Azige, the prince of the puppet Qing Dynasty and Shuoying, was named the general of Jingyuan by the Qing court at the end of the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and led 30,000 elite soldiers of Manchu, Meng, and Han to the west to conquer Li Zicheng's army, and attacked Tongguan at the end of December.

In the first month when the Ming court was busy dealing with Zuo Liangyu's department, Tongguan had been lost.

Li Zicheng's troops were defeated one after another and had to withdraw from the entire territory of Shaanxi.

Li Zicheng, who is panicked like a lost dog, has been in a very bad mood recently, from the spring breeze when he suddenly ascended to the throne at the beginning of the year to now being chased by the Qing army in embarrassment, which makes his temper more and more irritable, and more and more irrational.

Along the way, there were many officials who were killed by him in vain or angry, and they had no patience to comfort the gentry and the people.

This also led to a large number of Ming officers and soldiers who surrendered to the Shun army in the past, and successively joined the Southern Ming and Lu Daqi Divisions.

On this day, as soon as he entered the territory of Xiangyang, seeing that he was about to capture Wuchang, Li Zicheng once again convened the ministers to discuss the matter.

However, at this time, Niu Jinxing, the prime minister of the Shun court, reported a message to Li Zicheng: "Your Majesty, according to the eyeliner, the current chief military officer in charge of Fengyang, Shouzhou and other places is Liu Fangliang, and he is now a general in the Ming court. ”

"What! Liu Fangliang actually surrendered to Zhu Ming! Darn! ”

In this era, there are no fast communication conditions, and it is normal for news to be delayed for months or even a year, coupled with Liu Fangliang, a thief general who is attached to the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youzhen ordered Jinyiwei to deliberately conceal the stain of his surrender, which can be regarded as a care for the attached officials.

Therefore, Li Zicheng always thought that Liu Fangliang was killed by Zhu Youzhen when he went south because of carelessness, but he didn't expect that Liu Fangliang actually belonged to the Ming Court, and then thought of Gao Jie, who had cuckolded him in the past and surrendered to the Ming Court, his anger rose sharply again, and he couldn't wait to kill these two people himself.

At this time, Li Yan stood up: "Your Majesty is angry, now is not the time to be angry because of these things, Liu Fangliang's generation is incorruptible and shameless, and he has taken refuge in Zhu Ming, although he is hateful but not afraid, what is terrible now is that the Qing army is about to pursue, Your Majesty should immediately arrange defense in Jingxiang and Henan, otherwise once the Qing army passes through the four counties of Jingxiang, we will have no danger to defend!" ”

"Your Majesty, what Li Yan said is not unreasonable, but after Liu Fangliang surrendered to the Ming Court, the entire territory of Henan fell into the hands of the Ming Court, only the Huaiqing Mansion is still in the hands of Liu Zhongbu, but Liu Zhongbu is facing the attack of the Qing Army's Duoduo Department, I am afraid that it has already been transferred or destroyed, and now we have no place in Henan!"

Niu Jinxing also stood up at this time and continued.

Seeing this, Li Yan stood up decisively: "Your Majesty, at present, Duoduo is in charge of Henan, and Wechen is worried that once he transfers troops to the west and joins forces with Azig to attack us, we will once again face the situation of being attacked by the enemy, although most of Henan is now in the hands of the Ming Court, but Wechen and Lu Daqi are quite related, and most of the prefectures and counties in Henan are also appeased by Wechen back then, and please ask Your Majesty to allocate 20,000 elite soldiers, Wechen can go out of Zhongzhou, and guarantee that most of Henan can be recovered, and keep the right wing for Your Majesty. Don't worry about not getting a chance to breathe, after all, we are not Zuo Liangyu, we still have the support of the people, and Juntian is exempted from the order, and a large number of ordinary people can still be recruited. ”

Li Zicheng looked at Li Yan and didn't say a word, but he was quite unquiet in his heart, he knew that what Li Yan said was very reasonable, and now if he wants to bring Henan back into his hands, he can only rely on Li Yan's personal reputation, but Li Zicheng is also a little skeptical, Li Yan will not take the opportunity to join the Ming Court like Liu Fangliang, after all, he keeps saying that he wants to unite with Emperor Chongzhen Zhu Youzhen, and even has sympathy for Emperor Zhu Ming Zhu Youzhen in his mouth.

"Let's all step aside, I think about it again", Li Zicheng waved his hand, but suddenly called Niu Jinxing back and asked, "Prime Minister, what do you think of Li Yan?" ”

Niu Jinxing didn't expect Emperor Li Zicheng to suddenly ask this, and suddenly realized that Li Zicheng might have been suspicious of Li Yan, and he and Li Yan have always been at odds now, after all, they are both civil ministers, but Li Yan has military merits, and he doesn't, plus one mountain does not tolerate two tigers, in order to keep his position as the first assistant civil minister, Niu Jinxing also replied decisively:

"Your Majesty, Weichen has the audacity to say bluntly, this Li Yan doesn't ask what his talent is, this person is not a person from us all the way, he is a child of a serious famous family, he is from a good background, his father is still a scholar of the Ministry of War, and his family background is prominent, he looks down on us vulgar people in his bones, and Weichen is a cold Confucian, so Li Yan is sure that he is Mingming, especially at this time, does His Majesty think Li Yan is credible?"

After Niu Jinxing said, he asked Li Zicheng.

"How is it better to get rid of it, and when is it better to get rid of it?" Li Zicheng asked.

"Just choose, Your Majesty didn't dare to move Li Yan naturally because his wife Red Lady had an elite army, but now that Red Lady has been transferred to attack Dengzhou, it is our opportunity to get rid of Li Yan, Your Majesty, you invited Li Yan to discuss important matters as an excuse for him to come to the front of the palace, and then ambushed the knife and axe to kill him, and under the pretext that Li Yan was killed by the Ming Court, when the time comes, I can't help but believe that the Red Lady doesn't believe it, Your Majesty can accept the Red Lady or kill her at that time, and collect it to his department."

As soon as Niu Jinxing said this, Li Zicheng nodded, and then ordered: "Spread my message, and let Li Yan and his brother Li Nian meet you!" ”

At the same time, Li Zicheng asked Niu Jinxing to go down to prepare.

However, at this moment, there was a shout of killing outside the camp tent, and some people shouted: "Oh no, it's the Qing soldiers who killed it, the Tartar cavalry!" ”

The neighing of horses also frightened Li Zicheng into hurriedly taking his sword out of the camp, but he happened to see a hundred or so Tartar cavalry wearing soft armor clothes and a money rat tail on his head to kill him, and one of them directly pulled out a hard bow and shot at Li Zicheng: "The thief Li Zicheng will be killed!" ”

Li Zicheng didn't expect that there would be Tartar rangers here, seeing that his bow and horses were skillful, they seemed to be veteran cavalrymen of a hundred battles, so he had to hurriedly order the firearms battalion to stop it, but Li Zicheng ignored that there was also a small detachment that took advantage of the chaos to break into his Chinese army camp closer, and one of them was the first capable general under the command of Wu Mengming, the commander of Jinyiwei, Jinyiwei Qianhu Lan Guanwei.

Lan Guanwei picked up the Chongzhen 14-style flintlock pistol with a knife and shot Li Zicheng.

Bang!

Li Zicheng only felt a dull pain in his chest, and when he looked down, it was a bloody hole the size of a teacup.

Lan Guanwei made up another shot and immediately evacuated the scene.

At this time, Li Zicheng's personal soldiers found out that their emperor had been shot, and hurriedly shouted: "Oh no, Your Majesty has been shot!" ”

The Shun army has been beaten by the Tartars, and now the Tartar cavalry suddenly appeared to make the barracks chaotic, and when they heard that Li Zicheng was shot, they were so frightened that they had no resistance at all, and this group of Tartar cavalry took the opportunity to safely evacuate the Chinese army camp of the Shun army.

Lan Guanwei led his team to the Niu Jinxing tent under the leadership of the informant.

"Qianhu, this person is Dashun Prime Minister Niu Venus!"

"Take it away, go and meet with the pacification envoy", Lan Guanwei said that after finishing it, he personally led the way in front, and after leaving the Shunjun camp, after walking about three or four miles, he saw the pacification envoy Wang Peng and the backbone of a brocade guard sitting on the ground to rest.

"Boss, this Tartar's head style is too ugly, or let's just shave it off, it's better to be a monk than to be a Tartar!"

Yijin Yiwei said.

"Keep it, there are many opportunities to play the Tartar to sneak behind enemy lines in the future, when will it grow back after shaving, you and I have been His Majesty's domestic slave since I entered the Jinyi Guard, although the body is the parents of the skin, but loyalty and filial piety are difficult to achieve, for the sake of Your Majesty's country, what about the Tartar head that stays for a lifetime, and compared to those brothers who have gone to the real Tartar to lurk as a coated slave, we are still good."

After Wang Peng, the pacification envoy, said that, he saw Lan Guanwei escorting a Shunjun official over, so he hurriedly got up to greet him: "Hard work, this person is the pseudo-Shun Prime Minister Niu Jinxing?" ”