The opinions of the two factions are not in agreement, and the opinions of Shi Kefa, the secretary of the military department, have become the factor in determining the surname, but the performance of the first minister of the remnant Ming is very puzzling.

This matter dragged on for more than ten days, until Ma Shiying, the governor of Fengyang, rushed to Nanjing with his troops.

Although Fengyang is only a mansion in Nanzhili, the status of this mansion is not trivial, because Fengyang is the central capital of the Ming Dynasty, and it is also the ancestral tomb of Zhu Ming, so in terms of grade, Ma Shiying, the governor of Fengyang, is not lower than Sun Chuanting, the governor of Zhejiang, and the two are both feudal officials of the Ming Dynasty.

Moreover, Ma Shiying and Sun Chuanting have the same heavy troops, Sun Chuanting has Wang Pu, a fierce general, and Ma Shiying also has Gao Jie and Liu Liangzuo, two fierce generals, these two fierce generals were originally thieves, and they joined the official army because they were not allowed to break into thieves, and first served under Yang Sichang, and Yang Sichang became Ma Shiying's subordinate after committing suicide in fear of crime.

Moreover, Ma Shiying has secretly reached an agreement with Liu Zeqing, the general soldier of Shandong, to form a Jiangbei military group specifically aimed at Sun Sunting and Wang Pu's military group!

Before Ma Shiying led the troops into Beijing, Liu Zeqing had already waved his army south to occupy Huai'an Mansion, Liu Zeqing, a brute, was actually afraid of the thieves' soldiers, so he took the initiative to give up the whole province of Shandong, and when he waved his army to the south, he also set up troops to rob and kill in Shandong, which was simply inferior to a beast.

In addition, Ma Shiying also ordered Liu Liangzuo to stay in Fengyang, let Gao Jie occupy Yangzhou, and formed a military posture of confrontation across the river with the Sun and Wang groups in Jiangnan.

At the time of Guotai and Min'an, the military generals of the Ming Dynasty were the wolf dogs raised by the imperial court, even if it was a Qipinzhi County that saw the general soldiers of each town, they could insult them wantonly, but this would be a national disaster, and the soldiers would be in chaos, and the status of the generals would immediately rise to the top of the clouds, and they would become civil officials who wanted to look up to them.

As soon as Ma Shiying arrived in Nanjing, Shi Kefa immediately secretly made an appointment with him.

Shi Kefa is actually in favor of immediately supporting the new monarch, but there is a reason why he has not expressed his position until today, because Sun Chuanting, the governor of Zhejiang, who has a heavy army, supports Gao Hongtu, the head of the household department, and resolutely advocates welcoming the prince to Nanjing to succeed to the throne.

Now that Ma Shiying has arrived in Nanjing, Shi Kefa is anxious to find out his tone, if Ma Shiying supports the establishment of a new monarch, then Shi Kefa will express his support for Lu Daqi, if Ma Shiying's position is the same as Sun Chuanting, then Shi Kefa has no choice but to support Gao Hongtu in order to maintain the stability of Nanjing.

The dispute between Gao Hongtu and Lu Daqi, on the surface, seems to be high-sounding, but the political views are different, but in fact, it is not like that at all in the bones, this is a continuation of the party struggle in the late Ming Dynasty, Gao Hongtu is a member of the Qi Party, and Lu Daqi is a member of the Donglin Party, although Shi Kefa is not a member of the Donglin Party, but he is inclined to the Donglin Party.

The grievances between the Qi Party and the Donglin Party can be traced back to the Wanli period.

In the forty-first year of Wanli, the leader of the Zhejiang Party Fang Congzhe entered the cabinet to worship the prime minister, and the leader of the Qi Party Qi Shijiao was Fang Congzhe's protégé, and the teachers and students became hot figures in the government and the opposition since then, until the forty-eighth year of Wanli, the Qi Party and the Zhejiang Party have always controlled the government.

After the death of Emperor Wanli, there were three major cases in the Ming Palace, and the Donglin Party, which had been suppressed by the Qi Party and the Zhejiang Party for many years, took the opportunity to fight back, and finally overthrew the opponent and became the "ruling party" with power leaning towards the government and the opposition.

However, the good life of the Donglin Party was not long, and with the support of Emperor Tianqi, Wei Zhongxian, the eunuch, quickly rose.

In the fourth year of the Apocalypse, Wei Zhongxian pushed Fang Congzhe's fellow countryman Feng Yan to the stage, in the fifth year of the Apocalypse, Feng Yan recalled Qi Shijiao back to the court, and served as the Imperial History of the Left Governor of the Imperial Court, with the support of the Eunuch Party, the Qi Party was successfully restored, and the Donglin Party was severely persecuted by the Eunuch Party, Gao Panlong, Zuo Guangdou, Yang Lian and a large number of Donglin Party members suffered misfortune.

Objectively speaking, the Donglin Party at that time was very strong, they fought with the Qi Party, and although they had political goals in fighting with the Eunuch Party, they dared to sacrifice their lives to fight, and in order to fight against the Eunuch Party, Gao Panlong and others did not hesitate to lose their lives, and there was a "revolutionary spirit" of "throwing their heads and spilling blood", which is worthy of admiration by future generations.

However, it is a pity that the Donglin Party after that is not as good as the other.

Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, the eunuch party was destroyed, the Qi party was reduced to the remnants of the eunuch party and was suppressed, the Donglin party turned over again, and became the ruling party again, after which Emperor Chongzhen showed his hatred for the party struggle, no longer listening to any party, Qi, Chu, Zhejiang, and Donglin parties took turns to govern, and the open and secret struggle between the court and China has never stopped.

The party struggle between the DPRK and China eventually brought disaster to the Ming Dynasty.

In particular, it should be mentioned that the reason why the Ming army was defeated in Salhu was completely caused by party strife, because the first assistant of the cabinet at that time was Fang Congzhe, the leader of the Zhejiang Party, and out of consideration for safeguarding the interests of the Zhejiang Party, Fang Congzhe appointed Yang Hao, the general of the Zhejiang Party! And Yang Ho had already proved himself to be a "runaway general" on the Korean battlefield before, but the result was that Salhu was defeated and Jiannu became a climate.

If Fang Congzhe had not been in power at the beginning, and Xiong Tingbi or Sun Chengzong and others could have been replaced to lead the army, history would probably be rewritten.

Therefore, the political dispute between Gao Hongtu and Lu Daqi is not as simple as it seems on the surface.

Moreover, with the involvement of Sun Chuanting, the governor of Zhejiang, and Ma Shiying, the governor of Fengyang, this political dispute will become more complicated, because compared with the previous party struggle, this party struggle may lead to a large-scale merger of the two major military groups in Jiangnan and Jiangbei at any time, which is undoubtedly worse for the already powerful remnants of Ming.

What's even worse is that at this juncture, there is no news of Wang Pu!

The crown prince and the two princes are also uncertain about their life and death, and Sun Chuanting is so anxious that his hair is about to fall out!

If Wang Pu can escort the crown prince to Nanjing at this time, everything will become logical, but if Wang Pu can't escort the prince to Nanjing in time, once the new emperor takes the throne, it will be difficult to say what will happen in the future, political struggles have always been dirty, who knows what will happen at that time?

■■■

The dark tide of Nanjing officialdom is turbulent and turbulent, and the situation in Yanjing is also complicated, and Pu Shuo is confused.

Because of the vigorous "chasing dirty and helping salaries" campaign, at this time, everyone in Yanjing City was already in danger, and the camp set up by thieves outside the city was already overcrowded, and almost all the nobles and officials above the sixth rank were thrown into prison, and Wu Xiang, the governor of the Beijing camp, was not spared.

This makes things complicated, because Wu Xiang's son is Wu Sangui, the general soldier of Ningyuan.

Long before the thieves entered Beijing, Emperor Chongzhen had issued an edict, Jin named Wu Sangui as Pingxibo, and at the same time strictly ordered Wu Sangui to give up Ningyuan, and led Guan Ning Tie to ride into King Qin, Wu Sangui received the holy decree, and began to organize the military and civilians of Liaoxi outside the pass to retreat to the pass, but Wu Sangui had just walked to Shanhaiguan, and the news that Yanjing had fallen and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself came over.

Another explorer sent back news that the thief Li Zicheng had sent 30,000 troops under the command of generals Li Guo and Li Yan to Shanhaiguan.

Immediately after that, the thief's envoy also arrived, and brought 40,000 taels of silver and a handwritten letter from Wu Sangui's father Wu Xiang, Wu Sangui carefully screened the letter, which was definitely Wu Xiang's handwriting, at this time Wu Sangui was facing the most difficult choice in his life, because the Jiannu chief Dolgon also sent people to Shanhaiguan!

There are three paths in front of Wu Sangui.

The first way is to lead the army to continue westward, drive the thieves out of Yanjing, and then find the prince from the chaotic army and put the prince on the throne, so that Wu Sangui will become the minister of Zhongxing in the Ming Dynasty, and will go down in history, this road is what Wu Sangui wants to take the most, but at the same time it is the most unlikely.

Because the current situation is very clear, it is impossible to last for a corner of Shanhaiguan, and there is no way to compete with an army of nearly one million thieves with only 50,000 Guan Ning troops.

The second way is to cooperate with Jiannu, lead Jiannu's Eight Banners army into the pass, with Jiannu's army to defeat the thieves, and drive the thieves out of Yanjing, this road is Wu Sangui is the most reluctant to go, although his brother Wu Sanfeng, uncle Zu Dashou, and teacher Hong Chengchou have all surrendered to Jiannu, but Wu Sangui has never thought of following in their footsteps.

And Wu Sangui has another layer of concerns, as the saying goes, it is easy to invite God and it is difficult to send God, and it is easy to lead the Jiannu army into the customs, but when the time comes, it will not be so easy to invite them out of the customs, if Jiannu will stay in Yanjing after entering the customs and not leave, Wu Sangui will fall into a thousand years of infamy and become a great Han annihilation that has been stinking for thousands of years!

The third is to surrender the thieves, continue to be the Shanhaiguan general soldier of the Dashun Dynasty, long before the thieves entered Beijing, Jiang Pai and Tang Tong have already surrendered the thieves, Jiang Pai changed from the Ming Dynasty's Datong General Army to the Datong General Army of the Dashun Dynasty, Tang Tong also from the Ming Dynasty's Miyun General Army to the Dashun Miyun General Army.

Therefore, Wu Sangui did not have much concern about surrendering the thieves, and the vast majority of the civil and military generals in the Beijing division had also surrendered to Dashun, and it seemed to be a sure thing that Da Shun would be replaced by Da Shun.

After much deliberation, Wu Sangui finally decided to surrender Dashun.

Five days later, Li Guo and Li Yan led an army of 30,000 to Shanhaiguan, and Wu Sangui handed over the defense of Shanhaiguan to Li Guo and Li Yan, and then led an army of 50,000 Guanning to Yanjing.

However, as soon as the army arrived in Yuguan, an uninvited guest came to Wu Sangui's army, and history was reversed!

This uninvited guest is none other than Wu Xiang's old family Ding, this old family Ding brought a very bad news to Wu Sangui, his old father Wu Xiang has been arrested by thieves, and all the nobles and nobles of the Beijing Division and the officials above the sixth grade have all been arrested by the thieves, each according to the grade, only after paying enough gold and silver can he regain his freedom, and it is also called chasing dirty salaries.

What made Wu Sangui's heart tremble even more was that Zhou Yanru, the first assistant of the cabinet, Chen Yan, Wei Zhaocheng, the second assistant of the cabinet, Zhu Chunchen, the prince of Chengguo, Zhou Kui and others had all been persecuted to death by the thieves, and Zhu Chunchen, the first to surrender, was even more split by the thieves' sticks, and his brain flowed all over the place, and he died a very miserable death.

Wu Xiang has also been tortured by thieves to the point of dying, and asked the family to personally pass on the word to Wu Sangui, asking Wu Sangui to avenge him!

Wu Sangui is a person who is very deep in the city, he can ignore the persuasion of his brother, uncle, and teacher, and of course he will not be enthusiastic about his brain and raise troops to avenge his old father's words.

Since the thieves have already cleaned up Wu Xiang, it is impossible to leave Wu Sangui behind!

This forced Wu Sangui to a dead end, he had no choice but to cooperate with Jiannu, but at this time Wu Sangui did not think about being Jiannu's lackey, he just wanted to borrow Jiannu's soldiers to drive away the thieves and restore the Ming Dynasty, but Wu Sangui did not expect that once Jiannu entered the customs, the future would not be up to him.

Wu Sangui killed a horse gun overnight, and Li Guo and Li Yan, who had not yet gained a stable foothold, were caught off guard and fled in defeat.

After recapturing Shanhaiguan, Wu Sangui immediately sent people to Jinzhou to contact Zu Dashou, after Zu Dashou received Wu Sangui's letter, he did not dare to slack off, and sent someone to transfer Wu Sangui's letter to Shengjing overnight.

The next morning, Wu Sangui's letter was presented to the case of Dolgon, the regent of Jiannu.

At this time, Dolgon not only overthrew Zilharang, but also deposed Yueto, and had become the regent of his uncle who held great power.

Dolgon immediately made a decision, urgently summoned all the Eight Banners army of Shengjing, together with the Eight Banners of the Han Army, the Eight Banners of Korea and the Eight Banners of Mongolia, and marched towards Shanhaiguan.

■■■

Yanjing, Wuying Palace.

Li Zicheng is convening Niu Jinxing, Li Shuangxi, Tian Jianxiu, Liu Zongmin and other ministers of civil and military affairs, in the past ten days, Liu Zongmin is responsible for the "chasing dirty salary" campaign has achieved remarkable results, has knocked out nearly 10 million taels of silver from the nobles and officials above the sixth grade in Yanjing City!

Liu Zongmin, who tasted the sweetness, privately expanded the scale of "chasing dirty and helping to help" and included the merchants and wealthy households in Yanjing City into the objects of the "chasing dirty and helping to help" movement, and according to Liu Zongmin's conservative estimate, at least more than 10 million taels of silver could be knocked out from these merchants and rich households in Yanjing City.

A thief is always a thief, and he will never become an official soldier.

It is not enough to knock on the bones and suck the marrow of Xun Qi Guixuan and the officials in Beijing, and it is very wrong to target the ordinary people, in this way, the thieves have offended everyone, not only the Xun Qi Guixuan and the officials in Beijing hate the thieves to the bone, but even the people in Yanjing City also grit their teeth against the thieves.

The perverse actions of the thieves have finally brought about evil consequences!

A thief leader stumbled into the Wuying Palace, gasping and saying, "Big ...... Don't ...... the king Oh no. ”

"What's wrong?" Li Zicheng frowned and said, "What's wrong?" ”

The leader of the thieves said: "Just now General Li Guo sent a fast horse to send an urgent report, Wu Sangui surrendered and reversed, Li Guo and Li Yan were caught off guard and were defeated, and more than half of the 30,000 troops were lost, and they have retreated to Changping!" General Li Yan said that Wu Sangui was likely to surrender to Jiannu, and asked the king to send a large army to conquer it! ”

"What!?" When Li Zicheng heard this, he got up and said angrily, "Wu Sangui, a repeated villain, is reversed again? How unreasonable, come on! ”

A cronie stepped forward and responded: "Yes." ”

Li Zicheng said angrily: "Immediately take Wu Xiang's old horseman out of the prison and escort him to the camp to sacrifice the flag!" ”

"Yes!"

Two cronies took the order and left.

Li Zicheng said again: "Xizi, Tian Jianxiu!" ”

Li Shuangxi, Tian Jianxiu took a step forward, hugged his fists and responded: "Yes." ”

Li Zicheng shouted: "Immediately gather 100,000 troops and follow Lao Tzu to attack Shanhaiguan!" ”

"Yes."

Li Shuangxi and Tian Jianxiu agreed loudly.

At this time, the total strength of Li Zicheng's command has been nearly one million, but nearly half of them are the Ming official army that has just surrendered, the vast majority of them, like Jiang Zhuang's Datong army, Tang Tong's Miyun soldiers were left in place by Li Zicheng, after capturing Yanjing, Li Zicheng divided his troops to attack Baoding provinces, and sent a partial division to attack Shandong, at this time the army left in Yanjing has only 200,000 people.

However, 100,000 of these 200,000 people are Li Zicheng's descendants, and they are the elite of the thieves.

■■■

Chaoyang Gate is closed, and the thieves are in a camp.

In the past ten days, Wang Pu and they have been locked in a large cell, although the thieves' supervision is not very strict, but it is not so easy to escape, but the thieves seem to have forgotten them, and they haven't even asked again for more than ten days.

In fact, in the past ten days or so, the thieves have been busy torturing those relatives and officials in Yanjing City, where can they take care of Wang Pu and their group of "small households" who don't seem to have much oil and water?

This morning, Wang Pu was lying on the grass and napping, and out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar figure walking slowly outside the cell.

Met Wang Pu's surprised eyes, Huang Degong squeezed his eyes, and took the opportunity to pass by Wang Pu to flick a small paper ball in front of Wang Pu, Wang Pu saw that the brothers on the left and right were still sleeping, and there were no other thieves outside the cell, so he quickly picked up the small paper ball.

Huang Degong and Shi Lang have been arresting and interrogating people every day since they were mixed into the thieves, but they never had the opportunity to see Wang Pu, and today is also a coincidence, because Wu Sangui surrendered and reversed, Li Zicheng was furious and ordered 100,000 thieves to attack Shanhaiguan, this time, the 100,000 officers and soldiers who had just surrendered came in handy.

Huang Degong and Shi Lang's mixed army happened to be responsible for receiving the Chaoyangmen Guanxiang camp, and after waiting for more than ten days, Huang Degong finally saw Wang Pu in the prison.

Wang Pu turned around and faced the wall arm, and quietly unfolded the small piece of paper in his palm under the cover of his body, and only Liao Liao's words were written on the paper, which meant that Huang Degong and they had mixed in among the thieves, and they were trying to save Wang Pu and them out, so that Wang Pu could wait with peace of mind and not worry.

However, before Huang Degong and them could do it, there was another small accident.

In the afternoon of the same day, a group of Beijing officials below the sixth grade were transferred to the Chaoyangmen camp and put into Wang Pu's cell, this group of Beijing officials was about 20 people, either the imperial history of the Imperial Procuratorate or the compilation and review of the Hanlin Academy, the Metropolitan Procuratorate and the Hanlin Academy were both Qingshui Yamen, and they really couldn't squeeze out much oil and water from them, so they were sent to the Chaoyangmen Guanxiang.

One of them was sharp-eyed, and as soon as he entered the cell, he recognized the crown prince Zhu Cihong from the crowd, and instinctively wanted to kowtow, but he was just halfway down and suddenly thought of something, and quickly straightened up again, looked at the thieves outside the cell vigilantly, and then sat down on the haystack as if nothing happened.

Wang Pu was secretly frightened, thinking that this guy was a soft bone, and it would be a big trouble to leak the news of the prince's imprisonment to the thieves, so he called Monk Zhang to his eyes and whispered a few words softly.

"You guys listen to Lao Tzu." Monk Zhang stretched out his hand and scratched the middle of the cell, and said loudly, "This is the boundary, no one is allowed to cross the boundary, otherwise, Lao Tzu will break your neck!" ”

The twenty or so little Beijing officials looked at Monk Zhang's mountain-like burly body, and then looked at his fierce and vicious expression, and they were suddenly silent, if they were going to change their usual times, how could they put such a reckless man as Monk Zhang in their eyes? But this will make them the prisoners of the thieves, as the saying goes, the dehaired phoenix is not as good as the chicken, so they have to swallow their anger.

Only the review of the Hanlin Academy just now glared at Monk Zhang with disdain, and snorted from his nostrils.

Monk Zhang's eyes had an inexplicable killing intent in his eyes, and he deliberately said: "You, stand up for Lao Tzu!" ”

……

(To be continued)