Li Zicheng's occupation of Xi'an, Wang Zheng's capture of Nanjing, and Dorgon's support of Shunzhi in order to avoid civil war were all turning points in history.

At this critical turning point, Ming Ting had long lost his last hole card and could only be reduced to an angry spectator.

When Wang Zheng led the Shandong army to sweep the south of the Yangtze River, Li Zicheng was not idle, and began to arrange several large armies in July, with the purpose of sweeping away the remaining urban strongholds of the Ming court in the northwest.

Li Zicheng led an army composed of the rear battalion of Li Guo's department and the left battalion of Liu Fangliang's department, and pursued the officers and troops of the Ming general army Gao Jie to the north, intending to seize northern Shaanxi.

Tian Jianxiu led his troops south to Hanzhong to pursue the officers and troops of the general army Gao Ruli, which was an idea put forward by Niu Jinxing, a division of the army, and wanted to use this to open up the hole road to Sichuan in the south.

Yuan Zongdi withdrew from Henan and was appointed as a deputy general, assisting the general He Jinxi to pursue Bai Guangen's official army and capture Ningxia, Gansu, Xining and other places.

In November, when the Shandong army began to establish power in Nanjing and reform the staff office, the army under the command of Li Zicheng, Li Guo, and Liu Fangliang arrived in Yan'an.

At this time, in addition to the original garrison in northern Shaanxi, there were also the officers and soldiers of Gao Jie, the general soldier of the Ming Dynasty who fled after the loss of Tongguan, although Gao Jie and Li Zicheng had a mortal enemy, but his subordinates had already been frightened by the fierce offensive of the righteous army, and no one wanted to fight again.

Therefore, when Li Guo and other troops occupied Yan'an, Gao Jie knew that the army had no heart and could not resist, so he could only take the opportunity of the Yellow River to freeze and flee into Shanxi.

"Open the gate to meet the king, and the king will not pay for the food when he comes."

And so on and so on and so on have long been known to women and children all over the world, so Li Zicheng marched into northern Shaanxi, and the local people actually welcomed him, and the civil and military officials of various states and counties rushed to pay money and surrender, wanting to get a piece of the pie after the Shun army seized the world.

The Shun army attacked Yulin from Yan'an to the north, passing through Mizhi, which was Li Zicheng's hometown.

At the end of the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, Zuo Liangyu dug up the graves of Li Zicheng's grandfather and father, and burned the remains without leaving a single bit, which was also one of the purposes of Li Zicheng's pursuit of Zuo Liangyu for more than 200 miles.

Thinking about it, Zuo Liangyu also understood very well in his heart, Li Zicheng wanted to kill him and then quickly, so in the eyes of outsiders, it was like having "Li phobia", as long as he saw the banner of the Shun army, he immediately began to flee without looking back.

When Li Zicheng returned to his hometown this time, the local people were panicked and afraid of retaliation.

But he only killed a local gentry who participated in the planning of the tomb felling, and in addition, Qiu did not commit any crimes, and ordered the ancestral tomb to be "built and sealed", and sent a tribute to Jiang Xueyi, a government attendant.

In addition, Li Zicheng heard that Wang Zheng had changed the Military Council Department to the Staff Office, and immediately ordered:

"Change Yan'an to Tianbao Mansion, Mizhi to Tianbao County, and Qingjian to Tianbo Mansion."

On November 12, he led his troops to Chenggu County, and besieged the army for four days, losing more than 1,000 soldiers to conquer the city.

The general soldier Gao Ruli tried to flee to Sichuan, but was caught up by the rebels on the way and was forced to surrender, after which the Hanzhong region was quickly pacified by the Shun army, and Tian Jianxiu left the troops to guard He Zhen and Han Wen, and returned to Xi'an by himself.

He Jin, Yuan Zongdi and others led the army to march westward, and the troops reached Guyuan, and the general soldier Bai Guangen surrendered.

Because Bai Guangen often participated in the battle to encircle and suppress Li Zicheng, he was very uneasy, and he couldn't even sleep peacefully in the Shun army, and he was always worried about his own life.

In order to win over the generals of the Ming army and reduce the resistance to the march, Niu Jinxing suggested that Li Zicheng have a banquet with Bai Guangen, Li Zicheng had no resistance to this, and it is said that he had a very happy conversation with the officers and generals of Bai Guangen.

Zuo Guangxian, who was supposed to surrender with Bai Guangen in history, did not disarm and surrender after hearing the news, but went to his close friend Chen Yongfu, the general soldier of Henan, to express his willingness to join the foreign department of the Shandong Army.

At that time, Chen Yongfu was no longer the second-in-command of Kaifeng Mansion, and because of his great contribution to the Shandong Army's campaign to conquer the entire territory of Henan, Wang Zheng had promoted him to the chief general of the Shandong Army's foreign troops and horses in Nanyang Mansion at the end of August.

Although the territory in charge of this mansion lord is 108,000 miles away from the total army of Henan in the imperial court, it is better than the truth, and the foreign soldiers and horses of the Shandong army have real power.

Chen Yongfu and Zuo Guangxian had always been brothers in private, and Zuo Guangxian once went to Licheng with Sun Chuanting, the governor of Shaanxi, who had been killed in battle, to meet Wang Zheng and his Shandong soldiers.

At present, the Shun Army and the Shandong Army are in the northwest, and the other is in Shandong and Jiangnan, and they are on the same page.

The Shandong Army has a clear three-tier structure of soldiers, regular soldiers, and foreign soldiers and horses, and everyone has sophisticated standard equipment, and every time they go out on an expedition, they will even be equipped with a baggage battalion and a firearms battalion.

Not long ago, Wang Zheng reformed the staff office, and the Shandong army was completely renewed, so Chen Yongfu did not feel strange that Zuo Guangxian could have this choice, and it was even expected.

And when Zuo Guangxian had just decided to enter the Shandong Army, he made a great contribution to Wang Zheng, and he rode back to Huguang with Chen Yongfu's letter to lobby those military generals who were vacillating.

The Zuo family is a general from Yulin, and has a high reputation among the officials and troops in the Central Plains, Zuo Guangxian's choice directly disrupted Li Zicheng's method of relying on Bai Guangen to win people's hearts, and made other Ming court generals in Henan and Huguang who were ready to throw themselves into Li Zicheng hesitate.

In the end, except for a very small number of stubborn generals who died in the war, the court generals in the northwest still defected to the Shun army as in history.

However, the difference is that most of the generals in Henan and Huguang were vigorously persuaded by Zuo Guangxian and Chen Yongfu to enter the external department of the Shandong Army and accept reorganization and dismantling.

This incident was a surprise for Wang Zheng, who immediately gave Chen Yongfu and Zuo Guangxian a great credit, and promised Zuo Guangxian that if he made another great contribution, he would be promoted to the chief general of Yiyang.

Not to mention how Zuo Guangxian was grateful to Zero and his own choice.

It is only said that after Yuan Zongdi withdrew from Nanyang Mansion, he followed He Jin from Fengxiang in Shaanxi Province to advance to Gongchang, and the situation encountered along the way was similar to that of other two roads.

Zuo Liangyu actually had enough fire, and he was originally invited by the Shandong Army to go north to cooperate, wanting to take the opportunity to pick up the cheap, but he was used as a gunman by Wang Zheng, and he was killed by the fourth battalion of Ge Zuo who went south.

The other remnants of the Huguang army are similar, and they sent troops with the intention of picking up cheap, and they all became the swords of the Shandong army.

Later, due to the fear of retaliation from the Shun army, coupled with the unremitting lobbying of Zuo Guangxian and Chen Yongfu, these parts of the officers and troops were basically incorporated into the foreign department.

After the left army defeated the four battalions of the left led by Lao Huihui and other four kings, it heard that the main force of the Dashun army had "avoided Shandong" and had moved to the northwest.

Zuo Liangyu was immediately overjoyed and ordered to march to Shanxi, in a vain attempt to seize Jingzhou, Chengtian, De'an, and Xiangyang in Hubei.

The persimmon picks up the soft pinch, Li Zicheng and Wang Zheng can't afford to provoke either of them, but Zhang Xianzhong is a defeated general under Zuo Liangyu, and he still continues to bully him to earn some face.

Compared with Li Zicheng's indiscriminate killing, the Shandong Army's handling of the landlord class's losses and gains is very fair and generous.

Liu Hongqi and Shen Wandeng were well-known landlords in Huguang, and after receiving the news that Li Zicheng had avoided the Shandong army and led the main force to the northwest, they united with the local squires in Huguang to plot an incident to meet the Shandong army.

The gentry and the landlord class had no way to survive under Li Zicheng, but if Wang Zheng occupied Huguang, they would at least retain some of the most basic faces, and even get some benefits.

Liu, Shen and dozens of other gentry and landlords plotted to launch a rebellion in Huguang in order to survive, and after the incident, they actually defeated the local soldiers and horses of the Shun army stationed in Runing and other places in one fell swoop.

Liu Hongqi, together with the gentry and landlords, jointly sent a letter to Xing Yidao and Chen Yongfu, inviting them to lead the Shandong army into Huguang.

At this time, the officers and troops in the Yunyang area were also resisting, and Li Zicheng had not been conquered when he led the main force to leave Xiangyang, and if he fought together with the squires, it would inevitably directly threaten the safety of Xiangyang and the entire Huguang.

Li Zicheng learned that Wang Zheng had no intention of capturing Xiangyang, and heard that the main force of the Shandong Army was now trapped in the south of the Yangtze River, and he could not be transferred back for a while.

Therefore, he dispatched Yuan Zongdi, He Jin and other merchants to Huguang to assist the local Shun army to stay behind to quell the rebellion of the squire, and wanted to completely annihilate the official army in the Yunyang area.

After the Shun army returned to Huguang, Chen Yongfu and Zuo Guangxian, who were stationed in Nanyang Mansion by the Shandong Army, and the soldiers and horses of the descendants led by Xing Yidao in Runing Mansion, did not make any changes, which further strengthened Li Zicheng's idea that Wang Zheng would not interfere in the Huguang matter.

On the Ningxia side, as soon as the text of King Xinshun arrived, the governor of the imperial court, Li Yukui, was helpless, and the Qing clan and civil and military officials who were divided here gathered in the palace after some discussion, but there was no result.

King Zhu Zhuo suddenly expressed his stance and decided to surrender directly.

At this point, Li Zicheng's troops obtained the land of Ningxia Province without blood, and the local officials and troops did not put up the slightest resistance under the firm surrender determination of Zhu Zhuo, the king of Qing.

Li Zicheng was actually immune to this unexpected joy, and after hearing the news, he just had some complaints about the disposition of the Qingwang clan, and there was no joy on his face.

Chen Zhilong, the Ming superintendent of the army, surrendered to the Shun army and was appointed by Li Zicheng as the envoy of Ningxia Jiedu, and Niu Chenghu, the chief soldier of the imperial court who surrendered, still guarded the place.