A stone battle in history finally became a gourd river battle because of the butterfly effect.

Li Zicheng brought 50,000 or 60,000 more soldiers and horses than in the same period in history, and in the end, he was defeated, and the number of people who fled back was not much more than that in the same period in history, which was equivalent to an additional net loss of at least 50,000 soldiers.

Of course, the losses of the enemy on the opposite side have also increased a little, and the composition ratio has also changed considerably. After all, when Dolgon finally tried to attack Li Zicheng halfway by the Hulu River, he had a bloody fight with Li Zicheng's backwater First Fighting troops.

Even if the morale of the army was already low at that time, a considerable number of people only thought about crossing the river to escape and had no will to fight. But the rest of the people who dared to fight to the death, and the desperate fight still caused a lot of damage to Dorgon.

Especially in the course of the final battle, the two sides had already set up positions on both sides of the Hulu River to attack steadily, and the Hongyi artillery, which was difficult to come in handy in the original sports war, could finally be fully bombarded in the positional battle. In addition, Dolgon lost the advantage of the sneak attack, and the other party was sure that Dolgon would definitely end up, and he was mentally prepared.

Under the blessing of various factors, Wu Sangui's side lost about 10,000 Guanning Army and Hebei Border Army, and Dolgon's side also suffered more than 6,000 casualties of the elite cavalry of the Eighth Period, as well as more Mongolian cavalry, and almost the same number of Han flag infantry artillery.

Wu Sangui and Dolgon suffered a total of 30,000 casualties before and after, and forcibly gnawed away Li Zicheng's 140,000 main force. Of the approximately 120,000 who were annihilated, scattered, pursued, and surrounded and captured, only 20,000 broke through and returned to Beijing.

After this battle, Li Zicheng also completely lost the possibility of gaining a foothold in Hebei. With the loss of the Shanhaiguan and Yanshan defense lines, the terrain of the Hebei Plain is destined to be undefendable.

Li Zicheng wanted to reorganize his defense, at least retreat west to the Taihang Mountain, and then rely on the danger of Taihang to hold Shanxi, or retreat south across the Yellow River, relying on Jishui and other main channels of the Yellow River across the river.

However, Li Zicheng, who broke the jar and broke it, obviously has the same temper as Yuan Shu, and wants to reach the top before he perishes.

I've been to Beijing City, and I've finally walked on the pinnacle of life, if I don't be thorough, I've had enough of the addiction I've thought about, and I'll be directly disgraced, so it's not a loss?

Therefore, knowing that Beijing City would definitely be lost, Li Zicheng still chose to "take advantage of defeat to become emperor" just like historical inertia.

After the decisive battle on February 14, he fled back to Beijing for three days, and then found Niu Jinxing, saying that he would make him prime minister and let him immediately prepare for the founding ceremony of the country.

At this moment, the 20,000 defeated soldiers he fled from the Huluhe battlefield have not all arrived in Beijing. The local defenders of the Dashun regime in Tianjinwei, Xianghe County, Dagukou and other places have not had time to shrink, and everything can be described as very chaotic.

But Li Zicheng couldn't care about it so much, Niu Jinxing was also anxious, and it only took three days to prepare.

In the past three days, the defeated troops on the front line and the garrisons in Tianjinwei and Dagukou gradually retreated to Beijing, forming a strange scene of "the defeated troops on the front line who broke their hands and feet wailed into the city one after another while preparing for the founding of the country and ascending the throne", and the people were panicked.

On February 20, the enthronement ceremony, which was still very sloppy, could not wait to be held, and it was too late to even pick an auspicious day for the zodiac.

And even at this moment of embarrassment, Li Zicheng's inferiority complex and revenge against society still did not relent, but became more and more exposed.

He disliked that the wife he was looking for during the rebellion was not decent enough and could not be a mother in the world, so he found a female official in the palace who was not bad, but was not favored by Chongzhen, named Dou Meiyi, who was named Princess Chuang before the enthronement ceremony. In this way, at the enthronement ceremony, there is also a woman who can be canonized as the queen.

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It can only be said that Li Zicheng's inferiority complex has been carved into his bones, and he must choose one of the women who Chongzhen will pamper but not pamper, so that he feels that he can put gold on his face, and the quality brought by his own dregs is not good.

After the enthronement ceremony, Li Zicheng only feasted the ministers in Beijing for one day, and slept in the Forbidden City as the emperor that night, and lived the emperor's addiction.

After getting up the next day, he burned the Forbidden City, and finally slaughtered the troops, and then took all the troops, as well as the remaining about 70 million taels of silver and millions of taels of gold obtained from torture, and retreated to the direction of Baoding and Zhending, and then Zhending crossed the Black Mountain in the Taihang Eight Mountains and returned to Shanxi.

The Forbidden City burned for several days in flames, and two days after Li Zicheng withdrew, Dolgon's pursuers finally routed the outlying blockers of the Dashun regime, which had been abandoned along the way, and slaughtered the city of Beijing.

Although Dolgon is a barbarian Tartar, it has to be said that he is still a little less beastly than Li Zicheng in protecting the city of Beijing - he immediately organized men to put out the fire in the Forbidden City, which had not yet burned out. After that, it was also arranged for manual repairs, hoping to serve as the future imperial palace of the Qing Kingdom.

Therefore, there is a saying that many Ming fans in later generations said that "the Tartars were driven out of the Forbidden City is also karma, and this is not their family repair, it was Zhu Di who originally repaired it." But in fact, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, at least more than half of the Forbidden City built by the Ming Emperor was burned down by Li Zicheng's fire. (This is a historical fact)

Only the four main palaces of Wuying Palace, Jianji Palace, Yinghua Palace, and Nanxun Hall were received by Dolgon intact, and the rest were burned by Li Zicheng, which was later rebuilt according to the original ritual system. (The outer city walls, towers, and corner towers of the Forbidden City were not burned, but this is because these defensive buildings and walls are made of stone, which is different from the nature of wooden residential palaces, and cannot be burned.)

Li Zicheng's doomsday madness can be said to have brought the essence of "if you can't get it, destroy it" to the extreme.

In addition, there is one more thing that must be mentioned, that is, before Li Zicheng finally fled from Beijing, the last wave of torture and plunder, Chongzhen's father-in-law and Empress Zhou's father Zhou Kui, did not escape in the end.

Like countless other important ministers of the court, such as the first assistant Wei Zaode, they were directly tortured to death by Li Zicheng. Wei Zaode was beaten to the point that his brains were knocked out, and Zhou Kui was slightly better, and when he was beaten to the point of dying, he confessed to the hidden silver in his secret cellar and outer house, and then died of his injuries.

And with a soft bone like Zhou Kui, before he was forced to hand over the family property, of course, he handed over the two sons entrusted to him by Chongzhen one step earlier, so Zhu Cijiong, the king of Ding, and Zhu Cijiong, the king of Yong, were also arrested.

At the beginning of Li Zicheng's arrest, he did not kill the killer, because he was still thinking about making a forced landing on Wu Sangui at that time, and he also hoped to use these signboards to deal with other wavering old generals of the Ming Dynasty.

But now that even the city of Beijing is about to give up, it is destined to defeat Dorgon, and Li Zicheng is too lazy to play again, before leaving Beijing, the last order he gave was to secretly kill King Ding and King Yong.

At this point, Chongzhen can be regarded as completely cutting off his children and grandchildren, and it has become impossible for the Ming court to expect to support the heirs of the first emperor to inherit the unification-

Although those bold careerists may still take advantage of the fact that the second king was not publicly executed and his life and death are unknown, in the future, they will try to fish in troubled waters under the banner of the third prince of Zhu. But after all, it is impossible for anyone to come up with the real Third Prince Zhu.

And in this life, the future Ming court in the south has another advantage, that is, Princess Kunxing has been rescued by Zheng Chenggong and Zhang Mingzhen. The historical princess Kunxing died of a violent illness in 1646 (Ah Jiu was a nun, and those were all martial arts dialects, and the official history recorded that Shunzhi died in three years)

Therefore, as long as Princess Kunxing is still alive, the Southern Imperial Court will have an extra bargaining chip for identification in the future, and she can identify the imposters found by the other party, whether it is her second brother or third brother.

Even if the other party will question whether Princess Kunxing was coerced, or because the princess and her two princess brothers were separated, the two princes were only thirteen and twelve years old respectively, and their appearance would change in the future, and the princess might admit her mistake.

But in any case, one more bargaining chip designated by the princess will definitely make the credibility of the third prince of Zhu rise very obviously.

……

The words were divided into two ends, Li Zicheng in the north, Dolgon, and Wu Sangui finally divided the victory and defeat, and Li Zicheng fled to Shanxi during this time.

However, the southern imperial court could not confirm the life or death of the heirs of the first emperor and whether it was possible to escape, and it was temporarily impossible to confirm how to support the new monarch.

Although it is said that the country cannot be without a king for a day, it will take time to investigate and confirm such a major event.

In the original history, Zhu Yousong, the king of Xiaofu, was only roughly established as the object of support by the ministers of Nanjing more than a month after the death of his cousin Chongzhen, and it took more than half a month before he officially ascended the throne and became the emperor.

And now in this life, because of the butterfly effect, they rescued Zhang Yan, the queen of Yi'an, and Zhu Jiao, the princess of Kunxing, who were rescued from trouble on the twelfth day of the first month and found by Zheng Chenggong on the sixteenth day of the first month, and then sent a ship by Zhang Mingzhen to escort them south.

After another 12 days, they arrived at Liujiagang in Taicang, Suzhou, at the mouth of the Yangtze River, and brought the specific cause of the emperor's death to the southern ministers, as well as the news that the crown prince had also sworn to die, and also brought the news that "before His Majesty was martyred, he had entrusted King Yongwang to hide with his relatives".

Considering that there are relatives of the emperor from the north, it is clearly said that Chongzhen has two sons whose lives and deaths are unknown and have the opportunity to escape, and the southern ministers are even more timid than in the same period of history, and do not dare to discuss the issue of support too quickly.

Otherwise, if Chongzhen really has a young son running out, how will they, the ministers who are now eager to support the vassal king, deal with themselves in the future? If they are finally reversed and reset by Chongzhen's younger sons, they are afraid that they will die a hundred times worse than Yu Qian, who supported the Ming Dynasty!

Therefore, the discussion of supporting the new monarch has been dragged on for more than half a month. It wasn't until more than half of February of Chongzhen's seventeenth year that someone began to mention this matter in private.

Prior to this, during the 20 days in late January and early February, the officials of the Sixth Department in Nanjing were only busy reorganizing the cabinet and issuing documents to the provinces to bring the officials and generals with real power in various localities under the leadership of the new cabinet in Nanjing.

This kind of official document to confirm the heart's traces is also very important, and it takes a month to notify remote areas to go back and forth, so it is not idle.

On the other hand, Zhu Shuren, who was rescued by King Qin at the junction of Shandong and Hebei, was only officially confirmed on the fourth day after Chongzhen's death, on the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, when the emperor's death was officially confirmed, the crown prince was also taken hostage, and there was no need to rescue Beijing.

On the 19th day of the first month, Zhu Shuren gathered all 150,000 Qinwang troops and returned south from the Linqing division in Shandong.

It is said that all of Zhu Shuren's troops should return to the Huguang Defense Region, and some of them should even return to Sichuan. But considering that he came in a hurry, he crossed Tongbai Mountain from Xinyang Valley Road to the north, and the road was more difficult to walk.

On the way back, there is no need to rush for time, and of course he can choose to take a better path.

In addition, most of Henan to the west of Shangqiu is still a occupied area occupied by Li Zicheng, and at the same time, it has been robbed for thousands of miles, and it is impossible to meet the enemy because of food.

Only a part of the troops stationed in Xinyang Mansion were handed over to Huang Degong to go directly to Xinyang by land. The rest of the troops, after taking the canal to Yangzhou, were transferred to An, Lu, Jiujiang, and Wuchang, and were stationed separately-

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this arrangement, because before Zhu Shuren was appointed as the "Governor of Huguang", his jurisdiction included Anlu in Nanzhili and Jiujiang in Jiangxi, plus Xinyang Mansion in Henan, not only Huguang Province.

On this return trip, I left some troops in Hefei and Jiujiang, which belonged to Zhu Shuren's own defense area, and they definitely did not cross the line.

Unless he wants to directly enter Nanjing, it can be regarded as a non-declaration of summoning to Beijing, and Zhu Shuren will certainly not make such a low-level mistake and risk the world's condemnation.

His father-in-law, Zhu Changzhu, the king of Lu, also lived temporarily in Hefei, and Zhu Shuren went to Hefei to meet his father-in-law.

Then let people go from Chongqing, which was previously the temporary shogunate of the governor, to bring his wife Zhu Yuchan, the lord of the small county, who had been separated for several months, to reunite, and there was nothing wrong with it.

Because of the sluggishness of the land march, only 30,000 or 40,000 of the more than 100,000 troops were assigned to Huang Degong's road, and 100,000 people had to pass through Hefei and Jiujiang.

Therefore, the journey back from Linqing in Shandong Province to the south, according to the accelerated march of seventy or eighty miles a day, walked for twelve days, and the vanguard returned to Hefei, and the rear army had to add three or five days.

Therefore, it was about the second day of the second month of February to the sixth day of the first month of February that Zhu Shuren's troops arrived at the new garrison one after another. The Sixth Department of Nanjing did not discuss the establishment of the new emperor in late January and mid-February, but it also allowed Zhu Shuren to return to the south before discussing the establishment of the emperor.

……

After arriving in Hefei, there were still nearly 10 days before the new cabinet in Nanjing inquired about intelligence and discussed support.

This kind of thing, Zhu Shuren, as a foreign feudal town, is of course not too positive. Therefore, except for the occasional secret letter with the father of the Hubu Shangshu in Nanjing, to learn about the latest developments, he did not show too many abnormalities.

Taking advantage of the time difference in the past few days, Zhu Shuren also has other things to deal with - previously, he passed Zhang Mingzhen and Zheng Chenggong, pulled about 30,000 Hebei Border Army and Guanning Army, and chose to retreat from Nandu.

And with the arrival of Zhu Shuren himself in Hefei, the 30,000 soldiers and horses who withdrew south by sea basically went through nearly half a month of sailing and went ashore in Suzhou and Zhoushan.