On the Jinluan Palace, the first assistant Chen Yan is bidding farewell to Emperor Chongzhen.

After learning that the whole territory of Shanxi had surrendered to Dashun, Chen Shoufu retreated and immediately took action. Yesterday, after singing a play of retention and perseverance among the monarchs and ministers, Emperor Chongzhen agreed to Chen Yan's request to return to his hometown, and appointed Wei Zaode as the first assistant.

After Chen Yan was able to step down from his position as the elder, he quickly packed up his family's outfit that night - the Ming Dynasty was already crumbling, but the emperor even sent the Marquis of Zhendong to the south to raise funds and recruit troops, and he didn't say anything in advance to discuss with the elders. It seems that this long-lived master is really crazy, and he doesn't know what it means to "can't quench thirst from far water". Well, even if Zhendonghou is still there, Chen Yan has made up his mind to return to his hometown. If the Marquis of Zhendong is here, he may have a role in quenching the thirst of the officers and soldiers guarding the city, and Chen Yan feels that those vulgar and unliterate martial artists must not be like himself, and can see the situation clearly.

Today, in full view of everyone, Chen Yan said to the emperor for the last time, and he silently recited in his heart: "It's going to be fine soon, there are only a few words left." "Chen Yan's family is waiting outside, once Emperor Chongzhen and Chen Yan finish today's farewell, the Chen family will immediately leave the road, and they will leave Beijing before noon. While the road to the south is still unimpeded, hurry up and leave Daming, the wrecked ship that is about to sink. Chen Yan has made enough money in his life, and his age is not young, he has no intention of dealing with King Shun anymore, leaving those who are not old in their hearts - these people who refuse to leave led by Wei Zaode in the Jinluan Palace will be their business in the future.

“…… The praise painting is invalid, and the minister deserves death. ”

Chen Yan finished his farewell speech, lying on the ground, motionless facing the throne of the Great Tomorrow, waiting for the other party's answer. According to the general custom, the emperor would say, "Aiqing has worked hard and made great achievements." Or something like that. With the emperor's words, all the ceremonies were completed, and the former officials who returned to their hometowns lost all their official positions, and they also had no rights to be in front of the emperor and Wen, so they could only withdraw from the Jinluan Treasure Hall in a gloomy manner, receive a few red silk pensions from the petty officials of the Ministry of Officials, and leave the power center of the Ming Dynasty forever. It is said that this is a sad moment, but Chen Yan does not have a little sadness in his heart now, he is anxiously waiting for Emperor Chongzhen's farewell words - his family and carriage are still waiting to leave quickly.

"You should have died a long time ago!" An angry roar suddenly exploded in front of him.

This was really an unusual farewell speech, and the relieved Chen Yan immediately kowtowed three more times and replied loudly: "Your Majesty, long live my emperor, long live, long live." ”

Bowing slightly, taking a few steps back, Chen Yan knelt down again and kowtowed three times, then got up and retreated to the threshold of the main hall, kneeling down and kowtowing to the throne for the last three heads. Chen Yan, who walked out of the Jinluan Palace, was in a happy mood the more he walked, and the more he walked, the more his eyebrows danced. The officials were waiting outside the hall, and Chen Yan pulled his red silk pension from his hand and left happily.

After the Chen family's convoy left the magnificent city gate of Jingshi, the whole family of the former Shoufu was gone, and the servants all laughed heartily. Chen Yan's youngest grandson asked in a childish childish voice: "Grandpa, what did the emperor say when His Majesty resigned today?" ”

"It's not all clichés," Chen Yan once guessed that Chongzhen would end this meeting with his usual clichés, but when he received his pension just now, he felt that he was really far-sighted, and he stroked his grandson's head lovingly: "Grandpa said: Praise and painting are invalid, and the crime deserves death; Long live the master: Aiqing has worked hard and has made great achievements, and this is cherished. ”

As the long convoy was heading south, there was a commotion ahead, and the car in front stopped and didn't leave. Chen Yan poked his head out of the car window, and a domestic servant had already run over to report: "The head of the house, there are a few gangsters in front who don't know whether they are alive or dead, and they won't let us go by anything." ”

Chen Yan, who was anxious, ignored the persuasion of his family, ran out of the car in person, and rushed to the front team to ask for an explanation.

"Lao Tzu doesn't care what Zhi Shi Ge Lao or Zhi Shi Shangshu, the above explained, there is a Dashun messenger living in front, and it is strictly forbidden to idle people and other noise!"

As soon as he arrived at the front team, Chen Yan saw a rude man blocking the way with a disdainful expression, and behind him was a large group of local officers and soldiers with similar expressions, while his eldest son was full of anger and tried to reason with them.

"Come back, come back." Chen Yan beckoned his son and servants back, and said to his eldest son, who was still resentful: "Take a detour, take a detour, don't talk about it." ”

"Sure enough, it's a scholar," the big man said with a smile from a distance, "Sure enough, he has insight." ”

Hearing that this reckless man said his father's official position wrongly, Chen Yan's eldest son wanted to ridicule him again, after so many years in Beijing, when had he ever been insulted like this, especially from such a humble low-level soldier.

"Gone, gone." Chen Yan grabbed his son and reproached: "If you don't hurry up and hurry up, but you quarrel here, do you want *** to sleep in the wild?" ”

After leaving the Ming soldiers who seemed invincible because they stood guard for the Great Shun Envoy, Chen Yan's eldest son recalled the conversation just now and asked his father: "Father, what Great Shun Envoy?" Someone sent by the king? ”

"yes, yes." Chen Yan knew that this was a secret of the imperial court, but he didn't intend to hide it from his son: "The envoy has been here for a long time, and it is General Xu, a disciple of Huang Hou, who was escorted by Baoding Mansion. The emperor has been hesitant to see or not, so he doesn't know whether to let him enter the city. Before the court came up with an idea, he had to be wronged to live outside the city. ”

"General Xu Keqin? General Xu is really bold. Chen Yan's son was taken aback, and now the Chen family's private name for Li Zicheng and his subordinates has also quietly changed, but Chen Yan's son also has a trace of disdain: "General Xu has always been bold and reckless, it seems that he was stubborn and self-serving, greedy for merit, and relied on the favor of his master without scruples, so that there was a defeat in Shandong." ”

"Yes, it's their master and apprentice who turned against each other, and the master expelled the disciple from the door wall and made him a prisoner." Thinking about it now, Chen Yan wondered why the Marquis of Zhendong helped Hou Xun speak at that time, but he had no intention of caring for his disciples: "It's hard to say how things happened in Shandong, who knows whether General Xu was bold and reckless, relying on the master to look down on his colleagues, or his colleagues hated him, it's hard to say." If it was all General Xu's fault, why did he go to the city in a rage...... Oh, and what about surrender? After the news of Huangshi's southward movement came out, Chen Yan faintly felt that Huangshi might be ashamed of Xu Ping, so he was unwilling to beat him: "As for the change of the Jingshi, it is also its own master, and it cannot be called a deception to destroy the ancestors, is it possible that King Shun wants to deal with Huanghou, and General Xu can still stop it?" ”

……

Whether or not to see the envoy of Dashun, there has been a dispute within the Ming court, and most of the courtiers advocated seeing him, and even persuaded Emperor Chongzhen to meet Xu Ping with the etiquette of receiving envoys from foreign domains. Emperor Chongzhen was angry, and ridiculed each other, what if Xu Ping did not agree to recognize himself as a subordinate state and a foreign vassal and asked to see the king with a peaceful courtesy? I didn't want the courtiers to think that the emperor was sneering, and they even replied seriously that it was not impossible to consider.

Although the attitude of the courtiers broke Emperor Chongzhen's heart, he refused to close the door to peace talks with Dashun, and Li Zicheng sent Xu Ping to come, which shows the sincerity of peace talks on Dashun's side. Although Emperor Chongzhen estimated that most of the conditions that the other party was asking for now were unacceptable to him, if he could achieve some victories on the frontal battlefield, the opponent's attitude was likely to soften.

Zhou Yuji, who gave up Daizhou and fled back to Ningwusu in central Shanxi, was wiped out in less than a day after only resisting the Shun army's advance, but Emperor Chongzhen thought that this was always a good start. In addition to the new army, after all, the Jin army also appeared spontaneous resistance to the Shun army, instead of surrendering as before. Emperor Chongzhen hoped that the Jin army would work hard and fight one or two beautiful battles, and there was no need to win, as long as the Shun army could pay a considerable price, so that Li Zicheng realized that the Ming Dynasty's Jingshi was not something that could be easily coveted, so that the Ming court could win some capital for negotiation.

But then the Jin army behaved even worse, and soon all the hundreds of thousands of Jin troops in Shanxi surrendered. At the beginning, the courtiers swore that the Shun army would never dare to go to Shanxi to attack Zhili, the reason was that "the heavy troops of the world will not be punished", but now the heavy troops of the Ming Dynasty have all become the heavy soldiers of Dashun.

However, Emperor Chongzhen still did not despair, although the gang of ruffians in Shanxi was unreliable, but the next thing that stood in front of the Shun army was not the local border soldiers, but the Zhili area led by the Great Tomorrow Son, which was the Beijing camp and the forbidden army, commanded by the most confidant courtiers of the Great Tomorrow, or commanded by the imperial relatives of the Zhu Ming royal family, who had a relationship of glory and loss.

For example, Emperor Chongzhen, who went on the expedition of Li Jiantai, still had high hopes for the tens of thousands of forbidden brigades under his command. Because it was the emperor who went on the expedition, the emperor of Chongzhen gave Li Jiantai unprecedented authority, "love is really sinful, that is, Shang Fang is engaged in it", and the unrestricted power of life and death was delegated to the hands of the scholar Li Jiantai. On the day of leaving Beijing, Emperor Chongzhen personally boarded the Zhengyang Gate and sent his titular stand-in, Li Jiantai, on the expedition, and Li Daxue also wept bitterly at that time and swore to break his bones in revenge.

The Shun army came from the west, but Li Jiantai went all the way to the south, and led the Ming forbidden brigade to burn and loot in Gyeonggi, and successively conquered several Ming cities such as Dingxing. Some local troops of the Ming Dynasty resisted the Ming Forbidden Brigade that wantonly robbed and killed people, and all of them were defeated by Li Jiantai.

Li Zicheng, who seized Shanxi, personally led the main force to take the north road, continued to take the main force of the Ming Dynasty as the primary goal, and went straight to Juyong Pass. At the same time, he sent Liu Fangliang to command 10,000 troops to attack along the north bank of the Yellow River to cut off the north-south communication arteries of the Ming court, and ensure that the reinforcements and food from the south could no longer enter the Beijing division through Cao Yun, so as to isolate Beijing.

After learning that the Shun army suddenly appeared in the south, which was thought to be very safe, Li Jiantai immediately commanded the Ming Praetorian Guard to flee north, and like his counterparts in Sichuan and Henan, the Praetorian Guard of the Great Ming Dynasty did not want to fight the Shun army, and specifically aimed at eliminating and killing the Chinese people living on Chinese territory. However, Li Jiantai wanted to add one more this time, and the Praetorian Guard led by him also did the thing of annihilating the local Ming troops defending the countryside in Gyeonggi.

At the end of February, Li Jiantai, the executive director and deputy general manager of the Daming Co., Ltd., who went out on behalf of the chairman of the Ming Co., Ltd., Emperor Chongzhen, commanded the Ming Praetorian Guards to arrive in Guangzong County in the Zhili region. And Li Jiantai also ordered the siege of the city-for-tat, although he did not have the courage to confront Liu Fangliang's Shun army field troops, but he was still quite sure of the elimination of the local Ming troops in Guangzong County.

In Huangshi's previous life, Guangzong's official was this Li Hongji, and this time he still couldn't escape this catastrophe. Less than half an hour after the start of the war, the Ming Janissary Army, which had been invincible since leaving Beijing, crushed the stubborn resistance of the soldiers and civilians of Guangzong County and broke through the south gate of Guangzong County in one fell swoop.

Li Jiantai was satisfied to see the high-morale Praetorian Guards entering the city like a tide, and the red flag of the Ming Army, which had been hanging on the tower of Guangzong County, was also torn off and replaced with a more colorful red flag of the Ming Praetorian Guard.

Flames and smoke rose from the city, and Li Jiantai knew that the dying struggle of the local Ming army in Guangzong County would continue for a while, but the big thing had been decided, and a group of ignorant rats who dared to resist the Ming forbidden brigade were about to be annihilated here.

When the Praetorian Guards began to sack Guangzong City, Li Jiantai commanded the standard battalion to be busy carrying the silver and grain warehouses in the county yali, and when the Praetorian Guards and the soldiers of the standard battalion were busy sweating profusely, an officer of the standard battalion ran over happily: "Master Inspector, Li Hongji's dog official secretly hid a silver vault, and we found an insider." ”

"Bring it quickly." As soon as he heard the silver, Li Jiantai's eyes also lit up. was brought by a young man, around twenty years old, dressed as a scholar, Li Jiantai said kindly: "Don't be afraid, to be honest, the ministry has a lot of rewards." ”

"The cabinet was ordered to go against the south, gave Shang Fang a sword, a bullfighting suit, and pushed the hub to send, and the holy family was very good. Now the thief is coming from the southwest, and it is appropriate to meet the enemy in a battle, destroy this dynasty food, and report the favor of the country. Why do you want to be invincible, avoid thieves in the north, trap the city and burn it? Wang Zuo of Guangzong County finally saw Li Jiantai, a scholar, and he couldn't wait to spit out this long-thought word.

"Oh...... Oh...... Oh? Li Jiantai was stunned for a while, and then he realized that the other party didn't know what the private treasury was, and he just came to see himself with a lie, and he asked rhetorically: "You came to see the Ministry just to say this?" Do you think that after saying this, the headquarters will turn south and go to fight with that Liu Fangliang? ”

Wang Zuo was speechless when he was asked, and the young man just looked at Li Jiantai blankly.

"Do you fantasize that the Ministry will sweat so much that you will even cry bitterly and treat you as a guest?" Li Jiantai waved his hand and asked the standard camp guards to drag this Guangzong man down and kill him, and commented disdainfully: "Childish." ”

(Author's note: A friend of the author, who is the author of the pen name Heidaoren, said something to the effect that: From the perspective of Chinese history, great festivals and righteousness are often entrusted to the common people in the market, rather than feudal bureaucrats and doctors who are particularly good at dancing and writing and eating people without spitting out bones.) In the farce of the fall of Beizhili in the Ming Dynasty in 1644, few people are as admirable as Mr. Wang Zuo, who was martyred in Guangzong. ）

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