On the thirteenth day of the first month of the first year of Qiongyuan, the Daping Army took the lead in occupying Xi'an. The next day, Xue Yong's troops from the direction of Tongguan rushed to converge. After entering the city of Xi'an, Xue Yong, Quan Dashan and others were pleasantly surprised to find that there was a large amount of grain, grass and supplies left in the city, which could completely supply the conquest of the western army in the northwest provinces. So after some rest, the Western Army continued their northwest strategy.

And the fall of Xi'an was also like a signal that the Dashun regime in the northwest region completely collapsed. Especially a group of original Ming officials and generals, they were exposed one by one and took advantage of the provocation. Going to the camp of the Western Army, there was an endless stream of envoys who surrendered to the table.

Dong Xueli, who had previously served as the deputy general of Huamachi in Ningxia in the Ming Dynasty, accompanied the attack on Beijing City after returning to Dashun. Later, because of the defeat of Yutian, he evacuated Beijing, and was ordered to retreat westward to Xue Yong's Western Army.

After Dong Xueli was pacified, he was anxious to make meritorious contributions, and sent someone to bring a letter to the Ningxia Jiedu of the Dashun regime to make Chen Zhilong raise troops to act as an internal response. Chen Zhilong used to be the military supervisor of the Ming Dynasty, and his surrender to the Dashun regime was originally suspicious, in his own words, "borrowing his military power to wait for the time".

Dong Xueli's secret letter was intercepted by Niu Chenghu (who was the chief soldier of the Ming Dynasty and was ordered by the Dashun regime to guard Ningxia at this time). Niu Chenghu did not approve of betraying the Dashun regime and beheaded all Dong Xueli's families. However, Chen Zhilong hid and did not speak, and after the Daping army entered Shaanxi, he used his power to attract a part of the army, advocated the leadership of the large and small civil and military soldiers and civilians, hoped for the wind to surrender, and forced Niu Chenghu to surrender to the Daping Dynasty.

In addition, Zheng Jiadong, the former commander-in-chief of Lanzhou, Zuo Xian, the commander-in-chief of Ganzhou, and Xie Zhenrong, the deputy commander-in-chief, all defected to the Daping Dynasty after the fall of Xi'an. On the order of Li Zicheng, the Sichuan Jiedu envoy Li Yutian (originally the governor of Liaodong in the Ming Dynasty), Ma Ke (who was named Huairenbo after surrendering Dashun), Ma De, Gao Ruli, and Shi Guoxi, the deputy chief soldiers. He also led more than 10,000 soldiers to defect to the Daping Dynasty under the recruitment of the Western Army.

In addition, there were more than 10,000 soldiers from the subordinate department of Hu Xianghua, the deputy general of Hannan, Gao Luan, the guard general of the Huangfu battalion, and the border army of Shiyingbao from Xiangshui to Ningsai in northern Shaanxi.

It can be seen that Li Zicheng was racing in the northwest at that time. The former Ming Dynasty generals who were forced to surrender to the Dashun regime by the situation almost all defected and all surrendered to the Daping Dynasty. As a result, the total strength of the Western Army also soared to 250,000 at once.

Moreover, the political opposition of these former Ming generals caused great harm to the Dashun army. When they had an ambiguous attitude and had not yet openly rebelled, Li Zicheng and others had to leave a considerable number of old Dashun troops to monitor in order to take precautions, which made it impossible to fully and effectively concentrate troops when reinforcements were urgently needed on the front line; And when they rebelled, these people were often eager to attack the Daping Dynasty. Either treacherously launch a surprise attack on the Dashun army, or use the area where they are stationed as a courtesy, or even both.

As a result, the Ming Dynasty in the northwest region surrendered to the rebellion of the generals. It made the rear of Li Zicheng and others who worked hard to manage it suddenly full of smoke and could not hold on. And the conquest of northern Shaanxi by the Western Army is as effortless as pushing a domino. The whole territory of Shaanxi. Except for Yulin and Yan'an, which were guarded by Gao Yigong and Li Guo. Other Yuan Ming generals, who were responsible for defending the castles along the border, were soon pulled over by the Daping army, leaving Yulin and Yan'an in an isolated position.

It is precisely because of the backlash of a large number of demoted officers and generals that the Western Army does not need to consider dividing troops to garrison various places; There is no need to think about resupply; There is no need to consider the replenishment of troops; There is no need to think about local management, and it can quickly expand its forces and increase its military offensive in the northwest.

Faced with a good situation, Xue Yong, Quan Dashan and others should immediately chase after the poor. On the 17th day of the first month, the army of the expedition to the west was divided into three routes: Xue Yong personally led the main force of 120,000. trailing the Dashun army that pursued southward; Quan Dashan awarded the rank of Sichuan general (posthumously awarded by the Daping Imperial Court on the way), and led an army of 90,000 into Sichuan. exterminate Zhang Xianzhong's Great Western Army; Jiang Cheng and Zhao Degong each led 10,000 troops, went north to join Jiang Huang in Yulin, and combined nearly 40,000 troops to pursue Gao Yigong and Li Guobu's Dashun army who fled westward from Yulin and Yan'an.

However, Gao Yigong and Li Guobu saw that the northwest region had been occupied by the Daping Army successively, and they could no longer gain a foothold in northern Shaanxi, so they could only be forced to retreat in the end. After that, this Dashun army only took a detour to converge with the party guarding Gansu and other departments, and went south to Sichuan through Hanzhong, and then went down the river. It was not until more than a year later that the remnants of the Dashun army, which had more than 10,000 people, joined forces with the remnants of the Dashun army who followed Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin to the south in Yunnan. And by that time, both Li Zicheng and Liu Zongmin had already died in battle.

The rise of the Dashun army has neither a deep foundation nor time to precipitate, so once it is unfavorable, the Dashun regime will collapse like a building built on the beach.

In particular, the Dashun regime itself did not have a stable rear, and the key to this was that Li Zicheng and others ignored and even were hostile to the official gentry and landlord class. Therefore, no culture may lay down the country, but no culture will definitely not be able to hold the country. The main reason for the defeat of the Dashun army after the Battle of Yutian was not that the Daping army was invincible, but due to its own internal instability.

The northwest military strategy that Xue Yong, Quan Dashan and others took the initiative to expand also accelerated the pace of the Daping Dynasty's unification of the whole country.

In particular, the main force of the Western Expeditionary Army led by Xue Yong to pursue the Dashun Army, they will strive to flank the remnants of the Dashun Army led by Li Zicheng together with the Southern Expeditionary Army led by Zhou Xun and Zhang Biao. Of course, if they can take advantage of the situation to attack Nanming, they will never stop. Although the main direction of the Daping Dynasty is now the Manchu Qing in Liaodong, if it can attack the Jiangnan region without spending more troops, then why not?

The rapid defeat of the Dashun army also led to the rapid death of Li Zicheng. Since Li Zicheng did not want to entangle with the Daping army stationed in the Xiangfan area, the Dashun army marched west of the Han River, then crossed the Yangtze River, went east to Nanjing, and occupied the southeast wealth area before the Daping army.

At this time, in the southern Henan and Huguang regions, the strength of the Daping Army was actually very empty. Therefore, Zhou Xun could only divide the troops into two routes, he asked Zhang Biao to lead the garrison troops, and he personally led 14,000 soldiers and horses to attack the remnants of the Dashun army.

Comparatively speaking, at this time, the Dashun army still far exceeded the Daping army in number, but after successive defeats, its morale was low, and when it retreated, it was slow to move. On the 29th of the first month, after the main force of the Dashun army withdrew to Fang County, it stayed here for a long time, until the Daping army of Xue Yong's army caught up, and then pulled out the camp and went south on March 18.

During this long period of recuperation, Li Zicheng suspected Li Yan of rebellion and set up an ambush to kill Li Yan. Li Yan committed suicide. The whereabouts of the red lady are unknown, and it is rumored that she has lived in seclusion on the rivers and lakes.

From March to April of the first year of Qiongyuan, the Daping army successively engaged eight times in Fangxian, Baode, Jingmen, Jingzhou, Honghu, Xianning, and Jiujiang, Jiangxi, and the Dashun army was defeated. And the eight battles mentioned here are not all head-to-head confrontations between the main forces of the Dashun Army and the Daping Army, but only some larger battles.

In April, the Dashun army arrived in Jiujiang, and Zuo Liangyu, who was guarding Jiujiang in Nanming, was in a hurry. Yuan Jixian, the governor of Jiangxi in the Southern Ming Dynasty, thought that the Dashun army would march to Nanjing along the south bank of the Yangtze River, so he rushed to Jingdezhen with a part of the army, echoing the Zuo Liangyu Department in Jiujiang.

However, although the Dashun army was vulnerable to the Daping army, it was more than enough to deal with the Zuo Liangyu Department of the Southern Ming Dynasty. The main force of the Dashun army defeated the garrison of Zuo Liangyu's generals Ma Jinzhong and Wang Yuncheng in Ruichang, which made the Hongguang government and the opposition shocked.

And Zuo Liangyu was also frightened, so he had to make a big fuss about the issue of "Prince from the North", raised the banner of the Qing monarch, and claimed that he would fight to Nanjing and crusade against Ruan Dacheng and others. (More on this later.) After the left army moved eastward on 23 April, there was no garrison in Jiujiang, and Li Zicheng took the opportunity to occupy the city.

Li Zicheng's plan at that time was to seize the southeast as the base of the Dashun army, so in order to concentrate his strength, he incorporated the Dashun army and other battalions of peasant armies left behind in various places along the way into the troops. But in this way, when Zhou Xun and Xue Yong's Daping army chased after them, the rear of the Dashun army was empty, and there was no strength to block the advance of the Daping army. And Li Zicheng and the others could only flee all the way, and they couldn't even find time to rest.

Since the Dashun army did not leave a large number of troops to hold the place, and did not organize the necessary counterattack in a timely manner, but only blindly advanced eastward, this kind of practice of ignoring the front and the back finally led to a heavy defeat. In May, when the Daping army pursued to Yangxinfuchikou, it rushed into the camp while the Dashun army was unprepared, causing the Dashun army to lose again.

In the second half of the same month, forty miles away from Jiujiang in Jiangxi, the Dashun army attacked the old camp, and Liu Zongmin, the number one general of the Dashun army who had been in battle for a long time and had outstanding achievements, was captured, and the two uncles of Song Xiance, Zuo Guangxian, and Li Zicheng, as well as a large number of generals and family members of the army, were also captured by the Qing army.

Unwilling to surrender, Zhou Xun, who was afraid of trouble, ordered Liu Zongmin and Li Zicheng's two uncles to be killed, while Song Xiance and Zuo Guang surrendered first. Just around this time, Prime Minister Niu Jinxing also thought that the general trend had gone, so he didn't say goodbye and deserted. And Niu Jinxing's son Niu Yan was originally the Shangluo Mansion Yin of the Dashun regime, and when the Dashun army was defeated and retreated, he had already surrendered to the Daping Dynasty, and was first appointed as the prefect of the Daping Dynasty, and then gradually promoted to the governor of Shaanxi in the Daping Dynasty.

After Niu Jinxing escaped from the Dashun army, he lived in Niu Yan's official office, enjoying the blessings of the old lady until his death, at the age of eighty-three. What a dramatic life!

In early June, Li Zicheng traveled to the foot of Jiugong Mountain in Tongshan County, Hubei Province, and was suddenly attacked by local landlords. At that time, only his son Zhang Nai and twenty-eight soldiers were following him. Seeing that there were not many soldiers and horses, the landlords swarmed up. Twenty-eight soldiers were killed one after another, and Li Zicheng was also killed in the battle.

It's really a boom and a suddenness! (To be continued......)