The wheels of history rolled forward, and time soon came to the late autumn of the fourth year of Longwu.

As mentioned earlier, on the frontal battlefield of the Ming and Qing dynasties this year, the Ming army began to counterattack one by one from the end of spring, and gradually took back Kaifeng Mansion and Guide Mansion.

Because of the heavy losses of the previous year, the Qing army was unable to organize a counterattack or an effective active defense, but only exchanged space for time in chronic blood loss, slowly retreated and rearmed, and pulled up new troops in the rear.

By September of this year, the Qing army in Henan Province in the south of the Yellow River old road, only a lonely Luoyang remained, and could rely on the mountains and rivers to temporarily survive, the Baguan ring column temporarily survived, and other territories in the plain area were recovered by the Ming Dynasty.

In the direction of Shandong, the Qing army also retreated, and had to shrink the defensive line to the area of Mount Tai and Yimeng Mountain, and confronted the Ming army across the mountains. A small part of the hills of the Lunan Basin south of the main vein of Mount Tai and Yimeng Mountain were also lost to the Ming Dynasty.

To put it bluntly, in addition to Luoyang, the Ming and Qing dynasties were basically bounded along the Yellow River-Taishan-Yimeng Mountain, all the way to the sea.

In terms of military progress, the advance of the Ming army is not rapid, but it is absolutely steady and steady, and the damage to the people is relatively small.

After the peasants of Kaifeng and Guide returned to the rule of the Ming Dynasty, they could still eat the grain they planted in the spring, and they did not have to pay taxes that year, which was a big mouthful of blood.

With the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the fierce natural disasters gradually eased, the people of Henan in the past few years were too heavy casualties, and now it is absolutely vast and sparsely populated, everyone can plant as many fields as they want, as long as you have physical strength, the contradiction between the people and the government has finally been completely alleviated.

After the Ming Dynasty recaptured Kaifeng, Shangqiu and Lunan regions, it also took advantage of the situation to thoroughly investigate the land population for the first time, taking advantage of the fact that the original land sovereignty and nobles were basically washed repeatedly and had no force to resist, and did these basic work solidly.

If it is found that there is a gap in the population, the Ming court will organize the people who originally fled south to return to their hometowns as soon as possible, and also promised that as long as they are willing to return to their hometowns, the government can distribute 20 acres of ownerless medium dry land to each household for free, or 10 acres of land.

After all, there are still 50 million people in the south of the Ming Dynasty, although the total population of the world has been reduced by as much as 60% in the wars of the Ming and Qing dynasties, but the vast majority of the remaining 40% have fled to the south, and the south is still squeezed into a large number of people and few places, and has to rely on industry and commerce to absorb a part.

Now that the north has been restored, there are only more than one million living people left in the huge Henan, and of course we must get back some of the Henan refugees who originally fled south.

According to Zhu Shuren's estimates, with the cultivated land area of the plains as large as Henan, there will be no major disasters in peacetime, and it is more than enough to support 5 million peasants, and at least 3 million displaced people can be brought back from the south, and even if the population grows again in the future, it will be able to resist for a long time.

While the Ming army was gaining a foothold in Kaifeng and Lunan, the news of Korea's complete abandonment of darkness and light in the direction of Korea also spread back to Beijing in September, and more divisions and distrust of the ruling Dolgon brewed within the Qing court.

A series of failures and misresponses have made the imperial court in Beijing like a powder keg that could be ignited at any moment.

Zhu Shuren slowly advanced militarily, giving the Qing court time to "reflect", and this move finally reached the moment to exert its effect.

……

One day in the winter of October, the Qing army left behind in Luoyang, the king of Shuncheng County, Luck Dehun, was frowning, thinking about how to carry this winter.

The offensive of the Ming army was not strong, and the Ming army from Nanyang, the whole autumn before, was only in the Funiu Mountain, Songshan line Yin Que, Taigu, Yuyuan and other Luonan Sanguan root Qing army held each other.

In the direction of Kaifeng in the east, after the Ming army took Kaifeng Mansion in the summer, it only attacked the sheep of Bishui Pass (Tiger Prison Pass), and did not spend any money.

But the encirclement of the Ming army also made Luck Dehun very uncomfortable.

The area of Henan Province was originally quite large, and there was a lot of land for agricultural production, so if it was peaceful, it could produce a lot of grain. But now that it is wartime, the Qing army must rely on mountain dangers to shrink the defense line to Yinque, Taigu and other places, which is equivalent to giving up a large area of land outside the pass.

Relying only on the agricultural output of the narrow Yinluo Plain north of Yinque Pass, it will be insufficient to maintain the urban population ration of such a big city as Luoyang, not to mention that half of the remaining remnants of Azig last year are still stationed in the passes around Luoyang.

This year, the autumn grain collected locally in Henan Prefecture, Lucker Hun calculated, only enough for all his 60,000 second-line troops, plus the population in Luoyang City, to eat for more than two months. After that, we have to count on the Shanxi direction to pass through Mengjindu and continue to import grain to Luoyang.

And Prince Su Haoge has already greeted him, Shanxi was also poor, difficult to transport, the road in the direction of Hanoi was also threatened by the Kaifeng Ming army, the fleet on the main stream of the Yellow River was often harassed and intercepted by the Ming warships - the warships of the Ming army have now passed from the Huai River through the Grand Canal, into the main stream of the Yellow River in the north.

If Mengjindu in the north of Luoyang City is cut off in the future, the Ming army will not have to fight, as long as the blockade is half a year, the Qing army in the Luoyang Basin will be unable to be self-sufficient, and eventually die like a dead vine, and the melon will naturally ripen.

The fate of Pizhou Kong Youde at the end of last year is a reproduction portrayal of his Luck Dehun.

At this stall, Prince Su Haoge in the direction of Shanxi also closed the mountain with the advent of winter and heavy snow, so it was inconvenient to continue to pull his hair with Wu Sangui, so he chose to guard the pass and stop the war.

Haoge personally inspected the front line of Tongguan and Hangu, and then did not go back to Shanxi by Hedong, but visited Luoyang by Kunhan Road, intending to cross back to the rear from Luoyang via Mengjin.

When passing through Luoyang, Luckedhun, as the king of the county, of course, should do his best to be a landlord and have a good banquet as a prince.

In terms of national law, Hauge is one level higher than him, and in terms of eldest children, Hauge is his cousin (Lekdehun is the grandson of Daishan, a generation younger than Yue Tuo). And he still has to count on Hauge to maintain his logistics, the grain bag is pinched in the other party's hands, how can he not be courteous.

At the banquet, Hauge talked to him about the unsmooth war, the difficult national fortunes of the Qing Dynasty, and it was inevitable to sigh for a long time.

Halfway through speaking, Haoge suddenly said: "When the first emperor was here, he was very cautious about entering the Central Plains, saying that we Manchu people can't lose the foundation outside the customs, otherwise one day if we completely degenerate into the Han people who are greedy for life and afraid of death, rich and cowardly, I am afraid that in the end we will not even be able to re-enter the customs."

Looking at the current state of the country, Prince Rui insisted on going his own way, and wanted to fight the southern barbarians to the end in the pass, which was reluctant to let go after entering the pass. I am now full of less than 200,000 people who can serve as soldiers, that is, even the old and weak are counted, and if the loss continues, if there are still deaths and injuries like last year, it will not take two or three years, and even if you escape from the customs in the future, it will be difficult to establish a clan! ”

Lucke Hun was taken aback when he heard this: "Prince Su is cautious! If the two armies hold each other, how can they be self-defeating! ”

But since Hauge has spoken, he won't play with him anymore, so he will go straight to the point and directly single:

"Lone knows that you were involved in Shuotuo and Adali's plot to establish Dolgon, and you were killed by the second uncle (Daishan) and removed from the knighthood. Later, it was only when Dorgon became more and more stable that you were restored to the title of clan.

also named you Baylor, and let you follow Prince Ying to lead the army and make meritorious contributions, so as to show the people of the world: those who follow him Dolgon, even if they are temporarily demoted, will be able to get benefits sooner or later.

But at present, Lone can guarantee that as long as you abandon the darkness and turn to the light, and cooperate with Lone, Lone will definitely regard you as a hero in the future. You are also an abandonment of your ancestors, and you can't be unfilial.

And if you insist on following Dolgon, Dolgon will definitely not be willing to completely lose Henan for the sake of his prestige and regent. At that time, your 60,000 horses will only die in vain in Luoyang and will gradually be consumed by the southern barbarians!

All of Dolgon's status is based on entering the customs, and it is absolutely impossible for him to consider shrinking and retreating and operating outside the customs! ”

Hauge was still patient at the moment to reason with Luckedhun.

Luckedhun's second uncle, Shoto, and his own brother, Arita, supported Dolgon back then, and died because they wanted to make a fuss. But Lekdehun's grandfather, Daishan, was against Dorgon's ascension.

From this point of view, Hauge thinks that whether Luck Dehun can fight for it, this question is basically five or five, depending on whether he has figured it out, whether he has a grandfather or a second uncle and brother, there are steps to go down.

As long as Lec Dehun is mixed with him, and there is a good face, Hauge can act as if the past did not happen in the future, and everyone looks forward.

It's a pity that Luckedhun was still blocked by the chain of suspicion and didn't dare to take this step. He is afraid that capricious siding in line will eventually bring great disaster.

That being the case, there is not much more to say.

Hauge dared to open this mouth, of course he was prepared. At the banquet that day, the two sides directly met with each other.

Haoge came with an army, and the Western Route Army he held with Wu Sangui was not under the defenders of the Luoyang Theater. He also co-opted in advance with some other generals who were not very iron with Dolgon and wanted to retreat north and abandon Luoyang, and secretly reached a tacit understanding.

"Uncle Jiu, it's up to you! Our Qing Dynasty should be based on the land of Longxing outside the Guan, but we can't let Ding Ding fight with the Southern Barbarians in the Guan! Back on the grassland, we can be like the Northern Yuan back then, undefeated! ”

It turned out that it was Babutai, who was arranged by Dorgon to be the lieutenant general of Luckedhun, and also chose to side with Hauge.

Babutai's rank is definitely high enough, he is also the son of Nuer Hachi, the ninth son, speaking of which he is still the younger brother of Huang Taiji and the elder brother of Dolgon.

Lucked can only be regarded as Babutai's nephew.

Lekdehun was able to lead the Qing army around Luoyang, just because he and his eldest brother Adali stood on the right side back then, and Dolgon wanted to declare like the people of the world that those who stood on his side had a good ending.

But Luckedhun's age is a hard injury, he was only fifteen years old when he first stood in the team! I'm only twenty years old now! To put it bluntly, his ascension so fast was entirely due to the death of his brother Adali.

If such a young man wants to be a commander, he definitely needs a lieutenant general who will command the army in old age.

In history, the young man Luck Dehun took command and immediately established a lot of meritorious deeds, pacified Zhejiang and Hunan in the Southern Ming Dynasty, and killed the Fang Guoan Department of King Lu's regime and He Tengjiao in Hunan, and then he was crowned the king of the county. But if you look closely at his resume, it is not difficult to see that in those battles, his ninth uncle, Zu Babutai, was forcibly arranged as his deputy general.

Babutai is almost sixty years old, and he started to fight in the Nuer Hachi era, fought for the Jurchens and the Manchus for almost thirty years, and finally had to be a deputy general for his nephew who stood in line, how can he bear it?

Now some people want to oppose Dolgon, and re-come up with the slogan of "save people and lose land, people and land", in order to keep the Manchurian population, and not to worry about the gains and losses of one city and one place with the southern barbarians, of course he wants to support it!

This is also very much in line with the conservative and manchurian royal thinking of the older generation.

The young people don't know the height of the sky, so let them bury Dolgon!

Seeing this, Lecset was also bloody, he knew that life and death were in a thought, so he hurriedly drew his saber, and asked his henchmen and guards to also draw their swords and prepare for fire.

While gathering momentum, Lucketthun also bluffed and boosted morale: "Hauge! How dare you rebel! Do you think you have a chance of winning today if you win over Uncle Nine?

Even if you control the army outside, the guards in this courtyard today still listen to me! Quickly put down your blades, and I will spare you from dying! ”

Hao Ge smiled: "Since Lone dares to speak, he is naturally prepared inside and outside, Huangkou Ruzi, you think that fighting is more than people!" Don't do it yet! ”

As soon as Hauge finished speaking, a tiger general behind him suddenly jumped out, like a killing god possessed, and went straight to Luckedhun.

Ao worshiped this person, and later in history, he was able to be reused by Shunzhi and entrusted to Gu, because he performed very well in resisting Dolgon back then, so Shunzhi felt that he was loyal.

And if you look carefully at Aobai's origin, he was originally under Hauge, and he rebelled against Dolgon, which can be regarded as a dead loyalty to the old master. Now that Hauge has personally ordered him to set things right, how can he not do his best to worship him?

At present, the guards in this courtyard, although the number of people is still loyal to Luckedhun, but no one is the enemy of Aobai, he is like a mad tiger to kill more than ten people in a row, and finally killed in front of Luckedhun, chopping it in half with a knife.

As soon as Luck died, the rest of the people lost their backbones, and they were driven by the inertia of Aobai to kill several more people, and finally put down their swords and surrendered.

……

After a bloody but confidential feast, Luckedhun, who had not been negotiated, died violently.

At least tentatively, it was claimed that he died of illness.

As an auxiliary general Babutai, he successfully grasped the command of the 60,000 Luoyang Qing army - Babutai, as the son of Nuer Hachi and the younger brother of Huang Taiji, has such a high seniority, and he is actually only an auxiliary general. His humble grievances over the years can also be seen.

No wonder Hauge succeeded in wooing him as soon as he wooed him.

After Hauge thoroughly mastered the Western Expeditionary Army fighting against Wu Sangui, and then mastered the Henan Army and the Shanxi Army, he finally decided to send his henchmen to Dolgon, requesting that the south of the Yellow River be completely abandoned, and that strategic adjustments be made in order to preserve the vitality of the Manchurians.

At the same time, it also made people knock on the side of the book, pointing out that someone should be responsible for the previous successive defeats!

In these letters, a problem was also pointed out: judging from the strength of the Ming army's counterattack in the past year, the Ming Dynasty originally planned to coexist peacefully with the Qing State! They didn't have much determination to go north to the Central Plains, maybe they just wanted to hold on for a long time like the Southern Song Dynasty and the Jin Kingdom!

If the Qing Dynasty didn't take the initiative to provoke and start another war at that time, maybe the Qing Dynasty would have been able to settle down and occupy the north for a long time, and keep eating and drinking spicy food!

It's all because some people are not greedy enough and are good at starting wars, and as a result, they have been counterattacked! Instead, more vested interests have been lost!

The entire move to criticize and win over the army took more than half a month to prepare, and during this period, he also found an excuse to change the guard and secretly transfer troops close to Hebei to guard the interior and the outside. By November, the situation had finally reached the point of complete exhaustion.

The most important thing is that Dolgon's successive failures, Dolgon's half-brothers who led the troops outside are all dead, and the descendants have been rebuilt twice, and he has no capital!

The two white flags that have been rebuilt last time have been infiltrated by Hauge and Zilharang, and now the two white flags and the positive red flag are controlled by Hauge, and the two yellow flags support Emperor Fulin or Hauge, anyway, as long as it is the son of Huang Taiji, the two yellow flags are supported,

Hauge promised that he would not be rude to his innocent brother, nor would he seek to be emperor himself, and he secretly swore an oath in front of the two yellow flag generals, and the two yellow flags supported him.

Five of the Eight Banners have been swept over by Haogra, and the Han Army Banners and some green battalions in the three provinces of Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Henan have also been co-opted.

Dolgon's anti-green battalion was already lacking.

Of course, Dorgon wasn't going to sit still.

Although he had the green battalions that he had personally promoted and were only loyal to him in the Qing court, their strength was no longer enough. But even if it is insufficient, he still has to fight and rely on this force to fight back!

】

At the beginning of the month, when Haoge led his troops back to Beijing to "Qingjun's side", Dolgon ordered the green battalion to be dispatched!

However, this move finally completely angered Ji'er Harang, and also angered other old ministers of the Eight Banners - this is a proper way to eat inside and outside, "lead beasts to eat people", and take the Han people to fight the Manchurians! Can this be endured?

What's more, the Zhu Shuren in the south also ceased fire just right, putting on a posture of "our Ming also loves peace, as long as Dolgon, a militant, is not on the stage, the Ming can make peace with the Qing State for a few years".

At the same time, Zhu Shuren was not afraid of big things, and in the final attack on Luoyang and Lunan regions, he used a large number of green battalions that had been defeated on the Fengyang battlefield to surrender to the army, so that these troops cultivated by Dolgon could fight the vanguard and fight attrition.

Moreover, while fighting, he specifically emphasized that these troops were all cultivated by Dolgon, and all kinds of information bombardment against the Qing army made them see how wrong Dolgon's strategy of cultivating the green battalion was, and how many Han Chinese armed forces were cultivated who "must have different hearts if they are not of our race"!

At this juncture, Zilharan and they all knew that there was no end to the fight between Haug and Dolgon.

What I am most afraid of now is that the two sides hold each other and become protracted, because as long as it is protracted, the Qing army will suffer serious internal friction and exhaust the remaining Manchurian troops.

And only by avoiding this situation, letting Dolgon and Hauge separate the winner as soon as possible, and one of the two dies as soon as possible, the overall situation of the Qing Dynasty will be the best.

At the moment of life and death, Zilharang privately confirmed a problem with Hauge:

"Prince Su! At the beginning, you had grievances in your heart, and you also made great contributions to the country, which is not false! But you shouldn't be in infighting at this time, if you and Prince Rui are both defeated, the southern barbarians will kill again! After crossing the Yellow River Northern Expedition, it was my Qing Dynasty that lost after all! ”

At this time, Hauge finally had a showdown and hinted to Zilharang: he was sure that as long as Dolgon died, the Ming Dynasty would definitely maintain peace with the Qing Dynasty for several years! No more Northern Expeditions!

When he heard the news, a chill rose in Zilharang's heart: "You have become a traitor? Have you privately negotiated the terms of peace talks with Zhu Shuren? ”

Of course, Hauge can't admit this accusation, otherwise he wouldn't have become a traitor?

So he couldn't reveal the slightest secret agreement, but just patted his chest and promised: "Of course I didn't betray the country to seek peace!" But that's what I'm sure of! Anyway, Prince Zheng, you know very well that between me and Dolgon at the moment, the sooner one dies, the better it will be for me to clear up!

If you don't believe me, I'm dead, Dolgon is alive, and the Ming Dynasty will never be able to restore peace with him, even if it's only for a few years!

But if Dolgon dies, at least there's a chance! It was Dolgon's decision to enter the Shanhaiguan back then! He's dead, and Akito has a staircase down! I don't dare to ask for a long-term peace, but I can definitely do it after a few years of respite! ”

Zilharang was silent, and had to admit that Hauge was right.

Hauge does run the risk of lying, and he risks negotiating in secret, but he at least has a chance to bring a real respite for peace and preserve some vested interests.

And if Dorgon were allowed to remain in power, there would be no chance left of it. Because Dorgon's power was based on the radicals, if he hadn't been able to make a big cake for the Qing Dynasty, who would have allowed his power to flourish? The source of the legitimacy of his rule is expansion!

Based on this analysis, the forces of the Eight Banners finally fell completely to Hauge.

Everyone thinks that Haoge was the eldest son of the first emperor, and he was very orthodox back then, Dolgon did such a bad job, and it was no problem to support Haoge, and Haoge said that he would not hurt His Majesty, and everyone was still a loyal minister!

In the fourth year of Longwu, the Southern Ming Dynasty court's strategy of slowing down the offensive and slow pressure for a year finally ushered in the effect of "if you are in a hurry, the strong enemy will inevitably be united, and if you are slow, you will try to harm each other".

In the city of Beijing, there was an unusually tragic but relatively short fire.

Its underlying logic is almost exactly the same as that of "Cao Cao does not levy two Yuan, then Gongsun Kang will kill two Yuan and sacrifice it with his head".

Most of the Manchurian Eight Banners army left around Beijing had a civil war with a very small number of Dolgon's henchmen, as well as the green battalions loyal to Dolgon around Beijing.

Along with the civil war, there was also an offensive and defensive struggle for the imperial city and the palace city. At one time, thousands of corpses were ambushed, and all the blue bricks and stones that killed the corpses and paved the ground in the Forbidden City were soaked in blood. The palace guards, eunuchs, and palace maids were also killed heavily, and the pond fish were affected.

When Hauge's Six Banners army finally entered the palace, Dorgon himself was covered in blood and resisted with the last of his own soldiers.

Hauge still sent his number one brave general, Aobai, to fight a bloody way in the chaos of the army, and Aobai killed Dolgon with his own hands.

But looking at the issue from a national perspective, the civil war has been restrained.

At least the fighting was only in and around Beijing, and did not affect the rest of the four provinces he controlled under the Qing Dynasty.

And the infighting ended in just a few days, so much so that the enemy country did not have time to react in any way. Until the fire ended, Daming hadn't gotten any news yet.

In the end, more than 6,000 elite troops of the Eight Banners were killed in the civil war, a considerable part of which were Dolgon's ironcores, and the dead on both sides were basically five or five - Dolgon has been in power for many years, even if he loses the hearts of the Eight Banners, he can always pick out a few thousand people who are willing to follow him to the end.

The number of civilians affected by the Manchurians, as well as the reservists, and the families of the rebellious, are also several times greater. Combined with the subsequent liquidation, a total of about 13,000 people were killed and exiled.

In the end, the total loss of the population was about 19,000 soldiers, civilians, women and children.

The Green Battalion and the Han Army Banner formed by the Han people were killed, wounded, disabled and fled in the civil war, and the total losses exceeded 20,000 people. The deaths and injuries of innocent civilians in the capital are not counted.

After the end of the civil war, Hauge finally seized the position of number one regent, and the power and interests of Zilharang were also guaranteed, and the other Manchu conservative magnates, as long as they were not hardcore Afu Dorgon, did not lose, and even participated in the distribution of spoils.

But the interests of Dorgon's hardcore henchmen will of course be divided up as spoils. The number of people who died in the purge has already been counted.

The status of the little emperor Fulin is still guaranteed, and Hauge doesn't want to go too fast and splash blood everywhere. And if he doesn't guarantee Fulin's status, he won't be able to win over Zilharang's power, and Zilharang will also be suspicious.

At present, this is the most delicate state of equilibrium.

A bloody reshuffle of power and a sue for peace finally calmed down the transition after the Qing court spent 20,000 or 30,000 people on the battlefield and considerable human and financial resources.

Haoge was also full of expectations, hoping that he could use this to maintain peace with the Ming Dynasty, continue to have vested interests in most of Shanxi, Hebei and Shandong, and let the Ming and Qing dynasties divide the Yellow River as the boundary and rule.