November of the first year of Hiromitsu, Wakoku, Kyushu Island, Satsuma Castle.

Li Hongyu and Yamashita Sakurako came to the outside of Satsuma Castle surrounded by a group of soldiers, and the lord of the Satsuma Domain, Dazai Palace, Dazai Daiji Shimazu Mingyun, knelt in front of the castle, holding the family heirloom sword in both hands and begging to surrender.

After more than a year of siege, the Japanese army on Kyushu Island collapsed without a fight, and surrendered to the Ming army one after another, Shimazu Naruto was the last daimyo to surrender, and the food in Satsuma City had been exhausted, and if they did not surrender, the people in the city would starve to death.

Since then, Li Hongyu has finally succeeded in conquering the four islands of the Wa Kingdom after several years, and has become the supreme ruler of the Wa Kingdom in the name of the Great Ming Taishi.

In order to stabilize the situation of the Wa Kingdom, Li Hongyu had formulated a series of reform measures, first of all, to abolish the shogunate, and then to use the edict of Emperor Chongzhen to make the Emperor of the Wa Kingdom the King of Japan and move to live in Xiaoliuqiu.

Second, Li Hongyu abolished the daimyo system of the Wa State and implemented a three-level political power of the county government and the province in the Wa State, and the deposed daimyo could retain a certain amount of property and lose their original privileges.

Thirdly, Li Hongyu distributed the property and land in the possession of the daimyo to the ordinary people of the Japanese state, declaring that they would no longer need to be oppressed by the daimyo under the protection of his own prison state.

Of Li Hongyu's three core reform measures, the third was undoubtedly the most influential, not only buying people's hearts but also striking a blow to the power of the daimyo.

Li Hongyu's idea was very simple, he wanted to raise a new class in the Wa Kingdom to fight against the original daimyo aristocratic class, and the officials at all levels of the Wa State were ready to be selected from the common people of the Wa State, so who would work hard for those daimyo who had lost power?

On the night of Shimazu's fateful surrender, Li Hongyu held a grand dinner to celebrate the victory of the war against the Japanese, and his plan to attack the east and west became a classic case in the history of warfare, besieging the main forces of the Japanese state on the island of Kyushu and dragging those Japanese troops to death.

"Taishi, Nanjing emergency official document!" The atmosphere of the banquet was very warm, and in the middle of the process, a guard hurriedly arrived and handed Li Hongyu several sealed emergency documents.

Li Hongyu couldn't help but sigh when he saw this, the urgent official document from Nanjing at this time was definitely not a good thing.

After a deep sigh, Li Hongyu was ready to start checking the official document with the nearest date, because the journey from the Ming Dynasty to the Wa Kingdom was not easy, so the official document of the imperial court was not sent immediately, and it was necessary to wait for an appropriate day to go to sea, otherwise everything would be over once the sea was shipwrecked, so he accumulated a few official documents at once.

The reason why Li Hongyu wants to look at the nearest official document first is because what the official document talks about in Jiangnan in recent times.

"Alas!"

After checking the official letter, Li Hongyu couldn't help but sigh and drank all the wine on the wine table next to him.

"Xianggong, what's wrong?" At this time, Sakurako Yamashita, who was sitting next to Li Hongyu, saw that Li Hongyu was in a bad mood and knew that something was wrong in Nanjing, so he asked in a low voice.

"Jiannu broke through Yangzhou and Nanjing, Shi Kefa died in Nanjing, and the emperor was betrayed by a traitor to Jiannu, I am afraid that there will be more than one luck." Li Hongyu handed the official document in his hand to Sakurako Yamashita, and said with a somewhat gloomy expression.

"The emperor has hundreds of thousands of troops in his hands, how could he be defeated by Jiannu so quickly?"

Yamashita Sakurako was taken aback when she heard this, her face was full of disbelief, no matter how much she could resist with the deployment of troops in the south of Naoli, she could resist for two or three years, and there was also the Yangtze River natural danger.

"Alas!" As she spoke, Sakurako Yamashita carefully checked the battle report in her hand, smiled bitterly for a long time, and let out a long sigh.

The reason why Nanming was defeated so quickly was naturally inseparable from the party struggle in the court.

After Li Hongyu left, Emperor Hongguang naturally reused Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng and others, who had meritorious service from Long, Ma Shiying and others excluded the officials of the Donglin Party and vigorously suppressed the officials of the Donglin Party.

Although Zuo Liangyu, the Hou of Ningnan who guarded Changsha, was not a member of the Donglin Party, Hou Sui, who promoted him, was the boss of the Donglin Party, so Zuo Liangyu was very close to the Donglin Party and belonged to the general of the Donglin Party camp.

Due to Ma Shiying and others' vigorous suppression of Donglin Party officials, coupled with the fact that Zuo Liangyu, who supported the army and respected himself, was unwilling to be just a marquis, he raised troops from Changsha in April of the first year of Hongguang and marched into Nanjing in the name of the Qing monarch's side, aiming directly at Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng and others.

Ma Shiying was forced to urgently transfer the main force of the four towns in Jiangbei to meet Zuo Liangyu, which caused the Jianghuai defense line facing the Qing army to fall into emptiness, and as a result, Duoduo, the prince of Yu of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, took the opportunity to attack south, and in just one month, the Qing army broke through Bozhou and Xuzhou and other cities, and went straight to Yangzhou, the richest city, after crossing the Huai River.

At this time, although Shi Kefa, the secretary of the Southern Ming Military Department in Yangzhou, had the name of the superintendent, he was really unable to mobilize the troops of Nanzhili, especially as the elite soldiers of the four towns in Jiangbei.

In the face of the menacing Qing army, including the four towns in Jiangbei, the troops of Nanzhili fled and surrendered, and some even acted as pawns of the Qing army to attack the cities of the Ming army, which made the Qing army encounter no resistance.

Duoduo originally wanted to take Yangzhou without blood, but who would have encountered unprecedented resistance in Yangzhou, and the soldiers and civilians of Yangzhou resisted bravely under the leadership of Shi Kefa.

This caused the Qing army to suffer the greatest casualties since entering the customs, and several high-ranking generals of the Qing army were killed, causing Duoduo to go on a killing spree after breaking through Yangzhou City, and slaughtered the city for ten days as revenge.

The defenders of Nanjing were defeated without resistance, and the Nanjing officials surrendered the city to the Qing Dynasty, and the Hongguang Emperor wanted to flee to the border of Shanghai and take refuge in Haicheng, where the Customs Department was located, but was betrayed by his entourage and captured.

As for the initiator of the matter, Zuo Liangyu died of illness on the boat of Jiujiang before he could start a war with the four towns in Jiangbei, and his son Zuo Mengeng led his troops to surrender to the Manchus.

"Xianggong, since Nanzhili, who has hundreds of thousands of troops, fell into the hands of Jiannu so quickly, it is difficult for the southern provinces of the Ming Dynasty to hold on, I don't know when Xianggong is going to go back?"

After putting down the official document in her hand, Yamashita Sakurako asked Li Hongyu with a concerned expression, who would have thought that those Ming troops would be so poor that they didn't even have the courage to fight with the Qing army.

"There is a good saying, it is called not broken, it is not standing, the Ming Dynasty is now declining, Xianggong is powerless about this, it is better to break it completely, and then create a new era!"

Li Hongyu frowned when he heard this, and then whispered to Sakurako Yamashita, "Therefore, Xianggong is going to wait for them to fight almost before going back to clean up the mess." ”

Yamashita Sakurako's eyes suddenly lit up, her eyes were filled with irrepressible excitement, and she naturally knew what Li Hongyu meant by "creating a new era".

Li Hongyu's mood seemed a little lost and gloomy, silently drinking stuffy wine, the day he didn't want to face had finally come, in order to make the people live a stable and happy life in the future, he had to wait for the opportunity to make a move.

This process can be said to be tormenting, and you can only sit back and watch the innocent people die in the slaughter of the war, but this is war, it is not transferred by human will, even if it is cruel, he has to face and accept it, is it possible for him to drive away the Manchu Qing and the Ming Dynasty?

Even if he does this, it will make the dull Daming last for a few more decades, and there will be chaos again.

The impact of the fall of Nanjing was enormous, so that the originally united Nanming regime was immediately torn apart, and there was no longer anyone who could give orders, and ambitious clans in various places successively stood on their own, and successively Zhu Changshu, the king of Lu, Hangzhou, Zhu Ciqi, the king of Fuzhou, and Zhu Hengjia, the king of Jingjiang, Guilin, declared the state of supervision.

However, these regimes had no foundation, they were short-lived, and they were overthrown a few days later, reduced to a laughing stock, and drowned in the long river of history.

The information of the Ming Dynasty was continuously sent to Li Hongyu's hands, and two powerful forces appeared in the self-reliant clans in various places, and Zhu Yujian, the king of the Tang Dynasty, proclaimed himself emperor in Fuzhou and changed the Yuan Longwu, which won the support of many Southern Ming officials.

Due to the isolation of news, Zhu Yihai, the king of Lu, then supervised the country in Shaoxing, so that two coexisting regimes appeared on the territory of the Southern Ming Dynasty.

At this time, in order to maintain their rule, the Manchu Qing Dynasty once again announced the Nagi Order, which made the Jiangnan area set off a huge anti-Qing struggle, and the Qing army was unable to continue to advance southward for a while.

Originally, this was a good time for the Southern Ming to launch a counteroffensive to regain the lost territory in one fell swoop, but due to the serious party struggle within the Southern Ming Dynasty and the arrogance of local forces, coupled with the fact that the Longwu regime and the Lu Wang regime fought for the orthodox status of the Ming Dynasty, they were like fire and water, and they fought separately.

Therefore, the Southern Ming missed the opportunity to recapture Jiangnan, and when the Qing army quelled the turmoil in the rear and went south again, the Longwu regime and the Lu Wang regime were destroyed by the Qing army successively.

After the fall of the Longwu regime, Zhu Youlang, the king of Gui, supervised the country in Zhaoqing, and Zhu Yulu, the younger brother of Emperor Longwu, invoked the "brother and brother" to stand on his own in Guangzhou, changed the Yuan Shaowu, and then Zhu Youlang also called the emperor and changed the Yuan Yongli.

Like the Longwu regime and the Lu Wang regime, the Yongli regime and the Shaowu regime also quarreled and even fought against each other because of the struggle for the orthodox status of the Ming Dynasty.

As a result, Emperor Shaowu was captured by the Qing army after reigning for more than 40 days, and finally died of hunger strike, which can be regarded as preserving his integrity and dignity, and Emperor Yongli fled into Guangxi under the coercion of the Qing army and lived a life of hiding in Tibet.

Emperor Yongli, who had lost his place to stay, wanted to take refuge in King Xiang of Xiangyang or King of Chu in Wuchang, but eventually gave up on this idea.

Among the local vassal kings of the Ming Dynasty, only the King of Xiang and the King of Chu were now the only ones with heavy troops, dominating the Huguang region north of the Yangtze River, so that the Manchus had to bypass their territory.

But then again, King Xiang and King Chu, as the most powerful vassal kings in the region, neither of them stood on their own after the death of Emperor Hongguang, but they also did not recognize the self-reliant vassal kings after Emperor Hongguang, so Emperor Yongli went to these two princes to ask for trouble?

However, Emperor Yongli had better luck, and when he was in Guangxi, he encountered the remnants of a Dashun army that went south, and as a result, he was supported by it, so that he had the power to protect himself.

The reason why it is said to be the remnants of the Dashun army is because the Qing army captured Xi'an, the capital of Dashun, after bombarding Tongguan with Hongyi artillery, Li Zicheng had to lead the army south, and as a result, Li Zicheng, who was depressed on the way, died of illness in the army before crossing the Yangtze River, which made the Dashun army divided into two branches and parted ways.

One of the Dashun armies crossed the Yangtze River to find the Yongli Emperor, and the other Dashun army surrendered to King Xiang of Xiangyang Mansion under the persuasion of the Red Lady, Li Yan and Song Xiance, which greatly increased the strength of King Xiang.

I'm afraid that Emperor Chongzhen would never have imagined that the Dashun army, which broke through the capital and destroyed the Ming Dynasty, would surrender to the Ming Dynasty one day, and it became the force that the self-reliant Yongli Emperor relied on, which is really ridiculous.

(End of chapter)