread throughout Beijing. Chongzhen walked into the main hall alone, sat on the throne with a calm demeanor, and began to review the folds as usual. Half an hour passed, and the shouts of killing outside were getting closer and closer, and they came from several directions, but the hall was still silent, and no one answered the call. Chongzhen was desperate, he didn't expect anyone to come and rescue him, he just hoped that someone could see his fearless and righteous heroism at the last moment, didn't even let me meet this little wish, where are the courtiers who sang praises to themselves and bowed their heads on weekdays Chongzhen suddenly felt a chill to the bone, I worked hard all night, and worked hard for the country, why did I end up like this, why did God treat me so unfairly
Chongzhen decided to make a decision on his own, he silently helped the pen and wrote a posthumous photo: "I have been on the pole for seventeen years, and the traitors have approached the Beijing Division. I have no face to see my ancestors in the ground, go to my crown, cover my face with hair, let the thief split the corpse, civil and military can be killed, but do not loot the emperor's tomb, do not hurt the people. After writing, he threw down the brush, held his head in despair, and lay on the imperial case.
The ink was not dry, only to hear a noise outside the hall, a group of soldiers arrived in front of the hall, led by a person, dressed in soft armor, but holding a fan in his hand, it was Wang Qiang.
It turned out that after the Dashun army began to attack the city yesterday, Wang Qiang led the three heroes of the Yan family to lead 1,500 Chinese army guards into the inner city, protected the three princes, and at the same time picked up the experts of the first cadre department and the military department according to the predetermined plan. Early this morning, he led 500 soldiers to the palace gate to prepare to enter the palace to rescue Concubine Li, how could the palace be chaotic, the palace gate was locked, and no one answered the door for a long time, Wang Qiang heard the Jingyang bell ringing, and knew that there was an emergency in the palace, so he had to order the soldiers to smash open the palace door, and then entered. Wang Qiang led his troops straight to Zhong Cui
Palace, where Concubine Li and Zhu'er have already packed up their beloved things, in addition, Wang Qiang also asked Xiaoshanzi to come forward to pick up Concubine Yun and Xinrui in the cold palace, and the group escorted them from Donghua Gate, when passing by the Wenhua Palace, Wang Qiang suddenly became curious, he wanted to see what the situation of Chongzhen is like now, he ordered everyone to escort Concubine Li to the east of the city to meet with the three princes, and he took a team of personal soldiers to turn around and come to the Wenhua Palace.
Wang Qiang stepped into the hall, walked directly to the front of the imperial case, hesitated for a moment, but still gave Chongzhen a half-kneeling military salute, and said: "Wang Qiang greets the emperor." ”
Chongzhen looked at Wang Qiang blankly, he never dreamed that the person who came to rescue him before he died was actually the Wang Qiang who had been "unconscious", and he suspected him several times, but in the end it was this person who was the most loyal to him. Surprised, remorseful, moved and all kinds of complicated feelings came to his heart at once, Chongzhen couldn't help but burst into tears, he excitedly trotted all the way down from the throne, held Wang Qiang's shoulders with both hands and said: "Good little man, you are the only one in the world who is loyal to me, with you coming to see me, I wish it is enough, and death is blind." ”
Wang Qiang looked at Chongzhen and also had mixed feelings, an emperor who caress the four seas has fallen to such a point, it is really sad to think about it.
Chongzhen stroked Wang Qiang's face and said softly: "Xiao Duozi, aren't you in a coma, when did you wake up, we haven't seen you for three years" Chongzhen touched Wang Qiang's chin as he spoke, and he was a little prickly, and when he looked at it, Wang Qiang actually had a layer of hard beard on his chin. It turns out that since Wang Qiang's identity was revealed, he no longer has to deliberately hide his identity as a fake eunuch, his beard is not shaved diligently, and he is busy these days, so he can't take care of it.
Chongzhen staggered back two steps, pointed at Wang Qiang angrily and asked, "You, why did you grow a beard, aren't you a eunuch?"
Wang Qiang saw that Xingzang had leaked, and he also felt that he should give Chongzhen an explanation, he looked at Chongzhen coldly and said: "Yes, I, Wang Qiang, have always been a great man, a big man."
Chongzhen listened to it like five thunderbolts, stared at Wang Qiang with wide eyes, and suddenly thought that the naughty and foolish third son of the emperor and Wang Qiang were so similar, and then thought that not long after Wang Qiang was transferred to the inner palace, Concubine Li gave birth to a son, and soon after he was transferred back to the palace as the chief administrator for the second time, the queen had a child, is it all this kid who did it He muttered and asked: "Then you and my son, is it also yours"
Wang Qiang saw Chongzhen's expression, he felt a little proud in his heart, and said with a wicked smile on his face: "Hehe, not bad"
"You" Chongzhen pointed at Wang Qiang, and suddenly felt that the world was spinning, God not only took away his country, but also cut himself off, this is why there was a hatred in his heart, this hatred was not to Wang Qiang, but to the queen and all the concubines in the harem, he felt that these women had deceived him and insulted him. He turned around and picked up a sword on the side of the imperial case, and shouted frantically: "Slut, shameless, I killed you" and ran out as if crazy.
Wang Qiang watched Chongzhen leave with a compassionate gaze, and then sighed lightly and said, "Let's go." As soon as the group came out of the main hall, they saw a woman lying in a pool of blood, it was Chongzhen's daughter Princess Changping. It turned out that Chongzhen rushed out of the hall with his sword and met Princess Changping head-on, at this time in his eyes, all the women in the palace were shameless, and he cut his daughter to the ground without thinking about it.
Wang Qiang felt that the princess was pitiful, and when he saw that she was still alive, he ordered someone to rescue the princess and take her out of the palace together.
At this time, the inner city has been broken, there are scattered Ming soldiers everywhere, the Dashun army has attacked, and the streets are swept in groups, Wang Qiang has only more than 50 personal soldiers around him, and he does not want to fight with the Dashun army, so he led everyone through the alleys to the east of the city to meet with the brigade. On the way, I encountered several soldiers of the Dashun army, and the guards rushed up to resist and cover Wang Qiang's escape, but after several encounters, the guards were scattered one by one, and there were only more than ten guards left around Wang Qiang, and Princess Changping was also lost. Beijing City University, the streets and alleys are twisting and turning, Wang Qiang is not familiar with the road, plus evading the chasing soldiers, naturally where there are few soldiers, he will run where, and gradually deviate from the direction, unconsciously ran to Xicheng, according to the scheduled time to meet the brigade is impossible.
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