Jiang Jiu's surrender made the entire Beijing division panic, now from Shanxi to the Beijing division, almost no decent army can be found, if Li Zicheng's army goes east, the soldiers can definitely reach the Beijing division, although the Beijing division has defenders, but whether it can withstand Li Zicheng's attack, everyone actually has no number in their hearts.

When Li Zicheng sent out his troops, he claimed to have an army of 500,000, and everyone didn't believe it at the time, but now after Li Zicheng swept the official army in Shanxi and Shaanxi with the autumn wind sweeping away the leaves, most of everyone now really believes that Li Zicheng really has an army of 500,000, and after they calculated the Ming army that surrendered to Li Zicheng, they found that Li Zicheng already had an army of 780,000 under his command. So now, when Emperor Chongzhen asked Gao Qiqian if his Beijing camp could hold the capital, Gao Qiqian suddenly knelt on the ground and cried:

"Your Majesty, although the Jingying is the elite of the world, the number of people is really far from the thieves. Moreover, there has been a major epidemic in Beijing recently, and there are many soldiers in the Beijing camp who have committed the epidemic, and seven or eight out of ten people have died. Therefore, there is a large shortage in the army, and it is necessary to urgently replenish personnel. Moreover, the newly replenished soldiers cannot be compared with the old soldiers, and it often takes two or three to top the original one. And to recruit soldiers, it costs money...... Otherwise, there are too few soldiers who can still fight in Beijing today. ”

"It's going to cost money again", these four words were like a big hammer smashed on Emperor Chongzhen's head, smashing his eyes and making his body shake, almost fainting.

"How much has Jingying been affected by the epidemic? The people of the city did not lose such a large proportion. Chongzhen couldn't help but ask.

"Your Majesty, it is true, how dare the slave and maid deceive Your Majesty? The soldiers of the Beijing camp are all huddled together, and when they get sick, they are naturally more contagious than ordinary people's homes. Gao Qiqian cried bitterly.

In the past two months, another serious plague has occurred in the area of Beijing. This plague is the most terrible of all plagues - the plague. At the beginning, the outbreak was bubonic plague, bubonic plague needs to be transmitted by fleas sucking blood, so although this disease is very dangerous, once infected, it is easy to die, but the contagiousness of this disease is not particularly strong, so the scale of the plague at the beginning is not particularly large, but over time, bubonic plague has developed into a more deadly pneumonic plague. This plague is like the flu, it can be transmitted through the air, and the children's shoes of the plague company know that this is the most efficient and difficult mode of transmission to defend, so the plague is out of control all of a sudden, and the entire capital, the dead are sleeping, and the Beijing camp is inevitably involved.

However, to say that seventy or eighty percent of the soldiers in Beijing died is an exaggeration. But there is a reason why Gao Qiqian said this. Beijing camp is a unit established to defend Beijing after the Tumubao Change, when it was just established, it was indeed the elite of the whole army, but after a long time, this army has become a place where the second generation of officials mixed seniority and benefits. As a result, Jingying basically became the worst army in the whole Ming Dynasty. In such an army, all kinds of problems of the Ming army are naturally the same, including of course, empty salaries. So even if there is no plague, more than half of the soldiers on the roster of the Beijing camp are dead souls. And Gao Qiqian, as the director of this army, of course, knows this. However, most of the people who eat empty salaries in Beijing are powerful people with very backgrounds, and Gao Qiqian is naturally unwilling to offend these people for such a thing. So in this regard, I will open my eyes and close my eyes. Even he took advantage of it.

Now, Li Zicheng may be overwhelmed by troops one day, and this problem in the Beijing camp is about to be exposed. So Gao Qiqian simply blamed the plague on all of this.

Obviously, with the current situation of the Beijing camp, I am afraid that it will be difficult to resist Li Zicheng's attack, and if we want to restore the combat effectiveness of the Beijing camp, we must increase the number of manpower, and if we want to increase the number of manpower, we will have to spend money. And Emperor Chongzhen really can't come up with the money now. Since Chongzhen came to power, there have been two phenomena in my Ming Dynasty's finances, one is the increasing expenditure, and the other is the drying up of financial resources. Since the defeat of the evil Wei Zhongxian's eunuchs, Emperor Chongzhen abolished the mine supervisors and tax supervisors in various places who represented Wei Zhongxian's evil government, so the various revenues of the central government fell sharply, and even developed to the point that the salt tax in a certain province was only a hundred taels of silver a year. At the same time, various natural disasters brought about by the Xiaoice River period have become increasingly serious, and agricultural harvests in the north have generally failed or even failed.

On the other hand, the war against Jianzhi continued to fail, and each failure required the Ming Dynasty government to spend a lot of money for it, and under the condition of shrinking financial resources, in order to maintain expenditures, our Ming Dynasty had to not reduce agricultural taxes in the year of the catastrophe, but increased them, in order to fill the big hole caused by the decrease in commercial taxes and the sharp increase in military expenditures. With the depletion of commercial tax revenues, the increasing military expenditures, and the increasing amount of agricultural taxes, even to the point where they exceeded the entire production of land, a large number of peasants abandoned their land and became vagrants or outcasts. As a result, the output of agriculture as a whole was reduced, and the suppression of the rogues required more military expenditures. More spending requires higher taxes, and higher taxes force more peasants to become outcasts or outcasts, further depleting tax sources and increasing military spending. In such a vicious circle, Emperor Chongzhen struggled to support it for more than ten years, but now, the finances of the Ming Dynasty have finally reached the point where they are unsustainable.

"I have no money, I have no money! However, if I want to find a way, I must think of a way, I want to save Daming! Emperor Chongzhen muttered.

Emperor Chongzhen's method was to borrow money from high-ranking officials in the court, as well as the emperor's relatives, however, although these people were rich, they all tightened their money bags one by one and did not pull out a dime. The reason why they are reluctant to come up with money is not necessarily that they are really stingy with money, they don't necessarily think that Li Zicheng is here, and they can still keep the money in their hands, but they all know these points, first, their money is not coming from the right way, and they can't see the light. At this time, if anyone came with a large sum of money in one go, of course the emperor would be happy first, and then he would naturally think: "Where did this guy get so much money?" Then the emperor, who was desperately short of money, would investigate the matter, and while fighting corruption, he could use the confiscated money to make up for the financial shortfall. Second, at this time, whoever comes out with the money first is forcing others to pay money, and is everyone's enemy, so if the emperor wants to settle the accounts of corruption with him in the future, everyone will definitely fall into the ground. Therefore, from this point of view, taking the initiative to take out the money is almost equivalent to suicide.

So the Manchu Dynasty once again collectively cried out together, and finally, under the premise of the emperor's forcible apportionment, it was a good way to get a hundred thousand taels of silver, which was turned in the hands of Emperor Chongzhen, and was spent as the expenses of recruiting soldiers in the Beijing camp, and this money was not enough at all, because the Beijing camp not only lacked personnel, in fact, its weapons and equipment or something, many of them were also dead souls that only existed in the accounts.

So, because this money is not enough anyway, and it is useless to use it seriously, so, it is reasonable, in addition to recruiting some homeless people, this money has once again helped me Daming and recruited a group of dead souls.

"Xuanda has been lost, Your Majesty, Beijing City can't be defended. Your Majesty would do well to move south. That's the best way to go. Gong Yonggu, the commander of the horses, said to Chongzhen. Gong Yonggu is Chongzhen's brother-in-law, in today's crisis, not long ago Chongzhen convened the ministers in the Dezheng Hall and said: "According to the ancestral system, the sons of the lords, as well as the horses and others, must go to the highest institution of learning, Guozijian for further study, not only to learn poetry and articles, but also to read military books, and practice riding and archery. Do you have children of the right age in your family? "Those dukes, marquises, and earls all bowed their heads and remained silent—because at this time, sending their children to receive urgent military training is very likely to really lead the troops to battle at once, and go to the city to dedicate themselves. The emperor asked several times, but no one responded, so he had to name him: "Chengguo Gong, Dingguo Gong, should your children be sent for further study?" But the two princes excused themselves and said, "Our son is too young!" The other colts also resigned on the grounds of poor health and dull qualifications, and only Gong Yonggu was willing to go to Guozijian for emergency training. At this time, he was the first to make this politically incorrect claim. In the original history, after Li Zicheng broke the city, the horse and his family set themselves on fire and died.

"What Aiqing said makes sense." Chongzhen sighed and said, "It's just that it's better for this matter to be raised by the courtiers." ”

Gong Yonggu bowed down and said: "Zuo Zhongyun Li Mingrui, and the imperial envoy Li Banghua are both loyal and good, if Your Majesty allows me to talk to them, they should write to ask Your Majesty to move south." However......" Gong Yonggu paused and said, "At the critical moment, Your Majesty still has to be arbitrary!" ”

"Well," Emperor Chongzhen nodded, "I know, you can go and do something." ”

Gong Yonggu bowed again and retreated.

"Wang Banban, what do you think?" When Gong Yonggu retreated, Chongzhen turned his head to Wang Chengen and asked.

"The slave also thinks that His Majesty should have made a decision early." Wang Chengen also replied.

The next day, Emperor Chongzhen really received Zuo Zhongyun Li Mingrui's recital, in which Li Mingrui made it clear that the capital was no longer defensible, and the emperor should be happy in Nanjing immediately.

"Good, good, good!" Looking at this recital, Chongzhen stood up suddenly, his face flushed, and walked around the study a few times, and then said, "Go and find Chen Shoufu and see what he has to say." ”