When Li Yan arrived in Tianjin, he quickly took control of the port and canal, as well as the warehouse set up here. し。 He originally wanted to take advantage of the chaos to control more territory, but he didn't expect Beijing to fall so quickly, which put him in an awkward position.

He walked too far, thousands of miles away from Henan, and the transportation of baggage was very costly. And the road is far less easy to walk than the repaired in Henan, and it consumes a lot of time.

Fortunately, Tianjin is an important place in the north and south, where transportation and shipping converge, and the household department has set up a storage warehouse here. Only a small part of the grain in the warehouse was transferred to Beijing before Li Zicheng besieged the city, and the rest was still in the warehouse.

Although the world was full of droughts, locusts, floods, soldiers, and all kinds of disasters, it was still necessary to ensure that the grain in the capital and Liaodong was transported north by the efforts of local officials. Therefore, Tianjin's grain stock is more than 400,000 stones, which is enough for Li Yan to eat for a long time.

Therefore, he ordered the defenders of Jinan not to transport grain to the north, but only to transport some ammunition and arrows to replenish it. When the baggage team returned, it could also bring some grain to the troops in various parts of Shandong, which greatly eased his logistical pressure.

This Tianjin is more prosperous than Kaifeng. In order to make Caoyun's soldiers profitable and maintain Caoyun, the imperial court allowed Caoyun's ships to carry some tax-free private goods, so Tianjin gradually developed into a distribution center for materials from the north and south.

There were countless trading houses and warehouses here, and Li Yan only confiscated the official treasury of the imperial court, and the other private warehouses did not intervene. But it was the old rule, he had to tax the ships that came and went. Although Li Zicheng had occupied Beijing, he did not seem to control the departure of the common people's officials, and there was an endless stream of officials and ordinary people who fled from Beijing.

At first, people didn't know that this place was controlled by Li Yan, and they shouted about their official positions and scolded the officials who collected taxes. However, the soldiers sent by Li Yan did not say a word and directly arrested people. However, they will not be locked up, but the punishment will be doubled. After a few times, those officials and gentry knew that this place had been controlled by Li Yan and was no longer under the jurisdiction of the imperial court, and their official authority had no place to shake, so they all obediently paid taxes.

The inevitability of these gentry was very strong, because Li Zicheng, after a short period of moderation, had already begun to apportionment and recovery of stolen goods. At the beginning, Li Zicheng and others were very yin, and at the beginning they said that within two days, officials of all sizes in Beijing, whether they were in office or in office, should report to the public, so that they could be hired. However, I added that if you hide it and don't report it, you will bear the consequences.

So these officials, whether out of the pursuit of fame or out of fear of the consequences, obediently went to the designated place to register. After that, the Dashun Dynasty began a comprehensive recovery of stolen goods. The cabinet of the hundred thousand; The scholars and servants of each ministry shall be seventy thousand, fifty thousand, or thirty thousand; The department and the officials want 50,000 or 30,000; Hanlin ranges from 30,000 to 10,000; Other petty officials ranged from a few thousand.

Those petty officials who are hired below the fourth grade are asked to pay by themselves. And those officials who were not hired were locked up in barracks and asked their families to send money. If they can't hand it over, they will immediately put on a stick and urge the family to continue to hand it in.

For a while, the officials and gentry in the capital were panicked. Li Zicheng's pursuit of wages is much more powerful than Chongzhen's, and he was directly punished, and it was not one or two who were executed to death. And even if he died, he had to let his son continue to hand over the money, and his life would be lost, but there would be no money left.

There were clever officials and gentry, who quickly managed to scrape together enough money, and then left Beijing immediately. Compared with Li Zicheng's violence, Li Yan only collects 20% of the tax, which is really nothing. They all wanted to go south earlier, go to the territory of the Jiangnan Imperial Court, and go to the comfortable days before.

Due to the danger of the sea route, they may sink to the bottom of the sea to feed the fish in the event of wind and waves, so most people choose to take a boat to the south. Now the northern section of the canal is within Li Yan's territory, but he doesn't have time to deal with the affairs of Caoyun, except for collecting taxes in Cangzhou, Dezhou, Jining and other places, there are no other moves.

And most of those Cao Ding are also waiting and seeing. For the time being, Li Yan has not touched their interests, so they are just waiting to see what happens. Anyway, now that Beijing has not stabilized, they can be regarded as resting. Those boats stranded in Tianjin also suffered less losses because they could pull the guests, so they also happily pulled those officials and gentry south, giving the officials and gentry in Beijing a way to live.

During this period, Li Yan went to the port, intending to see the warship. However, the result disappointed him, and the few warships here were not large, only five or six zhang long, which was different from what he thought.

Originally, he wanted to go to Laizhou to see the sailors there, but he didn't have time, so he just sent Feng Cheng to take down the eastern places. However, he was rewarded by the fact that the governor of Denglai fled, and the sailor went to sea and was missing.

However, he did not have time to think much about the issue of the sailor, and as he continued to collect information, he noticed that Wu Sangui of Liaodong also surrendered to Li Zicheng, and took 30,000 troops to Beijing to meet Li Zicheng. At this time, he is the only one who poses the greatest threat to Li Zicheng, and soon they will start a decisive battle, unless he also conforms to Li Zicheng.

Of course, it was impossible, so he immediately asked Feng Cheng to lead the team to Jinan, and the eastern part of Shandong was all abandoned, focusing on protecting the baggage stored in Jinan. At the same time, the troops of Cangzhou and Dezhou were also put on guard, and the state city was garrisoned, ready to meet his retreat at any time. He also sent an order to Li Mou, who was in the south, to take his troops north, and to hand over the defense of Xuzhou to Huang Desheng to be responsible.

Although there were Jin Shengheng's troops in Xuzhou, he was not worried that Jin Shengheng would dare to attack Shandong. And Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo's troops, Li Yan is even less worried. I'm afraid they are more likely to guard against Gao Jie and Liu Zeqing now.

Liu Zeqing ran to Huai'an with his troops, and Gao Jie also ran all the way from Shanxi to Zhili, and then went south to Shandong. However, there was already Liu Zeqing here, and the troops could not be fed, and Gao Jie didn't want to start a war with Liu Zeqing, so he continued to go south and went directly to Yangzhou.

Yangzhou and Nanjing are not far away, and there is no news between the north and the south, so Shi Kefa immediately ordered Ma Shiying to transfer the troops of Huang Degong and Liu Liangzuo to Chuzhou and Yizheng to protect the safety of Nanjing. So now the only thing that can pose a threat to Henan is Li Zicheng's garrison troops in Huguang and Shaanxi. However, the combat effectiveness of those troops is not strong, and Li Yan has already prepared defensive measures in the border area, and he is not afraid of the attack of Li Zicheng's troops.

Sure enough, on April 3, Li Zicheng sent an envoy to demand that Li Yan surrender.

Li Yan said casually: "It's impossible to surrender." If Li Chuang is sincere, he will send someone who can be in charge to come over and talk about the division of territory. Otherwise, he will bring his troops over, and we will see the real chapter on the battlefield. ”

It was a civilian official who came, and he was the head of the military government. He was in Shaanxi, but it was just a county magistrate in a small remote county. Now that he has been awarded the official title of head of the Ministry of War, he is grateful to Li Zicheng, how can he tolerate Li Yan being so rude

"Bold" came and reprimanded loudly: "Your Majesty's name, but also your Majesty's benevolence and love for the people, can't bear to live in misery, so I sent this official to persuade those who surrender if they don't surrender within ten days, my Dashun Heavenly Soldiers will go south to crusade, and then you want to surrender, but there is no chance"

After hearing this, Li Yan laughed and said, "I know." You go back and tell Li Chuang, I'll be waiting for him in Tianjin. ”

...

...