readx; Two days later, as Hong Chengchou's tens of thousands of troops arrived in Zhengzhou from Xiangyang, Zhu Changxun, the king of Fu, finally "proclaimed the emperor" in Luoyang and "issued an edict to the world". Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

In this so-called "edict", Zhu Changxun first made a big reversal of the "fight for the country" incident and the "attack case" in the Wanli period, saying that the first emperor thought that neither Zhu Changluo nor himself was a son-in-law, but Zhu Changluo's biological mother was only a palace maid, and his biological mother was Zheng Guifei, and in the case of the queen having no children, his son of the concubine was of course more qualified to inherit the throne than Zhu Changluo. Even if the two have the same opportunity, but Zhu Changluo has not learned and has no skills since he was a child, and he is extravagant in prostitution, but he is too old, and both "Lichang" and "Lixian" make sense, and who should be established should only exist in the heart of the first emperor.

As a result, in order to compete for "the merit of support" and hurt the wisdom of the first emperor, the traitorous ministers in the court and the first emperor actually "fought for the country's capital" with the first emperor for more than ten years. Later, he concocted a clumsy "attack case" and framed himself and Zheng Guifei, as a result, the first emperor was deceived and made Zhu Changluo the crown prince. Facts have proved that Zhu Changluo is immoral and incompetent, and he is not worthy of being an emperor at all, as evidenced by the fact that he died of a violent illness less than a month after ascending the throne.

As for Zhu Youxiao after that, he was even more ignorant of learning and unskilled, and was ridiculous in frolicking, corrupting the dynasty, which led to constant internal and external troubles, and finally died of God's curse. After ascending the throne, he first killed Wei Zhongxian, the eunuch of the ceremonial supervisor Bingbi, who was loyal to the country, and then abandoned the land of Liaodong and changed the ancestral system, causing the people to live in poverty and complaining. Fortunately, he died violently in Tanzhe Temple, and the father and son were all short-lived, which shows that the mandate of heaven is not in Zhu Changluo's line at all.

And he, Zhu Changxun, has been guarding himself since he arrived in Luoyang, never resenting the first emperor and coveting the emperor's throne. It's just that now that the faint monarch is dead, Fang Jinhai is restless, and the country cannot be left without an owner for a day. Hong Chengchou and other ministers repeatedly persuaded him to advance, and for the sake of his ancestors, he reluctantly agreed to take the throne in desperation.

But since he is already the "emperor", all the subjects in the world must be loyal to him Zhu Changxun, especially the officials and soldiers of the local government and the guards, and they must immediately show their attitude to him. If you dare not obey the edict, you will be punished for rebellion.

At this time, the rumor of Zhu Youzhen's assassination had already spread widely, and Zhu Changxun had hundreds of thousands of troops supported by Hong Chengchou and Gao Yingxiang, and the momentum was very huge, and many places close to Hubei, Henan, and others recognized Zhu Changxun's imperial throne. But in other places, first, because of the long distance, and second, they are not sure of the authenticity of the news, so they mostly take a wait-and-see attitude.

On the same day that Zhu Changxun announced his "accession to the throne", Zhu Youzhen, the Chongzhen Emperor who was already on the road, officially issued an edict, announcing that Zhu Changxun, Zhu Yousong, Hong Chengchou and others had conspired against the rebellion, and also colluded with the White Lotus Sect to assassinate him, but of course the result was a complete failure and he was safe and sound. Now he has expelled Zhu Changxun and Zhu Yousong from the clan, abolished them as concubines, and led a large army to conquer in person, and the rebellion can be quelled in a few days. It is hoped that the military and civilians in various places will not listen to rumors and actively help the imperial court to quell the rebellion.

Don't look at Zhu Changxun's location in the Central Plains, which is geographically closer to other provinces of the empire, but Zhu Youzhen has the weapon of flying pigeon transmission, so the edict is often delivered to various places earlier than Zhu Changxun's pseudo-edict. After receiving the letter, officials in various localities naturally did not dare to recklessly cling to Zhu Changxun, and the situation of "the national state capital is determined by the transmission" envisaged by Hong Chengchou and others did not appear, and Zhu Youzhen won the first stage of the contest.

But the situation before him is still very serious. In addition to Hong Chengchou, who led his army north and occupied most of Henan, Gao Yingxiang, the "King of Chuang", had been gathering momentum in northwest Hubei for nearly a year, and now he suddenly launched a fierce attack on the Hanzhong region south of the Qinling Mountains. Due to the previous infiltration, in just five days, Hanzhong Province and Shangzhou had fallen into the hands of the rebels.

The importance of Hanzhong goes without saying, it was called Nanzheng in ancient times, located between Qinling and Bashan, it is the only way to enter Shu from Shaanxi, the land is fertile, the products are abundant, and it is a place where soldiers must fight since ancient times.

Shangzhou is located just south of Tongguan, less than 200 miles from Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province. Gao Yingxiang's standard battalion has been stationed in Shangzhou, threatening Tongguan and Xi'an. Once these two cities fell, the connection between the imperial court and the northwest region would be completely severed.

And that's just the West Road, and the situation on the East Road is even worse. The "Thirteen Families" headed by Li Zicheng, the "Breaking General" and Zhang Xianzhong, the "Eight Kings", went east together, and they did not listen to Hong Chengchou's moderation at all, Hong Chengchou asked them to attack Nanjing, but they directly inserted themselves in the northeast direction.

In particular, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong's troops gave full play to the operational characteristics of the thieves. It took them only two days to seize Xinyang Prefecture in Henan Province, looted Xinyang City, and then continued to march eastward, sparing the small city without robbing it, and spent another three days to break through to Fengyang, the central capital, on the night of the fifth day.

Fengyang is the hometown of Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, and has been established as the central capital since the founding of the Ming Dynasty. However, it is a poor place, and although it is called the capital, it was only built on a large scale eight years before Hongwu, and the construction was stopped for some reason after eight years. Although the shelves are still very large, there are not many people, and the garrison has not fought for more than 200 years, and it is extremely lax, and the number is very small, only more than 2,000 people.

Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong used their troops to be extremely cunning, and the vanguard troops disguised themselves as ordinary people to blend into the city, and now killed people and set fire to the city after dusk to create chaos. When the officers and soldiers were overwhelmed, the rebels were so large that the guards saw the mighty and penetrating army of thieves, and they were so frightened that they dared to defend it, and immediately abandoned the city and fled.

Although Fengyang itself has no strategic value, as the location of the capital of the Ming Dynasty and the ancestral mausoleum, the symbolic meaning is still obvious. The thieves looted in the city as usual, but to everyone's surprise, including Zhu Yousong, Hong Chengchou and the White Lotus Sect hidden behind the scenes, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong thought that since it was the imperial tomb, there must be a lot of valuable things buried in it, so they dug up the imperial tomb! In fact, there were no funeral goods in this imperial mausoleum, and the two found nothing, so they lit a fire in a fit of rage, burning 300,000 pines and cypresses in the hall and the mausoleum, and then continued to march eastward.

When the news came out, the whole country was in an uproar, whether it was the imperial court, Zhu Yousong, and the White Lotus Sect, they all hated Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong to the core. But these two people are also very cunning, they sent a letter to Zhu Yousong saying that they did not do it when the imperial tomb was burned, but someone deliberately framed him. In order to take advantage of this army, Zhu Yousong had to pretend to be deaf and dumb and let them attack Nanjing again.

But after these two heroes left Xiangyang and entered the Central Plains, they were really like trapped dragons entering the sea, where would they still be restrained by Zhu Yousong. They continued to march northward, aiming at Xuzhou. Xuzhou is not only an important town in northern Jiangsu, but also an important node on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, once Xuzhou is lost, the thieves can completely cut off the Grand Canal and enter Shandong.

It was in this situation that Zhu Youzhen's royal car arrived at Dongping Mansion.