[213] The world is divided into four points

Chongzhen first forced Zhou Hou to commit suicide, and Zhou Hou cried sadly: "Your Majesty has been a concubine for 18 years, and she didn't listen to a word. "After saying that, he died. Chongzhen also ordered the harem concubines and the Empress Dowager Yi'an to commit suicide, and waited until the eunuch returned to the order. Chongzhen called the crown prince, the king of Ding, and the king of Yong. After Chongzhen settled his three sons, he asked them to disguise themselves and leave Miyagi. After dealing with the affairs of his three sons, Chongzhen met the sixteen-year-old Princess Changping on the way to Kunning Palace, and Chongzhen said to him: "Why did you give birth to my family." Swinging her sword and slashing at her, Princess Changping blocked with her arm, her arm was cut off, and she immediately fainted. Chongzhen didn't pay attention to Princess Changping anymore, and accompanied by Wang Chengen, he came to Coal Mountain and hanged himself. And Wang Chengen also followed.

On March 19, Li Zicheng led a large army into the inner city, and the eunuch Wang Dehua led the remaining 300 people in the inner palace to meet King Chuang at Deshengmen, and the eunuch Cao Huachun guided Li Zicheng to enter the inner city from the West Chang'an Gate. After Li Zicheng entered the Great Interior, he knew that the whereabouts of Chongzhen, the crown prince, and the two kings were unknown, and immediately issued a reward.

The sudden political changes caused the Ming bureaucracy to collapse rapidly, and a small number of ministers who admired the integrity of traditional scholars and doctors chose to kill themselves, including six relatives of the emperor and 21 ministers. These people are inevitably a little foolish, but their temperament of seeing death as if they were at home is still touching. But more people chose the despicable act of surrender, and a total of more than 1,200 Ming officials surrendered.

After Li Zicheng entered Beijing, the three sons of Emperor Chongzhen were quickly caught. The three children were all dressed in tattered folk clothes, and the word "Shunmin" was pasted on their hats, just like most Beijing citizens.

Li Ziyuan himself had no sons, and when he saw these three jade children with clear eyebrows and beautiful eyes, he couldn't help but feel pity in his heart, and comforted them and said, "You are like my son today, and you will not lose your wealth!" He immediately called for new clothes for them.

These children have a very high IQ, but since they grew up in the deep palace, they have not experienced the world, and they speak openly. In this regard, Li Zicheng is not to blame.

Li Zicheng asked the crown prince Zhu Cihong: "Do you know about your father?" ”

The crown prince replied: "I know, my father has collapsed in Shouning Palace. ”

Li Zicheng asked again: "Do you know why your old Zhu family lost the world?" ”

The crown prince replied: "I know, my father misused the mediocre ministers, and the civil and military officials all fought for personal interests and neglected state affairs in vain. ”

Li Zicheng smiled when he heard this: "It turns out that you also understand this truth." ”

The crown prince may have listened to the teachings of the Confucian scholars on weekdays, and said hatefully: "The civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty are ruthless and unjust, and they will soon come to you to congratulate you for officials." I beg you now not to kill my family, not to destroy the tombs of my fathers, and not to kill the people. ”

When Li Zicheng heard this, he nodded thoughtfully. Regarding the corruption of Ming Dynasty officials, he himself naturally felt a lot. Emperor Chongzhen's words invisibly deepened his hatred of Ming Dynasty officials. With this malice, coupled with the greed of Liu Zongmin and other generals, it is most likely to be the cause of the ensuing "recovery of stolen goods" and plundering of the Ming Dynasty's Beijing officials.

On March 22, the eunuch found Chongzhen's body in the coal mountain, and carried Chongzhen's body down from the coal mountain with a door panel, and parked it in the reed shed with the body of Zhou Hou. Soon, these eunuchs were ordered to place the bodies of Chongzhen and Zhou Hou in willow coffins, and the pillows turned out to be clods of earth. Among the ministers, there were only twenty or thirty people who went to cry, and many former ministers did not care about the emperor's coffin at all. On the contrary, Li Zicheng, as a rebel force, was able to follow traditional etiquette and sophistication, and ordered Emperor Chongzhen and Empress Zhou to be buried according to the specifications of the emperor and empress.

Compared with the martyrdom of Emperor Jianwen's ministers after Zhu Di compiles the throne, Chongzhen did not have too many in the first dynasty, only more than 30 courtiers, and most of them were literati doctors. But the martyrdom of these people is worthy of their predecessors. In terms of ministers and relatives, Xuanwu Bowei Shichun, Xinlehou Liu Wenbing, and Gong Yonggu, or closed the door**, or the whole family jumped into the well; In terms of Wenchen, Fan Jingwen, a university scholar, was the first to be recommended, and he committed suicide by throwing himself into a well after writing on the wall, "Who believes in the country (Wen Tianxiang) is not a man, what to do when the time is delayed". Ni Yuanlu, the head of the household, was martyred by hanging. The champion Liu Lishun, heard that the thief entered the city, and the book was desperate: "Chengren takes righteousness, and Confucius and Mencius pass it on." Wenshan practiced, why not! "A family of eighteen hanged themselves behind closed doors. Li Banghua, the imperial history of the left capital (the one who dissuaded Emperor Chongzhen from fleeing south), wrote on the pavilion door: "A dignified husband, a sage is a disciple." Loyalty and filial piety, the death of him", suicide by medicine. Wu Linzheng, the Shaoqing of Taichang Temple, has been commanding the guards in the city, and hanged himself after the fall of the city. The peasant soldiers heard his name for a long time, and did not dare to enter the robbery when they passed through the door, and exclaimed: "Good man, true loyal minister!" Wu Ganlai came to the household department in the matter, and the inscription on the poetry hall: "Who is left behind in the end, Zhu Qi is the head of Fengcheng." The monarch and the minister are righteous, and the fox squirrel is fighting in the wind and rain. The mountains and rivers are empty of tears and blood, and the sad waves are sad. Xun knows that the world is difficult to fight, and he is willing to sentence the loyal liver to stay forever! "Hang yourself in your room. Kim Hyun, the head of the military department, committed suicide by throwing himself into the river. When his mother and wife heard this, they wept and said: "We are the wife of life, how can we be humiliated by the hands of thieves!" "They threw themselves into the well and died. After his brother buried the bodies of his mother and sister-in-law, he also threw himself into a well and died......; It can be said that when the city was broken and the country was destroyed, hundreds of palace maids committed suicide in the Forbidden City, which was so fierce that thousands of ministers died of shame!

Li Zicheng ordered people to search the palace and found that there were only 170,000 gold and 130,000 silver in the treasury of the Great Inner Mansion. Originally, he was a big reward soldier after the "founding of the country", but now there is a shortage of gold and silver, how to be good!

Li Zicheng recalled the words of Prince Chongzhen, and Liu Zongmin and others rushed to the scene, and Li Zicheng ordered to "recover the stolen goods". Because there were too many officials, Liu Zongmin's own Dawang Mansion could not accommodate it, so he transferred the rest of the people to the mansion of the thieves Tian Hu and Li Yu.

All of a sudden, sticks flew wildly, cannons were branded, eyes were gouged out, and the miserable howls of Ming Dynasty officials sounded everywhere in Beijing. At the same time, many of the wealthy people in the city were also tortured as "criminal officials of the previous dynasty", and all the salaries of the civilians were looted by the peasant army for military use. The city was littered with hungry corpses.

When recovering the stolen goods, the first of the officials to be plundered and killed was Li Guozhen, a relative of the Ming Dynasty and Xiangcheng Bo, who led the soldiers of the three major battalions of the Beijing battalion to surrender outside Beijing. This thief was the most favored and trusted courtier in the late period of Emperor Chongzhen. On weekdays, other ministers kneel to discuss matters, but he stands beside the emperor alone, and there is no etiquette for ministers. Therefore, from the list of people that Emperor Chongzhen has always credited, it can be seen that the Ming Dynasty was incorrigible: Wen Tiren, Zhou Yanru, Chen Yan, Wei Zaode, Li Jiantai, and Li Guozhen.

Liu Zongmin tortured him first, burned in a small fire, smashed the big board, tortured all night, and finally let Li Guozhen die of extreme pain. This is not the end, the peasant army soldiers broke into his house, hundreds of people ** Li Guozhen's wife and all the women in the house, and then Li Guozhen's wife was naked on the horse, and shouted while walking on the street: "Come and see, this is the wife of Li Guozhen, the uncle of Xiangcheng!" The soldiers laughed loudly as they cried, pinching their breasts and poking their, "There is no shame worse than this." ”

Chen Yan is a "former university scholar" who resigned in early March for lying about his military exploits. He originally wanted to flee Beijing, but his family had too much property but failed. Hearing that the Dashun army asked for silver, he took the initiative to send 40,000 taels of silver to Liu Zongmin first. Lao Liu liked his "generosity" and did not immediately increase his sentence. Later, his servant reported that tens of thousands of dollars of silver were hidden in his house. The peasant army dug it, and sure enough, the soil was full of silver all over the yard.

Liu Zongmin was furious and began to torture the Hou, and the torture was hundreds of taels of gold, and the pearls were treasured. Even so, before Li Zicheng left Beijing, he still beheaded Chen Yan and a group of ministers.

University scholar Wei Zaode, born in the Ming Dynasty. He was known for talking, but after entering the prime minister, he did not have any good ideas for Emperor Chongzhen, and only knew to obey and be silent. Originally, because he was a big official, he was imprisoned alone in a dark room. This Lord Wei urged him to die, and begged through the crack in the door: "If the new dynasty wants to use me as an official, let me out, don't lock me here." This time, it reminded Liu Zongmin.

Liu Zongmin, the mourning star, brought Wei Zaode into the hall for personal interrogation, and was the first to be punished, and asked while clipping: "I heard that you are from the champion and the first assistant in the official residence, why is the country so chaotic?" ”

Wei Zaode howled and replied: "I am a scholar, I don't know about political affairs, and the first emperor has no way, so that's it." ”

Liu Zongmin was rude, and he was also angry when he heard this: "You have been an official for three years and will be promoted to the first assistant." Where is Chongzhen sorry for you, he is dead now, and you still have to curse him? To say that Chongzhen used a white-eyed wolf like you, it is really mediocre! ”

So, General Liu personally went down to the hall and slapped Wei Zaode dozens of mouths hard. Seeing this, the soldier pulled the stick violently, and Lao Wei's ten fingers were broken.

In the panic and pain, Wei Zaode shouted: "I have a daughter, and I am willing to sacrifice it to the general as a concubine!" ”

Liu Zongmin was happy to hear this, called someone to take his daughter, and sent her to the barracks after rape, and obeyed the sergeant**.

However, Liu Zongmin was even more disdainful of Lao Wei, who sacrificed his daughter, and strictly ordered the soldiers to step up torture. A total of six days and six nights were "served", and finally Wei Zaode's head was split by the torture board, and his brain flowed out and died.

Wei Zaode died, and the peasant army captured his son for silver. Xiao Wei kowtowed and said: "I really don't have any silver at home, if my father is alive, I can still borrow silver from my protégé, and now that he is dead, where can I find the silver?" ”

When the little leader of the peasant army heard him say this, he raised his hand and cut off Xiao Wei's head.

The poor officials of the Ming Dynasty, such as Hanlin and Kechen, were the most unlucky, and they really couldn't get oil and water at home, and most of them were tortured and plundered to death.

Liu Zongmin erected dozens of pillars at the gate, killing people in vain, no matter officials, rich people, residents, as long as it seems that the family has money, they will definitely be invited here to be punished. After several days of torture, Li Zicheng's army obtained more than 70 million taels of silver, all of which were recast by the workers into huge square plate-shaped silver plates with holes in the middle for easy transportation.

Seventy million taels is not a decimal. Emperor Chongzhen increased his salary for more than ten years, and only 20 million taels of silver were obtained from the people, which led to the disintegration of the people and the death of the country. Li Zicheng squeezed 70 million silver in the capital, which is fierce and knowable, and it is strange if he does not die. Moreover, this huge number is by no means only squeezed from the officials of the Ming Dynasty, but also from every family in Beijing.

Seeing that Liu Zongmin and other camps were rich, and Li Zicheng's "old camp" had to use coarse rice and horse beans as food, these old subordinates complained, feeling that "breaking into the king" was not interesting enough, so they privately went out of the palace to commit prostitution and plunder, and went into private houses to rob money and commit adultery. In Anfu Hutong alone, more than 300 women were killed overnight. It can be said that Li Ziyuan himself is not very, and he has always disliked "doing that". He was the only one in the palace who was fortunate to be in charge of the palace maid Dou, and the guards called her "Concubine Dou".

In April, Li Zicheng had planned to send a letter to Wu Sangui of Shanhaiguan and Song Youliang of Liaodong to persuade them to surrender. The essay that knew Song Youliang was sent to Beijing first.

It turned out that on March 19, the day Li Zicheng entered Beijing, Song Youliang sacrificed Emperor Chongzhen in Yongping, and then rushed back to Liaoyang day and night that night. And on April 1, he announced in Liaoyang that the country could not be without a king for a day, and the people could not be without an owner for a day. In view of the fact that the princes of the first emperor were all killed by thieves, Zhu Youshu, the king of Germany, succeeded to the throne in Liaoyang as the emperor's uncle, and the year name was Hongde. At the same time, Song Youliang was appointed as the governor of the world's soldiers and horses, and led the soldiers and horses to the south to level the thieves.

In addition, the text also claimed: Li Chuang rebelled and killed the king, and everyone in the world could be killed, and those who offered Li Chuang's head to surrender would be rewarded with 10,000 taels of gold and sealed as a marquis.

At the same time, at this time, some civil and military generals who stayed in Nanjing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, decided to support the vassal kings of the Zhu royal family, rebuild the Ming Dynasty, and then wave their troops to the north. Shi Kefa advocated supporting Zhu Changying, the king of Gui, while Qian Qianyi and other Donglin party members supported Zhu Changshu, the king of Lu, in the name of Lixian, but in the end, Zhu Yousong, the king of Fu, with the help of Lu Jiude, won the support of the four towns of Jiangbei, the main armed force of the Nanjing regime, and Ma Shiying, the governor of Fengyang, the central capital, and became the final victor. On the third day of the fifth month, Zhu Yousong supervised the country in Nanjing, and on May 15, he became the emperor, and the following year was changed to Yuan Hongguang

Soon after, Zhang Xianzhong established the Daxi regime in Sichuan, proclaimed himself emperor in Chengdu, founded the country as "Daxi", changed the yuan to "Dashun", and took Chengdu as Xijing. After the establishment of the Onishi regime, civil and military officials such as the left and right prime ministers and the six Shangshu were set up. ordered "Wang Zhaolin to be the left prime minister, and Yan Xi to be the right prime minister". Wang Guolin, Jiang Dingzhen, Gong Wanjing, etc. are still in the book. The Onishi regime promulgated the "Tongtian Calendar" and set up a money bureau to cast the "Dashun Tongbao" for use. Thirty people were selected as jinshi and appointed as county officials. The Onishi regime announced that the people of all ethnic groups in the southwest would be "exempted from border rents for three years." Zhang Xianzhong's orders were strict, and he was not allowed to "recruit troops without authorization", "accept the words of the people without authorization", and "take local women as wives without authorization", which violated the law. Zhang Xianzhong named his four adopted sons as kings, Sun Kewang as the king of Pingdong, Liu Wenxiu as the king of Funan, Li Dingguo as the king of Anxi, and Ai Nengqi as the king of Dingbei.

Militarily, the Onishi regime set up the Governor's Mansion of the Five Armies, Wang Shangli of the Central Army, Wang Dingguo of the Former Army, Feng Shuangli of the Rear Army, Ma Yuanli of the Left Army, and Zhang Hualong of the Right Army. One hundred and twenty battalions were divided, with "Huwei, Baotao, Longtao, and Yingyang as the guards", and the capital was set up to lead them. Outside the city, there are ten large camps, twelve small camps, and the old camp in the middle, called the imperial camp, dedicated to the loyal residence. He also ordered Sun Kewang to be the general of Pingdong and supervise the nineteenth battalion; Li Dingguo was the general of Anxi, supervising the 16th battalion; Liu Wenxiu was the general of Funan and supervised the 15th battalion; Ai Nengqi is the general of Dingbei and supervises the 20th battalion. The troops were divided into four parts, and "the whole Shu was possessed".

For a time, the world was divided

And Song Youliang also began to wave his army south as a Daming concubine.