Outside the city of Nanjing.

Zhu Yousong was dressed in filial piety, personally went out of the city to greet the coffin of Emperor Chongzhen, and now Emperor Chongzhen, the crown prince, King Ding and King Yong all died unexpectedly, his throne can be described as stable as Mount Tai, and no one emperor can compete with it.

Li Hongyu met Zhu Yousong for the first time, but he and Zhu Yousong's father Zhu Changxun were old acquaintances, and Zhu Changxun had a lot of Li Hongyu's credit in the failure to compete for the throne that year.

In any case, now that Zhu Yousong has ascended the throne as the emperor, it is precisely because he needs to rely on Li Hongyu, an important minister who is both civil and military, and has both ability and political integrity, so he has naturally long forgotten the grievances between Zhu Changxun and Li Hongyu in the past.

According to the custom, Emperor Chongzhen's coffin was carried into the palace for memorialization, and after the memorial ceremony, it was buried in the imperial mausoleum outside the city, so that Emperor Chongzhen could rest in peace.

The arrival of Li Hongyu lifted the spirits of the officials and people of Nanjing, and swept away the haze of the previous Beijing city being broken by the Dashun army, and both the officialdom and the people regarded Li Hongyu as the mainstay of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, with Li Hongyu's arrival in Nanjing, the party struggle in the officialdom has also come to an end for the time being, and neither the Donglin Party nor the so-called eunuchs dare to provoke anything wrong under Li Hongyu's nose.

Zhu Yousong also felt a lot more relaxed about this, and the high-flying and domineering civil and military officials in the Nanjing officialdom suddenly changed their minds, and they became respectful to him, and they did not dare to slack off in the slightest.

Speaking of which, Zhu Yousong's emperor was also aggrieved, the fief of King Fu's Mansion was in Luoyang, because Luoyang was broken by Li Zicheng's army, Zhu Yousong became an exiled royal family and lived in Jiangbei, and was not able to inherit the title of King Fu until last year.

In other words, Zhu Yousong had no roots and no foundation in the imperial court in Nanjing, and all he relied on was Ma Shiying and Jiangbei officials, and he was in an absolutely weak position.

It is conceivable that whether Zhu Yousong ascended the throne as emperor actively or passively, he reached an agreement with Ma Shiying and the officials in Jiangbei, which made him invisibly a head shorter in front of Ma Shiying and others.

However, after Li Hongyu came, the situation in Nanjing immediately took on a new look, and the civil and military officials were all afraid of Li Hongyu's authority, so they naturally did not dare to be disrespectful to Zhu Yousong.

Besides, the foundation of the Customs Department is in Jiangnan, and Li Hongyu has been either overseas or Jiangnan all these years, and he has a very high prestige, and officials are willing to follow him.

After all, Li Hongyu was in charge of the military and political power of the Ming Dynasty when the Emperor of the Apocalypse was seriously ill, and he was familiar with handling the government and government.

What is particularly important is that with Li Hongyu in charge, the military and civilians of the state capitals under the control of the Ming army in the south all submitted to the Nanjing court, which made the regime of the Southern Ming finally stable.

Although on the surface it appeared that the officials of the Southern Ming regime were united in hatred and hatred, in private there was a fierce undercurrent between the original struggle for the gateway to the new emperor and the power struggle between the officials brought by Li Hongyu from Beijing and the officials in Nanjing.

Although these things have not been brought to the fore for the time being because of Li Hongyu, in private, officials of various factions are fighting openly and secretly, and they all want to get the greatest benefits.

Li Hongyu knows this very well, there is no way to reconcile this kind of conflict of interests, and now with his position, it is really inappropriate to interfere in it, no matter how Zhu Yousong is the son of heaven of the Ming Dynasty, if he gets involved in this matter, it will inevitably leave the impression of unauthorized power to the outside world, which makes Zhu Yousong jealous of him.

At this moment, what Li Hongyu wanted was to place those people who had fled from the north into the sphere of influence of the Customs Department, so as to ensure the safety of those people, and he really had no interest in the battle in Nanjing City.

However, even if Li Hongyu was very indifferent to power, his existence undoubtedly became a stumbling block for those officials in Nanjing City to reap the benefits.

Therefore, Zhu Yousong's ears had a lot of remarks that were unfavorable to Li Hongyu, such as "The military and the people of the world only know Li Taishi but not Emperor Hongguang", "Li Taishi is the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, and the Son of Heaven is just a puppet", "Li Taishi has made outstanding achievements, the Zhu family dynasty has exhausted its strength, and there should be Li Taishi to inherit the unification" and so on.

As the saying goes, everyone is ruining the bones, at the beginning Emperor Hongguang laughed at this rumor and disdained it, he knew Li Hongyu's personality very well, and thought that Li Hongyu, the "veteran of the Five Dynasties", was loyal to the imperial power.

Unconsciously, Li Hongyu has served the five sons of heaven of the Ming Dynasty, of course, the throne of Emperor Hongguang is a little unjustifiable, but after all, he ascended the throne as the emperor in Nanjing, so he can be regarded as a son of heaven of the Ming Dynasty.

But when there were many people who said in Zhu Yousong's ear that Li Hongyu's merits were high, and the main and tail could not be lost, Zhu Yousong couldn't help but begin to doubt Li Hongyu's loyalty.

The current situation is different from the past, the Ming Dynasty is now retreating south of the Yellow River, it can be said that it has lost half of the country, and not only has the two enemies of Dashun and Manchu, Zhang Xianzhong of Sichuan is even more eyeing the tiger, as for the other small peasant army forces are countless.

If it is changed to a common phrase among the people, the Ming Dynasty that has lost the city of Beijing has run out, and if someone supports Li Hongyu at this time, it is difficult to ensure that Li Hongyu, who is in power, will be like Song Taizu in a yellow robe and become a man who sits in the world.

With those scheming officials fanning the flames in Zhu Yousong's ears, considering Li Hongyu's huge influence, Zhu Yousong was not only a little uncomfortable.

If it is said that the various factions in the court are only a struggle for power and will not affect Zhu Yousong's rule, then Li Hongyu has threatened Zhu Yousong's imperial power, which makes Zhu Yousong feel more and more panicked in his heart.

While Li Hongyu was in Nanjing to deal with the busy business at hand, the Qing army and the Dashun army fought a series of fierce battles in the northwest, and Dolgon made up his mind to defeat the Dashun army while the Southern Ming regime was unstable, so as to eliminate the threat from the north and unify the northern territory of the Ming Dynasty.

Under Dolgon's orders, the Qing army successively captured Baoding and Dingzhou, which were occupied by the Dashun army, and then attacked Shanxi without stopping.

What made the Dashun army feel depressed was that, as was the case during their eastern expedition, Jiang Xuan, the defender of the military town of Datong, did not have the slightest will to resist, and after the Qing army came, he opened the city gate and surrendered.

Although Chen Yongfu, the former general of the Ming army who was too far away from Li Zicheng, led his army to resist, he was defeated and captured, and Shanxi, which lost the two important military towns of Taiyuan and Datong, completely fell into the hands of the Qing army.

At the same time, the areas north of the Yellow River in Beizhili and Shandong were gradually occupied by the Qing army, and in the face of the menacing Qing army, the local troops had no will to fight, and they chose to surrender one after another.

Li Zicheng's foundation was in the northwest, so he shrank the main force of the Dashun army in Shaanxi and took advantage of the danger of Tongguan to resist the enemy.

By the end of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen's reign, the Qing army had successfully pacified Beizhili and its surrounding areas, and the smooth progress of the situation was completely beyond Dorgon's expectations, and when the Qing army appeared, most of the cities along the way surrendered without a fight.

As a result, Dolgon aimed at the northwest where the Dashun army was entrenched, and as long as the northwest was captured, the northern region of the Ming Dynasty would become the possession of the Manchus.

It is worth mentioning that a strange thing happened to the Dashun army on the way to retreat, Li Zicheng's advisers Li Yan and Song Xiance suddenly led 20,000 men to Henan after the defeat of the Dashun army in Dingzhou to calm the situation in Henan.

Regarding the sudden departure of Li Yan and Song Xiance, Li Zicheng only crowned the two as generals, and did not explain too much.

The outside world will not know that the reason why Li Yan and Song Xiance ran away was because Li Zicheng had murderous intentions towards Li Yan, and Song Xiance was friendly with Li Yan, and after learning about this, he was disheartened by Li Zicheng and ran to Henan with Li Yan.

It turned out that after the defeat of Dashun in Dingzhou, there were rumors that Henan, which was occupied by the Dashun army, had surrendered to the Ming army in Huguang.

During the discussion, Li Yan took the initiative to ask Ying, and was willing to personally lead 20,000 troops to Zhongzhou for deterrence, so that the nearby state capital would not dare to act rashly, and even if there were rebels, they could be dealt with as soon as possible.

Niu Jinxing, Song Xiance and others all felt that Li Yan's proposal was just right and a safe way, so they supported it, but Li Zicheng did not agree, just let the matter be discussed again, showing a thoughtful look.

It turned out that since he was defeated by the Qing army and the Guan Liao Ming army at Shanhaiguan, Li Zicheng's psychology has changed, and he is worried that Li Yan will lead the troops to Henan this time with other plans.

As Li Zicheng's confidant, Niu Jinxing naturally saw Li Zicheng's heart, the so-called peers are enemies, Niu Jinxing was secretly jealous of Li Yan's talent, so he seized the opportunity to speak to Li Zicheng, saying that Li Yan had two hearts to get rid of it as soon as possible, so as to set an example and prevent future troubles.

Li Zicheng agreed to this matter after weighing it, he didn't want to see Li Yan surrender to the Ming army, that would be a heavy blow to Dashun.

So, the next day, Niu Jinxing sent people to Li Yan's military camp in the name of Li Zicheng to summon him to come to drink, discuss the matter of going south to Henan, and secretly arranged for ambush soldiers to hide in the camp, preparing to capture and kill him and his generals as soon as Li Yan came.

Who Cheng thought, although Li Yan agreed to this, but for some reason suddenly led his 20,000 soldiers of the Dashun Army to urgently march in the direction of Henan, and sent a letter to Li Zicheng, saying that the situation was urgent, so he and Song Xiance went to Henan to arrange the arrangement first.

Li Yan's sudden departure made Li Zicheng take aback, and immediately realized that the matter had been revealed, and wanted to send an army to pursue but gave up this idea after pondering for a while, and now if it starts, it will inevitably affect the morale of the Dashun army, and then give the Qing army that is following a chance.

Since the matter has come to this point, Li Zicheng can only let Li Yan leave like this, and Li Yan will definitely not be the enemy of Dashun when he thinks of the old kindness in the future.

Li Zicheng would not have thought that the reason why Li Yan suddenly ran away was related to Li Hongyu, Li Hongyu naturally knew that Li Zicheng wanted to kill Li Yan, after all, Li Yan was also quite famous in later generations, so he asked people to lurk around Li Yan with the letter written by the Red Lady in advance, and waited for Niu Jinxing to send someone to invite him to the banquet with the Red Lady's letter to stop him.

After a fierce ideological struggle, Li Yan chose to believe in the person sent by Li Hongyu to deliver the letter, as the red lady said, for the future of the Dashun army and the people, he led his soldiers to Henan to watch the changes in the battle situation between Dashun and the Qing army.

(End of chapter)