The morning of the sixth day of the third month of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen.

Outside Tongzhou City, shouts of killing have been heard one after another.

On Li Zicheng's order, the 50,000 troops who divided their troops to take Tongzhou had already launched an attack.

Fortunately, Tongju City has always been an important place in Gyeonggi, and the high walls of the city are thick, which can be described as impregnable.

In addition, now that the Ming Emperor Zhu Youzhen is in Tongzhou, Zhou Yuji's department is all brave warriors.

Therefore, the Ming army was also desperately defending the city.

Although there were 50,000 troops outside the city, it was difficult to storm the city for a while.

At this time, the Kuraba Governor's Office was already full of people.

Many blue-robed, blue-robed, and even red-robed officials crowded outside the governor's office to wait for Zhu Youzhen to summon him.

Although Zhu Youzhen ordered them to have a good night's rest, the sound of killing outside the city made them not sleep well all night.

Early in the morning, the officials came to the governor's office to discuss what to do next and what to do in the future.

Zhu Youzhen also thought about it for a night last night.

At dawn today, he lay in Queen Zhou's arms and squinted for a while.

Now, with the noise outside, he opened his eyes suddenly.

"What time is it?" Zhu Youzhen asked.

At this time, Yuan Guifei had already brought in Gong E, who was waiting for Zhu Youzhen's washing:

"Back to Your Majesty, it's already three o'clock."

Zhu Youzhen nodded, and was busy dressing and washing under the service of Yuan Guifei, and then hurriedly walked to the main hall of the Governor's Office.

As soon as they arrived at the main hall, Fan Jingwen and other officials were busy as if they had seen the backbone of the main body, and suddenly quieted down, and shouted in unison: "I've seen Your Majesty!" ”

"Now is an extraordinary time, and all red tape is waived", as he said, Zhu Youzhen first asked Wu Mengming, the commander of the Jinyi Guard: "How is the battle outside the city?" ”

"No thieves have yet attacked the city, and the canal wharf is still in our hands," Wu Mengming said, and Zhu Youzhen hurriedly asked Wang Chengen to unfold a map and paste it on the front of the lobby:

"Now you already know that the entire Shaanxi and Shanxi have fallen into the hands of the thieves, and now Gyeonggi is also unavoidable, and the Central Plains and the vast majority of the land in the south and west are still under the rule of my Ming Dynasty, so although the thieves are about to conquer the capital of my Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty will still have a chance to revive it!"

When the officials looked at the map, they also understood that the Ming Dynasty had not been completely lost, so they were naturally not as discouraged as before.

Shoufu Fan Jingwen stood up first:

"Your Majesty, Weichen Qi, although I still have vitality in the Ming Dynasty, but Your Majesty, you are still in a dangerous situation, although Tongzhou City is a strong city, but in the end the city is narrow, and there is no place to defend around, and Weichen has heard that the thief Liu Fangliang is coming in the direction of Zhending Mansion, when the time comes, if Li Zicheng's army goes south again, we will be in a situation of attacking from both sides! Therefore, the plan now is to evacuate Tongzhou City immediately. ”

"Yes, Fan Ge Lao is really an old man!"

The ministers also chimed in.

"What Fan Aiqing said is very true, however, we have to face not only the encirclement and interception of the army of thieves when we retreat south, but also have to be prepared to face the threat of Liu Zeqing, Xu Dingguo and other people with bad intentions, no one knows if they will come to blackmail the Son of Heaven to order the princes; But Tongzhou City definitely can't stay long; However, we can't still evacuate together like yesterday, once something happens, we will fall into total annihilation, and I will have no chance to rise again. ”

Zhu Youzhen's meaning is very clear.

Now he and the officials present face not only the threat of Li Zicheng's army, but also the threat of warlords from all walks of life from Shandong to Jiangbei.

And if he takes the crown prince and the two princes of Yue and Ning to the south.

Once something happens, the entire Ming Dynasty will not only lose its own emperor, but even the three most qualified princes to inherit the emperor.

In that case, the Ming would have to fight for the establishment of a new generation of kings, just like the original historical Nanming.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen decided to continue to carry out the decision to go south by three routes.

"Except that I personally led the hundred officials directly along the canal to the south, passing through Baoding, Hejian, Linqing, Jinan, Yanzhou, Xuzhou, Yangzhou and other places and finally arrived in Nanjing;

The scholar Wu Niu, and Gong Yonggu, the commander of the horses, accompanied the prince to Tian0 Jinwei, and then took the sea route to Dengzhou to replenish supplies, then went south to Ningbo, and finally returned to Nanjing from Hangzhou;

In addition, King Yue and King Ning were accompanied by Fan Jingwen, the first assistant of the cabinet, and Wu Mengming, the commander of Jinyiwei, to the Daimyo's Mansion, and then turned to Kaifeng, then entered Huguang Chengtianfu, and then arrived in Nanchang, and finally met Nanjing! ”

As soon as Zhu Youzhen's will was delivered, the ministers were busy praising His Majesty's wisdom.

Divide the entire retreat into three lanes, which will increase the chances of a successful retreat.

Whether it was Li Zicheng's Dashun army or Liu Zeqing and others, they could not concentrate all their efforts to stop their retreating team.

Even, Zhu Youzhen also issued a decree that once he was captured by Li Zicheng and other forces or placed under house arrest, whether it was himself or his son, he would commit suicide directly.

There is no need to become a political tool for thieves to take the opportunity to dismantle the Ming Dynasty.

The crown prince Zhu Cihong and others only need to pay attention to pirates and wind and waves when they take the sea route, and basically there is no big threat.

King Yue and King Ning took the land route, and if they took a detour to Huguang, they had to face the threat of the thieves Liu Fangliang and Huguang Zuoliangyu.

Fortunately, there are few people on this road, and except for King Ning of Yue, they are all elite brocade guards, so the speed of retreating south must be fast and not easy to be discovered.

What's more, Zuo Liangyu is still a minister of the Ming Dynasty, and he doesn't dare to make any excessive moves towards the two princes.

The biggest difficulty in the success of the real southern retreat is still the emperor Zhu Youzhen.

The civil and military officials, the ladies in the palace, and most of the money and food had to follow Zhu Youzhen along the canal south, these people were not stronger than the sergeants, and they were not old and weak, women, children, women and children, which would naturally affect the speed of retreating south.

But Zhu Youzhen can't leave them alone, the former is the political basis for him to control the court in the future, and the latter can be regarded as his own family members, people are willing to follow him, the emperor, all the way here, and he must be responsible to the end.

In the capital, the money confiscated from the prisoners and the grain reserves obtained in Tongzhou, except for a small part from Tian0 Jinwei who followed the crown prince Zhu Cihong by sea, most of them also had to follow Zhu Youzhen to the south along the canal.

After all, pirates were rampant in these years, and Liaodong was already in the hands of Jiannu, so no one was sure whether Dolgon would take advantage of the fire to rob the crown prince Zhu Cihong and the money and grain, so that he would lose the foundation of going south to revive the Ming Dynasty.

For hundreds of years, the Ming Dynasty mainly relied on Cao Yun to travel from south to north, and the entire Cao Yun system has already become very developed after a hundred years of development.

Nowadays, the Daming Cao Yun has not been destroyed, so it still has the ability to transport.

"The money and grain have been loaded and shipped to Tianjin Wei, and it is expected that all of them will arrive in Tianjin in three days."

At this time, Xue Degang, the governor of the warehouse, stood up and reported the evacuation of money and grain.

Zhu You nodded after listening, and continued to instruct: "Tian0 Jinwei has no danger to defend, and it is not stronger than the city of Tongzhou, after transferring to Tianjin, the prince and Fan Ge Lao have to immediately board the ship and take the sea route, and I and the king of Yue, King Ning, will go south after waiting for Baoding Mansion;

In addition, Tongzhou City has to hold on for another five days, Ning Wubo Zhou Yuji escorted the south, this matter is in charge of Zhang Lun, as long as you hold for five days, after five days, whether you surrender or evacuate by yourself, I don't blame you, but if you defect to the enemy five days ago, he will definitely punish you for serious crimes, do you understand? ”

"Weichen understands, please rest assured, Your Majesty, Weichen will be able to hold on for five days, unless the minister dies!"

Zhang Lun said in front of the station.

Zhu Youzhen doesn't know whether Zhang Lun is credible or not, but the so-called employment is not suspicious, and the suspect is not used; Most of the Manchu officials he brought were unknown literati, and although they were all ministers with integrity in the future, they were not military commanders.

And Zhang Lun is a magistrate in Tongzhou City, and he is at least familiar with Tongzhou City.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen can only choose to believe him.

Of course, if Zhang Lun really surrendered to the enemy immediately after they left, Zhu Youzhen would not face a desperate situation because of this, and at that time, he could only sacrifice Zhou Yuji's guards army for himself in exchange for time to retreat south.