Forbidden City, Qianqing Palace East Warm Pavilion.

Emperor Xuande sat on a comfortable golden cushion on the warm kang, covered his mouth with a snow-white handkerchief and coughed incessantly.

In the room, Zhang Fu, Yang Shiqi, Jian Yi and other ministers sat on a round stool, looking at him with concerned expressions.

Jin Ying, the eunuch of the master of ceremonies, gently stroked Emperor Xuande's back, his eyes were full of anxiety and worry, Emperor Xuande suffered a severe illness from the wind cold on the way back to Datong City from the Yinma River last year, because he was not good now.

Compared with the high spirits when he went out last year, Emperor Xuande seemed to be more than ten years old all of a sudden, not only his face was haggard, but also his eyes had lost their former brilliance, and there was a trace of white hair on his sideburns, which showed that he was not comfortable during this time, and he was always troubled by the war ahead.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have made up my mind, and I will never be the emperor who ceded the land and paid compensation, so don't mention the matter of peace again." After coughing, Emperor Xuande glanced at the handkerchief in his hand, held the handkerchief in his hand, and said to the important ministers present with a stern expression.

"Your Majesty, the Mongols are menacing this time, and the main force of my Ming army is blocked outside Juyong Pass and Shanhaiguan and cannot wave the army to rescue, the Mongols will definitely attack the capital in the coming year, if the capital is lost, the consequences are unimaginable, the minister implores the emperor to negotiate peace first, to ensure the safety of the Beijing Division."

Hearing this, Yang Rong took the lead in standing up, arched his hand at Emperor Xuande, bowed down and said in a deep voice.

"The emperor is the body of ten thousand gold, and the north is now in a critical situation, and the emperor should hunt Jinling in the south according to the minister's opinion, and it is not suitable to be in danger." Subsequently, Yang Shiqi also got up and persuaded.

"The minister seconded the proposal!" Hu Ying and several civil officials followed suit, expressing their attitude towards peace.

"Your Majesty, now I am guarding the city with one heart, the Duke of Zhongguo, the Duke of Yiguo and the Marquis of Zhenwu are fighting fiercely with the Mongols in Wanquan and Liaodong, if we negotiate peace with the Mongols now, it will greatly hurt the morale of our army, and we will hand over Wanquan and Liaodong to others."

Seeing this, Zhang Fu hurriedly objected, and said to Emperor Xuande with a stern expression, now that the Mongol army has not yet attacked the city, what is the difference between making peace with them and surrendering without a fight, and where will the majesty of the Ming Dynasty be at that time?

"The ministers seconded it!" Several nobles present naturally stood on Zhang Fu's side and solemnly expressed their attitude to Emperor Xuande.

Jian Yi couldn't help but shook his head helplessly, it seems that there is going to be a quarrel again, around the main battle or the discussion and the court have been arguing recently, the two sides say that the public is reasonable, the mother-in-law says that the mother-in-law is reasonable, and no one can convince the other party, which makes the people in the capital officialdom panic and not peaceful.

To tell the truth, most of the officials still support peace in private, after all, few people want to live and die with the capital, and now the Ming still has a large territory, there is no need to fight with the Mongolian army in the capital, even if it is with the Mongols to row the Yellow River or the Yangtze River to rule so that the Ming Dynasty has a lot of territory to govern, and can accumulate strength to fight back in the future.

It's just that in this way, the prestige of the Ming Dynasty and the face of Emperor Xuande will be greatly damaged, and the image of the Celestial Empire established by the Ming Dynasty since Emperor Hongwu and Emperor Yongle will fall apart in front of those vassal states.

Emperor Xuande's brows furrowed, and he coughed lightly with a handkerchief on the corner of his mouth again, of course he knew that it would be dangerous to hold on to the capital, but for the prestige of the Ming Dynasty not to be destroyed in his hands, it was also to avoid the history books saying that he was an emperor who made peace without a fight and ceded land and paid compensation, only to hold the capital, after all, it has not yet reached the point of criticism and indispensability.

"Taishi, although the Juyong Pass has been broken, the Bauhinia Pass is still in the hands of my Daming, but even so, the Duke of Zhongguo has not yet waved his army from the Bauhinia Pass to rescue the capital, so it seems that the battle situation of the Wanquan Dusi is worrying."

Sure enough, Yang Rong saw that Zhang Fu opposed the peace, looked at him with a sneer and said, "Since even the Wanquan Dusi, who is close at hand and has an army of nearly 200,000, can't rescue the capital, then the Liaodong Dusi, who is blocked in Xining Fort, can't come to relieve the siege." ”

Zhou Zheng did not enter the pass from the Bauhinia Pass to rescue the Beijing Division, which caused many officials in the court to criticize, it is obvious that the closest support army to the capital is the Ming army of Wanquan Dusi, as for the Liaodong Capital Division, although Li Yuntian fought three successive victories and forced the Mongol army to be on the defensive, but in the eyes of the officials in the imperial court, the Ming army in Liaodong cannot be compared with the Mongol army in Liaodong in terms of quantity and quality, and it is difficult to defeat the Mongol army in Liaodong in a short time.

After all, when Li Yuntian arrived in Liaodong, the army of the Liaodong Metropolitan Division had been defeated again and again, and was divided and surrounded in several isolated cities, even if Li Yuntian had the ability, there was no way to make those defeated troops reborn in such a short period of time.

As for the Jurchen soldiers, Mongol soldiers and Korean soldiers recruited by Li Yuntian in his recital to Emperor Xuande, they were ignored by those civil and military officials in the capital, obviously they did not think that the Ming Dynasty would rely on Jurchen soldiers, Mongol soldiers and Korean soldiers to fight, let alone that Li Yuntian could absorb so many foreign troops, so he was not optimistic that the Liaodong Metropolitan Division would give aid to the capital before Wanquan Metropolitan Division.

"Lord Yang, this is wrong, the reason why Zhongguo Gong did not rush to the aid of the capital is because the Mongolian army is ready to ambush the reinforcements of Wanquan Dusi on the road, and the Mongolian cavalry can gallop in the Gyeonggi area, and once the two sides fight, it will bring heavy casualties to our army."

Zhang Fu obviously disagreed with Yang Rong's statement, as a veteran of Jin Ge Iron Horse for decades, he knew that Zhou Zheng had made the most correct decision, and he was not in a hurry to rescue the capital to avoid a field battle with the Mongol army, otherwise the Ming army of Wanquan Dusi would definitely be severely damaged by the Mongol army, so he turned to Emperor Xuande with a stern expression and said:

"Your Majesty, the city of Beijing is thick with high walls, and there are two or three hundred thousand soldiers and civilians defending the city, how easy it is for the Mongols to capture the capital, and when the divisions of King Qin arrive in the coming year, the Duke of Zhongguo will definitely attack with reinforcements from the north and south, and will definitely be able to defeat the Mongolian army."

"Taishi, if the Mongols storm the capital before the reinforcements arrive, or if they also want to take the opportunity to eliminate the reinforcements from all over the country, wouldn't the shape of the capital be even more critical at that time?"

Yang Rong sneered, and said mockingly, "The top priority is to ensure that the emperor's dragon body is safe, not to fight with the Mongols, even if the emperor hunts Jinling in the south, you still have a battle to fight, and you can still make military achievements!" ”

"You ......" Hearing this, a nobleman standing behind Zhang Fu couldn't help but be furious, how could he not hear the sarcasm in Yang Rong's mouth, as if Zhang Fu and the others were sticking to the capital in order to gain military achievements, so they pointed at Yang Rong angrily and said.

"Your Majesty, the guard of Andingmen, Yongning Bo Zhang Feng, has an urgent military situation." Before the noble could finish speaking, a chamberlain hurriedly ran into the hall, knelt on the ground and said in a sharp voice.

"Andingmen!" Everyone at the scene couldn't help but be taken aback, and looked at the attendant suspiciously, looking very surprised by this.

During the Xuande period, there were nine gates in Beijing, namely Chaoyang Gate, Chongwen Gate, Zhengyang Gate, Xuanwu Gate, Fucheng Gate, Desheng Gate, Anding Gate, Dongzhi Gate and Xizhi Gate.

The nine gates of Beijing city are different from the city gates of the usual city, each city gate has a different purpose, in popular terms, it is nine gates to go nine cars, so there are the statue of the east straight, the water pattern of the west straight, the valley of the rising sun, the iron turtle of Chongwen, the emperor of Zhengyang Guan, the Xuanwu afternoon cannon, the plum blossom of Fucheng, the prayer of the snow of Desheng and the saying of the true martial arts.

Among them, the Desheng Gate and Anding Gate in the north of the capital take the military chariot, because the north belongs to Xuanwu according to the stars, and the Xuanwu main sword soldiers, so the army goes out of the city and enters the city to walk through two gates.

Generally speaking, when the army goes out, it goes to the Desheng Gate, and when it collects the troops, it takes the Anding Gate.

Desheng Gate is Jiande Gate in the Yuan Dynasty, Qianlong 43 years of drought grain no harvest, at the end of the Qing Dynasty Gaozong went to Ming Mausoleum to worship ancestors, when the line to Desheng Gate is in heavy snow to remove the summer of the year, Gaozong Longyan Dayue made the imperial poem to stand "pray for snow" stele Jietong pass, there is a yellow-topped stele building, the height of the stele makes the stone carvings of other gates incomparable, so people call it "Desheng praying for snow".

It is worth mentioning that there is a cannon on the wall east of Desheng Gate, but this cannon is not used for fighting but for telling the time.

Every day at noon, Desheng Gate and Xuanwu Gate sound a cannon at the same time, for the people in the city to listen to the cannon time, which is also the origin of the Xuanwu noon cannon.

At the same time, Deshengmen is also called "Xiumen", which means that the teacher of benevolence and righteousness will go out from this door to fight.

Anding Gate is called Anzhen Gate in the Yuan Dynasty, this gate is the gate of the army to return victoriously, the building is neat, the layout is concise.

Because there are more dung fields outside Andingmen, so in addition to the military vehicles, the dung trucks go in and out from Andingmen, and Andingmen is also called "Shengmen", which means "abundance", so the emperor wants to go out from this gate to the altar of earth to pray for a good year.

What is different is that the other eight city gates of the urn city are built about the emperor temple, and the Anding Gate urn city is built in the Zhenwu Emperor Temple, which is unique among the gates, so there is a "stable Zhenwu" saying, in the gates quite a unique style, become the treasure of the town gate of Andingmen.

Sending troops to win and collecting troops to stabilize have formed a complete military dispatch system, and even if they lose the battle, they will go to the door of stability, and if they do not win this time, they can "settle down" next time.

This is also the reason why Li Yuntian wants to go to Andingmen, Tongzhou is located in the southeast of the capital, geographically he should enter the city from the Zhengyang Gate in the middle of the three city gates in the south of the capital, but because he was ordered to go on the expedition, so without getting the edict of Emperor Xuande, he can only enter the capital from Andingmen, otherwise it will be contrary to the Ming military system.

Therefore, for Zhang Feng, who was guarding Andingmen, there was an urgent military report, and everyone at the scene was very surprised, except for the Mongolian army attacking the city, it was really impossible to imagine what emergency could happen to make Zhang Feng personally enter the palace, but it was obvious that the Mongolian army would not be full to support the night siege, which would bring them huge casualties.

"What do you want to tell Yongningbo?" Emperor Xuande removed the handkerchief from the corner of his mouth, frowned and asked, Since the capital is besieged, the news brought by Zhang Feng at this time must be bad news.

"Yongningbo said that the Marquis of Zhenwu has led troops into the pass, and recaptured Juyongguan and Tongzhou City, and defeated the Mongolian soldiers in both places, so he asked the emperor to open the city gate and let the Marquis of Zhenwu enter the city."

Hearing this, the chamberlain raised his head, his face was filled with excitement, and he replied in a sharp voice, if what Yongningbo said was true, wouldn't the Mongolian army have been defeated by Li Yuntian?

Zhang Fu and Yang Shiqi, Yang Rong, Jian Yi and others couldn't help but look at each other, their eyes were full of unbelievable looks, no one could have imagined that Li Yuntian not only led the Ming army of Liaodong into the pass, but also recovered the heavy guard of the Mongolian army Juyong Pass and Tongzhou City in one fell swoop, which means that the siege of the capital has been lifted, and the Ming army has reversed the disadvantage in Beizhili and formed a suppressive trend against the Mongolian army.