In September of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the whole world fell into a stalemate, or anxiety.

For the Ming Dynasty, Shenjing was occupied by the Eastern Captives, which was the greatest national shame after Tumubao; The northwestern provinces fell into the hands of the rebels; Sichuan in the southwest fell into the hands of Zhang Xianzhong. Even the safety of the emperor is disputed and difficult to distinguish.

For the Manchu Qing Dynasty, although the dream of entering the customs was fulfilled and even occupied Beijing, the capital of the Ming Dynasty, more than 100,000 troops fell into a dead end.

The Ming army in the southern part of Gyeonggi occupied the line from Zhending to Cangzhou, built villages, and new artillery arrived every day, apparently not planning to join forces with the Qing Dynasty to suppress the thieves. This meant that the Manchurian cavalry could not cross the Yellow River into Shaanxi, otherwise the Ming army would attack Beijing, and the army would have no way to return to help.

In the same way, the army could not go south, otherwise Li Zicheng would definitely lead his army across the river, seize Shanxi and Datong, isolate Mongolia from the pass, and even go straight down to the three passes, and once again come to Beijing, so that the Manchus would fall into the embarrassment of fighting on two sides. At that time, the 100,000-strong army could only go to the bitter cold land outside the pass again.

It is precisely because this situation is so obvious that there are now fewer and fewer banner people in the enclosure near Gyeonggi, and more people choose to send the people and property they have grabbed out of the customs, so as not to have time to transport them away. Dolgon, lacking confidence in holding Beijing himself, issued a strict order to prevent such morale-damaging events.

For Li Zicheng......

"I'm still going to fight it!"

Li Zicheng stood in the Xi'an City Tower, and next to him stood Liu Zongming and Tian Jianxiu, two generals. Because Zhu Cihong's Donggong army was born, the Dashun army was not further pursued after retreating into Shaanxi, and finally stood firm.

Bahana and Shi Tingzhu failed to reinforce Ye Chen and Jiang Hao according to the original historical script, which delayed the progress of the Manchu Qing attack on Shanxi for a long time.

Under the leadership of Han Wenquan, the envoy of Dashun Shanxi Jiedu, and Chen Yongfu, the general soldier, the Taiyuan garrison moved into Yuxian County with an army of 30,000 and 60,000 people. After passing through the well, go to the area of Zhending Mansion to settle. In addition, some people fled to Shaanxi and chose Li Zicheng, but when the Qing troops entered Taiyuan, it was almost an empty city.

Without a population, there would be no coated Ahha, and there would be no pawns to be sent to death. The military strength of the eastern captives was not enough to continue to occupy the western part of Shanxi, let alone cross the river to attack. The Qing court ordered Jiang Hao to lead his troops to attack the follow-up immigration brigade and attack Yuxian, but he was ambushed by the Ming army in Danangou, suffering heavy casualties and had to retreat to Taiyuan to rest.

"After the grain is harvested, we will cross the river." Li Zicheng said again, "I don't believe I can't beat those Tartars!" ”

Liu Zongmin heard Tian Jianxiu talk about the battle of a stone, and said worriedly: "Holy Lord." Compared with the Tartar soldiers, our soldiers are probably weaker, and it is the best policy to hold on to the river first, consolidate Henan, and occupy Huguang. ”

"Shengshang, now that Zuo Liangyu's thief bird occupies Wuchang, if you don't recapture Huguang, I'm afraid the military food will be unsustainable." Tian Jianxiu said anxiously.

The Xiaoice River period began in the Southern Song Dynasty and reached its peak in the late Ming Dynasty. Especially the beginning of the eighth year of Wanli. Sunspot activity disappears, and this astronomical phenomenon will continue for 70 years. That is, to the end of the twenty-third year of Chongzhen - the seventh year of Shunzhi in the original historical time and space. In the past 70 years, the natural environment of the generation in the northwest of Shanxi has been extremely harsh, and the failure of the grain harvest has become the norm, and farmers even eat the seeds directly, otherwise they will not even be able to recover the cost after planting.

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty has a vast territory, and the lake is wide and familiar with the world. In the event of such a natural disaster in the northwest, grain from Huguang can also be called in for disaster relief. However, once the government was corrupted, the disaster relief grain was divided up layer by layer, and the profiteers raised the price of rice by raising the price of grain, and the fragile social ecology of the northwest was suddenly broken. It was also a matter of course that there would be a peasant uprising.

Chuang Ying came from this period, everyone knows that Jinshan Yinshan is not as good as Mianshan Mishan, and Huguang granary is far more important than Shanxi, which has no harvest.

"If Shanxi is not in hand, the army must be held along the Yellow River, how many troops will have to be consumed?" Li Zicheng asked rhetorically: "How can the remaining troops snatch back Huguang from the 200,000 army of the left thief?" Only by defeating Shanxi and guarding the pass with elite soldiers can we draw out the army to the south as soon as possible. ”

Liu Zongmin felt that it was right to say this in theory, in the end, the pass was dead, and two thousand people guarded the pass, even if the other party had 10,000 people, it might not be easy to take it. The biggest problem with guarding along the river is that it is easy to be smuggled across, and in winter, the river is frozen, and there are many places to cross, so it is useless to just guard the ferry.

Li Zicheng sighed: "If there is not enough food, I can only let people go to the left thief to buy it." ”

Zuo Liangyu occupied the land of Jingchu and became a feudal town, and never thought of trapping and killing Zhang Xianzhong and Li Zicheng. This kind of selling grain to finance the enemy is nothing to him. What's more, he doesn't have to come forward in person, the people below smuggled food, so they will naturally give him filial piety.

Liu Zongmin and Tian Jianxiu saw that Li Zicheng had made up his mind, so they had to say: "Holy Lord, if this is the case, we still have to train the soldiers first, equip them with ordnance, and collect carved feathers and fish glue, otherwise it is really not enough to go on the expedition." ”

Li Zicheng said gloomily: "Accurate." I'll leave it to you. ”

While the three of them were talking, Li Zicheng looked back and saw Gu Junen walking over quickly, holding a yellow paper military newspaper in his hand: "Bixia!" Bohou Li Guo led his troops to cross the river! ”

"Who's the order?" Li Zicheng was furious when he heard this, his heart was sad and desolate, and he secretly said: Even his nephew is going to surrender to the Tartars!

Gu Junen shook his head slightly: "I haven't found out yet." ”

"Probe!" Li Zicheng only felt that his eyes were dark, and he reached out to support the city wall. In terms of the territory he occupies, he now controls Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, and occupies western Henan and Jingbei, and there are millions of people in armor under his command. However, from the perspective of the situation, there is a sense of the end of the road, and even the high-ranking officials of Dashun feel that this regime is difficult to last for a long time, and they are secretly looking for a way out.

"Bixia," Gu Junen said softly again, "There are some merchants from the east, who want to exchange cotton clothes for horses......"

Li Zicheng propped up his head, and his eyes were already bloodshot: "Which east?" ”

"It's Prince Zhu's side." Gu Junen said cautiously: "I want to exchange 50,000 pieces of cotton clothes for 800 good horses." ”

A cotton coat can be sold for two dollars of silver in Shaanxi, but in Suzhou and Songjiang, where cotton cloth is produced, it is less than this price. The price of a good horse is more than twenty taels, and even a pack horse costs more than ten taels of silver. It's just that from the price point of view, a hundred cotton clothes correspond to a good horse, and the East Palace has already taken a big advantage.

"Did he think I was a fool?" Li Zicheng said angrily.

"Then go and drive away the profiteers." Gu Junen didn't want to facilitate this deal, so he deliberately reported it when Li Zicheng was angry.

"Wait!" Li Zicheng suddenly stopped Gu Junen and asked, "How many catties of cotton do you use?" ”

"Say it's three catties of cotton." Gu Junen said.

Li Zicheng lowered his head and said: "There are too few products in the northwest, and I have to change winter clothes for the soldiers after seeing the winter." However, 800 good horses is still too much, if Prince Zhu can ensure that every cotton coat is not short of catties and two catties, I will take 600 horses for his cotton clothes. ”

"Bixia......" Gu Junen stood still and said: "Now people's hearts are unstable, if you let this batch of cotton clothes come in and wear them on the soldiers, I am afraid that someone will take the opportunity to say something unjust." ”

"If I don't agree, the "Emperor's Notice" in the east will definitely say that I don't care about the life and death of the soldiers!" It took Li Zicheng half a month to get this specious "Di Bao", and even a rough person like him could see the meaning of praise and disparagement, which was the tongue of the imperial court. The most terrifying thing is that he doesn't know how to stop this false newspaper from circulating in Shaanxi, because there are always people who risk cutting off their heads and secretly copy and circulate.

"Bixia, how dare he bear the charge of fornicating with Dashun?" Gu Junen disagreed.

Li Zicheng thinks about it, it makes sense, in the end, Shunming is still in a state of war, if this deal is known to outsiders, Prince Yu Zhu will not be happy. However, these 50,000 pieces of cotton clothes are necessary for winter, at least to ensure that 50,000 people do not freeze to death.

Li Zicheng had never considered the life and death of Dingkou below, in his opinion, in the troubled times, everything was left to fate, and if he wanted to survive, he had to take his own life. If you can pull it, you will live, and if you can't pull it, you will die, and at most you will complain that God is ruthless. It wasn't until he really asked about politics like an emperor that he realized that it was also his responsibility to raise the people of Limin, and no matter how large the population was, there were times when it was insufficient, and he couldn't give up easily.

After having such an understanding, Li Zicheng was suddenly able to understand Yang He's sentence back then, "Why don't you sit and starve to death!" Strange words.

Sure enough, it is the position that determines the attitude, and the emperor, of course, hopes that the people would rather starve to death than rebel. (To be continued......)

PS: Ask for a monthly pass, recommend a ticket ~~~