In a normal sense, the city of Nanjing only survived to the modern imperial city and palace city, but when the Shandong army invaded Nanjing, the city of Nanjing had four city walls inside and outside.

First of all, it is the outer Guo City opened by Zhao Zhilong and other relatives, only the outer Guo City has eighteen city gates, hundreds of enemy towers, and thousands of battlements, just like a huge project.

After Nanjing sent 20,000 horses out of Beijing, there were less than 50,000 garrison troops to defend such a huge city, and it can be expected that the situation would be like.

Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang originally wanted to be in his ancestral hometown of Fengyang, but after continuous discussion, he decided to remove Fengyang and build the imperial city in Nanjing, but later the Yongle Emperor moved the capital to Beijing, and the imperial city of Nanjing was only garrisoned by Beijing at first.

Later, the southern capital Jingying continued to be dismantled and replaced, and when the number of people was the largest in the Wanli period, it was only more than 50,000 people, and in the last years of Chongzhen, there were less than 40,000 people left.

The imperial city was originally used for the emperor and the princes to come to the south of the Yangtze River, and then gradually abandoned, full of dead leaves, the afterglow of the sunset, and the gap with the Forbidden City in Beijing is still obvious.

The construction of Nanjing City can be divided into four stages, the first stage is the construction of the new imperial city at the southwest foot of Zhongshan and the reconstruction of the old city of Jinling since the Southern Tang Dynasty; The second stage was to build a new city wall from the northwest end of the old city along the Outer Qinhuai River to the north until Longjiang Pass (now Xiaguan); The third stage is the construction of the main city gates of Jubao, Sanshan and Tongji, as well as the city walls and main streets next to Xuanwu Lake; The fourth stage is the construction of Waiguo City.

Today, if Beijing is the center of politics and power, Nanjing is the main center of culture and commerce.

What's more, the Ming Dynasty has two capital systems in the north and south, one is a strategic location, the other is an economic location, which is very important, Nanjing City has the same imperial court system as Beijing, which is also the reason why many people in Beizhili are uneasy.

"The Ancient Capital of Six Dynasties", "The Capital of Ten Dynasties", and many other titles that crown the world, all speak of this city with a history of nearly 7,000 years of civilization.

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On the 14th day of July in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, this day is destined to be different and destined to be remembered by history.

A month and a half ago, Anton Hou Wang Zheng led an army of 200,000 troops from Shandong to the south in Xuzhou City, linking Fengyang, Chuzhou, Xijiangkou, Dashengguan and other places, and advancing into Nanjing.

After a month and a half of intensive campaigning, the area controlled by the Shandong army has expanded several times, and its power has increased greatly.

A few days after Wang Zheng conquered Nanjing, Li Zicheng occupied Xi'an.

After hearing Li Zicheng's strategy of "temporarily avoiding the edge of Shandong and turning to Shaanxi", Sun Chuanting, the governor of the three sides, immediately led the remnants to defend Tongguan, and after hearing Li Zicheng's strategy of "temporarily avoiding the edge of Shandong and turning to Shaanxi", he actively deployed various officers and troops to meet the battle, hoping to prevent the righteous army from entering Shaanxi by virtue of the geographical advantage of Xiongguan.

Thinking about it, Sun Chuanting understood very well the importance of enterprising Shaanxi to Li Zicheng, but at that time, the remnants of the official army that retreated to Tongguan only had 40,000 soldiers, and they were already frightened birds, so they did not have much combat effectiveness at all.

When the official army was still breathing, Li Zicheng personally led the main force to start the campaign to annihilate the rest of Sun Chuanting's troops in Shaanxi.

Before this battle, the Shun army, like the Shandong army, had made detailed plans, but they did not stipulate a retreat route, and they looked very confident.

According to the deployment of the Shun army, Li Zicheng himself commanded the main force of the righteous army, attacked Tongguan from the west of Xiangyang, and then advanced to Xi'an, and at the same time sent the general He Jin to lead Bai Minghe, Liu Tichun, Lan Yingcheng and other generals, leading the right battalion of 100,000 soldiers and horses as a partial division, starting from the Dengxian area of Henan, passing through the Shangluo area of Shaanxi, and joining the main force in Xi'an.

At the beginning of July, the main force of the Shun army approached Tongguan.

Sun Chuanting ordered the general soldier Bai Guangen to camp in Tongluochuan outside the city, and the general soldier Gao Jie to camp on the west hill outside the south gate, and he drove the middle-aged men in the city to defend the city, forming a triangular joint defense in an attempt to resist, and successively appealed to the imperial court.

On the sixth day of the first month, the Shun army entered Guanpo from Taojiazhuang.

Bai Guangen was frightened when he heard the news, and led his troops to leave without a fight, and fled westward in a hurry.

Since the families of the officers and soldiers lived in the city, the soldiers and soldiers rushed to escape into the city to "protect their wives and children", and some soldiers and generals were in a hurry to enter the city, and even ignored Sun Chuanting's orders and used knives to split the fence of Nanshui Pass.

The Shun army picked up a big bargain, followed in, and took advantage of the situation to occupy Tongguan, Sun Chuanting and Qiao Yuanzhu, the deputy envoy of the supervising army, died in the chaos of supervising the troops.

After this battle, Tongguan was broken, Sun Chuanting and the Ming court in the Central Plains of the last five provinces of the elite army annihilated, Emperor Chongzhen lost the last card to rely on the thief, the entire Shaanxi door was opened, Li Zicheng in the Central Plains completely opened the situation.

At that time, the news that the Shandong army had arrived in Chuzhou happened to come, and Li Zicheng was furious, leaving Ma Shiyao to guard Tongguan, while he continued to advance without stopping.

When the main force of the Shun army arrived in Weinan, the Shandong army had gone south from Chuzhou, and Yang Xuan, the then governor of the county, "took the city to defend the city", and scolded Li Zicheng for being a traitor in the city.

On the tenth day of the first month, Li Guo led the vanguard to conquer Lintong, and the next day Li Zicheng led the army to arrive at the city of Xi'an.

At this time, the elite of the Ming court's official army in Shaanxi had been annihilated, and even Sun Chuanting, the governor of the three sides of Shaanxi, died in Tongguan, so the situation in Xi'an was the same as Nanjing, and the defensive force was very weak, which seemed to be a drop in the bucket.

At that time, the main force garrisoning Xi'an was not the local garrison, but the 5,000 Sichuan soldiers who stayed through Xi'an because the local officials talked badly, which were regarded as guest troops.

The guest army entering the city has always been a way without any constraints, just like luring a wolf into the house, it is when the chaos begins, but this is also a way to make up for the west wall from the demolition of the east wall.

Due to the relatively cold weather, the Sichuan soldiers did not have warm clothing, and the local prefect was worried that the guest army would make a rebellion and plunder Xi'an City, so they jointly went to the Qin Palace, hoping that Zhu Cunshu would take out some money to buy cotton clothes for the soldiers, so as to boost morale.

Speaking of which, the situation encountered by Li Zicheng and Wang Zheng is somewhat similar, the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Shun army were unable to attack Xi'an for a long time because they did not have heavy weapons, and suffered heavy losses.

The Shandong army was invincible all the way, and in the end, because the city of Nanjing was too hard, it was difficult for the heavy artillery to blast out, and it was in a dilemma for a while.

Wang Zheng and Li Zicheng's methods of handling them are also very similar, both of them start from the inside.

Shi Kefa in Nanjing did not assist in defending the city, giving the Shandong army various opportunities to break through, and finally caused many relatives to open the door and surrender for their own interests, and Li Zicheng was indirectly helped by Zhu Cunshu, the king of Qin.

Zhu Cunshu, the king of Qin, verbally rejected the demands of the prefect and Xi'an officials at all levels, and ordered the Qin palace to be closed, ignoring the defense of the city.

Although the prefect and officials pleaded for some time, Wang Genzi, the leader of the Sichuan soldiers who assisted in the defense of Xi'an, was very dissatisfied and did not buy it.

As the main force of the garrison in Xi'an, the Sichuan soldiers fought with the Shun army for days, and in the end there was no benefit, even the most basic logistics supplies could not be satisfied, the soldiers could not eat enough, their clothes were not warm, and they had to risk their lives to defend the city for the honorable relatives in the city, which was unreasonable at all.

Therefore, Wang Genzi's surrender just represents the thoughts of most officers and soldiers, even if there is no Wang Genzi, there will be Li Genzi and Zhao Genzi.

That night, the Sichuan soldiers opened the east gate to welcome the Shun army into the city, surrendered and became a member of the Shun army.

On 17 July, just three days after the Shandong army entered Nanjing, Li Zicheng led the main force of the Shun army to occupy the ancient capital of Xi'an, and captured the Qin king Zhu Cunshu alive, greatly enhancing his prestige.

Shaanxi governor Feng Shikong and prefect Huang Jiong were killed, and Lu Zhiqi and others surrendered.

"Thou shalt not kill a man in vain, for the wrongdoer will pay for his life."

The right battalion of the righteous army under the command of He Jin and others, after setting out from the Nanyang area of Henan, entered Shangzhou, Shaanxi Province on July 12 and conquered the city on July 15.

On 19 July, He Jin led his troops to occupy Luonan County, and on the 20th he joined forces with Li Zicheng in Xi'an.