Li Zicheng was mostly infantry, and the retreat was unhappy. So he retreated to Baoding first under the escort of a thousand light cavalry, with Wu Sangui's family and Chongzhen's three sons. There was Li Guo's army of 10,000 there, which was relatively safe.

Although Liu Zongmin was a little dissatisfied with Li Zicheng, he was still righteous at this time, and stayed to lead the troops and retreated to Baoding. They are already slow, and they still have a sick number, so naturally they are even slower. A day later, he was chased by the Qing soldiers.

The cavalry of the Qing army were all elite soldiers with eight banners, and each of them was two or even three horses, so they chased quickly. Their servants followed behind on horseback, collecting booty for their masters.

Tens of thousands of horses galloped in, even a solemn military formation may not be able to stop it, let alone the Shun army in flight? The cavalry of the Qing army caught up, and after a period of slashing, the Shun army of the rear team immediately collapsed, and the Chinese army in front of them was a mess, and the people who trampled on each other and died were no less than those who were slashed and killed by the Qing army.

The sick numbers that were carried out were also left on the road. The sick people were grateful for the love of their brothers, so they also supported their bodies, and when the cavalry of the Qing army caught up, those who held the horse's legs, cut the horse's hooves, and suddenly fired crossbow arrows. No matter what means were used, the Qing army's cavalry was finally blocked for a while. So that the Qing army had to stop and clean up these sick numbers on the road first.

Liu Zongmin left 3,000 soldiers to block the pursuit of the Qing army, and he didn't care about sorting out the scattered troops, so he fled to Baoding as quickly as possible. Although there are also Zhuozhou, Dingxing and other prefectures and counties along the way, Liu Zongmin does not dare to stop. If they were surrounded here, would they still have a way to live? By the time they arrived in Baoding, there were only a little more than 30,000 of the 70,000 horses out of Beijing. Many of the officials who fled with them were also captured by the Qing army.

But the cavalry of the Qing army followed like a shadow and immediately caught up. Because the Qing army received the confessions of the captured officials, the prince and Li Zicheng arrived in Baoding first, so they chased more urgently, and they must intercept the prince. Since they are in the name of avenging Chongzhen, if they have the prince of the Ming Kingdom in their hands, they will naturally be more justified.

Li Zicheng and the others didn't dare to stay, so they took the prince to Zhending first. Liu Zongmin also wanted to leave, but he just ran over, so he had to take a breath first. However, the Qing army chased too quickly, and they did not rest for two more hours, so they had to start fleeing for their lives again. However, this time Gu Ying and 5,000 men and horses were left behind, so that he could temporarily block the pursuit of the Qing army.

However, the Qing army did not stay at all, but went around the city, bent on catching up with Li Zicheng in front. Their 20,000 elite cavalry are really not afraid of the troops left in the local area, not to mention the defenders of three or five hundred, even a few thousand, will be scattered by them. As long as they can grab food and forage, they can keep chasing them.

Gu Ying was also a brave and loyal man, and he did not defend the city, but led his troops to chase after the Qing soldiers. Although as soon as they left the city, most of the original Ming army had lost their troops, but the team of more than 3,000 horses still made Azig and others a little uneasy. So Duoduo continued the pursuit with his brigade, and Azig left 5,000 cavalry to deal with the unfortunate Shun army.

However, the battle was very easy, and it didn't take much time to end, and Qihou Guying was also killed. It was not because the troops of the Shun army were too weak, but they did not expect that the Qing army not only had 20,000 pursuing cavalry in front, but also 50,000 or 60,000 servant cavalry in the back to follow.

The Qing army did not attack, and those slave soldiers rushed up directly on horseback, scattering Gu Ying's military formation. Although Gu Ying also brought a few tiger squat cannons and Franky, it almost didn't play a role in the face of fifty or sixty thousand cavalry charging into battle. Even if some of the horses were frightened by the explosion of the flowering bullets, they could only continue to rush forward with more of their companions.

These slaves are working hard right now. They saw that the Ming Dynasty was over, and the new dynasty Dashun was also defeated, so naturally they didn't think about their homeland. Being a slave in the home of a powerful Manchu and Mongolian nobleman was more decent than the officers of the Han military banner. If you can make a meritorious service, you can also be rewarded for your official position, so even the original cowardly people in the Ming army have now become fierce and abnormal. If you don't fight with your life, you will naturally be bullied by others, and if you fight for an official position, then you will be able to enslave others.

Fortunately, Li Guo prepared in advance, although he also lost some men, but Li Zicheng, Liu Zongmin and others finally arrived at Jingchengkou with more than 10,000 troops. This time, they can be regarded as having tasted a thousand miles of collapse. In the past, they chased and fought with the official army, but now they are being chased and beaten by the Qing army.

Although Li Zicheng temporarily got rid of the pursuit of the Qing army and entered the Shanxi territory. However, he was still not at ease, after all, Shanxi was very close to Zhili, and if the Qing army attacked with all his might, he would not be able to mobilize enough troops to fight the Qing army in a short time. So he asked his subordinates who stayed behind in various places to continue to guard the place to guard against the Qing army. And he, Liu Zongmin and others planned to cross the Yellow River and return to Shaanxi first, and then send large soldiers over after reorganizing the soldiers and horses.

This way, the Qing army pursued urgently, not only Gu Ying was killed in battle, but also Liu Zhongyi and Liu Rukui, two generals, were also killed, and the loss of more than 50,000 soldiers and horses was quite heavy. Therefore, Li Zicheng and others were in a hurry to cross the river to rectify the troops and horses, and they did not leave anyone to lead the defense of Shanxi, and several core figures all withdrew to the west of the Yellow River.

There is another reason, it may be that Li Zicheng and others think that it will not be long before they can bring troops over, Shanxi has obvious geographical advantages, even if the Qing army comes to attack, there should not be much problem in a short time.

But as Li Yan and Li Mu said, the whole world is watching. And Li Zicheng escaped all the way from Beijing, so the generals and gentry everywhere no longer feared and believed in Li Zicheng. A policy of recovering stolen goods and subsidizing salaries made all the officials and gentry stand on the opposite side of Li Zicheng.

Even if it was a Qing soldier and a foreign race this time, they were all ecstatic. If they only protect their wealth and power, they don't care about anything else. Since Li Zicheng not only wanted to empty out their family property, but also the more high-ranking officials were, the more idle they were, then they naturally wanted to immediately organize troops to meet the arrival of the Qing army.

Not only the gentry and generals in Shanxi were looking for opportunities to rebel, but also Shaanxi and Huguang. After Li Zicheng returned to Shaanxi, he was not able to organize a large number of troops at all. He had to put his old troops in important state capitals to monitor and suppress the unscrupulous gentry and generals, so as to control the localities, collect taxes, and purchase military supplies.

Since Li Zicheng knew that the recovery of stolen goods and subsidies had forced all the gentry to rebel, he stopped this measure after returning to Xi'an. However, the troops could not do it without a source of food and wages, so they began to collect food and wages according to the acres of land.

But again, this is a huge mistake. Originally, he advertised to the peasants that he would be exempted from taxation for three years, but now that he has only been in the country for half a year, his words do not count, so the people in the areas under his control have no good impression of the Dashun regime.

So after Li Zicheng left Shanxi, he lost Shanxi forever.

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