Tanma confirmed that Jiaqing's escape was a wasted effort, because at that time, due to the destruction of the outer city, it caused the spontaneous collapse of the Beijing defenders, like a flood that burst the embankment, flooding in the west of the city.

Because there is no fortification in the west of the city, the siege of Sanque is for them to escape, so the Qing army fled from this direction, there are outer cities, there are also inner cities, in this kind of total collapse, unless Jiaqing intends to kill the monarch, otherwise he can only escape.

Scattered here to find the tide of routs, did not think that it would be very good to run by themselves, and then calmly lurked until they found that Jiaqing had escaped before returning to their compatriots, this courage and calmness, worthy of praise, of course, found that Jiaqing escaped itself, and made a great contribution, and it was impossible to run away from promotion.

Jiaqing escaped, what should Zhou Lang do?

To be honest, he had been waiting for this moment for a long time, but he didn't expect it to finally happen, and he still felt a little unreal.

Rationality made him make arrangements immediately, Jiaqing ran away, the inner city was in chaos, and it would be a fool not to take the opportunity to attack the city, and there was no need to stick to the way at this time, and directly set up a cloud ladder. And it is not limited to the way, the east of the city can be built, the outer city can also be sieged, and even the auxiliaries who remain in the north city are allowed to attack the city.

The siege comes first, but Jiaqing also comes first.

asked Ma Dalei if he was tired and could still fight, and he swore that there would be no problem, that is, it would be no problem to fight for three days and three nights in a row. So Zhou Lang asked him again if he dared to arrest Jiaqing?

Ma Dalei excitedly took the Shuai Ying cavalry, who was as excited as him, out of the city to pursue Jiaqing.

Jiaqing too. Zhou Lang kept Xicheng for him, he didn't retreat, he had to wait until the collapse to escape. Since it was an escape, it meant that there was no order and no dignity, and Zhou Lang dared to send a lone soldier to chase him. If he had understood the matter early and honestly let Beijing City out, he would have calmly retreated with his army, and no one would have dared to chase him.

Now Zhou Lang is organizing the siege of the city, and at the same time, he has to care about the progress of the pursuit of Jiaqing, which is tiring enough.

Obviously, it is easier to siege the city than to capture people, and the results of Ma Dalei's pursuit have not yet come out, and the inner city of Beijing has been broken.

The first to attack the inner city was in the direction of Zhou Lang, because although the south wall of the inner city was no different from other city walls in terms of the shape of the city wall, there was a big difference in the deployment, the garrison of the Qing army in this direction was very weak, and they also fled, and the most important thing was that the city gate between the inner and outer city walls was not blocked, and a small number of soldiers were sent to open the city gate soon after entering through the water gate, and the army entered through the city gate, which was naturally faster than climbing the city wall.

After entering the city, Zhou Lang immediately ordered: "Go to the Forbidden City!" ”

He wants to seize the Forbidden City as soon as possible, where do you know how many treasures there are, it is estimated that he has sold enough for the investment of this Northern Expedition.

I went late, and the consequences were unimaginable. Zhou Lang is not afraid that other troops will occupy the Forbidden City, but he is worried about the rout, and even the surrounding people are very uneasy, after the British and French forces burned the Old Summer Palace, the local people have been digging for soil in the Old Summer Palace for several years, that is, using a sieve to sift the soil, and digging out the small treasures left out by the British and French robbers. This is not considered destruction, some people have smashed the remaining high-quality bricks and stones, and even those statues that can't be taken away, as stones to build a pigsty for their own homes, this is the biggest damage, otherwise the Old Summer Palace will not be burned to the ground.

Fortunately, Zhou Lang acted quickly and took the lead in attacking the imperial city, ordering soldiers to guard the four gates and not let anyone enter or leave. Then went straight to the Forbidden City, and sure enough, some routs slipped into the Forbidden City with the intention of robbing it, and then were killed. It is also to guard all the gates and prevent soldiers and civilians from entering and leaving. After seizing the Forbidden City, it was the turn of the mansions of other princes and magnates in the imperial city. After that, there were yamen everywhere, and the same was concocted. After the city is stabilized, the financial personnel in the army will be concentrated to count the harvest.

After doing this, Zhou Lang sent out a war report, announcing such important information to the world as soon as possible, and attacking the enemy's capital is basically equivalent to the destruction of the regime in traditional Chinese practice.

It can be said that the Qing Dynasty ended its history at this moment!

No matter how chaotic it was, the night always calmed down, and the next day Beijing calmed down. Of course, the city has become almost empty, and less than half of the people who are brave or unable to run remain in the city. The magnates of the city ran neatly, the emperor threw down the Forbidden City, and the prince threw away the palace. The strange thing is that none of them thought about setting a fire before leaving, whether they had the intention of fighting back, or they were in such a hurry that they didn't even care about the fire. Before Li Zicheng evacuated Beijing, he set a fire.

No matter what these people had in mind, in short, they did not destroy it, and left Zhou Lang a huge fixed asset.

The treasures in the Forbidden City, except for a small amount of gold and silver, most of them are intact, and it is not excluded that some of them were stolen by palace maids and eunuchs, in short, according to the account books, it is estimated that more than ninety percent of the royal treasures have been preserved.

In the mansions of those powerful people, there are far fewer things left, and rats can run in the treasury of several princes' mansions. Obviously, these princes did not have the same heart as their emperor at that time, and Jiaqing was probably really forced to flee in the end, and these princes may have left a hand a long time ago, decorated all the salutes, and when they left, they were all taken away. Could it be that because the prince's family is small and small, it is not richer than the emperor's family, so it is not as generous as the emperor, and everything is left to the enemy.

In fact, Zhou Lang underestimated these magnates, as early as when Zhou Lang had just besieged the city, people began to transfer property, otherwise it would not be possible to be so clean, just take the Heshen family as an example. Those treasures are all about the library, two jade warehouses, four silk warehouses, two magnetic warehouses, two foreign goods warehouses, two leather warehouses, six copper tin warehouses, six treasure warehouses, six iron pear rosewood warehouses, one glass warehouse, and a large number of daily furnishings. Even if the other princes don't have as much as the Heshen family's treasury, it is estimated that the furnishings will not be less, and if they move temporarily, I am afraid they will not have time to clean up, just like Jiaqing, almost empty-handed.

However, running empty-handed also has the advantage of running empty-handed, that is, running fast. Ma Dalei chased for two days before coming back, and when he came back, he reported that he had not caught up, and watched Jiaqing bring a group of eight banners of less than 10,000 people into Juyong Pass. However, he arrested many princes and nobles, and returned with the ministers of civil and military affairs.

A group of dignitaries with a withered description were all enclosed in the Taihe Palace, and when a large number of pro-soldiers protected Zhou Lang came to them, most of them showed fear.

They didn't know how Zhou Lang would treat them, the relics of the previous dynasty.

After a deathly silence, suddenly someone crawled out, knelt on the ground and kowtowed, and shouted:

"Long live Your Majesty, long live long live. Minions live, do you know minions? ”

"Slaves are willing to surrender, slaves are willing to surrender!"

Sheng Zhu even kowtowed, why didn't the emperor even take his wife and brother with him?

Zhou Lang walked over and helped the painful sobbing Sheng up.

"The slave is willing to surrender!"

"The slave is willing to surrender!"

"The slave is willing to surrender!"

"The slave is willing to surrender!"

"The slave is willing to surrender!"

Suddenly, the sound of a series of surrenders sounded around.

In the midst of these unanimous background sounds, suddenly a discordant laugh rang out.

A man who looked like a civil official stood up, and after sneering, he reprimanded: "You and others are all relatives and nobles of the court, and the country is in danger and the country is not dead, but they wag their tails and beg for their lives to the thieves, even if they are alive, what is the difference between them and death." ”

Zhou Lang glanced at the man, a rather thin old man, wearing an official mansion with a complement, although his clothes were dirty and his face was not good-looking, but he stood straight, he also looked at Zhou Lang, his eyes were full of anger, and even a little disdainful.

Zhou Lang nodded and smiled at him, is this the so-called literati style? Then he ignored him.

Instead, he thought of a group of powerful people and asked, "Lord Zhu Qi is here?" ”

Zhou Lang is also familiar with Zhu Jue, but because he has suffered Zhu Jue's loss, although it is only a small loss. But a civil official of Zhu Jue's status, if he can be persuaded to surrender, has great political influence, so he can also be a corporal of courtesy, and he can look at the thatched house. Since Huang Taiji can persuade Hong Chengchou to surrender, Zhou Lang may also have the opportunity to persuade Zhu Jue to surrender. It's a big deal to agree to some conditions that let him go down the steps, such as avoiding Jiaqing's death in the future.

As long as Zhu Jue can surrender, there will be no need for the civil officials in the world to hold on to it anymore, and the decision will be a matter of course.

Sheng Zhu's eyes turned around, kowtowed, and said, "Your Majesty, the slave knows, the slave knows." Zhu Jue fled with the emperor, no, it was the puppet emperor. I'm afraid I've escaped, so I'm not here. ”

Zhou Lang smiled and patted Shengzhu's thick shoulder: "Are you hungry?" I'll get you something to eat!" ”

Sheng Zhu kowtowed again: "Thank you for the emperor's grace, thank the emperor for your grace." ”

Zhou Lang just said that on the surface, he was treated preferentially, but in fact, he dug a small pit, and sure enough, not long after, the Manchu relics in the Taihe Palace fought. The powerful were divided into two factions, some stammered to please Sheng Zhu, and some sneered at Sheng Zhu, and finally started to move.

In addition to the powerful, there are some Wenchen inside, and the Wenchen didn't do anything, but one of them committed suicide by hitting the pillar, that is, the person who denounced Zhou Lang, and after his death, Zhou Lang knew that his name was Chu Pengling, and he was a waiter of the Ministry of Works.

Zhou Lang was not interested in the waiter of the Ministry of Industry, nor was he interested in the Shangshu of the Ministry of Industry, but was interested in the technicians of the Ministry of Industry. After he occupied Nanjing, he protected the craftsmen who made silk fabrics for the royal family in Jiangning as treasures, and the local craftsmen were treasures, and the craftsmen in the Ministry of Industry were even more treasures.

Of course, Zhou Lang's expectations for the Ministry of Industry are much higher than harvesting a group of skilled craftsmen, and he hopes to recruit a group of professionals to manage complex projects from here, especially those who manage rivers, in this era, almost the only world's top engineering talents that China can handle!

Because of the continuous management of the country's rivers and the accumulation of thousands of years of technology, even without scientific digital management and analysis of mechanical principles, China's river control craftsmen can play with complex water systems such as the Yangtze River and the Yellow River with the experience passed down from generation to generation. Westerners do not yet have these experiences and abilities at this time. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal uses numerous locks and water channels to keep water flowing smoothly, and although the economic efficiency is very low, the technical complexity is definitely greater than that of any country's water management.

To Zhou Lang's surprise, he found that these talents were not under the control of the Ministry of Industry, and the Ministry of Industry could not even control those skilled craftsmen who carved nuclear boats for the emperor.